2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

This week’s request comes courtesy of Alyssa. We’re revisiting this 90’s era mainstream thriller, starring Al Pacino and a pre-Matrix Keanu Reeves. Everything you need to know is in the title.

The Devil’s Advocate (1997)

Episode 210, 2 Guys and a Chainsaaw

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

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: So Craig and I have decided it’s about time to go back to our request list and fulfill some long standing requests that are in our queue. We certainly don’t want to disappoint any of our. Regular steady listeners, as well as our new listeners. And this week’s movie comes requested by a long-standing listener who has asked us three times to do The Devil’s Advocate, the 1997 film, starring Al Pacino and the inevitable Keanu Reeves.

Now I think I saw this movie in the. The theater, when it came out, I might be mistaken, but I do remember being in college, pretty sure going to see it, going to the theater to see this. And this was just, I think one year, maybe two before it was one year before matrix, two years before matrix. And that changed everything.

Keanu Reeves. For all of us. So he’s in this movie out, she knows in this movie, it apparently took quite a bit of convincing to get him in this movie. I think he was shown the script like five times and after a whole bunch of rewrites, he decided that it wasn’t as cliche as it first was for him to play the devil.

Surprise The Devil’s Advocate. The devil, I tell you, I mean, you know, I said this like two weeks ago, you go into a movie and you kind of have seen the previews, you know, the title, you sort of know what it’s about in many cases before you even go in and this movie, I feel like really banks on that fact.

Um, they’re not trying to hide it. Part of the joy of this movie really is, is knowing that you’re in for this sort of fasty and story. And so therefore you’re looking for those little touches, those little delicious, like Hanson and gags that are throughout the film and it does deliver those. So that’s what I enjoyed about watching this movie.

I remember really enjoying it when I first saw it coming back into it. The second time I actually enjoyed it too, but I have to say. It was a little long, little long. Thanks, Alyssa. You know, I don’t know if you did this on purpose, but if you’ve been a long-standing listener of our podcast, you don’t Craig and I are not huge fans of really long movies.

It’s not like we have busy social lives or anything. I think we just don’t want to sit through a story for more than an hour and a half. This is two and a half hours of story. So it’ll be interesting for us to talk about, um, how this, both of us to talk about how this affected us. All right. So that’s my history with this movie, Craig, how about you?

Yeah, I don’t

Craig: remember when I saw it, but it had to be soon after it came out, it came out what in 97. And that was the year that I graduated high school and I remember owning it in college. Probably on VHS. I don’t remember. We watched it, uh, quite a bit. I, I remember liking it a lot. It was a movie that my partner and I both enjoyed and we watched quite a bit, but it had been a really, really long time since I had seen it.

And I kind of had it in my mind that it wasn’t going to be as good as I remembered it being, but I was actually kind of surprised. I, I think it holds up pretty well. It’s not perfect. And there are definitely some. Things that we can chuckle about. Uh, but I still enjoyed it. And frankly, when I didn’t remember it being two and a half hours long either.

And when I saw that I’m like, seriously, but for me it really didn’t feel that long. No. Yeah, this story is a pretty engaging and it moves. I watched it by myself. Uh, and then last night I was talking about it with my partner and I said, it’s, it’s kind of weird that it’s two and a half hours long, because really not all that much happens.

You could, you could, you know, summarize the plot probably in a minute. Like not. A whole lot. I mean, I guess that’s not really fair, I guess a lot does happen, but it’s all one pretty simple trajectory from beginning to end. Interesting things to look at some interesting performances. One of my favorite things about this is, uh, that it’s one of.

Charlise Theron’s early role. She was only 21 when this movie filmed and she looks great. It’s obvious that in the decades that have followed, she has really improved in her craft. That’s not to say that she’s bad in this movie because she’s not, she just, uh, seems a little bit wet behind the years, but so that’s interesting outfit, Chino, I think, is really charismatic and interesting in this movie.

Kiana Reeves.

Todd: He’s okay. I guess it’s okay. All right. Let me, let me put this out there. All right. I do not join the throngs and crowds of people that say Keanu Reeves is just this horrible actor. I think he’s a perfectly fine actor. Is he the best? Is he gonna win? And you know, I mean, no, but he ends up getting cast in roles that he’s.

Quite well suited for, you know, you look at bill and Ted, you look at the majorists, you look at this, especially you look at this and you look at the matrix in these movies, he plays these kind of blank slate kind of guys, right? You can’t fault him for being sort of a blank slate actor. When he’s playing a blank slate sort of guy.

This is a movie, like you said, you can summarize it really quickly. It’s it’s like the firm, except instead of the mafia, it’s. The devil this right, really, really successful lawyer, uh, takes an offer. He can’t refuse from a firm in New York city and everything is wonderful and he’s getting offered a ton of money and everything’s too good to be true.

He never loses a case, blah, blah, blah. And it turns out as we know, from the very beginning of the movie, it’s, it’s not, it’s not a surprise, but it turns out that the lead, the head of this firm is Satan. Satan. So, uh, yeah, and he plays this attorney. Who’s a little amoral, like he’s a lot more interested in winning the cases and not so interested in whether or not his clients.

Are guilty, which is interesting. Um, you know, it starts out with the movie just goes right there. I mean, it starts out with the most unsympathetic defendant and case you could possibly get, right. It’s a child molester is this girl who’s on a stand who’s crying. And she’s describing this teacher who asked her to come to his room.

Office after school and then puts his hand up or dress in her skirt and all kinds of things. And Kiana reads this character. Whose name is Kevin is, is defending this man. He looks over and he sees this guy like sweating, like he’s reliving it. And he’s like, Moving his fingers under the desk and it’s just Uber creepy.

Now it creeps him out and he asks for a recess before the cross-examination and, and he has to run into the bathroom and just like splash cold water on his face and stuff. In that bathroom, he runs into a reporter who’s like never lost a case yet. Ha ha. Well you’re about to meet your first loss basically because he’s like this guy’s totally in defendable, Keanu Reeves.

His character. Kevin takes that as a challenge. And this is his, this is the guy, right. He just knows what it takes to win. He goes back out there and he brutally cast doubt on this girl on the stand while she’s crying in a very blank faced way. It’s clear. He’s just clicked this, the switch in his head, right.

Switched off as morality is kind of a machine just focused on winning this case. You threaten those children. Didn’t you. That’s not

Craig: the weight. Have you told them to lie to falsely claimed that Mr. Gettys had hurt them because if they didn’t go along, you weren’t going to tell everyone about this special party.

So you made up a story, a special story, a story about a math teacher who was tough on you, who kept you after class, a huge hub beast. You didn’t like that’s what really happened. Isn’t it? No,

Todd: he ends up getting this guy off. And they all celebrate afterwards, uh, in the bar, him, um, one of his partners and his wife and his wife, like you said, uh, Charlise the wrong place. Her name is Marianne, and they’re super excited that they won the case. And they’ve blocked the whole notion of the fact that the guy was guilty out of their head.

And as the movie goes on, You realize that they all know this. They’ve just set aside the fact that they often get guilty people off. That’s just his skill. It’s his talent. It’s what he’s good at and what he gets his pride in his job from, which is interesting because it is actually the lawyers job. Yeah.

Public defenders. It doesn’t matter. This is a bedrock of our, of our justice system in the United States that you are entitled to. Defense you are entitled to the best defense you could possibly get their public defenders who are probably slogging in this all day long for very little pay, where they have to defend scummy people, nevertheless, uh, in court and do their best.

So it’s interesting. I think it does set up a very interesting moral quandary. You know, you can laugh and say, well ha ha ha. The evil lawyer. Blah-blah-blah, it’s kind of like a joke, but. In defense of lawyers, this is part of their job, right? They do have to do this. And so it does set up an interesting plot for the film and an interesting character in him.

I don’t fault his performance when he’s flipping that switch at all. I think he’s. Kind of well cast in here, even though, as I will admit in other aspects of the movie where he needs to be a little more down to earth and emotional, he doesn’t quite rise to the challenge.

Craig: Yeah. And that was interesting watching this again, because I don’t know if it’s age or what, but this time around watching it.

I, it was more difficult for me to sympathize with his character and even, you know, uh, Charlise Theron is very beautiful and she’s very dewy eyed. And once Kevin, her husband, um, starts to see, you know, they’re, they’re, they live in Gainesville, Florida, which is presented as being like this Backwoods hillbilly place, which it’s not.

You know, uh, very urban, uh, area, but they’re just kind of painted both of them really, but her, especially as these kind of innocent, naive characters, but this time watching it, I just thought, you know, he’s kind of a Dick. I mean, I get it. I, and, and I understand that I’m not naive. I understand that that’s how our justice system works.

But at the same time, you kind of have to call into question somebody. Moral standing when they are defending people like this disgusting guy in this first part. I mean, you were very subtle talking about him, like sweating and stuff. This is when, uh, the, the girl on the stand who’s. Played by Heather Mazzara who I really like, uh, from welcome to the dollhouse and lots of other things you can tell that she’s probably the kind of tween girl who maybe kind of has an attitude.

Um, and he kind of plays on that a little bit, but at the same time, she’s just a kid and she’s describing these things that happened to her and this skeezy guy who he is. Sitting right next to, um, defending is literally touching himself, like in the courtroom while this girl is describing what’s going on.

And yet he allows his pride. When he’s challenged by that reporter in the bathroom, he allows his pride to take over and. You know, arguably in the context of the movie, he’s very talented at what he does and he comes back out and he just completely discredits this girl. Um, who’s clearly upset and, uh, he gets the guy off and, and that was a little bit hard for me to reconcile, uh, this time around.

And it just continues, uh, throughout. Yeah. He just keeps being put intentionally. Unbeknownst to him, but intentionally he keeps getting put in these situations where he’s forced to do something that is arguably amoral. And so it was a little bit more difficult for me to sympathize with him this time around.

But I guess, you know, he gets a redemptive moment at the end, so it’s fine.

Todd: Well, one thing about the movie is it’s very. Heavy handed. I think there’s very little that subtle about it, especially it gets as it gets toward the end. In that way. It’s almost predictable. Like if you go into this movie having seen the previews or having seen the title, you kind of know where it’s going and it pretty much goes exactly in the direction.

You’re expecting it to go. There’s some twists in there. And of course, a lot of interesting things happen that are shocking and scary, but at the same time, I don’t think I ever wondered, Ooh, what’s going to happen next. And then there’s a morality. And I think we’ll get to there. You know, when we come to the end of the movie, that just kind of gets beaten over the head, like, okay, now we’re going to tell you, uh, everything we, we want.

We want to make sure you didn’t miss, you know, Earlier on in the movie. So, but yeah, they have a big celebration, uh, and at a bar and a guy approaches him and says, Hey, I have an offer for you. Eh, back in New York city, we want you to help out with the jury selection because you’re the best. And at first he thinks it’s a joke.

And then the guy holds out an envelope and says, well, here’s my offer. And I just have to say, I love this about movies. Like, they’re pretty smart. Right? Like, I don’t know if you like, see a movie from the twenties or thirties or something, and somebody comes in and wants to make a big offer for somebody I’m going to pay you $5 a week.

And they’re like, Oh my God. Right? And now that one, like 2020, that is in place so well, but low, some, some point in history, movies got really smart and they were just like, they kept this part silent. Right. So he just hand them an envelope. He opens the envelope he looks at and he’s like, are you for real?

Let me just give them a look and then they go, yeah.

Craig: So then they’re off to New York,

Todd: then they’re off to New York, right? So they end up in New York and this firm is

well

Craig: not before his, his mom is played by, uh, Judith, Ivy, who I also really like. Um, she’s. Popped up in a bunch of TV and movies and bit roles.

She was in a really obscure movie from the eighties called hello again with Shelley long.

Todd: And I loved that movie. Isn’t really that obscure. I think it played on cable a heck of a lot.

Craig: Uh, maybe I really liked it. She was in it. She played the, the wacky sister and that movie. But anyway, in this movie, she’s, uh, the very religious mother of.

Kevin the lawyer. And from the very beginning, she is worried about him going to New York. Like New York is, you know, Gomorrah or something. And, um, she doesn’t, she’s worried, but they go anyway and, um, everything seems great. You know what? He’s an initially hired for us to do jury selection for a trial because apparently that’s what he’s really good at.

And there’s this whole scene where he’s like, Super crazy. Insightful about these potential jurors. It play, it plays almost silly, uh, at this point, like just somehow he doesn’t know how, but it’s somehow he just has this amazing insight. Sight into these potential jurors and he picks this jury and they’re all super happy with them.

And so immediately he’s basically offered a job and that’s when we meet, I guess the principal antagonist, John Milton played by Al Pachino. Um, and it’s funny that his name is John Milton because that’s the author of paradise lost, which is. About the fall of man there even references to the text, uh, throughout, um, but alpha Chino, like you said, he turned down this role several times and he recommended other people for it.

He recommended Sean Connery for it. He recommended Robert Redford for it. I think that he’s great in this role for a lot of reasons. And one of the reasons that I think that he’s so good is that he, he portrays such confidence. Is it really effective coming from, and he even comments on this throughout the movie that he’s this small little guy, you know, he, I have no idea how tall alpha Chino is, but like, I would guess maybe like five, six, you know, like he’s, he’s this little guy he’s not.

Movie star handsome, like Keanu Reeves or somebody else. Um, but he just exudes confidence and power. And when Keanu Reeves character first meets him, it’s in his office at the top of this New York city skyscraper. And like, they go out on the roof where they’re like all these infinity pools and he offers him the job, but he talks to them about pressure change.

Has everything pressure. Some people used to. Reason they focus on this fall. Can you summon your talent? Talented? Will you deliver on a deadline?

When do we talk about money? He takes on the job. One of the interesting things that happens in this rooftop conversation is that Milton asks Kevin about his mom. Kevin tells him, you know, she’s real religious and she’s worried about me coming out here. And he, Milton says, ah, behold, I send you out a sheep, emits the wolves at Kevin’s basically like, yeah, that’s, you know how she feels or whatever, but.

That comes up later. It’s significant later, which is why I bring it up now. Yeah. But he takes the job and everything seems great. Like they get given this amazing reduction. Guiltlessly amazing, uh, apartment. It’s like a building for the firm. Like John Milton owns the whole building and the top dogs in the firm work there.

And they’re welcomed into this environment by all the people who work for this firm, the neighbors. Across the hall, the wife of one of the other lawyers, uh, kind of befriends Marianne right away. And, um, it just seems like, you know, a dream come true as I suppose these things are meant to initially,

Todd: I just want to talk really quick about that scene on the roof.

I read in the trivia about it, that that was not done with the blue screen, that there actually was a very. Very high 50th floor rooftop that they filmed this on and there is no railing outside here. It’s meant to be kind of a creepy, scary scene. Just the fact that they’re so close to the edge here. Of course, it’s very symbolic, but for me as a guy, who’s not a big fan of Heights.

That was one of the scariest parts of the movie is just watching them casually, strolling around inches away from the edge of this. Hi, hi building with no railing. Just

Craig: I kept thinking, I hope a big wind doesn’t come. It’s going to blow little outfit Chino right off into the sunset.

Todd: I had shades back to the exercise to remember what we did exercise too.

And Linda Blair has that scene where she. Steps out onto a part of the roof without a railing. And it turned out that during the production, it was literally a, without a railing. And she was just like half a step away from her actual death. And how irresponsible that was. Oh gosh. I was just thinking about that this whole, this whole time.

I was just like, ah, I mean, I know they’re safe and still alive, but this it’ll be crazy

Craig: right now. Yeah. I feel, yeah. I feel, yeah,

Todd: but right away. It’s not all wonderful because uh, his wife starts decorating the apartment and, uh, this woman. Uh, her name is Jackie. Uh, who’s like you said, the wife of, one of the other partners in this firm, uh, is just being super friendly and really helpful with her.

They take her out shopping. She stands and gives her advice on painting the walls, but she’s a little critical about everything, right? Like she starts to paint the wall with the color she pulled out and she’s like, Hmm, it doesn’t really match your complexion. So she starts to paint the wall a different color and she’s like, mm that’s not it either.

And his wife, Maryann is getting visibly frustrated by this. Then she goes out with them shopping. She advises her. Well, I guess I’m getting a little ahead of things. I’m probably, I better talk about the,

Craig: well, and there’s also another court case real quick. The first case that Kevin actually himself deals with, um, it’s basic, they call it a health code violation case, which I suppose it is.

But basically this guy is in trouble for like slaughtering. Animals in the basement of his convenience store or something like that. And it’s perfectly obvious that this guy is practicing some sort of dark magic or something like that. And Kevin has to go meet with him. The guy asks him, what’s the name of the prosecutor?

And Kevin tells him. And the guy says he pulls out this huge tongue, like a cow tongue out of the refrigerator and goes to start putting nails in it. And he says, all right, I’ll do everything that I can to silence this guy. You go do your job. They have the hearing. And the prosecutor has a coughing fit and is unable to object to anything that.

Kevin does. And so they win the case. And so there are these not so subtle hints throughout that there is something nefarious and, and dark, uh, going on, but apparently Kevin is just kind of blind to it as I suppose you would be. I mean, you don’t expect. Black magic to like pop into your everyday life. So I’ll forgive him for being a little naive on those points, but it’s true.

Anyway, from, from the very beginning, from the very beginning, he’s really successful. So

Todd: Jackie’s kind of working on Marianne. She’s really being friendly to her, but in the same sense, she’s also warning her that, you know, you’re never going to see your husband again, basically she needs like a, we’re just sort of resigned to this.

The fact that our job is basically to work, play, or breed. That’s all we can do. So in that way, she is clearly trying to work, to drive a bit of a wedge between them. And then on the other side, Kevin’s getting really, really friendly with John Milton. They go out on a walk and like you said, this is where he has his speech about how I’m a little guy, but they don’t see me coming.

And that’s my big secret. You know, what’s your big secret? It’s also interesting because, uh, as Milton is out walking around and as he’s talking on the telephone, it seems like he can speak any language. Speaking Cantonese with a guy, uh, in the market, he speaking Italian or something on the phone, all these things.

Uh, and so there is obviously something really. Uh, off about him, but he very quickly be friends. Kevin gives him a lot of confidence and tells him he sees they’re going to be great things. I love one of his lines that he says he’s like, use the subway, Kevin it’s. It’s one of my favorite ways to get around.

There are all these nice little touches here about Oh, fire, right? And Oh, like underground and all these little devil, you know, references that are really, really cute. I think just sprinkled liberally throughout the movie. Anyway, they do end up at this party that Milton is, is hosting and Milton’s kind of work in his magic on Marianne, um, wet at a time when Kevin is off, he sits down next to her and he’s just starts basically flirting with her in his own way.

And he’s like, uh, I don’t like your hair. She’s like, well, what’s wrong with it? And he’s like, well, there’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s not, you try putting it up. And then she puts it up and he’s like, look at yourself in the mirror. And he’s like a woman’s neck and a woman’s shoulders are just, uh, uh, he just goes on and very, very sultry way.

And you can tell she’s, he’s just kind of casting a spell over her. At the same time, Kevin, from the minute he came into this firm, he’s been getting these glances and slight run-ins with this woman, a beautiful red haired woman with a red dress, always again, really nice touch. She is there at the firm too, and they have a discussion out on the balcony, which so her name is Krista bell anyway, and they have this conversation.

And if the first scene wasn’t a green-screen this scene is so obviously greenscreen, it’s almost distracting. 1996 green screen. I mean, I feel like 1956 green screen was better than this was. Yeah. It’s it’s,

Craig: it’s not good, but you know, that party from an outside perspective just looks like any upper crust party.

You know, everybody’s very rich and everybody’s schmoozing. And one of the. Actresses who, you know, in casual conversation, just very kind of casually name drops Donald Trump like, Oh, Donald would have been here, but like, you know, it was just like, we were all very rich. Uh, okay. It’s that weird dynamic. I just don’t even know what to make of this at this point.

Like. Now I understand the Milton being very seductive and, and successfully. So that makes sense. That’s kind of the devil’s emo. So I get that. And plus Marianne is very, you know, young and naive and obviously. Mostly, I don’t want to say easy to manipulate, but I don’t know how else to say it. Cause, cause she is.

But then I, this whole thing with, uh, Kevin and Krista, Bella is just weird from the beginning. Like the second he sees her, he is just infatuated with her and then he’s very blatantly flirting with her out on. The patio. And this is after he’s promised his wife that he would not leave her alone at the party, which he immediately does.

I don’t know because they paint the relationship initially between Kevin and Maryanne as solid. You know, they, they, they seem very much in love. They seem very much into each other, physically, physically, and sexually. And so to just immediately have him very obviously drawn to this other woman was a little bit.

Unsettling for me, I guess, you know, when it boils down to it, this is all planned out. You know, this is all part of a bigger picture. And so it’s not as though he’s even necessarily just seeking her out. You know, she’s being placed very strategically in his path, but it doesn’t take much for him to

Todd: get into it.

You’re right. I guess that’s kind of a failing of the movie is that, you know, you would expect to see a little more drama here, right? A little more, uh, difficulty of them to drive this wedge between the two of them. But this for a movie that’s two and a half hours long, it really blows through this pretty quickly.

This, this aspect of it and his infatuation with her is okay, like right away. I mean, I guess you could attribute some of it to a spell, you know, that’s sort of being cast upon them, but mostly it comes across as he’s just kind of selfish or he’s oblivious or something. And it does contrast a little bit with some of these more tender scenes that they have between the two of them when they show this.

This care and this affection for each other. So, yeah, I completely agree with you there. It’s a little uneven in

Craig: that way, but at the same time, first of all, I don’t think that we’re supposed to think that Kevin Lomax is really a great guy. I mean, when it comes down to it, he’s very flawed. You know, his, his pride and later out Pachino points out his vanity really are his tragic flaws.

And so, yeah. I don’t put it past his character to consider infidelity like it, you know, that doesn’t seem necessarily out of character for him. He’s just selfish, but they are capitalizing on that. Like unbeknownst to him, they are slowly chipping away at Marianne. They are trying to. Break her. And eventually they do, uh, you know, just little things, like you said that, uh, Milton was flirting talking about her neck and stuff.

Well, he tells her that she should cut her hair short and go back to her natural color, which she does. And it has, I mean, she’s Oh, as we’ve seen in. Later years, Charlie staring can chop off an arm and shave her head and she’s still hot as shit, but it takes something away from her veneer when she gets this very modest haircut and the other women, uh, like you said, very, just kind of.

Subtly are kind of picking away at her, making her feel insecure, um, and right away she starts to deteriorate and it’s pretty dramatic change in her. It’s not as though it goes unnoticed by Kevin, but he kind of, it’s not fair to say that he doesn’t care, but he doesn’t make her a priority. And he’s constantly given the opportunity the, the devil.

Milton keeps telling him, I want you to drop this case, this case color. I’ve got a jury showing up with this woman. Yes, of course I do. What are you doing? She’s sick. Everyone will understand all of this thing. We’re going to talk about this. Oh, listen to yourself. Kevin, we got to talk about that. What’s your wife, man.

She’s sick. She needs you. She’s got to come first. He keeps giving him these opportunities. Um, which I think is very clever because ultimately it has to be a question of his free will. Uh, he can’t be entirely forced into something. He can’t be entirely manipulated into something. It has to be his choice and it is very manipulative, but he constantly keeps choosing work over his wife.

Um, and ultimately, you know, That leads to her demise.

Todd: Yeah. It’s really important to the movie that the devil doesn’t D Milton’s character doesn’t overtly do anything. Right. It’s, it’s all manipulation. It’s allowing him, them to make these decisions themselves that lead to their downfall. But there’s some supernatural stuff still going on.

Like, um, when the wife goes out with the two girlfriends, they’re in a changing room and they’re talking and, and. I couldn’t help. But notice also that alcohol plays a very big role in this. It seems like both Kevin and his wife are almost constantly drinking through this movie. And with her, it seems like she gets into it to cope.

But one of the first scenes, you know, with them in, in the very beginning is at a bar, you know, putting shots back when he accepts the letter from the guy, he’s a little happy. Drunk on the way to the bathroom when he’s out on the, on the balcony and he’s being sort of seduced by that girl, he’s putting them back.

And so I feel like maybe that was the excuse or the crotch that you can kind of put under it. Uh, instead of the devil spell it’s that these guys that both of them are, are, are coping in this way. Uh, and it’s leading them to relax a little too much and make these decisions. Uh, a bit under the influence.

I felt like that was a pretty strong aspect of the movie, especially at the end, when he’s toward the end, when he’s offered a drink and he actually refuses it. I think that might be the first time in the whole movie he’s actually refused to drink. Anyway, that was a little something I noticed. I think it’s cute.

When he goes up to Milton’s apartment, he looks around and he’s remarking to the other guys is like, this is it like, it’s just a giant. Room. It has this huge sculpture behind his desk. And I do remember this very distinctly from originally seeing the film. This sculpture is pretty awesome. It has it’s it’s white goes from floor to ceiling, like two stories up and it’s got these people kind of coming out of waves, bodies, these kind of nude bodies coming out.

In this version of the movie that we saw, which is the home release version, that sculpture is digitally replaced with something that’s a little more abstract because apparently it just looked a little bit too much like a very famous sculpture called ex Emilio, uh, which is. Over the national cathedral.

And it does, if you go online and you look the sculpture up, it looks exactly like that sculpture. And they had to digitally replace it after a lawsuit saying that this sculpture, which is supposed to be about, um, creation and the birth of man was sort of perverted by this movie. It’s obviously a copy of that sculpture, but it’s made to seem demonic and almost the opposite of the sculptors original intent.

So the sculptor was able to win that lawsuit. And therefore they had to go back in and digitally replace it. So at the end of the film, they have to do some little tricks to come back in with the special effects to have those people come back out of what essentially for the rest of the movie is just a bunch

Craig: of words.

I didn’t know about that whole lawsuit thing. And I. I think that I had, like I said, the, um, original home release, which was on VHS and, and when this lawsuit was filed, they had already started, um, producing, uh, the initial, uh, print of a home video. And I guess in the settlement, they were allowed. To continue to distribute what had already been made.

They had to put a sticker on the box that said there, this is in no way affiliated with that sculpture or whatever. But I think that that’s the one that I had because I don’t remember it ever being blank without the. People in it, because it looks with the people in it, it almost looks like so and torment, like, like kind of in a Whirlpool or a or something like that.

And now it still looks really cool and they did an excellent job. Replacing it digitally, you can’t tell. Uh, I mean, it looks real, but it was also interesting for me to watch it. Having only seen the original because when Kevin first walks in there, he takes a notice, uh, and is very intrigued by this sculpture.

And it just reads a little bit odd to me now, because without all those bodies in there, it’s not really all that. Intriguing. Yeah. You see this look on his face, like, Whoa, that’s crazy. And then you see the sculpture and you’re like, well, it’s not really any big deal. Um, but, uh, at the end, the body, I guess maybe because in the end.

They the bodies animate and move around and stuff. And I guess that was unlike the original enough, I don’t know. Uh, but interesting. Interesting. But yeah. Interesting backstory, nonetheless. Um, you were talking about, Oh, okay. You should talk about the shopping scene cause that’s important. And then I’ll talk about the central lawsuit.

That comes up.

Todd: Okay. Okay. So she’s shopping with these ladies and her care is cropped cut and she’s drinking her wine and she already is starting to look a little frazzled. And these ladies are very carefree trying on different outfits and things. And they’re talking about nipping and talking and things like that.

And Jackie pulls off her, her bra and, uh, is talking about her boobs and says, Hey, are they real? You know, do you think they’re real or fake? And surely the Ron’s character. Marianne’s like, I don’t know. They look for you. They must be real

Craig: feeling. Oh no. It’s okay. Really? That’s the ultimate test

feel real? Yes, absolutely

Todd: real. Dr. Rob, and as she slips on her shirt again, her face. Morphs her smile suddenly gets like pointed, like basically a teeth full of fangs and very crooked or eyes slid up and move over. It is super freaky. And this is the thing I remembered more than anything else about this movie and her body it’s like under her skin, there are hands moving around, caressing her body.

Yeah. And then she slips the shirt on, just kind of looks at her, you know, smiling and, and walks away. And I think probably also because she’s drinking the alcohol and she is so frazzled, I th she initially sort of writes it off as I’m seeing things. And so this is another one of these little tricks that are coming in.

Um, it happens more than once. That’s somebody will look at one of the people in this firm and their face will more flack this just very temporarily and make them think that they’re seeing

Craig: things. She does think that she’s seeing things, but she’s also totally freaked out. It’s not like, Oh yeah, I mean, she gets up and hightails it out of there.

And she talks to her husband about it, but obviously he just kind of thinks that she’s losing it. She is. But not just because she’s a crazy person, but because this outside force is, is manipulating her. Um, soon after this, you know, she freaks out in this moment and he tries to comfort her and he says something like let’s make a baby because she’s been talking about having babies, the whole movie, and, um, they start to make out.

But all of a sudden he is. Seeing Christa, Bella, and it keeps cutting back and forth pretty seamlessly. I thought it looks pretty good, um, between, uh, Charlise Starin and Connie Nielsen, the actress who plays, uh, Christa, Bella, but it’s, it’s weird because it’s, it’s more than just fantasy. Like he’s, he’s literally seeing her at least that’s how I read it.

Yeah. Sexual tryst is like,

Todd: like a threesome.

Craig: Yeah, it’s weird. Um, but, but Charlise there and eventually realizes that he’s not. There, you know, that’s what she says. She’s like, where are you? And he’s like, I’m right here. And she’s like, no, you’re not. And she’s obviously distraught. And her character deterioration is just constantly progressing from very early on.

Um, but meanwhile, the big case that Kevin gets put on is this triple homicide case. Uh, the guy’s name is Colin. His last name is Colin. He’s played by Craig T Nelson. What’s happened according to Colin. Uh, he came home late from work and he found his wife, his son, and a housekeeper dead, uh, in the apartment.

But he’s in trouble because. According to him, he panicked upon finding all these people dead and he touched everything and he touched the murder weapon and he had blood on him, his justification as well. I panicked, but I’m the one who found them. I called the police. I didn’t kill anybody. And he claims that he.

Is his, his main concern at this point is his 14 year old stepdaughter who is being kept away from him because he’s a suspect in this murder. And that’s the case that Kevin gets put on and it’s really high profile and he’s in the news and reporters are following him and Marianne around his mom. Alice.

Uh, comes to visit and she’s only there for one night and they come back. Uh, why? I don’t think that’s intentional. I think that she had, she was coming for an extended visit. Um, but that first night that she’s there, they’re in the lobby. Of the building, having just come from dinner, Milton approaches with two of the beautiful women from the firm.

One of them being Christa, Bella, and they all end up in the elevator together. And Alice is clearly uncomfortable from the get-go, but she, you can tell that she’s trying to play it. Cool. But she’s out, she’s obviously. Something’s off, but then the next day, when, uh, Kevin gets up to go to work and he’s headed out the door, his mom kind of greets him in the F in the foyer or whatever, uh, and says, I’m leaving.

I got to get out of here. Uh, I miss my church. I got to go and he wants her to stay, but she says she won’t. And she says, you need to do better by Mary and she’s not doing well. And he says, well, then why don’t you stay here and take care of her? And she says, I can’t stay here. I’ll take her with me if you’ll let me, but he won’t.

And so she leaves and that’s everything just kind of blows up from here. I mean, I’m condensing this a lot because this whole court case draws out for a while. It turns out that the guy had motive because. He had a prenup and in the prenup, there was a clause that if there was any infidelity, he wouldn’t get anything.

And it turns out his wife found out that he was having an affair and he says he was having an affair with his assistant and the assistant verifies that. But when Kevin is prepping her for the stand, um, he’s asking her all these personal questions and he asks her if. The guy, colon is circumcised and she hesitates when he continues to press her, she lashes out at him and he can just tell that she’s lying.

That something’s not right. And that’s another time when he goes to Milton and says, look, she’s lying. I think maybe this guy is guilty and Milton again says fine. Drop the case. He says, well, you know, we’ll put somebody else on it. I will have your back, whatever you decide to do, do whatever you have to do.

It’s fine. But Kevin, his pride won’t allow him and he does call the assistant up to the stand. She testifies that she was having an affair. With the guy calling and that she was with him on the night of the murders. And so the guy is acquitted and I feel like this is the turning point where Kevin kind of realizes what he’s doing because at the funeral, Oh, somebody dies.

Uh, Oh, gee, I we’ve we’ve yeah, Eddie Barzun who we haven’t even talked about, but his death is a pretty cool. You want to talk about it?

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. Eddie Barnes who’s played by Jeffrey Jones. Maybe one of the last roles he had before he got to real deep trouble. He’s clearly a very hard worker at the firm.

Clearly he’s working to be partner and he’s been there a long time and he’s never gotten past manager, head manager, and he’s in the basement, shredding documents and stuff. And, uh, you know, uh, Kevin, Kevin pops in there and kind of notices they’re doing something. He just ushers him out. And without even telling him, Milton has promoted Kevin now to partner.

Cause

Craig: your name got on the firm’s charter. It’s been there for years. So now you’re a partner. When did that happen? No, I still am the managing director of this firm. You want my job? Take me head on you backdoor me one more time. I’ll take your partnership papers and I’ll shove

Todd: them down your throat. Uh, and he confronts Milton.

He goes jogging. And at the same time, Milton is having a conversation that you mentioned with Kevin about dropping the case. At the same time, Kevin confronts him about what Eddie had said. Milton says, well, we need to get Eddie in here right away. So he calls and ask them to go get Eddy. Well, what ends up happening is Eddie is out jogging in central park and he starts like seeing joggers coming after him.

But then he looks back behind and they sort of disappear and he bumps into a guy. And then when he looks back, the guy’s gone. Uh, he’s being pursued basically almost by ghosts. Demons or something. And then, uh, he trips and falls and there are two bums who show up with big branches and beat the death out of them.

And, and in this moment, also a couple of the bums are transforming a little bit into demons. Now, you know, what I was kind of wondering here is, are these people. Really demons or are they just people who are under a day influence or is this vision of them just somehow supposed to, you know, kind of like a lasting before you die kind of thing, kind of like, uh, a vision that kind of shows there.

Their motion at the time or their influence, what they’re under. I don’t know. Were you thinking that, that these are just supernatural creatures who were beating them to

Craig: death? Uh, I’m not sure, really. Uh, the impression that I got was probably, they’re just like, they’re probably actually real people who are just being manipulated, like physically.

Uh, and, and who knows, maybe they’re bad people. I don’t know, but I just got the impression that Milton’s had the power to manipulate these people into doing his bidding or whatever. Um, but yeah, they, they, they kill him, but, uh, Milton has this great monologue over this whole scene where, uh, Barzun is running and he’s having these.

Visions. And, you know, Milton’s talking about like the fall of man and our flaws that lead us to destruction and stuff. Yeah. And your building goes the size of cathedrals fiber optically connect the world to every eager impulse grease. Even the Dulles dreams with these. Dollar green gold plated fantasies until every human becomes an aspiring emperor.

He comes as old God. And where can you go from there? Meanwhile, it’s almost kind of like Marianne is experiencing this too or witnessing it like from her window kind of. Um, and so that’s just even pushing her further, you know, over the edge, but he ends up getting killed and at the funeral, colon shows up with his 14 year old step-up.

Daughter, Kevin is sitting behind him and he sees Colin like caressing this girl’s back. First of all, she’s totally dressed inappropriately for a 14 year old at a funeral she’s wearing like a low cut dress. And, um, another woman in the firm tells her, she looks ravishing. Like, obviously this isn’t unholy.

The thing that’s going

Todd: on. There’s some real slimeballs here yet.

Craig: Kevin, clearly he knows what’s going on. He kind of like, he envisions Cullen as Getty, the guy that he had gotten off in the beginning for child molestation and it bothers him to the point that he gets up and storms out. Meanwhile, Milton is standing in the back of the church and I love this scene.

He’s like looking up mischievously. The paintings of the cherubs and the angels and the saints. And, uh, he puts his finger over the Holy water font. If he’s like a petulant kid, like I’m going to touch it, I’m going to touch it, touch it. And, uh, eventually he dips his finger in the Holy water font and the Holy water begins to boil.

And if it hadn’t been entirely. Projected from the beginning that Milton was the devil, I suppose this is the scene where they’re like, yep. You were right. He is. He’s literally, yeah.

Todd: In that way, it’s a little bombastic. It’s a little over the top, but it’s kind of delicious in that way. Right. Cause, cause this is inner cut.

I think also with. With something else going on. Right.

Craig: I guess I kind of got ahead of myself a little bit. After the trial, Kevin goes home and the doorman tells them that Maryanne there’s something wrong with her. They tried to stop her, but she left and she went to this church. And so Kevin goes and finds her at this church and she’s in a bad way.

She’s crying, she’s upset. She’s wrapped up in a comforter and he asked her what’s wrong. And she says, Uh, he came over to the apartment eventually. He’s like, who, who are you talking about? And she says Melton. But what she says was, you know, at first he was really nice and he talked to me and we talked for a really long time and I haven’t had anybody to talk to in so long, but then she starts crying and he says, did somebody hurt you?

This is before she’s revealed who it was. And she nods, uh, yes. And he says, who was it? And she says Milton. And he says, what did he do? And get your beeper ready? Uh, he says, he asks me all afternoon and he accuses her of lying because Milton had, was with him in court all afternoon, but she is adamant. She starts to freak out and she stands up.

And she drops the comfort of it. She had herself wrapped in and she’s nude and she’s covered in horrible cuts all over her body. And she says he did this to me and he grabs her in comfort, sir. But then also has her committed that’s in the hospital. I mean, I don’t know what else you would do. She’s obviously in a bad way to loving gesture at this point.

Yeah. Um, the nurse says she’s conscious and calm. Now it’d be a good time to say goodbye. And it’s really sad. She’s strapped down, uh, to this hospital gurney and it appears that she’s been sedated and they’re walking along. And that’s when she says to him, we did this to ourselves. You know, we knew it, you know, all that money.

Uh, it was blood money and we knew it and we took it. And now we’re paying the price. After the whole church scene, he goes back to the hospital to see her and his mother has come back and she’s there. The mom says, I need to talk to you. And she takes him out in the hall and confesses. I have been to New York before when I was a kid, we came here with a Bible group and we stayed in this hotel and I was shy and naive that there was this bus boy at the hotel restaurant where I ate every night and every night he would talk to me and he was kind to me and.

He was your father. Kevin’s like, are you serious that you’re telling me this now, like, this is the worst possible time. And she’s like, no, you have to listen. And he’s dismissive, but she insists. And she gets in his face and she tells him it was Millie. Now

Todd: that was a twist. I did not see coming.

Craig: I did. I saw it coming a mile away.

The fact, the fact that his father was absent, that he never knew who he was. And then her response to him in the elevator, like obviously she knew there was something going on with him or knew who he was or

Todd: something took it as, you know, she’s hyper religious and he’s the devil. So she’s going to be like extra attuned to, you know, his evil and that she was just, she saw right through him.

Well, that could be too, I suppose. Yeah. And then they’re in the middle of having this conversation and there’s a screaming going on down the hall. Uh, and his wife has barricaded herself in the room because. One of the other people in the firm, uh, has been pushing her around in a wheelchair or something or holding behind her chair and gives her a mirror.

And when she looks in the mirror, she sees this woman behind her reflected and the woman also does this little demon transformation that she seen before she freaks out. She runs to a room. She barricades herself in and with a piece of the broken mirror. As he is bashing the glass in a, nobody is coming to help including this other woman.

Who’s just standing in the background. She pulls it out and slits her own throat. It’s really pretty tragic. It’s sad. It’s super sad. And he runs in and he’s, he’s trying to stop the bleeding and the nurse comes in. It’s a horrible scene. And. I think Keanu Reeves does a fantastic job of acting this. The only thing I’ve got to say is almost after this scene, we go right through the plot some more and he bounces back awfully quick.

You know, I mean, he’s clearly pissed. He’s clearly whatever, but. Um, I don’t know, he’s just not as destroyed as I think I would be after having been witness and party to this whole instance.

Craig: Yeah. I see what you’re saying, but at the same time, he’s figuring out what’s going on. And so he’s very purposeful.

He goes outside and that woman, I think her name was Pam says. Oh, you’re afraid. Don’t worry. He’ll take all your fear away. Go to him. He’s waiting for you. And Kevin goes to walk down the street and of course, this is right in the middle of New York and this street is completely abandoned. He goes back, uh, to Milton’s it’s his office, but it’s the office in his house.

And he finds him there and he basically confronts him at this point. You know, Milton is just very forthcoming. Kevin at first is very angry and he has a gun and he’s like, what did you do to my wife? And Milton, very crassly tells him. Um, and so Kevin shoots him a bunch of times, but it doesn’t have any effect cause he’s the devil.

And then they, you know, Milton just lays it all out for him. And I really liked that this is what it is. You know, like you’re, you’re my son, Krista, Bella is there too. And he says, this is your sister, while your half sister, he says, you guys are the future. Your seed is the key to the future. And this scene is just so I want to say it’s really good, but the reason that it’s so good is because it’s so gross.

Like basically Milton is like, here’s your sister. She’s hot or I’m going to stand over here and watch. And

Todd: then it’s the Frank Sinatra

and the sculpture and the background to all the people in there started moving and they’re doing it too, you know, but the dialogue here is. So good. It is. I really, this is a great scene. It’s a long scene, but it’s just absolutely delicious where he, he does. He basically recaps the movie. Every objection that Kevin has of you did this.

You did this, you did this. He goes, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. I didn’t do anything. You did it. In fact, I gave you so many outs. I gave you so many suggestions. He’s like, that’s the point? I can’t really do anything, but you’ve got this freewill and that’s the tool I have

Craig: to work with. And he says, vanity is my favorite sin.

And I love that because that’s what it’s been about. It’s been about pride and it’s been about vanity from the beginning for this guy, you know, it was great. Yeah. He’s really good. I mean, he’s a great actor. It’s not like this comes as any surprise, but this could a different actor could have really hammed this up in a way that would have been cheesy.

Yeah. And it’s not like he’s just very cool. It really, really works. Yeah. I think he does great. Kevin

Todd: Spacey was considered for this role. It would have been so different with Kevin Spacey in it. You know, he probably would have been more sinister, you know, like a little more. Uh, but Pachino just comes across as this matter of fact, likable guy, which is, what’s so disarming about him, which is exactly what he’s told us.

And it just it’s great. And so the girl strips down, he’s like, all right, you know, Kevin’s like, all right, well, I’m going to, we gotta make a deal. And he throws some of ’em Pacino’s words back at him, you know, he’s like, well, what do you want? And he’s like, well, we’re always dealing right. This isn’t good enough.

What are you going to give me? Basically telling them he’s going to give them ultimate power. You know, he’s going to be able to win every case he ever wants to win. And he’s not going to have anything to worry about for the rest of his life. So he lays her down with his help on yeah. And it’s about to go at it with her and he looks up and he says, Oh, you forgot one thing or whatever.

And he says, what? He’s like, I’ve got free will. Right. He says, yeah. And he pulls out the gun and he shoots himself in the head. That was brilliant. I. Honestly also did not imagine how this was going to end that that did not come across my mind. No, me, it was so cool. And it’s put Chino was so pissed and he’s angry and he’s going up in flames and I mean, everything kind of falls apart around them.

Then boom, we are back in the restroom at the beginning of the movie at this trial of this child, molester like Keanu Reeves has been in a trance this whole time or whatever, and he’s been jolted to reality in the mirror just as that reporter is walking out. So it’s like, he’s kind of played this all out in his head, you know, it’s like he’s had this, um, alternate dimensional experience or whatever, and here he is back again and he has a choice to make and he ends up making a different choice this time he goes in and he asked to be recused from the case that shocks everybody.

And the judge is like, are you kidding me? You know what this is doing? He’s like, yeah, I know full, well, you know, the ramifications of this. And he walks out with his wife and, and they embrace. And he she’s like, what in the world are you doing? And he says, finally, The right thing. And then there’s a bit of a Coda.

How

Craig: did you read that? Like, not that it was all a dream, right. It’s just kind of like, it kind of like things reset,

Todd: basically. That’s how I felt like, well, I mean, if he’s the devil son, you know, like maybe he can’t be killed.

Craig: Yeah. Maybe I have to say that it was nice to see Charlise there and alive and well, and she’s, you know, back to her.

Self the way we knew her in the beginning where she’s far more carefree and not tortured, which is nice. It’s always nice. And so, you know, he has this a heroic moment where he does the right thing and recuses himself from, uh, the case with, I guess, potentially consequences. I don’t know how that works.

Like I thought lawyers could recuse themselves from cases and it was no big deal. Yeah. They make it out. Like it’s a big deal. Like he’s going to be disbarred or something and they run out together Maryanne and Kevin, and they’re followed by that same reporter from the beginning, the one who had told him, you know, maybe, maybe it’s your time to lose.

You can’t win them all. And this guy’s like, Oh my gosh, this is huge. You know, the, the lawyer with a conscience, it’s going to be a huge story. And Kevin’s like, yeah, well, I’m going to get this. Bard. And, um, he’s like, no, no, seriously, this is going to be huge. It’s you know, I can get you in the news. I can get you in time magazine.

You’ll be famous, Kevin and Maryanne pause on the stairs on their way down and look at each other. And Kiana reef says, call me in the morning and they turn around and leave. And the reporter standing at the top of the stairwell turns into Milton, who just says vanity. Is my favorite sin. And then the rolling stones painted black starts to play and credits.

Uh, and I thought that was a clever, you know, like, Oh, he made, he made the right decision. Everything’s okay. No, you know, the devil’s always in the details, you know? There’s there’s always going to be temptation just because you resisted and beat that one temptation. Now it’s just, uh, here comes the next one.

And I thought that was a really clever way. And I, it didn’t feel like a setup for a sequel or anything. It was just kind of a nice wink to the audience. Well, you can’t

Todd: have a movie where the devil is defeated and he’s now dead. That’s not how this works. So yeah, it was, it was a nice way of wrapping all that up.

It was very satisfying and I thought the whole movie to be honest was, was good. I enjoyed it. And I wasn’t watching the clock. Like I thought I would be. And I’m not sure why. I think, I don’t know if I was just in the right mood or. Everything was just so well paced that I didn’t actually feel like there were parts of the movie that dragged.

And like you said, it’s not like a lot goes on, but I think every scene just has a lot in it. And a lot of interesting things to watch and interesting dialogue. And so for me, actually the two and a half hour running time. Uh, didn’t seem to be a problem at all. Surprisingly and the movie itself, as far as the cinematography or anything is nothing to speak at.

It’s just a very simply photographed story. It looks like any movie from the mid nineties, you know? Yeah. Which is fine. Apparently the special effects. For that scene where those sculpture is moving and things like that took like two weeks and about 40% of their budget back in 1996 to put together like $2 million just for that one scene, which might be why it didn’t end up getting from the other home release.

Right. It doesn’t hold up well today, but for the time, anyway, that was a pretty impressive, special, fast.

Craig: Yeah. And I still think it looks

Todd: cool. I remember that freaking the heck out of me when I first saw it. And it’s still Oh

Craig: yeah, yeah. Just a couple of little things that we didn’t mention. I, you know, at the end when Kevin kills himself, um, and Pachino like bursts into flames and everything bursts into the sculpture and the people in the sculpture burning and Christa, Bella, like turns to Ash.

Um, I thought it was kind of a cool touch that, uh, Pachino reverts like to his angel form. Um, And, and it’s clearly Keanu Reeves, but we’re meant to believe that that’s, um, ALPA chinos or, or, or lo Macs or whatever his name is. Milton’s original form, which I thought was kind of cool. And the other thing that I’m surprised that we haven’t mentioned this movie, there is so much nudity.

And this movie I was telling my partner last time, like, you know, this is what a Charlise. Theron’s first movies because she is Bush out naked, which they would probably have to, they would have to pay her a lot more these

Todd: days. Yeah. She was really reluctant to do that because she was just. She was offered Showgirls before this and turned it down for the nudity.

So

Craig: she wants to fuck. I think she made the right call.

Todd: We might not be talking about her. She was in Showgirls,

Craig: but no, I agree with you. The two and a half hours didn’t bother me either, which really surprises me. Cause I usually am not. Happy about watching movies that long. But, um, it, it, it didn’t feel long. I was engaged the whole time and, uh, I don’t think the movie holds up today as well as it did in the late nineties, but I still like it.

I still think it’s a good movie. And, uh, I really think that I could have done this. Podcast without watching it again. That’s how many times I’ve seen it? Like I could have gone through beat by beat. I don’t know if I’ll watch it again soon, but it’s probably something that I will come back to. There are just too many, if nothing else, alpha Chino’s performance is worth the price of admission for this

Todd: movie and these lines of dialogue.

It’s just wonderful. Well, Alyssa, thank you so much for this request. We really enjoyed revisiting this film from the nineties. And like I said before, we’re going to be doing a lot more requests. So please go to our website. You can search us two guys and a chainsaw. You’ll find us on Facebook also on YouTube.

If you leave us a comment, any one of those places with your request, we’ll add it to our list and hopefully we’ll get to it in the near future until next time. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig, with two guys with a chainsaw.

Two tribute episodes in a row as we say RIP to Max Von Sydow, and actor with an incredible resume in the horror genre, almost always playing the villain. We picked this movie because he had such a prominent role. Have a look at yet another Stephen King adaptation and see how it stacks up to the book.

Needful Things (1993)

Episode 209, 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, fresh on the heels of our Kirk Douglas tribute. Somebody else’s died recently. Max Von Sydow the, a very famous and very prolific Swedish actor who died at the ripe old age of 90 who is probably best known among horror fans for his role, may be the Exorcist, although he’s been in a lot of horror movies.

Quite a chunk of his career was playing villains, but early on he got his start doing films with Ingmar Bergman, and maybe one of the most famous ones would be the Seventh Seal, uh, which is just iconic with Ingmar Bergman. It was the one that kind of put him on the map, and in that movie, he plays a guy who plays chess with death.

You can probably picture that in your head that a screenshot. Comes up a lot in film history. Yeah. So the movie that we picked for him was needful things because he has a very prominent role in this. Uh, it’s based on a Stephen King book, and of course, we’re both big Stephen King fans. And so this is the one that we settled on for this week.

We’re real happy to do it. I had never seen this movie before. I had thought that it was a mini series before it was a movie, but. Some of my reading online pointed out that maybe it was a movie before it was a mini series and that the TNT network had commissioned the director, uh, who would, by the way, as Charlton Heston son, to add in a bunch of stuff that they ended up cutting from the theatrical release to make a three hour.

Mini series. And so that’s was an additional thing that was done after the movie was released theatrically. I don’t know, Craig, do you have a little bit more information on that?

Craig: Uh, not really. Only that they did that, but the director, I don’t know, refused, I guess to officially call it a director’s cut and for legal reasons.

That, uh, version, the three hour version has never been made commercially available outside of airing on television. So the version that we watched is the original theatrical cut. And I have to say I’m kind of glad because at two hours it seemed long enough. Yeah, I, I honestly can see, I was talking to my partner last night and I said, you know, I think that this movie, or excuse me, the book actually would make for a great limited series on Netflix or some other platform.

Uh, cause I think that they could get a lot into the more individual stories of what happens. Because this is about an entire community. And multiple members of this community have different experiences with the primary. Antagonist played by Von Sydow in a limited series form each hour could kind of deal with a different story, and then it could all kind of culminate at the end with this two hour movie, it kind of felt like they had to kind of rush some of these.

Yeah. Scenes and experiences, and I also felt like the connectivity within the community wasn’t as apparent as it could have been if it had been larger scope. But that’s all. In hindsight, I, I, you know, the movie as it is. I think it works fine. I just think maybe in a different medium that could potentially work better.

But this is what we’ve got and this is what we’ll talk about. And I’m excited to talk about it cause there’s some cool stuff going on here.

Todd: Yeah, there’s, there’s some good stuff. I’m with you. I, it felt long. It really felt long for me and I think that’s because in a way it got a little repetitive in that.

It was kind of the same thing over and over again after a while and it, and it played out quite slowly. There’s always something going on, but it takes its time. Not to the extent of like being boring, but maybe just to the. Stan of I, I kind of know what’s going to happen. Okay, this other person bought a thing.

Now they’re going to have to do a thing and that thing’s gonna cause somebody else to do something. And then it’s like this chain that just kinda keeps going and going. Now I’d read the book, uh, also I enjoyed the book. It wasn’t my favorite Stephen King book, but there was something kind of light about the book.

A little bit like some of Stephen King’s materials. Really dark duh. That’s like overstating understating it. He does have a range of fiction, and this book almost felt a little bit like a dark comedy in a way. It didn’t seem to take itself so seriously. The whole story is kind of silly. The movie I felt like did a pretty good job of capturing that tone.

Also, the movie wasn’t that scary, and there’s a lot of tongue and cheek, a lot of funny quips by the butt, double entendres and whatnot by Leland. It just, I don’t know. Something about it just didn’t really feel as fun as as it should have, you know, in movie form.

Craig: I hear what you’re saying. I read the book too, but gosh, just say it in these terms makes me sound ancient, not ancient, but probably like a quarter of a century ago, like it’s been a really long time and eh, I don’t remember much.

Yeah. I don’t remember much about it at all, which suggests to me that it must not have been one of my favorites either. But I, yeah, I get what you’re saying. The other thing, we chose this movie specifically because Max Von Sydow plays such a pivotal role. He really is the central antagonist. And we had considered doing other movies that he had been in where he had smaller roles, but we decided to go with this one because he was so prominently featured all ultimately, uh, he just really plays kind of a puppet master.

And his role is fairly limited in that he’s kind of confined to one location for the most part. That’s

Todd: true. That’s a very good point.

Craig: And he doesn’t really do a lot like he sets things in motion. But I mean, I guess that’s his emo. I can’t complain about it if that’s his character’s emo, but as far as  performance, he just plays it.

I’m mostly just very gentlemanly, sophisticated, pleasant, really, for the most part, but he does, you know, there’s clearly a dark underbelly to all of what’s going on. With him. And he does revel in that kind of mischievous nature. And I really appreciated that about his performance. But yeah, it feels episodic because the premises, it’s this small town, it’s castle rock Maine, where a lot of Stephen King’s stories are sad.

And the beginning of the movie, it’s this, uh, sweeping fly over along the Maine coast out to a light house, which. You know, is the symbol, the logo for castle rock entertainment, which by the way, this is the first film, uh, that, that studio produced, I believe. And then you see this old, what was it like a Mercedes?

I dunno, some old fancy black car speeding into this small town and the residents. Are anticipating the opening of this new shop, this mysterious shop that they know nothing about, uh, called needful things. And it turns out that Max Von Sydow, who is playing a character named Leland gaunt is the establishment owner.

And right away the store opens up. And basically what happens is people go in there and. Leland gaunt, um, kind of leads them to something very desirable for them. Usually having something to do with their past. He provides them with some token, like some token of memorabilia. For the most part, these people are able, because these things, many of them are in real life costs probably thousands of dollars.

He bargains with. Them and he sells them to these people for very low prices. But an additional part of the price is that they also have to grant him a favor, which initially seems like not such a big deal, but ultimately that’s what sets in motion kind of the collapse of the town.

Well, no. We are getting somewhere. Not quite enough. Okay. But

Todd: an intriguing offer nonetheless.

Craig: Let’s

Todd: call it.

Craig: Half the price. Generally, yes, half the price is 95 cents. The price you paid in cash, the rest, the other half is a deed and understanding a trick. Well, more like it. Oh, new prac, no big deal, and no one’s ever going to suspect you, I promise.

It’s an interesting conceit, but like you said, it kind of starts to get. Repetitive after a while, which is why I think that it would work better in shorter increments. You know what I’m saying?

Todd: Yeah. It would. And if you could really get into the people in the town, like presumably there’s other stuff going on.

One thing that’s, cause I read the book fairly recently, so it’s, it’s easier for me to talk about it. Maybe one thing that the book does really well is. There are a lot of people in this town. This is another one of his novels. It’s fairly large and has a lot of characters, and one thing Stephen King loves to do for better, for worse, is really dive deep into every single character and give you a lot of their backstory through the story.

And so you really feel like, you know these people. When you’re reading the book. And so what’s happening to them and what’s happening between them is extra interesting because of that. Whereas in the movie, we really focus on a smaller group of people, and I think that’s out of necessity because of just time.

And in fact, the mini series cuts out whole people. Like whole characters and whole segments necessarily. And like you said, it’s probably a good thing, but we really are focusing around like five or six different people who end up intersecting with each other. And then at the end of the movie, it’s like, Oh yeah, and by the way, all these other people, you didn’t see their stories, but we’re going to imply that they were, they had their own little bit here too.

And in interactions with Leyland and the whole towns and chaos, right? So we get to know these people. And then that just has to be applied to right the rest of the town by the end. And that was part of what was a little less satisfying, I think about it for me, but like you said, would make it way more appropriate for something a little longer form and episodic.

Craig: And to be fair, the people that we meet are interesting and are played by good actors. Oh yeah. One of the first people that we meet is a woman named . Nettie, who’s played by Amanda Plummer. Amanda Plummer is weird. She’s Christopher Plummer’s daughter. Um, and she’s, she’s odd, but she’s really interesting.

And I like her. She was in, So I Married an Axe Murderer. She was in Satan’s Little Helper. She’s been in Pulp Fiction.

Todd: She’s, well, she’s the woman at the beginning of Pulp Fiction sitting across from Tim Ross,

Craig: and she plays kind of a simple woman in this who is concerned about the mystery of this shop. We meet her right away.

She works in the town like diner, which is owned by poly, who is played by Bonnie , who is also very famous. You know, she doesn’t do as much now as she did in the 80s but she was in Salem’s Lot and many other things, Die hard.

Todd: Bruce Willis, his wife had died. Oh yeah.

Craig: I had forgotten about that.

Todd: That’s where I always remember,

Craig: so yeah.

Yeah. I always think of her from that too. I just had forgotten she becomes right away in the beginning off fiance to the sheriff of the town. Allen. Played by Ed Harris. You know, who’s huge and Paulo 13 a million other things. There’s a kid named Brian Rusk who was played by an actor named Shane Myer, who I didn’t really know for much except for that.

He played Matthew Shepard in the Matthew Shepard story, which was really powerful, and I think. I thought that he did a really good job in that, and those are kind of the main people and those people then interact with other towns people, and basically what Von Sydow is doing is he setting people up against one another?

Without their knowledge. He does that by establishing conflict between people and then using other players as puppets to escalate that conflict. It’s actually, you know, his. He’s a good planner.

Todd: If

Craig: nothing else, you know, I’m, I’m struggling even to, because it really becomes kind of a complex web. Um, it’s kind of difficult to, to lay it out.

Todd: Well, the first person that comes to his shop as a kid. And the kid that you mentioned, um, and his name is Brian, and he shows up and the shop doesn’t appear open, but the sign on the window does say open and he walks in. Uh, and Leland, it’s interesting because I don’t remember it quite this way in the book, in the book.

It’s not like he swoops in like a vampire, you know, where he’s like all sinister from the beginning. He comes across as very affable to everybody. But Von Sydow’s character, Leland, God doesn’t make the kind of entrance in this movie. I was expecting. He just kind of is there. He’s a guy and he’s very kind to the kid and no real sly looks or glances or anything.

In the beginning. He’s actually very affable. Even the camera treats him that way, you know, in the beginning, which, which I was a little. Shocked by knowing where it was going. Anyway, you know, he says, Oh, we’ve got all these different things in the shop, something for everybody, and he says, do you like baseball cards?

And he pulls out a signed Mickey mantle baseball card that happens to be signed to my friend Brian. He pulls his card out of his little Picard protector and is handling it. So carelessly that that was really distracting to me. Like if I were the kid standing there, I would probably have a coronary, right?

Just watching him doing this. But anyway, he’s flipping the card around and he kind of does a little magic trick with it and is waving it in front of him and the kids like, Oh my God, yes. And he reaches out and he touches it. And now in the movie, when people touch these items as well as in the book, they get these sort of memories stirred up or dreams stirred up in their heads.

It’s kind of a combination of both. There’s like an electrical flash, and I think it’s a little cheesy, uh, to be honest in the movie, but to, anyway, they’ve got to do something, I guess, and it’s a little electrical flash and the spark and they kinda convulse like they’ve actually been shocked. And then we get kind of a black and white.

Flashback or to their dream or to their memory or whatever, and he just sees Mudo Mickey mantle hitting a home run and gets excited about it. The kids like, how much is it? And Leland’s like, well, let’s bargain.

Craig: How much would you pay for this con Ryan  metal tops. 1956 signed to my good friend Ryan.

Now listen, all I go got here is. Sure. The buyer must never tell the seller how much he has. If you can’t tell a lie, then be still the first rule of fifth trade.

Todd: Well, he ends up pulling out like 93 cents or something, and, uh, the guy says, well, it’s a start. Let’s call it half. Uh, but for the other half, I need you to do me a favor.

And we don’t see what that favor is right away. Very much like in the book, uh, we just hear it. He asked for a favor and then later in the movie we get to see them play out this favor. And he always poses this as just a little prank, just a little harmless trick or FID. Wouldn’t it be funny to do this to somebody?

And I thought it was interesting because at the same time, this kid’s having this interaction with him. We’re getting Ed Harris, his character, who was the sheriff who you just mentioned. Go into that diner and propose to Polly, and it was just a little bit of an odd choice to intercut these two scenes because it was hard for me to get so invested in that scene and to feel that build of tension with this sinister character in this kid.

When. Was jumping back to the diner in this, this nice little moment where he was proposing to her.

Craig: Yeah. I have a feeling that this was, the novel was probably a difficult novel to write a screenplay for because in literature, I don’t think that that bothers us as much jumping back and forth between storylines, but I think that in film it seems more abrupt.

So. I, I don’t know. I mean, it didn’t particularly bother me, but yeah, it does do that. But when you have such an expansive cast, you kind of have to check in with them. If you want your audience to remember what’s going on with them,

Todd: you’re right, you’re right. And the movie has to do that. But this was within a scene.

You know, this was like a, uh, five minutes scene, uh, that we were constantly checking back and forth between the two characters in their own little five minute scenes. I, I just, I didn’t understand that. For me, it really neutered what was going on between this character who we just met. And this kid who is obviously something sinister going on.

I thought it just, it just leached that scene of a little bit of its power, but by the end of it anyway, he signs the kid’s name in a book and he’s going to be adding all of these names to this book and checking them off. As they, uh, expire. Right.

Craig: And the other thing, and again, I wish I remembered the book better, but the other thing that was kind of bothersome to me is that they had to establish conflicts between people really quickly.

And so it kind of seemed like, why do these people not like each other so much? Like one, one of the first, uh. Conflicts that’s established is between Nettie, who’s this nice simple lady, you know, who bakes pies at the diner. And this farmer, this Turkey farmer named, uh, Wilma Jersey. And from the time that they appear on screen together, there’s major tension between them that appears to only be because Nettie’s dog barked at this lady, and because Nettie’s dog barked at her.

And I don’t even think it was barking at her. I think it was barking at

Todd: gaunt. Just surprised her.

Craig: Yeah. But then all of a sudden they hate each other. And then that’s like one of the central conflicts and Wilma threatens to kill the dog. So the favor that gaunt asks Brian to do is to go throw Turkey crap all over Wilmas.

Clean white linens and laundry that are hanging on the line. And when Wilma returns home, of course in very dramatic fashion, she walks right through the laundry and is covered in crap herself, and she’s just sure that that darn old Nettie did it. And so of course this plays out over several different scenes, but she ends up going.

To the diner and threatening Nettie and threatening the dog. And so then Nettie is all upset and she ends up going to gaunt. And again, it’s difficult for me to not just kinda, I guess I was just going to do it. The way that this plays out is that through these different machinations and through gaunt asking other people to do favors for him in the form of pranks, each woman then blames on the other.

Legitimately thinking that they are in this conflict and they are pulling these. Punches at one another. Ultimately gone makes Brian go bust out all of Wilmas house, all the windows in her house and basically just destroys her house with apples, which are like Nettie’s signature cause she makes Apple pies gone.

Also gets another guy, this character named Hugh to kill Nettie’s dog. And not only kill it, but like skin it and hang it up in her house.

Todd: My fun, funny little prank.

Craig: Yeah, right. You know, just, just, just something simple. No big deal. What ends up happening is the two women who have both been ultimately offended at that point end up confronting one another at wellness house and they end up killing each other.

And one with. A butcher knife, one with like a meat hatchet or whatever you call those things. Cleaver, right in the

Todd: face,

Craig: right in the face. And it’s, it’s fun. You know, that fight is fun and violent and between two women who you wouldn’t expect to resort necessarily to that kind of violence. Uh, and it shows that gaunt corruptive nature is effective.

And. What he does with those two women is the same thing that he does with everybody else. It’s just finding these cracks in their community, finding these minor conflicts between people and capitalizing on them to cause. Just outright destruction within the community. Um, and for a very long time at works.

And even though that’s one of the things that I kind of don’t really understand is that even though each of these individuals is being asked to do these progressively more. Malignant, uh, pranks. Nobody really puts two and two together. Like nobody thinks that, Oh, well I slashed so-and-so’s tires and they think somebody else did it.

But, or if somebody smashed out my windows. And it must be my enemy. You know what I mean? Like,

Todd: yeah, it’s true.

Craig: They’re all pretty naive, but who knows? It’s an extreme situation

Todd: and that’s how I felt about the book too, and that’s why it was really hard to take seriously. And I think if you think of it more as a dark comedy as well, more like a cartoon than anything else.

It plays better. If you come into this looking for a scary horror movie, I think you’re going to be disappointed. At least that’s my feeling about it. The other aspect that plays into that, as well as just like you said, how extreme the characters have to be in order for them to expediate things, and so every character in this movie, although they’re interesting, is pretty extreme for whatever their particular.

Characteristic is, you know, neti, neti is like super mouse shit, mouse ish, uh, annoying and whatever. Uh, the mayor, uh, Dan forth Keaton, uh, played by J T Walsh. Is like highly corrupt, super into gambling, screaming and yelling from the beginning at this deputy. Now

Craig: it’s just your name on this goddamn chicken Ridgeway or maybe just some kind of forge.

You were

Todd: parked in the crib space.

Craig: Wait a minute. You can’t come home. You want

Todd: a handicapped

Craig: space and you’ve been told about it before

Todd: to Buster,

Craig: what did you call me? Call me

Todd: Buster. Touch me again. I’ll throw you in the goddamn

Craig: style. I mean, it’s done for us. Yeah. And fourth, Keith and the third who is head selectman of this piss pot.

Little town can get your ass fired off the police force. And to

Todd: make that one second flat, he’s just a cartoon version of a corrupt city mayor who has a gambling problem.

Craig: Absolutely. I mean, it really is way over the top.

Todd: Oh. And then the town drunk is like drunk all the time and kicking the jukebox all the time and going in and out of the bar.

We hardly see them anywhere else. The priest and the pastor in this town. This is something that you know, was heavily in the book and very light in the movie was this rivalry between the Catholic church. This is so small town and it’s so true in the Protestant church Baptist church, I guess it is in town, and the Catholics are having a.

Fun just for fun. Casino night and the Baptist think that they’re unleashing hell upon the earth by doing it. And so they’re protesting it. And then the book, this protest is like a constant thread. It’s like people are picking sides and it’s one of the main wedges that Leland uses to really put like the town at large against.

each other, whereas in the movie, you barely see it at all. But when you do see it, it’s funny because the Catholic priest who’s played by, um,

Craig: the uncle from Elvira,

Todd: I don’t know his name. All I know him and ask, that’s all I care about. So William Morgan shepherd played father me. Hey,

Craig: our warning. Give up your plan to turn this town into a den of thieves and gamblers, or you would have smelled the brimstone, but we could, shall be turned into hell.

Psalms nine 17 the concerned Baptist men of tassel rock is that age at Reverend Willy

Todd: Rose.

Craig: Maybe you shouldn’t have called it casino

Todd: for

Craig: God’s sake, Alan. It’s only a little Cherokee gambling. I don’t know why it

Todd: upsets the Baptist soul. It’s so funny. Uh, the scenes with them and it’s just, it’s so comical because it’s so stereotypical, right?

It’s always a joke, Catholics between the Protestants and you just can’t help but laugh at so much of what’s going on. It’s so petty and so silly, but you know, it becomes a very, very big deal to these people. But it’s really hard to believe, like you said, that in real life that things would escalate so quickly that people would get so extreme and that people would just be so oblivious that they would never put two and two together.

Craig: Yeah. Now that you talk about the humorous elements, I hadn’t really thought about it, but it really is because meanwhile you see all these terrible things going on in town and then it will just cut back to Von seed out, just like sitting in his. Shop like, you know, tapping his fingers together and smiling like he, like my plan is working perfectly.

Todd: It’s really cheesy.

Craig: It is cheesy. And he hams it up a little bit. And also there are other things, you know, again, I don’t remember the book, but like when he’s interacting with people in his shop, again, he’s very genteel. A good shop owner. He wants to satisfy his customers. And, and so he comes across as very nice and he looks normal.

He looks like this tall, elegant. Man. In fact, everybody assumes he’s European just because of his demeanor, but he claims to be from like Akron,

Todd: Ohio or something.

Craig: But whenever he’s on screen alone, whenever, whenever other people aren’t around, there are physical manifestations of. His true self, like his teeth will get really nasty and yellow and black and his fingernails will be thick and long, like, you know, demons or werewolves or something.

And he really is just kind of this grinning villain lurking in the background is watching his plans play out with such joy. Yeah.

Todd: It is funny. And he always has these quips. I mean almost every scene with him and it has some double entendre that has to do with devil or Satan or like when the Baptist preacher comes into his shop, he’s got these posters cause there’s going around town like say no to the gambling or no to the Catholics.

And I think he has a bumper sticker that says say no to the devil.

Craig: You’re not Catholic, are you? Okay. Do you go by say that? I am well known denominational. I knew it, but then you will have little objection to my placing this in your problem window. I couldn’t possibly do that. Is it  the GI is IQ. I’m here everyone, however, my way of compensation.

Perhaps I may offer you something which might interest you,

Todd: and he points them to where he just has on the wall. All of these like sexual artifacts, like these fallacies and like a nude painting and whatever, and the Baptist like starts sweating and kind of looking around like, Oh, he kind of wants to buy one, but he doesn’t want anybody to see. See, and it’s such a joke, you know?

Of course he ends up walking out with something and bumps into the Catholic priest on the way. I was like, Oh yeah. And the byplay is so hilarious.

Craig: Let’s wait. I have a tendency to turn up the heat. He’s just got little one liners all over the place. Like, you know, after Brian defiles the laundry, then Brian is feeling very guilty about it and God comes to him again and God says something like, you have something of mine that’s not paid for yet. And Brian’s like, well, I did what you asked.

Um, we had a deal. And, uh. God says the dealing isn’t done until mr gaunt says it’s done. So, you know, it’s, it’s a deal with the devil story. You know, it’s the devil and Daniel Webster. It’s the devil and you know, whomever. But you make this deal with the devil, and ultimately it’s going to lead to your downfall.

And poor young Brian after he breaks the windows, he’s not actually witness to the fight between the two women, but he is witness to the aftermath, like their bodies on the . Brown, um, and he clearly feels guilty and he begins to confess to the sheriff, but then he can’t bring himself to do it. And eventually the sheriff starts to realize that these things just don’t make sense.

It doesn’t make sense that, uh, timid Nettie would bust out all the windows in this lady’s house. It doesn’t make sense that, that, well, Moe would murder this woman’s dog. And so he starts to. Think that something weird is going on. And he goes to Brian and he finds Bryan in a barn and he starts to approach him, and Brian pulls out a gun.

A gun that we had seen had belonged to that butthole guy, Dan, forth before. And these are just little pieces that I think we’re expected to put together, but that I didn’t entirely there. There was a line about it later. Alan. Chastises Dan forth for giving a gun to that kid. I would’ve never put that together.

Um, but again, it’s just all the machinations of gone. So anyway, Brian has this gun and he holds it to his head, and he says, you know that that guy is a monster. He’s not human. He says, don’t go in that store. It’s a poison place. Mr gaunt does not a man. It’s too late. I gotta go, I gotta go to the sheriff.

Tries to talk him down and is inching closer and closer to him, but as he gets close, the movie makes it seem as though Alan was able to intercede right at the last moment and that the boy did shoot himself. But it wasn’t fatal in the book. He committed suicide. Yeah. I read that. Uh, the studio execs, um, did not like the implications of a minor committing suicide.

And so they cut away from it very quickly and had Alan immediately deliver a line to poly saying that he’s alive.

Todd: But. Which is another thing, you know, Leland gone to this kid in the book and also in the movie is probably the most brutal, right? I mean, he’s the most, he makes his kid do several things.

He’s a young kid. He’s, he’s fragile and emotionally, you know, not mature and, uh, just keeps piling it on him. And forcing him, you know, to do this stuff repeatedly to the point where he basically drives him to suicide. And it’s a really powerful moment in the book and also in the movie, but again, Oh, he’s okay.

It lightens the movie a little bit, and there’s a little bit of that everywhere except for the access to the face and whatnot. And that is what drives the sheriff to start to suspect gone. That’s another deviation from the book. That I thought was interesting in the book. Gaunt seems to be going out of his way for quite a bit of the novel to avoid the sheriff.

Like he’s almost scared of him. Like he knows the sheriff is a little too clever and he’s going to lead to his downfall. And so the shop will be open for someone and then they’ll walk out and the sheriff will try to go in and suddenly it’s closed. And a good portion of, at least the first quarter of the book is gone trying to get information on the sheriff.

From these other people. And so the movie, like within the first 10 minutes, the sheriff wanders into the place and they sit down. They have pie. So it does, it does add a different feel to it because in the book you get this sense that the sheriff is dangerous to God. In the movie. You just get the sense that the sheriff has just another guy and he just happens to be the guy that was smart enough to.

To start putting the pieces together. Right. And he kind of retrace his steps and talks to different people, and it all leads up to the conclusion. Um, I kind of want to jump

Craig: there. Well, I mean, there’s, I mean,

Todd: there’s

Craig: stuff going on, I feel like. Yeah, there is. And I think it would just be foolish to talk about all of them, but he does.

Okay. So the thing that bothered me a little bit about. The sheriff figuring it out is it really only took one or two events for him to figure it out. And then from that point on it was, Oh, it’s him. I know it. He’s the bad guy. You know? It wasn’t, there wasn’t much of, let’s put the pieces together. Or if it was, it just happened really, really quickly.

The only other thing that I thought was a noteworthy is that gaunt is also able to drive a wedge between Alan and poly. His fiance, um, poly has. Uh, terrible arthritis in her hands, and I don’t even, I think God comes over to the diner under the guise of thanking Polly for the pie that that. She had had Nettie bring over may.

Somehow he, I don’t remember if he gets her to the shop or if he just has it on her, on him or what, but he gives her this necklace that magically cures her arthritis, which again, like none of these people question the fact that. That they have magical dreams slash memories, and that these items have these magical properties, like they just go with it.

Uh, and, and poly just goes with it. And when she touches the. Amulet or whatever it is. The vision that she has is of her being seduced by gong, um, which I guess ultimately is what is happening. Because later Allen makes her question, he straight out accuses gaunt and, and she basically says, no, you know, he’s just a normal guy.

And. But he does get her to question. He gone also sets up via other people in the community, sets up Alan to look like he’s, um, embezzling. Uh, and Paul, he finds that, um, but eventually she does question the ambulance. She tries to like open it up and it shocks her and it falls to the ground and she falls to the ground and her hands are all gnarled.

And she’s trying to pick up the ambulance, but she can’t, and then gone just appears in her bedroom and puts it back on her. Plants, these seeds of mistrust about her fiance and then kisses her and

Todd: has sex with her. I guess

Craig: I don’t, I, I, I was hoping maybe you would have some insight from the book that I don’t remember because that really seemed like the implication to me.

Todd: I do not remember that from the book. Uh, that it

Craig: maybe it didn’t

Todd: happen, like not have, but, but you’re right. The implication, the movie is very much so. I mean, she’s almost basically, I think she even literally says like, take me, doesn’t she?

Craig: I don’t know.

Todd: He lays her back on the bed and you just get a shot up at him and he’s like.

I must say it’s, it’s a pleasure doing business with you.

Craig: Yes,

Todd: yes. And yeah, that’s the implication is that they did it and whether or not she remembers it afterwards is another story, but because she certainly goes on throughout the rest of the, of the, of the movie, like this extremely significant thing didn’t happen.

But yeah, I sort of feel like. You know, part of this, people not questioning these things, and I think it was, again, maybe delivered better in the book than it ever came across in the movie, is that their suspension of disbelief, I think comes a little bit from his power. Just his sort of like a sort of hypnosis.

They’re willing to buy into this thing that they have or the magic of the whatever is happening. It’s kind of a fog in their brain that he is. Doing, but it doesn’t come across so well in the movie. I think that’s another failure, right. Just because it has to plow through all this so quickly. Yes.

Craig: Yeah, I agree.

And it does make perfect sense that, you know, like whenever he is, which has never really established other than he appears to be immortal because, um, Alan finds all these newspapers detailing various other.

Todd: I love that part though. He’s like going through the dark place and he finds the newspapers, like, this is the big reveal, right?

This a Hitler, you know, invades blah, blah, blah. A so-and-so was assassinated. It’s all these major, massive events throughout history that. That’s implying that he’s responsible for, but he’s coming to this little town, this little Podunk town, and just causing a bit of havoc with all these nothings. Don’t you think he’d be somewhere in the middle East right now?

You know, kind of like taking care of the bigger stuff like he apparently used to in the past. I think the implication is pretty strong. He’s the devil, right? I mean, that’s what I get out of it anyway. It’s never said, you’re right, but I think it’s almost. Practically said through implication. There’s, there’s a funny moment where one of the guys, I think it’s when Hugh goes in the drunk,

Craig: Jesus carpenter from Nazareth, I know him well, promising young man.

He died badly.

Todd: He’s the guy throughout history that’s caused everything. He’s gotta be the devil.

Craig: Yeah, I mean, fair enough. I was reading stuff online and basically everything says, you know, it never really, not in the novel and in the movie both. It’s never really confirmed one way or another. Um, I read one thing that some people speculate that he is a similar being to like Pennywise or the guy from the dark tower and the stand.

I, I can’t think of his name. Flag, Randal flag. Right. Um, whatever. Ultimately it doesn’t really matter. He’s a bad, evil, immortal guy. I know you want to get to the end, and I do too. I think that in order to do that, we have to mention that that guy Dan forth, who’s this big over the top asshole, he’s just been getting progressively worse through the influence of.

Uh, gone to as well, to the point where, you know, he had conflict with pretty much everybody. Nobody liked him, but, uh, ultimately, uh, he kind of loses his mind and he kills his own wife because he suspects her of having an . Fair with one of his enemies, which she didn’t at all. Um, but that was one of my favorite lines from the, from the movie was when he’s losing it and gone to approaches his approaches him and basically says, I’m not done with you yet, you know, get your stuff together.

The guy’s like, I killed my wife. Is that wrong?

Todd: Oh.

Craig: And there’s more to it than that. And it’s, it’s funny in its ridiculousness, but, um, he, he has become the, the kind of, the ultimate pond.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: He’s kind of the Renfield.

Todd: Yeah, he is. You’re right. Um, although he was never a sympathetic character to begin with, he was kind of an asshole who you sorta feel as getting what’s coming to him, but he ends up being, you know, kind of the linchpin in all of this.

Right. I will say though, that that point in the phone that you were talking about where he mentioned that he kills his wife. He has a line where he goes, but I really loved her. That was the only moment in this movie where I felt strong emotion. I was like. Oh my God. Like, that’s horrible, you know, like has this flash of realization of what’s going on.

And that was heartbreaking for me, and it took me a good five minutes to get past that line. And it was so out of place in a movie that otherwise is just so cartoonish that I was really shocked.

Craig: Yeah. And, and he has. Been such a cartoonish character, but in that moment, he’s, he’s basically weeping, um, and as much of a jerk as he’s been, uh, you do empathize with him a little bit because just like everybody else, he has been manipulated.

He’s been played. Ultimately, he’s gotten the short end of the stick. The beginning of the end comes with the two religious leaders, the priest, and the. Pastor, right?

Todd: The priest is in his church. All these people just basically stay in the domains in which they’re supposed to be. I guess the priest is in his church.

It’s like late at night or whatever, but he’s there at Harris. His character goes in to talk with him at the same time. Dan forth is in the back, basically digging into the graves of the graveyard behind the church and bearing dynamite in there. By now. You said he’s kind of a broken man and he’s sort of half into this and he’s almost desperately doing it even though he’s

Kind of reluctant to, uh, and Leland actually shows up. It’s one of the few moments where we see him outside of his shop and, you know, lifts them in the air and is like, you’re going to do exactly what I tell you to do. And these moments in the movie where he is very sinister, you know, very, uh, pushy and controlling to these people.

And that’s one of them anyway, while they’re talking inside. Uh, there’s a big explosion. Obviously it blows out. The back of the church and the pastor just the preacher just knows that it was the pastor and those Baptist that did it and he storms out and that explosion, suddenly the whole town is fighting each other.

It’s just like a light switch, like the streets were empty before this explosion and now there’s a car crash and guy gets out of the car and starts beating up the other guy and at Harris’s character comes over and tries to pull them apart.

Craig: What are you doing? Bashed. I took my treasure Island, Robert Stevenson first I got shot.

Todd: Sheriff sees that all these people are like brawling in the street over these minor deeds,

Craig: and gaunt is just sitting up on the porch just watching this all happen. It’s hilarious.

Todd: Oh God, this was so dumb. It’s very different from the book, but I got to say like the movie just went off the rails for me is, uh, ed Harris, his character finally yells,

Craig: everybody stop.

Todd: And everybody stops suddenly and looks at him, look at what he’s doing to you. And he basically lays out exactly what’s going on, you know, and get, and then one at a time, everybody speaks up and says, hi. I was the one who did this. I was the one who did that. I was the one who did this. I, I’m rolling my eyes at the screen at this point.

Oh God. The balloon of the film just kind of deflated for me at this point when I realized this was the kind of ending we were going to get, and I was hoping there’d be a twist or something and there wasn’t. This was it. And there’s gone on the porch and ed Harris swings around and points at him and says.

Craig: God, we are waiting. He came here to destroy us, to make us destroy ourselves. Can’t you see what’s happening here? This is what he needs. This is what he wants. He’s got us all lined up. I got caught. Your eyes, human fuse boxes.

Todd: Harris is trying to rally the town against him and that moment Dan shoots through the window of God’s place.

He’s been inside the whole time, apparently hiding shoots the sheriff in the shoulder. The sheriff falls backwards and he comes out and it turns out he has explosives attached to him too, which he seems to be threatening. He’s going to blow up the whole town. Right, with the explosives around his vest

Craig: from the outside.

Yeah. I mean, I suppose, I suppose. Everybody. So apparently everybody in town is gathered in

Todd: square.

Craig: Um, and, and I, I guess that they are in close enough proximity that they could at least be injured if an explosion were to take place right here.

Todd: Doesn’t have them yet,

Craig: but it is a little silly. And this town, you know, it’s.

It seems like it’s supposed to be at least an average size, small town, but we’re so confined by setting that it seems like it’s all, the whole town is just this one

Todd: and and characters too. I mean, by this. Point, we’ve only really dealt with a handful of people, so it hasn’t had that expansive feel. You know that the book has where it kind of reaches its tendrils out and you get to even get these tiny little stories and little bits and pieces to where you, you get a cohesive sense that the whole town is building towards this climax in the movie.

You get a sense that these half a dozen people. Are in conflict with one another and once they all die, well, that’s kind of the end of it. It isn’t until this big brawl in the middle of the street that the movies tells you, Oh yeah, by the way, you didn’t see it, but all these other people had all these other things go on and they’re all mad at each other too.

It’s just. For time. Right. So yeah, he threatens, he’s going to do it. And then, you know, he has his moment where he turns around and is like, I’m not gonna listen to you anymore.

I mean, not literally. That’s what it is.

Craig: There’s a couple of minutes scene where it’s like. Dan forth with the devil on one shoulder and the angel other, and God is the devil and the sheriff is the angel. And, uh, Allen’s like, you don’t have to do this. This isn’t really you. And, uh, he’s like, but I killed my wife.

He’s like, no, you didn’t. God did, he made you do it. And I’m gone too. Is like, quit being a pussy. Let me, uh. Blow, blow them up. And I guess the big mistake that God makes is that he refers to Dan forth as Buster, which is apparently what people call Dan forth behind his back. And he really hates it. And so, um, Dan forth approaches gaunt and has words with them, says, and don’t call me Buster, and grabs him and dives through the window.

Of the shop into the shop and the entire shop just completely blows up, like huge explosion and the towns people are fleeing and, but then, uh, Allen with his deputy walks up into the ruins and here comes, gone. Just strolling out like, Oh, well. Yes, she beat me this time.

Todd: It wasn’t my best work. I have freely admit that, but you know, we had a few laps that it was good enough is basically what he

Craig: says.

Well, and he says in the meantime, you wouldn’t call the, you are two terrific kids. You are not ready. Trust me, she’s a lovely girl. You’ll have a wonderful family. By the way, give my regards to your grand shot. Bob will be, isn’t there even a national trade? His gate,

Todd: I’ll see you in Jakarta.

Craig: 2053 Oh this 14:10 AM nice 70 day.

This also to me called back to the question of whether. Or not he had sex with Polly. I’m wondering if he’s suggesting that Alan’s son first son might actually be his. I don’t know. That’s probably just me reading too

Todd: much into

Craig: it, but it definitely crossed my mind.

Todd: Interesting. No, I didn’t think about that, but.

Yeah, that’s it.

Craig: But in the, in the book though, I don’t remember, I just read this, but in the book he liked reveals his true demon self.

Todd: Right. And there’s a whole, like the book is quite different because the sheriff is dealing with the loss of his, his. Sun and wifi, I believe in a car accident or something, or something that he used to do with his son was magic.

And so this is sort of this way that he kind of keeps his memory alive as he’s always practicing these magic tricks. And somehow, I don’t remember exactly how, but somehow he uses magic tricks, fake magic tricks. To oppose the devil or whatever. Leland gone some real magic, uh, and somehow overcome him. I don’t remember exactly how it happens, but it’s, it’s a little more sophisticated to put it mildly than what we ended up getting in this movie, which is just a bunch of Hollywood clap trap.

It just, yeah. I couldn’t stand that ending.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, it was. Pretty anti-climactic, I guess. I mean, there’s a big explosion. That’s exciting. Then he, uh, gone just drives away.

Todd: I don’t mind him wandering out and driving away. That’s totally fine. It’s just the BS that came before it, where the big show down in the middle of the street was just so cliche.

So melodramatic. So somebody made a choice and that’s the choice they made and it just kind of made the movie a little lousier. I think in the book, the whole town does explode. I mean, I’m PR, I think you pretty much does what he came to do and then walks off into the sunset slightly defeated. But otherwise, you know, similar implication, like they beat him back, but it doesn’t really matter.

I don’t know. I didn’t really like the movie actually. I don’t know if I would have liked the movie better if I hadn’t read the book. So recently it was just a little too slow at times, a little too repetitive, a little, uh, unsatisfying in the ways that I’ve pretty much just described. And then it led up to that ending that was just a Groaner.

And, uh, at that point I kinda checked out. So I didn’t enjoy it so much as, as we enjoy  Stephen King adaptations are always a little hit or miss and usually never as good as the book anyway, but this was definitely lower. Lower on that list. And most, I think for me,

Craig: yeah, I thought it was an okay movie. I didn’t think it was bad.

Um, the director doesn’t have a lot of independent directorial credits. Um, he’s done. A lot of second unit stuff. And um, he has directed, uh, I think like six or seven films of his own, but nothing else that I was really familiar with. And I just don’t think that the direction, or maybe even the screenplay was particularly strong, but.

From a visual perspective, I thought it looked good. Uh, and I thought that the performances were pretty solid based on what they were given. I thought that, um, ed Harris did a good job. I always enjoy Amanda Plummer cause she’s so weird and brings such a different vibe to every character she plays. And Bonnie Delia was okay.

She didn’t have much to do. And Max Von Sydow, I think like the role. Was a good one for him. It’s just unfortunate that he didn’t really have a whole lot to do. Um, and we didn’t get to see a lot of dynamics in his character. But I, I think that that’s kind of by nature of the character. He, he plays it cool because he has very little to lose.

And so, you know, the only time that he really kind of lost his temper was that time when Dan was sniffling and he grabbed him and picked him up and put, held him up against the church. And I thought that was a really powerful moment. And it was shot from low and it made max Von seed outlook huge. And it made.

Dan forth by comparison seem very small and weak. Um, and, and I liked that. I, I kind of wished that we had gotten to see more of Von Sydow throwing his weight around, but it seemed like, you know, he was. Enjoying, he portrayed what he was given. Well, and I enjoyed his performance. He was fun to watch, even though it was kind of low key.

So I don’t hate this movie. I don’t think it’s a bad movie. I just think it was just kind of all right. I know that I had seen it before and I told you that when we were talking about what we wanted to do, but I didn’t remember much about it. What I told you was, I think I remember it being kind of boring and, uh.

I was right,

Todd: but a great actor. Um, very, I think for once we actually picked a decent movie for our tribute, cause a lot of times some of these really, really great actors that ended up passing away their horror outputs just not so strong. And it’s not usually their fault. This movie, like you said, um, with what he was given.

He did a pretty solid performance. And just by itself, it’s a solid performance. Just the nature of the character didn’t allow for a lot of dynamics, but you can see tons of other movies to see as dynamics. Uh, I’m a big, I’m a big Ingmar Bergman fan. I’ve seen quite a few of those. Uh, that’s the very serious Max Von Sydow.

Of course there’s the Exorcist. He’s father Merrin and that, and the Exorcist too. You have a bigger role in that cause there’s a ton of flashback there. It’s a shame we won’t ever get to do Flash Gordon, cause it’s not a . A horror movie, right. Emperor Ming, Flash Gordon as a kid. Anyway, probably what I remember him from the most.

I just thought that that movie has a special place in my heart. Yeah,

Craig: he was, he was a very, very cool, very, very talented man. He leaves behind a great legacy, which I say about a lot of people, but it’s true. Uh, so, um, kudos to you, sir. We’re happy to have been able to pay a little bit of at least meager trip.

Todd: Great. Well, thank you again for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us online or you can find us on Facebook. You can also find us on our YouTube channel. Just search for two guys and the chainsaw. Leave us a message. Let us know what you thought of this show and requests.

Upcoming ones. We’re going to dive into some requests here for the next month or so, so I’ll keep those requests coming. We love it. Here? What do you want to hear? Until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with two guys and a chainsaw.

Kirk Douglas passed away last month, and you know what THAT means! Time to crap on another wonderful actor’s horror film.

To be fair, Kirk Douglas is a legend. And so is Brian De Palma, the director. And so is John Williams, the composer. Actually, this film had a lot going for it, but as De Palma’s follow-up to Carrie, we were left wanting. But Kirk Douglas did not do much horror, so here we are. Enjoy!

The Fury (1977)

Episode 208, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: I’m Craig.

Todd: Some of our longtime listeners will understand that whenever a famous person dies, we feel sad and then we go to the internet and see what horror movies have they been in, right? So that we can do our own special tribute to them.

And last month, Kirk Douglas died. Kirk Douglas was 103 years old when he died. So I’d say he’s lived a pretty long and rich life. Very well known, very successful actor, has spawned, literally spawned other well-known and successful actors. So here we are today, doing the only horror movie really that I could find that he’s done: The Fury by Brian de Palma, and kind of a nice little follow up in 1977 from Carrie.

Which was well received, but not quite as big blockbuster powerhouse moneymaker that he expected it to be. So he immediately did a follow up. Kind of along the same themes. Is there, Carrie, we’re still dealing with telekinesis and these kinds of psychic powers, but it is a bit more of, um, I dunno, a thriller.

Globe tried and kind of adventure takes us out of a high school and way out into the wider world with all of these other factions in play. So I think he’s just trying to make a slightly bigger movie that’s going to have a wide appeal, which is why I think it categorizes as a horror film. Um, but if you go to IMDB or if you go to Wikipedia, they call it a science fiction horror thriller film.

And I think that’s probably a little more accurate. Maybe. Maybe a little closer to the thriller side there horror elements here. There are some Sci-Fi elements because we’re dealing with these psychic powers instead of supernatural. Powers, I guess. But at the end of the day, this was the movie we have and we’re going to have a lot to talk about, I think.

So. How about you, Craig? Uh, what did you think of this movie? Had you seen it before?

Craig: No, I had never seen it before. I had heard of it a little bit before my time. It came out a year or two before I was born, and so I probably just missed it for that reason. I am a big fan of DePalma’s Carrie, and there are certainly elements of that here.

Uh, you, like you said, you know, Carrie was. Successful for the lower budget film that it was, but DePalma felt like it just didn’t have the star power that it needed. I mean, sissy Spacek went on to be a household name and very famous in her own right. But at that time was, she wasn’t a name. And Kirk Douglas is a huge name and had been for decades.

He started out in the theater, had a successful career in the theater. Uh, and then went off to serve in world war II. And I don’t remember if his acting career in film started just just before that or really kind of picked up after he came back. He hadn’t really planned on making the jump to film, but a friend of his.

Famous actress convinced him and hooked him up with an audition and he got a role and that launched, you know, just a huge film career, incredibly famous. And like you said, you know, he’s the father of Kirk Douglas, who is also a huge movie star. Michael’s son. Cameron is into films, uh, now, after struggling with some legal issues.

But yeah, I mean, he’s this guy, he’s a Hollywood legend. This movie, you know, is a little bit out of his wheelhouse. And what was funny to me is I feel like they’re kind of in this movie, they’re presenting him as almost like an action hero. Yeah. And even, even at this point, I mean, he’s, he’s a good looking man.

Um, but he was 61 when this was filmed, and, and he’s starting to show his age. You know, I, I firmly believe that he is in the physical condition in this movie to do the things that he portrays. Um, but he is getting older at this point. But like you said, he lived to be 103, I guess that that was not atypical in his family.

His family, I guess, uh, had a history of living long lives. And so he was no exception. And, uh, just recently passed away. And of course, you know, his surviving children, I don’t know how many of them. Boys are left. I know that suicide has also been a constant in their family, as has been addiction. So I know that he’s lost a, at least one, if not a couple of his sons to that, but his surviving family was sad, but you know, of course they were able, uh, to pay tribute to his long.

And illustrious life and career. So that’s nice. So we just wanted to do this just to kind of pay tribute to somebody who really earned his position in Hollywood. I have a lot of respect for this guy. I, you know, I can’t say that I’m a huge fan. It’s not like I’ve seen tons of Kirk Douglas films, but you just have to respect somebody who’s had that kind of longevity.

And, uh, this, this movie. I think it’s alright. Even Brian DePalma says that it’s not one of his favorite movies that he’s made. I think that he had a lot of ambition and it is an ambitious movie. There’s quite a lot going on. I personally found it a little bit slow, but I’m also, I, I have no attention span, so that could just

Todd: be me.

Were you watching this on your computer as well while you were at work? The second half,

you know, um, Craig and I, uh, talk actually outside of this podcast, believe it or not. And uh, he had mentioned to me when he was in the middle of watching this, that he was going to finish it soon and warned me a little bit that the movie was going to be slow. So going into it, I had that. That thought that maybe it was going to be a slow film.

And I intentionally watched it at a time when I wasn’t terribly tired because I also have very little patience for slow movies. I do have to echo your sentiment though about the film. I do also think it runs a little slow. It’s odd because I’m a big fan of Roger Ebert and, um, I went and I just. Couldn’t help.

I try not to read too many reviews before we do this because I don’t want them to really color my own personal thoughts. But occasionally I want to hear what Roger Ebert has to say about it. And in his review, which was three out of four stars, he called it fast paced. I think maybe for the time. Yeah.

Maybe for the time this would have been considered a. Somewhat fast paced movie, although there were other critics and people at the time also complaining that it was a little slow. I think most of the complaints about this movie centered around just how the plot doesn’t make a lot of sense, or it just has got a lot of holes in it or it’s a little hard to comprehend, and I would share that sentiment for sure.

Craig: That’s something else that I said to you too. I said, you know, I’ve got a half an hour left and I’m not really sure where the plot is going. Like I. I just didn’t know. I couldn’t figure out what the end game was supposed to be. And ultimately when it did get to the end, I was kind of like, that’s it.

Todd: It’s over awfully quickly

Craig: if right.

We sat through this whole thing just to get to that, like, I don’t know, it was kind of disappointing to me. I don’t want to go into it, you know, cause it’s not a bad movie. I don’t think it’s. Bad at all. I think it’s, it’s competently made. Uh, the performances are fine and it’s not like things don’t happen.

Things do happen. There are big action pieces and there are interesting characters. Um, so I don’t want to start it out as though I think it’s a bad movie because I don’t, I, I just found it a little bit confusing. And a little bit slow, but those are my biggest complaints. Really.

Todd: Okay. Yeah. Fair enough. Me too.

I would say that the movie aspires to, like I said earlier, it kind of aspires to be pretty big and globe trotting. I thought it was really funny, the, the opening scene, the title card comes up and just says. Middle East, like like middle East as a country there, right? It doesn’t matter apparently to the directors or maybe to the audience.

It’s it. We’re just going to have a desert area. They’re going to be terrorists involved, you know, it’s the middle East. Right, right. But, um, Kirk Douglas that comes out of the swimming out of the water with a kid and it turns out that this is his son. And I say, kid, he’s, he’s an adult. He’s an adult kid.

Probably. Is he supposed to be 19 2021 maybe?

Craig: Yeah, that’s what I’m guessing. Like maybe just out of high school would be my guest.

Todd: His name is Robin

Craig: and Kirk Douglas’s character’s name is Peter. And there’s this scene where they’re there, you know. They race, like they’re competitive, but it’s all in good fun.

They race in the water and then they’re just kind of like wrestling around, you know, very macho kind of stuff and very much, but, but then they sit down at like a, like a bistro table, like on the beach. They’re talking and Robin is, they’re going to be moving to Chicago and Robin’s worried about it for some reason, and you just get this suggestion that they’re moving to Chicago for Robyn, and he’s going to be going to this Institute and he’s nervous about it.

I just won’t fit in there

Todd: like some kind of freak.

Craig: What is this or may find out what was wrong with this? Nothing wrong with you.

Todd: I till Cain, a zoo. Now what the hell are you doing?

Craig: Feeling sorry for yourself, okay. You have a talent that was shocked. The hell out of people. What is a talent that else can be put to good?

Use nothing to be ashamed of. Not sugar’s understands this. That’s why he wants you to go to this school in Chicago and meet other kids that

Todd: are

Craig: special. Like you. And we find out of course, later that, uh, it’s psychic kind of, it’s, it’s more about telekinesis and they call it bio magnetic energy or something like that.

And then there’s also another guy there named Childress, played by

Todd: John Cassavetes.

Craig: Yeah. John Cassavetes from . Lots of things, but I always remember him as the husband from Rosemary’s baby, and you can tell right away that he shady or something going on with this guy and out of the blue. There’s this huge terrorist attack and it’s a, it’s a huge like action sequence with machine guns and explosions and boats, and right away I was like, Oh, okay.

Todd: Yeah, it’s going to be that kind

Craig: of movie.

Todd: It happens. Uh, after the boy Robin walks away from the table along with Childress and Kirk Douglas is still sitting there kind of finishing his wine. And it seems like they’re targeting him. It becomes kind of obvious that they’re targeting him at the table. And so a children’s is pulling away Rob, and he’s not letting him go back to help Kirk Douglas as everything’s kind of under siege.

I keeps calling Peter. Peter is his name, and he goes into this big sequence where he runs and he manages to get away on a, on a little . Boat and tear off across the water. But then the terrorists shoot the boat and the boat explodes. Robin’s really upset cause dad’s dead gets pulled away. But of course we see dads sneak out of the water and when he looks up, he can see on the wall that Childress is there.

Talking to one of the guys who was shooting at him. So he immediately realizes he’s been betrayed. He finds a gun from one of the guy’s corpses on the beach and shoots up at Childress and children’s says, arm gets injured. Uh, and then he runs away. I don’t even know if we get a title card, years have passed or anything like that, but now where

Craig: a year a year has gone by, it’s 19 we started in 1977 now it’s 1978 in Chicago.

Todd: Chicago, right. Present day. Uh, and, and we’re going to Chicago. We know is where Robin was going to go. I had initially had the impression he was going to a school, but you know, it’s, it’s like you said, it’s an Institute and we’re at a school and there’s a woman walking along with her friend, uh, and the woman’s name is Ghillean.

She’s played by Amy Irving. Amy Irving is. Has these phenomenal eyes, this movie, by the way, it’s so seventies like I don’t think any of the women here are wearing bras. The look at the time was very much like super skinny and so is Amy Irving. She’s super skinny in this movie. She’s very attractive.

Craig: Yes, she is.

She had been in Carrie too. She played Sue Snell. And Carrie, so she and DePalma had worked together before and they’re not at a school yet. Like there, we jumped from one beach to another, like they must be on the beach at Lake Michigan or something.

Todd: You’re right there outside the, well,

Craig: yeah, you’re right.

You’re right. And they’re in bathing suits and they’re just walking around and they’re talking and like they’re studying for. Exams or something. I don’t know. Her and a friend, some weird guy starts following them and they notice, and so then he backs off and we see him call somebody on the phone and he says, I found one.

It’s a girl. She’s a psychic. She can help you and we can hear that. It’s Peter on the other end of. The line, but we also see that this guy, this weird guy, is being watched. Like there’s surveillance cameras everywhere. There are, you know, guys in suits, you know, watching, you know, when it jumped to those girls.

This is one of the things. That I kind of take issue with this movie a little bit. It for the longest time, it kind of feels like it’s two separate movies. There’s the Peter looking for Robin story, which is what’s going on. He’s trying to track down his son, and then there’s this Gillian’s story, which is almost like a coming of age story where she’s discovering that she has.

The psychic powers, and you know that the stories are going to intersect at some point that it takes forever

Todd: till pretty much the end of the movie. That’s the problem. And it’s interesting, but I think we’ve already seen Carrie at this point.  and so this part with Ghillean. I thought it was kind of slow.

I don’t know. And that’s unfair, you know, I think you should always sorta take stories as they come at you and take them at face value. You’re supposed to, as an audience, and this is an interesting thing of maybe about commercial film and about art in general, is, you know, people always make movies with this idea that you’re coming in clean, right?

Like you could hit the reset button on the audience. They come in and they see this fresh story, and I think. As a film maker, your feeling is, all right, we’re going to tell this story from the beginning to a blank slate. And actually audiences come to movies knowing the actors, having seen trailers, seeing stuff about it beforehand.

Maybe they came to this movie because they were interested in seeing what else Brian DePalma is gonna throw at them. And so, you know, for this reason, lots of times directors like to shake it up a little bit. There’s the one side of Hollywood where we give them more of the same, but we put new twists on it.

And then there’s this other side of this auto tour side, which was really big. You know, especially in the 70s before we got into the big blockbuster hits and a guy like. DePalma is very much an odd tour where they always want to surprise the audience. They don’t want to be pigeonholed and boxed in. So on the one hand, I think it’s kind of surprising that a guy like DePalma would go in and in a way tell his Kerry story again, in another sense, I feel like, uh, and it’s not really a Carrie story.

I mean, she’s not, the setting is different and things are different, but it’s still this girl coming to terms with her psychic powers.

Craig: Right. And it seems like, you know, today. This would probably be called a spiritual sequel. Yeah. You know, most of the people who were going to see this movie in the theaters probably had seen Carrie.

Todd: That’s what I’m saying. Right?

Craig: Yeah. And we’re familiar with the whole telekinesis thing, and so. They don’t have to take as much time to establish that, and it is different in that in a carry, that poor girl was alone. You know? She was on her own for so many reasons and then being different in that she had these telekinetic powers just further isolated her.

Yeah. This movie is different in that this phenomenon is known about. And there are professionals in the field and there’s this Institute where people can go and so it’s bigger. It’s just, it’s, it’s grander in scope. I don’t know. I mean, I think it works fine and you could, you could. Easily watch this without having seen Carrie and have no problem following what’s going on.

It’s just almost as though this whole telekinesis thing just doesn’t seem like as big a deal. It’s a big deal that the certain people are special and there are. People out there who want to find them and utilize them for their own purposes, but it’s not as big a deal in that, Oh my gosh, what is happening now that, you know, they, they get it, you know?

Todd: Um, yeah. Everyone’s cool with it in a way, or they’re, they’re open to it.

Craig: Right. Right.

Todd: Well, and, and another problem that she seems to have is that she can’t control it so well. Uh, and that sometimes when people touch her, she sees visions of them. And this is explained, I think, by a, a person, uh, there’s, there’s a kind of, this Institute visits their school, it’s the Paragon Institute, and it visits their school and into one of their classes.

And they have this elaborate setup. Way too elaborate really, but okay. It’s a movie, right? That they’re using to demonstrate brainwave activity, and they have a girl attached to an electrode attached to a train. That’s this giant train on this big table that’s going around in the circle, and the woman explains.

That, uh, the, the woman’s brainwaves are controlling the train. So the stronger her brainwaves, the faster she can make this train go. It’s not just that you could make things move or whatever, but there’s also the imprint of all of history. Floating around us in this psychic magnetic field so that people can even get visions of the past and maybe of the future, because who are able to tap into this energy field that everything runs behind this imprint.

And this is pretty typical stuff too. I think it’s really funny. During the sequence. Then of course you know what’s going to happen and indeed it does happen. Who else wants to volunteer and get hooked up to this thing? And sure enough, the woman zeroes in Angelique, Hey, why don’t you try? Okay. She clicks it on and immediately the train starts going fast and faster and faster and faster.

And I was wondering, is this a class about psychic phenomena or is this just something that the Paragon Institute brought in.

Craig: I have no idea. I, you know, I couldn’t figure out why they were there either. Um, maybe it’s a psychology class or something. I, I have no idea. But yeah. No. So the, the train goes so fast that it crashes or derails or something, but she also has a vision of a bloody face, which frightens her.

And then we cut away. You know, we’re, we’re constantly cutting back and forth between these two stories. We actually skipped, there was a whole other big action scene where, uh, this suits, you know, whoever they are, find Peter in this rundown hotel. He sees them coming. So he goes out the window in his underwear and like parkours across the street.

Uh, and ends up in this, you know, these other people’s apartment. Then there is, you know, this whole scene where the two primary residence, it’s this middle aged couple and they’re, they’re set up to be goofy. You know, he has them tied up and their elderly mother is like pampering him and giving him cookies and stuff.

Might as well just leave him there. They ain’t got anything to say. I want a union. I’ve heard it all before. Peter, that’s your real name. Your reason why you’d make up lies to tell me how don’t matter. Anyhow,

and there’s a sense get in your way. Just shooting them. That’s all they deserved. And it was played very much for comedy, like, yeah, I was very surprised by how comedic it went in this moment because it never really takes that tone again, but it was kind of cute and funny. I mean, I enjoyed it,

Todd: but you’re right, it’s so out of place in this movie.

It like suddenly. Uh, we’re in this hilarious little domestic scene. She’s made him breakfast and she’s chatting with him a mile a minute cause he’ll actually respond to her.

Craig: Well, yeah. And he just skies himself in this ridiculous disguise. Or like he uses white shoe Polish to whiten his hair and he puts on glasses and he shoves like a couch cushion under his shirt.

Um. And, and doesn’t even conceal it. Well, like it’s sticking out. Like it’s, it’s the silliest disguise. Um, and it doesn’t even work. And this Institute must be really well funded because they have surveillance. Everywhere. Just dozens of guys in suits and sunglasses, like positioned on streets and in buildings.

So everywhere Peter goes, he’s surrounded by like 15 people watching him. It’s kinda crazy. And then there’s a big car chase. Uh, he, he like. Commandeers a police car with the police in it.

Todd: And now this is also kind of comedic to these two guys. Again, they’re kind of playing this for laughs too. Not, not the outright comedy that the other one is, but they’re trying to get something going between these two guys.

It’s cute and it’s a little funny, but. It’s also a little silly. Yeah. You know, I don’t know. There’s a little bit of hammy acting going on here between these two guys. But anyway, you know, there’s this long, long action scene where there’s this chase in the car, and I honestly didn’t even understand the scene too well because at one point, and they’re going through Chicago, and this is clearly filmed on the streets of Chicago.

So it’s a cool set piece because they’re going under the owl, and. And in these titles and things that Chicago is kind of known for, and then it’s because it’s night, they’re driving basically through, I think it was supposed to be into a construction site or some kind of  or something, and it’s too foggy.

This really, you know, fast paced action scene kind of Peters out. Into nothing because the car magically drives into this fog and disappears. The others come in one by one and can’t see anything and stop, and then the cars there, ha ha. And it’s almost like they’re taunting these guys and he’s got this little plan,

Craig: like one of them, somehow he tricks one car of bad guys into shooting up the other car of bad guys somehow the year.

Right. It kind of doesn’t make . Since you know, it seems like the good guy car can just kind of appear and disappear whenever it wants to. And so the bad guy cars, you know, are always. Taken off guard and he eventually dispatches all of the bad guys that are following them. And then for reasons that I don’t understand.

Okay, so this, uh, the car that he took with the cops in it, it’s not a marked police car. In fact, it’s just one of the cops personal cars. And like that’s part of the joke. He’s like, Oh, I just bought it an hour ago. Please be careful. And so then at the end. For reasons that I don’t understand. He just tells those guys.

He lets the cops out of the car and he. Tells them, see children, ask him who was worth his arm, what happened to his arm. I killed it with a machine gun, a Peter and I wait, tell the chill risk to follow me. And then he drives it into either Lake Michigan or the river. I don’t know why that was mean.

Meanwhile,

Todd: yeah,

Craig: back back at Gilley’s school, some girls are, well, one girl I guess really is kind of given her a hard time about, you know, Oh, so you’ve got powers now or whatever, and this girl is. Played by Laura Inez, who went on to do a very long run, uh, on ER. I wouldn’t have recognized her. She was so much younger than, and then one of the other random girls just sitting at the table is Darryl Hannah.

And I kept looking at her like, why do I know that girl? She’s so familiar, and I couldn’t figure it out for the longest time. And finally, apparently for both of these women who went on to have . Big careers. This was their first appearance in a feature film. But, um, so this girl played by Laura ins is, you know, just being your typical mean girl, uh, taunting Ghillean she says something like, you know, prove it.

Read my mind is what she says. And Ghillean basically says something like, I don’t think you really want me to do that. And she’s like, what do you mean, why wouldn’t I want you to do that? And Gillian’s says, well, I don’t think that you would want everybody to know you were pregnant. So the girl freaks out.

She’s like, how did you know that? Ah, um, and she grabs Gilliam by the wrist and Ghillean is visibly upset, and she says, let go, let go, let go. And it’s because this other girl starts bleeding like her nose starts bleeding. And I don’t remember, but this is the side effect of Gillian’s powers, is that I don’t know if she affects the energy around her or what, but for whatever reason, she makes people bleed.

Uh, and later on when she’s talking to the professionals, um, they tell her. That everybody that you come in contact with and one of these episodes is going to bleed. Some people might bleed a little bit, some people might bleed a lot, and that is not. An exaggeration because some of these people like you blood from every orifice when they’re in her presence, and so obviously she’s upset by that and wants to get some answers and also wants to be able to control that, which is what leads her to looking into this Paragon Institute.

I guess.

Todd: Then Peter manages to catch up with this woman named Hester, and we have seen Hester, she was one of the people from the Institute at the school, and it turns out that he knows her. He, she’s like a former girlfriend of his or something like that. I’m really not sure where that relationship came from.

Did they ever explain

Craig: their back? I don’t think they did, but the impression that I got was that he sought her out and that initially it was really just kind of deception. Like he established a relationship with her because he wanted some access to Paragon, and because she worked there, she could be his access, but it also appears that over the course of their relationship.

They really have developed feelings for one another, and he does have. Feelings for her. Um, cause later on, spoiler alert, she dies and he’s sad

and he feels guilty. He feels guilty for getting her involved. He feels like it’s his fault.

Todd: I mean, she’s a pretty young . Person and he’s clearly a lot older and they have, you know, they have this moment in the back of the van where it’s clear they’ve just had sex. You know, it’s this post-coital sitting there.

He’s staring off into space and she’s cuddling up to him. And I was like, ah, I don’t know. I mean, it’s fine, you know, whatever. But he was almost old enough to be her a grant,

Craig: at least.

Todd: At least her dad. And he was Carrie Snawgrass actually. Um, you know, we’ve, we’ve run into her before. She was. Probably most famous, I think, just for having a relationship with Neil young and during one of his kids.

But she did some acting work. She was on TV and some movies, and we have talked about her before because we did a movie called trick or treats a God awful movie. That was all sort of filmed on weekends by this guy. This director is kind of a side project and it was all filmed in her house. Oh, right.

Craig: I had forgotten about that.

Todd: She had a little bit part to play in it, but mostly she just provided the house. So now she kind of comes in the middle that she’s our connection really, because she’s at the Institute and she’s getting to know Ghillean and getting Gillian’s trust at the same time. The Institute is the same place where we find out.

Well, it was pretty obvious that his son, Robin, was taken. And so he’s trying to get back there and figure out what happened to Robin. So she’s the connecting tissue kind of between them and the magnet that is drawing those two, these two stories together, more or less, but it certainly takes a while.

Craig: It does, eh?

Yeah. And, and Ghillean kind of goes to Paragon. On her own. Um, and there she meets a couple of doctors. There’s dr Lindstrom who is, uh, a woman doctor. And then there’s, uh, dr Jim McKeever, who’s played by, uh, Charles Durning, who has. Been in a million things, but I always think of him, he was the mayor in vessel harass in Texas, and he’s hilarious.

And he can sing, but they, she goes there and they’re very nice to her and it seems like a, you know, it’s a nice place. Um, they’re putting her up in this nice, sweet. And they say they’re going to help her and it’s hard to tell, or at least it was hard for me to tell whether or not they were being sincere in their kindness and generosity, or if they had their own personal motives as it, as it turns out, child truss has his thumb on this.

Institute somehow and for some reason, I don’t know. I don’t even know. Does he work for the government? Does he work in some sort of private sector? I could never figure that out. Is he just some rich guy who has interest in this and who can afford to pay hundreds of the likes spies to hang out all the time?

I never really understood who he was or what. Organization he worked for, did you?

Todd: It’s hard to say because I don’t think it’s ever made clear, but my presumption was it had something to do with the CIA because I’m, Peter is a former CIA agent, and so I figured that was their connection with somehow in the CIA and then.

Again, this is just, I think, my mind putting it, you know, trying to fill in the blanks more than anything else. I figured this was part of some offshoot kind of relationship, a part of a CIA kind of telekinesis, psychic program that they might have because he does make some comment later about weaponizing these people, but that’s much later in the movie and it’s never really clear.

Yeah. What’s going to happen? It’s, it’s really just like he’s the bad guy and the Institute, you’re right also comes across as. Being under his thumb.  the Institute itself isn’t necessarily sinister except for the fact that in some way they’re, they are cooperating or had been cooperating with this guy.

But the guy who runs the Institute has serious qualms about it. And right. He and Glen strum have this interesting conversation by the fire where they’re deciding what to do with her and how are they going to protect her. And it’s, it’s funny because I think it’s cute when Gilead comes to the Institute, there’s this.

Almost cliche like montage. Montage. Yeah. Where it’s like she’s having a sleep over here. Yeah. They’re running outside their plague. Frisbee. They’re skipping around. They’re eating. They’re playing video

Craig: games. Yeah. Playing with a dog.

Todd: I had to laugh. That was, that also felt. I don’t want to say out of place.

It just seemed a little silly for something Brian DePalma would do.

Craig: Well, I think what they’re trying to establish is a relationship between Hester and Ghillean primarily, and Hester is trying to get close to her because Peter is interested in her because he believes that she can help him find Robin.

Right. You still don’t know. It’s unclear to us if Robin is even alive. Because they keep saying he’s dead. Um, and at one point, I think it’s after all this happy time, but at one point, um, she’s talking with, uh, dr McKeever and he’s very nice and, and he’s consistently nice to her, but she, either he grabs her or she grabs him.

I think maybe she teeters on the stairs or something. So she grabs him for balance and she has another vision. And it’s a vision of him, dr McKeever chasing Robin through the house and up the staircase that they’re standing on, and when they get to the top of the staircase, Robin backs away from dr McKeever and backs all the way.

Out of the window and she sees him go out the window. It’s on the second story at least. So we don’t even know if he’s dead. And at this point, of course, that makes her suspicious of the Institute and of dr McKeever, as you said, it seems like an unwilling partnership. You know, it just seems like children has the power to make them do whatever he wants them to do.

Um, and it seems like the doctors, especially McKeever, are. Frightened of him, uh, and probably should be in that I, I didn’t notice it in the moment. I didn’t notice it until later, but in that montage, when they’re doing cutesy stuff, there’s a, a scene really where they’re sitting there playing cards or something.

Hester and Gill and. Hester’s like, Oh, wouldn’t it be nice if we had some ice cream Sundays? And like she describes all the topics and then this, like the cook for the Institute comes out with this ridiculous like sundae bar on, on a tray with like every topic you could imagine. And then they proceed to make their Sundays and they use like every topic.

Like they just put everything on it, which is funny in and of itself, but it’s even funnier when you realize. That the cook is large. Marge, did you catch that? No. She’s large. Marge from a Peewee Herman, uh, Oh of it. Her name name’s Alice nun. I didn’t recognize her in that moment, but she is, she sticks around.

She’s there. Um, and I noticed later and I’m like, wait a minute, is that large Marge? I’m like investigating on my computer. Sure enough.

Todd: I thought that film, that scene was so funny because they’re having this conversation, but after awhile you kind of become distracted by these horrifying Sundays that they’re putting together, just to have every little bit on it.

And then at the end of the scene, she talks into the Sunday and like almost vomit. She’s like, this is too much. And I thought, yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking. I mean, it was really funny. You know, Brian DePalma, uh, as a director, he’s, uh, he’s very much of. On our tour. He got a real Hitchcockian vibe, actually, I think to the way that he films things, and a lot of times it works.

Sometimes it’s distracting, but nobody’s ever going to fault him for not being an excellent director. And every time they film a scene where two people are sitting at a table, he does the same thing in this movie where the camera starts a one part of this tape, one side of this table, and it slowly pans around.

To the other side while they’re talking, and sometimes they’re not done talking. By the time it gets around to the other side, so then it starts kind of slowly sweeping around the other way. And you know, the first one or two times this happened, it started to call attention to itself. And then it seems to happen every single time they film these seeds of two people sitting down at a table talking to the point where it got to the Sunday scene.

I’m like, here we go again. Camera around the table. I didn’t

Craig: notice.

Todd: There were even shades of psycho a little bit. He, he likes to film top down a lot too, just to shake things up a little bit. And that scene where Robin is chased up the stairs and out the window, it’s a sort of top down scene, very reminiscent of the scene of psycho where.

Norman Bates, his character comes out with a knife and pushes someone down the stairs. I always think it’s quite interesting in movies, how windows are so super fragile, right? People never just back out of an open window, which is a lot more realistic like they do. He just backs out, breaks the glass and pains of this window as he goes down.

Craig: At this point, Ghillean just kind of becomes a pawn, like everybody wants her. McKeever wants to. Tell children that any does in fact tell children that, um, she’s a fake. She’s a phony. She doesn’t really have any powers. But then. There’s an incident where Lindstrom is talking to Jillian and Ghillean has these visions of Robin and she sees that he is alive and he’s somewhere where he’s being tested on and like he’s all hooked up to electrodes and computers and all kinds of things.

While she’s in the midst of this vision, she’s also touching Lindstrom and Lidstrom is bleeding like. From everywhere, like from her eyes or ears, her nose, her fingernails,

Todd: light it off.

Craig: It just blood everywhere. I thought that she was dead, but we never see her again. But they say that she’s recovering or something.

So when children. Finds out about that. Then he knows she has power, so he wants her. Meanwhile, Peter is trying to get Hester to sneak a Gilliam out, which she eventually does. Um, and it’s, you know, just kind of this contrived thing where she plays this ruse and she gets Gilly and out, and there’s. A chase down the street, of course, because they’re constantly under surveillance and there’s constantly these guys in suits around and there’s this chase down the street.

Ghillean ends up meeting up with Peter, but Hester, does she get shot or did she get hit by a car? She gets hit by a car, doesn’t she

Todd: hit by a car

Craig: and she’s dead. And then Gilliam and Peter. Get on a bus, like a Greyhound to go to where Robin is because Ghillean knows where he is now and they make a point of saying that Jillian and Peter are psychically connected, but they never explain why.

I don’t understand Robin, right? Yes. Excuse me. Ghillean and Robin, the two psychic young people are psychically connected, but I don’t remember them ever really explaining why

Todd: do you know? They don’t really. They don’t really say anything about it, but before we go on, I think that this scene is really.

Interesting because this whole chase outside happens during the day and it’s all in slow motion. It was a very interesting choice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this kind of a chase entirely in slow motion go on for so long, but I guess. Maybe it was to distract us from the fact that these guys get away awfully easily.

Like for all the fact that these suits are around and all the stuff, and they’re these cars coming at them and they’re under this constant surveillance. They can just sort of stand out on the street and grieve over Hester for awhile and just leave. After that. I mean, there’s these actions scenes come in and they’re under pressure when it’s convenient for, but then they can just kind of get away and then they’re fine for awhile.

The impression is, given that they’re, all of these people are under constant surveillance. They’re part of this, this really sinister and big program, but they’re able still to move around quite easily when the plot requires it. And also, I wasn’t sure about Robin, was this another D? Was this like.

Children’s is part of the organization pulled that pulled him away from the Paragon Institute?

Craig: Yes. And that, that’s what I was going to say. We’re probably about half an hour from the end now and now we go to the third movie, which is about Robin, and apparently what has happened is they took him from Paragon.

Um, because he had all this power and they have been, um, testing him and training him to hone his abilities. And it’s worked. Like he is, is very much in control of his psychic abilities. But a side effect is that he has become. Very edgy, which I assume is where the title comes from, the fury, like all of a sudden, you know, before when we met him in the beginning, he was this nice kid.

Um, and now he’s just on edge all the time. He’s snapping at people all the time. One of children’s people as this woman, this dark haired woman, and it seems like she and Robin are in like a romantic or sexual relationship. Mm. Which is weird. Uh, cause she seems significantly older than him. He’s so on edge that she tells, this woman, tells Childress I need to take him on a vacation.

He needs some, some rest and some, some time to calm down. And children’s was like, fine, you can take him for one day. Uh, take them around the city, show him the sites, but then you have to come back. So she does, she takes him into downtown Chicago and we see him walking around in this indoor amusement park, which I guess was an actual, uh, establishment in Chicago.

It was directed, I think in 1975 and closed by 1980 and then torn down by 86. So it didn’t last very long, but it was the first. Like indoor amusement park slash shopping mall, and it makes for a really good set piece.

Todd: Yeah, and that’s kind of all it is. I mean, here’s the problem. I think one of the props that this movie is, I feel like we’re supposed to sympathize with Robin in some way,

Craig: but it’s hard too, because he’s a jerk now.

Todd: Yeah. We really haven’t known Rob, except for one scene in the very beginning. We haven’t really seen him again and now we see him again. He’s a total asshole, so you know, it’s hard to feel much sympathy for him. He’s just kind of a loose cannon and he’s walking through this amusement park and this just demonstrates it.

He sees, he sees some Arabs.

Craig: Yeah. Well end. He’s already, he’s already ticked off because he saw his. Girlfriend, I guess whatever she is, he saw her talking to a couple of other friends. Who are they? These are friends of mine from the Institute. And you planning on seeing them later? No, Robin here.

Todd: Which one are you going to screw first?

Craig: So he storms off and he’s all mad and you’re right. He sees some middle Easterners.

Todd: The guys from the middle East and we know he doesn’t like the middle East anymore. They get on this spinning thing, you know, that spins the pie up into the air and there’s another group of them that are sitting in a restaurant like on a second or third story building inside this building that are watching it happen and he makes.

With his psychic powers, he makes it malfunction and the little chair that they’re on fly through the air and through the window into all of the, the group of people. So I, those are just innocent people out. Tried to, at first I thought maybe there was a problem, like maybe these were bad people somehow associated with the Institute, but no, they were just, just tourists.

Yeah. Just tourists that he tried to kill. Maybe killed.

Craig: Right. Maybe killed. I mean, who knows? So he’s an asshole. Yeah. I mean, he’s a jerk, so it’s hard. And like, I thought, well, you know, when his dad finds him, he’ll cause he thinks his dad’s dead too. Like everybody’s lying to him. Everybody’s lying to everybody.

Um, so he thinks his dad is dead. I’m thinking, you know, Peter, we’ll find him. Ghillean will help Peter find him and they’ll rescue him and he’ll. Be rehabilitated somehow. And so that’s what I was expecting to happen. And it seems like that’s going to happen. Ghillean and Peter get to the Institute, Robin is back there and he can sense that Ghillean is around and he thinks that they are bringing her in to replace him.

So he’s angry again and he locks himself in a room with his girlfriend. And levitates her into the air and spins her around and around and around. She dies, doesn’t see,

Todd: it’s a really horrific seed actually. She’s got her bleeding somehow, and as he’s spinning her around, there’s like. Blood splattering on the walls and stuff.

It looks really brutal, but we don’t see like that moment where she dies. We just see her spinning and the blood flying, and then the next time we come in here like and see that we, we know that she’s dead. You know? That’s another interesting thing about this movie is there’s, there’s like so much time goes by and there these car chases and they’re those little moments of comedy and whatever, and then you get these really gory, really horrific scene.

Uh, that just punctuated, uh, every now and then, you know, like, just to compare it with Carrie, like Carrie has one, you know, I mean, there are some things, you know, kind of that happened during Carrie, but it’s all culminating and leading up to the big climax at the end, right? Were Carrie goes ape and, and everybody dies.

This is like. Boom, boom, boom.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Really graphic. So it’s odd he’s going for this tent pole, mainstream kind of jaws killer, which is kind of what he wanted to do with this movie that he makes. It’s so gory.

Craig: And it kind of reminded me of a, a Gallo film, like full cheese, like with the bright red blood and, um, the closeups on people’s eyes as they’re bleeding from their eyes, sockets and stuff.

It had that similar style and, and then so he kills. His girlfriend and Peter and Ghillean are captured by children’s as people, and they’re broad side and Peter wants to be taken to his son, and eventually children’s is like, okay, he’s in there. Yeah, I’ll go see him. So Peter walks in and he doesn’t realize that Robin is levitating above the door.

So he walks right underneath him and then he turns around and sees him. Robin has already killed a couple more guys at this point, and so he turns around and he sees him and he just says, what have they done to you.

I know they told you I was dead. You wanted me out of the way.

I never gave up. I kept looking for you all the time. And then Robin attacks, Peter, which I didn’t even get like, cause this is his dad. They had a great relationship. He thought he was dead. Here he is, but he just immediately attacks him. They both end up going out the window and then Peter ends up like holding on to Robin as Robin is dangling over the ledge of the.

House, and in my mind I’m thinking the dude was just flying. Like, why all of a sudden, why all of a sudden now is this like precarious? Like it’s dangerous. Like he’s hanging here. Why doesn’t he just float? He was just floating. I don’t get that. But anyway, so he’s holding onto him P uh, Peter’s holding onto him, trying to save him.

And Robin reaches up. And like digs his fingernails into his face and like tears in his face. Peter, let’s go. Then Robin falls to the ground and he’s not dead yet. Ghillean goes in like, you know, cradles him and his eyes glow blue, which I think they’ve done before when he’s gotten really upset and then hers glow too, which has never happened before.

And then Robin dies. And then Peter seemingly throws himself off the roof. Yes. And he dies too. And that’s, and that’s the point where I’m like, really? Like this whole movie has been about Peter trying to find his son. He finally does, and then 30 seconds later they’re both dead. Like. Yeah. That it just seemed like such a weird end to that story.

Todd: Yeah. Very unsatisfying. And I mean, I mean, I guess it defies your expectations. Like you said, you’re expecting them to have this reunion and Robin’s like, Oh my gosh, you know, your, uh, your dad, you’re alive. And dad’s like, son, I always knew you were alive. You know, you, you, there would be, and then together, maybe they could do something, but the point is.

Again, the movies, the fury, Robin is just over the edge and he’s uncontrollable and not in control of himself and probably doesn’t even recognize his dad, whatever. Right.

Craig: And that’s it. I mean like

Todd: that is basically it because,

Craig: well, there’s a cap scene.

Todd: There is a cap scene, and I’m going to get to that. I guess what happens is that Robin transfers his powers

Craig: and that’s the impression that I got.

Todd: Yeah. Into Gilliam. So the next morning, uh, Ghillean is in the bed of this place. After all of this children’s comes into the room,

Craig: he comes in and, you know, he’s nice to her and he’s reassuring and he’s like, everybody, you know, was wrong about me. I never had any bad intentions. I just want to help you. You know, I, I wanted to help Robin and, and so he paints himself to be this benevolent guy.

And it seems like she falls for it because, um, she like embraces him and then kisses him. But I guess it was a trick because, uh, his eyes start to bleed and he gets up and he’s blind and he’s stumbling around the room. And, um, then. She blows them up with our mind.

Todd: Yup. He explodes and you get to see it like 10 times because we get from all the different angles. I guess the first time they filmed this scene, it didn’t go quite right and the body parts weren’t flying in the directions they were supposed to. So it took them days to get back to the scene because the room was a big mess.

They had to clean it all up and try it again. But yeah, he explodes in this, again, for a mainstream movie, this is a, I don’t know, I guess it was the 70s, you know, there were things were different then, but, uh, it’s pretty gory.

Craig: Yeah, it is. And that’s just it. I mean, we don’t know what happens to Ghillean. We presume that she has these powers now, and I guess presumably she can control them now.

Um, but you know. Who knows?

Todd: It’s a little unsatisfying because she just met this guy. She didn’t really know this guy. Like this guy wasn’t the one who was really on top of her the whole time. Robin is the one who should have killed him. Yeah. You know, he’s Robin’s mortal enemy and Peter and the two of them just die.

Uh, and it’s just up to her to kind of avenge it for them. So she does, she blows him up. But like her rage, I maybe it’s just a manifestation of. Peter’s rage and Robin’s rage, I guess is like this transference may be kind of transferred a bit of his essence into her as well. And maybe that was, is what was coming out because like I said, from a plot standpoint, from kind of a character development standpoint, for her to be so angry that finally she blows somebody up.

He’s not, the guy would have thought. Would have gotten it. But he deserved to get it cause he is the mastermind apparently behind everything bad that was happening to everybody. So

Craig: exactly.

Todd: But we’re not too sure how or why. So there’s just a lot of unanswered questions and it’s, it’s a little bit like, Oh, okay.

I mean by the time the end of the movie came out, I was like, you, it is. It was an all right movie. You don’t know nothing. Nothing wrong with it. Very well made. Oh, the score. John Williams did the score

Craig: and it’s good. It’s really good. And he wrote it intentionally to try to mimic Hitchcock scores. And it sounds good.

You know, right from the beginning, uh, from the opening credits, you can tell that it’s, it’s going to be a good score and it is.

Todd: Well and I would say it elevates the movie, but honestly, like Bart Brian DePalma elevates the movie. I mean, his camera work is fantastic and the acting is, is for the most part, except for some of these big parts that get a little hammy.

Um, the acting is pretty good. It’s just as a story, it’s just a little boring for awhile because you’re waiting quite a while for it to come together and for these questions to be answered, many questions aren’t answered. And then when it does come together, it’s all kind of at the end. And. It’s over quickly and you’re just kind of scratching your head.

What was the point of this whole journey when it’s all just going to end up in tragedy in about five minutes anyway.

Craig: And you know, Kirk Douglas is good in this movie. He’s a good actor. I’m sure that if we explored outside of the realm of horror, we could find much, much stronger and more compelling, uh, performances.

By him, but you know, this is what we do. Um, so I, I’m sure this is not like his masterpiece. Um, but he is good in it. Uh, with what he’s given his, his character doesn’t have a whole lot of depth. You know, he, he’s kind of one note, you know, he’s got a singular mission and a singular focus. But he’s handsome and charming and, uh, intense in moments.

And so I still say, you know, it’s a good performance. I’m sure not one of his best, but even not at his best. He’s still a talented guy. And I think that, uh, you know, he will be. Mist in Hollywood. He hadn’t worked, um, for quite a long time before his death because he was so advanced in age, but he has 95 acting credits, uh, on his IMDP, a couple of directing credits and some producing credits.

He made a major Mark. He will be remembered in cinema history, I think, probably forever. Uh, and that’s, you know, we wanted to celebrate him and, uh, you know, give him a little sendoff. So that’s what we were doing today. And so then, so we did that, as we often do by kind of crapping on his movie

Todd: was fine.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Why is it that it’s cause it’s horror and some of these people phoned it in and he wasn’t phoning it in. It’s just not the best movie. Yeah. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend. If you like this podcast, you can just find us online by searching two guys at a chainsaw.

You’ll probably run across our YouTube channel as well. We have about half of our episodes up there now, so if you prefer to have YouTube going and listen to us, there’s no visual there just to our faces frozen on the screen, feel free to check that out. We’re trying to build audience there, so if you can subscribe to us there on YouTube, we’d really appreciate it.

Also, if you have any requests, we’re probably going to enter it. Series of requests for the next month. So send us those our way to meet through our Facebook page. You can tweet us now. Two guys, chainsaw is our Twitter handle, and you could also go to our website. Until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Before Roland Emmerich brought us huge summer blockbusters like Independence Day, Stargate, and The Day After Tomorrow, he tossed a whole bunch of Steven Spielberg films into a blender and cooked up this head-scratcher. We really wanted to fall in love with Making Contact (originally titled Joey), but it just didn’t make any damn sense. Still, the fantastic visuals, cinematography and ambition previews good things to come later.

Episode 207, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, Craig, as you well know, and hopefully our listeners have figured out by now, we’re finishing up a month of family friendly horror films is our first theme month. We’ve done The Witches, we’ve done The Gate. What else did we do?

Craig: Watcher In the Woods.

Todd: Watcher in the Woods. A Disney movie.

Disney’s first foray into horror back in the 80s so the movie that we are going to do today. Is another child of the 80s I was really excited about this movie. I remembered seeing this film on the shelves. I never picked it up and rented it, but it had a very compelling box cover art. I was a kid standing in front of what looked like his bedroom closet with some glowing and some toys and things flying out of it, and a ventriloquist dummy there and there was electricity everywhere.

It looked kind of cool, but for some reason I never picked it up on the shelves. And then when we were looking for movies to do that were kid-friendly, I was reminded of this after I saw a review of it online. The movie, by the way, it’s called Making Contact from 1985 and it says, this review said: Roland Emmerich’s terrible knock off of Poltergeist, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Firestarter. And it’s stuffed with so much eighties nostalgia. You would think it was made in 2017. Fans of Stranger Things might cream their loser pants over this piece of garbage, this movie, and all of those involved in the making of it, suck my dick.

Craig: Nice. I mean, don’t hold back.

Todd: Yeah. So this review really sold it for me because you know, you and I are both big fans of 80s nostalgia.

And so I thought, I remember the cover of this 1985 this must be the kind of lost kids eighties fantasy horror movie that I’ve been looking for. And so I said to Craig, let’s watch this movie. And of course you’ve seen. Pretty interested in it, probably for similar reasons, right?

Craig: Yeah. I mean, I, uh, I too, I’m, I’m sitting here looking at it right now, the, the box art, uh, and it’s so familiar, and I was just sure that I would start watching it and would remember that I had seen it and I just don’t know.

I don’t know if I did or not, if I did. If parently wasn’t particularly memorable to me at the time because I didn’t really remember it.

Todd: I think it’s hard to know for sure because this movie is just a mishmash of stuff that it’s kind of hard to, it was even hard for me to get a grasp on the whole thing.

I mean, I feel like I could have watched this movie and I never would have known. It would have just slipped into my mind next to all those other movies that were just rattled off in that space in my head. And so I went looking for it. And actually it’s a hard movie to find online. It doesn’t seem to be available for streaming anywhere.

There was a DVD version, a couple DVD versions of it made. What we ended up finding was on YouTube, somebody has posted a version that has been dubbed into German, but subtitled in English, but the high, the quality is really nice. I think I might’ve found another version out there that was taken from the VHS tape, but it wasn’t widescreen and it was really much.

Dark and didn’t seem very watchable. Plus this version, apparently that was released in Germany, had some, well more complete version than the one that was released in the States. It had some missing scenes put in there, and so it was perhaps a little closer to director Roland Emmerich his vision. Now, Roland Emmerich himself is pretty darn famous.

I mean, he has made a lot of . Big time Hollywood movies. After this, maybe this movie became his calling card in a way, just to say that, you know, he’s capable of doing something big scale because as much bad things as I’m going to say about this movie, uh, at least I can say that it’s a pretty well made film visually.

Stylistically, it does have those great elements that I think you could see in his later movies, such as independence day, right? Gosh, Godzilla. He’s just like, if you name a big Hollywood blockbuster from the nineties or the early two thousands, uh, chances are pretty good that it was directed by him. He’s done about a dozen of them, so.

Yeah, but this is his first, and he’s, he’s German. He’s from Germany. This was actually shot in West Germany, but he did shoot it in English and set it in the United States so that he could sell it to an American audience. And it was originally called Joey not making contact because it does center around this young boy.

Yeah.

Craig: I mean, I don’t know.

Todd: Jump in anytime, but I

Craig: don’t know what to say more than you said really. I mean, the biggest thing that I would say about it is it does feel like a knock off of several of those movies that you’ve listed for me, especially. Poltergeist, NDT. I mean, there are just kind of some beat for beat plot elements and scenes that if you looked at it as scance, you would think you were watching Poltergeist or E T.

Todd: uh,

Craig: and I mean, it’s not as though it does it particularly badly. It’s fine, but it’s just so obviously a knock off of those things. Um, that it’s just kind of hard to get past that. I was really looking forward to it too, and ultimately I was kind of disappointed, not so much in how it looked, because it doesn’t look bad.

I mean, it looks comparable to some of those other movies that we’ve already mentioned in terms of quality of the special effects and things like that. It’s certainly, you know, shows its age as. Coming from the 80s the visual effects aren’t as seamless as some of the CGI stuff that we have today, but it doesn’t look bad.

I think that all, ultimately what I was most disappointed in was not necessarily the writing of the dialogue, which frankly, there’s really not very much dialogue in the movie, but rather the storytelling. I, I was never really exactly sure what was going on. I didn’t really like, there is a villain, but I didn’t really understand what the villains motivations were other than just being evil.

The ending is ambiguous. Now, apparently the American cut is a little bit less ambiguous. I wish I had. That available so that I could make comparisons, but ultimately it just didn’t really come together for me. And when it was over, I was like, eh.

Todd: Yeah. Right. Maybe we’re being too kind. I, I guess another person might look at this movie and say, this is a ripoff, shameless ripoff of Steven Spielberg.

Just cut and paste from his movies. Like you said, almost scene for scene, and then that same person might also say it’s incomprehensible because that is kind of how I felt about it. You know, I was really trying hard to follow this plot, and I was so frustrated because this plot should be pretty freaking simple.

It’s not like this is a globe trotting adventure. It’s a boy, uh, who has just lost his father. The very first scene of the movie is your classic scene in the cemetery where they’re all sitting around the funeral and these people are coming up and you know, after the funeral stunts shaking hands with the boy and the rest of the family as they go by and the boy doesn’t really talk.

Actually. You like you kind of, like you said, he doesn’t talk much through the whole movie.

Craig: I wonder if it’s because these actors were all German, but they were English speaking, so maybe their English wasn’t that great, Slippy. They just didn’t do. Very much talking.

Todd: It could be, but, but it has the effect really of showing just how depressed this kid is, uh, at his father being gone.

And either that or he’s just a quiet kid. I at first, was really pretty moved by this, and I don’t know, maybe. Again, I get a little emotional about some of these things sometimes being a father now, uh, I just think of like, uh, of, of these sorts of, I don’t know, things just hit me in a slightly different way in these movies, but I really did feel for this kid, uh, in the beginning, just that he is, is sad.

Uh, he’s lost his father. And then it also seems like this kid has some psychic abilities. Again, we’re, we’re getting him more into the, the paranormal telekinesis, is that what you call it? Yeah. When a person can move things with their mind.

Craig: Right. But I mean, that’s the beginning of how it doesn’t make sense because it seems like this is new.

Like, it’s not like he always had these psychic abilities. It’s only now that his father has passed away and it stopped. I mean, there’s a sweet little flashback of him playing basketball with his dad and he’s like, sit in real time. He’s sitting in his room, you know, being sad. Thinking about his dad or whatever, and he says, I think either in his mind or out loud, I don’t remember.

Daddy, please come back. And then all of a sudden his toys start moving around on their own. And this song starts. It’s like, Hey, Joey daddy’s on the phone.

Like

Todd: we heard

Craig: it and he gets scared and he closes his eyes. And they stop, but then they pretty much just kind of start up again. And like, there’s all these like just little toy balls that are rolling around, and at some point they all circle around this little robot that looks like  taller older brother.

Todd: Yeah. But he has eyes. Yeah. Like how many things can you rip off?

Craig: Well, I mean, there is a lot of direct star Wars reference in this movie. I was actually surprised that they could do that. I like you couldn’t do that today. This movie had a budget of what, like a million and a half. Something like that. Yeah.

I mean, you just wouldn’t, you couldn’t buy the rights to that imagery for that probably today.

Todd: That’s true.

Craig: I was kind of surprised, but eventually it was, so this little robot whose name is Charlie, and then just kind of ends up being his sidekick for the rest of the movie. It just kind of follows him around, huh?

And again, another issue that I have with it is eventually the mom kinda catches on to this and she just kind of thinks it’s charming, like not weird at all. But anyway, straight out of Poltergeist, a toy telephone starts ringing in the closet and it’s this little red phone and it glows. Any picks it up and he starts talking in it and there’s all kinds of weird things going on, like flashing lights and wind in his room and this, the city’s pay phones are ringing, and at first he’s scared, but as it turns out, he’s talking to his dad on this phone and his mom even over hears it.

And I’m willing to excuse this because I don’t think that it would be out of the realm of reality for it. Kid to make believe, talking to his deceased parent on the phone. You know, that seems like a coping mechanism kind of deal. So I didn’t really question it when she just kind of heard and walked away the first time.

Todd: Well, let’s just say two. This was. I thought a really heartbreaking scene. I mean, we know that something supernatural, weirdest going on, but from the mother’s perspective, hearing this again, I kind of put myself in her shoes and I imagined, Oh, this kid just thinks he’s talking to his dad. And I was like, Oh my God.

It’s just so terrible.

Craig: The thing, I was confused almost from the beginning because is he really talking to his dad?

Todd: Yeah, that’s a good question.

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t know if he really like, ultimately, I think the suggestion is that he is, but I’m not really sure because pretty soon then things start to get weird.

Todd: Yeah. He has. Breakfast the next morning and mom’s talking with them. Well, no, he’s at school. I guess the kids are making fun of him in his class. He’s in like a science class and they’re doing something with eggs and the teacher’s walking around. Again, it’s this classic scene and some kids pass him a little note with

Something wrapped inside of it. And when he opens it up, there’s like a little skeleton, a little toy skeleton in there, and the note says, this is what your dad looks like now. I mean, the most cruel thing you came out, and again, I’m, my heart’s breaking for this kid, and I’m thinking, yeah, this is the kind of thing that.

The real asshole kid in class would do. And the teacher finds it and he says lectures them. Just a little bit about how that is and how about how his, you know, he misses his dad and then using his clairvoyant capabilities while the teacher’s back is turned, like the teacher says, who took his egg?

Where’s his egg? And while the teacher’s walking around the class accusing people of taking this kid’s egg, he. Manages to force lift an egg from the girl who’s sitting next to him and bring it over to his desk, along with a ruler across the desks so that it can like roll it across like a brick.

Craig: Exactly.

Right?

Todd: Yep. But like these things are like floating, like just completely floating in the air. And I guess. She is the only other person who can see this happening

Craig: or who notices, I suppose.

Todd: Yeah. I mean, it’s pretty freaking obvious. You, everybody’s back has to be completely turned to not see this ruler of completely floating through the air coming down on, and then this egg going there and then somehow the, and I think it was just the cut of our movie or something that the egg ends up in the teacher’s hand, all broken.

Craig: Yeah. Explodes on him or something. And again, I mean, this scene is right. Out of ITI. It’s the exact same scene with the frog, dissection and ITI right up to, you know, the girl sitting next to him with pigtails like, and this kid, I mean, he’s a cute little kid, you know, there’s a little German actor, but he even looks like Elliot from

It’s, it’s a rip off. And again, it’s not poorly done. It’s fine if, if it weren’t. If I had never seen ITI, if E T didn’t exist, it wouldn’t affect me. It’s fine, but it’s just so clearly stolen directly from the movie. And so then of course, like the teacher, you can tell it’s, it’s this young male teacher. You can tell from the beginning that he’s going to be like the intervening grownup.

And of course, you know, the teacher goes in, talks to the mom or the mom has to come in or something. I don’t remember. Everything. It’s like, to me, it’s like they, there’s an inkling of everything, but nothing ever really follows through. Like to me, I’m thinking, Oh, okay. Obviously this attractive younger, middle-aged teacher, they’re setting him up to be not a replacement, but you know.

There for the mom and yeah, it almost seems like they’re kind of setting up a relationship there, but it doesn’t go anywhere. No, I feel like that’s kind of, that’s kind of how you can describe the movie. Like they set something up, but it doesn’t really go anywhere.

Todd: It’s funny because he just sort of comes and goes like a lot, like he kind of pops out after a while and then.

Maybe, I don’t know, two thirds of the way through the movie pops back in and I’m like, Oh yeah, there’s that guy is, he’s still interested in this family. Like, you know, he just kind of comes and goes. He’s not really there. I mean, the, the boy is the only real central figure in this. Everybody else in the movie does kind of come and go.

I mean, he’s got this group of friends, I guess. I wasn’t really clear who everybody was there just a group of kids. They don’t have these real distinct personalities. We don’t really spend much time with them. And they also kind of come and go, and I couldn’t tell if they

Craig: were regular

Todd: friends of his or just.

People in the neighborhood, he would occasionally get together and play with or something.

Craig: Well, in my notes, I kept referring to them as the bullies, but it was like every other kid in his class, you could go all kinds. They’re all kind of mean to him throughout until the very, very end. And then it’s like they’re concerned about him.

All of a sudden. Like it’s, it’s, it’s really unclear and right. Like, they’re just this collective group of kids. Like they don’t have any, I don’t know any of their names. Um, they don’t have any defining characteristics really. It’s just this group of kids who kind of bother him.

Todd: Yeah. Oh movie. Exactly. I meant to show concern at the end.

Craig: Yeah. But my faith, one of my favorite parts is right after this. At some point, he and his dog go and explore the spooky mansion next door, which is, which is quite literally the Bates motel. It is

Todd: no mansion at the bank

Craig: and I, it just didn’t make like. Did. Did they just realize that they live next door to the Bates motel like the

At first I couldn’t even tell. Like at first I thought maybe they had gone on a vacation, but no, this is where they live. This is their house and this big spooky mansion is right next door. It’s only now that he’s going into explore it.

Todd: I think what are the balls that it takes to put this mansion Bates motel in your movie?

There’s no more recognizable old creepy mansion in all of cinema. You immediately look at it and know what it is. It’s just too familiar for anybody to ever use in the eye. I feel like maybe there is one other movie we watched where somebody tried to use this set or something. I don’t know, but you just can’t do it.

But they did it. And it just adds to this feeling that this movie is a cobbled together rip off of so many things. And also at this time, I think the reason that they’re going into the mansion is because his little robot, which has a complete mind and personality of its own, and nobody thinks anything of this has wandered off.

He and his dog are chasing it through the woods and he keeps calling it Charlie. Charlie, Charlie, don’t go in there. Charlie. And the Charlie goes into the mansion and they have to go and after him.

Craig: Okay. Motivation. All right. Yeah. There was a

Todd: slight motivation, but like you say, you’re this age, certainly you would have been in this place before.

All the neighborhood kids seem to be exploring it as well. And again, I got to say, I love this eighties thing where robots just have personalities and they go around and they talk and they do things and nobody notices or cares doing these silly little things on your own with clearly intelligence.

Anyway, so yeah, so the little R two D two clone goes in there to the Bates motel and he falls down, uh, somewhere. Again, we don’t really have a sense of geography in this place either. It’s real. There’s nothing wrong with the scenes of them in the mansion. All I get a sense of is it’s like a big closet.

There’s just a bunch of random crap everywhere and it seems maybe like it’s just one big room or one small room. And in there, uh, as the robot goes in, there is a little wooden box that slowly opens on its own. Uh, keep in mind everything’s completely covered in cobwebs. It’s like nobody has touched this place for decades.

And inside this box is a little ventriloquist dummy, and the dummy opens its eyes and turns its head and looks at the robot, and I think zaps the robot was some electricity or something from his eyes. Somehow the robot gets startled or incapacitated and falls down and, and can’t warn Joey about the presence of this dummy I guess.

Cause Joey comes around the corner, finds the robot, sees the dummy and is intrigued by the dummy and decides to take the dummy back. To his house.

Craig: Yeah, and I mean the, the, the dummy, I think ventriloquist dummies are spooky anyway. I’ve seen enough horror movies with them that I just kind of find them creepy.

But aside from that, like it just looks scary. Like it doesn’t look friendly at all. Right away. It starts like in the house, like I guess the little robots running around and the dummy makes all the other like stuffed animals, like attack it so that it’s. Like under a pile of other toys or something, and that’s again, like I feel like there’s a little bit of exposition later, but I don’t about the dummy, but it doesn’t really explain anything.

Like it’s just an evil dummy. Like just go with it. It’s a ventriloquist dummy and it’s evil. Just go with it.

Todd: Yeah. Just like you kind of have to go with everything else. Joey comes back in and again, somehow, I don’t remember exactly how, but the dummy does start moving on, Joey. Right? Joey’s talking to it and asking her, what do you, what do you want? What do you do? And the ventriloquist dummy makes the television turn on to, I guess a documentary.

About himself. Right. And his master that this is the exposition we get that you referred to just this guy had a dummy and he was the most successful ventriloquist act touring the country. And then something bad happened. And the documentary even says something about his evil doll or crazy or something like that.

Craig: Yeah, like the doll was actually a malevolent being,

and then it’s so weird, like it’s like, so he had the dummy and they were successful for a while, and then they disappeared for awhile and then they came back for a while and then something bad happened. That’s it.

Todd: So I know

Craig: there’s, there’s no, like. Origin. There’s no, you know, did the ventriloquist guy like, I dunno, like invite an evil spirit into the dummy for the act? Like there’s, there’s no explanation. Just like, uh, yeah, they were, they were famous for awhile and then the dummy was evil. And so they were gone for a while and then they came back for awhile, but then not anymore.

And that’s it.

Todd: I mean, it’s a ventriloquist with a dummy. I mean, in the world of movies. Except it’s evil. Just like we can accept this R2D2 clone can run around and have a personality of its own.

Craig: Yeah. And to show that it’s evil. Dad tries to call him again, apparently, but the dummy won’t let him talk to his dad.

Like throws the phone out of the room and then it also shows him on the TV, like it cuts to like surveillance of the mom in the kitchen. And the kid’s like, no, no, don’t mess with my mom. And they’re. All these knives hanging on the wall and you see the knives like shaking and she turns around and walks out and one of the knives like gets thrown into the wall like a foot from her, but she doesn’t notice cause she’s walking away.

And then in the morning she’s like making breakfast or whatever and she looks up and like all the knives are in the wall and again, like it’s just like, Oh my gosh, that’s weird and scary. Let’s carry on light. And it point, she already knows he’s telekinetic cause like at dinner he like moves his plate and glasses around in front of her.

And she again, lichen Poltergeist initially in the first one, she’s like the mom and Poulter guy’s like, Oh my gosh, that’s so cool. How do you do that? He’s like, daddy helps me. And she’s like, really? Okay.

Oh, weird. Okay.

Todd: Some point in this too. The teacher finds this out. He’s over at their house and he makes it something move for him as well, right?

Craig: Yeah. Eventually, I don’t remember,

Todd: remember the, the order of things in this movie because,

Craig: and, and because there are also such random scenes, like there’s a scene where Joey is.

Hanging out with pigtails. Sally is her name and bullies show up with these toy cannons that they terrorize a little robot with. And apparently these toy cannons shoot real bullets cause they shoot the robot. But then Joey with his telekinesis like blows them up it again, it doesn’t go anywhere. And once again, these kids are just bullies and so it doesn’t really, it doesn’t make any sense.

There’s no character arc. They just jump from being bullies throughout the whole movie to not at the end. I don’t get it. But you’re right. Yeah. Eventually the teacher seat, he comes over like he’s concerned, like, you know, they do this in movies all the time. I teach high school, so I suppose it’s different, but do teachers really just like all the time, just like go over.

People’s houses like, Oh, I’m kind of concerned about Joey.

Todd: You’re the last thing you probably want to do is attend the house of, go to the, I’m sorry, I don’t want to say that about, I’m sure you’re very caring teacher who. Thinks about it, your kids 24, seven, even when you’re in

Craig: a, well, the only home visit that I’ve ever had to do was to jail. So I’ve never actually gone to the home just to visit my students in jail.

Um,

Todd: Pat today. Oh, sorry to hear that, Craig. That’s the problem with this movie really, is that it feels like it’s supposed to be building to something, but you just have no idea where it’s going. It’s not. Oriented in any particular way. There’s no particular plot to say of, except there’s this kid, we all know he’s psychic.

We all know there are these bullies in the neighborhood. We know he has a robot that can run around and be his companion, and we know that. His dad is calling him on the phone and that there is an evil ventriloquist dummy in his room, uh, that is somehow trying to stop that from happening.

Craig: Yeah. And that’s it for about 45 minutes.

Todd: The people in the movie put up with all of this, like it’s nothing.

Craig: Yeah. At some point the bullies go into the old spooky house, and then that’s like their headquarters from then on, like it looks like, like running a Colt out of this house. They’ve got candles everywhere. Weird. And then the teacher comes over and Joey doesn’t show him, but like, he’s not hiding it.

Like the teacher sees the telekinetic stuff. Um, but apparently Joey doesn’t like the teacher for some reason. So when the teacher goes to grab his. Spoon to eat his soup. Joey, I guess, makes it really hot and it burns him. And then the teacher runs into the kitchen and turns on the faucet and puts his hand under the faucet, but his mom’s like, no, no.

And she grabs his hand and puts it in the fish bowl and then goes to get ice out of the freezer and then puts the ice in the fishbowl. What’s,

Todd: yeah. Also confused by this. What

Craig: are you doing? Like, I’m pretty sure the faucet was fine.

Todd: Yeah,

Craig: but no, let’s, let’s ice the fishbowl with the fish in it. A

Todd: poor fish.

Yeah. Oh.

Craig: And then there’s a big, there’s like a big effect scene where, um, the dummy, uh, traps Joey in his room and like the dummy can shoot like lightning out of its eyes. And it does that. And the mom and the teacher, I think are like looking for Joey outside and things are like, the, the electricity is flashing and there’s a great big monster in the trashcan.

And yeah.

Todd: What was that all about?

Craig: I don’t know what’s going on.

Todd: And then like the doors, so Joey still in his bedroom, I guess kind of on his bed or in front of his bed. And there’s, I mean, as a scene, it’s quite cool. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff

Craig: going on

Todd: and they’re that glowing red phone is sitting in front of the dummy and the dummy sitting there opening his mouth going now, which is.

Basically what he does and then the doors to the closet open and behind him, the closet now looks like it’s this long, endless passageway into something with a disco ball at the top, which is just spitting and sparkling and occasionally shooting light out and stuff in the room. I’m thinking, Oh, okay.

It’s just like a passage to another world that he’s opening up for. Joey’s. Is the father going to come walking out as Joey gonna walk down in there? No, I’m not really sure what happens, right? The scene just kind of stops,

Craig: right? Well, like Joey asks the dummy, what do you want for me? And usually the dummy just growls when he says, what do you want from me?

He says, I want to play a game. And I have no idea what that means because nothing ever comes of it. What game did what? Like you’re playing a game with somebody, but you don’t know.

Todd: Like,

Craig: what are we supposed to be doing? I don’t, I don’t get it.

Todd: It’s this point that all of the trucks show up.

Craig: Yes. Out of nowhere.

Todd: Where did this come from? I have no idea. My best, where it

Craig: came from, it came from ITI is where

Todd: we know

Craig: that.

Todd: That was next door.

Craig: I mean the, these all these trucks and vans just out of nowhere. Again, like if you were, if you squint your eyes, you’ll believe you’re watching E T because it’s just all these trucks and vans and all these scientists, I guess, like, I don’t even know why they’re there

Todd: and what they’re

Craig: doing.

And like there’s this one head scientist, Dr. Hayden, she’s this woman. Scientists, and apparently she knows all about like telekinesis and these other things, but it was actually the phone company that tracked them down.

Todd: There was like all this crazy energy, I guess, coming from, because whenever he calls his

Dad or his dad calls him or however that works on the phone. All the phone lines in the area go down for like an hour, right thing. Isn’t

Craig: that right? It is. Right. But so, okay, so the phone company is working with the telekinesis sciences,

Todd: I think. Yeah. You know. When you, when the phones go down for a while, there are only two explanations.

You send a guy out, check the lines, or you call the CIA at the telekinesis people because there’s some serious psychic shit going on.

Craig: We got another one here.

Todd: Clearly happened before.

Craig: And w and they don’t like, there’s no, like, it kind of seems like they’re there just to kind of explore. Like in ITI it seemed kind of ominous.

Like you didn’t know whether the scientists had good intentions or bad intentions in this movie, it doesn’t really seem like they have any intentions at all. Like they’re just hanging out and hoping

Todd: they’re setting up exactly like E. T it’s like there’s sealing off. The house and there’s plastic going up everywhere and people are wearing hazmat suits and there’s constant chaos and buzzing of activity.

For what purpose? Who knows? They’re not sealing like an alien entity inside. There’s just. Weird shit that’s been going on with the phones and this kid who is apparently psychic, and this is the point at which the bullies in the neighborhood suddenly start to care about him.

Craig: At this point, they’re not, I don’t even, I didn’t understand it.

Okay. So maybe, maybe they start to care about him, but I still. This was like a sabotage mission mission. Like I thought they were trying to like kidnap him or something.

Todd: I thought they felt like they were trying to rescue him.

Craig: I don’t know, whatever, but it was kind of cute. I liked that whole bit with the garbage cans.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Were like two of the bullies. It’s totally a shtick. Like you seen it before, like they’re in these garbage kids that don’t have a bottom, and so like you’ll see they’ll be. Pop up in their legs will be in the bottom and they’ll move like a few feet and then just plop right back down. And of course, you know these military guards, they’re like, did I see something

Todd: garbage can over here?

Craig: And then eventually they eventually get in, but not before. Like she, the, the, the, um, scientists is running some tests on Joey and this was a shot directly out of flight of the navigator. Do you remember

Todd: that movie?

Craig: When they finally get that kid and they’re doing tests on him and they like have like sensors, like on his head and stuff, and they can read what’s going on in his brain.

It looked like it came right out of that and he’s not talking. Like he’s like selectively mute, like he won’t speak to the scientists and the lady scientist is like, you don’t have to be scared. It’s okay there. I, I know all about this and I know other people like you and you can learn to master your powers.

And she says something like, it’s nothing to be scared of because people like you prove that death as we know it doesn’t really exist. And at some point she explains like when people die, they don’t really die. They just move to a different world or realm or something. So I think the suggestion is that he really is talking to his dad, but for whatever unexplainable reason, the dummy doesn’t want him to.

Now I don’t know why

Todd: I went online. And I was reading different synopsis’s of this. I was just reading synopsis’s trying to figure out what they all happen. And one of the synopsis, as I read, seem to think that the dummy was protecting him because it wasn’t his dad on the phone. It was the evil. The spirit of the dummies former master who is trying to contact the boy.

Craig: It seems like a stretch to me, but certainly not out of the realm of possibilities because it’s never clear

Todd: what’s going on, what happened? Why? Why are we suddenly somehow suddenly the boy’s in trouble? Like. Are they in the middle of their tests with him and suddenly he goes into cardiac arrest

Craig: or something?

No, the, uh, he just wants them to go away. Pigtails gets in there somehow. I don’t know if he says like, I can make them go away or something. And she says, well, how do you do it? And he says, I just have to play the game. And so he opens up his closet. The scientist has said something about how they hadn’t seen any toys around.

They thought that was weird. Well, he opens up his closet. And it’s stuffed to the max full of his toys and they all fall out to reveal the dummy all bound up and like not hanging from its neck by a noose, but just hanging by a rope. I’m in the closet and I guess, I don’t know, he uses his powers to turn his room into Caroline’s room from Poltergeist with all of the toys flying around.

At the same time, all of the bullies, which in the beginning there were like three of them, and over the course of the movie, then at some point there’s like eight, I don’t know where they all came from, but they like siege the house and they’re running around, you know, causing . Chaos. It’s funny cause they’re running around and screaming and the scientists are just kind of standing there looking on like, what’s happening?

Like nobody’s trying to stop them or do anything. They’re just like, watch. But eventually they get up, the scientists open up the door and like the lights are flashing through the slats and the door, just like Poltergeist, and they open it up and he is sitting on the bed with pigtails and the bed is floating and the toys are flying all around.

And I guess, and this is, is this the part where all the star Wars toys attack the kid in the Darth Vader mask?

Todd: Oh yeah. There’s a, there’s an interesting moment where one of these kids comes into the room and he’s wearing a Darth Vader mask and it’s like he’s there to rescue him and it’s played up as it’s very dramatic scene.

In fact. Doesn’t his lightsaber actually like light up like a lightsaber, like,

Craig: well, I think that’s later. I don’t remember the transition. Somehow they get from their house to the Bates motel or how they got there. I don’t know. I don’t remember.

Todd: No, I don’t.

Craig: But all of the kids end up in there.

Todd: Maybe he runs away and the kids follow him.

Craig: I don’t remember one way or another, they all leave that Joey’s house and they end up in the Bates motel, which at this point turns into the hell world from Hellraiser to, uh. It’s, it’s now. Whereas before, like you said, it was like a giant closet, just full of shit. Now it’s like an alternate universe and the kids all get split up and they all face like different monsters.

Like. There’s like the fat kid sees a giant living cheeseburger that tries to eat him, and the Darth Vader kid sees the actual Darth Vader with his lightsaber. That light comes on and then at some point, I guess at the center, all of this, there’s an enormous maze and, and they’re all in the maze and like a giant.

I, I don’t know if it was the ventriloquist dummy’s head or just a random monster, but like, even like huge, like a giant, like Godzilla head like pops up out of the middle of the maze for a second only then to descend like a second later, like hello and then it’s gone. Like what that’s about. And then the, the, the kids all hook up and there’s, I guess kind of a showdown at the center of the maze cause they can’t find their way out.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: But when they get to the center, there’s an exit door and the dummy is sitting there in a chair facing the exit door with its back to them, and this is kind of where, I guess you would call it, the final showdown goes down

Todd: and you’re going to have to walk me through this because. At this point I was falling asleep, so I’m not, I don’t remember exactly what happened here.

Craig: Well, I’ll try it. W meanwhile, the scientists and the cops are all looking for the kids. I’m looking at my notes. A giant monster. Uh, they find sitting by the exit door. Okay. And then like, so the dummy is like sitting on the arm of the chair and then like the ghost of the ventriloquist like starts to come into focus sitting in the chair.

And I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be the ventriloquist guy. It was, I think, but for a second, I also thought maybe it was supposed to be the dad. I wasn’t sure, but. The maze and the whole alternate reality is starting to collapse around them. And so Joey begs the real Fletcher, the ventriloquist for help, and the ventriloquist says, I don’t need to help you have a friend to help you go to the door.

And it opens up. And he just looks in like all of a sudden the POV changes. So we’re looking at him from the other side of the door and he says, daddy. And then a light shoots through him and hits the voodoo voodoo doll, the ventral. Okay. With dummy and the ventriloquist dummy like flies to the back wall and catches on fire and melts and then Joey goes on like some trippy flight through the black hole or something.

Yeah,

Todd: it’s like a crazy and it lasts for quite a while. This camera effect of just, I don’t know, it’s like 2001 it’s like. At this time before we had computers, CGI, you had to get really creative with how you do these trippy flying through alternate dimension kind of things. I felt like maybe Joey was going to the other side, maybe like the

Craig: underworld  or whatever alternate plane his dad is on or whatever.

Yeah. So there’s all that. And then it just goes to black and we, the sound fades in. We hear people calling for Joey, and eventually it comes clear and lights, you know, we, it’s, it’s outside and it’s day time. And the adults find Joey. But he’s unconscious. They, so they take him to his room and they’re working on him and stuff.

And we see the scientists like interrogating the other kids who are telling them the truth about all the monsters they saw and stuff. And then Joey dies pretty unceremoniously. Like they’re working on him, like his blood pressure’s really low, and then his heart stops and then he dies and he’s just at, and the kids want to visit his body, which the adults are like, Oh, okay.

Todd: All right,

Craig: so. So they, the kids go up there. They say the, the head bully, I think says that he’s sorry. And he like puts his, uh, Darth Vader helmet on the bed. They all walk out, and then it becomes the scene from ITI where the brother sees the flowers come back to life and everybody gets all excited because they know that means that ITI and Elliot are alive again.

Um, but in this, in the cut right. That we saw the toy ball starts to glow again, and like the cosmic lights start to happen again, and the

Todd: millennium Falcon comes flying.

Craig: Yes. Right. And, and pigtails walks up and just says something like, it’s Joey, he’s back. And then the frame just freezes on her, framed by the doorway.

So we never actually see Joey alive again. To me, it was very ambiguous. Like is he physically alive again or is he just like communicating with them from beyond? It was very ambiguous. It’s an, I found that ambiguity a little bit shocking for a movie that’s clearly targeted towards kids. I was expecting a much clearer, happy ending.

Todd: I’m not sure either if it was just his spirit come back to kind of haunt them or if he was alive. In a glowing room when you’re right, it’s just completely ambiguous. It’s, gosh, that’s a mess of a movie. It just is. So everything’s kind of unclear. So I’m not sure if it was really his dad on the phone.

Craig: No,

Todd: I got a sense that maybe at the end of the movie he made contact with his dad in the door.

But that’s not clear. Right. But it’s a nice poetic thing if it’s true.

Craig: Right.

Todd: And then even his death is. Kind of poetic, I guess if you kind of read it as this kid was so depressed and so missing his dad and so out of place in this world that the only place he could be is back with his dad and in this alternate dimension, and that’s where he ends up.

It’s, it’s kind of a sad, poetic kind of story, but I’m just kinda throwing things out there, I don’t really know.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: And then, I don’t know. You know, uh, the, the ventriloquist dummy and all that maybe was facilitating this to a certain extent. I’m not sure why the mansion had to explode into this fun house of different creatures and monsters.

Was that, were they getting too close to opening this gate to this other dimension? So this. Other stuff was kind of coming out that they had to deal with. Ah, God, I just don’t know. I mean, the movie itself, he has an impressive batch of special effects and cinematography. That’s true. Especially if it was just done for like a million and so bucks because we watch a lot of junk on this show.

We watch a lot of head scratchers and we watch a lot of attempts at effects and things that fall short and, and this movie. Again, like you said, if you just kind of popped in at any moment, you would think you’re watching a big budget. Hollywood special effects spectacular from the 80s that was aimed to kids, which I guess it is, but it just has that look to it that very big.

Blockbuster. Look, it is so perfectly mimicked the Steven Spielberg movies that it’s too close. It’s too close, and all it is is just these jumbled scenes that are direct rip offs from these other movies that have been cobbled together into something that’s completely incoherent.

Craig: Yeah, I don’t, I don’t know really what to make of it either.

I think. I think that ultimately I leave thinking that he was actually talking to his dad on the phone. I don’t know why the ventriloquist tell me he didn’t want him doing that. I don’t know what the dummy’s motivations were at all, and I just don’t really get, you know, if he was going to die at the end, my expectation would be that everybody would understand that he was.

Like making some sort of sacrifice, uh, or something. But it’s just like, why did he have to die? I don’t get it. But you know, like you said, if it’s, you know, he’s with his dad or whatever. I mean, I guess that’s nice, but that’s sucks for his mom. Yeah.

Todd: It sucks for him who presumably had a, a pretty nice life ahead of himself.

You’re right.

Craig: I mean, at least his mom has the cute teacher and God, I don’t know. Ultimately it was a disappointment. I was really looking forward to watching it to the box. Art is cool. Uh, it looks, it looks scary. I mean, the ventriloquist dummy is frightening and I find them spooky. Anyway. And I agree with you that in in moments it looks really good, but the story is just almost incomprehensible.

And so because of that, I wasn’t really particularly invested. I was just confused. I wasn’t. I didn’t really know what was happening. And so when it was over, it was just kinda, you know, shrug your shoulders. That was, yeah, that was weird.

Todd: Yeah. What a shame.

Craig: Kids might like it. Yeah. There’s enough cool stuff to look at.

And there’s the cute stuff with the little robot and there’s a dog in it. And I wonder if

Todd: kids might be able to make sense of it. You know? I’d be curious to show this to a kid and then ask them, so what happened? What went on. Let’s see what they say.

Craig: Maybe if we had watched this when we were kids, it would have kind of been a favorite and we would have felt in the salvage for it.

But I have a sneaking suspicion that I did see it when I was a kid and I don’t remember anything about it, so it must not have made much of an impression on me then either.

Todd: Yeah. It just kind of fell into the Steven Spielberg soup and, and dissolved away, I’m sure. Yeah. Uh, Roland Emmerich after this, he made universal soldiers Stargate independence day, the Godzilla flop.

The Patriot, the day after tomorrow, he still making movies and uh, they’re all kind of like this right now. At least they make seem to make sense. But they’re all these sort of big budgets, spectacular type things, really aspiring to that level. Not quite hitting it, but certainly he’s making his Mark in that, in that realm.

Right of the big blockbusters so

Craig: well, and it seemed like that was what the focus was here. The focus wasn’t on the storytelling. The focus was on the visual effects and the style and the look of it, and yeah, I mean, he was definitely copying other people, but if you’re going to copy somebody in the mid eighties copies, Spielberg, you know?

Yeah. Was this his first movie?

Todd: It wasn’t the first movie he directed. I mean, he directed a couple of German. Oh, a couple movies before this, but who knows if they’re bigger or smaller? Nah.

Craig: Yeah. Well, I mean, for early in a career, it certainly shows promise. I’m not surprised that he went to go on and do big spectacle type things.

It makes sense. And I’m sure that he learned and honed his craft as, as time went on. And, uh, you know, those, those big, uh, action blockbusters. They’re not my favorite genre of movie, but I watch them. Um, their popcorn movies, they’re fun to watch. You go in the theater and you know, there’s big explosions and it’s exciting.

He, you can see a beginning of something good here. Yeah, right. For sure.

Todd: It clearly became a calling card for him, showed the style that he was capable of, and. Went on from there. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. As always, you can find us online.

Just search for two guys and a chainsaw. I hit our Facebook page or a YouTube channel or a website. Any one of those places. You can leave us a comment and give us some kind of request as to what movies you’d like us to do in the future and give us some feedback about this movie. Especially. If it was a childhood favorite of yours, we’d like to hear your take on what the hell was noise.

Until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Jim Henson’s last project before he died involved some incredible puppet and makeup effects in this incredible film, based on a Roald Dahl novel. It turned out to be much scarier than we remembered, making it a perfect selection to continue our month of family-friendly horror films. And the remake is on the way, so we’ll see how it measures up to the original.

Episode 206, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, we continue our month of family-friendly horror films with the movie that I remember so much from my childhood. This is 1990’s The Witches based on the Roald Dahl book of the same name. And as a kid, I was very familiar with this book from Roald Dahl.

Uh, this was one of those books that our teachers read to us in class, and I have very fond memories of just like a lot of other. Books. I think Matilda, we, I think we got Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in there as well. Um, I hope that’s still a habit for teachers to read to their kids because it was really nice to have read the book, the heard the book, have it be read to me in class, and then see this movie in 1990 when I was a little bit older, but still enjoyed it tremendously.

I remember when it came out, I think we saw it in the theaters, and I have to say. I feel like it terrified me a little bit more as an adult than it did as a kid. I didn’t remember this movie being as scary as it was. I mean, you know, it’s not scary for an adult, but I think as I was watching it, I was just putting myself in a kid’s shoes and I thought, wow.

This movie really is pretty, pretty scary. So, uh, it was fun for me to watch it. I think it was a very appropriate selection for us for this month. One of those movies that strikes a good balance, I think, between being good for families, but still having that edge to it. That makes it a horror movie.

Craig: Yeah. I was watching it last night and I watched it with my partner because he enjoyed it when he was younger too.

And I said pretty much the same thing you did. I’m so glad that we chose this one because it’s not even listed like the description on IMDV lists. It is like family adventure, comedy. This is a straight, this is a straight up war movie. He’s a nightmare.

Todd: It is

Craig: so scary. And I didn’t remember it being that scary either. But then watching it last night, you know, in the mindset that I was watching a horror movie, I’m like, this movie is terrifying.

Todd: And you know, sometimes it’s like, uh, I say that, well, now that I have a son, I see things a little differently. And I have to say that. Pretty on point with this movie too. Now that I have a son, I’m watching what the boy in this movie goes through and I’m getting pissed off. I’m getting angry at these witches for doing these horrible things to these poor little boys, and it’s just brutal and it’s awful.

And. As a horror movie. It’s just delicious. I just loved it.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, it’s really good. I’m really excited to Zog about it.

Todd: Well, like I said, this is based on the role doll book of the same name, and if you’ve never read Roald Dahl, I don’t know, you must’ve been hiding under a rock or something, or you just had a horrible childhood, or maybe you just didn’t read so much growing up or, or have things read to you.

He’s a pretty celebrated British. A children’s book author, and he’s responsible for a lot of these films and, and books that we celebrated, Charlie and the chocolate factory, which was made into Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory. Uh, there’s a movie called Matilda, which is about a girl who gets kind of psychic powers,

Craig: telekinetic

Todd: telekinetic powers.

It’s almost like a kid’s version of Carrie in a way. Isn’t it? But with not so not quite as dark as Carrie. But one thing that really is interesting about his books, and I think why he has such appeal is even though he’s writing for children, and I feel like this is the key in making a good children’s book, even though he’s writing for children, he doesn’t talk down to children.

He doesn’t dumb thing down, write things down to a kid’s level. Things are dangerous. Things are dark. Things are scary in his books. Just like. You know, I think what makes the Harry Potter series so successful is that this is real peril. Even though these books are generally speaking aimed at kids, or at least they deal with kids as the main protagonist, we can all enjoy them.

I guess they just have more appeal because kids can see through that too. Right? Yeah. As kids, we know that the world is dangerous and we know that stories are, have scary protagonists, and they have more of an impact when the danger is real and you’re really not sure if people are gonna make it outta here.

Okay. And in fact, people don’t always make it out. Okay. In his books and in some of the fairy tales. You know, that we, that we read as kids and we listened to his kids. And that’s what I think makes this movie. One of the things that makes us movie so appealing as it is so dark. Uh, and then it has an ending that’s a little different from his book.

And I’m sure we’ll talk about that when we get there as well.

Craig: Right? I mean, that’s the thing, like, if you think about it analytically, this movie is all about stranger danger. Like. Just because people might look nice and seem nice, doesn’t mean that they are. And, and you could be in big trouble if you fall for that ruse.

And, you know, thinking about the other books that he wrote and the movies. That have been made from his source material, like the original and only in my book, Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory. We’ll just ignore that abomination. That was that Johnny Depp movie,

Todd: but Oh God,

Craig: the gene Wilder movie. There are legitimately horrifying scenes in that movie, and like even just the premise, like all those kids die except for Charlie.

Contest, but then it just, uh, you know, exposes their gluttony and their horrible flaws and they die. Charlie’s the only one who comes out alive and wins the chocolate factory. It’s crazy. Uh, and he’s, he’s a really good author. I mean, he wrote, he wrote, he’s most famous for these. Children’s books, but he wrote other short stories, and I believe I could be making this up, but I think novels for adults too.

We teach one in our high school curriculum called lamb to the slaughter about a housewife who gets so put out by her misogynistic husband that she beats him to death. With the frozen lamb shank, and then she cooks the lamb shake and shank and serves it to the investigators who come to investigate his death.

Oh my gosh,

Todd: that’s surely Jackson material there.

Craig: Right? Uh, and this, this movie is no, or this story is no exception. I didn’t read the book until really probably a few years ago. Um, I was very familiar with the movie, but I only read the book a few years ago and it’s just as dark, if not more dark than this film, which makes it even more interesting that when Roald Dahl saw the finished cut of this movie, he didn’t like it at all.

And he said that it was too scary Fulger and in bad taste and there was too much actual terror. Welser her book was really dark and, and upsetting. But regardless, I mean, like you said, the ending is different. In fact, his ending is much darker, and again, we’ll save it for later, but his ending is much darker than the.

Ending of the movie, and he didn’t like the way that it was changed and he threatened to have his name and the title removed from the film, and he threatened to campaign against the movie until producer Steven Spielberg wrote him a very. Flattering and apologetic letter, and so he relented. But he also never allowed another adaptation of any of his work and other film adaptation until his death and in his will, he left very soon.

Specific instructions for requirements for any future adaptations. So this movie maybe kind of shaped the way that doll’s material will be adapted in the future. I dunno, but nonetheless. It’s really good.

Todd: Well, and you said, I think it was a slip of the tongue. You said Steven Spielberg, but I think you meant to say Jim Henson.

Craig: That’s what I meant. Yeah. I’m sorry.

Todd: No, that’s fine. Another interesting thing about this movie making it another last, unfortunately, is that this was the last production Jim Henson was involved in, uh, before his very untimely death for. Really, really stupid reasons. Uh, just like pneumonia, I think he got, he was a hardworking guy and he had got a sickness that most of us recover from, but, uh, didn’t really get to it in time and didn’t really take it seriously enough and, uh, ended up dying from it.

So this is kind of his Swan song as well. Not that his company hasn’t continued to do great things in his wake, but we always. He’s a guy that we have really missed, uh, who contributed so much to film, uh, and to our childhoods. And it would be, it’s kind of a shame really, to see that, uh, that he’s gone. But that was something that I didn’t remember about this movie either.

And now this movie was released in 1990 and it’s going to be remade. Uh, a remake was already announced.

Craig: It’s been remade, I think.

Todd: Oh yeah.

Craig: Oh, okay. Well, I mean, I think it’s done. I think it’s in post production.

Todd: Oh yeah, you’re right. You’re right. Anne Hathaway, I believe is going to be playing the hit the main witch in it, but you know, in this remake, guarantee you, it’s going to be CGI.

Spoiler alert. In the movie, the, the boys get turned into mice and so half of the movie is these mice running around trying to foil the witches. And nowadays, all this stuff has done in CGI back in 1990 we didn’t really have that. Or we didn’t have that at the level where it could have been done for a film like this.

So this is a Jim Henson production, and all of the mice in the movie are either live mice or puppet mice, and they talk and their mouse move and they have expressions. And it is really. Impressive. I think

Craig: it is. It’s good.

Todd: I was kind of shocked, and I, again, I remember this as a kid and I didn’t really pay attention to this stuff too much as a kid, but the movie does a great job with these little mouse puppets.

It’s extremely convincing. The ma mice are done. Realistically, these little boys run around and talk and everything, and the puppet work is just fantastic

Craig: and it’s pretty seamless. I mean, you can tell when it’s live. Mice. And as opposed to when it’s puppet mice, but it cuts back and forth between the two and it seems pretty seamless.

I was really impressed with that too. Plus the little mice puppets, the ones that talked, are super cute. This also is very reminiscent of some of Jim Henson’s other stuff, and later in his career and in his life. Jim Henson was not afraid to go a little bit darker with some of his stuff. Like there’s some stuff in here that’s very reminiscent of like labyrinth.

And did hints do the dark crystal? I think he did, didn’t he?

Todd: Yeah, he did. Absolutely.

Craig: And so these puppet effects and makeup costume affects scream. Jim Henson studios, but it’s the darker side and it just, it looks fantastic. I mean, you mentioned the main, which the grand high, which is her name in this movie, she’s played by Angelica Houston, who I think.

Is phenomenal. Okay. In this movie,

Todd: she loves playing this role. Clearly, you could see it in her face.

Craig: Well, she, yeah, I mean she did, but when she’s transformed into the grand high, which she is in heavy, heavy costume makeup, and I’ve read different things. I read on one website that it took eight hours to get her into the makeup, and I was just thinking, I can’t begin to imagine.

What that would be like to have to sit for eight hour work day. I know. I would lose my mind and my partner was like, well, I guess you could try to sleep,

Todd: try.

Craig: I don’t know. And that, but I read another.  that said that it actually took six hours to apply, but then also six hours to remove. I mean, that is insane.

Todd: It’s six hours to remove.

Craig: That’s what Wikipedia said. Oh, so there’s, there’s really one primary scene where she’s in this full makeup and she has to deliver this big monologue. She said that after being in, you know, getting it put on for however long it took, six or eight hours. And then being honest set in this full rubber latex suit.

She said that she was so exhausted and just in such a state of physical exhaustion that the lines didn’t even make any sense to her and she just wanted to cry.

Todd: I

Craig: imagine I wouldn’t do, but she pulled it off. Brilliantly, and it looks fantastic and it is scary as hell.

Todd: Oh, it is. You know, this scene where they have the main meeting is just, it’s the most iconic scene, I think, from the movie.

It’s clearly, I think one of the most terrifying parts of the movie. It’s the part I remember, and that makeup on her is. A big part of it, actually. The little things, you know the witches. Okay, so the movie starts out in a really nice way, almost like a fairy tale with this sweet little grandmother talking to her grandson, and she is telling him about witches and she basically sounds like.

Although she never says it outright that she’s had some encounters with witches in the past, and that’s why she’s telling him all this stuff. In fact, there’s a pinky finger missing on one of her hands and a, it gets kind of highlighted at certain points in the story, or he kind of notices it. And again, it’s never called attention to, I don’t think she ever even says.

How she lost that finger. But visually and thematically, it’s implied that some, she had some encounter with the witch that caused that to happen. And I think,

Craig: well, right, he, he asks or he asks her if she ever encountered a witch, and that’s when she shows them. And all she says was like, it was a very unpleasant experience.

We don’t know. In the book, she was a retired witch Hunter who had always been on. The hunt for the grand high witch. So we don’t know exactly what has happened, but this whole part in the beginning, you’re right, it is like a fairy tale. In fact, that’s how she’s telling it to him. It’s like a bedtime story.

And she says, I, you know, when your dad was a boy, I told him the same thing. And there are real witches in the world, and they look like ordinary women and they wear ordinary clothes and have ordinary houses and ordinary jobs. But she also says that there are things that you can look out for mean is not quite born well.

Don’t close the way wigs. That it cost them scalp rash over scalp rashes. No itching under the week must drive them crazy. They look quite hideous behind a human face. Mosques and can only be distinguished from ordinary women. If you are sharp enough to Spock the purple tinge to their eyes.  witches have known to see tax Clarins rev voting stumps with Atos should be, so they never were pointed or pretty shows.

Just plain sensible shows. And they don’t use knives or guns to kill children because that is too easy to catch. So they’re trickier than that and all of that horrifying. I remember this kid, this cute little kid. What do you think? He’s supposed to be like eight.

Todd: I guess seven or eight

Craig: and he’s small and like he’s totally like dough wide and innocent and he or she, I love that this grandmother just tells him like it is.

You get a know she’s not sugarcoating anything. She, she’s legitimately warning him. As though it is a legitimate danger. And in the world of this movie, it is.

Todd: And again, what makes this so terrifying is it’s rooted in real life. Like you said earlier, this is basically the stranger danger talk, the talk that every parent has to have with their kid about this age and say, look, there are bad people in the world.

That want to do bad things to you and you need to be able to watch out for them and hear the things you watch out for. You know, they’re going to be really friendly to you. They’re going to say, don’t tell your mom and dad. They’re going to offer you candy. All this stuff. I mean, the parallels are right there.

And so even as a parent watching this, I’m thinking, Oh my God, I’m going to have to have a similar talk. With my son and then as can only happen in movies. You know, as soon as she’s told him about this, suddenly he has an encounter with a woman who’s trying to lower him down from his little tree house.

To me, this is one of the most terrifying scenes in the movie. It

Craig: is, and

Todd: it’s. So scary on multiple levels. So he’s up in his tree house and I don’t know, you can get to it through a little ladder or a rope or something. And this woman just very nicely comes down below and starts chatting with him. And you don’t need to have any mythology at all about which is behind it to know that this woman has trouble, she’s doing exactly what a child predator would do.

She’s suddenly opening up and being really friendly to him and smiling at him. But then. We see this purple Glint in

Craig: her eyes,

Todd: which looks super scary

Craig: and

Todd: he sees it too. And then he’s, she’s offering him things as, Oh, I come down, I want to give you something. I want to give you this snake. And she pulls us snake out of her purse.

Craig: Little boys loves snakes.

Todd: You know what. They do. I mean, he’s really interested in this snake. You can tell he kind of leads forward and looks down, but he’s cautious, you know, because he’s heard his grandmother warn him and he starts to see these warning signs and she talks to them. She says, you know, Oh, that’s okay.

It’s okay. I’ll just leave him here and you can come down and get him later. You know? They do have a tendency to slither away and then she talks to the snake like she’s telling it to stay put.

Craig: It’s so

Todd: delicious. Diabolical and evil, what this woman is doing

Craig: and the actress is really good. She’s kind of frightening in and of herself.

I, I’ve read that she was Andy Warhols bodyguard. Isn’t that hilarious? Are you serious?

The thing that scared me so much was like, he recognizes right away what’s going on. And he starts screaming for his grandmother and she just looks up at him and says, she can’t hear you. And like, that is such a nightmare. As a child, you know, you’re in danger and you know, you’re crying out for help, but they can’t hear you.

And here you just are in this terrible situation. Uh, so scary. I mean, it. Yeah. I never went through anything like that in my childhood, but I had nightmares of things like that. This is a nightmare.

Todd: It’s horrifying. And as a parent, it’s horrifying. As a kid, it’s horrifying, but he ends up not taking the bait and the grandmother does come out and you know, the woman was lying to him and she saunters off and the snake disappears.

And the grandmother has also told a story that bears discussing real quick about a girl that she knew or at least was in her neighborhood when she was growing up, who was captured by a witch. And, uh, that is equally terrifying child abduction story that’s told through flashback.

Craig: I know. I think that, again, watching it for this reason and watching it and considering it as.

Uh, a horror movie. Um, this part is, is really disturbing. I mean, this cute, cute little girl. She doesn’t do anything wrong. She just literally gets nabbed off the street. Her parents can’t find her and she’s gone for like six weeks or something, and then all of a sudden she just appears in this big painting above the parent’s fireplace looking out at them.

Like, she looks sad and it says that the grandmother says that she moves position in the painting, but nobody ever sees her move. Not only that, but she ages over the years, and the grandmother said, it was just a couple of years ago that she started to fade and then she faded out all together and Luke says, you mean she died?

And the grandma’s like, well. I don’t know, but like obviously that’s the implication and the idea of this poor girl being trapped in that painting, looking out and watching her family for decades until she gets old and dies. That is horrible.

Todd: It is. It’s a straight out Twilight zone episode and it’s one of the cruelest,

Craig: you know, it’s funny because the director of this movie, I only looked into him.

A little bit, but the only other credit that I recognized him from was he directed. Don’t look now with Donald Sutherland, which we’ve talked about. On this show before, right?

Todd: Yes, that’s right.

Craig: That movie was super creepy too, with that little girl in red, and it turns out to be this creepy old lady. I thought it was really interesting that, uh, it was the same director and it makes a lot of sense why this movie is as atmospherically creepy as it is.

Because that movie was too,

Todd: yeah, he did the man who fell to earth also with David Bowie, and. Pretty decent movie. Um, that, uh, was a bit notorious called walkabout. Uh, 1971 was one of his first ones, uh, about, uh, some kids who are stranded in the Outback in Australia and a half to survive. So, yeah. Yeah.

You’re right. And the film does, uh, definitely have. His touch to it. I really like the angles that he uses and the camera work.

Craig: I love how he

Todd: just uses a wide angle lens really close up on people right up in their faces. That just provides a very distorting look and it’s just terrifying in and of itself.

Craig: Yes.

Todd: That’s a trick that another one of our favorite directors, Bob Clark likes to use as well. It’s really effective. The two things that getting down on the ground and really putting us in the shoes of these. Kids while they’re, while they’re mice. Yeah. And then the looking up at these witches with this wide angle lens in that it just distorts their faces as they’re cackling and smiling and just adds just a really creepy other worldly sinister aspect to the scenes that are otherwise taking place during the day in very, you know, normal domestic settings, like a, like a hotel basically.

Craig: I noticed that whole angle thing even very early on before Luke was turned into a mouse. Just when the grandmother was telling them about the witches, it was shot as though it was from his perspective, laying in bed. So it was shooting up at the grandmother, and her face was lit by candle light, I think, or some very dim light.

Um, and so everything behind her was just black. And so it was just her face framed in black, and it was just really effective. I mean, there’s just, it’s just good. Yeah. The little boy, I mean obviously is a real little boy. So it’s not like his acting is sublime, but it’s fine. He’s totally believable as an innocent little kid.

And the other people, the grandmother, the witches, they’re acting is, is really good. And so. I just was totally into it and it doesn’t pull any punches. I mean, it’s not like this is uncommon. It happens in every Disney movie, but right after the grandmother tells, uh, Luke about the witches and things his.

Parents are going out for an evening and they say goodbye to him in a very nice way, and they leave in the car, but then the next morning he gets up to go show them some drawings he’s made for them and they’re not in their bed, and there’s a knock at the door and it’s the police. And his parents have been killed in a car accident.

And there’s a nice moment where the grandmother is, you know, crying on the couch and Luke comes in and she just wraps him up in the blanket or shawl that she’s got herself trapped in and they hold on to each other for a minute. But then through narration, the grandmother says, I didn’t take him back to America right away.

I decided to take him to England where I had a house. I think this grandmother must be super wealthy for unknown reasons.

Todd: That’s gotta be, Oh my gosh.

Craig: So they have this nice little cottage in England, and that’s where he first encounters that one really scary, which, um, but then for his birthday, she gives him to pet white mice, but immediately then falls ill.

and it turns out that she. Is diabetic and she’s suffering from some of the symptoms of diabetes, and the doctor tells her that she should take a holiday. And so they book a holiday at the seaside hotel and it’s beautiful. I mean, it’s on like these cliffs. It looks very secluded. It’s a gorgeous hotel.

Again, she must be very independently wealthy because they stay in this huge suite in this beautiful seaside hotel, but that’s where things start to go down. Immediately after they arrive, we see Angelica Houston arrive and. Gosh, you know, I have no idea how old she is now. I have no idea how old she was then that she looks amazing.

She is statuesque. She is, gee, she looks like a Greek goddess, like she’s tall and. And not like supermodel skinny, but lean and just so put together and just, she has such a unique face. She has amazing bone structure and she just carries herself in this movie with the ultimate confidence and condescension.

Like she’s looking down at everybody. I can’t say enough. About, like you said, she must have just enjoyed every second of being able to play this role because she just embraces it and is wicked and evil. Fantastic. Frankly, I can’t imagine now I’m willing to give it a chance. And I do like Anne Hathaway, but Anne Hathaway is sweet and cute and pretty, and I just can’t imagine her capturing this kind of power.

But I will reserve my judgment until I see it.

Todd: Well, it’s kind of like you say, I mean, she’s almost a little bit like Sigourney Weaver, you know, she can be. Cute and nice and very fat. You know, quote unquote feminine. But she’s got an edge. She’s very in control. She has a part, just an aspect to her. I don’t know what’s her face or physicality, just her personality and the way she can play roles where she can be very much in charge and very much, you know, at dominating and hold her own.

And that makes her very convincing. And I agree with you. I don’t feel like Anne Hathaway as a person, seems to have that. Aspect. You know, she just a little too soft around the edges. A little too sweet. But yeah, will remain. We’ll retain some judgment and see.

Craig: We’ll see. She is a very talented actress, so we’ll see.

It’s funny that you mentioned Sigourney Weaver because she was considered for the role. Lots of people were considered for the role. Cher was in, like I contingent Eartha Kitt. Who I can totally see and Bancroft’s Olivia Hussey. I don’t really see that. Linda Blair, Blair Faye Dunaway. Faye Dunaway, maybe Susan Sarandon, maybe Jodie foster.

I don’t know. Vanessa Redgrave, maybe Frances Conroy. I can definitely see Liza Minnelli.

Todd: That’d be a little weird.

Craig: Hey everybody,

Todd: let’s go kill some children.

Craig: Yeah. But angelic. But Angelica Houston was a cast, and I, I read that Raul doll made a point of never recommending anybody for a role in his movies again, after Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory, because he had an actor in mind for Willy Wonka. And they didn’t go with them, and they went with gene Wilder instead, and he said, I’m just not going to recommend anybody again.

But they cast Angelica Houston. And it turned out that that was in fact, who he had envisioned in the role. So he was really pleased with her casting, and he was right.

Todd: She nailed it. She was born involved in, I think the Adams family around this time as well. Wasn’t she that film adaptation of that? So

Craig: a little later, but yes.

Great in that too.

Todd: She was a bit a high profile around this time as well, so I’m sure she brought some star power to the movie that it really didn’t have otherwise.

Craig: She was Jack Nicholson’s girlfriend at the time. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it. Apparently he, uh. Was calling the hotel and sending her flowers all the time.

They had a pretty intense romance, uh, for awhile. Interesting story there, but for another time anyway.

Todd: Well, another person who’s in this movie of note, maybe the only other one is, uh, mr B and Rowan Atkinson, who wasn’t Mr. Bean at the time, I think he was doing this in his act, but his TV series that really rocketed that character to start them, I think came out a year after this movie or maybe the same year that this was produced.

Craig: And so. The same year, I think.

Todd: And so he’s, you know, rarely, rarely do we ever see him since mr being like, talking too much. But he’s, I think he plays a fantastic character in this as kind of the, what do you call him, the guy who’s kind of in charge of all the service at the hotel.

Craig: Matrix. No, not maitre D concierge shares.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: I think he’s like the hotel manager. He based his role on a role that John Cleese played in, I think it television series. John Cleese is one of his heroes. And so he, uh, based his performance on that, and he plays a small role. But now that we know him. It’s fun. He’s a fun, he’s a good actor. He’s a funny guy.

Todd: There’s a bit, and I wonder if when Roald Dahl was talking about vulgarity, if this is what he had in mind, because this was definitely not in the book, but there’s a bit of adult by play going on between him and a woman who works at the hotel. That’s just implying that the two of them are having a bit of a salicious relationship.

And

Craig: it’s

Todd: so funny. It’s clearly just thrown in there for the adults. But, uh. It’s just kind of a funny aspect of this movie, uh, that they keep popping up. And there’s every now and then in these scenes, a reference to, uh, Oh, I’ve, I’ve been with her all day. I mean, uh, you know, I saw her a few minutes ago and she’s fine.

You know, these new

Craig: right

Todd: kind of competence. So, yeah, those are the only two really recognizable actors in the movie and the child actor. And this is the first and only film role he ever had. And he, apparently, he went on to become a. Barrister after this.

Craig: Oh, not the main kid. I think you’re thinking of Bruno.

The, the main kid was in at least a couple other things. Not a lot, but the main kid was, I think in Parenthood. Was fie Martin,

Todd: was he really? And I love that movie too.

Craig: Yeah. Oh gosh. I know, but I haven’t seen it in decades. Yeah, he’s been in a couple of things. Not a lot, but when, when they get there, Luke meets another little kid, Bruno, and he’s

Like this gluttonous little kid, but, but not a bad kid. I mean, he’s not unfriendly. A little rude and definitely, I mean, like when Luke meets them, he’s like nibbling all the raisins off the buns at the like tea buffet or whatever. Jenkins, the cucumber sandwiches. All right, too. Except when they use margarine instead of butter.

How much pocket money do you get? My dad’s rich, but he’s very tight. We’ve got three cars. Hello boys. I hope there’s butter in the Savage just today. I really do hate more Duran. There was one other moment that I wanted to mention though, as soon as they come in the grand high, which comes in right after them, and as she’s checking in, she looks and she sees a painting and there’s a little kid in the painting and she flicks it and you kinda hear like.

Yeah. Like, like it’s hurt and then she walks away and the kid fades away out of the painting and watching it. This time was the first time I realized she just killed that kid. Did you catch that?

Todd: Killed the kid or have

Craig: all these people, they are actively murdering children and that’s what it comes down to.

Like there’s some business where. The maid who Rowan Atkinson is like having an affair with or whatever gets scared by Luke’s pet mice because they’re out on the bed and Luke gets in trouble. But the grandmother. Like makes up some story about seeing rats in the hotel. And she says she’s gonna like call the health department or something.

And so Rowan Atkinson is like, well, fine, he can keep his mice, but they have to stay in the cage and they have to stay in the room. And the kids like, but I have to keep training them. So the grandma’s like, well, that’s fine, but you can’t do it in here because the maid may come back and you can’t get caught.

So he goes, he takes his mice. To go find a place to train them. And the place that he finds is this big empty conference room. And he does, you know, he plays with his mice in there for a while until the a room becomes occupied. And it’s a meeting of the Royal society of the prevention of cruelty to children.

But really. It’s the meeting of all of these witches, and once they are all in there, they lock the doors and the grand high witch Angelica Houston tells them that they can take off their shoes and take off their wigs, which they do, and they’ve all got like disgusting head rash and they’re scratching at it.

And then, well, I’ll get to the big reveal in a second. I just wanted to say, I’ve always loved, and I always noticed even when I was a kid, that at least 50% of these witches are men in drag. And they clearly did that on purpose to make them less appealing, you know, not feminine. Um, and it works. It’s great, they look ugly and.

Horrible, and then that’s when the grand high witch peels off her face, which they had to cut part. They cut part of that in the European release so that they could get the re the what’s equivalent to our PG rating because it is grotesque, like she literally peels her face off and she is just the design.

Is brilliant. It’s just great. She looks, she’s a nightmare.

Todd: She is. And her, she has a nose like a foot long, and her fingers IX. I, by the way, I’m not sure how she tucks that nose into her face. I guess it’s just part of

Craig: the overall magic.

Todd: Terrain, magic transformation. I don’t know why she even has a peel off face really, but if she’s that good at hiding everything else with magic, because she has these fingers also that are also about a foot long each.

And I was noticing this time around just because I was really curious about it. Even the fingers. You know, they’re not flopping around like some rubber fingers on her and they’re clearly articulated like puppetry, just like they’re mechanized. Yeah. The rest of her face. It’s such a convincing, such a delicious li disgusting and evil looking design on her.

It’s fantastic. And then the way she plays this role is just. Incredible. It’s scary. It’s super scary actually. I mean, it’s scary for me.

Craig: It is. And she does it with a German accent, which I think is always just a smart choice.

Todd: It’s just always like all Americans think German accents are inherently scary.

Craig: Well, and it’s funny because I wrote somewhere in my notes I wrote. Grand high, which reveal, and then I wrote great audio, but really then as the scene continued, I was like, like, it’s just

Todd: gold. It is

Craig: all of her talking.  I’ll be in class, did grades miserable, which is good fun. Nothing. Wow.

I see the passive side.

I’ll play boating. Nikki,

I ask you why, like she’s so good. And eventually she lays out her plan and the plan is to. In her words, rub out every child in England. There’s a great scene where one, which whispers to the witch next to her, Oh, there’s, there’s no way we could get rid of all of them and the grand high, which has like this whole rhyme about insubordination, and then she’s zaps or with lasers from her eyes.

Yeah. She just goes up in flames while all the rest of them watch

Todd: it, and they almost enjoy it like everybody else, they do sadistic. These witches, they’re fawning, like completely fawning all over this woman, embarrassingly so. But also they’re terrified of her, but also they love it when she exacts retribution on one of their own and burns this girl up, she yells at another woman who.

Jumps up and tries to poke holes in her plan and everybody’s standing around smiling just waiting to see what’s going to happen to her. I mean, these people are just like pure evil. It’s horrifying. Yes. And the whole time the, you know, Luke is just sitting in the corner behind this screen watching this happen, and you’re wondering how is he going to get out of this?

His mouse runs away in escapes.

Craig: She tells them that you’re all going to go back home and you’re going to quit your jobs and I’m going to give you a ton of money and you’re going to buy. Candy stores, sweet shops. She calls them and she says, I’ve made this formula, and she pulls out this little tiny vile, and it says formula 86 on it.

And she says, each one of these little vials has, what did you say? Like 500 or 200 doses or whatever, and a, you’re going to put it in the candy and all the kids are going to come eat it. And the lady who tries to poke the hole, she’s like. It. It’s poison. And she’s like, no, you idiot. It’s not poison. If all of these kids dropped dead, then you know they would know what happened.

And then she gives this, to borrow a word from you, delicious. A description of what’s going to happen to them. And she teases it. She does it slowly. He’s no longer good.

Ciao.

Reveals

Todd: that she is about to demonstrate her formula to the crowd because . It has a two hour activation time, and just about two hours ago, I gave a little bit of it to a gluttonous little boy out in the lobby and invited him in here with the promise of six more bars of chocolate,

Craig: and it turns out it’s Bruno and he comes in.

And, uh, it’s so funny, they all put their wigs back on. Angelica Houston puts her face back on and there’s a great moment where like the secretary, cause she has this kind of reluctant secretary who’s trying to get her face on and like, it’s hard obviously, cause she’s got that huge nose, but they eventually get it on.

And I love the moment right before Bruno walks in where you see Angelica Houston. It’s clearly just her now, but it’s like she’s still trying to, trying to fix her face around the outside. Uh, so funny. And Bruno comes in, her reaction to him, like she is so disgusted, she can’t even say child or children without almost throwing up, which is hilarious.

And then when he comes in, as he’s approaching her, you can just see her in her performance, like dry heaving and trying, not noticeable, but eventually, uh, he’s. You know, he said, you promised me chocolate. And she’s like, you’re in for a treat. And then she looks at the witches, all of you are. And they count down to the second it’s supposed to happen.

And then it happens. And this transformation is Jim Henson. You know, creature puppet affects. And it’s amazing to look at and scary. Horror movies stuff, and they had to cut out

Todd: parts of this

Craig: for the European release too because it was just too much, uh, for the rating that they wanted. But I just think it looks fad.

Hastick

Todd: it does. God,

Craig: I just, I know I’m going on and on, but seriously, like this came out in 1990 and I wish we saw more stuff like this today. These practical effects, obviously. They have to do. Camera cuts away. Like you don’t see the entire transformation. You just see it in stages. But every stage has just more and more grotesque and, Oh, it looks so good.

And then he turns into a mouse and then he’s a little mouse puppet and they try to stomp him out. Um, but he gets away. Yup. And then the meeting’s over and they’re all gonna leave and they’re about out the door. But the lady who works at the hotel in is also a, which is kind of cleaning up the stage, and she says she smells dogs droppings, which is what.

The grandmother had told Luke that children smell like to them. We were watching this and my partner was like, okay, now you’re right. This is scary because they smell him and they’re like sniffing him out and eventually he runs for it, but they’re all grasping at him and trying to get him. And, uh, again, my partner is like, yeah.

This is scary.

Todd: Yeah. Cause then

Craig: it’s a terrifying,

Todd: it is terrifying. They grab him, and this is the part that kind of pissed me off the most, is they grab him and they just lay him out on this table and she forces this stuff down. It’s really disturbing. It really is. She forces all the whole bottle down his throat and sure enough, he instantly starts transforming.

It’s just as disturbing as before. He becomes this little mouse, and again, they try to stomp him out, but he runs away underneath the stage and you hear in the background, Angelica Houston’s character go, that’s okay. Don’t worry about them. It’s not worth it anymore. Let’s go eat. And so they all leave and file out.

Craig: There’s actually just really quick, a little, just really quick. They, they, they don’t get them right away. In fact, he runs through the hotel and, uh, he runs outside and the grand high, which comes across this woman, mother or nanny. Who’s like sitting on a bench reading a book, and the baby, an infant is in a pram and the grand high, which pushes it down the Hill towards the cliff, and Luke has to go chasing after it and he eventually gets it.

But. I mean, this is a children’s movie and this woman just pushed an infant and a pram towards its ultimate demise. I’m kind of surprised they got away with some of this. I don’t know if they could get away with some of this, maybe not day and age.

Todd: I guess we’ll have to see it in the remake.

Craig: Yeah, and see, and I don’t remember if that was in the book.

I have a feeling it wasn’t, but I don’t remember. But anyway, they turned Luke into a mouse and then there’s a lot of cute stuff with, he meets up with Bruno. They actually meet up with William and Mary, the two little pet mice, and there’s a lot of cute stuff with them running through. The hotel and trying to avoid the guests and stuff.

They get to the grandmother. And of course, the grandmother being who she is except this immediately, you know, she just understands that it’s the work of witches. And so she tries to take Bruno back to his parents, but they totally cause Bruno, he’s busy eating, so he won’t. Talk to them, and so they just totally reject it.

Todd: I actually, I love that scene because it, it’s a little unrealistic the way it plays out, but first of all, the both of the kids seem a little, not terribly concerned that they’re mice right now, especially Bruno, who is oblivious to the fact that he’s a mouse until it’s pointed out to him and then he’s going to like.

Eh, okay. Whatever. It’s just kind of oblivious kid anyway, which provides some of the comedy, but then when this grandmother sits down in front of the parents and it’s like, I have to talk to you about your son. They’re like, okay, where is he? What’s going on? They’re not painted as really great parents anyway.

They’re like, Oh, where is he? He says, well, he’s very near like, Oh, really? Is he around? She’s like, no, I have them here. In my handbag. Yeah, and they sit there way too long. I just calmly listen to this woman. Like, what? What are you talking about? What could you possibly be doing?

Craig: Plus they’re assholes anyway.

Todd: I think in like 2020 if a woman came up to you and said, I have your son here in a handbag, then they’d be pretty freaked out at that very moment. It’s not that kind of horror movie, I guess so is what we’re trying to say

Craig: now. But they, they, right. They. They just think she’s crazy. Um, and then there’s a funny scene where Luke tells the grandmother that he knows who the grand high witches, and she’s like, Oh, I thought I recognize her.

Luke has a plan. He’s like, we got to get some of the potion, and they’re having a special dinner for them tonight, and they’re all going to be served this one particular soup. So if I can get some of the potion. I can put it in their soup, and then they’ll all turn into mice. And the grandmother is reluctant and doesn’t want to do it, but he’s like, we have to.

So coincidentally, they’re staying in the room directly above grand high witch. So she takes her knitting, she’s like knitting a sock. She puts him in it and she lowers him down and onto the balcony of the grand high, which is room, and he goes. To get the potion. There’s a cat there that chases them around and which actually is kind of scary in its own right.

And then, uh, the grandmother distracts it with her knitting. She’s like playing with it or whatever. So he goes and he gets the potion and gets back into, I think, I don’t remember. Does he get into the grandmas. SOC, or does he get back some other way? He gets back some other way. The grand high witch. Yeah, the grand high, which shows up, and so he has to go back through the hotel, but he gets back.

Uh, and so they’re going to set this plan into motion. So they go to the dinner. He has to go through the kitchen, which he does, which is a great. Scene because there’s peril at every turn. He gets the potion into the soup, but then the cook sees him and cuts his tail off with like a meat Cleaver,

Todd: and so then

Craig: he’s just got like this bloody stump tail.

Todd: I love this. It’s the classic red in the kitchen gag.

Craig: It only just now crossed my mind like. If he, if he were to return to human form, like what would he be missing? Cause something definitely got shopped off.

Todd: So I’d, you’ve now been circumcised?

Craig: Yeah. Just your last two vertebra are gone. Good luck with that.

Oh gosh. But they do, they get the, they get it into the soup and the witches are all eating the soup. I don’t know. I mean, I feel like I’m kind of trying to rush, but this all happens very quickly. It does. I miss, am I missing anything noteworthy?

Todd: No, you’re not really. And that’s one thing about this movie is it’s, it’s a long buildup and it’s a great buildup.

And then, uh, it. You know, the, the rest of it moves very, very quickly, probably faster than I would imagine the remakes going to go. I’m sure the remakes gonna make the, the last half of the movie, this wild ride of him evading the witches and him, them coming up with this plan and their plan getting, you know, going wrong.

And, you know, having to regroup and all this stuff like movies tend to do now. But back then we liked movies to be a nice tight hour and a half or less. And this movie is, and it moves very quickly and very satisfying. Really, I think towards its conclusion, there’s only so much time we really want to spend watching these mice run around.

You know, honestly, I think most of the fun was in the buildup, and now we know what they’re, they’re worth, they’re going to do, and they end up doing it and it works. You know, all these witches, they eat the soup and there’s this kind of chaotic scene with all this green smoke they’re spewing. Actually, it’s also a bit terrifying as well, where these ladies are just spewing green smoke as they’re transforming into these.

These rats and, and apparently, uh, even the green smoke itself during the scene was, was really troublesome to Angelica Houston’s contact lenses that she had in, and they had to constantly be rewetting them during the scenes. Even this scene was unpleasant for her when she’s not even in full makeup, but she transforms into this nasty looking little rat and the grandmother traps it under a.

Pitcher and tells Rowan Atkinson’s character, Hey, go over there. There’s a particularly nasty little mouse that you need to deal with.

Craig: He goes over there

Todd: and lifts it up and with a meat Cleaver takes out the head, which, which is extremely satisfying and also pretty gross for a kid’s movie, even though it doesn’t go into it.

Too much detail. Uh, but yeah, that’s it. And so all the witches are killed. And, uh, the, this is where the movie starts to deviate a little bit from the book.

Craig: All of them are killed except for the woman who was the grand high, which is secretary, because she wasn’t allowed to come to the dinner for whatever reason.

Like she’s too much of a piano or whatever. And we actually. See a scene of her sitting up in the room by herself and she says, well, I never really wanted to be one of them. Anyway, the grandmother dumps Bruno on his parents’ table and they hear him talk, so they have to accept that in the book. It’s implied.

That the dad dumped Bruno in a mop bucket and encouraged a janitor to drown him. But that doesn’t happen in the

Todd: movie. A big surprise there.

Craig: And so the grandmother and Luke go home and Luke has this amazing. Mouse Haven where he can like ride and little trains and cars and has all these tunnels and different things, and they’re talking about their plan, which, and this is what happens in the book too.

They are going to, they took all the money because the grand high, which had enough money for all of those witches to buy all these sweet shops and they took all that. So they’re going to go on. Uh, a mission to find whoever’s going to be appointed the new grand, high witch, and somehow they’re going to turn all the witches in the world to mice.

Now, in the book, Luke realizes that he’s a mouse and that’s all there is to it. And mice only live for a certain amount of time. And so the book ends on him kind of coming to the realization that he and his grandmother are probably going to die right around the same time. The end, the filmmakers wanted a happier ending, and so they filmed an ending where that secretary comes and restores Luke to his human form.

Happy ending role. Doll was, he saw it and he was furious. He hated it. He hated the happy ending. So the director said, okay. I’ll film your ending too. And he did, and Raul doll saw it and was brought to tears because he liked it so much. Well, they decided to go with the original or with the happy and negate anyway,

Todd: you to the.

To the source material

Craig: to the writer,

Todd: the wetter don’t wonder role to is such a bitter man.

Craig: Well, I have to say in this case, as you know, this movie really was very dark and I’m, I’m kind of happy that they went with the hat. Be a Ning. It’s nice that he was restored to his human form. I don’t, I don’t think I would’ve been disappointed either way, but I liked the ending as it is.

Todd: I actually think it would have been better with the other ending just because I don’t like my innings, Pat and neat. And of course, as a kid, this never bothered me that this had a happy ending as an adult. I think it’s just too sappy, you know? It just seems a little rash at the end. A little too convenient that the spurned which comes in and restores him.

Okay. Whatever. I can get behind any ending. It’s not that important to me, but I think that just artistically it would have been thematically, it would have been a lot nicer just to have him as the mouse. They didn’t have to in the movie, point out that his lifespan would be low, small or something like that.

But there was something very poignant about the moment at which. He as a mouse sitting in the little real Ghostbusters a a firehouse going to bed says very cheerfully to his grandmother. You know,

Craig: grandma, I’m really, really happy being a

Todd: mouse. And grandma who’s laying in her bed with her face turned away and tears in her eyes says, I know Luke.

I know that. Pretty poignant moment that I felt kinda got spoiled a little bit by the woman coming and going, ah, I’ll make you a boy anyway.

Craig: Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough.

Todd: But anyway, fair enough. No, it was, it was still fine. And, and as a, you know, as an adult watching this movie again, I feel like I appreciate it even more than I did as a kid watching it.

And. If you’re going to show this movie to your kids, you don’t want it to be too little. Yeah. I watched this when I was in middle school. That’s about the right age. I’d say middle elementary or something like that. It’s probably okay. It is scary.

Craig: It might even be more scary

Todd: to me as an adult because I have more hooks to hang all this stuff on, but I do remember it being scary as a little kid as well, but not quite as terrifying.

I think you’re safe showing this to your kid around that age. But my three year old son, five-year-old, I probably

Craig: would wait a little bit

Todd: before showing him this movie because it is truly, truly a horror film and a really good one.

Craig: Yeah. My sister read the book to her kids, um, and I think they’re like 11 and nine now.

And she said that, uh, they watched the movie afterwards and I was surprised because her son, who’s the older one, um, is, is really affected by these types of things. And he doesn’t like it. And I said, wasn’t he scared? And she said, yeah, but we made them.

Oh, it really is scary. Uh, the truth of the matter is, you know, watching it again in its entirety, cause it comes on on cable every once in a while and I’ll, you know, leave it on while I’m doing stuff or whatever. I knew going in that I liked it sitting and watching it from beginning to end for the purpose of this podcast, I just appreciate it so much more and as though you couldn’t tell from the way that I’ve talked about it throughout this podcast.

I think it’s great. I think it isn’t. Excellent movie and it is a horror movie. I mean, you know, Facebook commenters what? Fight me. You know, like I will, I will die on this Hill. This is a horror movie. And it’s scary and I think it’s really good. I think it’s scarier than a lot of the movies that we talk about on here.

Todd: No, I think you’re absolutely right. It truly is, and I’m glad we did it.

Craig: Me too. All right. Thank

Todd: you again for listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend to find us online and on our YouTube channel. Find us on our website, on and on Facebook. Just search for two guys and a chainsaw and you’ll find us.

Well, leave us a comment. Let us know what you thought about this movie. We still have the rest of this month coming up with more child slash family friendly for films coming. Until next time, I’m Todd

Craig: and I’m Craig with

Todd: two guys and a chainsaw .

The next in our month of family-friendly horror films is Disney’s first attempt to branch out into horror. What starts out as a simple ghost story takes a sharp and somewhat baffling turn. But what we can say about The Watcher In The Woods is that it’s definitely unique and controversial – and Bettie Davis’ role as Mrs. Aylwood is iconic.

Episode 205, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, Craig, we are a week two into our month of child, or I guess we should say family oriented horror movies. Yeah. And we all know the company around the world that is the most responsible for family entertainment is Disney. Probably by now. Disney’s done a few of what you might consider horror movies, but back in the late seventies early eighties they hadn’t really ventured out into this arena.

Now, we’ve recent, we, not long ago, I think for a 150th episode or maybe our hundredth episode, I don’t remember. We did something wicked this way comes, which was a Disney movie that took a little bit of a different, you know, a little more mature than most of their other films based on a Ray Bradbury novel.

That’s quite good. And us both being Ray Bradbury fans and big fans of that movie from our childhood. We really had a lot of great things to say about it and it’s a fine film. Yeah. This movie predates it a little bit, but not by much. Uh, this is 1980s. The watcher in the woods now, I remember seeing a lot about this movie because whenever we’d rent a Disney VHS tape from the video store, they always had this pre-roll before it, like this sort of advertisement for a whole bunch of their other movies that were available on VHS.

Craig: I remember that. 

Todd: You remember that? Do you remember this? This movie being in there too? It always looks so scary. It’s this girl in this mirror and something cracks and she’s blindfolded, and Betty Davis has creepy face pops in there, all kinds of stuff. Uh, and so I’ve really, at one time was really wanted to see this movie, but we never could get our hands on it and never did, uh, as a kid.

But it was known at the time. One of Disney’s first scary movies where they were going a little bit more for a young adult audience than the kid audience, and more of a PG or PG 13 than the G that fair that they had been known for before. In fact, I think around the same time, they also did the black cauldron, which wasn’t terribly successful.

It was a pretty dark for a Disney movie at the time. So, uh, it’s a bit of a notorious film in that way. And, uh, I. Finally got to see it for the first time. Um, in elementary school in a kind of an odd way, you know, back when we were in elementary school, we still had actual like film projectors and things being called into the classroom.

And for some reason, one time, I think it was during a music class that we were supposed to have but got canceled for one reason or another. We instead watched this movie. But it was a truncated version of this movie. It was like a, like a, maybe like a 45 minute to an hour max version of this movie. This movie is about hour and a half.

It ended very abruptly and it wasn’t like they had to change the reel or anything. It literally ended and then a slide came up saying the end, it cut out so much of the actual ending of this movie. It creeped me out and then I was like. 

Craig: Oh, 

Todd: is that it took me, took me til my adult years to finally go back and want to see this movie again and watch and realize that it actually had a good 20 to 30 minutes past where they ended this movie during this, this film reel that I watched when I was in elementary school.

So this movie. If its own way has kind of haunted me through my, through my early life, and we’re reviewing it again today. So that’s my backstory at this. How about you, Craig? Had you seen this before? 

Craig: No, I hadn’t seen it before. I knew about it. It pops up in articles and things every once in a while. And I really like, uh, Betty Davis, but I know I had never seen, and I knew that they had fairly recently in the last few years, done a remake, um, with Angelica Houston.

Um, but I haven’t seen that either, and I hadn’t. Seen this. So I was kind of, uh, excited to get to see it for the first time. 

Todd: Well, what did you think of it? 

Craig: You know, honestly, I thought I liked it. Uh, and I’m kind of surprised because I don’t know, you know, it’s not the standard fare that I watch. I mean, this is stuff that I would have watched when I was a kid.

Uh, and I think. That I maybe would have appreciated it even more as a kid, but I, I still think it’s a good movie. It’s not scary. I would say that it’s suspenseful. I thought that it was a good ghost story and it had, you know, good intrigue. I think the thing that as an adult that I was most impressed with was the quality of the filmmaking.

Um, I mean, some of the cinematography was really beautiful. The .  was not bad. I had it in my mind for some reason that this was a made for TV movie. Um, maybe just because by the time I was old enough to be aware of it, they were playing it on Disney channel or something. I dunno. Um, as it turns out, the Disney company had intended it to be a television film, but then for whatever reason, they changed their mind, uh, at some point and decided to make it a theatrical release.

Um. And you can still kind of tell just in parts how it kind of feels like a TV movie. Um, because it feels like there are places where commercial breaks could be easily worked in like 

Todd: without that little fade out. 

Craig: Right, right, exactly. And then fade back into a new scene. It’d be really easy to insert some commercials in there.

It’s a slow burn, like you said, it’s short depending on what version you watch. And it has kind of a storied history because it was released, but audiences and critics didn’t particularly like the ending, so they pulled it out of theaters, um, and reshot endings and, uh, try to come up. All of different endings.

Recently when some, I think anniversary blue Ray release came out, uh, they had said that they were going to restore it to the original directors, cut what the director had really intended, but then they didn’t, Disney refused to release, uh, all of the original footage. And so it’s still what you get on Blu-ray, even though the director.

Juror says in the commentary, this is my original cut. He PR, he recorded that commentary before they made the decision not to restore it all. So even though he says, this is it, this is, uh, the director’s cut, it’s really not. But the extended. Or alternate versions are available on YouTube so you can watch them and I’ll be interested.

I did. I watched them both and I’ll be, when we get to the end, it’ll be fun to talk about it. It’s kind of like she, it’s like choose your own adventure. Like, Ooh, which ending did you like that. 

Todd: That’s true. I didn’t like any of them, to be quite honest, but anyway, I didn’t like my original end to get, maybe my original ethnic was even better than the others that are available 

Craig: where it just stops.

Yeah, 

Todd: it really did. Once we get to that point, I’ll tell you all about it. It was a, it was really an interesting experience for me. Uh, anyway. Yeah. Okay, so let’s just dive in, right? Let’s talk about the movie a little bit. You’re right. It is a slow burn. I think it’s really more of just. A standard ghost story that, yeah.

Takes a sharp left turn pretty late 

Craig: right at the end. 

Todd: Yeah. Which is why it’s so confusing, but it’s, I think it’s pretty compelling from the beginning and it does jump in very quickly to some action. Actually, I thought the opening credits themselves were pretty creepy. It’s just these shots of the woods with the mist going through them, and it’s bright and sunny outside, but that dead.

Spooky music behind. It lets you know that all things are not well and there’s some chives and maybe some kids going LA, LA, LA, the background or something, the score for this film was quite good. Yeah, I think it’s, it’s very typical. It’s your so typical haunted house movie, right, where you’ve got this American family, Helen and Paul Curtis.

And their daughters, Jan and Ellie go to a giant Manor in rural England that the real estate person is taking them to. They’re going to stay there, I guess for the summer, or are they going to live there? I’m not sure. 

Craig: I dunno, I couldn’t tell you there because they’re not, they’re not buying the place. Um, they’re just renting it from this eccentric old lady, um, named mrs IO wood, uh, who actually lives in the cottage house on the property right next to the main house.

And yeah, you’re right. Like, it is so typical, like it’s almost identical to the beginning of burnt offerings. It reminded me a lot of . That in the beginning, and you know, right away they show up. And of course the house is gorgeous. It’s this huge, you know, actual English manner and it’s beautiful. It’s out in the middle of the woods and right away, the older girl Jan, who is played by Lynn, Holly Johnson, who I think is probably most famous, she played the lead in ice castles.

Um, and she was in some other big movies in the 80s. 

Todd: Figure skater, I think before, I think she was an ice castles for that reason. Not the best actress in the world, but probably 

Craig: better. She was fine. Yeah. Maybe 

Todd: for this time, maybe if she was all sudden a James Bond movie for your eyes only. She was BB doll, 

Craig: right?

Todd: Yeah. A year or two after this. She’s an adult bond girl. Right. Whereas she’s playing a, a kid in this film, like a teenager. She’s, 

Craig: yeah. She’s supposed to be 17, I think. So. I’m not that young. She’s the older, and then Ellie is the younger, Ellie’s played by Kyle Richards, uh, who’s a real housewife now. It’s, which is funny.

Um, Kyle Richards was also the little girl in the original Halloween. Yes. And is said to be reprising her role from Halloween in the next installment. 

Todd: Halloween kills. Yep. Isn’t that the title? 

Craig: I think so. So right away from the beginning, Jan like kind of looks out into the woods and gets kind of an eerie feeling right away.

And, um, when they’re looking around the house, she goes upstairs and she’s looking out the window and she’s got her hand on the window and she sees like some kind of weird blue light. Out there and then the window shatters underneath her hand. I mean, I guess it doesn’t technically shatter. It just breaks and it breaks into the shape of a triangle and there’s lots of shaped imagery going on throughout this.

And it was funny because I guess the movie was geared towards younger people because all the, they eventually start to notice these shapes showing up. All the time. And it’s so blatantly obvious what the shapes represent, but like the characters don’t get it. Yeah, that’s 

Todd: right. They do walk around a little too dumbfounded through most of this movie.

I wonder what those two circles could mean, but uh, yeah. And, and so the movie kind of goes on like this. They’re just finding some suspicious things. There’s this shape, uh, as well that shows up. There. She takes a walk through the woods, uh, and she sees a circle reflected in the water, and the circle has like a, it’s like a blue halo, and then there’s a zap, like almost like a laser beam that either comes out of the circle or is coming from the sky.

I’m not sure what, in any case, it knocks her off balance and she falls into the water. And after she falls into the water, a sister comes up screaming and she’s like, Oh no, what’s going on? And Betty Davis’s character, who you said earlier, her name was mrs  is there, and she’s got a big long stick and she’s poking at her under the water and it looks like she’s trying to keep her down and drown her.

But actually what she’s trying to do is free her from the branches that she’s caught in under the water. And there’s a long scene of struggle with her under the water, and it’s a little, I mean, it’s spooky for a little kid. I definitely, uh, Ellie, uh, looking at her, she says 

Craig: she had to push it down, kitchen loose from the grains.

She saved July at factories, kind of jam some dry clothes. Well, yes. 

Todd: And so they are in mrs L woods cabin now. Uh, and mrs Elwood is now a little more kind to them and not quite as surly this time around. But I think the first time that she had met them, she looked at her at Jan very, very strangely. Like she reminded her of somebody.

There’s talk about her previously having a daughter that disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Uh, and this. This happens once or twice in the movie, mostly by this nearby guy. I guess. He’s like a, they have a mechanic shop or something. Right. 

Craig: I don’t know. It’s like a country store or something.

Cause I feel like the girl’s mom is buying some things and like they ha there. There’s all these signs. Although the only one I remember, it was like puppies for sale. Like, like they just randomly sell like vegetables and puppies and I, you know, whatever along the side of the road, the, the woman who apparently owns this place has a teenage son named Mike.

And, um, Jan and Mike. You know, hit it off right from the beginning and are really basically kind of a couple throughout the rest of the movie. But yeah, we find out that, uh, Elwood had this daughter who had been Jan’s age and throughout, you get all these little haunted house ghost story moments, like at one point.

Point. Jan is looking in a big mirror that she’s setting up and she can’t see her reflection, but then this ghostly figure appears in the mirror and it’s a blonde girl in a white dress and she’s blindfolded. Um, and so, you know, there’s spooky stuff going on. All this intrigue, you realize that there’s going to be some mystery.

You know, who is this girl? It seems like it’s mrs Lyle happens daughter. It’s weird because it’s set up like Jan and Ellie both maybe have like some kind of psychic ability. Mrs IOL would even asks Jan when they first show up, she’s like, are you adventurous, kind sensitive? Do you sense things? She’s like, yeah, I guess.

Um, and so like, Jan can kind of see things, I guess. And Ellie hears things. 

Todd: Oh, I didn’t make that connection. 

Craig: Yeah. Ellie hears voices. She hears whispers and she hears humming. And she always thinks that it’s Jan and she’s always, you know, like she’ll say to Jan, that’s a pretty tune. You are humming. And Jane’s like, what are you talking about?

I wasn’t humming like, yes, you were. No. 

Todd: And there are also moments where she seems to be kind of possessed. It’s, it’s borrowing heavily from the shining Shirley at points. It’s really interesting because they’re also setting up the woods as a bit of a character. I mean, we know the movie’s name, the watcher in the woods, and every now and then there’s this huge breeze that will blow through.

Wind really, that blows through the woods. That doesn’t seem to come from anywhere. And every now and then we get the camera POV shots that almost look like something creepy. Looking out and watching, you know, very voyeuristic shots from the woods, like there’s somebody or something in there. And so there’s that aspect too.

And the mother, mrs Elwood. After she initially meets the girls and the girls run out, uh, she stares ominously in the woods from the front door of her cottage, and there’s a bit of a breeze that blows, and she says to the woods, they’re staying isn’t, is that what you wanted? So yeah, you’re thinking that there’s a supernatural presence of some kind that mrs ale is tuned into and that maybe these girls are tapping into as well.

And when Ellie gets this little puppy, I guess she finds it, or did she buy it from 

Craig: she? She got it from that store 

Todd: and that 

Craig: store sells every day. 

Todd: She’s holding the puppy and then she gets this sort of possession type thing where she starts staring off into space and with her finger, she scratches backwards in the dirt on the window.

Uh, what is obviously Karen. Backwards. 

Craig: Yeah. And not just backwards, but like mirror image. 

Todd: Mirror, image. Yeah. It’s just like she’s writing mirror, you know, the other way, just like the shining with red rum, you know, except in the shining. The kid writes the our back, you know, the right way. And it’s a little bit more of a surprise when you see it in the mirror.

And spoiler alert, it’s actually like a murder. But in this one, she’s obviously just written Karen backwards, but Jan comes over and it’s like, 

Craig: Oh, what’s that? The name of the Merrick, but what does it mean? You outta know? You whispered it to me. I was talking to Mike. Well, I heard somebody said, never seen you write 

Todd: like that before.

You’ll see later from this, we’re outside and one of the neighbors, one of the neighbor ladies, her name is Mary. Is talking to I think their mother or whatever, and she looks over her shoulder and sees from this side of the window that Karen. Is has been scrawled on the window, and that freaks her out.

She immediately makes an excuse to leave. So it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that there’s this girl, Karen, she’s probably mrs ale Wood’s daughter who disappeared and she’s sort of haunting these girls and that’s what they’re seeing. And. In the reflection and in the window. 

Craig: Well, in the, after the whole almost drowning incident, mrs aisle would, um, gives them some backstory and it’s in the form of a flashback and we see young mrs

It’s funny, I read that. Betty Davis wanted to play the role, both in the younger version and in the older version. And they, they tried to make her up to look young and they, they filmed this flashback scene with her. Um, but when they watched the dailies, the director waited until everybody else was out of the room.

And then he looked at Betty Davis and said, um. Nobody’s going to buy you as, as this young woman. And she was, she agreed. She was, she, she was like, you’re goddamn right. 

Todd: You could imagine, 

Craig: but yeah. And so, yeah, Betty Davis was, you know. Elderly at this point. I mean, she looks good for a woman of her age, but she’s, she’s not gonna pass for 40 or 30 or whatever, um, 

Todd: makeup in the world to make that happen.

Craig: We, in the backstory, we find out that her husband had been killed in the war. It was the night of an eclipse, and she realizes that her daughter is at home, so she runs out looking for, there’s like a chapel in the woods. These woods are just full of random things. Like there’s the country store in one part of the woods, there’s this big chapel and another part.

There’s like random houses and things, but she runs to this chapel and she sees these other three young people running away, and then lightning strikes the chapel and there’s fire. I guess that the, the kids had been playing some kind of game. That’s all we find out at this point. But Mary didn’t run out and she was never found, never found dead or alive.

Uh, so, um, nobody knows what happened to her. The, after that story, we get motocross.

I was like, 

Todd: what 

Craig: kind of movie is this? 

Todd: Right. Mike limbo boat boy. The whole family’s out there watching the motocross that, uh, that Mike is in, and Jan and Ellie decided let’s go a little closer. And the parents go, be careful. Well, yeah, these two kids get about as close as you could get to the track without getting run over there.

Clearly. Dangerously close to these motorbikes, flying over these Hills. And Jan is on this standing on this flat rock with Ellie, and Ellie runs off to get a higher view, and suddenly she gets possessed again and she turns around and she yells at Jan to come over. And so Jan runs over and just at the point in which she reaches Ellie, this motorbike, this guy falls off of it and it goes flying through the air and it hits that rock and explodes just where she had been standing.

And I think Ellie says, Jan says, well, what did you want? And Ellie’s like, I didn’t want anything Nerrick wanted you is what she said. Nerrick or Karen or the watcher in the woods or whoever has just saved Jan at the motocross event. So, uh, you know, this is a thing about some of these ghost stories where they don’t seem to have these hard and fast little rules to their universe, right?

Is the house being haunted? Are the kids being haunted? Does the ghost travel with the kids? Does it run around helping them wherever they are? You know, kind of what’s the deal here? And I guess it really doesn’t matter where the kids are. Somehow this ghost has latched onto them and it’s going to make mysterious, spooky things happen around them.

Well, I was thinking during this too, and maybe it’s also because you know, a lot of thoughts go through your mind. Um, obviously the girl in the mirror with this blindfold who’s, who’s reaching out, whether she sinister or not, looks like she could be Jan right blindfolded. She’s got long, blonde hair, can’t see her face really clearly.

And then when. Mrs Elwood looks at her and sees old strong resemblance. You’re thinking, is there some kind of connection between these two girls that’s setting this off? You know, this metaphysical sort of reincarnation thing or whatnot that sometimes you see in movies. So it does really keep you guessing in a way as to the nature of this and what it all means.

Craig: Yeah, it does. But also some of these events. Like the motocross thing in that big accident, they don’t really serve any purpose other than to show maybe, I guess that this spirit or whatever it is, is protecting the girls for some reason. Maybe even specifically Jan for some reason. Um, but other than that, it just seems pretty random.

At some point we find out that Mike’s mom was one of the people that was with Karen that night. Um, and eventually we find out who the other two guys were too. I mean, they were all just teenagers, friends, but they’re all still around in the exact same location. Like they, they, they haven’t, they’re, they’re, they’re haunted and tormented by this horrible event that happened, but they choose to stay.

Right. Exactly. There 

Todd: it seems. You have like a one kilometer radius of this house, 

Craig: yet 

Todd: there are places you 

Craig: definitely can. Well, there’s a whole horse-riding deal. They go horseback riding and a wind. They go up to the edge of the woods and a wind blows out of the woods and spooks the horses and the horses take off and Jan’s horse like almost gets hit.

Buy a truck and the truck runs off the bridge and like, it’s a whole thing. And, but they end up at, uh, the chapel and Jan arrives first. Mike is on her tail, but she arrives first and she goes in and she sees that triangle. In blue, like the blue light triangle on this coffin that’s just laying there. She walks up to it and she sees that ghost sleeker, all laying in the coffin, and then Mike runs in and she’s like, Hey, look, she’s in there, but she’s not anymore.

She’s gone. And then this creepy guy shows up. We’ve seen him lurking around in the woods at least once before. It turns out that his name is Tom Collie, and he was another one of those friends who was there with Karen that night. Um, but then there’s the weird wind and some of the windows break out.

Weird stuff is happening in the chapel and when it’s done, these two circles of glass are laying either on the coffin or on the floor. Literally. One is in like a sun pattern and the other is dark and is yellow and the other is dark blue. So it’s so clearly. Like an eclipse, but they don’t, 

Todd: they don’t 

Craig: put that together.

Todd: Jan just looks at it. I wonder what that could possibly mean. 

Craig: But again, if it’s for kids, okay, kids might not put that together. All right. Um, but Tom, the creepy guy then runs off to another huge estate within a one kilometer radius and, uh, talks to the third and last guy, he says. Apparently wealthy English gentlemen or whatever his name is, John Keller, he completes the three friends who were there, and Tom says to John, I’ve seen her.

She was in the chapel. So Tom thinks that Jan, is Karen a ghost or or whatever. And so like, like I said earlier, it’s a slow burn. It’s like we’re just getting little bits of information as you go along. And, and at this point you can’t really piece together what happened except, you know, all three of those people were there and something bad happened, obviously, because they all are very sketchy about it.

And I think that that’s good for pacing. Now for me as an adult, you know, I was. Kind of like, okay, you know, let’s, let’s get to it. But as far as ghost stories, classic ghost stories are concerned, I feel like this is very par for the course. You know, you just get little pieces of the puzzle every so often until it all comes together at the end.

So that’s fine. Jane and might go to a carnival. Uh, and they go into the house of mirrors, which was, you know, a fun set piece. And Jan finds herself in one of those rooms where her reflection is multiplied like hundreds of times, but it turns in, her reflection turns into Karen. So Karen’s reflection is all around and she’s reaching out and you can’t, or Jan can’t hear her, but you can see that she’s saying helped me.

So from this point on, Jan is on a mission. Yeah. She’s going to figure out what happened, and she is going to find out what happened to Karen, and she’s going to solve this mystery. Um, and then, you know, she’s just Nancy drew for the rest of them. 

Todd: You basically, they go to Tom Collie, uh, they go to find this creepy guy who lives.

Is it a part of the, of the broken down chapel or is it just a broken down shed near the chapel? I’m not really 

Craig: serving a shack in the woods. 

Todd: It’s a walk through the woods to, and, uh, she finds him and he said at first is like, Oh, we’re not supposed to talk about what happened that night. We’re not supposed to talk about it.

John Keller told me we can’t talk about it. Well. Jan had tried to get John to talk about it as well, and he let a bit of info, but not much. And so when she told him that, uh, John had said it was some kind of say it was some kind of ceremony you guys were doing, then he opens up and then we get through flashback something.

Uh, basically the complete story. Yeah. Which is these kids went into the woods. They were doing this kind of ceremony and they said it was John’s idea. It’s, I guess, a ceremony to for this girl to join their group. 

Craig: Yeah. It’s an initiation. 

Todd: And so she’s standing on this coffin like, I guess it’s the coffin, right?

Craig: Yeah, I think so. 

Todd: And they all link hands and John has a few words to say, being brought to this place to prove yourself 

Craig: worthy of our secret society. We number only three. We three alone pass this test of courage. Many have tried and failed.

You missed nothing to do with the blind. You must not move a toe. We should hold hands around you and you must not break outside the circle of our friendship. Whatever happens, whatever we say or do. It must’ve bide by out code and banish all thoughts from your mind. 

Todd: Then it also happens that there was an eclipse that night and lightning came through the air and struck the bell on the tower just above where they were standing.

Started to set things a blaze. The kids break the circle and runoff, and as they turn around, Karen, who. Poor girl was still standing there, uh, on top of that coffin, a giant bell comes down on her, or at least that’s what everybody else thinks, except for Tom Collie who says that. I turned around and I looked and she was gone before that bell came down and apparently everybody searched.

To find her and couldn’t find her. So she just disappeared. Nobody found a body. Nobody found a chart up corpse or anything. And all the kids were just, you know, telling themselves all into adulthood that either she ran away or something mysterious happened to her, but they’re brooded by this ever since.

Craig: Right. And this is kind of random, but I just wanted to say, I don’t even have it written down. The guy who played Tom Collie, I just really liked it. TIS characterization. His name is Richard Pascoe. He played him in almost a childlike way that he’s, he’s kind of simple, but also kind and like he finds injured.

Animals in the woods and like brings them home and rehabilitates them and stuff. It seemed like he had a genuine affection for Karen, and not in like a gross pervy way, but like in an innocent, you know, childlike way. He really cared for her, um, and is really troubled, um, and has remained troubled by what has happened.

Uh, and I just, I really liked his performance. 

Todd: Yeah. He, it was. Oh, most, uh, he, he was like you said, a little simple but not too simple and just almost stunted. Like this event just stunted his development really. Like he was so traumatized by the event that he’s kind of retreated, become this hermit and, uh, hasn’t really grown up like a normal adult since then.

But like you said, very caring. It was a, you’re right, they, he was, it was quite, quite good in that way. I actually thought all of the characters in this movie really were pretty good. They were believable. The acting was fine. And, and I guess at some point in this mu, in this film, the father leaves quite early on.

He’s, I can’t remember what his job is, but he’s, 

Craig: he’s a composer. 

Todd: Oh, that’s right. He’s, he’s got sheets and sheets of sheet music he has to deal with and he drives off. And I guess it was like about 45 minutes into the movie. I was like, yeah, I wonder if dad’s going to come back in at some point. No, I’m not even.

He just up and left and nobody is says makes mention of him again. Nor does he come back. 

Craig: Well, the mother has a really small presence too, like at one point. They leave to like go into town and I thought they were going to be gone for the major action. I guess at some point the mom comes back because she’s in at least one kind of pivotal scene, but right after Jan gets all this information, we get a scene where mrs  would invites Ellie into her house.

She shows her Karen’s music box. She says, you know, this is the tune that a, you’ve been humming, your assistant tells me, you hear all the things. Voices that tell you to do things,

not when you named near that

isn’t child. Listen to the music and see if you can hear that voice again. But Janet erupts and comes in and Ellie gets up and says, Hey, look at this music boxes at night, isn’t it nice? And then Ellie kind of goes off to the side, and Jan and mrs aisle would are talking. And, um, Jan is telling mrs  what she’s just learned about the whole initiation thing, but then their attention is drawn back to Ellie, who is in another one of her chant trances.

She says. Must help Karen door and like this is all stunted. I feel like they’re asking her questions kind of in between, but she says, must open door chapel soon, and they’re like, Karen, Karen, how can we help you? And Ellie says, no, not Karen. And then she faints. Just at that moment, their mother comes in and sees all this.

And that’s enough for her. She’s like, we’re getting out of here, and we haven’t seen her in a while now. And I guess she just happened to wander in, but, uh, she’s bound and determined to get them out of there. So she puts them in the car and it’s storming and they’re headed away, but the car starts to die, like the electricity is going out.

The battery is shorting out or something and they end up stuck on this bridge and Jan says, we have to get out. We have to get out of the car. And so she convinces, she like takes the keys and she gets out. So the mom and Ellie get out and as soon as they get off. The bridge, lightning strikes the bridge and the whole car falls into like this ravine or whatever, and explode, explodes.

Todd: It’s, it’s, it’s just goes without saying that whenever a car is going to run off the road or fall down a ravine, it has to explode. Yup. And this film is no different. 

Craig: So obviously. Somebody, somebody or something wants to keep them there. What I thought was really kind of funny about this part was then it’s kind of like the mom just threw up her hands like, Oh, well, okay, guess we get got underwear.

Let’s go home and go to bed.

Todd: You were right, your little ritual thing. No, I thought, actually I thought it was a little interesting, a bit chilling. Um, when Ellie, and to me, this is one of the big reveals in the movie, even though ultimately I have problems with it. But, um, Ellie, when she says, no, not Karen, uh, then it introduces this whole other possibility that we’re not really thinking of that there’s some other entity out there, not Karen, and just brings up all these questions like, well, has it been this entity that has been reaching out to them?

Is it using this Karen thing to lure them in for some sinister thing? 

Craig: It made me think that, and. I thought that was spooky because you know, we, like the girls have thought that this was Karen reaching out the whole time. It makes logical sense that it would be, you know, she’s been missing. Jan is seeing an apparition of her.

So there, up until this point, there’s really been no suggestion that it would have been any one or anything else. And so now. You know, it’s, it’s like, Oh God, terrible example. But like which board, when they think they’ve been talking to that one kid for the whole movie, and then it turns out that they weren’t, that they were talking to something else.

And that’s kind of the same thing here. It makes you, if it’s not. Karen, then what does this force, whatever it is, what does it want? Like what is it in the game? 

Todd: Yeah. And I was also thinking back to when, um, mrs aisle would, at the very beginning of the movie, stared out into the woods and said, you know, they’re there.

They’re staying now. Is that what you wanted? And so I was thinking, Oh, she must have some sinister motive like she or you know, I mean, she’s clearly not talking to Karen. She has no idea what happened to Karen. So she’s talking to this other. Thing you know, is she had Coots with it. I didn’t know. It was like you said, it was very chilling.

Craig: Well, I think that she, I think mrs  would thinks that she was talking to Karen because when, um, yeah, when Jan’s talking to mrs  and she says like, what do you think happens to her? Mrs  says, I think she’s still here. Yeah. I think that she thinks that. Karen’s ghost maybe or something. I don’t know. But I think that she thinks that Karen is still around somehow.

Maybe she knows that there’s something else or suspects that there’s something else too. I don’t know it. It’s unclear. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s unclear. Well, but she could be just as confused as the rest of us, so yeah. For sure, 

Craig: right? Well, that night they’re sleeping and Jan wakes up and notices that Ellie isn’t in her bed and she goes into the bathroom where Ellie is writing on the mirror again in mirror image.

Uh, and she writes, do against Morrow. And then out loud, she says, too late, it hardly ever happens. But then there’s a noise or something that snaps Ellie out of her trance and she has no memory of what she was doing. She doesn’t know what she was talking about. But then the next morning. Um, Ellie is just, you know, she’s just herself, a little girl.

Um, she starts talking and she starts talking about the eclipse that’s going to happen that night, and she says those same things. 

Todd: It hardly ever happens. 

Craig: She’s like, will you help me make one of those. I can look at the eclipse box glasses things, but we have to hurry or otherwise it’ll be too late. Um, and so, uh, from all that, Jan figures out that the eclipse has something to do with it.

So she decides that she needs to get the three people who were involved in that initiation ceremony. Back together so that they can recreate it and then maybe that will bring Karen back. Now, how she leaps to that conclusion. I have no idea, but okay. 

Todd: It’s a bit of a problem. Not only the fact that she leaves to this conclusion, but that she can so easily convince all the adults to come out and do it.

Right. I mean, they put up a little bit of a fight. 

Craig: Yeah. Well the mean guy does. And she, she tells Mike, you got to get your mom to come. And I don’t know how they got the other guy there. They probably just asked. He’s nice. I don’t know. Um, she’s sitting there with the, the mean guy and, uh, she’s like, Oh, they should be here by now.

And he’s like, they’re not going to come. And then she’s like, Oh, here they come

Todd: from, and from there she just directs it like she knows what she’s doing. She jumps up on the coffin and she’s got a blindfold that she puts it on. She’s like, all right, now pretend I’m pretend I’m Karen. And you say exactly what you said that night. And he’s like, Oh, I can’t remember. She’s like, you’ve got to remember.

He’s like, okay. I remember. And then he starts in, uh, and repeating the thing. Now we’ve got to talk about the, the movie from here on, in the context of the version that’s officially available. When they do this, some gusts of the big wind comes in again and the chapel thing shatters. And they’ve talked about how they’re not supposed to break the chain, but, uh, one of the mother Mary tries to run out and break the chain and she’s held back.

Um, actually Mike is there too, and he’s threatened to break the chain. If anything bad happens to her. And then Ellie comes walking in in her trance again from the back of the chapel. 

Craig: Listen

we exchanged places by mistake, magnetic and are being transferred positions now exchange places. There’s this glowing energy that appears next to her. At one point, like you said, Mary breaks the chain and, and like the glowing energy fades, but they get her to come back and then the energy comes back and Ellie says, Karen was trans.

By mistake, trapped. And then this red light shines down on Jan, who’s still in the middle of this circle, and it starts to like pull her up into the air, but Mike breaks through the ring, grabs her, and pulls her back down. And so they tumbled to the floor and everybody tumbles to the floor. And when they look back where, uh, Jan had been standing, Karen is there, and.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t think I am in this version of the ending. Karen has aged, right? It looks like she’s supposed to be the age that she would have been had. This not happened, like she’s the same age as all of the other people who were at that ceremony and she’s standing there and then mrs would walks in.

And you know, just, you know, has this look on her face, like she can’t believe it. And she just says in Betty Davis is amazing voice, cat red, y’all, Whoa.

And I feel like they embrace. And then that’s it. That’s the end, you know? I was thinking, okay, you know, it solves the mystery kind of, I mean, I still wasn’t really entirely sure what was going on, but you know, they, they did the ceremony and it worked, and she’s back and there was the nice reunion. You know, I felt bad for poor old mrs IOL would through the whole thing.

Uh, and so I was glad to see them reunited and, and, and that was fine. I thought it was a satisfactory ending. I wasn’t blown away 

Todd: really. So. So for me, I was. I was jolted by the ethnic. Now, the very, when I told you when I very first saw this movie as a film strip in class, where it ended, the movie was Jan running in, I think to Tom or always, when she talks to Betty Davis’s character and says it was a seance, uh, and you know, it made her disappear and we have to go and do the ceremony again and to bring her back.

And then it ended, it was like Vienna . 

Craig: That’s so weird. 

Todd: It was so weird, but 

Craig: as a kid, no sense. 

Todd: It makes no sense as a kid. To me, that was like chilling. It’s like I finally get the answer to this and it’s some creepy ass ceremony. Say yachts, like a cult type thing that they were doing. And then, yeah, there’s no resolution.

Like so the second time I watched this, I expected there again to be this sort of a cultish type ceremony thing and it’s really more PSI fi. It’s been this ghost story. Up until this point, at least it’s had all the trappings of a ghost story. Very classically, I mean, hitting all the beats too, to the point where it’s kind of, everything’s more or less cliche, and then it becomes this PSI Phi thing where there’s this being from another dimension and it’s all just explained to you through Ellie’s voice.

And it begs the question of like. How did this group of kids with this little simple join our club initiation ceremony that Tom came up with, happen upon this mechanism 

Craig: to 

Todd: zap Karen away to have her exchange places with this other creature in this other dimension? He made up these words, right. They just went to this chapel in the woods and it happened to be during the eclipse and it just happened to be the right combination of events that would cause all this to happen.

So, right. They come back and they recreate the ceremony. I mean, did Jan need to stand in the middle? I mean, what would have happened if. The boy hadn’t jumped in and grabbed her out. Was the the the creature going to take her instead? What would she have gone and Karen would have come and they would have swapped places.

It seems like they screwed up the ceremony because they didn’t let it complete because they broke the circle. But it still turns out okay. Right. Cause this girl’s there. I dunno, I just, I just had so many questions about it. Like you said, I mean, it’s a resolution. But it all comes at you so fast and it’s such an immediate left turn on everything and it’s no longer ghost story, but interdimensional travel and it’s all told within, you know, a minute by the girl in a trance that it just, everything kinda hits you at once.

And I was in a daze. Oh, okay. All right. I guess that’s it at the end. It wasn’t the creepy, cool occult ending. I was expecting what? I was a kid in that and that got shut off 

Craig: right. Right, I get that. 

Todd: But this, this is only the ending they ended up with after use. Like you said, the test audiences are actually not the test audience.

I think they kind of premiered it or had sneak previews or something and it went really went over really poorly. It was like a film festival or something. And so they prod it back in and re tweaked it. 

Craig: So they’re these two alternate endings in the original ending, the one that the original audiences saw.

Instead of Ellie showing up in the chapel, this weird evil looking, I don’t know what to call it, an alien. It kind of looks like, like a demon maybe shows up and it’s this cool flying puppet kind of thing. Like you can totally tell it’s on, I can’t see the wires, but you can tell that that’s how they did it.

It comes in and it zaps Mike with like its eyeball lasers and then. It spreads. It comes right up to Jan and spreads its wings and envelops her, and then it ascends and it disappears with Jan. And then Jan’s mom shows up and she’s like, where’s Jan? And they’re like, uh, the one of the guys, I think Tom says it was a seance, you know, we messed it up or something.

And then there’s a flash of bright light. And Jan just reappears with Karen and she says, I found her, she was frozen in time and space. And in this version, Karen is still young. As though she has been suspended in time. Jan takes her back to the estate and mrs Elwood comes out of her cottage and they are reunited and it’s nice.

And then Jan and Ellie have a little talk. You got her back. We did it. You helped

I’m not sure a place where people are changed into negative images. How did you get there? An accidental exchange between the watcher and her and he needed my image to set her free. So what happened to the watcher? Well, now the watcher can go home too. Wherever that is. I just think that it’s interesting because in the version that they changed it to the one that we saw, there’s no mention of the watcher at all.

No. 

Todd: In the whole movie. 

Craig: So the, the tie, the title, I mean, I guess it makes sense cause you see those POV shots or whatever, but we don’t really get any explanation of who the watcher is. So at least here there’s some mention of it. So. Okay, so then that was the one that didn’t test well, so then they pulled it, and then I guess they went with alternate ending two, which was basically the same.

Um, there was some additional dialogue. Mrs IO, would you see her go to get. Jan’s mom to warn her cause she doesn’t want to see this happen again. 

Todd: She’s worried and they’re going to, she’s gonna you know, both her and mrs would both mrs  and the mother are running towards the to stop the seance basically.

Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And there’s some extended dialogue in a couple of the other scenes too, but nothing really important. The big difference is when that demon envelops Jan, then we get this really trippy sequence in the other dimension. And it was so weird. Kaleidoscopic like LSD trip. Kind of thing with like ancient pyramids and spaceships and 

Todd: OCI flies across this alien landscape where there’s this spaceship that looks like it’s crashed into a glittering Lake, goes up into this, this flying saucer, and the demon drops her off.

Inside the heart of this place or whatever, it opens his arms and lets her go and fades away and she looks forward. And there is this glittery pyramid. And inside this pyramid is where the girl is trapped under kind of a beam of light streaming down some kind of energy field. So Jan slowly starts to approach her quite recklessly.

Yeah. Walks. Walks towards her, passes through this energy field, passes through this pyramid into there and embraces her. And I guess that’s all she really needs to do. Uh, and then she gets sapped back to the main room with her. And again, she’s. Super young again, 

Craig: and then things proceed as they did before.

Todd: Yeah, and at least this version, I mean, you could tell this is kind of what they had in mind originally because at least this version gives an explanation for all the triangle imagery, because we’ve been seeing this triangle in the glass. We saw this triangle on a light in the, on the coffin and the chapel, but.

I really didn’t understand where the triangle came from, and in this case, you can see the triangle. I mean, this girl is trapped in a, in a prism, like a pyramid shape. So that’s where that triangle would have come from and the ending that everybody ended up seeing, including us. There’s none of that.

Obviously this is, this is totally bizarre out there. I mean, this goes 100%. Bat shit crazy. So it’s pretty clear why audiences wouldn’t have liked this or why Disney would have chosen to go with eventually the editing that they went with and what I was reading one of the guys described, I mean to, to get a new ending for this movie, because the audience has hated it.

They literally pulled in writers. Like from out of the blue, they pulled in like PSI Phi writers and stuff and said, Hey, here’s our movie, here’s our script, here’s what we had. Can you help us write a new ending for this? And there’s kind of a war room basically of people writing different stuff. And I don’t know if he was exaggerating, but one of the guys involved said at one point, they were like 152 different possible antics for this movie.

So really, um, an interesting history behind it. I, again, I still don’t feel like the ending that they came to was very satisfying and didn’t resonate well with audiences. Anyway, I saw a Cisco and Ebert clip from their show during this. They were so confused. They both gave it a thumbs down, 

Craig: but the watcher in the woods is confusing and disorganized, and frankly.

I didn’t speak it only for myself. I didn’t understand the ending of this movie. Can you tell me, you walked out of the film, it’s all over. Where do those blue rays come from that came zapping out of the forest and blinded people and made them fall off? And what was the explanation for that or anything else in this?

Todd: Right. I think I know where the blue rays were coming from. I think they’re coming from another planet, believe it or not. Okay. But I bought that. What I couldn’t figure out was that little sister  she, I think is supposed to be from another planet. Yeah. She sticks around. No, I don’t get that. And I must say, I’ve had the same frustration you had in this picture.

Huh? I’m 35 years old. I can’t figure out what’s going on. 

Craig: How a nine year old was a nine or a 12 year old going to 

Todd: as a kid. I think you just kind of take what’s coming at you, you know? And you just sort 

Craig: of always get a say. You just don’t question, right. 

Todd: No, whatever. You don’t understand. You’re your kid.

You’re used to not understanding things, and you just kind of go, right. For what it is and it’s fine. So I imagined that adults were a lot more critical of this movie than kids ever were. 

Craig: Probably. I, I, I liked the ending with the other world. I mean, the, the effects are definitely dated, but it was interesting and it was such a strange, like you said before, left turn, like it just kinda came out of nowhere.

Plus I also really liked the design of . The being, whatever it was. It was really cool. 

Todd: I did too. And you know, I think the only reason they didn’t originally even go with this ending is because nobody was happy with how the effects turned out. And I mean, for the time, a lot worse. Crap went up on screen, you know, 

Craig: I don’t know.

Uh. You know, I, I would say overall, I probably wouldn’t watch it again. I can see how if I had been introduced to it when I was a kid, it might’ve been a favorite. Um, it reminded me in tone of like this afterschool special that I saw once when I was a kid and I, I, it just stuck with me. It was called like the red room.

Oh, mr or something. Gosh, I remember that. Yes. I remember 

Todd: that. Oh, that’s another one that’s haunted me since I saw it as a kid. And we should track that down. 

Craig: Yeah, I think it’s on YouTube. Uh, it reminded me kind of like that, you know, it’s, it’s spooky, but not so scary that it’s going to give kids nightmares, I don’t think.

And it’s, it’s decent storytelling, you know, little clues dropped here and there. You can kind of put things together and then it. Comes together at the end, you know, there, you have to make some, you know, logical leaps, I think. But, and, and I, like you said, the acting is totally fine. You know, there was no performance that I was bothered by and rolling my eyes at.

They were all fine. It’s not like it was stellar, you know, Oscar worthy performances or anything. But, um, they were fine actors. I really enjoyed. Betty Davis. I wish that she had more to do. 

Todd: So does she? I’m sure I, yeah. 

Craig: At that point, I think she was taking whatever roles they would offer her, sadly, but it’s not amazing.

But for its time and for a family friendly movie, I think it’s fun. And if I had kids, um, I think it would be fun to sit down for a family movie night. On the couch with some popcorn and watch this. I think I liked it. 

Todd: Yeah, I agree with you as a family. Film it, it hits the buttons. It’s, it’s suitably creepy.

Even for adults. I think you could be engaged with it. Not a lot of made for kids or made for family movies. They can oversimplify things a little bit. I think it’s still just a little cliche. It was cliche for the time, but it does hit all those notes of a classic haunted house mystery. So in a way, it’s cliche in another way.

It’s kind of satisfying. I would just say for me as an adult watching it, just my only criticism is that it doesn’t really follow through on the kind of movie it started out being and not that movies always have to do that. Sometimes a sharp twist or a turn in there is. Really exciting and really good plotting in this case.

It’s just so out there that I just wished there had been some clues earlier on some kind of mythology that had built, been built up at some point earlier in the movie. Just to prepare myself for the resolution cause to kind of get hit with all that in the last 10 minutes is, is a bit much. But once again.

You know, they, they salvaged what they could out of it. Um, I’d be really interested to read the novel actually, 

Craig: um, 

Todd: at the end of the day. Great for kids at a family as well. And, uh, definitely a horror movie. Alright, well thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend and you can find us online.

You can also find us on YouTube. Now we have a YouTube channel. Just search for two guys and a chainsaw or go to our website, two guys that got read 40 net.com. Where you can leave us a message, let us know what other films you would like us to review and let us know what you thought of this episode as well.

Please subscribe to us on YouTube if you can. We’re looking for more subscribers so that we can do more things with that channel and also don’t hesitate to send us requests. We are going to finish out this month with a couple more movies that are oriented towards families and kids, so stay tuned for that.

Until then, I’m Todd

Craig: and I’m Craig

Todd: with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

It’s time for another theme month: Family-Friendly Horror Films! We’re kicking off a month of kid-oriented horror with the one that Craig has been dying to review since day one of this crazy project: The Gate.

A bunch of kids are humanity’s last hope to close the gates of hell, which they have inadvertently opened, thanks to an unlikely string of coincidences. Have a listen to see if it lives up to his memories!

Episode 204, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well Craig, we finally made it to this point. It’s a movie you’ve been waiting for five years to do. 

Craig: I know, right?

Todd: Are you sure you’re ready to do it? Okay. Should we hold off on this just a little while longer? 

Craig: Maybe another five years or so? Yeah. I’ve seriously only been asking to do this movie like since day one.

Todd: I feel like now that we’re doing it, this could spell the end for our podcast. I mean, it might. What else? What other films are there for you to look forward to after this? I don’t know. We’ll see. Okay. Well, the film that we’re doing at Craig’s longstanding request is 1987’s The Gate, a PG 13 film, and this is actually going to kick off a month of family-friendly horror films that we’re going to do for the month of February.

 We’ve assembled four or five films that are PG-13, PG fare that you could call horror films, but they’re not the typical horror films that we do on this show, like bloody and slasher stuff. These are the kinds of movies that, for one reason or another, are kind of geared more towards families and kids, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not fun.

 And certainly, this movie is one that you watched a lot as a kid. Am I right? 

Craig: It is. And we’ve talked about this, you know, we ended up talking about a lot of the same stuff a lot of the time, but it seemed like when we were growing up in the 80’s there was more of a market for these types of horror movies that, I dunno if they were intentionally geared towards young people. I believe that they were, but they were movies that both young people, I think, and adults could enjoy. Uh, and, and they were  good, kinda like gateway movies, um, for young people to get into horror. And you still see some of them every once in a while. But I, I feel like not as much as we did when we were kids.

 And when you and I were talking about doing this month, I kind of, you know, just did a little bit of quick internet research and found a nice long list of, uh, movies that are appropriate for younger people, but, uh, maybe still a little bit on the darker or scarier side. And really the, the stuff that has been most recent in that vein has been largely animated.

 Um, which is cool. There are lots of cool animated movies out there. I think – and we may change our minds, so don’t hold us to this – I think that we’ve kind of decided to make that its own, genre-themed month at some point, and we’re kind of sticking with live action stuff for now. Not because we don’t like the animated stuff, but there’s just so many, there’s so much good stuff, that we’re going to have to break it up into a couple of different chunks. But, um, yeah, this is one that I watched a lot when I was a kid. Those of you who’ve been listening to the podcast for awhile, know that, uh, we’ve talked about some other movies that I was fond of, some of them were familiar with from your childhood too.

 I would say that this movie kind of falls in the same category as Troll, which is another one of my childhood favorites, and kind of even maybe a Poltergeist. It’s that type of fare, I would say. Um, but I always liked this one. This is one that, for whatever reason, I didn’t have on VHS when I was a kid, but it got played on cable television a lot, and I would always get really excited 

Todd: No way. You didn’t have like a VHS tape of this at your house?

Craig: I don’t remember having one. I think that this just was one of those ones that I would catch on cable, but I was always really excited to catch it.

Todd: Ok, well, fair enough. I didn’t realize it played that much on cable. This movie, you know, for me, I always remember the video cover in the video store. And it all, it looked to me like a super scary movie when I was a kid because it’s got the gate and it has these demon claws coming out of the words, like the words are a hole in the ground. And when I read the back cover, it talks about opening up a gate to hell and all this stuff. 

 I didn’t for one second think that this was a…I mean, I guess I could have looked at the, at the, at the rating, but I didn’t for one second think this was going to be PG-13 kid-oriented fare when I saw this on the shelves, and so I actually never watched it until a few years ago when I was doing…Actually, I think it was your suggestion. Before we did this podcast, I used to do, every Halloween, I would try to watch a horror movie a day and write a little bit of something about each one and post it online.

 And I think The Gate was one that I put on that list at your encouragement. And I watched it and I thought, oh gosh, this movie isn’t at all like when I was a kid and I saw that cover there in the video store, what I was expecting it to be. But I was pleasantly surprised at how cool it was, and I was a little jealous that you got to experience it as a kid.

 And I somehow got through my whole childhood without this becoming a, what would have been probably for me, a favorite, you know, that we would’ve watched a lot, I think, if we had had it on hand.

Craig: Well, you know, sitting down and watching it from start to finish again….Now it’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I can still definitely see why I was so fond of it as a kid.

 There are a lot of good things going on here. I think something that I maybe didn’t even realize until I was sitting down and you know, really thinking about it. One of the reasons that maybe that I liked it was kind of the same reason that I liked movies like Stand By Me and The Monster Squad and The Goonies, in that the focus is all on young people.

 Like there really virtually are no adults in this movie. I mean, the parents, um, of our main characters are onscreen for maybe a couple of minutes for the whole thing. And that’s it. The rest of the time, it’s completely focused on the young cast. And that’s fun. And I think that’s fun when you’re a kid to be able to kind of, I don’t know, put yourself in the situation or at least be able to relate to young people and how we potentially might process and deal with things.

 And of course, you know, it’s PG 13 everything works out in the end. So yeah, you would want to think that you could be as self0sufficient as these kids and conquer the demons and close the gate of hell and all that. 

Todd: Right. With all…with the liner notes from a vinyl record. Right, right. 

Craig: Exactly. 

Todd: Oh man. It’s true. These movies really play into that fantasy that we had as a kids and for one, I maybe that’s why I just…there’s a part of me that kind of misses that aspect of my childhood. That state of mind that I was in where I would see these stories and I would think, yeah, I could do that. You know, I would read the Hardy Boys all the time, and every, every, every Hardy Boy book I read, I’d come out of that thinking, “Yeah, I’m a detective too.”

 Right? And I had a little detective kit and I imagined myself going around dusting for fingerprints everywhere and figuring things out, you know, Encyclopedia Brown. And all these movies just fed into that fantasy that, you know, I think as an adult I’m a lot more realistic. And it’s not like I read a detective novel now and think that I can be a detective.

 So there’s a place for these kinds of movies and, uh, it’s nice to have these kinds of films for kids to be able to live out those kinds of fantasies and, and it’s, it’s empowering, right? 

Craig: Yeah, I think so. I mean, this…It’s just a, it’s a pretty simple little movie. I mean, the cast is not…it’s very small, first of all, which I appreciate cause it’s easy to keep track of people.

 The cast is led by Stephen Dorff in his first film. He’s really young. I don’t know, I would guess like eight maybe in this movie. I’m, I’m bad at pegging kids ages, so I don’t know. He’s tiny. Anyway, he plays Glen. And he has an older sister named Al, but she’s coming into her teen years, so she would prefer to be called Alexandra.

 But she’s played by an actress named Krista Denton who had, has done some other TV and stuff. Nothing that I really remembered her from. And Glenn has a best friend named Terry who’s kind of an odd ball, listens to like death metal kind of kid. Terry has lost his mom and, and we don’t, we never see his dad, but we do get one glimpse into their home and like, it just doesn’t seem like they’re coping with the loss of their mother very well.

 Like, the home is a big wreck. And, um, you know, Terry’s been gone all night long, but he just finds a note from his dad that he’s away on business. See you later. Thanks for the heads up. And, and those really are the central characters. And then Al has several teenage friends who pop in and out. But yeah.

 They’re of little consequence. Another reason, of course, that I am so fond of this movie is because it’s perfectly eighties…I mean, it opens with this great synth score over the opening credits. Then you just get this wide pan shot of like, perfect suburbia like, like the kid for me, T and the Goonies, and these kids all live in this same suburban neighborhood.

 It starts out with Glen, he’s riding his bike. And he comes in front of his house, but like he’s got this very concerned look on his face. I’m like, why are you so worried? And he goes through his house looking for, I don’t know, his sister and his parents or whatever, but there’s nobody there. He does notice a giant rocket.

 Like that’s his thing. Like he likes doing these, you know, model rockets that he launches or whatever. He notices a great big one on his sister’s desk, which is going to play a very pivotal role in the movie. 

Todd: Yes, they introduced that early. Lots of foreshadowing here. 

Craig: But he ends up, uh, going out into his backyard and there’s this big old tree and this old tree house, and he climbs up into it, but the tree gets struck by lightning, at which point he wakes up and realizes it’s a dream.

 But when he goes and looks out his window, he sees that, in fact, for whatever reason, whether it was really struck by lightning or whatever, the, the tree really has fallen over and the parents have hired some people to come and take this tree out. And when he goes outside and he’s, you know, amongst the workmen, they’re pulling out the dead stump and a geode falls out of it.

 Yeah. I mean, just hitting me in all my feels. Like, geodes were like the most fascinating thing in the world when I was a kid. 

Todd: Yeah, I always, I…it is so hilarious that you are saying this. You and I wrote exactly the same notes here. I wrote this too, that…literally, I’m reading from my notes…Glen and Terry do everything eighties fun that I used to do: model rockets, that cool tablet thing they have where you draw and pull the paper up, and finding a geode.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: I always imagined these rocks, you know, you just break open the right rock and there’d be an awesome geode inside. 

Craig: Right? You know, like these magic crystals and they do, I mean, even as adults, those things are freaking cool. Like, they look like something out of a fantasy world. My parents had like a rock garden in their front yard, and there was this one big round stone, and my sister and I were convinced that it was a geode.

 We did everything we could to try to split that bitch in half, but it was probably like concrete or something. But anyway, that, that, that sets it up. So now there’s this big hole in the ground that like smokes, but nobody thinks that’s unusual. 

Todd: That’s the hilarious thing about this movie, is there is this giant hole in the ground that everybody promptly ignores.

Craig: And Terry, his friend, comes over and because they found the small geode, like Terry is convinced that they can find a bigger one – which, in fact, they do. But in the process of doing that, he almost falls into it. Like it’s a flipping sinkhole. In your backyard. And like, now, you know, looking back, like everything is so contrived. But I didn’t even notice when I was a kid, how contrived it is. Like, they find the giant geode and then Terry almost falls in, and then somehow Glen gets a big splinter, which makes him bleed, so he bleeds in the hole. As it turns out, there’s this whole, this whole system of things that needs to happen for the gates of hell to be open and, just by coincidence they all have.

 And I love that. Now looking back, like there’s like 10 distinct things that have to happen. And they all, they all do. Like the stars literally have to be aligned like…

Todd: True.

Craig: Well, I’ve got the whole list. Okay. So because we eventually learn this speak. Okay. There’s other stuff that goes on and we’ll, we’ll get there. But eventually Terry, like, listens to like devil music and he’s like listening to his devil music in his room and it’s on, like, an LP.

 And as you mentioned before, not only does the music, like, narrate what’s going to happen, but also there are these great liner notes, which is like, The Satanic Bible or something. 

Movie Clip: See, these guys knew the hole through music. They got their lyrics from this thing called the dark book. That’s like the Bible for demons. And here’s the creepy part. This is their only album. And after they made it, they all died in a plane crash. 

Todd: Funny. 

Craig: And as he flips through it and he later shows Glen like he’s like, see it. He’s like, all of these things have to happen. So there’s, there’s the big hole and there’s a giant demon and there’s a geode, and the constellations are aligned, and there has to be blood and there has to be a sacrifice, which unintentionally there is.

 And, very specifically, there has to be levitation, which they do. Which they just casually happened to do. 

Todd: Oh my gosh. That is so funny. I mean, we’re jumping around, but at some point the parents leave.

Craig: They have to go away for three days, and Al is only 15. These parents are very trusting. 

Todd: Yeah, they really are. Well, they do make a big deal…

Craig: I guess it was the 80s.

Todd: Well, you know, actually my parents left us home alone. I mean, I was babysitting well before I was 15, but I was babysitting for other people. But not for more than an evening, you know, not, not overnight for three days. And it’s hilarious as they leave and they’re driving off in the car.

 The last thing mom says, okay, no parties. And then the very next shot is the door opening and somebody arriving to this massive party that they’re throwing at that house. Just like, of course the 16 year old is going to do. So they have this party at the house and it’s cool. It seems like a really cool party too.

 Cause at first it starts out with them just drinking beer and playing around and we get these other scenes with the two boys upstairs reading over the liner notes and doing all this stuff. And then it comes, they come back downstairs and by now they’ve lit like every candle in the house, put them in the living room and everybody is gathered around and they’re telling ghost stories.

 and then one of the girls gets this idea, Oh, let’s play the levitation game. And they grab Glenn and make him a participant and they’re all kind of holding him while she starts. What she’s like speaking some words. Is that right?

Craig: I don’t even remember. Not really. I mean. Like they try to do… they try to do one of the teenage boys and they can’t do it.

 And this one girl, like, she’s so weird, like, I don’t know where she came from, but she’s like, just this weirdo who’s like, “let’s levitate.: Um, but anyway, so they decide that the teenage boy must be too heavy and they happen to see Glen, like crossing the room. So they get him and they start doing it.

 And the girls just like, you know, she doesn’t say, “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” but that’s basically what she’s saying. She’s like, think of dandelions on the wind and blah, and she’s telling everybody to concentrate. And just these two people I feel like are kind of lifting Glen and it’s super easy.

 And then it gets to the point where, like, they’ve got…they’re holding him way up in the air and then he just keeps floating up just feeling like they were levitating. 

Todd: In front of all of them. 

Craig: That’s not how this game works.

Todd: This is never the result of this game. 

Craig: He floats up to the ceiling and like freaks out and eventually falls down and everybody’s like, “Whoa, that was weird.” 

Todd: There’s just a shot of the girl’s face. She goes, “Oh, maybe I won’t do that again.” You guys all just literally levitated a guy in your, in your bedroom, and now you’re just going to go off and do something else.

 It’s so nonchalant, right? But anyway, it happens. And it’s required for their, uh, their ceremony, right? For that, for that to have happened, I guess. 

Craig: That, I mean, that’s one of the things. I mean, we see it in the liner notes. I mean, they show us like devil worshipers, like levitating somebody. So that’s one of the things that has to happen. So it does, and a little things are going on. Like the moths outside are behaving strangely, and gosh, I, you know, Terry gets all the info he needs to know from his devil music about these old gods that, you know, ruled the earth, but were banished. But someday they’re going to come back and… 

Todd: Talk about opening the dark gate. Yeah. 

Craig: There’s all these little things that really seem insignificant, but come up later. So I feel like I should mention them. Like Glen gets mad after the whole levitation thing. So he digs this gift out from under his bed that was going to be for his sister, and it’s like this automated rocket launcher, so you don’t have to actually light things. And like he just looks at it and throws it behind the bed.

 Totally a throwaway, but important later. So mentioning it eventually they’re just like standing. Terry and Glen are standing out by the hole. And Terry is like, “I know what your problem is.” And Glenn’s like, “What?” And Terry’s like, “You got demons.”

 Like they, they, they dug up the hole, but then they filled it back in, but then it opened up again. And so they cover it with the floor panel of the tree house so that like there’s like a trap door that like opens right into the hole, which is convenient. When they break open that glows and smokes and that toy, I don’t even know what you call it, it’s like a carbon copy toy. Yeah. Do they make them anymore? They must not… 

Todd: They were awesome. Yeah. To describe it: It’s like a piece of plastic that’s a little gray, but a little translucent, and a black, almost waxy part underneath. And when you would press on the top gray part with a pen, or you know, it’s not a pen that marks, but just something or scratch on it, you would press against that black waxy part and in any way you could draw on it and then you could lift that and it would all go away. Right. My God, I’ve forgotten all about those until I saw this. 

Craig: But when the geode breaks open and smokes and glows and all that stuff, they notice that it’s left weird symbols on that toy. And so they’re like, well, that’s weird. And then just like in any other horror movie, they’re like, let’s read it out loud. So they do.

 And apparently that’s the incantation that brings things back. And I guess the first kind of scary thing that happens is Terry spending the night and he wakes up in the middle of the night to go pee. And when he comes out, he’s standing on the landing, but he sees the front door open and like in this ethereal, smokey light, this woman who is apparently his mother comes into the room and calls to him. And he goes down and he’s like hugging her and she’s talking to him and they’re… not dancing, but that’s almost what it looks like. They’re hugging and like spinning in a circle. But when Glen and Al come out and see him, they’re like, what are you doing? And he opens his eyes and he’s actually hugging their dog, Angus, which is now dead.

Todd: That’s a one, two-for right there.

Craig: Poor 97 year-old Angus.

Todd: And then somehow one of the boys at the party. One of the, Oh, it’s the boyfriend, right? Of the girl, Al’s.

Craig: Boyd’s the guy. It’s, yeah, it’s the guy that Al’s interested in. 

Todd: He ends up being tasked with actually getting rid of this dog. He’s got the dog wrapped up in something and puts it in his car and starts to drive to the vet to dispose of it properly. But the vet is closed. It says, no vacancies or something, like there was a sign on the door that said, “sorry, we’re not accepting any more dead animals. Now we’re completely filled up.”

Craig: Oh, it was just closed. Quit being dramatic.

Todd: All right. So he’s driving around and then he comes back to the house. What? He looks over the fence at the back and sees the hole and thinks, “Oh, this would be the perfect place” so he ends up chucking the dog in the hole. 

Craig: As sacrifice. Right. Okay. Cause it requires a sacrifice.

Todd: That becomes a sacrifice.

Craig: Coincidentally, he throws the dead dog in there. And so that’s the sacrifice, which I guess, you know…It’s just one more of those things that needs to happen. At some point, Terry talks about like how you can vanish them if they do get out and it has to do with like energy that’s derived from pure love and light or something. Like, something wishy washy like that.

Todd: And that’s how he, what he gets by playing the record backwards? 

Craig: Oh, I don’t, yes, that’s right. No, it’s an incantation. Yeah.

 Backwards tells you how to close the gate. 

Todd: Again, it hits all the 80s fields of the backward masking, not just the devil music, but also the backward messages in these LPs that kids today will never even comprehend was a thing. No, you can’t play your MP3s backwards, I’m afraid now. 

Craig: Gosh, I had a little, like, Fisher price record player. I don’t recall ever trying to spend my records backwards. Thank goodness. I was worried about it. It would’ve been bad for them. 

Todd: Yeah. Right. 

Craig: But anyway. Okay, so it’s night time again, and the, uh, Alison knowing friends, the three sisters show up for a slumber party. And there’s, there’s funny little stuff like Glen and the sisters are always like snipping at each other.

 And at one point he says, “Suck my nose til my head caves in,” which I thought was one of the funniest things I’ve heard in a really long time. But we also see a menacing shadow in the stairway. We don’t know what that is. And even though Glen had unplugged the bug zapper, now all of a sudden it’s zapping again outside his window, and then there are thousands of moths on his window and they break through the window.

 And so he goes and gets his sister. They go to try to wake up Terry, who’s also spending the night. But it ends up being the dead dog in the bed again, and this is when things just start getting really crazy. I want to pause and say however, that that dead dog prop was disturbingly realistic and I did not enjoy it,

 But this is when things start getting crazy. Like, after they see Angus in the bed, like these monster hands come out from under the bed and grab Al and almost pull her under the bed. And, and so they run to the door and they open the door. And Glenn’s like, yay, mom and dad are home. Um, and he runs and he hugs the dad.

 Um, but the dad like grabs him by the throat is like, “You’ve been bad.” And then this stuff was scary to me when I was a kid. Cause you know, it’s the, the parents are supposed to like save the day. But now it’s not really them. Obviously. Yeah, Glen like reaches up for his dad’s face and like his hands, like, go all like in his mushy face and, like, the face collapses and his head falls off and the mom’s just like cackling in the background. That’s scary. 

Todd: It is. It’s probably the grossest thing in the movie. I mean, that might’ve been what gave it the PG13 rating. And the ooze and stuff is all green that comes out. But you know, if it were red, it would definitely, definitely have been more in R territory. 

Craig: It was gross. 

Todd: And they go back inside. And I guess Terry had told some story earlier about a construction worker having been sealed up inside the house.

Craig: That’s true. He does. So he had told Glen this story about when that when his Glenn’s house was being built, a construction worker had died, and I guess they just seal them up in the wall. I feel like that’s, that story went around a lot in the 80’s.

 But that doesn’t really come up to later. What, what comes up now is one of my favorites. They go, for some reason, to check the backyard. I, I guess, cause Terry says…Oh, it’s The Gate or whatever..and Al goes outside and everybody else starts screaming at her to come back in and she doesn’t realize why.

 But it’s because there’s all these little demons – they call them minions – down by her ankle. So she doesn’t see them, but she runs back inside. And really, those little demons are the thing that I always remember most about this movie. Cause they’re tiny. But they’re so spooky, and I didn’t even know until I was an adult that they made that effect with guys in rubber suits and just shooting it in forced perspective. And with oversized sets and stuff. 

Todd: It’s really amazing actually. It’s a combination of that and stop motion, right? Some parts are stop motion. Most of the time it’s those guys, and you can kind of tell just because the movements are much more realistic than stop motion used to be, but darn it, like it’s done…

 The acting, I think of the people in these, in these costumes as well as that forced perspective. And when they cut it between stop motion and that, you can hardly tell when it’s people in suits and what it’s not. And it just makes the whole effect really, really work. Like, it’s extremely impressive special effects for these little creatures, especially for the time.

Craig: This has been released on Blu-ray. I’ve never seen, uh, the Blu-ray release. Uh, I watched it for free online. So I have no idea, you know, the quality that I saw, but the one that I saw, I mean, there are times where you can kind of tell that it’s an effect just based on the way the lighting kind of looks. But nonetheless, uh, it’s a good effect.\

 And just these little…they’re small, but they’re also really menacing and especially in numbers, uh, frightening. Um, and, and they look like little bodybuilders with, you know, no neck and like these pointy faces. They’re, they’re creepy. 

Todd: They’re like action figures, almost like little He-Man kind of bodies. Right? Stocky, overly muscular and moving around. No neck. Um, but yeah, definitely real. I thought very realistic. 

Craig: When I think of this movie, that’s the first thing that I think of, and I know years and years ago, maybe even before we started doing this, I came across some behind the scenes pictures of the guys in the suits on the overly large sets that I had never seen before.

 Um, and I sent them to you just ‘cause I thought they were so cool. So you can find them online. But from here on, it’s just kind of the kids battling these evil forces. First they think that they’re going to read the incantations from the liner notes, but as soon as they go to get the album, it bursts into flames.

 They want to call the police, but before they can, the phone rings and it’s the evil voice of their dad again. And then the phone catches on fire and melts. And so they have no way of contacting anybody. Little details, like there’s a family portrait hanging in the stairway. And, uh, after all of this craziness starts happening, they walk by it and Glen looks and everybody in the photograph except for him is slaughtered. Yeah. It’s really creepy. Like they had clearly done this photo shoot where they took the nice family picture, but then they put, you know, blood and Gore all over everybody except Glen. Um, and had them pose in really disturbing dead ways and little details like that I just appreciate, you know. They end up, because they don’t have the dark book or whatever, they’re like, “well, in the movies, they always just read from the Bible.” So they get a Bible and they take it out and they start reading and it seems like it’s working because instead of all the light and smoke coming out, it starts getting sucked in.

 But then in a really stupid moment, a Glen’s like, “Terry you’re getting too close to the hole,” and he’s like clearly such a loser. And then he falls in. The hole.

Todd: He falls in the hole and he gets, starts getting attacked by those demons. They’re biting his legs and stuff, and uh, finally Glen ends up pulling him out. Then I think Terry throws the Bible into the hole after he’s out and causes an explosion, and it seems like now, at this point, the hole is closed. And so they kind of think that that’s it, right?

 Let’s start doing a little celebration. They go into the house, but we know we still have at least 20 minutes left on this movie, so… 

Craig: Right, right. But the good news is, because they think that everything is over. those annoying sisters have been involved, have invited over the annoying boys, and they show up, and Al, thank God, is finally like, “You know what? Just everybody leave.”

 And I was so glad because all of those other teenagers were so obnoxious. I just wanted them to leave and they finally do, and they’re gone for the rest of the movie. And I was so happy they are. 

Todd: But they’re obnoxious in such an eighties way. Like I just loved the way that they trade all these quips and barbs back and forth.

 Movie Clip: What are you doing? They’re probably fagging out. What did you do to your face? None of your bees wax. I think it’s a definite improvement. Change your feet, dwarf. Suck my nose to my head. Caves. Why don’t you shut up.

Todd: Fagging it up, hahaha.

 It’s going to be morning soon. I’m getting cleaned up and going to bed.” But the boys are like, no way. We’re too excited. Let’s go watch TV. So they go watch TV for two seconds before this dead body flops out of the drywall. And Glenn’s like, “Oh, it must be the workman.” Terry’s like, well, that’s weird. I just made that up.

 But then the workman comes to life and grabs Jerry and really pretty unceremoniously just pulls him into the wall and the wall seals back up. So Glen goes to get his sister. I don’t, I don’t know what to say. I mean, frankly, watching it again, this time around, it felt like it took longer than I remembered to get to the action.

 But then once you get to it, I mean, it’s just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. 

Todd: It all just kind of happens. Really fast, and it’s a kitchen sink of stuff, isn’t it? I mean, this, these demons are really unorganized in the way that they’re going to break out of hell or whatever this is supposed to be. It’s, it’s just a mishmash of…they have like…

 I kind of feel like the writers are like, “Well, it would be cool if we had this. I’ll be cool if we had that. And of course, you know, we’re going to have all these demons and then we’re going to have this kind of zombie construction worker coming out of the wall and Hey, wouldn’t it be neat if the picture of them looked slaughtered?” I mean, there’s not a real coherent sense. I guess it’s just supposed to be chaos. Right?

Craig: Yes

Todd: And it’s confined to this house. 

Craig: And not only is it confined to the house and to those kids, but it’s also like, especially this last half of the movie, it says that it’s happening in real time. Everything that we’re witnessing is happening to them in the course of like 45 minutes. And so it’s, it’s a lot of…stuff. I would be scared too. 

Uh, Glen goes to get Al and they have to first fight off the minions. Al tells Glenn to go get their dad’s shotgun, which is downstairs in the closet. And so he goes to do that and eventually for whatever reason, she joins them down there.

 And they’re trapped in the closet and the minions are like trying to get in, but all of a sudden then the minions stop trying to get in. They don’t know what’s going on. Then Glenn hears something behind them in the closet. And of course the construction worker bursts out again, grabs Al, and pulls her in.

 And I don’t think we’ve mentioned it before, but up until this point, according to Terry, the gate has only been open like a smidge because it requires two human sacrifices for it to be open entirely. Well now they have two, they’ve got a Terri and they’ve got Al. And so when Glenn runs back up to his room, he looks outside and all of this evil smoke is spewing out of the hole up into the sky. Apparently nobody else in town is up at like four in the morning or whenever.

Todd: Nobody is paying attention to any of this stuff.

Craig: Because not only just no one comes to investigate the huge pillar of smoke, but also been like it’s spreading out like, Ghostbusters style, like into a storm across the city. I do appreciate that they at least make Glen like a real kid. Like he would have been like, I was like, what do you do when hell opens up in your backyard? Well, you sit in your room and you cry for a little while. That’s totally what I would do.

 And there’s not much he can do. I mean the floor in there downstairs like. 48 area has opened up into this enormous hole and he’s just sitting up. First of all, he tries to figure out, Terry said there was a way to get rid of him and he’s trying to figure it out and he can’t figure it out. Just as he had wrapped up a rocket gift for his sister, apparently she had given him a birthday card or something too, and she had signed it said, happy birthday.

 Love Al a L and so that reminds him that the demon can be destroyed. With love and light, and I guess he thinks that his sister gave him this huge rocket and they love each other or something. And so he’s going to use this rocket to kill the demon. Well, so he’s trying to get it set up and that’s when the big enormous demon that we’ve seen in the illustrations in the book finally emerges from the big hole in the living room. And I don’t know, I didn’t read much about this. I don’t know if you did. I am assuming that that was all stop motion. 

Todd: It must be. Yeah. It kind of looked like it. There might’ve been shots that were like, maybe they did the same thing in reverse, you know, that they did with the little ones. But yeah, it looked good. I thought it looked really good. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s scary. And I mean, it kind of looks like the little ones a little bit, but it’s, it’s slightly differently shaped and it’s a little bit more like serpentine and it’s got, you know, multiple arms as opposed to just the standard two. It pops out and I don’t even really know what to make of this part.

 And I think I’m probably reading too much into it, but it pops out and Glen sitting there with his rocket and he’s just kind of whimpering and doesn’t know what to do. And the thing looks at him for a while. And then it grabs him by the hand and kind of lifts, lifts him up a little bit, but not in a particularly threatening way.

 And then it like caresses his head and then just puts him back down and yeah. 

Todd: What was that all about? 

Craig: I don’t know why. Is it because I guess maybe in some way Glen is responsible for freeing it? Snd I was also trying to connect that to why in the photograph, when the whole family is slaughtered, it’s everybody except Glen. Why. I dunno, but when it drops him, he crawls back into his room and he opens his hand in there. Again, just a hodgepodge of things, but there’s an eyeball in the palm of his hand.

Todd: Straight out of a Twilight Zone episode, I think. 

Craig: Right. I don’t know. I definitely, it was familiar, but I, I couldn’t remember if I was just thinking of this or if I was connecting it to something else.

Todd: Yeah, that’s why I say it’s just a hodgepodge of things, right? I mean, is there something, is there supposed to be something symbolic about all this?

Craig: iIf there is, it went right over my head, but again, you know, when I was watching this, I was a kid and so I wasn’t trying to like put big picture things together.

 Like that was just scary. You’d be like, ah, yeah. Right? And so he crawls around and he gets a piece of the broken glass from the window, and he stabs the eyeball out and you know, and everything just happened so quickly. He, he couldn’t get the, um, rocket lit before because with all of the chaos going around, it was too windy.

 He was trying to light the match and stuff. He couldn’t get them lit. But then he remembers from earlier in the movie that he has that launcher that he had thrown behind the bed. So he crawls under and he gets it and he goes back out and he’s trying to get it set up. He realizes they require batteries. He starts taking the batteries out of the flashlight that he’s been carrying around forever.

 And he loads it up and it’s like, I don’t know, the big demon who has now been absent for a while, like, senses danger, I don’t know. And it comes from like bursting out, uh, really fast up through the hole again and is looking at him and Glenn. So cute. He shouts, “Happy birthday, Al.” And he launches the rocket, and it goes into the demon almost as though it’s absorbed. Like it goes into its chest, but then the chest like seals up again after. And the demon grabs Glen and is dangling him by his leg for a minute. But then it says though he starts to explode from the inside and all these light rays start shooting out of him and Glenn gets up and starts running for the door just as the whole house explodes. Yeah, sending Glenn flipping through the air across the street, that was hilarious. 

Todd: Yeah. Still doesn’t wake up the neighbors. 

Craig: No. Well that’s what’s great about it too. Cause, cause then everything this guy clear…Oh no wait, another thing that I loved was, all of a sudden, it’s the 4th of July. There are fireworks.

 The sky, when the big demon explodes, like a whole fireworks stand like a rubs out of it. Into the night sky. And makes all the clouds go away. 

Todd: And gets out alive. He jumps out of the front closet now.

Craig: Everybody’s okay. The, yeah, Angus comes out first, which I was happy about, and then Al and Terry both come out too and they all hug and everything seems fine except for that their house is completely destroyed.

Todd: Really, how are we going to explain this to mom and dad? 

Craig: And then they all sit and giggle nonsensically on the front porch as the camera pans away. Uh, and that’s the end of the movie. And I swear to God, you know, talking about it and, and recapping it, it sounds so stupid. And I suppose from an objective perspective, in many ways it is, but I still find it charming.

 You know, I told my partner last night, I said, you know, at this point, I feel like maybe I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve almost seen this movie too many times. Dozens upon dozens of times I’ve watched this movie, and I think I’m outgrowing it a little bit. But it’ll always be charming to me, and it’ll always make me think of being a kid because this came out – what, in 87? – so I would have been like eight and I imagine that I probably saw it pretty soon after that.

 I mean, I was young and, and watched it. Repeatedly, throughout my childhood. Um, just like I did with so many of those other movies that we talk about all the time, like The Goonies and that type of thing. It was in heavy rotation, uh, at my house. And so I just have really fond memories, uh, for it. Um, and I still would recommend it to other fans of the genre.

 It’s, it’s not amazing. It’s got some, you know, cinematic feel that it’s cute and it’s kind of a time capsule of the 80s.

Todd: It’s got all that nice stuff: All the hair, all the outfits, all the goofiness, and like you said, just the general theme of the movie, the kids saved the day with all this improbable stuff kind of coming together.

 It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but as a kid, it’s fun to watch this sort of thing. This is kind of an adventure that takes place while the parents are away. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: I agree with you, as an adult it doesn’t…yeah. Especially if you’ve never seen it before, I think, as an adult, it’s probably not going to hold the same charm for you unless you’re really pining for this kind of movie again, like us. But it’s a great one to watch with your kids.

 There’s no real gore in it, although there are some kind of gross moments. It pretty much earns its PG 13 rating, I think. Yeah, and the effects are just really nice. The writer of this movie wrote another movie risky. 

Todd: Did you ever see Russkies? Cause that was a… The Russians invading, and once again, kids have to help save the day in that one.

 And then he wrote a sequel to this, The Gate Two, which the director and writer collaborate on as well, just a couple of years later. Now, have you seen that one?

Craig: Yeah, I saw it. That was one of those things, again, back in the days before the internet, you would go to the video store and all of a sudden there would be this movie that you had no idea was even being made, and that’s what happened.

 With me with The Gate 2. I saw it on the shelf and like I freaked out cause you know, I loved the gate, I rented it. And I remember at the time thinking that it was not good. I just didn’t think that it lives up to the original at all. It follows Terry…I think it’s supposed to be one year after the events of the original movie.

 Glen and his family have moved away from their house, but Terry is still there. His life is rough. His dad’s, of course, you know, his mom’s still dead, and, uh, his dad’s now alcoholic, and I don’t remember exactly how he justifies it, but somehow he thinks that he can like use the demon’s power if he summons them again. And so he does, and somehow he captures one of the minions and all of a sudden it’s like the minion. I mean, it doesn’t do anything different than it does in this movie. It doesn’t talk. It doesn’t have any kind of like discernible character. He just keeps it in a bird cage. But like apparently it can grant wishes, but then it becomes a whole monkey paw situation where it seems like, Oh, everything’s great.

 It can grant these wishes. But then after 24 hours or something, it goes bad and there are consequences to the wishes or whatever, and it ends up with Terry crossing over into the hell dimension to like confront these ancient gods or whatever. And I, at the time I thought it was really stupid. I watched it again recently because it was streaming somewhere.

 I don’t remember where it was. I think it was on Shudder, and I liked it better than I remembered. Liking it before and there was actually some kind of ambitious stuff that those final scenes, like in the eldest mentioned were kind of ambitious. I still don’t like it as much as I liked the original, but it’s interesting in its own right. 

Todd: Oh, that’s cool. The director, um, T bore, I don’t know how you say his name. T bore talk. Cox. He is Hungarian. He’s done a lot of television. Sabrina The Teenage Witch, and The Outer Limits. Just a lot of random things. 

Craig: But a lot. He’s working, it seems like, and he’s still working quite a bit.

Todd: Yeah, he’s working now. He’s got stuff in production, pre production filming right now. Some Christmas movies, I guess there for a little while, in the early aughts, he was doing some of those crazy TV movies about giant things like Mansquito and Mega Snake and Ice spider. Ice Spider…we should do Ice Spider sometimes. That sounds awesome.

Craig: We’ll see.

Todd: But anyway, yeah, it seems to have done, served him well. It was one of his, one of his first. I think it is actually his first feature length film back in 87 so.

Craig: And you know, Stephen Dorff went on to be quite famous there for a while. I haven’t seen anything out of him for a while, but, um, I remember him in one of the Aerosmith videos with Alicia Silverstone.

 He was like the bad boy, boyfriend and one of those, and he was the villain in one of the Blade movies and he’s done, uh, a lot of stuff. The rest of them, not so much. The two girls who played the annoying twins, they’ve gone on to do a lot of TV. So, you know, it’s one of those movies where you’ve got young actors and new filmmakers who would go on to do other things, and you just kind of see innovation and imagination, and I appreciate that they’ve, they’ve talked about remaking it forever and I actually think this is a movie that would be good for a remake because it’s so hodgepodge. I feel like they wouldn’t necessarily need to stick to the specific details of the original. They could explore different things.

 Um, and of course with new innovations and special effects, there’s all kinds of things, uh, that they could do. It was announced that they were making a sequel back in the early aughts back when, you know, 3D was regaining popularity and it was going to be The Gate 3D and it was supposed to come out in 2011. It’s still listed as in production on IMDV, but I have a feeling that, since a decade has passed since it was supposed to be released, I doubt it’s moving forward very quickly at this point. But who knows. Maybe we’ll see a remake someday. 

Todd: Yeah. Maybe. Until then, you’ve got this to watch and it’s streaming on a number of different places. It’s available online. It’s not hard to find out at all.

 And now, Craig, we have done The Gate. Finally. What is left? What is left to do?

Craig: Yeah, you can relax that I’m not pestering you about it all the time. 

Todd: I’m glad that we were able to do this for you and kick off this month of kid-oriented live action horror movies. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Thank you for listening to this episode.

 If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find this online. You can also find us on YouTube now. Go check out our YouTube channel. Subscribe there if you haven’t already. That just helps us build our subscriber numbers a little bit. It gives us a little bit more exposure and maybe helps us do a few more things there.

 Of course, if you search for Two Guys And A Chainsaw, you’ll find our podcast and you’ll find our website, so you can leave us a comment anywhere you want. Let us know what you thought of this film and also requests new films for us to do in the future. Uh, till next time I’m Todd… 

Craig: …and I’m Craig… 

Todd: …with Two Guys And A Chainsaw.

Remade in more recent times as Sorority Row, we couldn’t believe the original 1983 version doesn’t get as much love these days. This is truly a forgotten classic of the 80’s slasher horror genre.

Sure, it’s a bunch of girls in a sorority house getting stalked by a killer. But this incredible combination of Black Christmas, Halloween, Friday the 13th, and I Know What You Did Last Summer comes wrapped in a definite Hitchcockian vibe, which just elevates this material to something greater than the sum of its parts.

Episode 203, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd:  Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a chainsaw. I’m Todd. 

Craig:  And I’m a sea pig. 

Todd:  Oh, you’re a sea pig. Don’t sell yourself short, man. Come on.

Craig:  Just had to get that one out there right away. It was my favorite line of the movie. 

Todd:  So The movie that we’re doing right now is called The House on Sorority Row, released in 1983. I think it was remade sometime in the early 2000s as Sorority Row. Yep. But we’re doing the original. Now I selected this movie for this week, and this is just a film I’ve always wanted to do. It has One of those that I always passed by on the video store shelves, but for whatever reason I never I never picked it up. I thought it looked, maybe like it wasn’t so good, but it did have a picture of a nice buxom half naked chick clinging to her neck with a on the front. The director actually wanted something Way different for the poster for the movie. 

Craig:  He wasn’t a fan. 

Todd:  It’s actually not a very compelling poster, to be honest, which is probably why I didn’t pick it up. The movie itself is written and directed by Mark Rossman. I think straight out of UCLA film school did a little bit of work with some big directors at the time and decided if he was going to become a director, he really just needed to write his own movie and make it himself. Yep. And so this is kinda what launched him into a Nice little career. I mean, he hasn’t done a lot of well known stuff, but it looks like he’s been a working director and writer, in Hollywood for Better For Worse and a little bit of stuff on TV. 

Craig:  Yeah. And some stuff that you would recognize the titles of at least and and not only in horror either. One of the ones that I thought was pretty funny was, Yeah. I I’m pretty sure he did, like, William and Kate. Like, the like, a a Lifetime movie about The prince William and duchess Kate, which I thought was pretty funny. That was pretty recent. So he’s, yeah, he’s been around. 

Todd:  Yeah. Seemed to be a number of these things They’re like Princess, a TV a Cinderella story. Did 11 episodes of Lizzie McGuire. Mhmm. Definitely. Couple episodes of The Wonderful World of Disney, apparently. This movie did some good stuff for him. I think he made it on a shoestring budget.   Initially, a $125 investment. In the middle of filming, they got it bumped up a little bit, because they ran out of money, and I think his brother or somebody secured a loan and got another 300,000. And then even a distributor picked it up and, paid for some finishing costs, and so they sold it. And it had a limited release initially in New Mexico, and then was released in theaters across the US And made, in 1983, a nice Todd sum of 10,000,000. Not bad Yeah. For this movie. Actually, I’m just gonna say right up front, I was kinda blown away by this movie. 

Craig:  Oh my gosh. Especially for a first movie, I was really impressed. Yeah. 

Todd:  Holy crap. Right? I was Really not expecting this caliber of film at all. And, I mean, I’m not saying it’s it’s it’s Shakespeare. I’m not saying it’s Hitchcock, but it it has elements of Hitchcock in here. 

Craig:  Oh, gosh. Yeah. 

Todd:  I mean, it’s dripping with it. He said actually that some of the inspiration for this movie came from a French film called Les Diablique. Am I saying that right? Le Diablique? 

Craig:  Diablique something 

Todd:  like that. I mean, it’s a pretty famous one. I think it was remade with Sharon Stone in the nineties. Mhmm. It’s a almost textbook slasher film, honestly. Mhmm. But it has enough little curves and twists in there to keep you in there. Although, even those curves and twists are fairly textbook.   Aren’t they? I don’t know if the movie ever completely fooled me, but it did surprise me a couple times. But it didn’t have anything I haven’t seen before. No. That being said, A lot of that that I’ve seen before has come since. 

Craig:  So Right. That’s that’s true. You know, I didn’t really have any expectations, I’ve certainly heard of this movie before. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it, especially now that I have Because it’s, so right on par with so many of the other slasher movies that are much more celebrated. You know, like Yes. The Jamie Lee Curtis movies of the eighties, like, Terror Train Prom Night. Like you said, it’s got some Hitchcockian stuff. You know, there are certainly big time shades of Psycho.   At points, I was kind of maybe expecting maybe, like, an April fools’ day type twist. Mhmm. One of the things that I thought that the movie did really well. Was it did? It kept me guessing, and there were lots Lots of red herrings that were skillfully played. You know, by about halfway through, I kinda had it figured out what was going on because there are definitely big time shades of Black Christmas going on too. 

Todd:  Yep. 

Craig:  So I kind of felt about halfway through. Like, I had kind of figured it out, but I still wasn’t entirely sure, and I really wasn’t entirely sure, until the end. Yeah. And honestly, I think that this movie is just as good as pretty much any of those, except maybe Psycho that I mentioned. You know? It’s it’s it’s a perfectly competent slasher. 

Todd:  I’m gonna maybe overspeak here, but I would say it’s even heads and Tales above half of what you what you I mean, it’s definitely better than freaking prom night. It’s just really well done. The the filming is good. The cinematography is good. The score? 

Clip:  I loved the score. I’m amazing. Something. Yeah. 

Todd:  You know, one of those moments where you’re like, I could actually have this, like, on my Ipod. This is an amazing score in this movie. And sometimes, you know, in the past we’ve said, Man, the score really elevates this film. In this case, it was exactly the score that a film like this deserved. My god. I’m sorry. I’m probably gonna gush all over this movie, Walt. 

Craig:  No. It’s alright. I liked it too. I mean, I I don’t think I’m gonna gush over it. I didn’t think it was amazing, but, I was really surprised. I was surprised by how good it was. 

Todd:  As we often say, if everything that we’ve said has compelled you to watch this movie, you should really stop the podcast now and go out and watch this movie. 

Craig:  We’ll probably blow the ending Early. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  So if if you haven’t seen it and you want to because it is it’s twisty, and if you don’t want the twists blown. I I don’t know how we’re gonna be able to skirt around them until the end. 

Todd:  Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Let’s just dive into it. The beginning is done in, I guess, it’s black and white. It’s actually kinda hazy. Maybe that’s a criticism I have of it. I think they were just went a little too hard on the gauze over the camera.   But they were going for an Todd film noir look to it. Uh-huh. You know, we see these flashback scenes. This was a flashback to 1961, which would be just 20 years prior to the present day in this film, if you will. 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  But they filmed it almost like freaking Citizen Kane. There are all these odd Dutch camera angles. There’s shots in warped mirrors. There are these strong shadows across the scene. There’s a shot of a nurse Standing in a window, smoking a cigarette that she’s all in silhouette. That took me by surprise at the beginning. That was a really interesting choice. And not only was it an interesting choice, but did a really good job of setting this of of filming it that way.   1st time director, I think even the cinematographer, this was his first feature film. It’s almost kind of Citizen Kane ish. There’s this woman. She’s laying in a bed. She’s obviously pregnant. The doctor comes in, shoos the nurse away, gets out a scalpel, Burns it in a candle. He’s gonna do a c section right there in the bed of this house. Right.   And, and this woman, yeah, gets a c section, I guess, with no anesthetic. Who knows? And by the time it’s done, they just have, an exchange. 

Clip:  Where’s my baby?   I’m sorry, missus Slater.   No. No. 

Craig:  And this was, again, skillful, and I hate to blow our wad right from the beginning, but it blew by me in the 1st place. But then when references to the Scene kept coming back up. They never say here we here we go. They never say the baby died. Yep. Now, like, that was what I just assumed. You know? Like, that’s oh, god. The doctor’s so sorry.   She’s so upset. You know, obviously, she lost the baby, and that’s terrible. And and then that’s it. And then it cuts to their Present day. And all this stuff, I believe it was shot in black and white. I read that it was actually the distributor. It’s it’s tinted blue, and I guess it was the distributor that did that, which, you know, way to take some license with, you know, the film, I guess. But 

Todd:  Who the hell cares? Right? I mean, like, I don’t see what that added to it. 

Craig:  I mean, it it works fine. It’s kind of dreamlike. You know? It establishes It has a flashback, and it’s really brief, and we don’t get a lot of information. We just see these people. I have a feeling that maybe Part of the reason that, it was as hazy as you said is that they were maybe trying to hide the age of the actors Actors 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  The same actors play the same roles 20 years later and and Don’t look are supposed to be 

Todd:  significantly older, 

Craig:  and look significantly older. Older, so maybe that was part of the reason that it was a little bit hazy. I don’t know. But whatever for whatever reason 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  It it worked. And then it cuts to, just this sweeping shot, like a crane shot of this university campus, a woman in A white graduation robe running across campus, and that that was when I first noticed the scores when these the the opening credits We’re running. The title sequence was running, and I I wrote it down. 

Clip:  I’m like, wow. This is a really good score 

Craig:  right here from the very beginning. 

Todd:  It’s amazing. It’s, I mean, it’s just sweeping and it’s grand and it’s gorgeous, and then the cinematography is so is totally matching it. It’s purposely taking us through these obvious scenes of college wrapping up. Girls posing for a photograph in front of their sorority house It’s on the it’s it’s just off the quad, I guess. And, we do get a a shot across there of many of the girls in that sorority, which we’re gonna see later. It kinda takes us into the house, and they’re all kinda packing things up, and they’re kinda moving around. There are these kinda long, very nice Dolly shots and and Todd cam shots through the different rooms and as they’re going, it’s just so nice. Mhmm.   It just Set the scene so well, this is what made me kinda sit up and take notice of this movie at the very beginning. Okay. This might end up being different from what I expected. Richard Van Richard Van is the guy who did the score, and he has basically made a life out of scoring low budget horror movies. I mean, Almost every low budget horror movie we’ve done, he scored, like freaking Ghoulies, The Re Animator, we’ll do some time Troll, terror vision, puppet masters, movies, all of those, demonic Todd. And 

Craig:  I didn’t know that he was the guy that did troll, but you know how I feel about that movie, and I love the score in that movie. So it doesn’t surprise me. 

Todd:  Yeah. And, I mean, he’s so good. And but then I think about some of these other scores, like, for puppet master and stuff. And I’m gonna have to go back and remember what we thought of it, because I thought, eventually, it kinda gets into synthy Kinda standard horror y type stuff. Maybe I’m my recollection is wrong. Nice sweeping score. Nice establishing shots. Takes us in here.   And, we get into the room where there’s a woman named Katie. And she is packing things up, and her mom is there helping her pack things up too. 

Clip:  Well, we’ve just had the pool man over so you can swim all summer while you’re at home. I’m not moving back home, mom. This has nothing to do with you. I just have a lot to think about, like what I’m gonna do with the rest of my life. Well, I should think after 4 years of college, we’d have a start in those decisions. 

Todd:  Vicky pops around the corner and says, hey. A bunch of us are gonna stay for a little while longer. I think during the 3 months of the summer, they’re gonna plan to stay in the house. Is that right? 

Craig:  No. No. No. They’re they’re just gonna stay for, like, another 5 days or something like that because they 

Todd:  to do their party. 

Craig:  To do their graduation party. And and we don’t find all this out right now, but we eventually find out that they had a graduation party plan somewhere else, but they couldn’t come up with the money for the deposit or something. And so they had to postpone it, and their big idea was they’re just gonna at their sorority house. The only problem is that, their house mother closes up the house on June 19th every year, and then it’s it’s closed for the summer. But they just kind of choose to ignore that, and they’re gonna do it anyway. 

Todd:  That’s right. 

Craig:  I wanted to say most of, the actresses in this movie and actors, but, most of our lead people are, these young women, most of them, this was their 1st movie, and many of them, this was the only thing they other did. Some of them, have maybe 1 or Todd other credits. The exception to that is Vicky, who is played by Eileen Davidson. And You make fun of me. I don’t care. You can go ahead and make fun of me, but just, you know, recently, we did death house. And, Guess who’s in it? I one of the the 5 evils from death house was a a chick from days of our lives, and you’re like, horror horror, you know, days of our lives horror crossover, and I said, it happens more often than you would think. Well, it happens here again because I know Eileen Davidson From Days of Our Lives.   My parents watched Days of Our Lives all through their youth and growing up, and and So they continued watching it when I was a kid, so I always watched it. I watched it pretty religiously all through college. 

Todd:  Oh, wow. 

Craig:  It’s pretty typical as far as Daytime soaps go, but they would have certain story lines that would just be ridiculous and crazy. And And Eileen Davidson came on that show, and and she started out as kind of this sweet romantic lead. But then it turned out that she was, like, The illegitimate daughter of the biggest villain in all of days of our lives history. And so and so then she became this evil character. And then when I was in high school, she had this storyline where it turned out that not only was She, the daughter of this bad guy, but somehow she was also kind of like the genetic 

Clip:  I don’t remember I don’t remember how they justified it, but when it came down to it, there were 5 of her. What? 

Craig:  And they were all distinctly different. 

Todd:  Are you kidding me? 

Craig:  And and she played All 5 roles. 4 of them women, one of them a man. And it was just freaking hilarious, and She was fantastic, and she continued on in that role. They only recently, recast her. And she still does daytime drama stuff. And she was also a real housewife of Beverly Hills, which I don’t watch that show, but, I know that she she did it. So She is kind of a big name now, and I had no idea that she was in this. And when I saw that she was in it, I was like, Oh my god.   Yes. 

Todd:  Wow. Wow. You had a real moment there. 

Craig:  I did. And it’s not like she’s amazing in this or anything, But, oh, man. So many connections for me. It was a it was a nice little Easter egg for me. 

Todd:  Kate McNeal, who played, may our our okay. We’re gonna say our final girl, Katie. Kate Kate McNeal also has quite a few credits to her name. I think she’d be about the other one. She’s been all over television quite quite a bit. 

Craig:  Oh, that’s right. That’s And 

Todd:  then as far as movies go, she was in Monkey Shines, which we might end up doing someday. Actually, my favorite John Claude Van Damme movie, and I’ve seen almost all of them, Is Sudden Death where Yeah. Have you seen that one where the hockey game gets invaded by terrorists? It’s it’s really actually pretty good, Especially for a Jean Claude Van Damme movie. She she’s, she’s really good in this. Honestly, I think all of the acting in this movie was was except for the older woman. 

Craig:  And the sexy See, blondes. The sexy blond was 

Todd:  Oh, she was horrible. That’s true. 

Clip:  It’s definitely horrible. Alright. So those 2 

Todd:  with the exception of those I thought all the other acting was quite good, actually. 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  That they all had me convinced. And it’s a real ensemble type movie even though you don’t get much more than a taste of each of these different characters. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  You do actually get a sense that there’s a character behind each one of them, you know, which is a little more than true. Than can be said for a lot of stuff that we review. 

Craig:  The funny thing is I never knew any of their names until after they were dead because as soon As soon as they would die, then people would be like, wait a second. Where is Where 

Todd:  is Jeanie? 

Craig:  Where where’s Jeanie? Jeanie? Jeanie? Where’s Jeanie? Hi, JD. 

Todd:  That’s so true. 

Clip:  So I would always write down, oh, okay. Another The the sexy Todd one died, and then I would go back and write, oh, that was whatever her name was. 

Craig:  I’ve got it written down so Morgan. Morgan. 

Todd:  Morgan’s the sexy. I Still not exactly sure who Stevie and Liz were. Yeah. I don’t know. But the names came up once or twice. Yeah. So it’s kind of established that she’s gonna hang out a little bit longer. I guess her mom just goes home.   Yes. She’s gonna hang out a little bit longer and party with the rest of the girls for these 3 days. In the meantime, we get a shot back to a hospital where there’s that doctor from that flashback scene, and he is talking with a nurse, and they have this kind of cryptic conversation. And then the woman who we had seen earlier who had had the baby comes into frame. And, you know, I mean, like you said, it’s the same actress, and she looks about as old as she did 20 years ago, Except her hair is maybe a little wider. And again, they have this sort of cryptic conversation. She’s going to leave the clinic against the doctor’s wishes, which she usually does, right, this time of year? 

Craig:  Well, alright. But if you went back and watched it again, which I didn’t, but I I thought about it in hindsight, the way that they talk about it is vague enough, that when the big reveal happens, you’re like, oh. Because the he says something about, like 

Clip:  You’re just asking for trouble. You’ve got to reconsider.   My mind is made up. I intend to spend this summer as I spend all the rest But   the environment here is so much more helpful.   I told you, there’ll be no one else at the house. It was closed for 3 months today.   I understand, but anything might happen. He’s here. We’re prepared to handle it. Condition is getting worse. You know it as well as I do. We Knowles knew the risks, but 20 years from blaming me for what happened. 

Craig:  You would have no reason to think that they were talking about anybody but her. Yeah. But it turns out that they’re not. 

Todd:  Mhmm. 

Craig:  But it’s so subtle. I never would have suspected, what was coming based on this conversation because it totally sounds like she has some issue that she has had because of this traumatic birth that she had. And whatever the Issue is it’s getting worse, and the doctor is concerned that that something bad is gonna happen. And and I don’t think he says it to her, but at some point, he says either the nurse or somebody else. If there’s any trauma at all, it will lead to a psychotic break, and it will lead to violent 1st Yep. Or something like that. 

Todd:  That’s right. I think that comes a little later in in another scene. But yeah. Yeah. He’s he starts talking about it here. So she is going to leave. Vicky and her boyfriend go up into a barn and have a little shootout where the boyfriend loans her his, gun and shows her how to shoot it. But it turns out she’s already pretty good at shooting a gun. 

Craig:  Yeah. That was kinda weird. 

Todd:  It is kinda weird. She Vicky from the get go seems like just a little too headstrong, Kinda that bad girl, you know, which she’s very much painted that way from the beginning. And then that we get to this girl’s partying scene. And even this scene I thought was really clever, in that they’re all sitting around drinking, and they’re, you know, they’ve all have mugs, and they’re singing their sorority song, and then they each kind of give a toast. And for each of them, it each of their toast tells a little bit about themselves in a clever way, and I thought that was really nice, a really nice touch. And then it kinda the camera spins around all of them and then toward the door where alright. So her name was Genie. Genie, the one who pukes all the time.   Queasy genie. So she gets up and runs runs out to throw up, and runs right into, this woman, who’s missus Slater. And this is where we find out that missus Slater is actually the house mom, yeah, of the sorority. So so that’s a little confusing, Especially considering the previous, scene that we had, like, how can she be staying at this clinic this whole time but also be the house mom? 

Craig:  Well, but but she She wasn’t staying there. I I think that 

Todd:  That was the impression I had gotten, though. 

Craig:  What seemed to be suggested was that she she is the house mom during the school year, but then she closes up the sorority house in the summertime, and she goes and stays in the clinic. 

Todd:  Oh, I thought it was the opposite that she goes and stays in the sorority house during the summertime. 

Craig:  No. I think it’s the opposite. That, You know, they they’re tricking us. Yeah. But that’s supposedly why she closes it up on, you know, right at the very beginning of the summer is because then she has to go and stay in this clinic for the summer. 

Todd:  That makes sense. I think somewhere in my mind, I was thinking that it was the opposite because, When all the girls were gone, she could kinda brood alone in the house and kind of mourn the possibility, the loss of her son. And then She’s really upset that the girls are there and, demands that they get out, but they’re like, no. We’re not gonna do it. We don’t have Todd, and so they don’t. She goes upstairs 

Craig:  And that’s when I realized that the room that she lives in is the room that she was giving birth in. You know? Like, it was in that sorority house. Same same place. And she also goes upstairs and kinda hangs out in the attic a little bit. And, like, the attic’s Kinda weird. Like 

Todd:  It’s got little kids’ toys. 

Craig:  Yeah. It it’s kind of bizarre. It seems like, You know, that she is just tortured by her loss, and so she’s kind of built this little sanctuary up in the attic for herself where she can go be depressed or or whatever. 

Todd:  Yeah. Exactly. And everything set up in this movie has a payoff Todd. And that’s what’s cool. Like, even as is going through the attic. We’re seeing these toys. She picks up a ball. She picks up this this Todd.   Like, all of this stuff that we’re seeing is gonna have a payoff later. So the movie’s really tight, just giving you enough information, keeping those other things cryptic, to keep you kinda strung along and interested. I’m super interested. I was. 

Craig:  I was too. That same night, Vicky comes back from her little shooting gallery or whatever and With her boyfriend, she invites him up to her room, which I guess is unusual. I don’t know if she thought that the housemother wasn’t gonna be there or what. 

Todd:  She didn’t care maybe. 

Craig:  She, invites him up there. And it’s she’s like, give me 10 minutes and then come up. And he goes up, and she’s, like, Lounging, and she’s like, look what daddy got as little princess, and it’s it’s a water bed. Like, look. It’s a sexy water bed. Funny story. I had a water bed in college, and you would think that that would be really sexy. Really not so much.   It makes things kinda awkward. Kinda hard to get your footing. 

Todd:  I was just about to to question, yeah, how sexy a water bed really would be when it comes right down to it. 

Craig:  Really not. 

Todd:  Get me off this thing. Splash. Kathump. Kathump. 

Craig:  It’s it’s It’s it’s not really great. But, and and mine was super classy too and had a mirror on the headboard. We’ll talk later. 

Todd:  It seems like as the years go on, Craig, we get Just a little bit more information about you from college days. So, 

Craig:  she opens up her shirt, and you see her boobies, and then they Todd getting it on or whatever. Well, missus Slater hears them and comes downstairs, and she carries this cane, this very ominous looking Cane is very pointy and sharp on on 

Todd:  Both ends. 

Craig:  Yeah. Both ends, really, I guess. So she walks in, and, of course, they don’t See her, and she raises the cane. It looks like she’s going to hit Vicky with it because Vicky’s on top. But she she brings it Todd, and Instead of I don’t know. I don’t know if she was gonna hit her with it. I don’t think so. No.   Like, they they roll away, And instead, she just totally slices open the water bed. Yeah. Water everywhere. 

Todd:  And And let’s talk about for a second how good the scene is because it’s preceded by the vignette of her ripping up the sorority girls’ photos Yeah. And tossing him into a fire. And one of the last things she does is bring that sharp pointed cane down, to shatter a picture right where Vicki is. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Just coincidental, I guess. But, it it makes it seem like she’s out to kill Vicky. And then this is a very well Stage back and forth kind of psychosque bit here. But at the same time, kind of in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, It can’t happen. Like like, it’s too obvious that the mom I mean, is this just gonna be a movie about the house mother that we already know from The first, you know, 15 minutes is just gonna go around killing everybody. It can’t be that way. 

Craig:  And I wondered why doesn’t she like Vicki? Yeah. And and, you know, it was one of those, You know, when it boils right down to it, Vicki’s a bitch. So Yeah. There doesn’t need to be much more motive than that, but, you know, I’m wondering, and I’m like, Is Vicky somehow connected to her personal tragedy? 

Todd:  Mhmm. 

Craig:  Is Vicky maybe her baby? Like Yeah. I didn’t know, you know, what was going on? 

Todd:  It’s really good. 

Craig:  But the fact that missus Slater popped her brand new waterbed really pisses Vicki off. So she’s complaining about it the next day with, the other girls. They’re down by the pool. The pool’s all gross because miss Slater won’t Pay anybody to clean it so they can’t even swim it or anything, but they’re all hanging around down there. And Vicky says we gotta get her back. 

Clip:  Well, how about if we give her a good old fashioned sorority prank? Alright. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s 

Clip:  a good idea. What? Are you kidding? Like what? 

Todd:  Wait a minute. 

Clip:  Let me think. How about how about we TP her room? No. No. No. Okay. How about the old dog shit 

Todd:  in the 

Clip:  paper bag room? 

Todd:  Oh, we 

Clip:  got a fresh Bad. 

Craig:  Here. How about 

Clip:  a blow head of water over a door? So when she comes in, she cuts in. Tomorrow night, we could short sheet her bed. No. No. No. No. I got a great one. Let’s spray glue on her toilet 

Todd:  Thank you, Sandra Dee from the fifties. 

Craig:  Yeah. Vicky’s like, no. I have an idea. We’ll do it right before the party, and then pretty much nothing else happens before we see them preparing for the party. And they’re, you know, they’re they’re decorating, and they’re all, you know, looking pretty and and whatnot. And missus Slater wakes up, and Her cane, which she keeps by her bed, is gone. So she goes down to confront them, and she yells at them for decorating, tells them to take everything down, and Vicki says, Oh, you seem to be missing something. 

Todd:  Now real quick. There’s a little scene before that happens that’s kind of important. I think it was well placed. We get back to the doctor’s office, and he’s he’s examining x rays of of a Craig, and it’s the woman’s brain. And that’s when he says into his tape recorder. Basically, saying Slater could go psychotic, has latent violence that could be triggered by a traumatic episode. Again, we assume that he’s talking about her, And then this is happening. So we’ve got it kind of in the back of our mind that whatever they’re doing to her, whatever they’re playing to do to her could possibly trigger Right.   Something. Right? So there’s that ass that layer to it as well. 

Craig:  Exactly. Vicky says to her, oh, it seems like you’re missing something. And, missus Slater’s like, where is And she’s like, we want you to look down by the pool. So the old lady goes down by the pool, and all the girls follow her. And the cane is floating on, like, a tire in the middle of the pool, and Vicky’s like, why don’t you go get it? Now this is the prank. It is the worst prank ever. Yeah. It’s awful. 

Todd:  It’s terrible. 

Craig:  This was Like, What are you thinking? Like, this is such a terror okay. So, she’s like, why don’t you go get the cane? And and she’s like, no. I’m not going to. So then Vicki whips out the gun, Dirty Harry style, and points it right at her face. And she’s like, Go get it. And I’m thinking, okay. Well, you know, it it’s a squirt gun or or something or whatever. But, no, She immediately proves that it’s a real gun by shooting out a light, which, you know, encourages missus Slater to get into the pool And somehow, really super fast, get in the pool, get out with her cane. 

Todd:  Well, what happens is the other girls are freaking out. They’re like, oh, come on, Vicki. This is going too far. Come on. Stop Vicky. And 1 girl rushes at Vicky, and she spins around and shoots her in the leg. She falls down. You could see she’s got a a wound in her in her ankle.   And everybody’s like, oh my god. You just shot her. And she’s like, don’t worry. She’s fine. And points the gun back at Slater. And at this point, you’re like, what in the hell? Right. This is the weirdest thing in the world, but, yeah, you’re right. She comes out of the pool.   What happens? 

Craig:  She slices somebody. She takes a swipe at somebody with her cane. I don’t remember who she hit, and I don’t even think she necessarily wounded Anybody, I think maybe she just sliced open somebody’s shirt or something. But for whatever reason, I guess that freaked Vicki out. So Vicki shot her again. 

Todd:  Like, yeah. 

Craig:  And, like, this time, I guess, really shot her, and she fell in the water. And, like, they jump in and grab her and pull her out and take her pulse and stuff, and they’re like, she’s dead. And this, kids, is why we don’t play pranks With guns, Vicky. God. Like, come on. This is this something horrible is bound to happen. 

Todd:  It’s a Stupid thing. But this is so Christopher Pike. It’s like a Lois Duncan novel. Very much. Yes. I know what you did last summer. It’s, like, so And I just thought it was delicious. You know? Just this prank gone wrong.   And I’m like, oh, man. We’re gonna get this kinda movie now. Right? 

Craig:  And it is. 

Todd:  They’re not just victims here. They’re, like, culpable in doing this, and so it it just became even 10 times more interesting for me. 

Craig:  Yeah. At some point, It’s revealed that the other girls, apparently, all except for Katie, were in on it. They knew what was going on. Yeah. Like, the girl who got Shot didn’t even really get shot. Like, it was all just a ruse. Mhmm. But missus Slater getting shot was not part of the plan.   She’s dead or they think she is. And then, You know, again, it’s that very much I know what you did last summer. Katie, the good one, who you know is gonna be the final girl because she’s the only one with any sense. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  She’s like, oh my god. We have ambiance. They’re like, no. We can’t. Our lives will be ruined. Mhmm. So she’s like, okay. So what should we do? So, Well, the oh, oh, oh, oh, the band’s here.   The party’s getting ready to start. So, somebody go distract the band. She tells I think she tells the slutty blonde one to run and and, distract the band, and the slutty blonde one just kind of Slowly gets up and, like, saunters away. Like, she’s not concerned at all. But, anyway, So they wrap her up in some towels, tie her up in some towels, and throw her in the pool. Now as soon as they throw her in the pool, they all turn and run back into the house, and then the body floats back up to the top. And because they turned and ran away so quickly, I thought that it would be perfectly plausible that she wasn’t really dead 

Todd:  Mhmm. And 

Craig:  she got herself out of pool. Mhmm. Because she would have had time. She wasn’t in the pool that 

Todd:  long. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s not like she was underwater for a 

Todd:  long time. And we get a nice little bit of underwater photography In the as it sinks to the bottom and then floats to the Todd. I mean, what a nice little touch. And this is by the way, this is a gross pool. This is like Green through and through. You like, you can’t see the bottom of it. That’s why tossing her in the pool was their way that they were just gonna temporarily get rid of the body until after the party, and then they could deal with it. So but that has to be said.   I don’t know why people keep coming back to this nasty ass pool throughout the movie because why you would wanna jump into this thing For any reason, it’s totally beyond me. I don’t know if the ads grow. 

Craig:  But, anyway, so so then they have their party. And, like, at first Because all of these girls kind of look alike, like, I didn’t even really you know? I I could barely distinguish between them. And at first, You know, they’re showing the scenes of this party, and I thought that it was all of our girls who we know just partying and having a time. Like happened. Like, wow. They got over that awfully quick. Well, as it turns out, that’s not true because then There’s a a really nice shot later 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Yes. Hands through the party to each one of our girls who we know, and they are all Clearly distraught and distracted and, don’t know what to do. 

Todd:  That was so nice. That was a great shot, just like you said. And, again, just another layer here of reality that we don’t again, we don’t often get these horror movies. Like, I can’t remember what that movie was. We I think it was Bloody New Year, where it was, like, somebody would get killed. And then, like, the next scene, like, everybody’s just drinking and hanging out again. Like like, nothing had happened. But it was really important to this movie that everybody was still extremely uncomfortable, and I think it helps build that tension.   And you constantly have Katie through this, who’s jumping in at the moments where they have to regroup and rethink things. I was like, look. This is insane. Like, we gotta stop this. We gotta call the cops. And For one reason or another, it doesn’t happen. That hooked me. You know? It really did hook me because I think I was just putting myself there, like, my Todd.   You do some really dumbass things when you’re a college student. You know? It could happen. You know? And, and this is exactly how I would feel. I I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the rest of my life, You know, let alone party. Right. So, it was good. The reality of it, I think, was was really refreshing and and well played. 

Craig:  We also see at some point right around here that either she got out of the pool or someone got her out. And and that that’s what I wrote down because that’s what I was thinking. Either she got out or someone got her out. I wasn’t sure. But we see somebody, like, wringing out the Towels and and whatnot. And some drunk guy walks down there and, gets stabbed through the neck with the cane. It’s practical. I mean, you know, the the impact itself is clearly with a dummy.   Yeah. That’s I mean, it looks it Still looks pretty good. I mean okay. I appreciate a good practical effect. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  But but it was clearly real. You know? Because, again, at this point and even a little I don’t know. Maybe not much further into it. But at this point, I was also thinking, Again, red herring. Maybe this is all just a trick on Katie because she’s the naive one and because she was the only one who wasn’t in on the whole gunplay deal. I thought maybe maybe nobody’s really going to die. Maybe It’s gonna look like they are, and then it’s gonna be again, spoiler alert if you haven’t seen April fools’ day. Everybody jumps out at the end.   It was just a big joke on you. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  But but this guy gets killed, and it it looks like he really gets killed. So 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  I guess I let that theory go. And then this guy shows up looking for Kate. Vicky has set her up on a blind date with this guy named Peter. And Poor Peter. He’s this nice guy, and he really just kind of chases her around the party through the whole movie. And I won’t I’m not gonna have a whole lot Todd say about him because he doesn’t play a huge role except for, again, I thought that he was a Todd red herring. 

Todd:  Mhmm. 

Craig:  There were several times throughout the movie I thought maybe it’s Peter. Maybe Peter is Miss Slater’s lost son. Yeah. Turns out it’s not. But but I really thought it might be, you know, up almost until the very end. 

Todd:  Well, the party’s kinda going on. And, you know, Peter has found her upstairs. She’s kinda distraught, but she’s kinda trying to play it off a little bit. And finally, he’s like, no. No. No. That’s okay. But he kinda disappears.   And then, they notice I think, it’s after this scene that you had mentioned Earlier about the the pans across them, they’re all look just standing there not enjoying the party. They noticed there’s some commotion down by the pool, and there are 2 guys who are, like, swinging a girl like they’re gonna toss her in. So they all run down there to stop that from happening. And once they all leave, the girls look at each other and, like, what if somebody turns the pool lights on? That’s gonna reveal the body. Stevie decides that she’s gonna go into the basement slash boiler room and pull out the the fuse, so that nobody can do that. So, you know, this movie, we’ve got in the attic Scene, of course, we had to have a basement boiler scene. And while she’s down there, there’s clearly some eyes looking at her from behind a slated, Like, door that’s put up against the wall. And it looks an awful lot like Slater.   Mhmm. The Woman. I mean, it looks very much like her. So much that I thought, Jeez. Maybe it is her then, you know, who came out of it. And, again, really suspenseful, well staged Christine reminded me a little bit of Black Christmas, reminded me a little bit of Hitchcock. There’s the ball that rolls Across the floor that 

Craig:  And I I was thinking that a troll was gonna drop jump out of 

Todd:  her. Right. She picks up the ball, and then as she looks up, like, the the now the light bulb is swinging at the other end. Somebody’s disturbed the light bulb, and she goes over bulb. And then we get another murder scene of her, but it’s all in silhouette. And she’s clearly, again, getting stabbed with a cane, like, first couple times in the chest and then right in the mouth, but, again, all All in shadow. So, 

Craig:  Yeah. And the the cane is the primary weapon, throughout the movie, and this is a wicked cane. It can Slice and dice and all kinds of things. And then they have, like, a snowball dance or whatever. It’s just distraction or whatever. And then these random scenes, the these 3 guys In tighty whities are down by the pool. I guess they’re gonna take a swim. Like you said, why? Like, this pool’s gross.   Like, are you really that desperate to Swim that you’re gonna jump in is gross. And one of them is this big guy, and, one of 

Clip:  the other guys Pushes them in, and that’s I’m a. He comes up and says it. It’s so funny. 

Craig:  And then for somehow, the pool lights come on, And the girls are I don’t know how they know the pool lights come on, but they do. And so, again, everybody runs down to the pool, And there’s that guy. Like, his friends have just abandoned him, and he’s just, like, floating there in the pool. And they’re, like, looking at him, and he just looks at them. I’m a sea Pig. But they see that the body is Obviously, not in the water, and so they’re convinced that miss Slater must be alive, that she had gotten out somehow. 

Todd:  And It’s actually a weird kind of logic. And it doesn’t make a lot of sense, because they kinda go back and forth. And it almost seems like They don’t really know what to think. They’re just trying to keep Katie from calling the police. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  So on one hand, they have this meeting in the kitchen. And again, Katie wants to call the police. And the first thing they kinda start out saying is, oh my god. She’s alive. Like, we threw her in the pool, And she wasn’t she wasn’t Todd. And now she’s gotten out. And then they’re, like, yeah. But if she was alive, wouldn’t she have already called the police? So then that must mean maybe she’s not alive, but then they sort of decide that they need to go out and find her.   I don’t know. Are they looking for her body? 

Craig:  Vicki says, I don’t know where she comes up with this logic. Vicky’s like, well, she must have been alive when she got out, but then she must have dropped dead somewhere else. Okay. 

Todd:  Yeah. Alright. Whatever. It makes no sense. It just gives them all an excuse to disperse Mhmm. And keep again, Katie from calling the cops. And they do. And so then it becomes very much what you would expect.   So they have all dispersed Todd these different areas, and then we start getting picked off 1 by 1. But it’s also again, it’s just all so well shot, and it’s so compelling and interesting. I I just I was way more involved in this movie than I am in a lot of these slasher movies that we do. True. And I thought, what about that band, What’d you think of the band? 

Craig:  I mean, they were fine. 

Todd:  We got, like, we got, like, 5 or 6, like, solid songs out of them. It seemed like the band might have been They 

Craig:  all sounded the same to me. I I just felt like they’re playing the same song over 

Todd:  and over. Like the band was angling for for getting half their album out in the movie because it seemed like sometimes the only reason we cut back to the party scene was so that we could hear, like, you know, about 5 bars or whatever they were playing. 

Craig:  Yeah. Like you said, at this point, they they, again, they do. They just Keep finding reasons to either peel off from one another or somebody will send somebody else off on their own. Oh, why don’t you go do this? Like, why don’t you go get the car? Why don’t you go Check something. Like, at this point, they send Morgan, the sexy blonde one, to, clean out Slater’s closet so that When she comes up missing, they’ll just think she left. And while she’s in there, a body wrapped up in towels, so supposedly Slater’s body, falls on her. And she’s fine, but she’s freaked out, so she runs back to her room and takes her top off we could see her boobs for a second, and then she hears, like, some music or whatever outside her door. So she opens up her door, and she finds this jack in the box again from the attic.   Mhmm. And then she too is impaled from behind. 

Todd:  Good effect. 

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, it’s Todd, but at this point, it didn’t feel redundant Watching it, in fact, I was impressed that the movie really kept moving. It never dragged. Like, it it something was always happening. It it never got boring. But to just cut and then so and so ran off and got killed. Then so and so ran off and got killed. I mean, that’s that’s pretty much What happens? At some point, the girls, whichever ones of them are left with Vicky as the leader, put Slater’s body In a dumpster to try move her to the garage so they can drive her somewhere? 

Todd:  Stupidest idea ever. They end up kinda pushing the dumpster down the driveway or down the street or something, and they bump right into a police car 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  That I guess had pulled up at that moment. It’s a little awkward. But, again, there’s more of this tension, like, Okay. You’ve just put a body in a dumpster, which is where all bodies end up. So, you know, the cop comes out of the car, and he’s, like, what are you girls doing pushing this dumpster? And he starts to interrogate them, and he even starts to go over and lift it up. But then a call comes over the radio at the last second, and so he goes back to the radio and he kinda disappears. So, Like, it there’s some nice little moments here, I think, of tension. 

Craig:  Tension. 

Todd:  That are cool. Like you said, it keeps moving. There’s always something interesting happening. And then, I don’t know, like, Diane decides to go hang out in a van? 

Craig:  Oh, well, she’s going to, like, get the van to, like, pull it out of the garage or Some things so that they can put that’s like their getaway car. Oh. And she gets killed in there. The important thing that we can’t fail to mention is that for some reason, Katie ends up in the attic. Yes. She looks around, and she finds all this weird stuff and, like, all these Todd. And there’s definitely, like, a Clown theme, and she finds, like, a a jester’s costume, like, hanging on the wall. And she also finds a birthday card that says something like, happy birthday, Eric.   Love, mother. And that’s important. And then, again, a great, you know, red herring, Peter, who’s drunk at this point, joins her in the attic. He’s just trying to flirt, but, like, he sees these Todd. And he sits down on, like, this little kid riding Todd, and he’s scooting around on it. And he says, this used to be one of my favorite things. And I’m like, what? Like Like, just these little, like, innocuous lines, like, I thought, how could that have been one of your favorite things? Is this your attic? But But that that’s good. You know? I feel like that’s good writing.   It’s the natural thing to say. You know? It it’s It’s fine. It doesn’t end up amounting to anything, but it’s a good you know, it it diverts your attention. 

Todd:  Yeah. For sure. 

Craig:  Then like you said Diane gets killed in the van. Jeanie goes looking for Diane, and she gets attacked, but she runs back home where she finds Katie. And so now Katie knows that people are being attacked, but, of course, she leaves thing. And Jeanie gets chased upstairs to the bathroom and gets killed in the bathroom. Like, she’s hiding in a stall, and somehow the killer opens the latch from the outside. That’s not how bathroom 

Todd:  stalls work. It’s it’s all a little weird. That sequence, again, it’s your classic Sick person’s trapped in the bathroom, and somehow there are showers in there too. I don’t know. I I didn’t quite figure out the whole layout of that whole place. I mean, they I think they filmed that in a totally different place. Pretty obvious because here, this is this nice little sorority house, and they have this, this shared bathroom that looks like a locker. You know, it’s like cement.   It’s like concrete block walls and stuff like that in there and, like, proper stalls, and it’s a little bit bigger than it should be. But, yeah. So she gets killed I think she gets Stabbed with a with a knife she’s holding, doesn’t she? Like, in the neck. Yeah. Yeah. It’s pretty Mhmm. Pretty gross. But, again, it’s not close-up.   It’s more Bladder on the wall. So then Diane Katie finds Katie. Yeah. 

Craig:  Katie finds the tag. 

Todd:  Yeah. The 

Craig:  Which we failed to mention. 

Todd:  Yeah. We didn’t mention that. The doctor had given, It’s the the house mother, a new tag, he said, and like, a medical tag. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  And it had a number on it. And so Katie decides to run inside and call that number, And he gets the doctor, and the doctor says, oh, I’ll be right there. So he shows up. And then, he goes up and has a nice little exposition in the attic. Yep. He tells us the information some of the information, that we need to hear. 

Craig:  Slater wanted to have a baby, but she couldn’t. And so he was doing this experimental thing, and he was doing these experimental drugs. And, he tried it with a whole series of women, and she was the last one. And Something went wrong. Something went wrong with all of them. That’s basically all he says. And she’s like, but I don’t get it because I found this birthday card. And the doctor says, oh, well, she celebrated his birthday on June 19th every year as as though she had a normal loving sun.   Mhmm. And, again, he doesn’t say as though the sun were still alive. They’re so It’s just so I thought it was so clever that never ever ever do they say that the sun died. Yep. You just assume that. It seems like the most logical answer 

Todd:  And and and honestly, at this point, I was actually convinced there was a sun. And when the doctor showed up and explained this in this way, I thought, oh, I guess there isn’t a son. I mean, I guess he really did die because the Doctor Shirley would have revealed her son still alive in some way. And, again, he was just clever enough to not quite say that, and I didn’t pick up on that, you know, honestly. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Now I’m thinking, okay. Well, then who could it be if it’s not a living son? So yeah. So then they anyway, I think it’s the doctor finally calls the cops. 

Craig:  Well, they they find the bodies in the pool. Yeah. 

Clip:  Oh, yeah. 

Todd:  They run dead. 

Craig:  They know some of the girls are dead. 

Todd:  And then he asks her, where are the others? And they say, oh, they’re in the cemetery. I I missed that part where they had told her that they were gonna take the body to the cemetery. 

Craig:  I did too. 

Todd:  But there the next shot is Vicki and, I don’t remember who else. Liz? That might be Liz. Vicky and Liz are digging a hole in the cemetery. So what? Were they gonna just Take this body and give it a proper burial or something. Like No. Find an empty plot, dig a fresh grave, and throw the body in and cover it up. 

Craig:  Their plan their plan was it was An empty grave. They were just gonna dig down a couple more feet, throw the body, and cover it up, and then somebody else would get buried over her. 

Todd:  Okay. Alright. I got it. So Liz, gets goes to the van to get something, and she sits in the front seat. And from behind, pretty brutal throat slash, Again, with the pointy end of the cane across her neck. Vicky comes over there and sees it. She gets hacked as well. By the time Kate and the doctor show up, they find the the 2 bodies that have been tossed into the pit.   And in the way over, Kate actually tells the doctor the whole story. Because the doctor keeps asking, well, where’s missus Slater? Where’s missus Slater? We need to find missus Slater. And She’s just been kind of avoiding the topic. At this point, she tells the doctor everything that missus Slater is now dead and that they killed her. They were trying to hide her body, Blah blah blah blah blah. 

Craig:  And they thought that they had her body, but, Kate says she must have replaced the body with 1 of the other girls. But then they check it and it is Slater, 

Todd:  she 

Craig:  is dead. That’s when the doctor 

Clip:  goes, he’s alive. 

Todd:  This came out of left field to me, that he drove her back. And and the first thing that I was thinking about at this moment, like, next scene, he’s in the van driving her back. And I’m thinking, where are the cops? Because because they were supposed to meet at the cemetery. And, like, 2 seconds after I thought it, Kate turns to the doctor and says, where are the cops? And the doctor Grabs her arm and jams a syringe in it. I was not expecting that. So he clearly didn’t call the cops. And now the doctor takes this Half drugged Kate into the sorority house. Now, by now, the party is conveniently dispersed.   Mhmm. So it’s just a big empty house. He starts locking all the doors, drags her down to the Todd the downstairs where there is a, like, a living room that faces the pool with some French doors. And so he opens the French doors, sits her on a chair right in front of those French doors facing the pool. Amelia, I’m thinking, scream, by the way. 

Craig:  I know. It did seem like that, but the funny thing is it wasn’t Facing the pool. This is so no. This is so weird. Basically, the exposition that he tells her is these kids were all born with deformities. And I don’t know why he didn’t know that this kid, Eric, was still alive, but, apparently, he didn’t. But He says, you’re the last of your friends, so you’re the bait. Now the reason that you thought that it faced the pool is because Kate starts hallucinating. 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Craig:  And if if you look when it’s not from her perspective, it just opens up into another room with a bunch of furniture. 

Todd:  Really? 

Craig:  But she’s yeah. But she sees it as though it’s like a veranda, and she has these really trippy hallucinations of missus It’s a Slater and the cane, like, spinning and all of her friends all dead and gory, And it’s really choppy and weird cut frames and, like, then they all walk away. I I thought it was great. I love the old hallucination scenes. 

Todd:  Yeah. Well, it also kind of establishes that this girl’s almost completely helpless now. Like, no matter what’s gonna go on here, she’s not gonna be able to tell Reality from fiction. I thought, you know, she would end up kinda stabbing the wrong person or something would happen here. Uh-huh. What kind of turns out is Peter, who we haven’t seen for a long while, Poor mopey Peter comes walking in, and the doctor who was hiding around the corner waiting for the kid, Eric, jumps out. And, did he shoot at him? 

Craig:  He he shot him. 

Todd:  In the arm. 

Craig:  And yeah. 

Todd:  So he immediately has to go down and tend to Peter with his back to it. In the meantime, she gets up and sneaks away, and starts running, away. So it gets very Hitchcockian at this point. She’s running around through the house. The doctor gets up, and he gets Stabbed in the hallway. 

Craig:  On the stairwell. Yeah. And he goes over the banister. When Katie comes out, She comes and looks over the banister, and she sees his body down there, and there’s somebody standing over him. And that person looks Up. And it’s the only time, really, that we see Eric. And he is kind of this deformed Jason Voorhees kind of looking castle freak, kinda looking guy. 

Todd:  And there’s a bit of Halloween here. Right? Like, just his demeanor. He just kinda looks up. Yeah. 

Craig:  He’s just kind of that stalking presence. And so he chases her upstairs, and, of course, she runs to Vicky’s room, Super smart and gets Vicky’s gun. And then she comes back out to shoot him, But the gun jams, and so she runs again. She ends up in the bathroom. She sees that 1 girl’s head in the toilet. And somehow, you know, Chasey, Chasey, Chasey, somehow they end up in the attic or she ends up in the attic, and she tries to lure him up the stairs with The Jack in the Box, the music box. Mhmm. And she’s standing waiting for him to come up the stairs, you know, with the gun pointed, You know, ready to shoot him.   But she’s standing right next to that jester costume, and I knew immediately he he’s in it. Like, you know, he’s in that costume. But, again, she’s hallucinating. She’s seeing weird things. But then slowly, we see The head of the jester start to rise, and then he raises up the cane. But she notices right at the, you know, last 2nd, And she jumps out of the way, and they struggle. This part was really weird to me. I don’t even know how She thought of this, but she picks up a doll, I guess, and rips off its head.   And underneath its head is like 

Todd:  A spike? 

Craig:  Yeah. Like a railroad spike. Like, this huge spike. 

Todd:  Like this kid’s doll, what you know, the doll was popped on the the neck by a spike. Yeah. 

Craig:  So she stabs him with it multiple times, And he’s, like, grunting. He never says anything. 

Todd:  No. And he’s still in costume. Yeah. So we don’t even see his face. 

Craig:  Uh-huh. Yeah. He’s grunting, and and she stabs and stabs and stabs a bunch of times. And, eventually, she throws him off her down through the attic door, And he lands at the bottom of the attic stairs, and she kinda just collapses. And that’s, you know, where it appears to be over, but, of course, You know, it the camera zooms in on his face, and the last thing that we see before the credit rolls is his eyes open. Yeah. Did you read about the alternate endings? 

Todd:  I did. I did. There was an alternate ending where she was, the last shot was gonna be her floating in the pool. Like, he eventually killed her. 

Craig:  The like, the cops were gonna Find, you know, all this carnage, and they found somebody in the jester costume floating in the pool. But when they pulled it out, it was her. Yeah. Another one supposedly was that the last shot was going to be her in a hospital being pushed down the hall in A wheelchair, and then the camera panned up, and the orderly pushing her was going to be him. But somebody, I don’t remember who it was. Somebody made the decision that both of those endings were too bleak, so they just cut it with him opening his eyes, which, I think is fine. 

Todd:  It’s still pretty bleak. It’s kind of a black Christmas ending because you get the sense in the attic that she’s so tired that she kinda passes out. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  And then the next shot is him downstairs opening his eyes. And so I was really left with the impression that she’s not gonna live through this either. 

Craig:  Right. Right. I me too. 

Todd:  Yeah. So it’s still kinda bleak. I guess not as bleak. You can hope that maybe she wakes up just in time and dispatches him. 

Craig:  So it ended up being very black Christmas and that this weird freaky guy was living in the attic the whole time, and they didn’t know it. 

Todd:  Do you think he was living in the attic the whole time? Yes. I no. 

Craig:  Because I think that he was because it wasn’t when the doctor was saying we need to do this clinic Stay. He was talking about the kid. The kid needed to come for the summer to be observed and Treated. No. That doesn’t make any sense. It would make much more sense if he was in the clinic during the school year and then went home for the summer. That would make much more sense. 

Todd:  Well, see, that’s where I was confused. I really thought it was the opposite. And so I thought the kid was in the clinic the whole time and that he would let her and the kid go because she had kinda threatened him, back to the house for the summer. And so then while they were gone, you know, he was kinda, you know, going through all of his stuff and going, yeah. This is this is gonna be a problem. 

Craig:  Well, that does make more sense, so maybe I misunderstood it. I’m I’m not sure. 

Todd:  Yeah. Maybe maybe we gotta go back and read the Wikipedia summary or something like that. I don’t know. But, 

Craig:  It was it also, you know, very psycho in you know, because, before he was in the jester costume, most of the murders that he committed, he was dressed as his mother. He had a wig on like his mom. So, you know, shades of all of these different movies, but it didn’t feel like a cheap rip off. 

Todd:  No. 

Craig:  It felt like, you know, kind of Umagi in some ways, and and it was put together in clever ways that it didn’t it I wouldn’t say it felt entirely Fresh, but it didn’t feel just like cut and paste either. No. And I just can’t believe that this was this guy’s 1st writing credit and 1st directing credit. That Speaks a lot to, his talent, I think. In the end, I thought it was if if you like, You know, eighties slashers and you haven’t seen this one, like, I hadn’t, run out and find it. You can rent it on YouTube. That’s what I did. Because, I don’t understand why it’s not more widely known. 

Todd:  That’s what I don’t get. 

Craig:  It’s just as good, if not better, than a lot of them. 

Todd:  Oh, it’s way better than a lot of them. Again, I’d put it on the level of Halloween, Black Christmas. Like you said, even though Fry yeah. Even though it it pulls it clearly pulls from some of those that came before it. They didn’t come too far before it. Uh-huh. Nobody hurts anybody for, like, Homaging Hitchcock. Mhmm.   You know, you see in a lot of stuff is generally a smart thing to do. Mhmm. And he does it really really well in this film. It is kinda like watching a Hitchcock movie in movie in many ways, and the also the moral ambiguity of it. One of the things that’s kinda great about a lot of Hitchcock movies is That sometimes that victim is not entirely clean. You know? 

Craig:  Yeah. Right. 

Todd:  And in this case, it’s it’s great. It’s again, it’s like I know what you did last summer. Like, Definitely. All these girls did something terrible, and so it’s being revisited upon them. And that just gives you a certain You know, it’s just not innocent campers getting hacked hacked to kids. It just makes this a more interesting film and guessing all the way through. God. 

Craig:  Yeah. I would I would I would definitely recommend this. Go go out. It’s worth the $3 to, rent it on YouTube. 

Todd:  Yeah. Totally. Well, thank you again for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us, of course, as always, on Facebook. Just search for 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. Find us in your favorite podcasting service or software, we’re there too. Leave us a review if you like our podcast.   We’d certainly love to see more of those. And also just leave us a Comment either on our website, 2guys.red40net.com where you can, find all of our past episodes streamed. Leave us a comment there. Let us know if if there’s anything you want us Todd the future. Until then, I’m Todd 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 guys and a Chainsaw.

Every bit as fun as the title would suggest, this film tickled all three of us. Three? That’s right! Loyal listener and good friend Heather Rybkowski joined us today to discuss her childhood nightmare that hits every possible clown and circus gag you could think of – plus a few more.

And we dedicate this episode and all of its clown gags to Tyler, who is turning 30 this week and requested this episode in celebration. Happy Birthday, buddy! Enjoy your thirties. They really are the best.

Episode 202, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Craig:  Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 guys in a chainsaw. I’m Greg. And I’m Todd. And this is gonna be kind of a special episode for us for a couple of different reasons. First of all, we have a special guest host. Our friend Heather is joining us today. Say hey, Heather.

Heather:  Hello. Yay.

Craig:  Hi, Heather. Hi. You know, I wondered when I would drop this in. I’m just gonna go ahead and do it now. This podcast might not exist if it were not for Heather. Heather cast Todd and I both in a local community theater production and by nature of our characters, Todd and I ended up spending a lot of time together both on and off stage and it was then that Todd popped the question.

Todd:  Well, this is getting awfully personal now. We’re revealing too much.

Craig:  I know. Right? And that’s where this podcast started. So if you like the podcast, you have Heather to thank. If you don’t, you have her to blame. So thanks, Heather.

Clip:  That makes me so happy. I didn’t even think of that. That’s so funny.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s totally true. The other reason why this is a special podcast is because we are recording it for our friend and loyal listener, Tyler, who has, talked with us back and forth several times, requested a couple movies. And he’s been on us to talk about this movie for a while. And finally, he said, you know what, guys? January 22nd is my 30th birthday. This would be a pretty good birthday present. So Happy birthday, Tyler.

Todd:  This one’s for you, buddy.

Craig:  We are doing Killer Clowns from Outer Space this week. And and it’s no chore because this is a fun movie, you know. We’ve talked about it for a while. It’s been on our list, our long long list. Killer Clowns from Outer Space came out in 1988, and it’s one of those movies that I just kind of grew up with. And it just so happens that Heather had been listening to our podcast and out of nowhere, she texted me and said, have you guys ever thought about doing Killer Klowns from outer space? And I said, oddly enough, we’re recording an episode on it tomorrow. Would you like to guest host with us? And she said yes. So, Heather, tell us why you were interested in this movie.

Clip:  So I don’t remember how old I was when I actually saw it for the first time. Because when it came out, I was 6. So I didn’t see it when I was 6. I’m almost positive. But it made such an impact on me whenever I did see it because I could vividly remember the clowns and the basic plot line. Of course, going back and watching it was a blast. But it’s just one of those movies that I’ve always it’s always been in my mind, so it made an impact on me.

Craig:  That’s funny. Yeah. I grew up with it too. My sister and I watched it. I it’s probably one of those movies that I made her watch. Doesn’t really seem like her cup of tea, but I

Heather:  saw it

Clip:  at your house.

Craig:  It’s definitely possible. Heather and I have known each other since we were kids. So it’s definitely possible. But when we were talking about doing it last week, I was blown out of the water when Todd told me that he had never seen this movie.

Todd:  I know. I I don’t know how this movie escaped me because everybody knew about this movie. Growing up, all my friends talked about it. It was on cable relentlessly. It was like that PG 13 cable fare. Always passed by it on the video shelves. And for one reason or another, I only watched it today for the very first time.

Clip:  That’s amazing.

Todd:  Isn’t that crazy? Oh, Todd. Well, then

Craig:  you have a very different perspective than us because you’ve only seen it as an adult. Like, you know, we saw this when we were kids. So I’m really curious as to what you thought because I think that this type of movie is right up your alley. Yeah. Well, you Am I wrong?

Todd:  No. You’re not wrong at all. You’d be absolutely correct because this movie is a total blend of horror and sci fi and comedy. And it really heavier on the sci fi than I actually thought it would be. It’s it’s a total kind of remake knockoff homage to those 19 fifties, sixties black and white cheap sci fi movies that I grew up loving, that we’ve talked about before, that my dad was a real big fan of. We had so many VHS tapes of these kinds of movies. And this movie is just like it except it it it just goes all out for the cornball and the cheese, But it does so in a great way, like, it’s just so compelling. And I don’t know why, but just to see gag after gag of clown and circus crap just really expertly spaced out throughout this movie.  Just when I thought that they had exhausted every possible clown gag, like, up to the very end, there’s another one. So that part of it Todd was just really fun. I guess maybe that’s why this movie seems to have such wide appeal and staying power is because it has this weird mix of combination that just worked for me as an adult just as much as I think it would have worked for me as a kid.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s funny. I was reading reviews today and when it came out, it it was pretty much critically panned. I mean and and understandably so. I mean, it’s not a great movie. It’s silly. It’s goofy. But even a lot of those critics who originally panned it came back, you know, years later and were, like, okay.  Fine. It’s good.

Todd:  Well, we like these kind of movies more now. I think maybe in retrospect, more of these movies have come out. It’s sort of, you know, post Scream and everything, this sort of self aware, hey, we know that this is a silly movie, so we’re just gonna go all out silly on it. And I think the oh, god. What is this? 30 years ago? Don’t tell me 30 years ago. 30 years ago, this was still kind of an oddball anomaly type thing, and a lot of people would look at it and go, these people are just dumb and they’re making a stupid movie and and this is silly. And now, I think we kind of appreciate more of those nods and those winks and these homage films. Am I wrong about that? I don’t know.

Craig:  No. I I think you’re you’re right on it. But there were those of us who got that that’s what it was at the time and I think that maybe, you know, folks like Heather and I seeing it as kids, maybe it took more of kind of a youthful or even childlike perspective to appreciate it. It is silly, it is goofy, but it’s fun. And if you’re just willing to go along for the ride, it’s fun. Heather said this movie terrified me as a child, which I think is

Heather:  so hilarious. Because I don’t real

Craig:  I mean there were parts of it. There’s one clown in this that I thought was really scary. Like, the one that tries to coax the little girl out of the restaurant.

Todd:  Creepiest scene in the movie.

Craig:  Yeah. That dude was scary. But the other ones, I didn’t find so scary. I mean, Heather, do you remember, like, what traumatized you as a child?

Clip:  I think just definitely the way they look, you know, know, because they’re just people who already don’t like clowns, like, they’re not gonna appreciate how scary these clowns are because it’s gonna give you a little bit of nightmare.

Todd:  Are you a clownaphobe, Heather? Are you one of those people?

Clip:  I’m not. Nope. But I just remember them being very scary. And I remember it being bloodier, and it’s definitely not at all. Right. So I don’t know. I I think it was just the way they looked and just the whole idea of them, like, creeping around the town. It’s like, okay.  That’s kinda scary if I was a kid and I saw those things walking around. So that must have been what it was.

Craig:  Well, that’s true. They’re scary in that way. I mean, I’m kinda scared. Heather’s a Disney gal, so I don’t wanna offend her. But I’m even kinda scared of those, you know, like characters in Disney World that walk around. Because you don’t know who’s in there.

Todd:  Like, it

Craig:  could be anybody in there. And I’ve been to Vegas several times and, like, you know, you’ve got all the, like, Disney characters, like Winnie the Pooh, like, walking around with, like, a a bottle of whiskey and, like, cane smoking. Oh, we get that.

Todd:  We get never

Craig:  know who’s in there. We get

Todd:  that in China Todd. Like, in some of these public parks, there’ll be these horrible knock off Disney characters. We’re just the outfits alone are gonna give you nightmares.

Heather:  Who would

Todd:  take their picture with this thing?

Craig:  I know. Right? And pay for it. And and the clowns are scary but that’s one of the things that I also appreciate about this movie. It was made on a on a low budget, you know, $2,000,000 of course. I I I’ll never have $2,000,000 but it’s for for film making, That’s that’s a fairly low budget and they spent most of that on production. So most of the costumes and the props and those types of things, the production team just made on their own. And so these costumes really are just rubber suits, but they’re so interesting in the way that they’re made. They’re creepy.  I don’t know how else to say it. They’re definitely creepy.

Clip:  I love stage makeup. And so going back and watching this, one of the first things that caught my eye again was the makeup was really well done. The clowns, they just look awesome with their hands and their faces. And Candace Westmore was the makeup designer for this movie, and she’s actually the niece of Michael Westmore. And the Westmore family is huge in Hollywood and special effects makeup. He’s known for getting Emmys for his work on Star Trek and M. A. S.  And so I decided it was really cool that she was connected and part of this family. And you could tell with the makeup, I think. I think she did a really brilliant job of making all the clowns different but in a similar style, and I just really appreciated it.

Todd:  Now, Craig, I’m already really excited that Heather is in our podcast because I would have to say this might be the first time that we have given any credit to the special makeup person That’s true. On any movie. If you can dive into the casting director for us as well, Heather, and maybe, like, the second unit director, that would be awesome. I have a feeling you probably know who they are. Maybe you’re related in some way. But I have to say piggybacking on what you said, seriously, I expected less from the production design of this movie than I got. I was pretty shocked at how serviceable everything was in this film from the sets. And again, they’re intentionally kind of simple and kind of corny and starkly lit, but it’s obvious it’s intentional.  And none of it seems fake and well, except it’s supposed to be in times. Mhmm. But but none of it seems cheap. I mean, it’s cheap when it’s supposed to be cheap. But then you get these clowns who yeah. I mean, they are clearly rubber suits and stuff. But like you said, they’re genuinely creepy and you get these close-up effects on them and when they’re, like, when there’s grins turn into these super evil grins. Mhmm.  You know, when they turn into, like, the Grinch type grins and get super wide and those teeth that are exposed, there must be, like, a a 100 different points of, animation in these things. They’re pretty well done, you know.

Clip:  Yeah. Yeah. Their ears move, their eyes move. It’s it’s pretty impressive.

Craig:  Yeah. It really is. And I mean, even, like, you you mentioned the set pieces. This was filmed in California somewhere, I think, like, on a boardwalk. And it it it has kind of that boardwalk circus y feel especially, you know, of course there’s the regular, you know, like town scenes and and what not. But when you get into like the circus y atmosphere, like okay. You know, usually we go through the plot and that’s fine. We can talk about the plot.  But basically, what the plot is, it’s the lovely tale of these 2 young lovers. What are their names? Mike and Debbie. Mhmm. And they see they’re, like, at make out point or whatever, and they see what they think is a comet.

Heather:  Wow. Check that out.

Clip:  Did you  see that? Yeah. I saw that. That was incredible. Come on. Let’s go check it out.  Oh, come on. No way. Debbie, it’s a waste of time. It’s gotta be a 1000 miles away. We’ve been with all whole evening.  Don’t give me that. You saw how close it was. It landed right over the hill. Now that is not a 1000 miles away.

Craig:  And they go to explore it and it it turns out it’s like this big circus tent which ends up being a spaceship for these creatures that are actually like these killer aliens, but they look like circus clowns and everything about them is circus y. And then it’s the, you know, adventure of them, like, you know, trying to convince the cops and the townspeople what’s going on, etcetera. And and there are more details that I wanna talk about. But when you get into the circus tent ship, it’s it’s just kind of surreal, but you can tell that it’s all practical. Like it’s just all cop, Dave, who’s like the good cop, the handsome, young, Todd cop, Dave, who’s like the good cop, the handsome, young, good cop, is looking for the mean, grouchy, old cop, and he just sees these clown shoe footprints leading towards the jail cells and then they’re all over the walls. And like these are clearly just like simple, like, latex cutouts of these footprints, but it just has such a surreal, creepy time, but I was watching that and I’m like,

Clip:  oh my gosh. That is so funny.

Craig:  And that is so funny. And that is so funny. And that is so funny. And that is so funny.

Clip:  And that is so funny.

Craig:  And that is so funny. And that is so funny. Long time, but I was watching that and I’m like, oh my gosh. That is so funny. And that is something that the 3 of us could do, you know. Give Todd a camera, Heather and I can be in the back cutting out the latex shoe prints, and we could do this. But it just is so effective. I just loved it.  Mhmm.

Todd:  Well, the lighting is all bright. It’s a lot of of the teal and orange and also, like, the reds and things that are evocative of circus, and that really pops on the screen. It gives it all kind of a cartoony effect. I was thinking actually, I was thinking about I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that movie, Forbidden Zone. Mhmm. Danny Elfman, it was one of his earlier things back when he was with Oingo Boingo and before he was doing film scoring. But he put together this crazy movie about some people who kind of fall down a rabbit hole and end up in this weird wacky world. And that is in black and white, so it’s not quite the same.  But it has that same effect where the design of the sets and everything are appropriately cartoonish for the situation that they’re in. And so, like in this movie, we get this great contrast between they’re outside, they’re in the woods, they’re in the town, they’re in the city, and then they go inside the circus tent and everything looks like a circus, and a cheap circus, you know, that came into town. Not a high-tech one, but it’s just high-tech enough in a clownish sort of way to make them seem like these crazy space aliens. You’re right. It just works. It all just works really well. And even even you can see nods to alien in there, you know, and the design of the corridors. And you can see nods to invaders from Mars in the big open area that they end up in where they’re hanging up these cocoons of cotton candy, which is exactly what the clowns do.  They get people and they zap them with these clown guns. They turn them into big globs of cotton candy cocoons and then they suck them out of there where they’re, like, bloody mess. It’s kinda what is it? It’s just so weird. Yeah. Silly straw.

Clip:  Like, that was perfect. Like, this clown comes over with a silly straw. I’m like, oh, god. It’s so smart.

Todd:  Like, a super elaborate silly straw that’s practically wrapping around him. It’s so funny.

Craig:  Yeah. It it’s got kinda, like, the trippy HR Puffin stuff vibe.

Clip:  It’s also

Craig:  got kind of, like, a a Scooby Doo vibe kind of thing going on. It’s it’s just a lot of fun and, you know, the the acting is cheesy, but appropriately so. Mike, who’s arguably the main guy, is played by a guy named Grant Craig, who has done a few other things. I didn’t really see anything much of note. Debbie, his girlfriend is played by Suzanne Snyder, who I recognized right away and I had to pause the movie and look her up. She was in Weird Science and she was also in Return of the Living Dead, which we’ve covered here on the podcast. But then my my favorite, and this is gonna be no surprise to Todd, my favorite cameo in this movie is Royal Dano.

Clip:  Royal

Craig:  Dano, baby. Oh, I just love Royal Dano. The other day, I was in the doctor’s office and there was an old episode of, like, Bonanza on or something, and he was on that show and he was young and handsome. Like, I was just crushing big time on Royal Dano. But he he plays this goofy farmer in the beginning who also sees the space ship crash and he thinks it’s Halley’s comet and he takes he takes his dog, Poo, and they’re gonna go out and find Halley’s comet and, like, open up a roadside attraction or whatever. And that’s the first time that we kinda see the insidious nature of these clowns because it’s this big tent. This big beautiful glowing tent and it looks pretty much just like a regular circus tent, but when you you look up close at it, like the the tent pole ropes are not ropes, they’re like cables. So you can kinda tell there’s kinda this sci fi thing going on.  And the farmer and his dog are just walking around the outside and they can’t find an entrance and then from the inside, you see the silhouette of one of these giant clowns following them on the other side of the tent and when Royal Dano walks out of frame, it opens up kinda like this porthole in the tent and uses this big net to get the dog. And then Roy and then the farmer comes back and like, who took my dog? Oh. Where’s my poo boy? And it and I got a little sad for a minute, and then I remembered it was just a movie.

Todd:  This guy’s I just love all of his lines. It’s like every hillbilly line you could think of.

Craig:  Well, I’ll be greased and fried. What in blue blazes the circus doing up in these parts? Something funny is happening around here. What in tarnation’s going on here?

Todd:  I’ll be I’ll be horn swoggled. The whole movie’s like that. That’s full of these cheesy lines that were you can see coming from a mile away, but it’s part of its charm again. Yeah.

Craig:  Yeah. Definitely. Ugh, man. And and so, you know, then Mike and Deb find the tent and they go inside and she’s like, what kind of circus is this? So he’s like, oh, it must be one of those, like, new wave French circuses. French.

Todd:  Like, Cirque du Soleil, the Todd. Suddenly.

Craig:  Gosh. And they they they find the cotton candy pod room, which, like, all of this is just so clever. Like, of course, the alien clowns would encase their victims in cotton candy and hang them up in this big brightly lit room, you know, so that they could suck them dry later or whatever. And they get chased around and all of this is so charming too because they they do everything in their power to make it seem like this is some sort of immense spaceship, but they’re just going in and out of the same door.

Todd:  There’s a matte painting every now and then. That’s about it.

Clip:  Move  the camera over here.

Heather:  It looks like freeze.

Craig:  Right. They’re like these these elevator doors that, like, they swing open and they go in and then it opens and they’re like in this enormous, like, shaft with, like, some kind of reactor or something that powers it. And they come back out the elevator. And then they go back in. And then there’s somewhere else. Then they come back out. And then there’s somewhere else. Like

Todd:  Did did you just say enormous shaft?

Craig:  Yeah. Well

Todd:  Just checking.

Craig:  Don’t don’t delve too deeply into my mind.

Clip:  It’s a

Craig:  it’s a dangerous game.

Todd:  This this whole set, it was like Willy Wonka mixed with Star Wars. I just absolutely loved it. Yes. And and there’s so many little touches. Right? Like, there’s this weird popcorn machine, like, the clown’s standing at this control panel, and he’s moving these knobs, which are these big brightly colored ball things.

Craig:  Did you say knobs and balls?

Todd:  I did. He’s touching the knobs.

Craig:  2 can play at that game, my friend.

Todd:  Oh, touche. Touche. It’s great. It’s great set.

Clip:  Yeah. And somewhere in this, when they’re in the the the circus tent, my favorite lines that I I specifically wrote down was  This is now fine hats. No,

Heather:  sir. Oh.

Clip:  Just just right from the start, we established this kind of dialogue and how the whole movie’s gonna be and they stick to it and I so appreciate that.

Craig:  Oh, yeah. It’s it’s it’s great.

Todd:  They leave no stone unturned with this stuff. Finally the clown finds them and chases them through this thing and has this giant gun that shoots popcorn. And apparently it was the most expensive thing that they built. It cost them like $7,000 to make because it actually does shoot popcorn. And, this clown chasing after me shoots popcorn all over them as they’re running out. And as they’re running, she just goes

Heather:  Popcorn white? Popcorn

Clip:  because the  clowns. That’s white.

Todd:  Okay. He said what I was thinking.

Craig:  It really is no stone unturned because when they’re chasing them, also, one of the clowns makes a balloon

Clip:  Oh my god. I love it.

Craig:  Dog. And then, like, the balloon dog is like a bloodhound that, like, helps them chase the people. Oh, gosh. It’s so funny. Just everything everything clown they’ve

Todd:  got. And that balloon dog was such a low tech special effect, but they also managed to actually make it work pretty well. Like, you you know, it wasn’t just bouncing around, but they actually had the legs moving a little bit. It would sniff the air and run. I read online that they did have to get a little high-tech with it because it kept popping on the pine needles on the ground. So they had Todd they had to coat this rubber balloon with latex in order to keep it from popping, which sounds like a lot of overkill, but

Clip:  Right.

Todd:  So be it.

Clip:  Redundant, really.

Todd:  I know. Right? Isn’t it a latex balloon? I don’t know how that works. Yeah.

Craig:  At at one I’m talking about these things randomly, but it’s because they happen randomly. Like, at one point, there’s a puppet show in a gazebo. Like, that

Todd:  it just cracks

Craig:  me up. Nowhere. The clowns, I guess, they’re setting traps. Like like, who come see our puppet show? It is this funny little puppet show where, like, the boy puppet is, like, getting fresh with the girl puppet. And she’s like, no. No. No. And then eventually, she drops below the stage and she comes back up with this huge gun and Craig guns the boy puppet and that like the one guy who’s standing there watching the puppet show, then they ray gun him Todd.  And it’s just, you know, amidst the plot of these people, you know, these few people who are aware of what’s going on and they’re trying to get the police involved and they’re trying to stop things. It’s just like you said earlier, Todd, just, a series of gags. And they’re all funny.

Todd:  Yeah. They’re improbable, and they’re hilarious.

Craig:  Like, the the clowns are, like, destroying a pharmacy and, like, the pharmacist is just standing behind the counter, like,

Heather:  like, like shaking.

Clip:  I don’t know

Heather:  what to do. Oh, gosh.

Craig:  In the clowns made a note, and I

Clip:  was like, why are the clowns shopping? Like, what Todd they  possibly need

Todd:  Yes. From the drugstore? Did they get anything from there? I

Craig:  Shaving cream and powder.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah.

Clip:  An alien clown sneeze, just so everybody knows because

Todd:  Right. I

Clip:  thought that was hilarious.

Craig:  And then they’re, like, they’re, like, going around and collecting people, and it’s just, like, a montage. Like like, they’re like, hello. Pizza’s here. Oh, and, like, this sexy girl in negligee is like, oh, pizza. And then they deliver like a heart shaped candy box to one lady and she’s like, oh, Stan. Did you do this? Oh, god. I don’t even know that where to go. I you know, as far as plot, like, Debbie eventually, she ends up back at home and she showers because it is a horror movie.  I mean, we don’t get to see any nudity or anything, but she showers as you do in horror movies.

Todd:  She showers for a very long time. Debbie is out of commission showering for most of this movie. I like dude, he comes back to her and then you see there’s a shower and, like, oh, yeah. That’s where Debbie is. And then it leaves for about another 20 minutes and then it comes back and, oh, I guess Debbie’s finished with her shower now. Let’s see what’s going on.

Craig:  Well and they they do this hilarious thing where they show that the the popcorn that’s fallen off of her, it’s, like, just moving slightly and making these little squeaky noises. And then they show us one of the big clowns taking a big Todd bag of popcorn and dumping it into the dumpster behind the burger joint and the employee who takes the trash out then just gets sucked in there. We don’t really see what happens to him. But later, when Debbie finally gets out of the shower, she opens up her medicine cabinet and her clothes hamper and these, like, baby clown head snakes. I guess it’s, like, what the popcorn turns into, like, jump out at her. I loved those snakes. I had forgotten completely about them, and they were hilarious and kinda scary.

Clip:  They reminded me of little Audrey 2 puppets. Like, at the end of

Todd:  the shop, when all the little

Clip:  heads come out, it was, like, oh, they’re little cloud heads.

Heather:  They’re that cute. Yeah. Or That’s cute.

Todd:  Beetlejuice turns into one of these things too. I think in one of his right? It’s a similar similar thing. Similar. Yeah. Well, I’m thinking that these clowns really tar I mean, if an alien comes down to earth, they’re really gonna have to target where they land first, you know, and make the most out of it. Like, they can’t be like, you know, the signs, you know, where they land on a place with lots of water. These people targeted a place where there are 2 guys who run around in a clown themed truck Truck. Who play practical jokes on people.  There’s an amusement park here with a fun house and a big tent. And, also, there’s a restaurant called Big Top Burgers. So it was a pretty great little coincidence for us to be able to get all these clown gags in. It’s not really a coincidence. It’s just that they knew what they were doing when they landed on our planet.

Craig:  Exactly. Is it a

Heather:  coincidence? They’re

Todd:  covering their tracks well, aren’t they?

Clip:  Yeah. It  One of my favorite scenes right in the beginning, though, is when the clowns have all they’re walking towards the Todd. And we see the clown walking in front of the drug store, and there’s, like, that animatronic gorilla. I think Yeah.

Todd:  He had

Clip:  wings in them back then, and they would move. And for some reason, even though the clowns are there to completely destroy this town, he gets super nervous when he sees people walking. And he’s like, oh, crap. I can’t let them know too soon what I wanna do. And so then he backs up against the the drugstore window and starts pretending to be an animatronic as if  he’s gonna

Heather:  pass them. And I was like, why?

Todd:  That was hilarious. I thought that was great. No. Please.

Clip:  But but

Todd:  then there’s some of them are a little unsettling. First of all, there’s the one scene which I think is probably the most gore that we get in the movie, which is where this clown rides up on his totally tricked out clown style bicycle to a biker gang. And here I

Craig:  would that bicycle. It’s a tricycle.

Todd:  It’s a tricycle. Tricycle.

Craig:  And Yeah. That clown is my favorite one. By the end of the movie, I’m like, oh, he’s so cute. Like, he’s this little tiny one. Like, that’s the other thing with the clowns too. Like, they definitely all have a very distinctive look, but they are all unique too. Yeah. Like, there’s there’s the little tiny one with the green hair who rides in on the tricycle.  There’s the big scary one at the jail. There’s also then another great big like hugely obese one. There’s some really super crazy tall ones. They’ve all got different color hair. They’ve got distinctive facial expressions. So while they’re all clearly, you know, like of the same species or whatever, they’re unique and individual too. And I just thought that was so great. But, yes, the the the scene with the little guy on the tricycle.

Todd:  Well, what happens here is the one of the big biker guys comes over.

Craig:  Can I take a ride? Pow. Oh, come on. Take a ride. Can I beep the horn?

Heather:  Oh, thank you.

Todd:  And the guy just destroys the bike to which point the clown just disappears up into the air and comes right back down on with boxing gloves on like a cartoon, you know? Mhmm. He looks at the guy, gives him an uppercut, and his head goes flying. It’s so funny. But but it is hilarious, but then, you know, you see the severed head fall into a trash can. And then the medium shot that we come back to is this headless body slumping down and falling backwards. And I was like Mhmm. Oh, that’s really pretty gross. Like, it was a little too realistic for me.  But, of course, you know, everybody else runs off. All these gags are like this. Right? It’s just one can be you know, they’re interchangeable with each other. They’re in no particular order. But the idea that they give you is the clowns are everywhere and there there may be hundreds of them, and they’re setting up these traps, like you said, all across town. And that’s what makes the movie fun because, like you said, the plot itself is pretty simple and boring and it’s really only 4 or 5 actors. Right. Without these things, the town would seem pretty dead because we never really interact with anybody else.  We never follow anybody else around. We never really even see anybody else or any cars on the street except for these scenes. So Right.

Craig:  Yeah. And and you say you talked about the interchangeable nature of the scenes. They definitely are. And one of my favorite scenes I don’t know why, but it is one of my favorite scenes is where there’s this one clown on an invisible motorcycle

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  That that runs some guy in, like, a Trans Am off the road. And apparently, this was supposed to be one of the opening scenes to like introduce how, you know, dangerous these clowns were. But they had it all set up and it was supposed to be this big effect where this car flipped down a hill or exploded or whatever. But the the special effects got messed up and it just kinda like flopped over the side of the Todd. And so they moved it till later in the movie. But I still love that scene with the clown on the invisible motorbike. The effect doesn’t even look great. You can tell that it’s the clown on the bike is just in the wide shots anyway, is just, like, superimposed on the film.  But you allow your imagination to kind of ignore that. I just loved it. I just thought it was so funny.

Heather:  It was. Yeah. The use

Clip:  of the the clown conventions in this are just they are. They’re brilliant. And each scene, it’s a new clown convention, and it’s just I have a whole list of all the things that they did, you know? Because it was just like, oh my god. How many things are there? And they just they hit every single one of them. So

Craig:  Yeah. When they come to get Debbie, I don’t remember.

Clip:  Oh my god. Yes.

Craig:  They they fake her boyfriend’s voice at one point, but my favorite was when she went to try to jump out the window and they were all standing down there with the tiny little thing to catch her on.

Todd:  With fireman’s helmets on? Yes. Yeah.

Craig:  It’s, like, straight out of Dumbo with all the clouds. And and yeah. I mean, like Heather said, you could just list them off, but it just hits them all and it could I don’t know. This movie, I feel like it could have gone either way. Even when it was in post production, you know, some of I think I don’t know if it was producers. I don’t know. Like honchos or whatever were like, oh my Todd, this movie is so stupid. Nobody’s gonna like it.  And somebody, I don’t know who it was, somebody who was involved with the movie said you just don’t get it. There are going to be people out there who love this movie. And and whoever it was that, you know, the Chiodo brothers are the people who directed the movie. Right, Todd? I didn’t write down.

Todd:  Yeah. Yes.

Clip:  And wrote it.

Todd:  And it’s the only one they’ve done.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  Yeah. And it’s it’s like they just they knew what they were doing. They knew what audience they were targeting, and they were right. It’s it’s funny. And and there are people in my life that I would never sit down to watch this with because they wouldn’t my my my partner just walked into the room and gave me a look because I have made him sit down and watch it. He’s not as big a fan. So, you know, those kind of people are are are not gonna like it.

Todd:  Joyless, boring. Joyless, soulless people.

Craig:  But fun people are, you know, you you just appreciate the silliness and not only that, but you appreciate the obvious effort that went into it. My partner is a theater person Todd, so maybe it doesn’t count, but you know, the 3 of us are all to some degree, theater people and I think that we can look at something like this and see the effort that went into it and just, at the very least, appreciate that. The passion that went into it. And it’s it’s cool. It’s it’s fun to watch.

Clip:  Well, and again, just like the commitment to the style. The way the lines were written, the way they were delivered, all of it. And and and you know this from the very beginning with our hillbilly man on the hill, like, we are diving in from the start, and you know exactly what to expect throughout the entire thing, which I I appreciate.  Yeah. It’s true.  It’s just like I said, it’s  just this

Heather:  weird mix

Todd:  that somehow works perfectly. And and if one part of it was just a little off balance, if it was a little too gross or it was a little too scary or the acting was a little not so knowingly bad, I mean, it might not have fallen apart, but it just wouldn’t be so joyful as this movie turns out to be, you know.

Craig:  Well, and I think that there is a good balance too because for the most part, it’s it’s very silly. But there are some scary parts. Like I said, there’s that one I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but there is that one clown that really freaked me out, the one in the jail. This one older cop, his name is officer Mooney, who I don’t have my IMDB page pulled up, but he was played by this guy who I’ve seen play a grumpy cop in several movies.

Todd:  It’s John Vernon, and he was also don’t forget Stryker from Curtains.

Craig:  Stryker? Stryker. I forgot about Stryker. Okay. So yeah. So he’s this big jerk. And people are calling in saying their wives have been taken by clowns and he doesn’t believe it. He thinks it’s just this big prank to, I don’t know, make him unhinged or I I don’t even know what he thinks. But eventually, this giant clown shows up and it’s it’s funny because, you know, like it shoots him it does the whole bouquet of flowers, gag and sprays him with water.  And then when he goes to handcuff him, like it’s fake hands that just come off. But he eventually gets him in a cell with these 2 other guys that he’s been a big jerk to earlier. And the, clown has one of those party favors. I have no idea what you call those things. Those things that you blow into and there’s like the paper tube that unrolls. Like I was like pressing my mind like, what is that called? I have no idea. Anyway, he blows that out and it turns into a big hand that grabs Moody and then like smashes his head into the bars. And the next time that we see Moody, Dave, the cute nice cop, comes back to the precinct and he follows those footprints that I had mentioned before and he finds the other guys that were in the cell in cotton candy Todd.  And then when he walks back into the precinct, that scary clown is just sitting at the desk with his back to the camera. And that alone was like pee in my pants scary to me. Mhmm. But then the clown turns around and Dave hears him. And the clown has Mooney with, like, just a little bit of rouge on his cheeks. Like, not crazy makeup or anything, but it’s like a little bit of rouge on his cheeks. And he’s using him as a marionette and he says Don’t worry, Dave. All we wanna do is kill you.  It’s so spooky and then he pulls his arm out of the guy, and it’s covered in, like, blood and guck that he just, like, flicks off onto the floor. That is some scary shit.

Heather:  Oh, true. That’s true. And it’s

Clip:  one of the darkest scenes in the whole, like, literally dark out of the whole, movie. Yeah. It was it’s a creepy scene.

Craig:  That one and then I feel like it was maybe even the same clown or maybe I’m just projecting because that clown is nightmarish to me. But I I mentioned before, you said there’s that Big Top Burger. And we don’t see a lot of what goes on there, but there are a few scenes there. And there’s one where it’s super crowded and there are these totally frustrated moms who are trying to deal with their kid. And this one girl

Clip:  who is behaving perfectly,

Craig:  but, apparently, behaving perfectly, but, apparently, her mom is super irritated with her. They’re sitting there, and the clown is outside, and the girl looks, and the clown waves at her. And, like, this little girl is so cute and it’s so innocent. Like, it’s like those old from the eighties McDonald’s commercials where Ronald McDonald would, like, wave at the kid and the kid would wave and then they’d go off ice skating together or something. But this the clown waves at her and he’s got that creepy smile and then she waves back and then it cuts to the clown and you see that he’s holding this giant

Clip:  mallet behind his back. And then

Craig:  it cuts back to the table and you see mallet behind his back. And then it cuts back to the table and you see that the kid is gone. And you’re like, oh, no. And and the kids, like, starts making her way out to the clown. And just at the very last minute, the mom grabs her and pulls her back in, not even noticing that she’s about to be abducted and killed by a maniacal clown. But, like, just those and and those may have even been the only ones, but I found those moments those moments to be genuinely scary. Mhmm.

Clip:  Well, and those moments, like, perfectly capture what is scary about a clown because you do. You trust them. They’re funny. They’re kind. Kind. So when you see a clown coaxing you out with their finger, you’re like, sweet. I’m gonna get some candy or a balloon Todd, yeah, be taken out to your death. So, yeah, that that definitely is that fear of clowns for sure.

Craig:  Todd, what is it? Like, caloraphobia Todd, what is it?

Clip:  Like, caloraphobia or or I don’t remember what it is.

Craig:  But Todd thinks fear of clowns is stupid. I totally get it.

Todd:  Now let’s correct the record here, Craig. I didn’t say it’s stupid. What I said was I don’t think it used to be such a big thing as it is now. I think that

Craig:  that’s true.

Todd:  It’s become culturally this thing that we’ve kind of commonly decided we’re supposed to be afraid of clowns. And we’ve been a little over worried that kids are going to be afraid of clowns. And I feel like it’s become culturally, like, a bigger deal than it probably ever was. I’m not saying people weren’t scared of clowns before, but I just feel like now we have this notion that everybody’s supposed to be afraid of clowns and that clowns are inherently scary, and I I don’t buy that. I don’t I never felt as a kid that clowns were inherently scary, and I don’t think most people, you know, 60 years ago, felt like clowns were inherently scary. I think it’s movies like this that have created this problem for a lot of people. For clowns. Yeah.  Clowns. And it is a real problem.

Craig:  Yeah. I know. I do. I feel bad for the for the clowns of the world because they get a bad rap. You’re right. I mean, even us. I mean, we’re a little bit older than Heather so I don’t even know if she remembers this. But us growing up, you know, clowns were a a cool fun thing.  Like, yeah, Ronald McDonald was cool. But, oh my gosh, growing up, I wanted nothing more in my life than to go to a taping of the Bozo the Clown Show.

Todd:  Oh, yes. Worship Bozo.

Craig:  Yes. And and my my parents always promised me that they would take me because it films in Chicago, which is not that far or filmed, excuse me, in Chicago, which is not that far from where we lived. And they never did, and I’ll never forgive them for it. Oh my god. I wanted to play the grand prize game. I know.

Todd:  I wanted to get that polyostring cheese.

Clip:  Home and you were, like, I can surely throw the ball into the bucket. Come on.

Heather:  What’s wrong with you?

Todd:  Oh, we set that up at one of my birthday parties as a kid, and that is a lot harder than it looked. I’m here to say birthday boy was disappointed that day.

Craig:  Anyway, it all culminates. Everybody gets together. The ice cream truck guys, Dave and Mike and Debbie.

Todd:  When you say everybody, you mean, like, all 4 people.

Heather:  Right. Those 5 people.

Craig:  Well, and

Clip:  before you get into that, the way we know that the clowns have pretty much kind of taken over this town except for the 5 people left, they have, like, this Monty Python bring out your dead scene where they’re, like, hiding down the street with, like, a clown street sweeper and, like, clowns are chucking cocoons out of windows and they’re all over the streets and they’re sucking them up into this car. And  there  are streamers everywhere and it looked really fun but also terrifying.

Todd:  Also creepy. Yeah.

Craig:  It was it was a little like amazing. I had forgotten about that part.

Todd:  It was a fantastic escalation that needed a scene like this, and they really went over the top. It was also a little creepy, like, in the same way, especially a couple of those shots of them. Because the clowns, they’re fairly I mean, I shouldn’t say they’re expressionless. Their expressions are just pretty well frozen in these huge grins. And when they’re kind of stumbling along very slowly, but very methodically through there, it was like the parade scene out of Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Clip:  Yes. You know?

Heather:  No. Exactly.

Craig:  It was just like that. Exact same thing.

Todd:  And, yeah, it was creepy as as well as super cartoonish. And, like you said, it got that point across that pretty much the whole town’s been sucked up into this thing, and they’re gonna leave.

Heather:  Mhmm. Mhmm.

Craig:  Right. But they have, I guess, moved their ship to the amusement park, which is on a pier. That was

Todd:  so Scooby Doo. Right? Well, I know where I’d be, the old amusement park. Yeah. That’s where the clowns must be hiding. Yeah. Old man Withers is the caretaker down there. We should go talk to him.

Craig:  And we well and they they get there, and the old guard is like, what are you guys doing here? The clowns get there. And so they he’s like, what are you gonna do with those pies? And so they throw, like, a 100 pies on him. But apparently, these pies, like, completely eat his flesh and he’s just left, like, a gooey ice cream skeleton sundae on the ground.

Todd:  Apparently, the Chiodo brothers wanted that guy to be another cameo, of Soupy Sales. And Soupy Sales used to get a pie in the face on an old kids show called, Lunch with Soupy Sales. But even at this time, I mean, that show was so old that the producers didn’t wanna spring for this guy’s plane ticket out because they’re like, the audience isn’t gonna know who he is anyway, so don’t bother. Right. So he didn’t get his cameo.

Craig:  They they may have been right about that.

Todd:  Yeah. I think so.

Clip:  It would

Craig:  have been fun for us to mention.

Todd:  Or maybe we would know about

Craig:  that. Was Soupy Sales.

Todd:  Instead, we get to mention that guy wasn’t Soupy Sales, and we still get some fun trivia here. It works either way.

Heather:  Yeah. It were yeah. In hindsight,

Craig:  it’s all good. So they go back into the scary fun house

Clip:  Which is called the crazy house, by the way.

Heather:  I mean, it

Clip:  stood out to me. It’s not the fun house. It was the crazy house.

Todd:  The fun house must be copyrighted or something. Who knows?

Craig:  It was crazy.

Heather:  It was.

Craig:  And there are funny things that happen in here, like the Ice cream brothers, who by the way I read were, like, an established comedy troop. I didn’t think they were all that funny in this movie,

Todd:  but whatever.

Clip:  They were very, like, 3 stooges esque  in Yeah.  Their mannerisms and and how they spoke to each other.  So

Craig:  Maybe they just weren’t given enough material. I don’t

Todd:  know. That’s

Craig:  But, they get they get dropped into a ball pit and seduced by a couple of lady clowns with inflating boobs.

Todd:  Yes. And and what comes of that? Because after that, the next time we come back to them, they’re they’re out of it. Right? I mean, they’re

Craig:  They’re out of it, but they’re covered in They’re covered in

Heather:  clown kisses. Yeah. Yes. Their shirts

Clip:  are shredded, so I’m not sure what happened. But they’re

Craig:  Oh, yeah. I think they got lucky with those lady clowns.

Todd:  Oh my goodness. It’s a

Clip:  whole movie for them. They were just trying to find a lady, like, the entire night. Right.

Heather:  They they said And

Todd:  I look because it’s always about and it’s so it sounds so childish when it was said because the way that, who is it, Dave, gets them to follow him is he’s like

Clip:  Come on, guys. Will you help me? Look. At least take me over to Debbie’s house. Okay? I think she’s in danger.

Craig:  Does she have any roommates?

Clip:  Yes. She’s got 2. She’s got 2 beautiful roommates with big boobs.

Craig:  Oh, my gosh. Let’s go. The the the character of Mike is so goofy. Like, he’s so over the top, but it was hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. She does have 2 roommates, and they’re really hot.

Clip:  Okay. We’ll come.

Heather:  Alright. Here we go. Yeah. You’re right.

Todd:  And then there’s one of the clown is turning her boobs, like, inflate to enormous levels. That’s

Craig:  fantastic. And he says, are are you Debbie’s roommates? Oh my gosh. So

Todd:  And then they’re

Craig:  going to a

Clip:  ball pit. They’re in a ball pit while this is all happening.

Todd:  That was great.

Clip:  Which is supposed to be like a Jacuzzi, but it’s like

Todd:  I don’t know. Oh, it’s not. Freudian about this. Right?

Clip:  Right. Yeah.

Craig:  And and I forgot that the clowns had captured Debbie. But instead of, like, putting her in the cotton candy, they put her in a giant balloon.

Clip:  Balloon.

Craig:  Yeah. And and so Dave and Mike have to they go into the cotton candy pod room, which is full now. Like, they’ve gotten everybody in town. And they find Debbie and they get her out of the balloon. And they’re running around and getting chased and they go down a fire pole. Again, like a a fireman’s pole, like, hit every clown note you can hit. And then I loved this. It’s so funny.  They they show these long shots of the good guys running into this, what I assume is like a tunnel, but it’s a giant angler fish head. Mhmm. And then and then they eventually run out the other side out of another one. And I felt like, oh my gosh. Did they build that giant thing just for these two shots of them to run-in and out of it? Like, they look so cool and you only see them for, like, 10 seconds.

Todd:  I don’t know why, Craig. I was thinking exactly the same thing as you. And I was looking I actually went back and rewind that scene. I was trying to figure out if that maybe they used miniatures and,

Clip:  and it

Todd:  was kind of a matte shot, but it was so effective that I couldn’t even tell even looking at it closely. It was really good.

Craig:  Yeah. They used miniatures in the scene coming up too because they they get chased around. They end up oh, one of my favorite gags is they find a door and and Mike opens it and he’s like, another door? And then he keeps opening it, like, 6 or 7 times and there’s more doors behind it. But every time, he just gets more and more exasperated. But all he says is, another door?

Todd:  Oh my god.

Craig:  So funny. But they end up they end up in, like, what looks like the the middle of the big top. And and there’s, like, blocks or platforms all stacked up in the middle. And they’re surrounded by clowns. And the good guys climb up to the Todd. And the clowns start climbing up after them. And then, the ice cream bros show up again and speak through their intercom through the clown head on the top of their thing which distracts the clowns for a while. So the good guys on top of the tower can kinda get away.  But then the piece de resistance, this enormous they called it the Godzilla clown, descends from the ceiling onto this platform and that’s it’s it’s like the big bad at the last level of a video game. Yeah. It’s just

Clip:  The queen bee. Yeah.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah.

Craig:  He’s enormous. He’s got these enormous teeth. He roars. And they did all this with miniatures. This the it was one of the Chiyoda brothers in a suit and the Chiyoda brothers themselves built this miniature set with the miniature ice cream truck. And it’s really funny because the ice cream truck, the Godzilla clown throws it and it explodes. So you think that the brothers are dead, but this is a PG 13 movie. So everybody’s okay in the end, kids.  Don’t worry about it. But then I love okay. So Debbie and Mike just, like, peace out. They’re like, k. We’re we’re done. Bye, Dave. Thanks for your help. And they leave Dave in there and the Dave, like, tries to shoot the clown.  They know at this point that you can kill them by shooting their noses. If you shoot their nose, they explode and then they’re dead.

Clip:  Which their death reminds me of a Buffy the vampire, like, a vampire from Buffy’s death where they kinda burst into dust, but it’s glitter and it’s fatless.

Craig:  Totally true.

Todd:  It’s confetti.

Craig:  It is it is confetti.

Heather:  There you go.

Clip:  Yeah. Confetti. Yeah. That’s good.

Craig:  So the cops are gathering around outside and Mike and Debbie are out there with the cops and everybody’s looking on and on. Meanwhile, poor Dave is in there left alone to fight this guy. And it’s so funny because when you see the giant clown, like, holding Dave, like, he’s clearly just holding, like, a Ken doll. Like

Todd:  But it’s only for a couple seconds. But yeah.

Craig:  It is only for a couple seconds, and it’s charming to me that they didn’t even bother to try to make it look more real than they did. And and the the big top, you know, starts to spin and it’s taking off and it rises up out of the ground and it looks like a a giant spinning top. But then Dave, the cop, pulls off his badge and uses the pin on the badge to pop the nose of the giant Godzilla clown. And the clown explodes and the space ship explodes. And, you know, everybody’s like, oh my gosh. What happened? But then the ice cream brothers show up, and they’re like, oh, we hid in the freezer. So we were fine. And then Dave shows up.  I don’t even how did they explain how he got out there?

Todd:  They didn’t. They

Clip:  well, they’re all in the little clown car and it comes flying out of the sky. And then the brothers pop out and then Dave pops out of it. So it’s like he rescued them out of the spaceship and, like, they were driving out as it exploded and they made it.

Craig:  That’s hilarious. And then Debbie, I think, says, do you think it’s over? And and Mike’s like, yeah. Sure. And then they all get, like, 15 pies in the face, and then that’s the end. It’s hilarious. And there are so many things, like, we didn’t even mention in the very beginning, like, over the credits. Like, there’s totally a killer clown song,

Heather:  which is amazing.

Todd:  Oh, yeah.

Craig:  It’s so good. There’s a whole soundtrack.

Todd:  Apparently, this punk band put it together, and it’s the soundtrack lasts almost as long as the movie, the album. They wrote songs and stuff. Crazy.

Clip:  Well, they’re they’re all very clownish. It’s perfect, like, circus y that had they have all those elements of circus music mixed in and it was Yeah. Very smart.  Mhmm. Yeah. It it

Craig:  was a lot of fun. Well, they’ve been talking about making a sequel to this movie literally since it came out, and there have been announcements that it’s gonna get made and it’s not gonna get made. If you look at IMDB, you can it’s it’s going to be called the Killer Clowns Return in 3 d. Oh my gosh. And the only people attached to it are the Chiodo brothers and the guy that plays Mike. And supposedly, years ago, when they were talking about story, Grant Craig, who plays Mike, said that he was gonna be back and the killer clowns were gonna come back and he was gonna be like the old town drunk who tries to warn everybody, but nobody listens to him and that kind of thing. And it’s been in preproduction hell forever. It looked like it was gonna get made in 2018 because that would’ve been the 30th anniversary, but then Disney acquired the studio and they canceled it.  So, I don’t know I mean, people are still talking about it. I bet we’ll get it eventually. I don’t know when, but I bet we do. And and if we do, and I’ll be happy if we do, but if we do, I hope they kind of stick to their roots and stick with the practical effects and, you know, the goofy charm. You know, don’t don’t go all CGI with the clowns and stuff. You know? I I wanna see them the way I remember them if I’m gonna see them at all. And even though the movie didn’t do well really when it came out, it definitely has become a cult classic. The imagery, the images of those clowns, I bet teenagers today, even if they don’t know where it comes from, would be familiar with the images of those

Clip:  Oh, yeah.

Craig:  Clown faces.

Todd:  Oh, yeah. There have been products.

Clip:  Costume studio or, like like, online place where you can buy costumes. Like, the the specific clown masks, they’re available every Halloween. So So Yeah. It’s definitely  a thing. They’ve had action figures and things. And I think

Todd:  the last couple of

Clip:  years, just very

Craig:  recently, Universal Studios in

Todd:  Florida, which does their Halloween horror nights every year and always has these themed haunted houses. Todd think the last 2 years had a Killer Klowns from Outer Space themed haunted house. Isn’t that crazy? It’s still kind of in the pop culture. I hope these guys are still making tons of money off of it.

Craig:  Me too. Yeah.

Todd:  Well, I don’t even think we mentioned, much about these guys’ background either. The Chiyoda brothers were well known at the point of that this movie was made for their special effects in Hollywood. Mhmm. They came from the Bronx. They were, behind Critters. All the Critters movies, they did the designs for those. Even Team America World Police, they were the supervisors of the puppets there. Some stuff for Ernest, Scared Stupid, and Elf, and a lot of movies, especially in the eighties.  Little bits and pieces of it would be done.

Craig:  It’s funny that you mentioned that they work on Critters because, fun fact, Heather’s dad worked on one of the Critters movies. Right?

Clip:  Mhmm.  Yes. He did.

Todd:  Yep. Which one?

Clip:  Critters in Space, I think.

Heather:  The 4th one maybe? Awesome.

Todd:  We should get him on here. Talk about that one.

Clip:  You should. He would have a blast with this.

Craig:  And who knows? Maybe he’s crossed paths with the Chiodo brothers. Maybe he could give us some insight. Who knows? Happy birthday, Tyler. We hope you enjoyed the episode. Sorry that it took us a while to get around to it. We’ve got lots of requests and we do our best to try to keep them coming. But since it’s your birthday, we were happy to do it for you, and we wish you a very happy 30th. Enjoy your thirties.  They’re amazing.

Todd:  The thirties I agree. Oh, fantastic. They really are.

Craig:  And if any of you liked this podcast, you can find us all over the place. We’re on Itunes. We’re on Google Play, Stitcher. Just do a simple Google search 2 guys in the chainsaw podcast and you’ll find us. We have a whole lot of back episodes for you to choose from. You can also contact us via our web page or our Facebook page and we love hearing from you. We love chatting with you. And if you have any movies that you would like for us to take a look at, we will definitely put them on our list.  Hopefully, we can get around to them at some point. And thank you, Heather, for joining us. It was an absolute pleasure to have you, and you’re welcome back anytime.

Clip:  This was super fun. Thank you guys for having me.

Craig:  You’re so welcome. So until next time, I’m Craig.

Todd:  And I’m Todd.

Craig:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Well, nobody ever accused famed Italian horror director Lucio Fulci of making classy films. Or even comprehensible ones.

So it should probably come as no surprise that this is our shortest episode ever, when we ran out of anything worthwhile to say about this puzzling film after about 20 minutes. Even more puzzling is that this is the first in a trilogy, where the two succeeding films are generally much better regarded.

But there are two notoriously shocking scenes with make this a historical horror artifact anyway. Enjoy yourselves, friends!

Episode 201, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, this week we decided to do a movie that I had to put on this list a long time ago. So this is a movie that when I was walking through the video stores, the cover always tempted me. It had a green looking zombie head on the front cover coming up from the ground, and there was a Misty city behind it, some more figures, and it was called the Gates of hell.

That’s how I remembered it anyway. And it’s very promising on the back about how somehow the Gates of hell open and somebody’s got to go close them. In the meantime, things wander out. So, uh, I, I’m been wanting to see it for awhile. It’s a F Lucio full G masterpiece, the first of his trilogy of Gates of hell.

I think people call it the Gates of hell trilogy. I don’t think they are. Actually conceived as a trilogy. I think they’re just three movies that he made back to back that are more or less really gross with zombie-like creatures wandering around and killing people. I’m really selling this one. Uh, it’s city of the living dead, 1980.

Oh man. Um. So a Lucio folchi. We’ve seen his movies here before. And uh, we’ve watched some Dario Argento films. We watched a really crappy Umberto Lenzie movie along similar lines, but we really, at least, I remember really enjoying full cheese, a film zombie too, which is the one that he did just before this one.

And, uh, I really liked it. And then a couple of years later he did this one, and then he did the beyond, which is. Quite well-regarded apparently, and then the house by the cemetery, which is also a little better regarded than this one, but this movie is just. Bad shit. Crazy. I don’t know what else to say about it, Craig.

I assume you’d never seen this before. You don’t really put these movies on your lists. No. 

Craig: No, not really. But that’s one of the things that I like about doing this with you is that you introduced me to movies that I wouldn’t put on myself. Um, this isn’t something that I would have. Chosen to watch, but, uh, gosh, I don’t know.

I mean, I hate to put the cart before the horse, but this movie was dumb 

Todd: really. How many times do we end up saying that? I mean, come on. What percentage of films do we basically, by the end of the episode go, yeah, this movie is pretty dumb. Fairly high percentage there. 

Craig: Okay. So there are a couple of major things that I had issues with in this movie, 

Todd: and 

Craig: they’re related.

I think one of them is that there were way too many characters. 

Todd: Yeah. Like 

Craig: there was so much going on that it just seemed super not focused. I didn’t even know who the main characters were supposed to be. Like I didn’t really know what I was supposed to care about and it wasn’t really until the end, like the last 30 minutes or so that some of the characters.

Started coming together. Um, but even then it was just really loose connections. And, um, I, I didn’t feel particularly connected to any of the characters. I didn’t really care what happened in any of them. I didn’t feel like I knew any of them well enough to care. 

Todd: So 

Craig: it was just kind of boring. Like, I don’t know, you know, zombies.

Pop up every once a while. I mean, there, there was some fun like. Gross moments like that was kind of cool, I guess, but I square it like I was so bored. I was so bored. The old thing, like I was like the movies playing on my computer. I’m like looking at Facebook on my phone. I’m like, Oh, 

Todd: here’s the zombie.

Yay.

Craig: Here’s, here’s a some weird guy. 

Todd: It 

Craig: finds a blow up sex doll fun. 

Todd: That was fun. The blow of this text, all the blows up mysteriously by itself, but at that point it doesn’t matter. It’s like, Hey, if it’s ready and willing. 

Craig: I don’t know. It was late. Like you said, it’s just kind of all over the place. And 

Todd: you know, we’ve said this before, um, or I’ve said this before in that, uh, especially when, when we do the giallo films is that the coherence coherence of plot does not seem to be a major concern for some of these Italian exploitation directors.

Um, they, they really go in for style. Uh, and some of them have better style than others. And in some cases like this one, it feels like, um, I don’t know. I feel like there’s a style here. I mean, there’s definitely some inventive camera work and some closeups and some interesting things happening, but it almost feels like it’s more centered around a shock, gross, gory shock scenes peppered amongst nonsense.

But I, I couldn’t follow whatever this was supposed to be. This plot, uh, I mean, it starts out really creepy and atmospheric with this priest walking around in a graveyard. It’s perfect Halloween type stuff. Inner cutting with a, uh, group of people at a seance, uh, and the woman’s like getting disturbed at the sands at the same time.

This priest just decides to hang himself from the tree. And this woman who screams at this point dies a fright. During the seance, and this is a New York, this the seance. Anyway, the priest is supposedly in this place called Dunwich, which is a fictitious place, but it’s supposedly according to the movie, built on the ruins of Salem.

Where are the Salem, Massachusetts, where the witches used to be, but I don’t think Salem is really in ruins. Salem, Massachusetts is still around. Right. 

Craig: And like, I meant to look it up and I totally just forgot. You know, I, there’s, um, isn’t it? It’s Lovecraft, right? Who wrote the Dunwich horror? Yes. And I wondered if there was some.

Connection there. I don’t even know. I’ve read a little bit of Lovecraft and not a whole lot. I don’t remember if I read the Dunwich horror. If I have, I don’t remember it. I, so do you know, is there any kind of connection there or is it just, 

Todd: I don’t, I mean, I saw the Lovecraft was credited as a co-writer light now of clearly not a co-writer, but like a.

One of the writers as though it was inspired by him, but I can’t imagine what, you know what came out of this movie. I thought the Dunwich horror actually takes place at a university. I don’t remember. It’s weird because, so then this happens and then you get the hard-boiled police detective who comes in and his self purpose is to kind of wander around the room and explain what everybody’s name is and give a little bit of exposition.

And the woman who is leading the Sans and older woman basically says that a, this is all following the book of Enoch. According to you, this poor girl is dead because of a 

Craig: book that was written 4,000 years ago. Correct. That’s right. 

Todd: I would find such an unusual paradox of 

Craig: tremendous appeal, cannabis stimulating.

If I were a Snoop, 

Todd: the explanation in every 

Craig: detail of a crime before it’s been committed, 

Todd: lady. 

Craig: You’re idle grass. Are you pulling my leg? 

Todd: No, 

Craig: the problem is in your mind, it can’t 

Todd: accept the truth, but I’ll help you. Just the same in the book of Enoch, the killer 

Craig: is 

Todd: book of Enoch, whatever it is. I read, uh, some trivia that said that this is actually a non-canonical.

Jewish text  but who knows? It just says something about how the, the Gates of hell will be open to the dead, will rise, blah, blah, blah. 

Craig: They’re trying to set up some intrigue or something. Okay, so this girl who died, her name is Mary. When this other lady, I don’t know, she’s this older lady. I don’t even know who she is.

Uh, she says to the detective, or whatever the killer is, and then she gets interrupted. Like that’s supposed to be some kind of big lead or, or something. But it never really comes up again. Like, I don’t, I don’t know. So this priest, father Thomas, yeah. Hangs himself in this graveyard, and then immediately the dead start to rise.

Uh, like immediately, and they start to emerge from apparently the centimeters of dirt that they are buried on. And it just, I don’t know, you know, when I’m watching the, I’ve said before, zombie, the zombie genre is not my favorite. I’ll watch them fine, whatever. But there’s just really no explanations. Like, okay, a priest killed themselves, so the dead are rising.

That’s it. Uh, and, and apparently like the Gates of hell have opened or whatever. But that’s the explanation. But it’s just 

Todd: like a zombie movie. Just a few people focused around these people. It’s not like the whole city’s getting overrun. There’s supposed to be this impression. Um, I think as the movie goes on, you occasionally hear some news report.

All citizens are requested to stay in their homes, do not panic. But. People are just wandering around doing their thing anyway. The only stuff that we really see happening revolves around this small group of people and how they end up dying and then coming back to life. So it doesn’t even have that. It doesn’t even have that sense.

Like in the movies zombie too. When he, you know, at the very end, you remember, it’s like the dead or dead. Coming into New York after coming over on that boat and I, it just has a little bit more of an Epic feel to it than this movie, which supposedly, maybe it’s supposed to be kind of Epic, but it still feels very small and very constrained.

Craig: Well, and they act like I marry this girl who dies, gets buried. Well, they start to bury her. But they’re on union hours so they don’t finish. And this is he a detective? I mean, who is this guy? Peter? 

Todd: Wait a minute. Yeah, he was a journalist. I think now what he’s investigating, I don’t really know. And why he’s hanging around the cemetery.

I don’t really know. He seemed. Interested in the fact that this woman died, but I mean, why are you going to go to the cemetery that there’s no information to get there? So he’s just hanging, and luckily he hears some screaming and some banging from. This coffin because it turns out Mary is very much alive now.

She’s not a zombie. She didn’t arise like the dead were arise. She just kind of arose like a person who they didn’t check her pulse before they put her in the coffin. There’s this interesting scene where he leaps on top of the coffin in the, mostly. Shallow grave and instead of just brushing the dirt away from the top and opening it up or whatever, he takes a pick ax to it and almost kills her in the process.

Craig: meters from her face. I’m like, well, thanks for helping, bro. Can you maybe not pick ax?

Todd: But it does lead to a really cool image, and that is this great, um, close up shot of this hole in the casket and her face through it, and she’s just screaming and she’s bloody, and the movie’s got nothing. If it doesn’t have these. Really striking images from time to time. Don’t get me wrong, there are some other images in here they’re supposed to be striking that are just dumb or poor makeup, or, yeah, just don’t, they’re not, they’re not high art.

None of this is really high art, but there are some moments that are genuinely creepy and crazy. So there’s that. So this happens. And then Peter, there’s these other three people. 

Craig: We say, we say this happens, but there’s also all kinds of other things going on too, and you have no idea how any of them are connected.

Like you don’t even know who these people are. Like we see a scene of this young kind of odd looking guy. Who goes into an abandoned house and you know, I already mentioned like he pulls out what looks like a mask from under a bed, and then he throws it off to the side and it immediately inflates into the sex doll.

And he goes and he like, starts like fondling the sex doll, but then he looks to his. Right or left or something and sees like a rotting baby corpse and then it just cuts away and like, who was that? What is happening? And then there’s a bunch of guys in a bar and they’re just sitting there chatting and all of a sudden.

A mirror shatters and they kind of get spooked and one of them says, you forget who our ancestors were. Like this is supposed to be some big clue or something, but it’s not really, and like then the walls split open and. The guys all freak out and leave except for the bar owner. And he’s like, Aw, I’ll never get my money back for this building.

So random. And then there’s this lady named Sandra who’s in therapy, and her therapist is Jerry. And like, we’re being introduced to all these characters in the most random ways. And I have no idea how they’re connected because really they’re not. 

Todd: No, I. I thought maybe one was the mother, one was the father, or some of them are our lovers, and it’s hard to say because Jerry has a sort of kiss later with Sandra, but she’s supposed to be as patient.

I wasn’t sure what all that was all about. And then Emily’s is the younger girl who comes inside and she ends up kissing him on the way out. And so he must be her father. 

Craig: I think, I think he’s her boyfriend. I think he’s Emily’s boyfriend, but the 

Todd: dialogue that they have in the scene, she says, well, I’m going to go see Bob again.

And he’s like, Oh, should I be worried about Bob? You see him an awful lot. She’s like, Oh, you know, just like whatever. I know what people think of him, but blah, blah, blah. It turns out that Bob is this creepy guy in the abandoned place who was playing around with the sex doll, and then later on there are all these comments made about Bob being this pedophile.

Everybody knows it. And when she goes to find him in this house, it’s, he’s like in the basement and he’s got like a mattress and pinups of like cut out from porno magazines on the wall and he’s freaked out of his mind and we’re not really sure why was it that corpse or whatever, I don’t know. But she’s like, Oh, Bob, Bob, Bob.

And then. Something comes out and gets him if there’s like a corpse or something that kills him or 

Craig: no, he’s not, it doesn’t kill him. He likes sees something and he takes off running 

Todd: and she gets killed. 

Craig: Yeah. And this all happens in seconds, like you have no idea what their relationship is like. I guess.

She’s just a nice lady who’s nice to Bob because everybody else treats him bad cause he’s kind of weird. Like I read that he was written as a hunchback, but the author, the actor just decided he wasn’t going to wear the prosthetic humpback. And so instead, uh, he just kind of walks funny. Like I, I guess he’s just kind of set up to be this town scapegoat.

Like when things start going weird, then everybody’s like, Oh, it must be Bob, you know, crazy Bob. And, and eventually, and this is just jumping around, but then eventually, like he’s just running around and he, he sleeps in somebody’s garage. And the girl who apparently lives there, it’s like, Oh, Bob, why are you sleeping in my dad’s car?

And he’s like, well, I couldn’t find any real sleep. She’s like, okay, we’ll just smoke a joint with me real quick, and then you better go. And then her dad comes out and he’s like, Bob, what are you trying to do to my daughter? And he takes him and he puts his head on this big table drill and drills through his head like 

Todd: that was what, that was something he becomes so murderous toward this guy.

I just had to do a double take during the scene because I thought, wait a minute, what is he a zombie? Like this is like a zombie murdering scene. This isn’t just like a guy pissed off at Bob murdering him. Scene. And then the next time we see them, do we ever see them again? They’re just their bodies after this, like something happens to them.

I don’t even know. I don’t know. I’m not going to try to parse it out. Then there’s this couple, this teenage couple who are sitting in a truck. This was, this is a leading up to one of the most notorious scenes in this film. There are two. The drill scene is one of them and it’s pretty gory and shocking.

This scene, uh, they’re making out in a car, in the, in the truck. And of course the girl says, Oh, I hear something, something’s going on. And she looks out the window. And suddenly the priest who appears everywhere in front of everyone at some point appears. 

Craig: And when you say appears literally like it, like just like pop, like, like.

Here I am. 

Todd: It’s like a jump cut. Not, not big special effects here 

Craig: because they’re not, that’s the thing too, like they are corporeal I guess, cause they can hurt people, but they can also just like flash bulb into existence wherever they want to be, which is weird. I mean, it’s almost like dreamlike. I. I can’t explain it.

I don’t know. Yeah, go ahead. This scene, I mean, this scene is, I guess, worth something.

Todd: Uh, there’s a lot of closeups on eyes in this movie. Full two loves to do closeups on eyes. Anyway. Um, so, so the priest is, we get closeups on his eyes and he’s staring at the girl and the girl was staring at him, and you get the sense that maybe she’s in some kind of . Transfer spell while the boyfriend just sits there screaming for a good five minutes.

And during this whole sequence, it’s bouncing between their two sets of eyes and the girl’s eyes start bleeding 

Craig: like she’s crying, blood 

Todd: pouring out of these eyes at some points. Pretty, pretty good effect actually. And then she starts foaming at her mouth and bloody foam starts coming out of her mouth.

And then you realize. That she’s vomiting up her guts. Yeah. And it’s pretty gross. And this is, this is a apparently even more gross when you realize how they did it. She actually swallows some end trails and, and, and vomit it up. Oh. And yeah. Then there’s clearly some more closeup shots that are just a dummy head and where they’re just dumping the stuff out, you know?

But it’s, it’s an odd. An odd scene and you know, this scene along with several others in this movie, put this on the video, nasty list forever in a number of countries. Couldn’t even be seen until like just the last, you know, 20 years or so in some countries. So it’s gross, you know, I mean, and this is pretty standard, full chief fair.

He does like to do this kind of thing. Zombie too, had that awesome scene of that woman getting slowly impaled on her eye on that, on that. But that one was better. I don’t know. There’s something about that was just more suspenseful than this. This was just weird. Just weird. And this isn’t like this priests emo.

Uh, he does seem to stare at people and their eyes start to bleed, or at least threatened to start to bleed. But it’s not like everybody stares at vomits out their guts. What really is the Mo of the zombies of this movie is grabbing the back of people’s skull, uh, and squeezing their brains out, which is also unique.

Craig: Yeah. It’s unique. Except for they do it like 14 times. Yeah. 

Todd: Oh, it’s their emo. It’s the only way they do it. 

Craig: It gets boring after a while. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s shocking the first time. And then, you know, after that, what’s the point? No, I agree with you. So that happens. God, man, I don’t even want to go through the rest of this 

Craig: because there’s nothing, there’s just not anything to it.

Like I, I don’t, I don’t know who the priest was. I don’t know why he killed himself. I don’t know what him killing himself, heads do with any of this stuff happening. There’s just no explanation for anything. And. So then it’s just everybody running around for a while 

Todd: and teaming up for some reason, like I’m not even clear how they figure all this out.

There’s the, the girl had a vision, right? The girl who was dead and then came back to life, who at the seance had this vision of this pre, she’s the one that’s kind of just basically telling everybody the Gates of hell are open because this priest killed himself and they’re all like, Oh, okay, let’s team up and do something about it.

And. Basically, their plan is to go to the local morgue, and I’m not really sure why. I can’t remember what they were looking for, but bodies are coming up from this morgue at least. Right? So it gives them a more of a set pieces for them to go through and, and more bodies to spring to life. Then it, they, they go into a house and there a whole bunch of maggots that fly through the window, and that apparently was a scene done with real maggots, tons of actual maggots, and fanned them at.

This actor’s just pelted them with real maggots. Oh, 

Craig: it was disgusting. And when I read that it was real. I’m like, that is so gross. I can’t imagine like when you say tons, I mean seriously, like the, by the end of the scene, the floor is carpeted in maggots. Inches deep. Yeah. And they’re in there. Hair and everywhere.

It’s so disgusting. Uh, but again, why, like I don’t, is something trying to scare them away. I don’t know. And I guess then for a while also, you know, people just keep having zombie encounters like Sandra, the. Woman who was in therapy, a corpse shows up in her house and she freaks out and calls Jerry the therapist, and he comes over and she’s like, I just, I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t crazy.

And he’s like, no, you’re not crazy. There’s a corpse in there. And. Then they hear like a weird grumbling noise and they go and look again and it’s gone and they leave. But we see that the course, like we see its feet like it’s hiding behind a mirror and then there, then there’s this kid like the, the young girl who died, Emily.

Had a little brother zombie Emily like visits him and I feel like that’s the first time we see gross maggot infested zombie face. Now I think that’s the face on the box art and scares him and then somebody gets a phone call that says. It was John John on the phone. He, he just said that zombie Emily killed his parents, 

Todd: his parents, which.

Did we see this happen? I don’t think we did. I don’t think so did 

Craig: we? We just saw him like standing, staring in shock. I don’t even 

Todd: know. Yeah, there was blood dripping down from the ceiling and uh, and then two other characters end up over there and they pop out and they’re like, yep, they’re dead. That’s really disgusting.

They’d been eaten too. And I was like, did I miss a scene where that happened? That just seems like something he would have shown us. So anyway, they’re killed. And then, um, the bar P, the people at the bar get invaded by zombies and they’re killed as well. And then they decide that they need to go to this father Thomas’s family tomb.

Right? This is where it gets really weird again, I don’t really understand what’s going on here. He, he hung himself. So they’ve got to go to the family tomb. When they go down into this tomb, which is kind of an more of an underground catacomb type place, and they try to pry open the, the shelf that he’s on in the catacombs, they, they open it up and then they see that he’s not in there.

Not only is he, is he not in there, but it looks like the other end of, it’s open to like, he burst out the other way and they just go a little further into these catacombs and. Suddenly they’re be set by all these zombies. And many of them people that they knew or have already died. 

Craig: Well, and the one thing that surprised me about this movie is that main characters kept getting killed.

Like at, at this point, Sandra had taken John, John back. To her house. She got got her brain ripped out from behind, and then he got chased all around the city by appearing zombies. And I don’t even remember where he ends up. Like they just kind of keep meeting up these random people, but then when they go down into these catacombs or whatever, there’s, I feel like there’s three of them left.

There’s 

Todd: Jerry, Mary. 

Craig: Jerry Marian one Peter, um, and Peter has been, you know, I, I kind of felt like he was kind of the main character. Like he was doing all this investigating, well, when they’re down in the. Catacombs. Peter gets his brain ripped out from the back, so then it’s just Jerry and Mary and they’re looking around and they come to this room.

That has to be somehow at surface level because there’s a light coming through the stained glass. Panels in the ceiling unless it’s some sort of magic light, I don’t know. But they get there and they’re being besieged by all these zombies. And then father Thomas shows up. And again, I feel like there’s some sort of backstory that they just never flush out.

Like they’ve been in a big hurry because it’s going to be. What is it all saints day or, yeah. Then they have to get it done by then. Otherwise it’ll be the apocalypse or something. Well, they don’t get it done by then. So then all the zombies are after them. And um, father Thomas shows up and like, he just stands there and stares at, at Mary for a while and she starts crying blood.

And then Jerry grabs some sort of. Long pokey thing. 

Todd: It’s like a large would splinter, you know, or something, and just stabs him in the, in the guts with it. In the guts it was, 

Craig: it looked more like he’s stabbed him in the crotch, but it just opens up this big Poland M and then father Thomas. Dies. 

Todd: Yeah.

Everybody burst into flames, basically. Him and all the other zombies, you know, you kill the boss, you’ve killed a ball. It’s like every video game. So yeah, he dies. The zombies die, and it was that easy. The guests, they’ve closed the Gates of hell now, 

Craig: I guess, 

Todd: but wherever they were in the first place, I don’t.

Craig: So Jerry and Mary come. Crawling out of this tomb and they see, like John John has a, like the cops have brought him there for an explicable reasons and they see him and he sees them and he gets all excited and he’s like Jerry Mary. And he starts running towards them and the camera kind of goes into like slow Mo.

Of him running and at first they’re excited to see him, but then it’s like something’s scary, like just based on the reactions of their face. And the camera cuts back to the kid running and then it just cuts to black and that’s it. Like I have no idea what that ending was supposed to mean. Yeah, 

Todd: it’s incomprehensible that that ending.

Craig: Now I read about it. I read that there was another ending shot, but somehow, you know, there are various accounts nobody really knows. Some, some people say that it got, uh, the, the original ending, the film got ruined in the labs somehow. Uh, I read somewhere that somebody spilled coffee on it and it was ruined and like, I don’t know if they didn’t have the funds or they didn’t have the time or they couldn’t get people back.

So they just never refilled the ending. So they just cut what they had. And this was the end. And if you read the trivia under the spoilers on IMDV, it says, Oh, well the kid is a zombie. Well, there’s nothing to indicate that in the movie. He doesn’t look like a zombie. He doesn’t look like he has any. Like mal-intent or anything.

He’s just running towards them smiling and they have like a horrified look on their face. It’s a mess.

Todd: It really is. It makes no sense. It’s all over the place. Too many characters, when you don’t know what’s going on there, the plot, whatever the plot is, it’s incomprehensible. Like you said, it’s really for that reason, it’s hard. It’s impossible to follow and therefore it makes it. Not a lot of fun to watch.

I mean, I would say that, you know, the zombie makeup is quite good and gross. Um, the scenes like the father, whatever his name getting stabbed through in the hole in his guts are sufficiently disgusting and, and whatever. It lulled some, most of the makeup effects are, are pretty good. 

Craig: I thought the makeup almost, it looked like Halloween makeup, 

Todd: like pasted on.

I don’t know. I mean. 

Craig: Yeah, I mean it, the 

Todd: times it did 

Craig: really, really good Halloween makeup, but makeup, like it didn’t look organic. Like I remember seeing a zombie from the back and, and just, people might not even pay attention to these things, but, you know, we’re. Watching because we have to talk about it and like, I just remember the back of this zombie’s neck.

I mean, it was clearly like Brown and gray and green, like stage makeup. It didn’t look like dirt and organic material. It was clearly makeup. Now. Yeah. When you’ve got the slime and, and. The maggots and all that Ooo and goo on their faces. It looks good, but I’ve seen better. 

Todd: Well, I’m not saying it’s the best, I’m just saying, I thought it was sufficiently shocking and 

Craig: you’re trying to say something nice.

I’m trying 

Todd: really hard. I’m trying to pull a Craig and go, but you know, with a couple beers and it’s Halloween. If you’ve got a party going on and you know. You’re dumb as rocks. No, 

Craig: I don’t even think a couple of years. Yeah. I think if you had a couple of beers, you would turn this movie off and then something else, 

Todd: like 

Craig: there aren’t even any boobs in it for Pete’s sake.

Todd: That was another major disappointment. I gimme gimme something to go on here. Give me something to watch. I have to agree with you, man. It just, it wasn’t that fun and I thought this movie would be fun and I more than. The two of us more I, out of the two of us am the one who really finds joy and pleasure in watching these old Italian films, no matter how bad they are or silly they are.

And I have to say it’s probably the first time I’ve been really disappointed. And that from a movie, from a director that we know is pretty shocking and notorious and has two extremely, um. Extremely notorious scenes in it. It just wasn’t enough to make the rest of the movie interesting enough to want to sit through.

Craig: Well, and I, I liked zombie too. I mean, these are not my, these are not my favorite types of movies. You know, I generally don’t intentionally seek out older stuff. I mean, there’s some older stuff that I grew up with it I have fondness for, and, and you know, a lot of these giallo films or, or. Full G like, like zombie too.

I probably wouldn’t have ever seen them had you not chosen them for us to watch and, and I’ve enjoyed them and appreciated them for what they are. And this. One just, it just felt like a, it just felt like a flop. Like it just didn’t work. God and I, I really think the biggest problem for me was that the scope was just far too broad.

There were way too many characters. There was very little focus. There was no. Clear understanding of why anything was happening. It wasn’t even really clear why any of these people were involved like this. Peter the investigator, why. Why was he even there? Like I guess he maybe initially he was investigating the death at a seance.

Okay, that makes sense. But then they’re like, Oh, you have to go to Dunwich to investigate. Why? Why would he even go like, no.

Well, 

Todd: but by comparison really zombie too was everything that this wasn’t zombie to had atmosphere. Uh, it had kind of a theme to it. Remember, was that voodoo. It took place on an Island. It had genuine suspense where people were being docked by zombies and they’re crusty zombies coming up through the ground.

And they were gross moments in it, but it wasn’t really all about that. It was a fun movie. And, and there was a plot that you could follow. It was a simple plot. Yeah. It was a little bit out there, but it was still a plot. And this is just teleporting zombies popping up left and right. There’s no real suspense to that.

Right. There’s nothing interesting about it. And so it, it’s just a one scene after another is somebody getting their brain pulled out and you know, somebody puking up their guts and whatever, but, but nothing linking it together. Nothing creating any sense of interest as to why these things are happening and any suspense leading up to it.

Agreed. So yeah, you can skip this one. Um, but I am kind of, I’m still interested in seeing the other two because of the beyond is supposed to be kind of his Swan song. 

Craig: Well, and I, I’ve, I’ve heard a lot about it’s, is it house by this cemetery? 

Todd: Yeah. Cause we watched, um, kind of a loosely based on that movie.

I’m more modern when, remember. It was where there was this creepy guys coming out of the basement, the creepy, um, with the white eyes and the black charred faces. And they were, 

Craig: Oh, we, we are, we are still here. Or something like that. You’re still here. 

Todd: Yeah. That was it. We are still here. 

Craig: Yeah. So I, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I, it’s not like I’m just going to say, I’ll never watch another one of this guy’s movies again. I just think that this happens to not be a good one, which is unfortunate. I mean, this is going to be a short episode. Maybe people will be glad. 

Todd: Yes, usually 

Craig: go on and on and on, but uh, 

Todd: yeah, we run a tight ship here, Craig.

All right, well, thank you so much for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this one, please share it with a friend. You can find us on. Facebook and all over the web. Just Google was two guys and a chainsaw. Find our website. Leave us a comment there. Let us know if we’re way off the Mark on, on this movie. And let us know what other movies you’d like to us to watch as well. We love hearing from our listeners. Until next time, I’m Todd with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.