2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

Our tribute episode to Sid Haig, veteran character actor and late horror icon who recently passed away at the ripe old age of 80. We’re resurrecting Rob Zombie’s first full-length feature film, House of 1000 Corpses, and tearing it limb from limb. But mostly we’re enjoying Haig’s turn as the wacky-yet-intimidating Captain Spaulding, the clown with a murder ride in his gas station. Fried chicken, anyone?

Episode 190, 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 Craig.

Todd:  Well, we’re in the Halloween month here. We’re doing Halloween movies this month. And, also, it turns out that a very well known character actor who’s been quite prolific in horror recently has passed away. So this is both our Halloween episode and tribute episode to none other than Sid Craig. And the film that we’re, of course, going to do is the one that more or less revitalized his career in 2000, Rob Zombie’s House of a 1000 Corpses. Sid Haig, you know, growing up in the eighties and watching movies and watching TV, you saw him everywhere, especially on TV. He always seemed to play the bad guy, some random thug, here or there. In fact, I think that was what got him frustrated after a while.  He’s a pretty serious actor. He was born in 1939, and, he died at the age of 80 this year, just this last month, due to complications from a lung infection, which is a sad way to go. But, I think he is most recently wrapped up on a couple productions. He has a couple things coming up posthumously. And even the last Rob Zombie movie, 3 from Hell, I think still had him in that. Right?

Craig:  Yeah. They had to really limit what he did in that because his health was failing. So I think he ends up only being in the movie for a few minutes. But, yeah, he, reprises his character. That’s the second sequel to House of a 1000 Corpses.

Todd:  And I remember him doing a cameo along with dozens of other people in Death House. And I think in that, he sat down the whole time, didn’t he? So

Craig:  The whole time. Yeah.

Todd:  You kinda figured that maybe he was and that was a couple years ago or a year ago or something like that. So you kinda figured that yeah. His health was failing, but he was still working quite a bit. Interestingly, I was reading up about him and his history online. And, apparently, when he was 7 years old, he was growing so quickly that his coordination wasn’t able to keep up with him. So he enrolled in dancing lessons

Craig:  Mhmm.

Todd:  Just to get more coordinated. And that’s what kind of brought him on Todd stage and into performance. Did some performances for high school. Got noticed by some people. He was out in Fresno, California. And then just folks just encouraged him to get, into acting. He also, apparently, was a pretty good drummer. And even at the age of 19, was a drummer for a 1958 hit by the T Birds.  Full what was the name of that song? Anyway, some tune that played a lot on the jukeboxes. And, he played drums for it. And, apparently, it made a ton of money from jukebox playing, but he never saw a penny of it. And so he decided to go into something that was guaranteed to make him more money, which would be acting. Yeah. But, yeah. He he did pretty well, I’d say in the sixties, sixties seventies. Mostly in the seventies, he starred in a lot of blaxploitation films.  Yeah. And not starred, but he usually had supporting roles. But he teamed up a lot with Pam Grier. And, then, like I said, when I was watching him in the late seventies and in the eighties, you would just see him pop up here and there in movies and TV and always pretty much kinda played the same guy. Yeah. He was all never really a a major character. He was always a heavy, and I think that’s what frustrated him the most was that he was just getting cast as the same guy with a different suit on. That’s basically what he said.  And so he retired from acting in, like, 1990 I think he said 1992 or something. He decided, I’m I’m not gonna act anymore. And, then Quentin Tarantino wanted to tap him for Pulp Fiction, actually had him in mind for Marcellus Wallace, and he turned that down and wished he hadn’t. I think he was 55 at that time. And then Tarantino cast him again, in Jackie Brown, and he played a judge in there with Pam Grier as the star there. So the 2 of them kinda teamed up again for the first time in a long time. And, then I think it was this movie, really, that gave him a second life, I guess. His character, Captain Spalding in this movie is big with horror fans and people who know this movie.  And he started, you know, obviously, there have been 2 sequels to it. He started getting cast in other films. Shoot. We’ve done several films, recent films with him in it. Bone Tomahawk. Death House? This one.

Craig:  Galaxy of Terror. Oh, yeah. That he was in that.

Todd:  Yeah. I remember he was in that and he didn’t,

Craig:  He didn’t talk. Yeah.

Clip:  Because he said the dialogue was terrible. The dialogue was so stupid. Stupid. Yeah.

Todd:  That’s great. Yeah. So it’s it’s gonna be really sad not to see his face around anymore, but he has a a slew, like, over 50 movies, 250 350, I think, television episodes to his credit. So, he he he’ll be out there in celluloid history for quite some time.

Craig:  Oh, yeah.

Todd:  But as for me, House of a 1000 Corpses, this is the second Rob Zombie movie I’ve watched. If you’re a follower of this podcast, you might have remembered last year at Halloween. We did 31 on October 31st. And, you know, I I wasn’t a huge fan of that one. And so here we are. But, nonetheless, it’s kind of odd that I’ve gone this long without seeing a Rob Zombie movie. So, we thought House of a 1000 Corpses also, by the way, had been requested by a loyal listener, Mark, about that time. So here we are a year later getting back around to it.  So, yeah, it just seemed the appropriate thing to do, pay tribute to Hague. It is a Halloween movie. It takes place on Halloween. It’s very Halloweeny, I would say. And, Yeah. So here’s to here’s to Sid Hague. My first time watching the movie, but I’m sure you’ve seen this before. Right, Craig?

Craig:  Yeah. I don’t remember when the first time I saw it was. I I remember I was looking forward to seeing it just based on the trailers. It it looked fun and gory and interesting and different. I know I didn’t see it in the theater. I saw it on home video. I’m pretty sure. And you know before we decided to do it this week, I remembered the story basically, but I just kind of vaguely remembered liking it.  I did not, however, think that you would like it because I remembered it being, you know, really violent and I remembered it being kind of mean spirited. Now watching it again this time around, I actually really liked it. Oh, yeah? I yeah. I I mean, I I think it’s I don’t know. It’s it’s different, but it’s also a cool kind of throwback to movies like, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and and some of those other movies from the seventies, like, oh, gosh. I don’t know if it was the seventies or eighties, but, like, Tourist Trap and, Motel Hell and some of those types of movies. Even Rob Zombie doesn’t really like this movie very much. That’s true.  But it has a cult following, and I will count myself among their numbers. I I enjoyed it. I I thought it was a lot. I don’t think it’s a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination, but, I think there’s some really cool stuff going on. And just from a visual perspective, it’s it’s really kinda cool to look at and watch. Yeah. I I walked away kind of being surprised by how much I liked it. I didn’t remember liking it as much as I ultimately ended up liking it this time.

Todd:  Wow. I was a fan of Rob Zombie’s music, in high school. You know, he played for White Zombie then went off on his own and did his own stuff and became super successful for the for that. And watching this movie reminded me of watching one of his music videos it even uses a lot of the same stuff like he loves to go into like negative and like change the colors around a little bit and like make things look like like old video and you know instead of film and and there was so much of that in this movie that at times it’s it felt a little pretentious like he’s trying a little too hard. But at other times too, I felt like it really interrupted the tone like the flow of the movie. Alright. Well, first of all, you said you thought it was mean you you had remembered it as being mean spirited. And now I think what you’re saying watching it is again, you don’t feel that way anymore.  I I don’t feel like it was mean spirited at all, watching it. We’ve maybe because we’ve seen so much since then that has been just totally mean spirited. And you know I don’t like those kind of movies where there’s just it’s just torture porn, you know, kind of stuff. This this movie isn’t really that because it’s got so much crap thrown in there that it’s really not anything. I kind of think like like my my real problem with the movie is like it’s not scary. There are moments of tension, but they’re really few and far between And then whenever anything kind of builds, it gets broken up by this weird stuff that he does with the camera, like the stylistic stuff of of going back to this, like, grainy footage just kind of zoomed in and cutting around and you’re not sure what you’re seeing, but it’s like snippets of something gory and you know long desert roads with the person walking down it and close ups on tombstones and things like that. And so it just kind of always reminds you you’re watching a movie And Yeah. You know what I mean? And or music video.  I mean, really it’s it’s like it pops out to a music video every every 15 minutes. And so that was that was one of the problems I kinda had with the movies. I just couldn’t get into the horror, like, I I couldn’t It wasn’t I didn’t find it full of tension or scares. In that way, it reminded me a lot of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, which this is almost like

Clip:  Okay.

Todd:  A remake of that movie almost. I mean, it’s almost the same kind of thing. I mean, there’s so many throwbacks to it. Right? It’s all about this wacky family that lives out in the desert. People get roped in. And then they get roped up and Yeah. Tortured around for a while. And they have to kinda run away.  In the meantime, this family is just wackier and wackier. And the scenery and the atmosphere is like, would require way too much effort for this group of hillbilly slackers out in the middle of nowhere. So many candles to light, you know. So many

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Things to put together, traps and and stuff.

Craig:  It does. It definitely has a music video aesthetic. Critics didn’t like it, and and they didn’t like all of those intercut scenes. You know, I I read all of that going into it and reading all of it I was like, Yeah, that’s pretty stupid. And then I was watching it and it just didn’t bother me. I mean, it just felt like that was the aesthetic it was going for and I was okay okay with it. I think that what I liked about it, you’re right. It reminds me a lot of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a a as far as plot is concerned.  But it does kind of stylistically have more in common with Texas Chainsaw Massacre Todd, because there’s kind of this dark comedy underlying it. Mhmm. And of course, you know

Todd:  Bill Mosley.

Craig:  Text Bill Mosley. Exactly. Playing somewhat similar characters in both. I think that what I ended up liking about it was the performances of the characters, and they are they are so over the top, like ridiculously over the top, but it just worked for me. Like, I mean, if you’re gonna do Craig, backwoods isn’t the right word but I can’t come up with a better one, crazy backwoods family, I mean these actors, I’m sure, you know, under the direction of zombie, really amp up the campiness, of the characters and it just worked for me. The premise is basically you’ve got this group of kids, of course you do, you know, who else is it gonna be? These 2 young couples who are touring the country visiting like roadside attractions, and oddities. They pull over at a gas station out of necessity, but it just happens to be Captain Spalding’s Museum of Monsters and Madmen, which is run by Sid Haig’s character, Captain Spalding, who is in clown makeup, but who is just this Craig, crazy I don’t even know how to describe him. Like, I find him intimidating and scary and tons of swearing and crass sexual innuendo and

Clip:  It ain’t worth nothing. My name’s all over it. I was fixing it to to Craig it to Jackie Cobb. That retard that hangs out on Molly’s fruit stand? Mhmm. Yeah. You know, for a lot of me, I cannot understand why you hang out with that asshole. He’s one horny retard. Well, they tell all.  All I wanna do is eat and fuck. Well, like, if you know him, you might understand his urges. Worse than a rabbit ass baboon. Sid

Craig:  Haag, I think that part of his success just comes from the fact that he has this really interesting look. You know, he he kinda looks like a thug, but at the same time, like, he’s got these great big eyes that he can totally do the crazy eyes with. But not even just crazy eyes, like, you know, he he opens his eyes so wide that his daze is just kind of nightmarish. Like, I would not would bump into this guy anywhere.

Todd:  True. Especially in clown makeup.

Craig:  Yeah. Especially in clown makeup. And it’s, you know, it’s Halloween. It’s October 30th. It’s the seventies, and the first thing we see is that there’s an attempted robbery at the store, but Sid Craig and there’s there’s funny dialogue with him and this other character called Stuckey who’s played by Michael j Pollard, who I recognized, but I had to look up. I remembered him from Scrooge. He plays an endearing homeless character in Scrooge, but totally different here.

Clip:  You miserable motherfucker. Ought to jump over this counter and bash your fucking balls in. Alright, Pippi. Hand over the cash box and I might leave your brains inside your skull. Well, I’ll tell you what, Ski King. Why don’t you just take your mama home some chicken and then I won’t have to stuff my boot all up in your ass?

Craig:  You know, it’s it’s it’s so R rated. You you know, there there’s no getting around it. In fact, you know, the movie was in development hell for, like, 3 years. It was filmed in 2,000, but it wasn’t released until 2003 because Universal laid down the money for it. But when it was done, they were so afraid that it was gonna get an NC 17 rating that they just dropped it. Then Zombie almost sold it to another studio, but it got shelved again and all of his friends told him, you know what, just forget it. Just let it go. Just scrap it.  That he wasn’t willing to and, eventually Lionsgate released it. I think that it ended up being cut pretty heavily. There was supposedly all this lost footage that was going to get released but it it never has been and who knows if it ever will be. But just f bombs all over the place.

Clip:  I’m gonna count to 10 and you’re gonna hand over all the cash, or I’m gonna splatter your greasepaint mug across the state line. 1. Fuck your mama. 2. Fuck your sister. What are we gonna do? Hey, I know you. You work at the hardware store. Right? Richard Wick.  Right? Shutterfly it down. Both of you. 3. Fuck your grandma.

Craig:  And then somebody, you know, like Sid Hagg’s friend who works with them busts in and just blows away one of the guys, and Sid Craig pulls out this huge revolver and shoots the other guy in the head and says, but most of all, fuck you. And that’s just the tone of the movie throughout. Then these 4 kids, the 4 kid kids, I don’t know, they’re just in their 20s, I guess, show up. Bill is played by Rainn Wilson, which I totally forgot. Rainn Wilson of The Office fame has done bazillions of other things too. And Jerry is played by Chris Hardwick,

Clip:  which I

Craig:  don’t I don’t know him all that well except for I know that he does The Talking Dead, which is like the recap

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  Episode of for The Walking Dead. And then there’s Mary played by Jennifer and Denise played by Aaron Daniels, and they’re 2 couples. And they show up at this place, and they’re just absolutely fascinated with it. And there’s this murder ride, which I thought was so funny. It’s just like a cart on wheels that this big guy pushes down a hallway.

Todd:  It’s cool. It’s so low rent, but it’s the kind of thing I would love to go and do.

Craig:  Totally. Yeah. Oh, this place is awesome. You know, it really is just one of those kooky roadside attractions that really do exist in America.

Todd:  Yeah. It’s true.

Craig:  You know, I I think it’s kind of a a dying phenomenon, but they’re still out there. You know, it’s got, you know, all these setups with mannequins and things talking about, like Ed Gein and different serial killers and Captain Spalding, like, narrates the ride or whatever. But, I think the last display is of a local legend of this guy called Doctor. Satan.

Todd:  And, and pause for a moment while you hear my eyes roll at that.

Clip:  Oh, I think it’s hilarious.

Craig:  Oh, I love it. I love it. And so, you know, the guys who seem to be the ones who are really into this, like, just think this is the coolest thing ever. And supposedly, doctor Satan, you know, did all these, like, crazy experiments on people and stuff and was totally sadistic.

Clip:  Vigilante Justice prevailed. They took his ass out and hung him. And that infamous ingotree is no more than a stone’s throw away from where y’all’s ass is now seated.  The next day, his body was found  to be missing. Until today, no trace of doctor Satan has ever been discovered.

Craig:  And so the guys are like, oh, we totally have to see this. So he, draws them a map to find the tree, And they head there and that’s when they run into trouble.

Clip:  Sherry Moon Zombie. Yeah.

Todd:  Absolutely gorgeous Sherry Moon Zombie out by the side of the road.

Craig:  She’s stunningly beautiful. You know, I’ve never seen her in anything except in a Rob Zombie movie, and I think she’s in all of his movies. And she is just beautiful, like sexy. I do not think she’s a good actress.

Clip:  No. No. But But

Craig:  of all the things that I’ve seen her in, I think that this is her best role. For whatever reason, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the most like her. I I I don’t know, but I think that she’s good in this part.

Todd:  Well, maybe because all she kinda had to do was smile and wink and kind of act charming, you know. It wasn’t like a very deep character. It was very cartoonish. I remember seeing her in 31 and just, oh, my Todd. You’re right. The acting was was horrible. But, yeah. You’re right.  She she played it off in this.

Craig:  She plays Michael Myers’ mom in, Rob Zombie’s 2, Halloween films.

Todd:  I forgot about that.

Craig:  And so it’s supposed to be, you know, she’s supposed to be playing this serious sympathetic character and she just cannot pull it off. You know, I I don’t want Rob Zombie or Sherry Moon coming for me because that would scare me. But in this movie, I think she does a good job. And it is cartoonish. She talks in this, you know, Super high voice, and she’s very giggly and playful, and it just works. And so they they pick her up. It’s raining out. She’s hitchhiking.  They pick her up, and she just wants a ride home. She’s like, I just live a couple miles down the Todd. And they say, well, do you know about this tree? She’s like, oh, yeah. I can totally show you that. It’s right by our house. And we see, it’s not like it’s a mystery, we see somebody shoot out their tire. She and Bill, Rainn Wilson, go up to the house because she says, my brother has a tow truck. He’ll take care of you.  And so they they go up to the house and the house is nutty. But I guess one could say, well, it’s just decorated up for Halloween and these people are serious about Halloween. But like, it’s crazy with lights and all kinds of creepy stuff all over the place.

Todd:  It’s so Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I mean, in one end, it’s lights and things done up in places, which is a lot like the second one where they have that that underground lair. You remember with the tunnels and all that random crap everywhere. But then, other parts of it are like constructed things made of bones and piles of shoes on the floor, and also shoes that are hanging from strings for no apparent reason. That’s that’s sort of like the first one. It’s just a mishmash of stuff that came before Todd be completely honest. I mean, and that’s that’s kinda how I feel about this movie in in a way of watching it. I mean, it’s fun.  Don’t get me wrong. It’s fun. And there’s a Halloween movie. It’s quite nice because it it does seem to be just nothing but throwbacks, like piece together of throwbacks to other movies boldly. You know what I mean? Mhmm. I mean, there’s even a scene with them sitting down having dinner with the family. Once once everybody else gets there, once the guy goes and tows their car there and everybody’s there, what do you know? There’s a long table and a bunch of candles on it. And pretty soon here comes grandpa.  Here comes

Clip:  Mhmm.

Todd:  The weird guy named Tiny who doesn’t talk, but it’s kind of tall and disfigured and sits down. And then the mom, Karen played by Karen Black, who was great in this actually, quite good in this role.

Craig:  Oh, I think she’s fantastic and and she we saw her in burnt offerings.

Todd:  Invaders from Mars. She was the mom. Right?

Craig:  Yes. That’s right. I really like her and she just gets to ham it up in this movie and she does so well and like she’s wearing like lingerie is not really the right word but like satiny shorts and tops and things. And I I thought that she and Sherry Moon did a really believable job of being mother and daughter. Yes. Like they’re so similar Mhmm. In in their characters. And I think she’s great.  Sadly, there is a salary dispute for the sequel and she bowed out and they recast her. They recast her with an actress who looks just exactly like her. In fact, the first time I saw the second movie, I thought it was still her. I didn’t even realize that she had been recast.

Todd:  Well, she has such a distinct look too. That’s that’s pretty incredible.

Craig:  Yeah. They they recast her with this beautiful woman. She was in, the early Police Academy movies. Do you remember do you remember those movies?

Todd:  Oh, Todd. Yes.

Craig:  Do you remember like the the sexy blonde with the big boobs? Oh.

Todd:  I should.

Clip:  Wore her hair up. I

Todd:  can’t

Craig:  Anyway, that’s who they recast her with.

Todd:  Oh, interesting.

Craig:  But this is when I’m really into it because I just think this cast of characters is so interesting. You know, you you mentioned mother Firefly, Karen Black, and then there’s Tiny who is played by this actor who is legit 7 foot 6 inches tall. And I read about him and, like, when he was born, he weighed £15 and was 2 feet long. When he graduated kindergarten, he was over 5 feet tall. He had a condition that, you know, caused this crazy growth, but he did a lot of really cool stuff and and was kind of revered as as an actor in his own right. He was working on a biopic of Andre the Giant when he passed away. And he, you know, he’s just this hulking menace. He doesn’t really talk.  He wears a mask because he had been burned.

Todd:  He’s like the most charming guy in this movie. I mean, in this movie, actually, I I just loved it when he was there. It’s that character who’s just silent and doesn’t he’s just creepy and nobody has enough information about him. He’s just there. Right? And he pops into a couple scenes. One scene later, he pops in on a girl who’s been tied up and he’s, like, eating cornflakes out of a dog bowl, offers her some

Craig:  With his name on it. Yeah.

Todd:  It’s so crazy. And I’m, like, I mean, I’m jumping ahead. But, like, she’s tied up, and she’s one of the girls. You know, this is what happens eventually. And, she asked she’s, like, oh, please let me go. Please let me go. And he just leans over and unties whatever whatever things and goes back to eating his cornflakes. And I was like, that’s interesting.  And of course, she runs up the stairs and immediately gets cornered again by Bill Mosley who comes brings her back down and throws her into a cage. And then looks over at him, and he looks at him and he just sort of shrugs his shoulders. Like, what are you gonna do?

Craig:  Right. Right.

Todd:  That’s him. I mean, he doesn’t have to talk to have a cool character.

Craig:  And you’ve got Bill Moseley, who I think is a great actor, actually.

Todd:  Yeah. He is.

Craig:  I feel like he is playing Rob Zombie, or at least the character that Rob Zombie portrays as his persona or whatever.

Clip:  Right.

Craig:  And he’s super scary. He’s got this long kind of bleached blonde thin hair and he’s ultra violent like he we have heard on the news that there was this group of cheerleaders missing. Well, he’s got them tied up in his bedroom upstairs. Some of them are dead and he’s tormenting the other ones and baby torments them at some point.

Todd:  And he’s kind of ranting on almost incoherent stuff, like, he’s totally unhinged.

Clip:  How could I, being born of such, conventional stock, arrive a leader of the rebellion? An escapist from a conformist world destined to find happiness only in that which cannot be explained. I brought you here for a reason. But unfortunately, you and your sentimental minds are doing me no good. My brain is frozen, locked. I have to break free from this culture of mechanical reproductions and the thick encrustations dying on the surface.

Todd:  And I think I read that, Rob Zombie took some of that dialogue from tapes of the Manson

Craig:  family? That’s what it was inspired by in those cut scenes. Mhmm. Both Otis and Baby have these rants on these cut scenes which which Zombie filmed in his basement in post production. And they are crazy and one of them babies like rolling around naked with a skeleton like masturbating with the bones and Otis is probably the most sinister, of all of them even though eventually, you know, they’re all murderous, you know, the whole family. Yeah. And then there’s another there’s another guy who is the tow truck driver. I feel like his name is RJ. Yeah.

Todd:  Who’s this? He’s a big, beefy, burly guy who barely says a word. Right? Does he say anything?

Craig:  No. He’s just kind of a heavy. He just, is around, all the time. But, he’s super strong. At one point near the end, he picks up one of the guys and, like, lifts him up over his head and throws him into a coffin. So he’s just, you know, the muscle. And then there’s grandpa, Dennis Fimple. This was his last film.  I guess that as they were filming, the story went through a number of changes even in plot. Like I think that originally the legend of Doctor. Satan was just a story that was concocted to lead people out to the Firefly house. And it turned out that grandpa was actually Doctor. Satan. Of course all of that changed. It turns out, that Doctor. Satan is actually a real person and it’s, mother Fireflies ex husband who is the one that set their house on fire and burned tiny and but the biggest part of the movie is just kind of them being initially they’re not really trapped like Yeah.  Initially the the the family is bizarre, but they’re really just kind of hosting them. It’s it’s not until baby gets all dolled up and does this cutesy 19 thirties type lip sync.

Todd:  I wanna be loved by you. Like a Betty Boop thing. Yeah.

Craig:  Right. In doing so, and she’s been kind of flirty with Bill for a while. But in this, she frankly pretty innocently sits on Bill’s lap. But Bill’s girlfriend Mary immediately is like, Get off him you whore. Calm down. And she pushes Baby down and Baby’s like, You’re gonna regret that. And from that point on, things get pretty scary.

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  They’re led to believe that they’re gonna be let go. The car is ready and they, get in the car and they start going, but they’re attacked by Otis and, RJ, and they’re brought back to the house. And Yeah. From that point on, it’s just ultra violent.

Todd:  And then there’s, kind of a subplotish type thing where they keep going back to one of the girl’s fathers who is calling the local cops because he hasn’t she hasn’t shown up. And, he ends up driving out there or flying out there or whatever. And so there are a few cops there as well, sheriff and his deputies, who come up to the gas station and talk with this is maybe the second time we see captain Spalding. Captain Spalding actually doesn’t have a huge role in this movie. I mean, his No. Character’s pretty large.

Craig:  And he gets top billing, I think.

Todd:  Yeah. I guess you’re right. He does. Doesn’t he? Well, it’s it’s interesting. I mean, in a movie full of recognizable actors, which is an accomplishment in and of itself, you know, it’s interesting that he gets to top billing. But anyway, yeah. You know, they they come pick out and they talk with him. It’s interesting at that point because you kinda wonder where he fits into all of this.  Right? Is he even connected to this family? Or is he just this eccentric, crazy, wacky, kinda dangerous guy Todd, who just happens to run this gas station and and do this thing?

Craig:  It seems like the latter. Yeah. To me, it did at least. It did. It seemed like he was he was not connected to them in any way. He was just a whack job too.

Todd:  Yeah. And and he leads him because he kinda basically leads the cops out to the that house. They ask him Yeah. Where where did you, you know, where where were they going? Where did you send him? And he said, well, they were interested in this legend, so I drew him a map. And and here’s a map for you and you guys can go and check it out. And so they do. I think that from here, it’s it’s kind of just a montage of random things. It’s just the family being crazy and each of these characters suddenly tied up or something.  You don’t really see how they get there. You don’t really see them much of them running away or getting grabbed or whatever. It’s just suddenly, oh, this girl’s tied up to a bed and there’s a scene with her. And, oh, now this guy’s tied to a Craig. And, baby is, you know, cutting his hair off and eventually scalps him and whatnot. And then we don’t see him again until he’s a body later. And Rainn Wilson’s character gets the most interesting treatment. He’s made into, like, a half fish, half man kind of, roadside attraction thing.  Kind of like

Craig:  fish Fish boy.

Todd:  Fish boy. Kind of like they had seen the alligator boy when they were out at, Right. And that’s when I thought, oh, well, maybe there is some kind of connection. You know, maybe they’re making these roadside attractions for him. And, again, it’s not really explained, like, why they were do why that was done to him? Why any of these things are done to any of them? And it’s just a completely I’m sorry, but it’s just like a completely random scenes of just random craziness that this family gets engaged in. And it’s just like they’re playing with these people. Also, you don’t even you barely see these 4 or 5 kids. I mean, except when there’s initially there and then when they’re kind of, like, tied up and screaming, like, you don’t really get to know them.  You don’t really care much about them. True. There’s really nothing there. It’s really most of the movie focuses on this wacky Craig family and their character. It’s much more interested in that, than in the plight of these kids, which is another reason why there was just this huge disconnect for me. It was hard for me to get scared because there weren’t really any scenes of suspense, to be honest. There were a couple. That was about it.  It just seemed to me like a again, like I said, perfect Halloween movie. It’s like going through a haunted house. Right? Yeah. They they never make sense. It’s just one one scary scene after another that’s just pile on top of each other and then a guy with a chainsaw chases you through the whole thing.

Craig:  Yeah. Well, I mean, I I think for me that that I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like I was huddled under a blanket scared or anything but that randomness, that unpredictability if I’m willing to kinda try to put myself in these young people’s shoes like first of all, what the fuck is happening? And secondly, why is this happening to me? Like, it’s so random. Like, when Mary wakes up, she wakes up and she’s all tied up. And Otis comes in and is talking to her and she’s just saying, where’s Bill, please? Where is he? Is he okay? And then he just unveils him and it’s so you know, I I couldn’t even tell if it was totally just a sculpture or if Rainn Wilson was actually in there somewhere. Like it it looked a little bit plasticky, but it’s nightmarish. I mean, he’s been turned into this macabre art installation and here you’ve got this crazy guy just laughing and I don’t know. I thought it was pretty spooky, but you’re right.  A lot of it just kind of relies on, ah, they’re crazy.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And it’s you’re you’re right. Then there’s that side story where, eventually, you know, the dad gets there and the cops and they head out towards that tree, but they find the kid’s car and it’s all bashed up or whatever. And they find one of the cheerleaders dead and carved up in the trunk. So they know something’s going on. This part is just stupid Todd because then these 2 cops with a civilian, Mary’s dad in tow, just decide that they’re gonna go over there and check it out. Like wouldn’t the dead body in the trunk maybe make you think that you might wanna call in some backup.

Todd:  Yeah. It’s always the way though. Right.

Craig:  Well, they they go out there, and it’s almost cute. Like, it’s almost charming in a way, like, mother fly firefly just runs upstairs to Otis. She’s like,

Clip:  there’s police outside.

Craig:  And Otis is like, goddamn it. Alright. Well, you go down and play nice. I’m gonna run around the back.

Todd:  Like, it’s just so

Craig:  it’s silly, but it was funny to me. And so mother fireflies being all, like, flirtatious with this one cop. Meanwhile, the other douche bag cop and the dad are looking around in the back. And ultimately what happens is the guys in the back find the dead cheerleaders, right? Like a bunch of them all strung up. And so they get the other the cop gets on his walkie talkie and is like, oh my gosh, there’s a bunch of bodies. And so mother Firefly of course hears this and just pulls out her huge revolver and blows the other cop away. Then Otis shows up and kills Mary’s dad. And then there was, gosh, I thought this scene was so weird.  He pulled the gun on the cop, and I think the cop falls to his knees, right? Yep. Like he’s begging, and they have this whole scene of dialogue that is completely silent. Yeah. We hear nothing. There’s nothing. There’s no score in the background. It’s like you put the TV on mute and then it pulls back to this long shot with Otis just holding the gun on this cop. And it holds there for at least a good 30 seconds.  It feels so long. It just stylistically felt so different than the rest of the movie. I I didn’t know what to make of it. It was weird.

Todd:  It was. It was maybe also the most suspenseful thing too because you’re staring at it and you’re, like, what’s going on? What’s gonna happen? You’re wondering if he’s gonna shoot him. Uh-huh. And you’re just staring and waiting for it and waiting for it and waiting for it to happen. I’m going, what is going on here? Like, I I went to check, like, did my did things lock up or something Yeah. Right. My computer or whatnot? But yeah. No.  It was just an interesting choice, you know, in a movie that’s otherwise really spastic, you know, and, quick cuts and and intercuts here and there. There’s this really long scene at this tension filled moment. I don’t know. But but then again, I never thought for a second, like, that was gonna end well for the cops. So

Clip:  Oh, no.

Todd:  You know.

Craig:  I don’t know. It seemed kind of out of place to me, but at the same time, I was intrigued by it. Like Yeah. This is so weird. It’s like a lot of the movies. It’s kinda what I was saying. I mean, it’s intriguing. It’s like I said,

Clip:  it’s kind of all over

Todd:  the place and stylistically, he’s got a certain thing he’s doing. But it is just more strange than effective. I don’t know. I mean, it has an effect. I mean, obviously, this scene we were glued to the screen. And in those Mhmm. You know, kind of weird intercuts with, like, everything’s in negative and different weird purple colors and it looks like a music video and and all that. I mean, they they had an effect, you know, but it just didn’t seem to fit the movie.  It just it felt like we’re cutting away to something else and then coming back to the story. You know what I mean? I don’t know. That that’s how I felt.

Craig:  I know what you mean. I’m just gonna have to kind of respectfully disagree because I thought that it was in keeping with the style.

Todd:  Well, when you do it enough times, it becomes a style. Right? Right.

Craig:  I mean Yeah. No. And I get what you’re saying. It is very much like a music video. I if that’s not your vibe, then I get it.

Todd:  Was 31 that way Todd? His and its sequels to this, is that just kinda what he does? Or is it unique to this movie?

Craig:  I don’t know. I thought I I think that it’s fairly unique to this. I don’t remember any, like, cutaway shots or anything like that in 31. Neither one of us enjoyed that movie very much. The first sequel to this movie is called The Devil’s Rejects. And critically and from a fan perspective, The Devil’s Rejects is pretty much considered zombies like magnum opus. Like, people go on and on and on about how great that movie is. I have a friend, hi Alexis, who like, that’s her favorite movie of all time.  I’ve seen it. I’ve probably seen it a couple of times. It’s so ultra violent, and it’s tons of gun violence, and it was almost stomach churning for me. It was almost too much for me. And and there’s sexual violence, which always bothers me. But that’s really, you know, people kinda lose their shit over that movie. 3 from Hell just came out, and it is getting terrible, terrible, terrible reviews.

Todd:  Oh, really?

Craig:  And and, yeah, in fact, people are saying the only thing that he succeeded at was tarnishing the, what did I say the second one was called?

Clip:  The devil’s the devil’s reject. Devil’s reject. Yeah.

Craig:  That’s what I’ve that’s what I’ve read. The only thing that it does is tarnish the legacy of that movie. Of course, I haven’t seen it so I can’t say but, it’s it’s getting awful reviews.

Todd:  Well, that’s kind of what I expected from this movie. You know, I expected this movie to be this, like, gore fest, this ultraviolet thing. And I mean, I guess it is but it didn’t feel like it when I was watching it. I don’t know. Maybe maybe because a lot of what was gory and bloody was cut around or was a lot of quick cuts and flat. I mean, there’s shocking things in here, but I feel like I’ve just seen and maybe since this movie came out, you know, it’s just people have up the ante a bit, but I just feel like I’ve seen much much worse, than this movie. It didn’t feel Yeah. Mean spirited.  It didn’t feel ultra violent. I don’t know. Todd you know?

Craig:  I think that maybe part of that comes from the fact that overall it feels somewhat cartoonish. So maybe that

Todd:  Mhmm. You’re right.

Craig:  Kind of detracts from the realism of the violence. It’s like cartoon violence. It’s like Scooby Doo. You know, it doesn’t have that same kind of visceral impact as it might have if it felt grounded in reality because it doesn’t feel grounded in reality at all.

Todd:  Right. Well And Any movie when, you know, they go to just rant there’s a random scene where they’re buying beer for no real reason except to show that there’s a a shop called Red Hot Pussy Liquors.

Clip:  Yes.

Todd:  Oh, dude.

Craig:  Oh, Todd. I would go to that before. Yeah. And that is the only reason. Just that gag is the only reason for that scene existing at all. They just go by a bunch of, booze so that you can see that sign. Cracked me up. Well and then they go home and they and she’s they buy a ton of booze and the guy’s like Well, you sure aren’t buying

Clip:  a whole mess of holy water for 2 people. Yeah. I would like to get fucked up and do your fucked up shit.  You know what I mean? Yeah.  I like to get fucked up too and do some fucked up shit. Yeah. I bet you do.

Craig:  And they certainly do because that’s what they do. They go home and they get they all of them get wasted. And I thought that mother firefly and baby drunk was and you only see it for, I don’t know, 5, 10 seconds, but I just thought it was hilarious. And that leads into the climax where it’s Halloween night, they dress up the remaining victims, the 2 girls and the one remaining guy, they dress them up in these rabbit suits, which I just thought was kind of clever because then they kind of hunt them, later.

Todd:  I guess so.

Craig:  I mean, it’s silly, but I I don’t know. I found it amusing. And they lead them, you know, across this field in the middle of the night, in just the moonlight. And I just thought, you know, it looked great, it looked like Halloween. And they lead them, I guess, I don’t know where this is, somewhere on their property. And Mary takes off running and baby chases her, and then there’s kind of this surreal moment where it sounds like baby is all around her, or could be anywhere, but eventually baby just, attacks and stabs her to death and kills her and, like, licks the knife and stuff. The other 2 get thrown into this coffin and lowered into the ground. And this is where things just totally go off the Craig.

Todd:  Yes.

Craig:  Like like, it’s crazy.

Todd:  Yeah. At this point, I was like, what in the hell is going on? They lower them into this pit, I guess, and under the ground and there’s water there, and they don’t lower straight into the water. They’re just suspended there. And then suddenly from the water, up pop these figures. Are they like zombies? Are they

Craig:  I don’t know.

Todd:  They’re just bottom dwelling

Craig:  It’s like it’s like the people under the stairs kinda stuff.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. But then they also kinda look like zombies. And then they start tearing it apart and they get the guy and the girl manages to escape and she runs down this corridor into this cave and she stops and, like, sees who she thinks is the other guy because there’s a bunny suit. But then he comes out of the shadows and it’s just this old man who’s also dressed in a bunny suit who says nothing. And then another one of these freaky things comes up behind her and they tear off her bunny suit and then they just walk away. Mhmm. And then she starts running down this corridor and it turns into this long quarter, like, out of Indiana Jones or something where it’s just, as far as the eye can see on both sides of it just mummified skeletal remains.  I don’t know, man. It’s just so weird and then she runs down it and whatever and then she Opens up a door at the end. It comes into this, like, bone cathedral. I mean, we’re still underground. And they’re, like, creatures there that, like, shut the door. And then there’s another door that opens, and she goes in. And here she is in the middle of doctor Satan’s sanctum.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s like it’s first like, the first thing she sees, it’s kind of like this nightmarish waiting room. Like

Todd:  Yeah. That’s right.

Craig:  These weird these weird zombie type people, like, sitting around in what looks like a waiting room. And then she looks over to the side, and she sees doctor Satan op like, doing brain operation on the guy, whatever his name is, Jerry.

Todd:  Yeah. And he looks inhuman, and he’s strapped up to this it’s like Yes. It’s like we’re on the set of a 9 inch nails video, you know, and he’s Yeah. Like, operating on her. And then from the Todd, bursts out, a cenobite, basically, who starts running after her. And he’s got these goggles on and his big beefy thing. It looks pieced together and, like, there’s, you know, like, a gas mask on his face, and he has this giant ax, and he starts chasing her back down the corridor. And, I mean, he’s swinging his ax and missing her and hitting the supports until he finally gets buried.

Craig:  And I read that he couldn’t see in the costume, so he was just, like, wildly swinging around this real axe, like and and rub zombie was, like, well, we just kinda figured she’d move.

Todd:  A real act.

Craig:  Okay, dude.

Todd:  That is insane. Insane. I hate reading about stuff like that because it just strikes me as so irresponsible. Yeah. And then and then it you know, kind of the ending is almost Texas Chainsaw Massacre, like, she just claws her way to the surface.

Craig:  Yeah. The guy wielding the axe, like, takes out one of the supports and everything comes crashing down and lands on him, but it opens up the upper part. And she crawls out, you know, almost like the descent style. And then it’s the end scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you know. Every other movie, you know, he did the same thing in 31 with Sherry Moon, where it’s the heroin all beat up and, you know, limping down the Todd, and then here

Todd:  comes the car. Yeah.

Craig:  Right. In this case, it’s, Captain Spalding in this little convertible.

Clip:  Sweet baby Jesus, girl. What the hell happened to you?  I got away.  You? Yeah. I recognize you. Oh, there’s a whole bunch of people been looking for your ass, girl.  I gotta  get to a doctor. Alright. Alright. Just sit back and relax. I’ll get you to a doctor.

Todd:  Har har, wink, wink. Har har.

Craig:  Yeah. And then as she lays back and closes her eyes, Otis pops up from the back, and that’s it. But before the credits roll, it just says the end question mark. And, no, it’s not because there were 2 sequels.

Todd:  Yeah. If it and you know if it wasn’t for that last that last 20 minutes, man, it just it just takes a strange left turn and just keeps turning left.

Craig:  It’s wacky.

Todd:  It’s so crazy. Yeah. It’s it it starts to be about this weird family, and then that they do they do all these weird things for fun. And then there’s this whole underground subterranean labyrinth of bodies and strange creatures

Craig:  and Populated by apparently, at least dozens of people. Like, what?

Todd:  Out in the middle of the desert. Just under the surface, by the way. I mean, so under the surface that as you’re running down this corridor, light is streaming through the boards or whatever that are holding up the corridor that you’re that you’re running through. I don’t know, man. I mean, the movie is just all over the place. I I think I have to side with the critics who said that this movie was all over the place. I mean, what more can I say? I I it it was interesting to watch. There was never a dull moment, but, also, there was never really a scary moment for me.  And there was never really a moment where I felt like the movie was inching toward any kind of theme or anything I could latch onto. You know? And no emotion I could latch onto, no idea I could latch onto, and it’s just not that not that kind of movie. Right? So Yeah. I just kind of like, oh, I I was done. I was like, well, that was a ride. That was a trip.

Craig:  Yeah. Well, Rob Zombie said from the beginning that he wanted to make a drive in movie. And I think that that’s kinda what this is, you know. It Todd doesn’t have to be of super high quality. It doesn’t have to make a lot of sense. It’s just, you know, give me something interesting to look at for an hour and a half or whatever.

Todd:  Yeah. What we make out in the back seat.

Craig:  Right. Right.

Todd:  Not you and me,

Clip:  but, you know, just like, you know, people.

Todd:  I was

Craig:  I was looking for the joke. I’m like, I know it’s there. Where is it? Come on. Come on. But, but, yeah. I mean, Zombie says now that he acknowledges and appreciates that it has a cult following. But when he sees it, all he sees is flaw upon flaw upon flaw. So he’s not particularly proud of it.  However, it really did kind of, jump Todd his career as a as a film director.

Todd:  Right.

Craig:  Now he had already been directing his own music videos and music videos for other people for a while and had been acclaimed for that. But as a film director, this really gave him his Todd. And he since had a lot of success to very mixed reviews. Nonetheless, it really opened a lot of doors for him. I think Sid Craig is is great in this movie. I think that his character is really fun, and he, as this character, has become really iconic in horror cinema. You know, you you see imagery of Captain Spalding in merchandising and, you know, just all over the place. And, I’m glad, you know, Zombie kind of approached him and and pulled him out of retirement for this.  And once, he was working again, he continued to work, especially in the horror industry. And, you know, even the movies that he’s in that we haven’t particularly enjoyed. You know, we’ve we’ve seen some movies that he was in, like Bone Tomahawk, that we’ve really liked. Galaxy of Terror, not a great movie, but he was interesting in it. Even 31, which neither of us particularly cared for. He had such a small cameo, but he’s always interesting and memorable. And, he was 80 years old when he passed, which these days doesn’t really seem that Todd. But he left a legacy.  I have a lot of respect for the guy. He was a cool guy.

Todd:  Me too. I think it was a very fitting, movie for us to watch. A good good tribute episode. So rest in peace, Sid Craig. And thank you, Mark, also for requesting this movie. Well, that’s it. We still have a couple more Halloween episodes to do. So happy Halloween, everybody.  It’s coming up. If you have any requests that you would like us to talk about, just go find us online. You can search 2 guys in a chainsaw and find our website 2 guys at redfortynat.com or our Facebook page. Just leave us a comment on either of those places, and, we’ll put you down. Until next time. I’m Todd.

Craig:  And I’m Craig.

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Kicking off our usual October Halloween horror films with Ginger Snaps. It’s the coming-of-age story of a teenage werewolf that has lots of bite and wit.

Episode 189, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Craig:  Hello and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Craig.

Todd:  And I’m Todd.

Craig:  And we’ve been going through some requests lately, and we’ve been having a lot of fun doing that. But when we were talking about what we wanted to do this week, I brought up something that we have had on our list forever. It just crossed my mind again lately, and I wanted to give it another look. And so this week, we are doing the year 2000 Ginger Snaps.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Directed by John Fawcett. I picked this movie because I saw it a long time ago, probably, I don’t know, not long after it came out. I’ve I’ve told this story before. So long time listeners, you’ve heard this. You can just tone out for the next 30 seconds or whatever. But when I was doing my teaching internship, I was in another town. I didn’t know anybody and I’m not really the type to kinda go out on my own. So I spent a lot of time at home.  And so my mom bought me a gift card to the local video store. And every day, I would go and rent a new horror movie. And I think that this is 1 of the ones that I rented. I just remembered really enjoying it, and so I was looking forward to going back and seeing it again. And I have to say, I really wasn’t disappointed. Have you seen this before, Todd?

Todd:  Yeah. I had. Oh, several years ago started doing this deal during Halloween, where for the month of October, I would try to watch a horror movie at night and then write up a quick review of it and I would post it. And it was kind of an exercise for me, just an excuse to get to watch horror movies, kind of exercise my writing chops a little bit. This was before I had a son.

Craig:  And I

Todd:  had that kind of time. And, I went back and I was like, I’m pretty sure I watched this. And I went back and looked at my reviews and sure enough, I had. And I glanced through it real quick and realized it was pretty glowing. So I was really looking forward to getting back to it, this time around. It’s been probably 4 or 5 years. Certainly Todd disappointed either. I was really happy to watch this movie again.  It was actually, it was cool because I didn’t really remember it well enough to not be surprised by what was happening. That was 1 thing I actually wrote in my review at that time. I said, this plot is just, unpredictable. You really don’t know where it’s going to go. And that was 1 thing I think I really enjoyed about this movie the first time I saw it. And it struck me again the second time I saw it.

Craig:  I actually was surprised by how much I remembered it, watching it again this time around. And I guess that’s a good thing, you know. It made an impression on me. It’s a werewolf movie. And, you know, I like werewolf movies fine. It’s not like if somebody said what’s your favorite genre of horror, I would say, oh, werewolf movies. But you know, I like them fine. But I just think this 1 is really clever because it uses the whole werewolf experience as kind of a metaphor for coming of age, specifically for women.  You know, puberty and the cyclical nature of, menstruation kind of goes along well with the monthly nature of the whole werewolf or like andthrope experience. And I just thought it was really clever. Things are changing, your body is changing, you’re growing hair in weird places, you’re getting moody, you’re, you know, you’re getting moody. Yeah. You’re, you know, experiencing all these different urges and desires that you didn’t have before and really it makes a lot of sense, as a metaphor. And it plays well as a metaphor in this movie, while at the same time, really just still being a straight up werewolf movie.

Todd:  Yeah. The interesting thing about werewolves as a monster, as a story, as a myth, is that it’s really different, I think, from a lot of the others. It first of all, it’s this monster within. Right? You can walk around during the day, presumably, you know, being normal and you just hide this terrible secret inside. So there’s this element of, of this hidden secret. There’s this self control aspect to it as well. Like, nobody who is a werewolf, like, really wants to be 1. Right? At least Mhmm.  I haven’t really seen anybody take it another way. They just they just are and it’s something they have to deal with. And so, there’s kind of this emotional aspect to it as well. This internal turmoil like, kinda like you said, like, where this this can also be cyclical with a person and they’re going through urges and things like that. Well, all of us every day have kind of an inner part of ourselves that we kind of keep hidden from people, you know. An inner monster, if you will. And so it’s, you know, it’s about keeping that secret hidden. And then, of course, you can’t control it and, every full moon or whatever, you come out and you’re gonna transform.  Or every night or whatever the, you know, the story’s gonna be. But then, once the person’s a werewolf, they’re just a freaking wolf, usually. You know, in these stories. Mhmm. It’s not like they’re half human, half wolf. I mean, you’ve seen some stuff like that with the wolf man and whatnot. But in general, the sort of werewolf stories kind of keep with that. And so, you’re a little limited at that point what you can do with the monster.  Right? You’re not gonna talk to the werewolf. The werewolf’s not gonna have some intelligent conversation with somebody. It’s it’s just a wolf running around hunting people. And then in the morning, in a lot these movies, it’s like, oh Todd, what did I do last night? I can’t even remember. You know?

Craig:  Right. So it’s an It’s like college. It’s like

Todd:  It’s exactly like college. Right. So, I mean, in in a way the genre’s a little limited. Like, it can spend a lot of time with the human and the human aspect of it. But once it gets to Werewolf, you don’t have a lot of room for drama and, I don’t know. It’s not like a vampire movie where there’s this seductive nature, where the monster is, you know, stalking you and and it’s it’s talking with you and kind of, like, worming his way in. It’s not like the zombie thing where, you know, you transform into a zombie and that’s it and, you know, they’re just kind of mindlessly going at things. I think they’re just with werewolf movies in general, there’s a lot more of this sort of drama rather than horror aspect to it because okay.  Then they turn into wolf. There’s something horrible that happens. They can’t control. And then in the morning, they’ve gotta deal with whatever happened. Right? It’s kinda how the how the stories go. And so, like, with this movie, I even even when you go to IMDB, it calls it like a drama fantasy. Todd doesn’t even call it a horror movie, which is pretty stupid. I mean, it’s definitely a horror movie.

Craig:  Oh, yeah.

Todd:  But it’s true that there’s a lot more drama in here. It’s a lot more about the relationship of these 2 sisters and how they’re dealing with this change that slowly comes over her. And like you said, it’s a perfect metaphor for, heck, just take out Werewolf and 1 sister’s getting older faster than the other.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  They’re they’re drawing apart. 1 the the younger sister doesn’t know how to deal with the older 1. And the older one’s having a really hard time coping with her emotions and and handling all this other stuff. And so, there’s all this tension within them, within their families, and between their friends. And so it’s great. Set it in a high school where all this crap’s happening all the time. It’s a pretty good formula for taking this werewolf story and and making something really interesting out of it.

Craig:  Yeah. I think so Todd. And I think that that’s why this movie works so well is the relationship between these 2 sisters. The premise, of the movie is, you’ve got these 2 sisters, Bridget and Ginger. And another reason that I love this movie is because I love both of these actresses. You’re right. Bridget is played by, Emily Perkins, who has done a ton of stuff, but I always remember her. She was Bev in miniseries of It.

Todd:  Young Bev. Yeah.

Craig:  And and yeah. And that was such a big movie in in my childhood that III love her. And then, Ginger is played by Katherine Isabelle, who Todd, really I mean, this was 2,000. It’s at this point a long time ago. But, today, Katherine Isabelle really has established herself in the industry, particularly in horror. She’s been in a lot, a lot. But she was in Freddy versus Jason. She played the title role in American Mary, which was a super, super dark, dark movie.  But I thought that she was just spectacular in it. I almost looked it up, I didn’t. I probably should just to be safe, but I didn’t look up how old she was in this movie. But she’s sexy. She’s a very sexy girl. She’s got a beautiful feminine figure, but she’s also got, you know, just a really interesting face. These 2 play these death obsessed, early aughts goth kind of sisters. Yeah.  And it could have come across as so cliched, but I think that these actresses are good enough that it comes across to me as genuine. Yeah. Did you feel that way?

Todd:  I did. And you’re right. I was so worried it would be cliche, you know. You’re really kind of on guard against that. But it comes across so naturally the way that they do it. And I think the writing has a has a bit to do with it as well. The writing doesn’t delve into that roll your eyes territory. But also the delivery is fantastic.  And, I mean, of course, you gotta give credit to the director for it as well. But, yeah, you’re right. The relationship is the core in which this movie’s based. And if that ever felt false, it would totally fall apart. And here, I never it never felt false. And even, you know, high school is like that anyway. We all put on people run the gamut of putting on these personas. Don’t they? I mean, we have our friends who were totally You’re

Craig:  searching for yourself.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. You know, and so, I mean, even that, there’s some leeway there for that as well. These girls, they run around and they take pictures of of each other in gory situations, like, they’ve just Todd. Like, under the backs of the of a car in the driveway, or with a pitchfork through their neck, or something like that. They stage these scenes and then they end up showing it to their class as part of a class project or whatever. Sort of horrifies their teacher, but everybody else is, like, wow. That’s that’s pretty incredible.  That they’re known as the weird kids at school.

Craig:  Well, that that’s the thing. In the beginning, the movie makes it sound like they are literally planning their own suicide.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And, they they have this pact where they say they’re gonna be out by 16 or dead on the scene, but together forever. And that’s the big part. Like, we’re it’s us against the world.

Clip:  I’m slitting my throat. You should definitely hang. Maybe even your final moments are cliche around here. Not ours. But ours will rock. You don’t think our deaths should be a little more than cheap entertainment? You jazzed me on this. Don’t whistle now. It’s the idea of everyone staring at me just lying there.  I mean, what if they just laugh? They’ll be in awe. Be suicide’s like the ultimate you. Come on, it’s so us.

Craig:  And as it turns out, they’re not really planning their suicide. They’re just shooting these photographs. And so after, you know, this brief introduction to them, then we get the opening credits against the backdrop of these fake death shots. And I just thought the art direction in these photographs was amazing. Yeah. Like, they were so good. Really? Like, it’s morbid and horrible, but so skillfully done. Like, I was just so impressed from the get go.

Todd:  It’s a good intro to these girls. And I guess I was reading on, IMDB that they had Todd that they shot all this kind of in a day or 2 on location in some house, in some neighborhood. And, they ran around the different places like the backyard, and the front yard, and the garage, and the inside the house, and used the basement of the house to change into new clothes, and do makeup and what not. And and somebody had to usher the 4 year old girl who’s lived at that house like away when they were doing some of these things. And they were a little worried they were gonna disturb the neighbors by shooting all these gory little scenes. Mhmm. But but, you know, for for something that was again put together so quickly, it comes across really well. And it’s a good intro to these girls.  It’s a good intro to their personality. It sets a really creepy tone to the movie. Mhmm. But the movie never gets that dark. It has the promise of being a super dark movie, like, what we just saw May not long ago, which is Mhmm. Extremely dark. This movie doesn’t Todd doesn’t approach at all. In fact, it it really veers into the comedic black comedy, more or less, in many ways.  And I think even these seem darkly comedic. If you saw these photos just as, if they’re presented as crime scene photos, they’d be horrible. But they’re these girls and you know what’s going on. And then in between showing the photos, they’re showing, like, a few, like, videos of them setting up the scenes and, like, hurry up and take the picture. This is uncomfortable. Stuff like that. And so it lends a playfulness to it as well. I think it does a good job of setting a tone a good tone for the movie.

Craig:  Yeah. And, you know, something you said, it it gets into the darkly comedic. I wanna talk about the plot night. I took so many notes because I was just enjoying it so much. But that was 1 of the things that I really liked about the movie. Like, I feel like it starts out kind of dark and and you have this certain expectation, and then when it gets maybe about halfway through, maybe a little less, maybe a little more, it does go for a little bit of the black comedy, but I never felt like the tone was uneven. Like it just worked for me. It balanced the darkness with some humor.  And then also the relationship between the 2 girls is kind of a beautiful thing. They’re so close and their bond is so strong. And when you see that being threatened and weakening, it tugged at my heartstrings. Mhmm. And and I really liked that difference in tone throughout.

Todd:  Yeah. I see the comedy as as just arising naturally from the situation, you know. As the plot gets more and the situation gets more absurd, then it’s like the movie acknowledges the absurdity of the situation. Like, you know, people in real life might eventually kind of like, oh my Todd, now this, you know, sort of sort of moments, you know, when you’re faced with this just escalating series of more and more ridiculous things that are going on. I don’t mean ridiculous as an implausible. I just mean ridiculous as an it just goes everywhere though. Like, the plot just goes in so many different directions, and that just escalates out of control for both of these girls by the end of the movie that at some point somebody’s gotta look at it and crack a joke, you know? Right.

Craig:  Right. Right. Well, there are a couple of things going on. First of all, they live in this small town called Bailey Downs and, you know, we see the sign, like the town sign that says, a safe and caring community or whatever. But they think that there’s a wild animal on the loose, because people’s pets keep showing up mangled and dead. So that’s going on in the backdrop. Meanwhile, Ginger is changing. She’s getting boobies.  Her back hurts. Boys are starting to notice her. And so it sets it up immediately that she’s becoming a woman. They make a point of saying that for both of these young women, Bridget and Ginger, they’re both late in this transitional part of their life. Ginger is supposed to be 16 and Bridget is supposed to be 15. And neither of them has had their 1st menstrual cycle yet. And so, this is when Ginger is going through it for the first time. Meanwhile, they’re dealing with the things that everybody, I think girls especially, deal with in school where boys are ogling them and other girls are picking on them.  They play field hockey a lot. Was this filmed in Canada? I don’t remember Yeah. I don’t remember playing field hockey a lot

Todd:  in high

Craig:  school, but that’s all they do.

Todd:  Definitely Canada. This is a Canadian production.

Craig:  And, Bridget gets tripped by, you know, the mean girl Trina, and she falls right into this corpse of this dead dog. That part was kind of funny to me because it’s like they’ve been playing field hockey for a long time, then all of a sudden she gets tripped into this dead dog. Like, they just didn’t notice that it was there.

Todd:  It’s completely mangled, ripped into 2 pieces, bloody dead dog in the middle of the field. Yeah. Right. Right. Uh-huh.

Craig:  And so to to get revenge, Trina has this rottweiler. The sisters plan to steal it and set up a gruesome scene much like their pictures Todd make Trina think that her dog has been a victim to this beast, whatever it is. So they’ve got that plan. Then there’s a popular boy, I guess, Jason, who is showing interest in Ginger. We also meet the girl’s parents. Their dad is so absent. Like, he’s just vacant, and and really, like, not even a character at all. Like, he’s just there to, like, nod.

Todd:  The bee

Craig:  But their mom is played by Mimi Rogers.

Todd:  And she’s great.

Craig:  Yeah. She really is really she brings something interesting to a character that I think could have been so boring and stupid, but she plays it well. I I, you know, I found myself caring for her and being intrigued by her motivations and things too.

Todd:  For sure. And she just, again, struck the right balance of being this kinda, I don’t wanna say wacky, but just this, overly sincere mother who’s very interested in her daughters, and but but also, like the mothers of most teenagers, is is not gonna be able to help much. Because the teenagers are constantly rolling their eyes at her. You know, she’s from another era. How could she possibly really relate to us and what we’re going through now? Even though she is sincerely trying to help in so many ways. You know, just to jump ahead. I just There’s just 1 scene that’s perfect perfectly exemplifies this and that’s when the 1 daughter she’s trying to hide a body and Yeah. The mom is just to the verge of discovering it when the daughter thinks of the only thing that she can think of that’s gonna distract the mother and divert her attention for the body she’s about to look at, and that is, what do boys want, mom?

Craig:  Which is Yeah.

Todd:  The kind of question their mom has been begging to answer for them through the whole movie. Like, if you

Clip:  need anything just talk to me. If you want anything I’m here. You’re going through all these changes, you know, and I just want you to know I’m there for you and I’m

Todd:  here to talk. In the next scene, she’s sitting down there, she’s got a plate of cookies and 3 glasses of milk and sitting on the sofa.

Clip:  Well, that’s what men want. Some of them might seem cool or different, but they’re all pretty much the same. Totally. Thanks for sharing. Oh, honey. That’s what we’re here for. Yeah. Bedtime.  It’s a school night.

Todd:  Meanwhile, the other 2 are, like, staring at the floor like it’s the most painful experience of their lives trying to sit at the earliest.

Craig:  There are so many good parts with her. And, like, she’s so put together, but, like, in such a silly way, like, her hairstyles are silly, but, you know, every hair is in just the right place. And she’s just kind of this picture perfect mom. And there’s 1 point, like, where they’re having dinner and there’s a huge ham on the table. And I’m like, my Todd, you’re having a ham for dinner? Like, there’s only 4 of you, and you cooked a whole ham? And then they showed the dad, and the dad’s eating fried chicken. Like, what?

Todd:  Dude, I didn’t even notice that.

Craig:  That’s funny. And and there’s a part where the mom is trying once Ginger starts changing even more, there’s a part where the mom tries to intervene and Bridget says to her, no, mom. Ginger really likes it that you let us figure things out for ourselves. And it’s like the mom is so touched. She’s like, oh, I’m so glad you guys noticed. Like, like, that’s like, that’s her that’s how she’s decided to parent, to just kind of take this hands off approach. You know, just they’ll figure it out, you know. Good job, Mimi Rogers.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  I was impressed with her. Anyway, the girls go out to do this prank. Before they get there, they’re in a park and they stumble upon another dead dog and they comment, like, it it too is a rottweiler. And Ginger’s like, Oh great, well now we’ll have a body that will freak Katrina out even more. And they go to pick it up, but it’s totally like dismembered and so they can’t, but they, they know that it is still warm. Bridget says to Ginger, you got some on you. And we get a shot of Ginger’s thighs and blood running down her thighs. And she says, oh shit, I just got the curse.  Which I thought was just such a clever line.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  You know, like, because people really call it that. Mhmm. But it matches up so well with that idea of werewolfism, lycanthropy, whatever you wanna call it. And then immediately, Ginger is attacked by something and dragged off. Brigitte is hearing her scream and she’s running around trying to find her, but she can’t find her. And eventually, Ginger reappears and they they start trying to run together, but she’s immediately, attacked again, and she’s just being horribly mauled. It’s a wolf. I mean, it’s a werewolf.  Yeah. She beats she beats at it with her Polaroid camera on a strap, and gets it to go away momentarily. The camera goes off, and they go off running, and they run across the street, and the wolf is in pursuit, but it gets hit and killed by this drug dealer’s van. You know, we’ve seen this drug dealer before, but we don’t really know him yet. We get to know him later. They go back home, and, Ginger is terribly wounded, but she doesn’t want Bridget to tell anybody. She doesn’t wanna go to the hospital. And she says, it’s okay.  I already feel better. And her wounds are already healing. Yep. Really super quickly. And when Ginger cleans herself up and goes to sleep, Bridget, like, pries the Polaroid out of her camera and she sees the picture of the wolf. And from this point on, Ginger starts changing. But that’s when I think that the movie is particularly clever because all these changes that she goes through, growing hair in weird places, being moody, having this new bleeding, having this, you know, new found interest in things that she wasn’t interested before, carnal interests like lust, All of it could be explained by puberty. Yep.  Mhmm. It also could be explained by becoming a werewolf. But you know, the much more logical conclusion would be that she’s just she’s becoming a woman. I just thought it was so clever.

Todd:  Yeah. It’s really clever. It it is. And then a lot of this the the movie what takes it in directions that I wasn’t expecting and what makes it kind of unpredictable is its insistence on focusing on these 2 girls relationships. You know, a movie like this could just be this woman’s slow turn into a werewolf and her having to deal with it. And it’s a fairly predictable path that it’s soon gonna become unmanageable for her and there are gonna be more and more killings, it’s gonna be harder for her to hide, and blah blah blah. But in this case, it really the film really gets grounded in the relationship between these 2, and it’s like, here’s the 1 girl who’s not going through werewolfism or puberty, who’s feeling left behind. You know, it’s kind of a little bit of that tension we see in, you know, like, Something Wicked This Way Comes where these 2 really close friends Right.  Really close in age. And 1 is afraid of being left behind. And and her sister who’s going through this, at the same time, she can’t relate to it and she can’t cope with it. And she kind of hates to see that she’s interested in guys all of a sudden. And before, they used to make fun of other people, make fun of these guys and and these these, what they say, sluts and whatever like that. And now, she sees her sister making out with this dude, you know, hot and heavy in the middle of the day and, you know, on the side of a car. This could just be her going through puberty and we get the same kind of drama. Right? So it’s, it’s really interesting in that way and that’s what keeps the plot interesting is because the younger sister really becomes very protective of her and is really trying to solve the problem.  She she kinda catches on fairly early as to what’s going on because she meets up with a guy who was driving a van. He’s like the local drug dealer. He doesn’t go to the school, but you know, he’s a younger guy. He’s probably in his twenties. And he’s the 1 who hits the wolf, destroys it, I guess, destroys the wolf. That’s the idea that we get. He seeks her back out because he’s kinda curious as to what this thing was.

Clip:  See, I flatten an animal. Furry, all fours, could be anything. But here I am thinking, I can throw. Oh, that’s crazy, Look me into the rubber motel. I’m officially all fucked up. Right? What if you’re not? Well, that would explain the human circumcised dick and why you’re running for your life from it.

Todd:  And so they kind of form this little alliance as, the younger sister gets more and more worried about Ginger. They kind of band up a little bit to try to find ways to cure her. So there’s that aspect of the movie going on, at the same time Ginger is slowly trying to deal with things on her own.

Craig:  Right. And she does start to go through changes. And and like, she’s bleeding heavily. So they go talk to the nurse and the nurse just talks to them about periods. It’s kind of a darkly comedic in the vein of Heather’s scene, but I mean that’s the logical explanation.

Clip:  Yeah. A thick, syrupy, voluminous discharge is not uncommon. The bulk of the uterine lining is shed within the first few days. Contractions, cramps, squeeze it out like a pump. In 3 to 5 days you’ll find lighter bright red bleeding that may turn to a brownish or blackish sludge which signals the end of the flow.  Okay. So it’s all normal.  Very. Expected every 28 days, give or take, for the next 30 years.

Craig:  I I just thought the balance of the natural and the supernatural, like, the the natural and the supernatural, like, the lady could have been talking about either. It doesn’t really make any difference. It’s just this is what is happening and they’re both disturbed by it. Yeah. And it’s

Todd:  impossible to stop. Right? Right. Yeah. Right. So anyway, what Ginger does is just sort of a series of things. She ends up getting together with this Jason guy, and they have unprotected sex, in the back of the car, which turns out to be pretty bad for him because then he starts to exhibit these werewolf tendencies, but in a more much more sickly and panicky fashion. You know, this movie is really good from a female perspective. For once, the women in this movie are strong and they’re kind of in control Yeah.  Or they’re trying to get in control. They’re not painted as helpless victims. From a feminist perspective, I think this movie really, is clever. You know, even when she’s having sex with him in the back, seat of the car, she starts to get a little a little aggressive with him. And of course, it’s her werewolf tendency coming out. But once again, it could just be her. Like, who she is. Yeah.  And he says, woah woah Todd on. She’s like, what? Is it? Am I too strong for you? And he’s like, look, I’m the man here. And that pisses her off and she pins him down and says, oh, you’re the man, And she just starts tearing into him. And I thought, well, hell yeah. You know, this is this is good. Right? It’s a good subversion of these, tired tropes and, stereotypes that we have. And then, at the end of it, it’s the movie’s quite clever because we kind of think that maybe she ripped this kid apart and killed him.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  It’s so smart, like she goes to the home and she’s like, in in the bathroom throwing up and the sister comes in and discovers her and she’s

Craig:  covered with blood. Yeah.

Todd:  And she’s like, oh, I did, you know, I did it and whatever. And she’s like, oh, you’re kidding me. Where is where is he? And she says, next door. And the sister looks over the edge of the fence and then you realize they’re talking about the dog. She attacked the neighbor’s dog afterwards.

Craig:  Right. The little yappy dog. Norman. But the the other thing that and and you’ve already alluded to it, but that’s 1 of the things. You know, Ginger’s going through these changes and, like, on the 1 hand, at some points, she looks kind of rough. It’s kind of, you know, maybe a heightened version of like acne or skin problems or whatever that It’s not over the top that you notice that she’s not looking as good as she did before. But then, immediately after that, she starts to embrace her sexuality. Whereas before, she always dressed in these big baggy

Todd:  clothes. Doctor. Yes.

Craig:  Now, she’s wearing these tight fitting clothes. And like I said, she’s got a beautiful figure. And people are taking notice. It’s almost like she, you know, the first day she dresses sexy, she walks in and she’s a little bit nervous about it for a second until she starts getting all this attention. And then it’s like, yeah, bitch. Like That’s, like, that’s a fan stretch down the hall.

Todd:  That’s a fantastic shot. It’s exactly what you state, and it all happens in slow motion, and you see the change on her face in the span of maybe, I don’t know, 12 paces. Mhmm. But it happens slowly and gradually and very skillfully. And it’s not just like that slow motion of people turning and woah kind of thing, but it’s the look on her face changing from, oh my Todd, I’m really stepping out here and doing something new Todd, yeah, this is alright. This is me, you know, this is the new me. Yeah. It’s really, really good.

Craig:  Yeah. But along with these, you know, normal growing up changes, she’s also changing in other ways. She’s the claw marks on her shoulder are particularly hairy, and she’s concerned about that. And she’s growing a tail, which is problematic.

Todd:  And that’s and that’s kind of how, like, this this messes a little bit with the our typical werewolf legend is that she’s slowly transforming. It’s not like full moon comes out and this girl’s gonna be a 100%. Well, maybe I think the notion is that she’s slowly transforming over time. So that by the time that full moon day hits, she will be 100% werewolf. Instead of Right. You’re normal all the time with this terrible secret inside. And then when the full moon comes out and the clouds part, you know, suddenly you undergo this 5 minute transformation. So Right.  She’s gotta hide all these things too. Right? What to deal with? So so funny. I love I love that scene where they’re taping her tail. Her sister is literally taping her tail to her legs so that she can hide it underneath her her shorts while she’s out playing, field hockey.

Craig:  Yeah. And I thought I thought that was maybe a little nod to the boys. Like, boys go through changes during this time too.

Clip:  And sometimes things just pop up and you gotta find

Todd:  That’s right.

Craig:  That’s why that’s why elastic waistbands in your underwear are your friend in high school.

Todd:  That’s so true. Also also very difficult to hide at times.

Craig:  Right. Oh.

Todd:  Dude.

Craig:  But all this time, Bridget is is trying to solve this problem. At this point, it seems like Ginger, she kinda sees this as being problematic, but at the same time she’s enjoying some aspects of it

Todd:  Todd. Yeah.

Craig:  So she’s not particularly concerned about fixing it. Bridget is trying to fix it, and she is working with drug dealer Sam, and they talk about, you know, silver purifying the blood. And so he gives her a pure silver earring, and they pierce Ginger’s belly button with it in a somewhat erotic scene. Mhmm. It like, I kind of equate it to getting a tattoo. Like, it hurts, but it’s almost like, hurts so good. Like but that ends up not working. But he also tells them about monkshood because, you know, he’s a drug dealer, so he understands, like, pharmaceuticals.  Yes.

Todd:  He’s the local neighborhood pharmaceutical distributor.

Craig:  Right. I guess the next big thing that happens is Trina, the mean girl, is ticked off because she’s into Sam the drug dealer and Sam the drug dealer appears to be showing interest in Bridget. And now, both of these sisters have guys after them and I guess it makes Trina jealous. So, while they’re playing field hockey again, Trina checks Bridget and and throws her on the ground. And, like, you see Ginger, and then you almost hear, like, a growl, like, come up inside her. And she just attacks Trina. They go and visit Sam and not only is Ginger changing physically, but her personality is changing too. She’s becoming much more seductive and aggressive to the point where she’s disregarding Bridget Todd some extent.  It seems like Bridget maybe, maybe, maybe not, it doesn’t really matter. But Sam’s kinda her guy, and Ginger seems to wanna kinda flirt with him a little bit too. After they visit him and he tells them about the monkshood and whatever, blah blah, Ginger is aggressive and so Bridget sends her home ahead of her. And when Bridget goes to go home, Trina is waiting at their house and she says, Give me back my dog. Your sister took my dog. I saw her do it. So they get into it, and they end up in the house, and Ginger’s there too. And Ginger’s being very aggressive like she might hurt Trina.  But then, actually, just by sheer accident, Trina slips and falls and hits her head on the counter and dies. Yeah. And they have to hide it and cover it up. And, like, their parents are coming home and there’s blood everywhere. And they very cleverly just make it look like it’s 1 of their gory death shoots.

Todd:  Yeah. And isn’t this interesting at this point in the movie? You would have expected the scene to go where Ginger would have killed her. Right? Yeah. But it turns out to be an accident. I mean, it took me by surprise that that that that we really weren’t willing to paint Ginger 100% as this kind of sort of murderous person yet. I don’t know. You know, it just would have been a natural escalation of the situation and the story to make that happen, but her death ends up being an accident. And so Ginger is still innocent of taking anything but a dog’s life at this point.  I don’t know. What did you think of that?

Craig:  Yeah. I don’t know. I thought that it it was an unexpected plot point. I expected Ginger to kill her because I was just waiting for that to happen. I felt like that was an inevitability that she was going to kill somebody and then they were gonna have to cover it up, which does eventually happen, but not yet. And that surprised me. I also loved this scene because again, I can’t say enough about Catherine Isabel. I think she’s fantastic.  I love that when she’s confronted by these moments and confronted by her parents, that she can just turn it on. Mhmm. Yeah. Like, sometimes, sometimes when she’s just talking to her mom, she’s very snarky, and very much just like a teenage girl. But in these moments where she has to cover for herself, she puts a big old smile on her face and she’s all of a sudden just, Hi mommy. You know, very endearing. Again, it’s entirely manipulative, but she does it so well. And so much is going on.  You know, 1 of the things that we haven’t mentioned much is that Ginger continues to evolve. Her, transformation is slow, but so good. Her nails start to become brittle. There are subtle changes in her face. Her teeth are sharpening and looking noticeably different. It is a little bit unbelievable that nobody really notices that. Yeah. Especially her parents.

Todd:  Well, and and she’s talking with kind of a lispy sound in her mouth now with the teeth in there and that would be hard to not notice too because it’s noticeable to me.

Craig:  Right. My favorite thing about this movie is that the director said, No CGI. Doctor.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  He only wanted practical effects. I think the makeup work is so Todd. Doctor.

Todd:  Yeah. Doctor.

Craig:  Because it’s gradual. It’s so gradual over time. But by the end, when it’s still Catherine Isabel and not somebody in a suit, she is so changed. And you can tell, I mean, if you’re being really super critical and looking with a bird’s eye, you can tell that it’s makeup. But I don’t care. It looks real Yeah. And tangible. It doesn’t look like a cartoon.  I I just love practical facts. Love me some practical effects. Basically, a lot of stuff goes on. They end up getting in trouble. Trina’s dead. Obviously, people are looking for her. Bridget tells Ginger, you’re out of control. You just have to stay in the house, which Ginger is not happy about.  Somehow, Ginger ends up at school and gets called into the guidance office to be questioned about this murder, and she kills the guidance counselor.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And Bridget’s like, oh my Todd, I can’t believe this. Like, and so the plan that they come up with is we’re gonna get this cleaned up as best we can. We’re going to get this cure, which is the monks Todd, then we’re going to run away together. And we know that the monks hood works because they make up a batch of it like they’re making heroin or whatever. I don’t know how any of that works, but that’s what it looks like in movies when they do heroin, like boiling it in the spoon or whatever.

Todd:  It’s this is this guy’s laboratory. It’s how he’s used to work. Yeah.

Craig:  She Bridgette uses it on Jason, who Ginger had infected earlier. And it it it appears to work. Then what I feel like was kind of a major turning point is that she kills this custodian Yeah. Doctor. Who has been nothing but nice. In fact, he’s been very, very nice to Bridgette. And Ginger knows that. And so, the other people that she’s injured or killed have had questionable character.  This guy was a nice man. Yeah. He did not deserve what was coming to him. And I think that that was a turning point. That was showing that she is completely out of control.

Todd:  Ginger has snapped. Yep. Yeah.

Craig:  Yeah. Which even the title is

Todd:  The title’s clever. Yeah. So clever. It’s a cookie, she snapped and, you know, the werewolf can snap its jaws. I mean, it’s a it’s a good title.

Craig:  It’s very clever. At this point, she’s totally vicious and hurt she looks vicious. Fucking

Clip:  dot.

Todd:  And

Clip:  after, right on the dot. And after, see fireworks, supernovas, a goddamn force of nature. I feel like I could do just about anything.

Craig:  She even gets seductive with Bridget and says something like, we’re almost not even related anymore. Yeah. But she also pulls out that card, we have a pact. And so Bridget, is still trying to help her. Meanwhile, it’s somewhat inconsequential overall to, the plot, but the mom finds Trina, the dead girl.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And so while Bridget is trying to track down Ginger, this is Halloween night by the way, this is a great Halloween movie. Yeah.

Todd:  If you

Craig:  haven’t seen this movie, watch it on Halloween. It’s a great Halloween movie. She finds Trina and she picks up Bridgette off the street and says, Where’s your sister? Bridgette says she’s at the greenhouse. That’s where this big Halloween party is going down. And then the mom has this great scene where she shows Bridget the fingers that she found.

Clip:  It’s 1 thing if you leave. It’s it’s almost normal, but no one’s gonna take you from me. First thing tomorrow, let the house fill up with gas and I’ll light a match. What? We’ll start fresh, just as girls. It’ll be fun. What about dad? They’ll just blame me. They all will.

Craig:  And Bridget says, but it this isn’t your fault. And the mom so sincerely says, yes, it is. And that’s just it. Like, that’s the end of the scene. Like, she takes she takes responsibility for it. Like, I I guess her hands off approach, she realized, has not worked.

Todd:  Yeah. It’s really interesting. Like, this element of the movie, I was not expecting this element, you know. And and that’s what makes this mother more than just a cartoon character. Oh, the goofy mom who’s totally out of touch with her daughters. She really cares and she’s willing to go that extra mile and it also makes it a little funny, you know. Mhmm. It’s just a little funny that suddenly mom is willing to get in on all this Todd, which is not what you expected when she pulled up, in that car and said get in.  Right?

Craig:  Yeah. And it is funny, but because it’s not played for comedy Mhmm. It works that much better, I think. Like, it’s played completely sincerely. Yeah. There’s certainly humor there, but they’re not it’s not a punch line.

Todd:  No. You’re right.

Craig:  And it just really works for me. This all leads up okay, so they get to the party. It’s a big, great Halloween party. Ginger at this point is in the final stages of her transformation. Her hair has turned completely white, her face has morphed a lot. So like, you know, the bridge of her nose has vastly widened, Her teeth are all sharp and pointy. Her nails, of course, she’s still hiding her tail, but we know that her tail at this point is long, like a dog’s tail. I don’t know how she’s hiding it in these skimpy little outfits that she’s wearing, but And at the party, she tries to seduce Sam, and Sam turns her away.  He comes across as a really endearing character. There’s a really interesting moment before Trina dies where she confronts Bridget and she says, don’t trust him. I feel like she calls him like a cherry picker or something like that.

Todd:  Mhmm. Yeah.

Craig:  Like, she says he’s into virgins and he just wants to take girls’ virginity. Don’t fall for it. I wish just for once, 1 girl wouldn’t fall for it. As though she had. Mhmm. And it it calls into question his character, but that’s really the only time because the actor who plays him makes him very endearing.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  But I thought that it was an interesting point anyway,

Todd:  nonetheless. Well, it’s interesting because even in the midst of all of this with the werewolf in this drama, we still have this high school stuff going on. Right? Yeah. Uh-huh. Her sister is a little jealous that she’s got this guy and then she’s gonna go and she’s gonna seduce him and she’s trying to turn him away from her and she’s rolling her eye. The guy’s saying to her, I don’t even think of you that way. Like, there’s all this high school stuff still going on in the midst of this. But, again, it’s not played for comedy.  It’s dead serious.

Craig:  Yeah. So Ginger breaks Sam’s arm. At least, it certainly sounds like that. But then he runs around for the next 20 minutes. Yeah. Seemingly fine. So I don’t know what’s going on.

Todd:  Who knows what happened to him right now?

Craig:  The way that Bridget gets Ginger to continue to trust her, I suppose, is that she cuts both of their hands and they swap blood. And and Bridget says, You wrecked everything about me that wasn’t you. Now, I am you. And Ginger says, I know you are, but what am I? And I thought that was so freaking clever. Yeah. Like, what, you know, that stupid thing that kids say to each other. But in this context, it was so heavy. Like, yeah, I know you are, but what am I? Like she doesn’t even know what she is anymore and what all of this means.  They go to leave, but Sam knocks Ginger out and Bridge is like, What are you doing? I just got her to trust me. But, they they get her in the back of his van and they head back to their house so that they can get the monks hoods so that they can cure them both. But meanwhile, in the back of the van, Ginger is going through her final transformation and she transforms fully into a werewolf. And so they get back to the house and Ginger breaks out of the back of the van and is running around the house destroying everything. Sam and Bridget end up in a closet trying to prepare the monkshood, which they do. Sam tries to get Bridget just to take it herself and then leave with him, but she won’t leave her sister. And so Sam says, alright, well, I’ll go hide in the living room, you lure her to me, I’ll jump out and inject her and it will all be over. And that’s what they’re going to do, but as soon as he steps out of the closet, he’s attacked.

Todd:  That was shocking.

Craig:  Yeah. Well, I mean, I I didn’t have high hopes for Sam.

Todd:  No. But I but I expected more of a showdown, you know. I mean, you kind of think you’re coming up to this scene where he’s, like, alright. Let’s go. And the 2 of them are gonna I mean, he’s probably gonna die. But, you know, there would be some fight to it. No. The minute he dugs out of it, he doesn’t even get out of the closet.  He’s pulled out of it and torn to pieces. Yeah. Yeah. It’s crazy.

Craig:  Well, she she rips him up and there’s blood everywhere and Bridgette, he drops the syringe. So she’s got it. And she follows the trail of blood down there and Sam is sitting up against the wall totally mauled, but he’s like panting. And based on what we had seen earlier in the movie, my understanding was that the only reason he wasn’t dead was because he was now infected. And, you know, his werewolfy powers were keeping him from actually dying. But Bridgette, in an attempt to try to keep Ginger trusting her, crawls up to Sam and starts to eat his blood. And the 2 of them, Ginger and Bridgette, sit there on either side of him licking up blood for a while.

Todd:  It’s like an unholy threesome.

Craig:  It is. It is.

Todd:  It is.

Craig:  But eventually, Bridgette vomits and says, I can’t do it and I I won’t do it. And then that leads up to the ultimate, the the finale.

Todd:  Yeah. And the finale is interesting. It’s kind of clever because at this point, this woman’s a full werewolf. And actually, I liked the effect here. It wasn’t it still looked like a puppet or whatever. It times a puppet. It very quick times a man in a suit. But I thought it was skillfully enough filmed that it looked good.  And I I loved it. I thought

Craig:  it looks great.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. And, and so anyway, there’s just kind of a scene and they end up back in their bedroom, which is where where they started the movie. Mhmm. Right? Which is the the place where the 2 of them have their pact and whatever. And there’s an interesting face off where finally, Bridget’s backed in the corner. Ginger, as the werewolf, is slowly advancing on her. And Bridget says, I am not gonna die in this room with you.  She’s renouncing the pact. And in 1 hand, she has the cure, and the other hand, she has the knife that she picked up off the ground. It was the same knife that Right. Ginger was using to try to cut off her tail. And Ginger leaps at her.

Clip:  She ends up landing on the knife

Todd:  and that’s enough to take her down. I guess it takes her

Craig:  to heart

Todd:  or something. It’s sad. It’s really sad.

Craig:  It’s so sad. I mean Because she’s laying there dying and Bridget goes over to her and just holds her and Ginger stops breathing and she dies. And we see them there together and then it shows us all of their pictures taped up all over Yeah. Their wall of the 2 of them before all this had happened. And it just broke my heart. Yeah. Like, so sad. And I I, you know, I feel like the metaphor is extended there too.  Like, you know, maybe these types of relationships don’t end in death, but sometimes these close relationships die Yeah. When 1 person grows up and leaves the other person behind. And, seriously, like, I I finished the movie and I went and and sat back with my partner and he was like, how was it? And I was like, it was really good. It was really sad. And he was like, a sad horror movie? Uh-huh. He said, yes. It was heartbreaking. It was so sad.  And it just the the camera lingers on them there together for a while and then the credits roll.

Todd:  That’s it.

Craig:  And, that’s it.

Todd:  And now, I’ve got a question for you here because I I don’t know how to interpret this. She’s standing there. She’s got the knife in 1 hand, and she has the cure in the other hand, and they’re facing off. And she looks at Ginger and she says, do you want this don’t you? And she waves the cure in the air. Uh-huh. Now, did Ginger leap intentionally onto the knife instead of onto that syringe?

Craig:  I don’t think so. I think what she meant when she said, do you want this was you wanna get it away from me. 0II think at this point Ginger did not want to be

Todd:  cured. Really?

Craig:  Just just That that’s my that’s my take on it. I I mean, I think that she was going whether or not she planned to kill Bridget or turn her, I don’t think well, and she was already turned.

Todd:  That’s true. So

Craig:  III think that, I think that her carnal nature had just completely taken over.

Todd:  You think that you think that she’s completely out of out of control of herself? She was no longer Ginger, no no longer able to think rationally? Or do you think that in some way, she was like trying Todd her best to fulfill her side of the pact?

Craig:  No. It it could be either 1, but I think either way, she meant to kill her.

Todd:  Oh, it’s it’s a it’s a great great movie. III loved it the first time I saw it. And, I was just going back and reading my little review of it there. And, yeah, I gushed over it then in print. And I think we’re we’ve been gushing over it here now on the podcast. It’s a fantastic film, well acted, well shot, just really well written, extremely clever. And, I would strongly suggest that if you’re into this kind of, you know, if you wanna see a really good a good horror movie that’s gonna make you think and it’s gonna tug at your heartstrings quite quite a bit, you gotta go and seek this 1 out. And there’s sequels too.  Right? You’ve probably seen them.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  I bet.

Craig:  I have. The sequels are are kind of a mixed bag. I mean, I still enjoyed them because both original actresses appear in both of them. Catherine Isabel isn’t in the second 1 very much, But I’m pretty sure she’s in it. I don’t remember if it’s just like in dream sequences or if she, like her spirit appears. I don’t really remember. But I remember liking it, the second 1. And then the third 1, again, I liked it, but it was really kind of cheap because really all they did was do the exact same movie again set in a different time period.  Like it was like in colonial times and these were supposed to be Ginger and Bridget’s ancestors What? Who were also sisters and looked exactly like them

Todd:  and all the exact same thing. Oh my Todd. Are you kidding me?

Craig:  No. I mean, I I still enjoyed them, but they they don’t live up to the original. You talked about the writing, the woman who wrote this was reluctant to write it, because of the way that women are typically portrayed in horror and the director who she had worked with before told her, No, that’s why we’re doing it. We’re gonna subvert that. And I think that they did, but not in a way that seems forced. Just, you know, these are really interesting characters. They’re not just fodder for, you know, male fantasies of what women are or bodies to pile up. You know, these are interesting characters that you come to care about.  I came to care about them and I cared about their relationship. And I give this 1 a glowing endorsement. I had forgotten how much I liked it. And so I’m glad that we, came back to revisit it because I I think that I enjoyed it as much this time around as the first time, if not more. I will surely watch it again

Todd:  Me too. In the future. Me too. And a good Halloween movie like you said.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Lots of Halloween decorations and costumes and fun stuff. That being said, Halloween, October is our favorite month here on the podcast and we have been doing this for long enough now that, we’re stretching for ideas for great Halloween movies. So if you have any recommendations for us, let us know. I’m sure we’ll come up with something. But if you, know something that we maybe haven’t done in the past, shoot us a request and we’ll see what we can do.

Todd:  Yep.

Craig:  Anyway, if you like this podcast, you can find us all over the place. We are on Facebook. We have our own website which is

Todd:  2 guys dot redfortinet.com.

Craig:  Thank you very much. And, really, you can find us just by googling us. We, anywhere you get your podcast, you will find us. Until next time. I’m Craig.

Todd:  And I’m Todd.

Craig:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

In the USA, it’s known as Dead Alive. The rest of the world knows this early Peter Jackson film as Braindead. But Jackson’s passions for practical effects, humor, and cartoonish violence are up there on the screen, as is bucketloads of gore. Braindead is often cited as the goriest film ever made, and it’s hard to dispute. But it’s a big favorite of Todd’s, and a request from at least one of our listeners over the years. Enjoy!

Episode 188, 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:  Today, we’re hitting another request. This is from Vincent requesting this all the way from Norway. He asked us to do Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead, better known stateside as Dead Alive due to the fact that there’s another horror film called Brain Dead, which we should probably do sometime. Dead Alive. Now, Craig, I have a really I have to full disclosure here. This is one of my favorite movies. In college, I stumbled across this movie. Absolutely loved it.  This is my first introduction to Peter Jackson. And as soon as I saw this movie, I got it on VHS. I showed it to all my friends. I’ve watched it. I don’t know, so many times. You know, I’m not the kind of guy who rewatches movies, generally. Yeah. And aside from some of those when I was a kid, you know, you would just tend to rewatch movies.  I don’t usually do that. But as far as horror movies go, I think I could kinda name on one hand, probably this movie, Evil Dead, Sorority House Massacre 2, maybe Army of Darkness that I’ve seen more than 2 or 3 times. Mhmm. And I will actually think about just popping in. That is how special this movie is for me. So it’s gonna be very hard for me to be a 100% objective about this.

Craig:  That’s okay.

Todd:  But coming back to it, I actually hadn’t seen it in years. I probably haven’t seen it for a good 8 or 9 years. So I actually was a little surprised at some of the things I’d forgotten about it. But for me, it would just made it even more charming. So that’s my history with this movie. How about you?

Craig:  I don’t know. I know I’ve seen it before. When you said let’s do Brain Dead, I was like, oh, I’ve never seen that. You’re like and you said it was Peter Jackson. And I said, wait, it’s not the one with the Sumatran rat monkey, is it? And you’re like, yeah, yeah it is. It’s the one. It’s because it’s because I

Vincent:  only knew it

Todd:  as Dead Alive.

Craig:  I didn’t know, that that wasn’t the original title. And I don’t remember when I first saw it. Maybe in college or graduate school, something like that. Gosh, I don’t really have I had some memories, like, I I remembered some of the effects and stuff. I remembered it being super, super bloody, which it is. It’s really gory. And I remembered it being funny. This time around, watching it, I don’t know.  I’m glad that you’re going to be super enthusiastic about it because I feel bad saying this because I feel like any good horror fan should just be, like, peeing their pants about this movie. Because it is so good in so many ways and like it’s innovative and creative and it’s clearly made with a lot of love. I don’t know. I just don’t know if I was in the wrong state of mind yesterday and by wrong state of mind, I mean sober. Wow. And I don’t know. Like, it was good. I still appreciated a lot of it.  I just I didn’t love it.

Todd:  But I’m

Craig:  gonna pretend like I did. No.

Todd:  You gotta be completely honest.

Craig:  I feel like I feel like I should. Like, it’s one of those movies that I can watch. I’m like, oh, you should love this. Put me in such a butthole. So I don’t know. Maybe talking about it that this happens sometimes. Sometimes when I talk about something with you, I I appreciate it more. So we’ll see.

Todd:  This is gonna be good for me because it’s gonna be a good counterpoint. It’s gonna force me to have reevaluate things in a way I wouldn’t have normally. And so it’s gonna hopefully add some much needed depth to our usual shallow conversation. You know, when I first stumbled out of this movie, Peter Jackson wasn’t really a household name. Mhmm. Now we everybody, he’s so famous. He’s Oh, yeah. Especially for taking on that incredible project of Lord of the Rings, which was very, very well received.  Yeah. Then he went and did his dream project, King Kong, which, depending on who you talk to, it’s overly long and, maybe just a little too grandiose. And then he went on to do The Hobbit movies. And I’m not sure I’ve ever talked to anybody who didn’t think that The Hobbit movies, which is a case of where he took this extremely simple and quite nice and well regarded story, and just went overboard with expanding into this complex three film thing. I guess he was trying to provide a nice lead up to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Yeah. But, Todd, I watched the second Hobbit movie, and I could barely get through it. And I didn’t even I know.  Bother to watch the third one. It’s just insane.

Craig:  Were there 3? I don’t remember. I thought there were only 2. But, anyway 3? Yeah. Yeah. I agree. But The Lord of the Rings, I mean Oh. All the attention all the attention it gets, it it Todd deserves it. I mean, those were great movies.  And I love Peter Jackson’s King Kong. I love it. Like, I I I weep at the end. Oh, good. Like, I am an emotional wreck at the end of that movie. I love it.

Todd:  He’s always been kind of accused of of well, lately, especially, and even with King Kong, I think, was accused a little bit of preferring spectacle over almost anything else. I mean, he’s got I don’t know. You know, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He’s really good at doing this action stuff. Mhmm. It’s just all this complex action and things. It got a little ridiculous in some of these movies. I remember in The Hobbit movie where they’re, like, riding down the water at a barrels and people are, like, straddling 2 barrels and stuff while they’re fighting.  And it’s, like, oh, come on. It it gets a little silly.

Craig:  I remember that.

Todd:  But it has its roots in these kind of films. In fact, once I got to know him from this movie, I went back and saw his even earlier films. And Peter Jackson is a total film geek. He’s a guy after my own heart. He’s the kinda guy who grew up just enamored with stop motion and with special effects and makeup effects and practical stuff. And that was kind of his entree into the films. Like, his very first movie, Bad Taste, which is also very similar to this on a much smaller scale, very low budget, but it’s about aliens kind of invading this small New Zealand town. It’s got a lot of gore, a lot of gross out stuff, but very inventive.  Really makes a lot of use of the low budget. And for its low budget, it has these goofy, but they still work practical effects in it. And he went from that movie to make this insane have you heard of Meet the Feebles?

Craig:  I’ve heard of it and I wanna see it, but I haven’t seen it.

Todd:  It’s hard to find. Now not anymore, of course. You can find anything on the Internet. But at the time that I was looking for it, it was very hard to find. I had to, like, order it special. I think it was, like, an imported VHS or something. Uh-huh. But it is basically the Muppets on crack.  It’s the Muppets, but it’s taken this total twist and there’s, like, a bunny that just has sex with tons of women that, like, there’s, like, a Kermit the Frogish type character that’s strung out on heroin. It’s this total dysfunctional, hilarious, and in totally bad taste, Muppets. And so, it’s funny that he goes from these kind of movies. And I I you know, Dead Alive isn’t too far from that as far as taste goes. But then he comes into these very mainstream film. He did Heavenly Creatures before he ever did,

Craig:  Oh, I forgot about that.

Todd:  Yeah. So he’s got he’s got a range, and he’s a very, very good story teller. And he partners up with a woman named Fran Walsh, who, right, you know, in a lot of these films was his co writer and, was very responsible for the making The Lord of Rings as good as they were. And I the one thing I have to say about this movie, especially going back and seeing it again, is it is a very, I think, very well constructed story. Mhmm. It’s got a good plot. It starts out super interesting. It never lets up, but it builds in a very natural and interesting way, compounding these problem after problem on this character.  Mhmm. It’s never boring. And it just you don’t really it’s not super predictable either. Like, you really don’t know where it’s gonna go. And I just think it’s a great example. If I were teaching, like, screenwriting to students, I would hold up this screenplay as an example of a very well constructed story for the screen.

Craig:  Sure. Yeah. I I I mean, I liked it. The thing is, you know, I I say that I just wasn’t super in love with it. But I don’t really have anything bad to say about it. I I the I didn’t think that it had really any problems. I thought that it was very charming. The lead guy, the his character’s name is Lionel.  He’s played by Tim the bomb, of course. I don’t know any of these actors because they’re New Zealand actors. And I don’t know

Todd:  I I Who cares about them anyway? You know?

Craig:  Or I know. I didn’t even look into their history. I don’t know. But, you know, he’s a good looking guy, but still kind of like a guy next door kinda guy. And Yeah. But, you know, he finds himself in these, you know, terrible situations. And and you root for him, like, because he is such a nice guy. And the plot is, like you said, it’s not incredibly complex or anything, but it does stay interesting and it builds.  And I was always interested in what was going to come next and how he was gonna deal with these things that were coming up. I agree with you. It’s it’s well written.

Todd:  It’s charming and endearing in this way that, well, I would say at its heart, it’s the story of a man’s love for his mother.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  You know? And and that’s what’s so endearing about this character is he’s just this kind of pathetic, but charming and easygoing kind of guy who’s clearly overshadowed by his mother, who is Uh-huh. This total witch. Right. Very stereotypical. Actually, every character in this movie and part of what makes it so fun is just the cartoonish nature of it. And that really goes back to the characters, like, every single one of them. Even though they’re this sort of stereotype, they still feel very human and real. Don’t they? I feel like that.  I mean, the mother, maybe not. And some of it, like the priest and all that. Of course, they’re very cartoonish. But this guy

Craig:  And my uncle. Yeah.

Todd:  Yeah. But but still, like, it’s not distracting. You know? It doesn’t it just feels fun and not, Yeah. Not like poor writing or or poor acting or anything like that. The very first scene is a bit it kind of introduces the Sumatran rat monkey.

Craig:  Yeah. I love that. Which we don’t find out until later, but, like, they later somebody says, yeah. They say that, like, the rats from the slave ships, like, got off the boat and raped the tree monkeys. It made the sumat rat monkeys. And you see this thing. And what is it? Is it it’s is it stop motion? Is that I mean, you only see it for a little while, but it’s stop motion. It’s so ugly, but it’s hilarious.

Todd:  Yeah. It’s hilariously ugly. It’s somebody it’s stop motion that somebody did in a basement somewhere, but, you know, it’s still kinda cute and it’s disgusting.

Craig:  It looks it looks like a rat monkey. Yeah.

Todd:  Absolutely. Not like anything that somebody would wanna bring back to a zoo. Let’s put it that way.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  But but that’s exactly what this is. We’re on Skull Island, I think.

Craig:  Yeah. Because that’s that’s King Kong’s Island.

Todd:  Yeah. Exactly. It’s cool.

Vincent:  He had

Todd:  this, you know, clearly he loved King Kong so much. He had

Vincent:  this throwback. Little would he know he’d go on to direct King Kong. Right.

Todd:  That’s so cool.

Craig:  They could have called King Kong, like, rat monkey 2. Curse of the Kong or something.

Todd:  I think he would’ve had a much narrower audience if he’d done that. Anyway, there’s this guy. I guess he’s a zoologist. And he has this permit that he can come in from the New Zealand government and take a specimen back. And he’s got this rat monkey in a cage. We don’t really see it because the cage is very enclosed. But they’re running from natives. It’s all quite stereotypical.  But, also, this is set back in the past. And that was one thing I forgot about this movie is it takes place, like, in the fifties.

Craig:  Is it? The fifties? I couldn’t I wrote it down. Yeah. Yeah. You’re right. 1957.

Todd:  Mhmm. And so, you know, their natives are chasing him, blah blah blah, and they’re escaping. And he gets on they get in the truck, and he’s got his local tour guide with him, and they take off. But in the midst of all of this drama, he ends up getting bit through the cage by this rat monkey. And as soon as the his guides see that he’s bit by this monkey, suddenly they screech to a halt. They kick him out of the truck and they point at his, at his arm and goes, you have the bite. And, he’s like, what? What? What? And they hack off his hand. And then they’re like, there’s over there.  And they see a scratch on his arm, and they cut off his other arm. And then they look at his head, and they see there’s a scratch on his head. And they cut off his head, and then we get the credits. So, clearly, there’s something wrong with the getting a bite from the Sumatran Sumatran rat monkey.

Craig:  But Mhmm.

Todd:  It doesn’t stop those guys from making sure that thing makes it back to New Zealand and getting their money out of it before they before they go. So this ends up in the zoo. That’s the opening to the movie. Meanwhile, we go to this guy. Actually, it starts out really more focused on this woman. She’s, like, a Mhmm. A Spanish gal, very young, cute, runs a little shop. She’s enamored by this guy who comes by and gives deliveries to them.  And his her older, like, grandmother type character pulls her in the back and says, let me read your fortune. And she’s going to read this fortune because she noticed that her granddaughter or whatever maybe daughter, I don’t know, likes this guy.

Vincent:  There will be one romance, and it shall last forever, and you will become

Todd:  And she lays it out a couple cards down and and the girl goes, well, what’s this card? And it’s like the doom card or something like that. And she’s like, oh, that’s nothing. That’s nothing. She just starts to put her cards away. So she thinks it’s about this guy. But pretty soon, the main character, Lionel, comes into the shop and he’s this total buffoon. Like, he’s bumping into things and knocking fruit down and everything like that. And she’s just a little, put off by him until some of the things that he knocks over turn out in that shape of the star and the crescent.  It’s like 2 pencils and, like, a piece of licorice or something. And as soon as she sees this, like, her whole attitude towards him completely changes. And now, she’s like, I’ve gotta get with this guy. And he’s like, probably never been approached by a woman before. And so he just sort of backs out of the shop. And so the next part of this movie is her just constantly imposing herself upon this guy who really just would rather take care of his mother. And it’s not like he wouldn’t want to be with her, but it seems like his mother is just a full time project, and he has no time in his life for anything else.

Vincent:  Well, it’s

Craig:  funny because that’s what that’s one of the things that makes him so endearing. The first guy, the the sexy delivery guy or whatever, like, he’s this hunky guy and she’s taken with him and then she’s not taken with Lionel at first, but then eventually she is. But, you know, he’s just awkward. I think he’s a really handsome guy. Like

Todd:  He is.

Craig:  Yeah. I I think that the only reason that he hasn’t had girlfriends or whatever is because he’s so put upon by his mother. Not only because he feels, I guess, you know, it’s his mom, so he wants to take care of her, but she totally exploits that too and she’s incredibly controlling. When she even finds out that there’s a girl interested in him, doesn’t she, like, forbid him to see her?

Todd:  Something like that. What she calls her, a sweaty, greasy Sweat

Craig:  shop girl.

Todd:  Girl. Yeah. I’m like, I forbid you to see her. That kind of thing. Yeah.

Craig:  You feel bad for him. It was it it felt like there were definite, Norman Bates type. You know? Like, he’s not a crazy psychopath, but you feel like give it a couple years

Todd:  and Right.

Craig:  Maybe he could be. Because that’s, you know, that’s what it seems like. It’s that kind of mother son relationship where she’s just incredibly controlling. And the actress that plays her, Elizabeth Moody, she’s again, I don’t recall ever having seen her or anything, but she’s got kind of a Bette Davis vibe. Like, she doesn’t look like Bette Davis, but she’s just kind of got that kind of husky voice and

Clip:  There’s a beacon. Right. There, under the bridge. Horrid little creature scuttled right in front of me. I thought I told you to spray this house.

Craig:  And she guilts him all the time, like, that he’s not good enough to her and he’s not taking care of her when, really, he’s bending over backwards to Yeah. Satisfy her every whim. But, yeah, that’s what I mean, and that’s what it becomes. Paquita really, really is, putting the moves on him. And he’s interested.

Vincent:  Mhmm.

Craig:  But, the mom has got a close eye on it and she doesn’t like it. But Paquita somehow convinces Lionel to take her to the zoo. Like, he just mentions the zoo and she’s like, yeah, I’d love to go. Thanks for inviting me. Like, not exactly in those words, but like she totally invites herself.

Vincent:  Yeah.

Craig:  And so they go off to the zoo and they have a funny little like it’s so many parts of it, especially here in the beginning are played so light. Yeah. Like it’s like, oh, here’s a fun little zoo day. Funny, you know, music in the background. It feels kind of very fifties romance. And they go around the zoo and they see all the animals and it’s all very cute. And then they see the monkey house and they’re watching

Vincent:  these cute monkeys when all

Craig:  of a sudden, this Why

Todd:  Why would you even have it in the zoo? It’s not even pleasant to look at. There’s

Craig:  Oh, god. No. It’s hideous.

Todd:  And, the mother has been following them out there because, again, she’s very controlling. And, she ends up against the cage and gets her arm bitten by this Sumatran rat monkey right on her wrist. And she lets out a scream, and he finds her, and they take her home.

Craig:  Not before she she stomps it.

Todd:  That’s right. She’s such a nice touch in this movie that she herself is almost a worse character than anybody else. Yeah. She just stomps it dead with her heel of her thing. So the rat monkey’s dead. They go back home. And this begins the mother’s slow and very comical deterioration. And it’s really deep because you hate this mom, so it’s fun to kinda see these things happen to her.  There’s really very little sympathy for her character in this movie. She’s super excited that she has become the, she’s a candidate for the president of this women’s organization

Vincent:  Uh-huh.

Todd:  That is told to us earlier on. And so after he brings her home, and he goes up, and he’s sitting by her bed, and she just looks like hell. And he unwraps the bandage on her arm, and she has this this wound that’s like it has a heartbeat of its own. It’s pulsing, and it’s, like It’s

Craig:  a kid.

Todd:  Starting to ooze things. And he’s got this little, cotton ball that he’s using to dab it, and it’s doing absolutely nothing. And it’s so funny. And then come come to the door, all of a sudden, are 2 representatives from this league that are going to talk with her. And so it’s, like, her big day. And he’s, like, we should probably tell them to go home. And she’s, like, no. And she throws them out of the way and goes to the goes to the mirror to start putting on her makeup for them.  And the first thing she does is try to put on some eyeliner or something. I don’t know what it was. And a piece of skin just, like, peels off her face and she just looks in the mirror and goes, He goes,

Craig:  oh, Todd. It’s so gross.

Todd:  It’s so gross, but it’s so funny. And and he, just being the doting son, barely skips a beat. He goes and gets, like, some some glue and tries to paste it back on. And this is the kind of thing this is the shtick for the movie. Right? It’s just him increasingly trying to control the situation as it’s slowly spiraling out of control. It’s very reminiscent, actually, of Evil Dead in that way. Right? I mean

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Very reminiscent of Evil Dead, where Bruce Campbell just, like, gets piled upon and piled upon massive problems after another and ends up covered in gore and just at his wits end by the end of it. Yeah. But for this one, it’s just so charming because it his love for his mother never wavers, even though she becomes this huge, you know, monster by the end of it. He still is trying to salvage the situation. He just doesn’t know what else to do. So, Yeah. They go down, and then they have and what I the other thing I kinda like about this movie is it starts out with this truly gross out stuff, like, kind of stomach churning, disgusting things, like this scene where they’re having dinner. And it’s comical.  It’s super comical. But this husband and wife who have come to visit are sitting across from each other at the table, and they’re bickering a little bit while the son is sitting at the end of the table, and the mom is at the other end of the table, and she’s clearly completely gone. Like, she can’t even, like, put stuff in her mouth. There are pieces of her falling apart, and they’re all trying to be rather polite about it and act as though it’s not going on.

Craig:  Well, the husband is just completely oblivious. Yeah. Like, the wife notices these things, but the husband doesn’t notice anything. The wife tries to get them out of there at some point, and, the husband’s like, before dessert? And and so the guy brings out this custard and and or Lionel brings it out, and the guy’s like, oh, it’s been forever since I’ve had a good custard. And he starts eating it. He’s like, it’s so good. And then, like, the mom just, like it’s just so gross. Like, the puss just, like, squirts out of her into his custard, and then he keeps eating it.  Like, it almost makes me wanna throw up just talking about it.

Todd:  It’s so disgusting.

Craig:  And then her freaking the mom’s ear falls off into her custard and she eats that. And, like, the wife is seeing all this. It’s so it’s really gross. If you have a hard time with gore, don’t watch this movie because it is it really is stomach churning. I’m usually okay with gore. The older I get, the harder it is for me for some reason. Yeah. It’s really, really gross.

Todd:  The earlier stuff where the pus is oozing out and people are eating it and that kind of stuff is really, really hard to watch. And then it kind of becomes this comical gore fest that’s so over the top cartoonish that it’s just fun. I don’t know. I just I that’s what I would say. It just becomes really fun. It’s not quite as gross unless you’re really sensitive to it. Yeah. My wife could never watch this movie in in a million years.  Right. The people have said this is the bloodiest movie ever made. You know, who knows? How do you measure that sort of thing? They said by just pure gallons of blood, the final scene in this movie used, like, 300 liters of fake blood alone. And I would put it up there. I don’t I honestly I’m not sure we’ve seen a gorier movie than this one. Have we?

Craig:  Oh, gosh. I don’t know. I mean, the Evil Dead movies are pretty gory.

Todd:  The But even still

Craig:  The and the the Evil Dead remake was pretty gory. I’m pretty sure I’ve read that that record has been broken.

Todd:  Broken by something else?

Craig:  By something else. But whatever. I mean, it’s it’s tons of blood and gore throughout.

Todd:  And it’s purely for the sake of it. I mean, and it’s bald on its face. Like, there are moments in here that are like, you know, some of these older Chinese kung fu movies, you know, where blood will just literally just spray like a fire hose out of someone’s arm or, you know, whatever.

Craig:  Right. Right. It just

Todd:  gets hilarious. It’s hilariously over the top in that way. So that happens and they go and I don’t know. I mean, we don’t have to go beat by beat through every single scene in this film. But basically, what happens is eventually his mother gets more and more sick and still the girl’s coming over and she’s trying to put the moves on him.

Craig:  And the mom eats her dog, her big dog. I thought that was so funny. In, like, 30 like, it’s I don’t know. It’s like a like a golden retriever and something like that. And, like it runs up the stairs and you hear I don’t know if you hear like the dog yelp or the mom screams or something and they run up there and the son sees something sticking out of her mouth, and he pulls out. I don’t know if it was the dog’s tail or its leg or what, but, like, the insinuation was that she ate the whole damn dog in, like, 30 seconds. Seconds.

Vincent:  He pulls

Todd:  it’s this long scene. It’s at least 10 seconds long where he pulls this whole hairy thing out of her mouth intact. And then the girl says, your mother ate my dog. And he says, well, she didn’t eat all of it. And the camera pans out, and there’s this huge mess on the bed of, like, the bones and the rest of the dog. It is so funny. And, actually, apparently, the Spanish title of this movie is which literally translates

Craig:  You’re mommy my dog. That’s hilarious.

Todd:  Yeah. Oh, gosh. Dude.

Craig:  I guess, Paquita sees the mom or they’re like, she’s really sick. You need to call the nurse. So the nurse comes over and she’s like, oh, it’s bad. We need to call for an ambulance. While the nurse is calling for an ambulance, the mom dies. Paquita’s upstairs. She doesn’t know the mom has died. She’s packing an overnight bag for her or something.  And the nurse is like, it’s okay, talking to, Lionel. It’s okay, you know, everything’s gonna be all right. There are lots of people that care about you. We’re gonna get you through this. And then, from behind, the mom wakes up, but she’s like a zombie now. And somehow, she cuts the woman’s throat, like, all the way to the back of her spine. Not all the way through, but like Todd her spine so that, like, her head, like, flops back but is still connected. And they use that gag for the rest of the movie.  She’ll write her head, but then at key points that will, like, fall over backwards. Like, oh, it’s so funny.

Todd:  Yeah. Like, her head is like a PEZ dispenser or something.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then the nurse becomes a mom Todd, and they both attack Lytle. And he ends up throwing them both in the basement and then Paquita comes down and she’s like, where’s your mom? And he’s like, they went to the hospital. And she’s like, well, I didn’t even hear the ambulance. And he’s, well, the nurse took her in her car and he just tries to get rid of her which he does. You know, a lot of things happen.

Todd:  They have a funeral for the mom. I don’t remember how but, eventually, he kind of decides she’s sort of decides she’s dead or

Craig:  No. She’s not dead. He goes to some weird doctor. Like, I didn’t even really understand this. German

Todd:  guy. Yeah. Clearly, one of these, like, used to be a Nazi doctor probably and hide now he’s in hiding. It’s It’s another joke.

Craig:  Right. And and he’s only in it for a minute, but Lionel bribes him and and gets some, I guess, like heavy duty tranquilizers. And he keeps tranquil izing his mom and the nun.

Todd:  That’s right.

Craig:  But eventually the mom gets out and she just walks down the street, like, it seems like they’re kind of trying to make it out that when these zombies are zombies, like, they’re kind of mindless and they’ll just eat anything, but then there are other times when they’re, like, driven by something.

Vincent:  Yeah.

Craig:  Like, the mom still is driven to keep Paquita away from Lynel.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  So she breaks out of the house and but she just makes a beeline straight for Paquita’s shop. And right before she gets there, she gets hit by a trolley and thrown through the glass window. And they think she’s dead. Like, we only hear it in exposition dialogue. Like, the priest is talking to somebody and they say that Lionel wanted to take her home. He kept insisting that she wasn’t dead, but they insisted and they took her to the hospital. And now they’re going to bury her, but Lionel’s like sneaking around trying to get to the body because he knows he has to keep it tranked, otherwise she’s gonna wake up, which eventually she does. And she attacks him and, like, they burst into the funeral.  And it looks like he’s

Todd:  Well, there’s this hilarious scene in the bag because they’re late getting mom’s body to the funeral because the funeral directors

Craig:  Oh, Todd. Yeah.

Todd:  They you know, they’ve got this machine that they’re and, of course, it’s it’s not the way it really is. It’s this total cartoonish, like, machine that’s supposed to, I guess, pump the embalming fluid into her. Yeah. But because of the state she’s in, like, the embalming fluid is, like, squirting, like, out her nose and her eyes, and it’s just Oh,

Craig:  it’s so gross.

Todd:  Total mess everywhere. And, apparently, Peter Jackson is there as the assistant. That’s his cameo in the movie as the assistant’s being a bomber.

Craig:  I didn’t notice.

Todd:  They just, like, pop her eyes back in. And, I mean, it’s it’s so cartoonish

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  And put her in her coffin. But then when she’s outside waiting, you know, meanwhile, the service is starting and the coffin hasn’t been pushed out yet. But the priest starts the service, and he’s in the back, getting ready to push the coffin out, Lionel is. And, suddenly, her his mother bursts out of the coffin again. She’s alive, and he tranquilizes her. But in the process, he’s struggling with her, and they fall through basically like a stained glass door into into the ceremony. And it looks like, you know, this poor guy couldn’t let his mother go, and there he is with her dead body and his arms around her. It’s just horrible joke at his ex you know, at his expense.  And people are saying, like, well, we knew he was attached to his mom, but, oh, this is a little too far. Anyway, they end up at a funeral, and they do bury the body. And at the end of the funeral, as everybody goes away, as happens in a lot of these movies. Right? We’ve talked about this before. Somebody approaches them after the funeral, and it’s an a long lost uncle. It’s big, kind of fat, really overbearing Skeesy. Skeezy guy, who is basically trying to get in on the inheritance.

Craig:  Right. And he’s so gross. Like, he made me so uncomfortable. Like, he’s hitting on Paquita at the ceremony. The actor I mean, I get you gotta give him credit, I suppose, for doing a good job because he just made me squirm. Like, ugh. Yeah. Like, you are so disgusting.

Vincent:  Well

Todd:  and something that Peter Jackson does with the cinematography, and you’ll see it in Dead Alive, you’ll see it a lot in his earlier stuff, Bad Taste Has It, he really zooms in on things. Right? He he has a very kinetic camera movements and he really likes to do this deal. And I guess somebody else who who did this was, Bob Clark.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Not to the extent that Peter Jackson does it. Peter Jackson does it for comic effect, clearly. But, you know, you get this wide angle lens on the camera, but then you zoom up into somebody’s face and, not zoom, but dolly up into somebody’s face. Mhmm. Todd distorts them a little bit. It really gets in there. And then if they’re really mugging for it, you know, it just enhances that whole cartoonish villain type effect on this guy. As well as, you know, surprise on other people and and the goofiness that that’s going on.  I really like it in this movie. And, again, whenever this guy’s on screen, it seems like his face is just filling it and you hate him. Mhmm. Because he’s just even skeezier when you’re right up close to him. You gotta be there, you know. It makes you uncomfortable.

Craig:  And if I remember correctly, he’s always shot just kind of a little bit from below.

Todd:  Yeah. That’s right.

Craig:  So like, you’re always kind of looking up at him a little bit, which makes him a more imposing and, yeah. I mean, it’s it’s good. Yeah. This, you know, Jackson, even though this is one of his early films, he he’s a filmmaker. He he knows what he’s doing.

Todd:  He really does. So then, you know, we’ve got 3 little plots going. We’ve got Paquita, who is really trying to put the moves, and we’ve got this sort of developing romance there. We have this uncle who is trying to weasel his way into some inheritance because he was left out of the will and everything was left to the son. And then we have the son who has to deal with this while he’s trying to hide and handle more and more people becoming zombies, that he’s throwing down into the basement.

Craig:  Right. Because okay. So because after this it’s only because one one of my favorite lines is in this scene that I wanna talk about it. But, like, I right after the funeral, like, that night, funeral, like, that night, Lionel goes to dig up his mom, and then, like, this group of thugs just shows up. They call him a necrophiliac and start, you know, kinda Taking him? Smacking him around a little bit. And now what was coming a mile away, like, it’s totally projected, but it’s still funny. Like, the main thug goes and takes a piss on the mom’s Craig. And of course, her hand reaches up out of the grave and grabs his dick and, like, pulls him down.  It almost looks like he’s humping the grave.

Todd:  While blood is just spraying like a fire hose out from

Craig:  any direction.

Todd:  How many movies, by the way, have we seen where someone has taken a piss on a grave and then a hand is shot up and grabbed their dick? At least 3.

Craig:  At least. It’s like

Todd:  it’s I think it’s at least 3. We can we can put this down as a trope by now. I really do feel like like that.

Craig:  I think it it must be, like, some kind of, you know, guy fear. Fear. That these these filmmakers keep memorializing. Like, we’re all super afraid that some dead Todd gonna grab our junk. But

Todd:  Some urban legend don’t get in a grave at midnight. Yeah.

Craig:  And and so oh, but so that leads up to my favorite line. The the priest hears what’s going on and he comes and he sees all these thugs and everything that’s going on. He jumps down off like a mausoleum and says, evil is a must. Stay back, boy. This calls for divine intervention. And then he, like, Kung Fu fights them. Oh my gosh.

Todd:  Total Kung Fu fight. It was

Craig:  so funny.

Todd:  And it’s good action too.

Craig:  Like, he’s

Todd:  actually really good. He’s really fighting these guys. I don’t I mean, if there was a stuntman in here doing this instead of the actor, it was very well cut because it really looked to me like the actor was doing these roundhouse kicks and everything. Throughout all this, the other thugs are turning into zombies because they get bit by the mom, and then they bite each other, and there’s all this fighting. And the fighting gets really hilarious because he’ll, like, kick off a guy’s arm, and then he’ll, like, kick off his other arm, and he’ll kick his head off. And, I mean, there’s just blood going everywhere. It’s just insane. But by the end of it, he does this flying kick towards one dude who ends up lifting him, kind of, up in the air as he goes by.  And he ends up impaled on one of these tombstones that has a sculpture of an angel or something pointing up. And Mhmm. His finger pointing straight up is going straight through, his body. So the priest is dead, but then, of course, comes back to life as a zombie because he’s been bit as well. So

Craig:  Yeah. And so now he’s hosting, like, this household of zombies. Like you see them sitting around the dinner table and he’s feeding them. Yeah.

Todd:  It’s so hilarious.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s it’s really funny. And the uncle comes over Todd try to convince him that he should share his inheritance or whatever. And while he’s talking to the uncle, you start hearing sex noises. And eventually, once he gets rid of the uncle, he goes back in and finds the priest and the nurse boning, which is really funny. But what’s even funnier is that, like, 3 hours later, she has a zombie baby.

Todd:  Like, what more could they possibly throw into this movie. Right? And then it turns out there’s a hell of a lot more.

Craig:  The zombie baby is so funny because sometimes it’s a puppet, and sometimes it looks like they like, a like, a grown person, like, in a baby costume running around, Like, it’s like, they use he used, like, forced perspective or something

Todd:  to But not very well.

Craig:  No. But to kinda try to make it look small, but it doesn’t really. And, it’s just really funny. And the baby is just pure comic relief like it. It’s just laughing all the time and just Hijinks and

Todd:  it’s so cute and again what I really like about this movie is the pacing of it And I really like the fact that okay. So Evil Dead is just it has its moments where it kinda comes down, but there’s this it’s still kinda scary. Right? It still got this sort of impending doom feeling to it. This movie, it’s like all this crazy stuff happens, and there’s more zombies. But then, now he’s got them sitting around a dinner table trying to feed them. You know, like, trying to act as if everything is normal. And the movie even takes us out of the house after a while. Like, he’s going to get more tranquilizers, and he runs into her, and, you know, they kinda have a moment.  And, I mean, it’s just interesting how the the movie really keeps you guessing and really lets up. I mean, it it lets up on the the scary and the gore or whatever, and, brings you back into, like, his hilarious sort of situation. Again, I just keep saying it, but it’s just a very cartoony kind of Mhmm. It is. Movie. Right? It’s just it’s so improbable. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s hilarious, to watch this going on.  But we know. I mean, this is rooted in every Bugs Bunny cartoon we’ve ever seen. You know what I mean? It’s it’s

Craig:  just Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:  It’s very familiar territory, and it’s really welcome here.

Craig:  There’s a scene where it for no explainable reason, he decides to take the baby to the park in a pram. And he’s got like barbed wire over the pram so like the baby can’t get out or whatever. And it’s like he’s watching the other park moms to see what you’re supposed to do with the baby, and he’s trying to do it with this zombie baby. But the zombie baby, of course, is just bad.

Todd:  What’s funny is when we see the perspective from the baby and it looks like he’s taken these precautions, he’s actually put, like, a barbed wire net over Yeah. The brand that you can’t see. It’s hilarious.

Craig:  It’s a really really goofy scene and it kind of is a pause in the narrative. I read that Jackson finished under budget, like $45,000 under budget. And so he used that money to shoot this scene. Now he considers it his favorite scene of the movie. And it is ridiculous, but it it’s very it’s like mister Bean or something.

Todd:  Yeah. It’s total mister Bean. You’re right. Absolutely.

Craig:  And it is really funny, but you can kind of tell that it was added in last minute. Like like it’s it’s completely unnecessary to the plot. It’s it’s just for fun. It’s just for goofy sight gags.

Todd:  Well, and it’s in such bad taste because eventually, like, the baby, like, gets out and he grabs the baby and he’s fighting with it and he’s, like, bashing it against the ground and, like, up against the swing set stuff and mothers are just looking on horrified. The stuffs it in the bag and kind of backs away.

Craig:  It’s it’s horrible. He walks by the other moms and he’s like, hyperactive.

Todd:  Anyway, all these zombies end up piling up in the basement. In the meantime, the uncle comes over and he, is again vying for what he thinks he is due for his inheritance. He eventually discovers these zombie bodies and things in the basement and he decides that he needs to call the police. And so, he calls the police or he’s in the middle of doing it, and he’s, like, or I can just let all this go if you give me the house and the money. Right. And the son’s like, okay. I’ll give you the house and the money. So he hangs up the phone.  And then, about a scene later, suddenly, people start piling into the house because, it turns out that the uncle told some people that he now had this house, and all these people are coming over to have a big party. It’s a housewarming kind of celebration in this new mansion. So you it’s it’s so funny. But, again, this is what I say. It’s just this perfect build because you know what’s coming. Right? You got this huge house full of people. It’s gonna become absolute mayhem here in no time. And then that’s exactly what happens.

Craig:  Yeah. That’s the final act is this party. Because of course, the zombies break out and infiltrate the party. And at first, like, people don’t realize that they’re gonna

Todd:  bloodbath.

Craig:  And, everybody I mean, this whole house full of, I don’t know, a 100 or more people. The zombie infection just spreads like wildfire. It’s really like, it’s totally improbable, but Lionel and Paquita and the uncle somehow managed to keep from being bitten. I I really like Paquita in this whole scene because she’s just kinda kicking ass and taking names, like, the whole time. And they’re not even together. Like, Lionel’s off doing his own thing. Like, he ends up I don’t remember why he ended up in the attic. I don’t remember if he got chased there.

Todd:  No. It’s just a it’s just a huge Keystone Cops type thing. It’s just one scene after another and and the neat thing about is that every scene is totally different, and it’s kind of like a new site gag. Like, there are people who are getting pulled apart, and there’s 1 zombie who gets pulled apart and all his insides come out But then all of his intestines become an entity of their own and they even like

Vincent:  fart and Yeah, it’s

Craig:  like a smiling rectum.

Todd:  It even like farts like they’re just all these tiny little things and it’s so it’s creeping around. And one girl who we had seen earlier in the movie is, like, fighting some other girl that we’d seen earlier in the movie who’s a zombie, and she, like, throws her against a wall where there’s a light bulb sticking out. And her head Improbably gets impaled on this light bulb, but now it’s glowing from the inside and there’s just constant all this stuff is just happening and it’s so entertaining to watch and it is an absolute achievement Mhmm. In in practical effects. I mean, some of these things, you you see them going on, and you’re like, man, this was before CGI. Mhmm. And some of this stuff is really convincing. I mean, most of it is.  It’s it’s quite good. But you’re right. He ends up in the attic, and I think it’s that intestine insides monster or whatever, that’s attacking him up there. And as he falls through the ceiling, it’s also sort of he’s wrapped up in these intestines. So he’s just hanging and swinging over this crowd by these intestines.

Craig:  But before that, up in the attic, he finds some remains. And and, like, I feel like he has, a flashback or something. He had told Paquita earlier that his dad had drowned in the sea after rescuing him. And that he had these vague memories of it or whatever. Now this scene really confused me because at first, I thought that the remains that he found were his real mom.

Todd:  Yeah. That’s what I thought Todd, that she was a fake mom.

Craig:  Yeah. And that, like, the mother that he thought was his mother was an imposter for the money or whatever. I don’t know. But that’s that’s not it. As it turns out, the dad had been a philanderer and his mother had killed both his dad and his dad’s lover. So you know, I guess that just further vilifies the mom. I don’t know, she’s nasty anyway so I don’t know why that’s important. But yeah, he ends up hanging by the well, he’s he’s actually hanging by an electrical cord.

Todd:  Oh, yeah. But that thing is snaking down it.

Craig:  Right. Right. Exactly. And, Todd, I I don’t remember exactly

Todd:  what happened. Bunch of stuff happens.

Vincent:  Yeah.

Craig:  He ends up outside. It’s it’s long. I mean, this this

Todd:  this It’s 30 minutes.

Craig:  Yeah. And it’s all action for that whole 30 minutes. It’s fighting and and effects and gore, and it goes on for a really long time. And it’s still going on and like he’s like swinging from the ceiling. He sees Paquita getting attacked and the nurse and the priest are humping again and, the uncle ends up in the basement and he ends up getting killed by the mom, who we only see her hands at this point, but she’s clearly become this giant zombie monster. And then after Lionel gets down, I don’t remember how he gets down, but the next time we see him, he bursts through the door very Bruce Campbell style.

Todd:  Yes.

Craig:  Holding the lawnmower. Mhmm. And he’s got like, he’s got a rope so it’s kind of like slung around his neck so that he can hold it so that the blades are held out in front of him. And he just goes on a rampage, you know, using this lawnmower to kill all these zombies. And it’s just buckets, gallons upon gallons of blood everywhere. It’s just one of the bloodiest things I’ve ever seen.

Todd:  It it is so funny and it’s cool and it’s over the top insane. And I know that it inspired later on, like, at least a video game or 2. I think, I don’t remember. It was probably in the late nineties or early it was in the early 2000s when I think the PlayStation 3 first came out. There was a pretty notorious zombie game for that that came out just it was the first time we had all these high frame rates, and we could we could handle a lot of things on the screen at once. And there was one of these games where you were stuck in a shopping mall, and there’s a zombie horde. You could get a lawnmower weapon in this, game. And you know it was pulled straight from this movie.  Mhmm. Just pulling this lawnmower up and just mowing through zombies. It’s it’s crazy. It’s just, like, when you think this movie can’t get any more extreme and over the top, they throw this insane idea of a guy just holding up a lawnmower and mowing through these zombies at you. Yeah. It just build after build after build. I just love it. It’s just so it’s just smart.  And he’s basically taking care of everything in the place, except for his mom, who emerges from the basement as this gigantic 2 story tall monster. And she’s, like, got these giant sagging breasts. And, it’s a really impressive effect for for this film, really.

Craig:  Oh, yeah. I don’t know how they did it. You know, do you like was it really that large? Like it was it that large of a prop or

Todd:  I think there were pieces of it that were, but then there’s a scene where, you know, they run up the stairs and they’re kind of on the balcony and she climbs up the stairs after them and certainly, that’s some kind of composite where they had a miniature some kind of matte thing going on. There’s no way that, yeah, that that they had something so big in the same frame as them, you know, standing next to it. But it was super convincing. It was really, really good.

Craig:  Obviously, this came first, but it reminded me of the end of Witching and Bitching. Yes. That’s right. When that giant whatever it was, that giant witch or whatever. Yeah. Very similar with the really big butt and the big saggy boobs and but it looks great. And they she chases them up to the roof and she’s trying to throw Paquita off the roof and Lionel’s trying to fight her, but at one point, you know, he says, you don’t scare me, mom. And she, like, pitches the ceiling and rips open her stomach so he slides into her stomach like

Todd:  It gets very Freudian. Yeah. Uh-huh. She’s like reenters her womb, you know? Right.

Craig:  And, and and the mom is actually like her face kind of looked like her human face. I mean, obviously really really distorted but kinda looked like her human face. But it’s starting to peel away and she’s starting to look like a giant Sumatran rat monkey.

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  But he bursts out of her belly and saves pakita. What happens to the mom? Does she just kind of fall into the house?

Todd:  Yeah. She just kind of falls apart because he bursts out of her. I mean, one thing we failed to mention is not super important, but he has this magical charm with them that the old woman gave him that’s that same, crescent and star or whatever. And that’s what he uses to stab his way out. And it must have some effect on her in a magical way, so that she just, like, he spills out of her in just a pile of gore.

Vincent:  And her

Todd:  face falls apart, and all parts of her start to fall apart. And then she’s still hanging by the edge of the of the building. And he gets down there, and they’re they’re holding each other. And he ends up sliding down. I guess it’s like an electrical line or something that’s attached to the building Yeah. Away from away from the house. And that’s that’s basically how it ends. Right? Everything just kinda collapses and all the evil is gone and they And the house

Craig:  burns down. Right?

Todd:  Yeah. It’s it’s it’s funny. I mean, it’s a very like I said, just when you think it can’t get more over the Todd, they end up having this final scene on the top of a roof where people are dangling. You know, I mean, it’s it’s so classic. I just think this movie is great. I just love every minute of it. It’s so much fun to watch and it’s It

Craig:  is fun. I think that it

Todd:  would be It’s never boring.

Craig:  I don’t know. I think that I would have had a lot more fun watching it with you or with other people.

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  I I don’t wanna make it sound like I’m some kinda lush or something, but, you know.

Todd:  A little bit of alcohol.

Craig:  A couple yeah. A couple of beers and sit around and laugh with your friends. Sitting on your couch on a Saturday afternoon watching it on my computer, it wasn’t really

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  The greatest I get it. Environment. But but I definitely appreciate it for what it was. And and I would definitely recommend it to anybody who likes horror.

Todd:  If you’ve never seen this before and you’re inspired by our talk to go out and watch it, you absolutely have to get the unrated version. You cannot watch the r rated version because it is cut so much. There’s at least 10, maybe 15 minutes cut out of the r rated version. And I actually made this mistake in college where I I told my friends, oh, I got this great movie, and I ended up renting what turned out to be the r rated version. And so much was missing that this was actually a case of where the movie almost didn’t make sense. Mhmm. Because think about it. I mean, the movie most of the movie is super bloody and gory.  If you cut out most of that, you just get these choppy scenes that Yeah. Don’t connect so well with each other. And it’s really it was really disappointing to watch. I ended up shutting it off, and I’m, like, forget it, guys. We’re not gonna watch it tonight. You gotta go out. You gotta get the unrated version, to see this in its full glory and appreciate, you know, what we’ve just talked about.

Craig:  As of today, it’s available to watch for free on YouTube. That’s where I watched it.

Todd:  Oh, there you go. Well, great. Alright. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. Thank you, Vincent, for the request. If you have a request, you can reach us on our website 2 guys dot redfortynet.com. Leave us a comment there, or just search us online. You can find our Facebook page as well.  On that website, you’ll find all of our back episodes. And if you like our podcast, please share it with a friend. We love getting new listeners. Until next time. I’m Todd

Craig:  And I’m Craig.

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

We always have fun on our show, but this week we had maybe even a little more fun than usual with this 80’s cheesefest. Listen carefully for Craig’s big reveal.

Episode 187, 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 Craig.

Todd:  Today’s movie is not a request. It’s just something that’s been on our radar for a while, and we have been itching to do some more movies from the eighties that are a little cheesy and a little fun. I know, Craig, that you’ve seen this a few times. I’ve only seen it once before and I didn’t really remember too much about it. In fact, I’m wondering if I remembered a different movie. This is, 1986’s Witchboard, which is the writing, directing debut of a guy named Kevin Tenney. Now, we know Kevin Tenney from a few films. He directed the Night of the Demons.  Mhmm. It’s a pretty notorious movie. He did that one right after this movie just a couple years later. He did another movie called Witch Trap in 1989. Have you seen that one?

Craig:  No. And, apparently, it’s, like, kind of a spin off of this movie, I guess. But there are actually 2 sequels to this movie and then Witch Trap, which I read is a spin off, but I also read that it specifically said on the back cover of the VHS, this is not a sequel to Witchboard.

Todd:  Interesting. Like, almost like he’s trying to distance itself. That’s that’s weird.

Craig:  Well, I don’t know because I think he was involved with both of the other sequels too. So Yeah.

Clip:  I don’t know.

Todd:  He wrote the the second and third one. He only directed the second one, you know, because then he jumped right into Pinocchio’s revenge, which I think you’ve seen.

Craig:  Yeah. I have and it’s awful and it stars the same male lead as this one, as as which board I believe. But not that it’s entirely relevant, but Pinocchio’s revenge, I have read was actually much more along the lines of what they originally intended for Child’s Play.

Todd:  Oh, really?

Craig:  Yeah. That, you know, it was this killer doll movie, but they kept you more in the dark wondering whether the doll was doing stuff or the kid who owned the doll was doing the stuff. Oh, gosh. In Inokio’s revenge. And I have seen it. It’s awful. I don’t that’s the only thing I remember about it. Is it terrible.  So anyway Fair enough.

Todd:  Well, he has kind of an interesting history. This is another one of cases. It seems like in horror, this happens a lot. There’s a guy who’s in, his final year or whatever of film school, and he writes a movie that he wants to get produced. And he gets wrapped up in getting funding for it and financing, and pretty soon it happens. So then he quits film school just before he gets his degree, to go out and make this movie. And then it sort of sets his career, more or less. So Mhmm.  I think we’ve done several movies like that, especially because horror seems to be a genre that’s really easy to jump into and make money from. At least, it definitely was around this time. I don’t know. Horror just has this kinda fan base. It’s pretty rabid. We’ll put up with a lot, won’t we? We’ll we’ll devour. Oh, yeah. A lot of you know, if the concept looks interesting, we’ll watch it.  And, and even if, you know, we’re used to low production value, we’re loose to cheese we’re used to cheesiness, that a lot of it’s part of the fun. And so even if your movie isn’t, like, particularly great, it can be good enough Sure. To show that you’ve got some promise in this genre as a director or a writer or whatever. And so a lot of movies like this are just springboards for for folks onto bigger and better things. So it’s a it’s a smart thing to target. I think, what was it? There’s nothing out there. Right? We did that movie that was written by the kid when he was 16. Right? And he that was just

Clip:  pushing me.

Craig:  Oh, yeah. Something like that. Yeah.

Todd:  Yeah. So there’s just there are a lot of these, you know, and and people directly target this genre because they know it can be a money maker. And so yeah. You know, he started out that way, got his money, shot this movie, did his thing. And ever since then, I mean, he’s made a movie every couple years. Without stopping, he had a bit of a brief pause in 2,009. He did a movie called Bigfoot in 2,009, and, now we are 10 years later, there’s a movie called Sins of 7 in pre production. And another movie, it looks like an anthology film, an anthology horror movie called Don’t Let Them In.  So I assume he’s maybe directing one of the sequences for that or or something. Gotcha. Yeah. So, you know, he has a fairly respectable little career going after this movie. But this movie itself is a it’s a time capsule, isn’t it?

Craig:  It is. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. It’s so eighties. It’s fantastic. Really. I have no idea why, but my sister and I used to watch this movie all the time. I can only imagine that it’s one of those things that either my dad taped off HBO or illegally copied from a rental.  Right. I don’t know, but we watched it all the time. I just remember liking it so much when I was a kid. Yesterday, when I watched it, I I’m sure was the first time I’ve watched it probably in 20 years. And it’s it’s not it’s not great.

Todd:  No. It’s not. Not in the slightest.

Craig:  It’s not great, but I’m probably still gonna be really generous with it. And I I imagine that it’s probably only because of the nostalgia for me, I guess. But I I still enjoyed it.

Todd:  I was trying to figure out if it’s so bad it’s good. It’s really sometimes, and I think we’ve talked about this before too, sometimes a horror movie that’s bad just isn’t so bad. It’s good. It it’s just bad.

Craig:  That’s true.

Todd:  And it’s hard to watch. And I don’t think I would exactly put this movie in that category, but I feel like it’s really riding the fence. I I remember about it’s what? An hour and 35 minutes long? Yeah. And I remember looking at the clock thinking, okay, this is almost over and it still had 34 minutes left to go. I was, like, oh, jeez. And for me that was one of the big problems with the movie is it moves so slowly. I feel like everything’s just kind of paced out a little too far.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. And I felt the same way. I mean, it there are good parts and I think that, there are it’s not a bad concept. I think it’s an interesting concept. You know, it’s not like this is the only Ouija board movie. You know, there

Todd:  are plenty

Craig:  of horror Ouija board movies. But there are some good parts that I really enjoy. And then there are some parts that I’m like, oh my gosh. Really? Do we need to see this? Like, couldn’t we just get, like, 30 seconds of, you know, exposition instead of having to watch, like, research.

Todd:  But

Craig:  but nonetheless

Todd:  Nonetheless, we haven’t enjoyed it. Well, it’ll it’ll be fun to talk about anyway.

Craig:  Yeah. I think so. I mean, it it opens up right away. You you you get the opening credits and you can just it just reeks of the eighties. Like, the opening credits just absolutely reek of the eighties, which is a good thing for me. You know? I I could see why some people would see, you know, the credits pop up and be like, oh, here we go. But it opens with an opening shot of this old mansion, this huge mansion. It’s the same house that was used in waxwork and another movie.  Do you remember

Todd:  what the

Craig:  other one was? I don’t know.

Todd:  Willard Willard from the seventies. Willard. Right. Yeah. Mhmm.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s this huge mansion. It’s it’s awesome, and and they’re having a party for reasons unknown. I don’t know. I I remember thinking when I was a kid, how did these 2 young people this young unmarried couple, how do they afford to live in this enormous mansion?

Todd:  I was I was thinking the same thing. Actually, as we were watching it, I was trying to figure out whose it was at first. I thought, okay. Is this, like, a family thing that was passed Todd? Or does one of them have a the better job than the other? And we’re talking about Jim and, Linda. Right? And Uh-huh. And and then we find out Jim is, like, a construction worker. We’re, like, alright. Well, it’s clearly not his house.  And I thought, okay. Well, it must be Linda’s house. What does Linda do? I don’t know if we ever figured out what Linda does.

Craig:  I don’t think she does anything. Yeah. She she just hangs out in the apartment in her satin robe. Like, that’s literally all she does through the whole movie.

Todd:  That’s true. She she really leaves it, doesn’t she, now that I think about it?

Craig:  No. She hardly ever. The only time she leaves that I can recall is, like, when she goes to the hospital later in the movie. There’s there’s some talk of her, like, going to class, but, like, you have no idea what, like, is she going to college? Is it, like, a a welding class? Like, I like, I have no idea what she’s doing.

Todd:  It’s the class that presumably Brandon Brandon, the asshole

Craig:  Oh my god.

Todd:  Is presumably he teaches it because he keeps calling and saying how she hasn’t arrived or she hasn’t turned in her papers or something.

Craig:  Yes. Okay. So Jim is played by Todd Allen, who is a working actor. Like, you look at his IMDB profile and he has been in a million things. He was in Django Unchained, is probably his biggest, title, but he’s been in tons and tons and tons of things, movie, TV, everything. And then you’ve got Linda who’s played by Tani Kattain, who is probably most famous for rolling around on that car in that Whitesnake video.

Todd:  Oh, dude. As soon as I looked her up and I realized that was her, I just I immediately stopped and went over to YouTube and I watched all the Whitesnake.

Craig:  You immediately stopped it? Like, had to take a bathroom break?

Todd:  I’m not ashamed to admit it.

Craig:  No. She’s she’s super hot, and that video was super hot with her rolling around on the car.

Todd:  And that video is also totally eighties. Actually, there are 4 Whitesnake she was, like you remember when Alicia Silverstone was in those Aerosmith videos?

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:  This is, like, the same deal. Like, she’s in, like, 4 of these Whitesnake videos. Except, the Aerosmith videos actually had little plots, and they were kinda cute. These Whitesnake videos, I feel like they filmed all of her stuff in just one day and just spread it out across the videos because it’s either her rolling around on a car or walking down a cold wet street with fog blowing by her or dancing upstairs in a bedroom. Uh-huh.

Craig:  For no

Todd:  I mean, it has very little to do with the songs. But, dude, I’d watch that all day.

Craig:  She’s a very beautiful woman, but maybe not the best actress in the world.

Todd:  She should keep her mouth closed and just roll around in cars a little bit more. That’s an awful thing to say, by the way.

Craig:  That’s gross, Tom.

Todd:  I’m sorry.

Craig:  I’m I’m hanging up right

Todd:  now. Okay.

Craig:  And and then you’ve got Brandon who is played by Steven Nichols. I swear to Todd, we may as well make this a Days of Our Lives podcast because

Todd:  Where does everybody come from? Oh, yeah. Your favorite soap opera.

Craig:  Seems like every third movie that we do has somebody from Days of Our Lives in it. But, yeah, this this guy has been on Days of Our Lives for decades, like and he’s still he’s still doing it.

Todd:  Oh, really?

Craig:  Oh, god. Yeah. Like, he’s not on all the time, but they bring him back all the time. And he plays Brandon. Okay. And here’s the deal. So Linda is dating Jim, who is a construction worker. Brandon is, like, the super rich kid from town who Linda used Todd date.  And we find out okay. So in the opening scene, they’re having this party, and Brandon is a pretentious ass. Like, he’s just such a dick. And and I didn’t remember that, but he is. Like, I just kept wondering why is he at their party? Yeah. Because, like, he’s so like, he’s just blatantly insulting to Jim. Jim should have just took him outside and kicked his ass, frankly. Like like, it’s his party.  He’s being such a addict to him. And, you know, Jim has to kinda retreat to his blue collar friends. This is also you know, like, it’s such a weird eighties trope that people have house parties and everybody shows up in, like, their suits.

Todd:  Yeah. What? I know.

Craig:  Except for Jim’s blue collar friends who are there in, like, their jeans and t shirts, which would be what a normal person would wear to a house party.

Todd:  But Yeah.

Craig:  They get into it. Jim and Brandon get into it right away because Brandon’s being a dick and and Todd Kitaen, Belinda, chases Jim into the kitchen and and she says, I love you, and he says, I know. And and I bring that up because it’s like a thing. Like, he can’t say I love you to anybody.

Todd:  Yeah. Stolen from Star Wars, basically.

Craig:  And then we have our first Ouija scene. Again, Janden Brandon is such a butthole. Like, somebody’s like, oh, it’s a Ouija board. He’s like, no. It’s Ouija. It’s Ouija. He gives them all these rules. Like, it works best if 2 people use it and if it’s not sitting on a table but on their knees because then there’s the most body contact, and it needs to be people with clean systems, like, so people who don’t smoke or drink or whatever.  Jim’s blue collar friends, the dark haired one who kinda looks like John Stamos, his name is Lloyd, and he’s cracking jokes, and he’s he’s funny. I liked him. But anyway, so it turns out that Brandon and Linda are the ones who haven’t been drinking, so they’re gonna do it, and they do. And they contact this spirit that supposedly Brandon has contacted a bunch of times, and it’s this little boy who died 30 years ago, and his name is David. They’re talking to him and, at some point, I just thought it was so funny. I wrote it down. Jim says something about, like, it’s a little stupid and his friend Lloyd says, it’s a lot stupid. Like like, nobody nobody’s really buying this.

Todd:  And and I you also kinda feel like it’s maybe he’s talking about the movie?

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, maybe.

Todd:  It’s the only guy I could think of. No. It is stupid. I mean and you’re just standing around and watching this. And I think this is maybe the inherent problem with these Ouija movies, especially the the way that it’s presented in this film. And we’ve seen a lot of movies, like, that have this as an element in it. Right? It’s how the spirits awoken or whatever. It’s usually something really dark.  They have candles lit around there. It’s a really intense kind of atmosphere. They’re in the place where they know there’s a haunting going on or something. And this is just like a bright lights at a party on 2 people’s knees while everybody else is standing around watching them slide this planchette around. Mhmm. Not terribly tense scene, not terribly convincing for us or anybody who would be there watching. Yeah. Right.  Yeah.

Craig:  I mean, I I would have totally thought that this Brandon guy was just pushing the planchette around. Like Well, yeah. He’s putting the moves on Jim’s girlfriend.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Brandon and Linda used to be together, but they’re not anymore. And that’s where all this tension comes from. And they end up asking this kid, like, you know, some random questions, but Brandon says, will you be able to return to the living someday? And he’s like, yeah. And will you be able to choose your parents? And the kid’s like, yeah. Like, that’s such a random line of questioning.

Todd:  Yeah. Like It’s really contrived. Yeah. A lot

Craig:  of Yeah.

Todd:  A lot of it’s super contrived because they’re trying to give us some information. And that later comes into play when we sort of find out that Linda is pregnant or at least thinks she’s pregnant.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:  And so, oh, okay. Yeah. That’s where that that’s why that was said, apropos of nothing.

Craig:  And Jim and his friends are making fun of this the whole time it’s going on. And, like, apparently, that agitates the spirit, and he gets all agitated and go and, like, breaks contact or whatever. And then the one of Brandon’s, tires on his fancy little red convertible get popped. And there’s almost a physical altercation between Jim and Brandon, but Jim is the one who should be insulted and angry, and he’s kind of the aggressor, but he stops himself. And then it cuts to the 2 of them, Jim and Linda, in their bedroom, and Linda’s like, thanks a lot for ruining the party.

Todd:  Like, what? It’s true. The movie He

Craig:  didn’t even do anything.

Todd:  Yeah. The movie’s trying to paint him as the wise ass who’s cracking the jokes, who’s ruining everything, but it’s only because Brandon’s being a total dick.

Craig:  And because she invited

Todd:  him in the first place, like, don’t invite your ex boyfriend to your party,

Craig:  you dumbass. Dumbass. So silly. And the acting, like, I’m sorry.

Todd:  The acting

Craig:  is just terrible.

Todd:  It really

Craig:  is bad. I mean, it’s serviceable in parts, but then in other parts,

Todd:  like,

Craig:  you know, Tani Katate is sitting there brushing her luxurious hair, like, having this conversation of, like, oh my Todd. This is so bad. Yeah. We cut then to the next day, I guess, which is at, Jim’s worksite. Like, he’s a construction worker. He’s building a house. We find out that his hammer has gone missing, which ends up being a important plot point. But then it cuts to Linda, and she gets a call from a doctor on her answering machine, and it says your test results are in, but she’s already too late to call back.  So she gets on the Ouija board alone, which Brandon specifically told them not to do. Right. And she asks if she’s pregnant, and it says, yes. And she’s like, oh, is it true you can choose your own parents? That is so freaking creepy.

Todd:  It’s creepy.

Craig:  Why would you wanna choose a ghost kid to be your kid? That’s so weird.

Todd:  It’s crazy. She basically invites him to to choose her, kid. Uh-huh. And, he says no. And she says why not? And is and he says it’s because he doesn’t like Jim. Jim, who just cracked a bunch of lame ass jokes at the party, really didn’t take much to piss off the spirit.

Craig:  Right. So

Todd:  and then, like, what? The Ouija board flies across the room and I don’t know.

Craig:  Well, then it it cuts back to the worksite where Lloyd and Jim are talking, and we find out in this conversation that Jim and Brandon actually used to be best friends. Best friends.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And, because Jim’s parents were drunks, and so he didn’t wanna be at home. And so he spent most of his time at, Brandon’s house. And then right away, Jim’s missing hammer, we get an ominous shot of it at this, like, pallet of sheet rock that’s hanging right above them. Jim stands up and walks away and Lloyd, like, lays back where they were sitting and eating lunch, And the sheet rock falls and crushes Lloyd, and he’s killed, which made me sad because he was funny.

Todd:  Yeah. And I want him to be in the rest of the movie. Interesting character in the movie. Crushed by I have to say because I’ve been on a lot a number of construction sites. I have no idea why there was a stack of sheet rock,

Clip:  on

Todd:  some scaffolding. Yeah. Just above their heads. There’s no good reason for it to be up there. They’re outside.

Craig:  No, but it total it totally would have killed him, though. Oh, yeah. Yeah. For sure. He would he definitely would have been dead.

Todd:  But also his hatchet slash hammer. It’s more of a hatchet than a hammer.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  It’s it’s actually a hatchet, and I have no idea why he uses it as a hammer. Let’s just put it that way. It’s sitting on top of it. I thought that this was because it’s got his initials carved in it, j w in the bottom. And I thought for sure that this ghost was causing this to happen to frame Jim. Like this hatchet was gonna fall first, and the drywall was gonna come down on it or something like that. So it was actually the hatchet that killed this guy, but it wasn’t.

Craig:  No. But, the the suggestion is that the hatchet was what cut the ropes that made it.

Todd:  Well, there’s no visual suggestion of this because the hatchet is just laying on top of the drywall. What happens is, in the next scene, they’re at the funeral of, Lloyd.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Todd:  And after it’s all over, Jim is hanging out with Linda. Right? Mhmm. And everybody else walks away, and some random dude walks up to them. And he’s an older guy, and he says he’s a policeman from the homicide detective. And and, my Todd, this what follows is the stupidest bit of dialogue.

Craig:  Oh, it’s so dumb. It’s so dumb.

Clip:  Do you like magic? What? Magic. You know, card tricks, sawing ladies in half. Magic. Yeah, I guess. Me Todd. I always wanted to be a magician. Don’t have the hands for it. I’m not, dexterous enough.

Craig:  Then how do you diffuse bombs?

Clip:  I don’t know. No one’s ever planted a bomb here. What can I do for you, Lieutenant? I’m investigating mister Salvador’s death. You ever been to Vegas? No. Why? They got these 2 guys there, Sigmund and Roy. I mean, they are the best magicians I have ever seen, without doubt. Yeah. I mean, they do some really amazing things.  You know, there’s only one thing I like better than seeing a good magic trick. It’s trying to figure out how it was done. Lieutenant, we’re not really talking about magic here, are we? No.

Craig:  And why does this always happen? I don’t believe this for a second. The detectives just hang out at funerals and wait till everybody disperses to approach people. But it happens in horror movies all the time.

Todd:  Like,

Craig:  oh, sorry sorry to bother you at your friend’s funeral, but I just had a few questions for you. Okay. Yep. Do you like magic? Have you ever heard of Sigmund and Roy?

Todd:  Which isn’t even right? No. Siegfried. Siegfried. Do you like magic, or are you just putting on an act? If he goes through, you know, it’s again, it’s that typical detective. It’s trying to be very clever. Like, he’s got this extremely roundabout way to come around to the point where he’s accusing Jim of murdering him, but it comes across so dumb. So anyway, he does his thing. And this guy, is another actor, actually, who’s been in quite a few movies and TV shows.

Craig:  Yeah. He looks familiar.

Todd:  Burke, Burns. Yeah. If you go to again, if you go to his IMDB web page, you will see, like, 81 credits, and it’s all over television and and movies. He was a voice in the land before time. He was daddy Todd, I guess. Fall Guy, MacGyver, Dallas, you know, all those movies, Falcon Crest. Sure. He was in Child’s Play 3 as well and the AirPlay movies.  You know, I thought he was pretty familiar looking, but his acting is dumb. Yeah. But maybe it’s because his lines are dumb.

Craig:  It is. And and, like, this is one of those things where they really could have just left this whole part out of the movie.

Todd:  Oh, yeah.

Craig:  I mean, they’re investigation thing is so stupid. Like, clearly, this detective thinks that Jim had something to do with Lloyd’s death, and then as more bodies start piling up, this detective obviously thinks that Jim is involved in some way, but it really adds nothing to the plot except for that this guy just pops up every once in a while to be annoying.

Todd:  And let’s let’s talk about this from a realistic standpoint too. His explanation are you missing a hatchet, Jim? Yeah. Yeah. My hatchet’s missing. I had to buy a new one. That’s interesting because something showed that the ropes that were holding the drywall together were cut with a hatchet that matches yours. How does that even work?

Craig:  Yeah. That’s some pretty impressive forensics right there. Like

Todd:  Are there, like, specific hatchet marks on the rope that that lead to this particular hatchet? I don’t know. And then he disappears for, like, most of the movie and then comes in, like, half an hour from the end. So it

Craig:  Yeah. It’s unnecessary. Okay. The only thing that you skipped right before the funeral, David, the little spirit boy that Linda is talking to now, like, helps her find this ring that she’s lost.

Todd:  Oh, by the way, she’s also no plumber. Yeah. I just had to laugh at this. Like, she she goes in the the the boy tells her that the ring is in, the drain of in the bathroom or something. So she knows enough to get a wrench. Okay. That’s impressive. She’s got the right wrench to go there and immediately unscrew one end Yeah.  Of the u trap underneath the drain, twins it out, and then spends the next 10 minutes fishing her finger, which isn’t even long enough, to go down there to try to get it out. When that doesn’t work, she goes and gets a toothbrush. I mean, it’s like, what? Just take it off and dump it out.

Craig:  Yeah. Just take it off. Yeah. And the other thing is she uses a toothbrush, which I can only imagine isn’t hers. And then when she’s done, she puts it back and doesn’t even rinse it off or anything. It’s so gross that she finds her ring. Jim scares her inadvertently. Like, he does this throughout the movie.  Like, he just pops up behind people and scares them, but she turns around and swears at him. And and I thought that it happens twice in the movie, and I thought that those were Todd Kitaen’s best moments.

Todd:  Yeah. When

Craig:  she freaks out and swears, but apparently, it’s uncharacteristic of her, which

Todd:  Which really offends him. He gets really upset like like, is he a bit of a prude?

Craig:  Well, I I don’t know. I think he’s just surprised and his friend has literally just died like an hour earlier. So but but he does. Like, he lectures her like language? Uh-huh. Really? Like Calm down. We’re both grown ass adults. Like, chill out.

Todd:  He’s a construction worker. Come on.

Craig:  I know. Right?

Todd:  But Linda tells Jim that she’s pregnant. Uh-huh. And they have a little moment. Oh, Brandon’s asking for the board back. Right? Yeah. So the next scene, I think, is in the kitchen? Yeah. Linda goes back to the board for no good reason just to let it know, By the way, I’m gonna be giving you back to Brandon tomorrow.

Craig:  Right. Because she’s, like, mad because she thinks that maybe David had something to do with the accident. She she thinks that maybe David was trying to hurt Jim.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  So yeah. So she goes just Todd be like, oh, I’m giving it back. I swear to Todd, she only exists in this apartment. All she ever wears are nightgowns in this long flowing satin robe. Like, that’s that’s like her whole life.

Todd:  No complaints.

Craig:  So I guess I understand why she gets obsessed with a Ouija board because what else does she have to do? Anyway

Todd:  So then she goes to the refrigerator, and the knife flies off of the wall, and inexplicably gets stabbed straight down into the floor. And then a random bottle of ketchup that is just out with the lid off or something on the edge of somewhere tips over and drops ketchup right down on the knife, so that it looks like it’s a bloody knife, and this is the ominous omen. And, oh, my Todd. Is that so stupid? It looks so stupid.

Craig:  And then it cuts to a wide shot of the house, and you just hear her scream, which happens, like, 3 times. Yeah. And this is kind of

Todd:  the thing about this movie is that that makes it hard to really laugh so hard at because it’s so serious about all this stuff.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Todd:  It’s presenting you with this really dumbass dialogue. This horrible acting, and these really laughable moments, but there’s no hint of self awareness here. There’s no hint of humor. It is dead serious about the

Craig:  whole world. Oh, yeah.

Todd:  And that should be funny, but it and I guess it kind of is when we’re talking about it. But in the moment, you just kinda roll your eyes.

Craig:  Yeah. I can totally understand why. I mean, I liked it when I was a kid, so I was into it. So but I I get it. I I totally get it. Then so Brandon visits Jim on the construction site and asks him, is Linda acting strange? Is she swearing? Is she sick? And Jim’s like, yeah. And Brandon explains this whole thing about how because she’s using it alone, it opens her up to the spirit and it’s dangerous. And it says, at first, the spirit will be really helpful and friendly, and that’s called progressive entrapment.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Yeah. Exactly.

Todd:  It says it 3 or 4 more times.

Craig:  But then once the person is open, then they can start to possess the person.

Clip:  This is called progressive entrapment. So what you’re telling me is that I’m living with Linda Blair.

Todd:  Damn it, Tim. I’m serious.

Craig:  And Brandon says, I I wanna bring over a medium to do an exorcism. But then there’s this whole conversation where Jim says, yeah, these may all be symptoms of possession or whatever, but they’re also symptoms of pregnancy. And Brandon goes off on this whole thing about how you don’t really love her because you can’t love anybody, and you’ll eventually get tired of her, and you’ll just leave her just like you did with something, just like you did with medical school, just like you did with, and Jim cuts him off. He’s like, shut up. Todd, Brandon and Jim are gay. Like, I don’t think that they’re necessarily aware totally gay. But these guys, like when they say we used to be really close, yeah, they used to be really close. I I swear I swear to God that I didn’t.  I it makes sense to me now why I watched this movie so many times when I was a kid because these guys are gay. When I was done watching the movie Oh, I wish you were here right now.

Todd:  Oh, dude.

Craig:  My my partner my partner just walked in and did a humpy dance. That that was fantastic. But, when I was done watching the movie, I googled witch board gay because I’m like, surely, I can’t be the only one

Todd:  Uh-huh.

Craig:  Who sees this, and I’m not. Like, there are so many articles and blog posts and things about how this really is a romance story about Jim and Brandon. And, like, Linda is just totally relegated to her apartment. Like, she’s not even an important part of the movie really. And then the whole second part of the movie is just about these 2 guys re

Todd:  Kindling. Kindling

Craig:  their relationship. And they can’t even have a conversation with one another without getting, like, literally all misty eyed.

Todd:  That’s a good point.

Craig:  And as we I I just have it. I have in my notes that when he’s like, just like you left, and the guy goes, shut up. And I just have my notes, oh my Todd, totally gay. They are gay.

Todd:  I’m glad you’re here to point this out to me because, I mean, I just don’t think my gaydar was up on this one, but it is completely improbable and a little awkward and strange how the movie does end up progressing for the second half, where they suddenly are these it’s like this buddy thing. Yes. And they overcome they’re just so spiteful and hateful to each other, and within about one scene, suddenly, they’re getting misty eyed and talking about the good old days and, like, cracking wise and joking with each other like they’re best buds. Uh-huh. Staying in a hotel room together.

Craig:  You right. You know, with their glorious eighties chest hair. But we’re we’re not there yet. We’ll get there in a second. Okay.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  So Linda’s scared of David now. And then probably my favorite scene, they do invite the medium over. And this medium, her name is Zarebeth, and she’s played by a lady named Catherine Will. Oh, wait. She’s done a bazillion things. She’s been all over TV and all over movies. She’s very recognizable to me, but I remember her mostly from this movie.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  But she’s so funny. She’s so eighties. I mean, I guess they’re kind of going for punk. She’s not really punk, but she’s like punk kind of slash valley girl, I guess. Yeah. But she’s hilarious. She has hilarious dialogue. But at one point, like, they sit down to do this, seance or whatever, and she’s like

Todd:  Oh,

Craig:  bummer. I forgot my crystal ball. Just a little psychic humor. I don’t really have a crystal ball. Should we hold hands or something? Nah. It’s just in the vampire movies. You mean my nails are too grody? And they have this seance, and she channels David, and Brandon scolds Todd. Like, no.  You’re the bad one because you’re terrifying Linda. And the kid’s like,

Todd:  no. I love Linda.

Craig:  But Brandon says, you know, the the person that you’re talking through is a medium, and she has the power to exercise you. And the kid’s like, no. No. I’ll go away. So he does. But on the way home, Brandon is driving Zarebeth home, and she’s like, did you say that kid is only 10 years old? And he’s like, yeah. And she’s like, man, he must have been taking some major vitamins or something because that was some, like, powerful stuff that was going on. And then when he drops her off, she’s like, no.  Seriously, like, something’s off. I’m gonna do some research, and I’ll get back to you. So she goes in her house, and she does 30 seconds of research.

Todd:  In a book.

Craig:  And yeah. In a book. In a book that she just has at her house. Yeah.

Todd:  And I guess I guess we used to have books at our house. Oh, maybe she pulled in one of the encyclopedias off the wall, the w or something, you know. I could

Craig:  I didn’t get a Todd little bit. Like a psychic encyclopedia or something. Like an occultist.

Todd:  It’s the time life, mysteries of the unknown series.

Craig:  Yeah. But she, she she opens up and she finds this picture of this scary looking guy, and she goes to call Brandon, but then the spirit cam chases her around

Todd:  That’s right.

Craig:  The house.

Todd:  The spirit cam. It’s like ever since Evil Dead, there’s gotta be a spirit cam when people don’t really know what else to do. Like like, can they actually see it? Because when it’s the POV of the spirit cam, it’s like these people can actually see the spirit coming at them. They’re looking at

Craig:  Well, she can. Yeah. Oh,

Todd:  it’s not just her. Don’t know

Craig:  if it well, I the like, later, the spirit cam is haunting Jim, and he turns around. He doesn’t see anything. I feel like Linda sees something.

Todd:  Oh, but that’s in a dream.

Craig:  Yeah. She has a couple of dream sequences. Like, I swear to Todd, they’re just trying to give her something to do because she is completely insignificant.

Todd:  It’s like, oh, look. Linda’s out of the house. Nope. Kidding. It’s just a dream.

Craig:  Yeah. All she does is stay at home and paint her nails because she has these beautiful nails. And every time she’s using the Ouija board, like, oh, her manicure looks great. But, anyway, so then the the spirit kills Zareba. It slashes her throat and then pushes her out the window, and she impales herself on a sundial. Brandon hears about it on the news the next morning, and he goes to Jim and, again, very misty eyed. And when I say misty eyed, it’s like all of a sudden, every time the 2 of these guys are together, it’s like they’ve either been crying or they are directly on the verge of crying. Like, their eyes are all red around the outside.  Like, I can only the only thing that I could think when I was watching this was, like, they must have performed this scene several times and

Todd:  This is the 5th take.

Craig:  At some point because their eyes are so red or they were just stoned. I don’t know. It

Todd:  could be either one. It was the eighties. Could be.

Craig:  But Brandon goes to Jim and Linda’s asleep, and he’s like, oh my god. Here’s what’s going on. I think she’s being possessed, and it’s you know, we can’t just get rid of the Ouija board now because it’s too late. You know, he already has his hooks in her or whatever. And Jim’s like, okay. Good luck, and sends him off to go do research somewhere. And then Linda gets attacked by the spirit, and there’s an amazing scene where, like, the spirit is throwing her out in the room.

Todd:  It’s terrible. She’s just throwing herself back and forth.

Craig:  Flopping around.

Todd:  Head to the left, head to the right.

Craig:  I know. And I feel like they had to shoot it really close-up to give it any kind of sense of realism, and it still doesn’t work.

Todd:  Oh, it’s terrible.

Craig:  But she ends up getting thrown against the wall and knocked out and getting put in the hospital, which means that now Jim and Brandon can go on a little road trip together.

Todd:  Yay. Now that Linda’s now that Linda’s out of the picture,

Craig:  Let’s go up to Big Bear.

Todd:  It all fits. You are absolutely right.

Craig:  They’re so gay and they go up to Big Bear and, like, okay, so they do some library research.

Todd:  Now wait a minute. Before before you talk about the library research, don’t forget that the homicide this is the second point that the homicide detective pops in again.

Clip:  You know, I saw this magician once. He managed to make an entire elephant disappear. An entire elephant? That’s no mean feat either. Just a tiny elephant. It’s pretty tough just to stick up your sleeve. Of course, I know that he didn’t really make that elephant vanish into thin air. He just managed to hide it someplace.

Craig:  Like, because he’s still fixated on this hatchet.

Clip:  What do you think her throat would slip with? A hatchet? Whatever it was, her throat matched the ropes that were cut on the construction site.

Craig:  What? What? I don’t believe you even for a second. That’s so stupid. His hatchet keeps turning up. I mean, I guess the spirit is just carrying it around. I I don’t know. But then the buddies go on a road trip to Big Bear. It’s very beautiful up there, mountains and lakes and things.

Todd:  It’s a perfect little getaway.

Craig:  And they do some research, and they and they find out that what they wanted to know is if this spirit that Brandon had been contacting all this time had been telling the truth. So they do research and they find out that, yes, this kid really had been 10 years old when he died. He died in, like, a boating accident, like a a gasoline explosion on a boat, but they still don’t know why he is tormenting Linda. So Brandon’s like, well, let’s ask his parents. So they try to find him, but they can’t. And they’re like, well, the kid is buried at this certain cemetery, so maybe the caretaker would have records of his parents or something. So they go to the cemetery and it cuts to a shot. Now I’m stealing this because I read all these articles, but it cuts to a scene of, Brandon just sitting in his car.  One of the articles I read said the author was just waiting for Jim to pop up from his lap. And and I thought about it, I’m like, mhmm. I can see I I saw a movie like that once.

Todd:  Once? Highly doubt that. Yesterday.

Craig:  But oh, god. That’s so funny Todd. Because I was talking to my partner about this last night, and he said, yeah. I was walking through because I watched these on my computer in the living room. He said, I was walking through, and I thought you were watching gay porn. So he all he had to see was, like, you know, just an image. I had my headphones on. There’s no audio at all.  And he’s like, I totally thought you were watching porn. But they okay. So they visit the cemetery, and they find David’s headstone, but they also find his parents’ headstone, and his parents had just died a couple weeks ago. Now I I guess the implication here is that whatever true spirit is doing this, whether it’s David or, spoiler alert, someone else killed his parents so that they couldn’t talk or something, I guess.

Todd:  Yeah. Right? It’s I I didn’t get it. I didn’t I didn’t quite catch it.

Craig:  Whatever. But then they go back to their hotel room where Brandon proceeds to unpack his clothes on both beds, and they have a very chummy conversation while Brandon has his shirt open so you can see his, you know, beautiful eighties chest.

Clip:  What happened to us, man? We used to be like brothers. Well, things change. People change. I didn’t steal her from you. You know that. I know. Just that every time I see the 2 of you together, I go crazy. I started saying stupid things and I can’t stop.  You remember what you said about me quitting med school? Jim, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Oh, no. You were right. You know what I’m afraid of more than anything else? That I’ll never be able to love anyone, and that I’m gonna end up spending the rest of my life alone.

Craig:  And then Jim makes a dick joke about Brandon and they laugh and have fun. And I also read on the DVD release, there’s a making of, and these two actors just really were very chummy together. And at one point in some behind the scene footage, you see them, like, rough housing together, and somebody off camera says, guys, have sex on your own time. So maybe it was just the dynamic between the 2 actors.

Clip:  But

Todd:  They had a real bromance going on. Yeah.

Craig:  Yeah. They’re they’re definitely gay. Wow.

Todd:  But,

Craig:  anyway, Linda wakes up. She’s been in the hospital. She hears David calling her, and then she sees this scary guy who cuts off her head, but it’s just a dream again.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  But she checks out of, the hospital. And Brandon buys a new Ouija board so they can go to the Todd where David died, and they try to contact him, and they do

Todd:  Do do do do do do do. Just a second. Brandon throws all of his previous rules completely out the window.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  His thing was I mean, you remember he was such a dick at the party giving all of his, highfalutin knowledge about the Ouija board. Mhmm. How it’s connected to a particular spirit and then a particular person. He has his his own special signal with this person. And then it’s gotta be 2 clean and pure people. And they’ve gotta have it on their knees between them. He goes and he buys a new one, so it’s not connected to anything.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  They go to this dock and he says, aren’t we supposed to put this on our knees? And, Brandon says, no. No. No. No. It’s okay because we’re here in the spot where David died. And so, I think that it, you know, the the signals are strong enough that that’s not necessary. Like, why not just do it anyway? Right. Like, if these are your rules But when I’m watching the scene, it goes on for so long.  They’re asking this board so many questions. And the thing about this is, you’ve gotta picture this if you haven’t seen the movie. This isn’t like, you know, when you did the Ouija board back home, like, you’d all have your fingers on the planchette, and you’d ask it a question, then it would slowly move across to something and then stop. And then you’d ask it another question, slowly move across. I mean, there’s none of this drama in it. And I think, actually, that’s part of the problem is, why these scenes look so goofy and silly. Is because this planchette is constantly moving in like a figure 8 pattern on the board. And so it’s like, and they’re like asking it a question, then it kinda goes Todd something like This goes on for like 5 or 6 minutes.  And it gets kinda boring after a while. I actually

Craig:  thought it was kinda stressful.

Todd:  Well, it’s cutting between the board, like a top down view of the board and the planchette. And this view of just the 2 of them, just from about, I don’t know, belly button up. But you don’t see the board. All you see is the 2 of them looking down, and their arms are furiously moving. Yeah. I went up with you. I saw

Craig:  a movie like that

Todd:  once too. I thought you did. Yeah. That was going through my head when I saw this scene, actually. Even though none of the other stuff all the other stuff went over it, but this this part, I just had to bust out at.

Craig:  Well, yeah. Okay. So they ask all these questions, and it basically, it’s the kid, and he and he says it it wasn’t me. It was him initially at the party, but everything that happened after the party wasn’t him. And so Brandon’s like, who was it? And the kid just writes out evil. And then they say, who is evil? And it writes out her, and they’re like, her? Like, Linda? Like, what are you talking about? And the kids spirit gets all agitated, and Jim’s like, hold on. Didn’t you say they’re terrible spellers? And Brandon’s like, okay, David. Did you misspell the word? And he says yes.  And then they’re like, okay. Try again really slow. And he spells out her, and then it cuts away from the board. And it’s like, where did he go? He’s gone. He’s not here anymore. But they looked down and the planchette has landed on e here. Evil is here. And then this big stack of barrels or something that has been, you know, the backdrop behind them this whole time.  The ropes holding it break, and they’re knocked down. Jim is knocked out on the dock. Brandon is knocked into the water. Brandon gets out of the water. He goes to check on his buddy, and then the spirit cam hatchets him to the face.

Todd:  Yeah. You’re right. The spirit just carrying the hatchet around.

Craig:  Right. Exactly. The the that same hatchet. Like, say, like, I you know, as you can just imagine, like, just, you know, randomly floating around,

Todd:  like, it

Craig:  Todd a little trip to Big Bear. But Brandon gets a hatchet Todd the face, and he falls back in the water. And then Jim eventually wakes up after a while, and, he’s looking for Brandon. He he’s all bloody on his face too, which I feel like his wounds totally disappear in subsequent scenes, but he goes down to the shore to, like, wash the blood off his face. And Brandon, I never even understood this when I was a kid because, like, he’s dead, but he still reaches out of the water and grabs Jim. Yeah. And then Jim, like, holds him in his arms and weeps. And it’s been it’s been this whole thing that Jim never cries.  Like, he didn’t cry when his parents died. He didn’t cry when Lloyd died. But now when his friend dies

Todd:  His special friend. Stops.

Craig:  He just has a a horrible emotional breakdown.

Todd:  Yeah. That’s

Craig:  true. He’s gay. And then so then Jim races back because he finds out that Linda’s out of the hospital. At some point, Jim had thrown the Ouija board in the trash can. Linda gets it out. She talks to the spirit. It scares her again. We hear her scream

Todd:  from a

Craig:  wide shot of the house again.

Todd:  That’s right.

Craig:  And we hear, a man scream also. Okay. So this guy, his name apparently is Malfador, which is, like, means evil spirit or whatever. And at some point, Jim finds out who he is and that he used to live in their house. Jim figures it all out. He races home, and he opens up the door to their apartment, and it’s totally trashed.

Todd:  Yeah. Because Linda took a shower.

Craig:  Because she took a shower.

Todd:  Yeah. You can’t skip over this. I know it’s a gay movie, but throw me a bone here. We gotta talk about Linda’s shower scene.

Craig:  Careful what you wish for.

Todd:  Badam ching. Actually, keep your bone to yourself. Linda’s on. I usually do. Oh, man. I hope I can finish this. I was just about to say, I do wish I was there with you right now, Craig, but I’m done with that.

Craig:  Oh my Todd. Come on. Pull it together.

Todd:  Alright. Alright. Alright. So, of course, it’s gotta I just laugh so hard when Linda walks into the shower and turns it on. I’m like, oh, my gosh. This movie’s even gonna squeeze a shower scene in. Well, I was happy for it. Don’t get me wrong.  Yeah. But, she turns on the shower and gets terrorized by water. Yep. The water turns really, really hot really quick, and and the door to the shower is locked. So she has to smash her way out of it. And, and then it’s like she’s being attacked by the spirit. And apparently, this scene was really hard for her to do. She was apparently extremely nervous about shooting the scene, and chased all of the men off the set except for, like, the director and the second assistant camera loader, something like that.  I don’t know. It’s really weird. If you go to the Wikipedia page for this site, it feels like it was written by the director or somebody who is there on set every single day, because it’s an unusual amount of deep behind the scenes detail for a movie How do

Craig:  you look at it?

Todd:  For a movie Wikipedia page. Yeah. It’s insane. And then when you go over to IMDB, none of this information is there.

Craig:  Nothing.

Todd:  Yeah. But, yeah. There’s this this this little details. And she it even said in there that she didn’t even trust them to I don’t know what this means. But it says that she didn’t even trust them to shoot the scene until she saw a wedding the wedding ring on the cinematographer’s finger.

Craig:  Oh, wow.

Todd:  Yeah. Like, did she think they were gonna do something to her or

Craig:  I don’t know. I mean, I I wouldn’t do nudity, but I

Todd:  guess she just

Craig:  it just surprised I I I don’t know why I think that beautiful people would feel any different than I do. I mean, she’s such a beautiful like, what do you have to hide? Like, show it off. Like, you look great. Well But it does I mean, it almost feels gratuitous isn’t the word because it’s not gratuitous. I mean, it’s it’s a a very mild scene. But it’s unnecessary. Nude.

Todd:  Yeah. I mean It

Craig:  is unnecessary. But but she is fully nude. So, you know, I I can understand why there would be some discomfort.

Todd:  I think the full frontal at some point for at least a flash. Right?

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I I always think of, Revenge of the Nerds. We’ve got Bush. But, Todd Kitaen, I’m sure you’re looking or listening. You looked great.  You had nothing to

Todd:  worry about. So yeah. So she’s terrorized by the shower. Go on. Later, Jim breaks in, and sees that the room is absolutely torn up. And then as he’s walking around the room, calling her name, suddenly, she pops up from behind a a broken out desk or something with is it an axe? It’s just a random axe. Right? I thought it would It’s a fire axe. I thought it would be her his hatchet or something.  But it must be she must keep a fire axe in her room or something. This scene is so bad.

Craig:  And and, like, she’s talking to him. Oh, and I I hope she’s not listening because her acting is so so terrible. But they they distort her voice to make it sound more masculine. And the thing is, like, she’s obviously trying to kill him, and she gets him by the throat. She’s throttling him on the ground, and he’s choking and and he says, I love you, which he’s never said to her before. Like, she comes back for a second, but then the spirit comes back. He’s like, it’s not gonna be that easy.

Todd:  Yeah. I actually thought that was the most clever moment in the entire movie. I really appreciated that because my eyes were rolling when he said I love you, and she started coming back. I was, like, oh my god.

Craig:  So he stabs her in the leg with a letter opener, and it’s funny because she clearly has, like, huge padding in her pants.

Todd:  I can totally see it.

Craig:  He stabs her in the leg, and then they’re facing off. He has a gun. I don’t even remember where he got the gun.

Todd:  From the cop because because inexplicably, suddenly the cop bursts in.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s

Todd:  the 3rd and final time you see the cop.

Craig:  And he’s, you know, he thinks that Jim is gonna hurt her, so he tries to help her, but she, like, knocks him to the ground. And then Jim is holding this gun on her, and she goes into this whole monologue about how he is the portal. Now I thought this was actually pretty clever because Brandon had said that the spirit will terrify you and scare you to make you weak so that you are an easy conduit or something. Mhmm. Evil Linda says to him, I terrified you by torturing her. And that actually makes sense.

Todd:  Yeah. It’s kinda smart.

Craig:  If it were true

Todd:  Right.

Craig:  But it also doesn’t make sense because he’s like, there’s if you wanna close the portal, there’s only one way you can do it, and you’ve got the means right there in your hands. Basically, what he’s saying is kill yourself to close the portal. Well, that should be a big clue because this evil spirit clearly wouldn’t want the portal closed. So why would he tell you how to do it? Yeah. It doesn’t make any sense. Yeah. So it looks like Jim’s gonna kill himself. He puts the gun to his head, and he says her name, and then she, like, comes back and she’s like, no.  Don’t do it. And then you hear the gunshot, but it’s a total fake out because he doesn’t shoot himself. He shoots the Ouija board, which expels the spirit from her body. But I guess when it comes out, it turns back into the spirit cam. It forces him some way out the window, and it’s a terrible special effect shot

Todd:  Oh Todd.

Craig:  Of him falling out the window, like, onto this car or whatever. And then it cuts to another fake out scene where you see a bunch of people in church Craig, and you think surely it’s his funeral, but it’s not. It’s their wedding. He’s in a neck brace, but it’s their wedding. And they’re married, and it’s very eighties and everything’s happy. And then you see the people cleaning up the apartment, the landlady and some other cheeky cleaning up the apartment. They pick up the Ouija board and one of them says, oh, I wonder if it still works. And the other one says, with all those bolt holes in it, no way.  And they throw it in the trash, and then you see the planchette race up to the yes. The end.

Todd:  The end. Now you gotta mention that the landlady is Rosemarie.

Craig:  Yeah. I don’t know her. Like, she was really recognizable, but I didn’t recognize anything that she was from.

Todd:  Did you ever I know this is older than both of us, but I’ve there were reruns going all the time, and it’s so famous. Did you ever watch the Dick Van Dyke Show?

Craig:  I mean, here and there.

Todd:  She was the writer. She was the the his this writer friend of the Dick Van Dyke Show. She’s fantastic. Rosemarie is Oh,

Craig:  she’s great.

Todd:  Is incredible. Like, she, like, started out her career, like, in the 19 twenties when she was a kid.

Craig:  The jazz singer or something like that.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. She became a jazz singer, but she was, like, a kid. They called her baby Rose, I think. And she was on the radio when she was, like, I don’t know, 5 singing. And, she’s just had an insane career. Jazz singer, hugely great on The Dick Van Dyke Show, com a real comedy writer, not just on that on that show, but in real life, and tons of stuff. So weird that she ended up with a bit part in this movie.  Mhmm. Oh, I don’t get it.

Craig:  So anyway, then there were a couple of sequels. If I ever saw the sequels, I don’t remember them. And like I said, a spin off. And and I I don’t think the sequels followed the same storyline at all. They just the thing they had in common was a Ouija board. Yeah. I don’t know. Again, it’s it’s childhood nostalgia for me.  It’s not a good movie. It’s it’s it’s kind of a lame movie. Like you said, I wouldn’t classify it as so bad. It’s good. Yeah. But I would almost say that if you like eighties horror movies, it’s definitely not the worst. No. You know, I I still kinda like it.  I’ll probably watch it again at some point. Especially

Todd:  especially now that you have this whole other take on it. Right. It does make the movie slightly more interesting, actually. But I it’s gotta be a completely self aware thing on the part of the I mean, the director, from what I saw when he was talking about this film and I think I read this on the Wikipedia page as well when he was talking about, how his inspiration and stuff for the script was. He was actually kind of inspired by The Exorcist, kind of inspired by something else. And he talked about how he really was trying to heighten this bromance that this board, in his mind, the board was helping Jim to realize his problems, relating to people and what was coming between him and his girlfriend. Yeah. And I guess, you know I mean, maybe in the director’s mind, it was Jim’s own, you know, mental problems.  But, when you watch the movie, there’s something very clearly coming between him and his girlfriend.

Craig:  Stop saying coming.

Todd:  Multiple times.

Craig:  Oh my Todd. Let’s just let’s just leave it there.

Todd:  Let’s hand it here. Okay. Alright. Thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. Or a special friend. Just just search search on the Internet where you could find many interesting things. 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.  We have a Facebook page. You can leave us a comment there. We have a website 2 guys dot red forty net Todd com. You can find all of our back episodes there as well and leave us a comment there. Give us your request. We’d love to, to hear them. Until next time. I am Todd

Craig:  And I’m Craig.

Todd:  With 2 guys and a Chainsaw

We can’t really say “thanks” to loyal listener Shane for requesting this week’s movie. Maybe he wanted to punish us? What did we ever do to you, Shane?

Also, how sexually suggestive is that poster, eh?

Episode 186, 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 Craig.

Todd: Well, we decided we better dip back into our request list because it’s starting to get a little long. The request that we chose to do for this week, since we do enjoy Early eighties horror slasher films, especially ones that are a little more obscure, came from Shane. And he requested a film that we had both never heard of, I think. Right?

Craig:  Right? And I know why.

Todd:  Now we know why. Sorry, Shane. We’re not gonna be kind to this movie. No. This is 1980 three’s Curtains, one of those many I don’t know. It seems like Canada had a, the beat on all of the early slasher films of the late seventies, early eighties, they were all coming out of Canada. Right? I mean, we’ve done So many. Terror Train, Black Christmas, prom night, just just a lot of these.  Some of them notorious. Some of them forgettable like this movie. Yeah. Come out of Canada, for some reason. It was I think it was a cheap place to do production. The Burning, I think, was it was there too?

Craig:  I don’t know. I don’t remember. But this I I think the producer of this movie was the same guy who produced Prom night, and they wanted to do a more mature slasher movie, like, for grown ups, like, not just like a Teen slasher movie. Mhmm. And, I think maybe they miscalculated. I think that the the whole Teen slasher thing is the way to go because

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  This is not.

Todd:  Nobody nobody wants to watch what Kind of ends up looking like a bad soap opera with a few killings in it.

Craig:  Right?

Todd:  I seriously, when we turned this on from the very beginning, I thought, is this What are those made for TV movies we’re gonna be watching again? And, apparently, the movie did have a bit of a life on late night television, and I can see why. It’s pretty Tame in most respects. It’s really odd in a lot of ways. It’s the sort of thing that if you’re half asleep, You might as well watch because you’re gonna fall asleep anyway.

Craig:  Yeah. I was gonna say, like, listen. Get your Beeper ready because I am not gonna be able

Todd:  to

Craig:  contain myself. This movie is super fucking boring. And I was bored to death in this movie.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  There are so many scenes that I was, like, looking at my watch, like, this scene is still happening. Like, are you kidding me? Like, I’ve been watching some bitch ice skate for, like, 5 minutes. Like oh my god.

Todd:  Todd notorious ice Gating scene from what I read online. You know, I have to admit this, and I’ve never I don’t think I’ve done this for any other films that we’ve had to watch. But about 20 minutes into this movie, I went into my video player software, and I set it Todd play the movie at 1 and a quarter speed.

Craig:  I I don’t blame you.

Todd:  Kid you not. I thought I could save a good 10 minutes from this movie by just speeding it up. And I didn’t even notice. Like, even even at 1 and a quarter speed, it seemed slow.

Craig:  I I Swear to Todd that if we hadn’t been watching it for the podcast, I would have turned it off. Like, I was mad. Like, I was, like, rage watching it. Like, this is this is horrible. Throw it stuff across

Todd:  the room.

Craig:  I mean, we have watched some movies that have been really bad in different ways. But usually, like, those are kind of fun to like joke about or whatever. The like like you said, like, this is just, like, bad daytime drama. Like, it it feels like Soap opera. Like, I watched, like, 3 episodes of All My Children or something. Like

Todd:  Bad episode. Yeah.

Craig:  Oh, So bad.

Todd:  And it’s pretentious at points, and it’s bizarre.

Craig:  So pretentious.

Todd:  And here’s the weird thing. There are really good actors in this movie.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  There are seasoned actors in this movie. And some of the actors in this movie, this may have been their 2nd or 3rd movie that they did, but they went on to do a lot of stuff. I mean, There’s some really recognizable faces in here.

Craig:  Yeah. The only one that I recognized was the guy who plays the lead guy, Stryker. Stryker. John Vernon. Yeah. John Vernon. I mean, if you’ve ever seen any movie ever, you’ve seen this guy because he’s been in a Zillion days.

Todd:  And a lot of TV. A lot of TV.

Craig:  Yeah. Even now. Tons and tons and tons. But he was the only one that I really recognized. Who else?

Todd:  You didn’t recognize Samantha Egger, the the sort of the other lead actress in it? The one

Craig:  Not really.

Todd:  She has kind of a I don’t wanna say a wonky eye, but it’s like one of her eyes is just a little bigger than the other.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:  It looks just a little to the side. So she’s got a very distinctive look. She was the star of the brood. Haven’t done The Brood yet, but we probably will at some point. She’s been in a ton of ton of movies. She was the voice of Hera in the Disney Hercules.

Craig:  Oh, that’s cool.

Todd:  Not not like a lot of big name movies, but a lot of stuff that you’d recognize. And like I said, a lot of TV. I don’t know. Especially from the eighties, actually, like Falcon Crest, The Love Boat, you know, things like that. And then, some of the other actresses, actually, we should have recognized from earlier films we’ve done. Sandy Curry was one of the girls in Here. She was in Terror Train, and Lynn Griffin was in Black Christmas. She was one of the girls in Black Christmas.

Craig:  Oh, We’ll see, here was one of the problems that I had with this movie. Okay. So the premise the general premise, like, if you read it on IMDB, Is like these 6 actresses gather at this manner for like some audition for like a life changing role or whatever. First of all, when I first started watching the movie, I was going back to IMDB because I was thinking I was watching the wrong movie, because it didn’t Seem like that was what it was going to be about at all for the 1st 10 or 15 minutes. But one of the problems one of the many problems that I had with the movie Was that aside from 2 of those 6 actresses, none of the rest of them had any distinguishing qualities. So I never had any idea who I was looking at. Yeah. Like, I had no idea who was who.

Todd:  Even physically, they have no distinguishing qualities.

Craig:  They have

Todd:  almost the same hairstyle. They’re they’re all kind of brunettes. There’s only 1 blonde in the whole thing, and they all just have a Similar look. Again, they all look like they came off of 80 soap operas, every single one of them.

Craig:  Well and to be fair, I guess they’re all auditioning for the same role. But At one point, somebody says, oh, you’ve brought all these girls here, and they’re all so different. No. They’re not. They’re all exactly the same.

Todd:  Like, I don’t know what you’re just

Craig:  talking about. And, like, the they try to give them distinguishing qualities, but the distinguishing qualities are like, Oh, one’s an ice skater. One’s a ballet dancer. One’s a comedian, but they look exactly the same. And so I never know who I’m looking at. And I don’t know what version of the film that you looked at. I watched it on Amazon Prime, and it was Terrible. The quality was terrible.  The screen was bouncing around all of the time, And, it was so dark that I couldn’t see anything for a good 30% of the movie. And there were also many, many times when the boom mics We’re so obviously in Craig. Like, ridiculously obviously in frame. Was that not the case with the version that you watch?

Todd:  Maybe you watched the transfer from the VHS or something like that. Because Probably. What I watched was pretty clear. I read that in the early 2000, all of the Fans of this film petitioned for it to be to get a proper Blu Craig and DVD release, and so it did. And I think the movie I watched probably came from that release. I’d imagine they fixed those problems. I can’t imagine there being that many fans to petition unless the guy who owned the rights to this was, like, 1 dude sitting in his house who got, like, 2 letters from people.

Craig:  I don’t know. I don’t know. Like, and that’s Todd did you say the name of the guy? Shane? Is it Shane who, requested this? Shane, get on our Facebook page and please tell us why you requested this movie. If there’s something about it that I missed, something that makes it endearing, something that warrants it being a cult classic. Fill me in because I just don’t get it.

Todd:  I don’t

Craig:  get it.

Todd:  It’s a bizarre movie, and It doesn’t flow well. It’s poorly edited. There are a lot of hanging threads in here. There’s

Craig:  Hanging threads? It’s completely nonsensical. Completely nonsensical.

Todd:  Like It’s not plausible at all. None none of it is. No. Almost yeah. Absolutely every bit of it, including the premise. The premise is stupid. The prem the premise is that this big name like you said, this big name director is gathering all up, sort of like, Agatha Christie style, gathering all of these people, these women Todd his house to audition them. And then his method of audition is he’s I’m he’s I guess he’s just gonna put them through the paces or something.

Craig:  And them. That’s what I that’s the only that’s the only reason that he’s breathing them all there.

Todd:  It’s true. And And he’s so brazen about it. He just it’s like 1 scene, he walks into 1 girl’s room with her, and she’s just like, okay. And another scene, he he saves a girl from, like, a thing and then, comforts her in bed, and they start kissing. And there you go. There’s that thing. And he just

Craig:  so That seems to be really his only motivation.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Okay. Like, I feel like we should say that the 1st 20 minutes and I and I guess I found the 1st 20 minutes Kind of intriguing like, okay, so this director striker has this relationship with this actress named Samantha, where they have worked together like A 1000000 times. And they’re gonna do this new film based on this book Called Todd, I got so sick of hearing that name over the course of the movie. Apparently, it’s about like a crazy woman or something. So They devised this plan together, I guess. I mean, I think that when it comes down to it, it was really just, he was Trying to get her out of the way or something. I don’t know. But that they’re gonna do like this method acting thing where they have her Committed to an insane asylum so that she can really understand what it’s like to be an insane person.  And that idea is kind of interesting, but even that is so sloppy. Like, the the women in the asylum are so

Todd:  Over the top asylum ladies. Yeah.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s just stupid. I know that we’ve watched other movies like this Before where people have been in an asylum, and it’s just people just acting goofy, you know,

Todd:  like Tackling each other and cackling.

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, it’s It’s dumb. And to to be fair to the actress who plays Samantha, she does a pretty good job of showing How just being in that kind of institution would break you down and make you maybe kind of seem insane. So it That may be the only positive thing I had to say about the whole movie. Like, she did a pretty good job with that, I will say. But then it turns out He gathers all of these other actresses or calls all of these other actresses and leaves her in the asylum. Like, He’s just gonna leave her there

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Forever, I guess, apparently. Well,

Todd:  the way they do this too is they meet with the doctor, and he’s going to commit her. And she Stares off into space, and the doctor has to have them sign some paperwork. And he makes a comment to her like, well, you know, just from looking at you right now, I just can’t imagine that you have this problem.

Clip:  It’s an honor to have you here, miss Sherwood. I’m a longtime fan of yours. I am looking forward to seeing Audra.  The film has been shelved Temporarily.  I didn’t realize. I must say, miss Sherwood, from doctor Harrison’s report, I, Expected somewhat more severe behavior from you, but I see no reason why you shouldn’t be back in front of the camera in no time.  Those days are over, doctor. I only hope she faces.

Todd:  And she immediately on queue grabs, like, some scissors from his desk and tries to attack this guy. Striker. Striker. Striker. She tries to strike. Striker. And immediately, some orderlies from the other room leap in like Like, they were waiting there the whole time. And it’s at, like, a mansion, but I guess the mansion is also supposed to be an institution.  I don’t know.

Craig:  Yeah. Right.

Todd:  And and and takes her in there. And then he says they put her in a straight jacket and then put her in the corner. And then he says to the doctor, can I have a few minutes alone with her, and the doctor rightly so is, like, are you sure that’s a good idea? And he’s, like, well, she’s in the Drey jacket, so there’s nothing she could possibly do to anybody. The doctor’s like, okay. That makes sense, and just leaves him in there with her.

Craig:  I I think that she’s the best actress In the movie. But even she it like after the doctor leaves, she’s like, Oh, darling, didn’t I do a wonderful job? Like, method acting? Like,

Todd:  I know.

Craig:  So contrived and stupid.

Todd:  It’s bad. It’s bad. Well and just the whole idea of that. I mean, there are people who have Done the you know, actors who’ve done things like this in order to get into a character. You can arrange this sort of thing.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  You can spend time With interviewing people or being there, you don’t have to do this kind of thing. But, again, it was his plot according to the movie. Stryker just really wanted to leave her there. For reasons I don’t understand, he’s trying to get her out of the way. Well, you don’t have to cast her.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  You know, she might be pissed about it, but you don’t have to leave her in an Style them for the rest of your life just to avoid that embarrassment.

Craig:  I know. I know. It’s crazy.

Todd:  It’s dumb.

Craig:  And and and then, like, everything else is nonsensical too. So, okay. So then she’s there. And so then we find out, like, we see a newspaper, like, oh, exposition newspaper headline, Audra is finally going forward, casting underway. And then we get these brief introductions to all of these actresses. Again, like, indistinguishable from one another. And there’s 1, one of the first ones that gets introduced, I think, If I remember correctly, is this blonde chick.

Todd:  Oh, my gosh. This one.

Craig:  And and there’s the way that she’s introduced is there’s like this stalker outside her house like she’s laying on our showering or like in the bathroom or something I don’t remember. And There’s this stalker who like puts pantyhose on his head and is going in. And I knew from the beginning, I’m like, this is fake, this isn’t real. But this Scene went on for days. I know. Like, I lost a week of my life on this scene, and it went on for so long. And then it was just a stupid rape fantasy scene Oh. That

Todd:  that It’s kinda eerie.

Craig:  Amounted to nothing.

Todd:  Yeah. It it well, It’s so funny that she’s maybe the most developed character of all of them. Right? At least you know she’s got this twisted fantasy because, nobody else really has anything of note or interest besides their occupation. It’s just she’s in the bath. She’s in the kitchen. She pours herself a glass of wine. She goes into the bedroom. You see the stalker outside the window.  Then she comes back into the kitchen to, like, close the fridge. You see the stalker outside the window. She goes Back into her bedroom. Stalker’s still outside the window. Then she goes back into the kitchen, pours herself another thing of wine. Stalker’s outside the window. She goes back into her bedroom. He opens the window, and then there’s, like, this long ass scene of her sitting reading a magazine until finally she gets up out of bed and turns the corner, and he leaps out at her.  And then it gets really icky. Yeah. She’s he’s like he’s like looks like he’s raping her, and then it turns out that she knows him and this is Some game that they often play, and he’s like, oh. Mhmm.

Clip:  This is getting a little boring.

Todd:  Well, it

Clip:  was always the pizza boy. No. Too messy. Says that pepperoni always sticks to my ass. It’s the only way to keep it warm.

Todd:  Like, seriously. Even makes sense. Yeah.

Craig:  And like, all the while classical music is playing in the background like This is some kinda, like, classy art film or some shit. Well Like, come on.

Clip:  Well and then when they’re done

Craig:  like, this was like dream within

Todd:  a dream within a dream stupid stuff. She kind of falls asleep or they’re making out or whatever, and it pans over to this weird doll that she has, this sort of, like, 2 foot tall Porcelain doll thing. Mhmm. And which has a weird frowny face. The next scene we see is of her driving down the Todd, presumably

Craig:  even think it was Her, was it? Yeah.

Todd:  It was her driving down the road.

Craig:  I don’t know. I couldn’t tell any of them apart.

Todd:  And she stops the car. Well, she was the only blonde one, Craig. She was the only one I could tell And it doesn’t help us, because she gets killed off right away. So She stops the car because there’s a girl in the road. It turns out to be her doll. And then her doll’s hands clamp around her. And I’m like, what is going on? And somebody hops in this car and runs her over, and then she wakes up because she had a dream. So this is the 2nd fake out.  2 scenes back to back where we’ve been faked out that this woman’s gonna get murdered. So, of course, in this 3rd scene, after she’s woken up, the guy who she was with isn’t there anymore.

Craig:  Inexplicably, They never explain where he is.

Todd:  Yeah. And she’s like, hello? Hello? Hello? And then she gets, what, knifed or something? I don’t remember.

Craig:  Well and that’s another thing, another Crap piece about this movie. Like, the kills are so lame. Like, they’re not inventive or interesting. Like, they’re not even visually Tristan, like, we’re so dumb and she gets killed and like, then there’s that doll keeps popping up. Why? What?

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Why why is the why is this doll around?

Todd:  What’s the connecting what does this doll signify? It just well, This movie, apparently, had a very storied production history because the original director filmed, like, 45 minutes of it and quit. Yeah. He and the producer apparently couldn’t stand each other and completely were at odds with what they wanted. The producer wanted another slasher movie like prom night. The director wanted this sort of adult art, maybe art house thoughtful film. And I think that probably has a lot to do with why this is so weird. A lot of it was filmed in this Kind of try there are probably moments like this doll or whatever that were supposed to have some significance, but then it got lost because they brought in another director to finish the movie, and then they shot some scenes, like, a year later. This movie was, like, in production for 3 or 4 years before it finally came out.  Mhmm. And so It got chopped to pieces and rewritten and additional scenes added. A whole bunch of scenes were reshot or shot and then weren’t even used. And they said it was just kind of a nightmare, So this thing was more or less cobbled together, which explains something. Except even the thinking that you would have all of this footage At hand for you, couldn’t you put together something at least a little more coherent than this? Mhmm. I don’t know. So, yeah, it makes no sense. I would think that the doll the doll comes up one more time.  Right?

Craig:  Yeah. In the ice skating scene.

Todd:  Again, totally and probably for no good reason.

Craig:  Yeah. So I thought the same thing that you did. It was very get the Christie, like, they, you know, bring all these women together and, like, they all are when they’re all finally together. There’s one other, I guess, significant introduction scene where we’re introduced to this 1 lady who’s, like, a comedian, I guess.

Todd:  With the Worst act you could imagine, but the very enthusiastic audience.

Craig:  Yeah. She’s not funny at all. And, apparently, she filmed this in front of a real audience, and I guess they We’re just generous. I don’t know. But, whatever. She’s like, have you ever wanted something so bad that you do anything for it? Blah blah blah. Foreshadowing. Yeah.  Yeah. So then they all come together, and they’re all seated around this big dinner table. And They introduce some guy who’s, like, a caretaker or something who is completely insignificant.

Todd:  Do they introduce him? He just kinda walks to the scene and sits down next to 1 woman, and I don’t think anybody The

Craig:  guy’s like, oh, and this is Matthew. No. That’s like that’s it. That’s all you get. This is Matthew. No explanation for who he is or why he’s there, but okay. And and So and and they comment on how the their 1 girl hasn’t shown up, and then Samantha shows up. She’s not supposed to be there.  She has Escaped. Mhmm. The asylum. Not been let

Todd:  out. She’s escaped.

Craig:  With the aid of an unseen friend who, like, talks to her for A big long scene, but you never see her.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And then Striker. What bother like, they they Say, you know, like, this is really weird. Like, this isn’t a typical audition. Like, what does he have in mind? And all he says is

Clip:  And one of you is Vadra. Which one, I don’t yet know. The next 2 days will be unlike any you’ve ever known. Not all of you will make it, But I promise each of you would have learned something about themselves and their craft.

Craig:  And that’s All we ever learned about this audition process Yeah. Like, there’s there’s no rhyme or reason Todd why they’re there or what he has planned for them.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Like if it were really Agatha Christie, there would be like some game, You know? But there there’s not. No. Like, they’re just there to hang out, and he’s there to, like, Fuck them, and that’s it.

Todd:  Mostly. And do some weird ass exercises like, well and and here’s the other thing too is that they keep referring to Audra, you know, this character that they’re supposed to all be auditioning for. And at one point, one of the characters says, oh, I read the book, you know, when I was a kid. It made this huge impact on me. In another one, 1 girl actually asks Another one, like, who is Audra? What is she like and everything? Like, she has done no research for this role at all. And but the point is, like, We don’t even know. No. They keep referring to Audra, and there’s even coy suggestions like, oh, well, she’s playing Audra.  Like Like, maybe some of the girls, the way that they’re acting isn’t they’re not really doing things. They’re just trying to impress him by acting like Audra. But it would be very helpful if we, the audience, had any clue who this Audra character was Mhmm. And what her Qualities were anything like that. We’re given nothing but a name and these tiny little references here and there, so it’s not helpful for us. Mhmm. It doesn’t add to deepen the mystery. It doesn’t make it Cool.  Mhmm. Oh, yeah. He and he makes that big speech, and then they all kinda go off on their separate ways. And like you said, 1 at a time, he just kinda peels off and starts starts banging them. And he makes a comment to 1 girl, says, did you bring your ice skates, I hope? And she’s like, yes. And then There are these scenes where they’re all talking to each other, and she mentions that she kinda pops in disturbed. She says, my ice skates, they’re missing. Like, where are my ice skates? Has anybody seen my ice skates? And, like, oh, well, sure, they’ll turn up somewhere.  A scene or two later, you see one of those sort of, you know, the killer preparing scenes where you just see some hands grab some things in a tool shop, and you see that it’s sharpening something. It appears to be sharpening the blade of some ice skates. I’m like, oh, okay. Later on, we get this ice skating scene, and she inexplicably has her ice skates back.

Craig:  Yeah. Like Right.

Todd:  I guess she’s found them, and she’s walking through the woods to go ice skating. Like, what was the whole deal with the ice cream?

Craig:  There was a funny puppet show. I liked that puppet show. Oh, yeah. For a second. I had no idea what was going on, but it was kind of funny. But, yeah, it’s like all these girls that like they’re just kind of interacting or whatever, but But it’s just a setup for them to kinda be picked off, and it’s not even a good setup.

Todd:  Well and they’re not picked off 1 at a time. It’s like 1 person gets killed, then there’s most of the movie goes by and the rest of them get killed in succession.

Craig:  Exactly. Like okay. So there’s the ice skating girl. She, goes ice skating for, like, 20 minutes.

Todd:  Oh, geez.

Craig:  And and then, like, the killer Sneaks up on her on ice skates? I’m like, how is this even happening? Like, how is she not hearing somebody Ice skating up behind her. Okay, we would be remiss if we didn’t say that the killer wears this Mask like this old gross woman mask. And I liked the mask. Yeah, it’s cool. So like The ice skating girl finds the doll in the snow and then the ice skating killer in the mask comes up and like attacks her and this whoever is the killer, which we’ll obviously will reveal later on, but Like, they’re not even, like, badass. Like No. They’re not good. They, like, they get a slap to the face and

Todd:  Fall backwards.

Craig:  Like you’re down for, like, 10 minutes.

Todd:  It’s so true.

Craig:  So but So the ice skating girl gets Attacked, and then she runs through the forest for 20 minutes. And then finally, she gets killed, like, In a super boring way.

Todd:  She leans against a random tree to catch her breath. And, I mean, this tree is about as wide as she is. Yeah. And suddenly, Arms reach around the tree and slash her throat. Like, this killer from she’s been somehow got ahead of her, Found the right tree to hide behind, and I don’t know how he made himself skinny as he did Great. To to actually hide behind this tiny little

Craig:  Free. Oh, so stupid. And you don’t even see anything. Like I said, like, the kills are so boring. Like, it’s just, like, close ups on their face. And then she gets killed. And then there’s a lot more drama, like they’re trying to inject like serious drama, and it just Doesn’t work at all. Like there’s this random lesbian scene.  And I was like, what is happening? Like 2 of the girls are like, 1 girl’s like unbuttoning the other girl’s blouse. And again, it goes on forever. Like, oh my Todd, just whip her tit out seriously just do it. And she finally does is She caresses it, and then you realize that it’s like an acting moment. And the director pops up and he’s like, No, no, you’re a man seducing her a man would never be like that. And Samantha’s trying to interject herself all the time, and he’s not interested in her, and they’re fighting all the time. And

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  It it’s so confusing. At one point, He has all the actresses that he’s invited in, like this studio or whatever. And then Samantha shows up and then Sis, that she’d be given a chance. And he’s like, okay. But you’re so beautiful. What if you weren’t beautiful anymore? Here, put on this mask. And it’s the color’s mask.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. How did he get it? Where did that come from? I mean, we’re supposed to think, oh, but at the end of the day, It there’s no explanation for this at all.

Craig:  Right. None.

Todd:  Yeah. And then And Go ahead.

Craig:  Yeah. Go ahead. Well, no, you do it. I don’t I don’t even know what to say because seriously, like, there’s, like, these long moments of drama, and then It felt like they tried to wrap everything up in 5 minutes at the end.

Todd:  Well, it it’s almost like just a bunch of disparate ideas that are Not very well connected. At one point, it feels kinda like Friday 13th Mhmm. Where Brooke goes into her bathroom. And This is where that random flashback of the lesbian thing gets thrown in. And I don’t even know why it was thrown in there. Just they had to squeeze it in somewhere. And she’s, like, painting her nails, And there’s clearly a figure behind her in the Shower. Curtains of the shower.  So cliche. And she turns around, and suddenly, there’s no figure there at all. She opens up the shower. There’s nobody in there, and the window’s open. I mean, this tiny window. Mhmm. She closes the window, closes the shower. And then when she opens up the toilet, the head of the ice skating girl is in there.  Mhmm. She runs screaming out to the rest of the group, and, The guy says, everything’s fine. It’s okay, Striker. And he comes back and to the bathroom. And, of course, he looks at everything and opens up the toilet lid, and the girl’s head is not in there at all. So she runs into the bedroom Craig, and and they both just kind of, like, get into bed together. He embraces her. She looks up at him, and he looks down at her.  And suddenly, they just start kissing. Like, really?

Craig:  And then the next Seen as Samantha, like, coyly opening the door and just seeing him, like, smoking his cigarette, like, in poise Coital bliss.

Todd:  It like, he’s egging her. Like, he’s yeah. Oh, my God. Like, he’s, like, see what I just did? Isn’t this pissing you off more?

Craig:  I know. And it’s so dumb. And then from there, like, I don’t know, there are there are a couple of other like, Seemingly kind of dramatic scenes like the the director has 1 scene with the comedian girl where he like eggs Her aunt, like, he dismisses her immediately. And then she gets all angry. And he’s like, Oh, I see something thing in you, and then that’s just it. That’s just the end of the scene. Like, it’s stupid. And then there’s a 20 minute Bad ballet dancing scene because there’s a ballet girl, apparently, and she ballet dances by herself for a while, and then the killer just all you see literally is she’s dancing, and then it does a close-up on her face, and you see gloved hand come around her mouth and her eyes go wide, and that’s it.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Like, that’s how create and you hear, like, stabbing noises. Like, that’s how creative the kills are. Yeah. So bad.

Todd:  It’s it’s this magical killer that is can be anywhere and everywhere at any time and sneak up on anybody with No rhyme or reason. It’s this sort of supernatural deal. And, and then, we kinda come to the end of the movie. Like I said, it’s just bing, bing, boom in succession. Once once she gets killed, Striker and Brooke are meeting and talking about something. And you see somebody, but you don’t see who it is with a gun now, come into the room and shoot them both, and they fall out the window. And, inexplicably, he falls out the window of the 2nd floor only to fall back in the window on the 1st floor somehow Mhmm. With the shard of glass in his back.  So we see he’s dead. And I thought for sure this, Maybe we’re getting some April fools day stuff here like Yeah. Yeah. You know? No. No. Definitely not

Craig:  that bad. I felt exactly the same thing. I thought there was gonna be some clever Twist at the end, but there’s not.

Todd:  Yeah. Well, at this point, I forgot who was left. I I thought, well, surely Me too. Samantha here. And because you see so little of this other girl, like, literally, this comedian girl, you see her at the beginning. You see a couple scenes with her, then there’s nothing with her until toward the end. And that’s the problem with all these girls. Like you said, they’re indistinguishable with each other.  We have these separate scenes that are supposed to be dramatic and whatever, But they don’t really do any character development. No. So we don’t really know who’s who. We still don’t really know anything about them or their motivations. It’s just not interesting. So Keeping track of them is hard enough. And so this other girl, who I don’t even remember where she came into the picture, but I I swear we hadn’t seen her since that Dining scene at the beginning.

Craig:  I have no idea who she was. I just wrote down beret girl because she was wearing a beret. I’m like, all of it. Like, She runs around and sees everybody dead, and she also, like at one point she goes,

Todd:  Matthew.

Craig:  And then you just see A dead body in the jacuzzi.

Todd:  Yeah. Like It’s that guy.

Craig:  Oh, Matthew from there. Dead.

Todd:  Like, we weren’t even gonna care. We never saw Matthew at all. He was at one point making out with a girl in the hot tub immediately after the, dinner The dinner scene. In the in in a distant from a distance. Yeah. Right? Just okay. K. Great.  Matthew’s dead. Apparently, there was a scene they shot

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Of of him getting it on a snowboard or something like that or a snow snowmobile. But, Once again, like, what did they have this character in mind for besides just another body to end up for her to discover at the end? I have no idea.

Craig:  Yeah. And and and then at this point it is very much like Friday 13th and that you’ve got this 1 girl running around and just seeing tons of dead bodies and finding all these people. And I had no idea who she was. Frankly, still, I have no idea who she was.

Todd:  I couldn’t even look it up, but IMDB had figured it out, to be honest with you.

Craig:  She was running around, and then she found, like, A weird, like, prop shed?

Todd:  Is that what the fuck? It was this weird kind of fun house place that he I thought, at first, it was Deshed, then I thought, oh, maybe this is his garage. And then I remembered the 1st scene from the movie where there’s this woman in a theater. And I thought, oh, this is like the back stage of his, like, personal theater on his estate. We don’t really know. It’s just a bunch of random shit in it that she has to run-in and around, Doors that she opens that leads to just a brick wall, and, I mean, it doesn’t

Craig:  make sense. Goes on forever. Ever. Yeah. Like, she is running through this place for so long, and, like, they’re they’re showing us, like, shots of things, like, that you think might be significant, but they ultimately aren’t like there’s a tombstone with Audra on it. And there’s like a director’s chair with striker on the back, then everything else is just random. Like, there’s like a A taxi cab and like you said, like a door to nowhere and and she’s running around forever. At first she’s I don’t even know why she’s running around.  I mean, there are dead people Well, and she finds the, I think the ballet girl, like, hanging in there. Mhmm. I guess if I were finding dead people, I would be kind of Frantic, but she just for no reason is kind of running around. And then the killer pops up and attacks her and she slaps her or something. So then the killer goes down for 5 minutes While she runs around some more, and then the killer starts chasing her, and I I don’t you got it. It went on for so long, and and she ends up hiding, like, in a vent or something.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And She sees the killer walk by and she thinks that she’s safe. And so she goes to like go out of the vent, but Apparently, the killer is, like, in

Todd:  the vent

Craig:  behind her now. Vent and pulls her away and, I guess, kills her. We don’t see it.

Todd:  We heard a bunch of sounds, like cutting sounds, so we assume that she was killed. Yeah. Again, I thought that might be a trick, but it turns out no.

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, at this point, I had already, like, I was watching on my computer. Oh my Todd. I had stopped hearing a long time ago. But at this point, I had already, like, on my computer, like, taking the mouse pad and, like, scans to the end just to see how long the credits work. Hoping they were really long

Todd:  so

Craig:  that I wouldn’t have to watch more of this.

Todd:  Like, 8 minutes left. Jeez. Please tell me the credits are 5 of those 8. I know the feeling exactly.

Craig:  And then you get, like, the reveal scene, but it’s just dumb. Yeah. I mean

Todd:  It’s It’s the girl, the comedian girl. I still don’t know her name. No. She was, she’s in the kitchen popping open a bottle of champagne for herself, And, Samantha walks in. And Samantha, basically, during their little conversation, admits that she killed so she was the one with the gun. She says, I killed striker. Go ahead. Call the police.  I don’t care. Okay. And then She’s

Craig:  like, but but don’t worry. I won’t hurt any of your little friends.

Todd:  Yeah. And then this girl’s like, but they’re already all dead. And she whips out a knife, and it turns out she was the killer. And, she stabs her, and then we get kind of that flashback to her doing her comedy act, which, You know, the telling line, again, like you said, have you ever wanted something so bad you would do anything for it? Right. But it pans out, and she’s performing this Act now in a mental institution for a bunch of empty chairs and a few, other people there.

Craig:  Yeah. And I guess, originally, it’s conception. Shannen was supposed to be that she was doing her Todd role in front of all of the corpses of the people that she had killed, but They thought that that was too implausible.

Todd:  Oh, man. That’s hilarious.

Craig:  Oh, god. I don’t know. Like and seriously, like, when it was over, I was like looking stuff up and I’m like, oh my Todd. I hope there’s like interesting backstory to this. And And I guess there was with like the production troubles and stuff, but really not like sometimes, you know, we’ve got all kinds of like behind the Scenes things that we can share with people. And there really just isn’t all that much like it’s just a shit movie. And I don’t I don’t Yeah. I don’t know.  Like, again, folks, if you’re listening and you’ve watched this movie and you like it, Tell me why I am desperate to know. Yeah, why I should like this movie because I don’t. It was awful. I, I very rarely, like Todd, can attest to the fact that I tried to Be as nice as I can even when movies are bad, but I just can’t say anything nice about this movie. It was it was not good. And I was, I didn’t enjoy watching it. And fun little fact, I started watching it and I was So bored that I had to take a nap. And I told my partner, I’m like, I’m sorry.  I had to take a nap. And that means that when I get home from church, True story. I’m gonna have to keep watching this movie, which means that, it’s gonna be kinda late. And so I came home from church and, I had to sit down and watch this movie and my partner was making dinner, and I just So badly, just wanted to turn it off and have dinner. Like

Todd:  The the things you do for our audience.

Craig:  The things I do for you guys. I swear.

Todd:  You know what’s hilarious about this movie? Is that the 1 guy in this movie that people would probably recognize the most Aside from Stryker’s character Yeah. Is the dude who Michael, who popped in and out in the middle of the movie. He his real name is Michael Wincott. And if you actually got a clear look at his face in the movie, you would totally recognize him. Do you remember Robin Hood Prince of Thieves? Yeah. You remember the sheriff of Nottingham, like, his assistant guy?

Craig:  Evaguely.

Todd:  Yeah. This is him. And Oh. Yeah. And he went I mean, he did Along Came a Spider. He did Strange Days. He was in the Doors movie. He has this insane list of The Crow, The 3 Musketeers, Alien Resurrection.  This guy was in a lot of movies.

Craig:  Good for him.

Todd:  Yeah. Right? This was one of his first.

Craig:  And that’s the thing. Like, it seems like from what I’ve read, everybody who is involved with this is just embarrassed. Yeah, the director took his name off of it. The direction credit is given to the character of John Stryker.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And the the actress who played Samantha, apparently, like she had high hopes for it. She thought it was going to be something special. And and she’s just when it the result she was like, Oh my Todd, like, It’s awful. Like, even the people who were involved with it understood how Bad, it was.

Todd:  Oh, yeah. Samantha Egger, the most seasoned actress on the on the whole thing, said that She read it. She thought it was insane. She thought that it was all the characters are extremely underdeveloped, and she just took it for a paycheck. Mhmm. So, Clearly, she also wasn’t too concerned about this being so widely seen that it put a stain on her

Craig:  on her profession, maybe they’re right. You gotta work.

Todd:  Gotta buy that truck somehow. Right?

Craig:  That’s right.

Todd:  Well, we wish we could recommend this movie. Shane, if you’re listening, and I’m sure you are, please get on our website and Social media someplace. Find us and let us know where we’re going wrong on this one because, we’ve been wrong before. Yeah. And we’ll always keep an open mind about that. But, anyway, I I definitely couldn’t recommend Sitting out loud.

Craig:  Todd. No. Don’t watch this movie. Take a nap. I don’t know. Dig a ditch.

Todd:  Watch your dick.

Craig:  Anything Anything anything would be better than spending an hour and a half watching this movie. I swear to god.

Todd:  It’s not even fun. Well, at least we hope you had fun listening to this podcast today. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can look us up on Online. Just search for 2 guys in a chainsaw. You’ll find our Facebook page. You’ll find our website 2 guys.redfortynet.com, where you can leave, see all of our back episodes. You can leave us comments, and you can request movies.  We’re gonna do a few more requests here, because we’ve got a bit of a backlog. So, it’s not Todd late to get your request Todd for us. We we do enjoy seeing these films that otherwise we wouldn’t see. Well, we don’t always enjoy it, but at least it’s something. Right? Yeah. Until next time. I’m Todd.

Craig:  And I’m Craig.

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

We hit another request this week, this time from loyal listener, Gary. It’s a late 90’s, low-budget Canadian flick that spawned a franchise. There are more than 2 sides to this story…6, to be exact.

Episode 185, 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 Craig.

Todd:  Alright. Today’s movie is 1997’s Cube, a, Canadian film that was shot pretty cheaply. Like, I don’t even think it cost a half a $1,000,000. However, it did gross quite a bit of money, spawned a few sequels, and is a bit of a cult following, wouldn’t you say?

Craig:  Yeah. Apparently. Because I think it did pretty well internationally in theaters. Like, I don’t think it made much of an impact in the States, but I think it grossed something like close to $9,000,000 or something like that internationally. But, yeah, it wasn’t until it kinda gained that cult following that they went forward with, a sequel and the prequel. So there are 3 of them out there.

Todd:  Yeah. 3 of them out there. Have you seen all 3, Craig? I have this feeling that you’re gonna say yes.

Craig:  Yep. I’ve seen all 3. They’re good. I don’t remember when I saw the first 1. It came out 97. That’s the year I graduated high school. I don’t think that I saw it that early, but I did see it and I liked it from the first viewing. And I’ve actually sat and watched it a few times probably and, the sequels, I liked Todd.  The second 1, I can only imagine was shot on a little bit bigger budget because it seemed more high-tech, and, I remember liking it. I I don’t remember the details about the sequel or the prequel except for that the prequel went into a little bit more about the origins of the concept and and that kind of stuff. But, I remember enjoying all of them, and I was excited to do this 1. I feel like we’ve talked about doing it several times, and we’ve had at least 1 request for it. And so when we were deciding what we wanted to do today, we thought we would, jump in since it was request. And watching it again, I I still thought it was good. I don’t know that it’s necessarily aged as well as some things that we’ve seen, but, I think that the strongest thing about the movie is the premise. I think it’s a really interesting premise and 1 that works really well for a semi low budget movie because, really, the entire thing is shot on 115 by 15 by 15 square foot set.  Like, the the whole the whole thing is is is literally shot in 1 room. Of course, through movie magic, they make you seem like it’s, a lot of different rooms, but in reality, it was just 1. It plays pretty well. I I think it’s a a pretty cool concept.

Todd:  You know, I read in the trivia online, I think it was in the Wikipedia entry that the old Twilight Zone episode 5 characters in search of an exit was the initial inspiration for this movie. And that is 1 of my all time favorite Twilight Zone episodes, where 5 characters who seem are seemingly unrelated with different jobs and different roles suddenly wake up and don’t remember how they got there. But they find themselves in a very, very small place and are looking for a way out. And that’s really what this is all about. This is this like you said, this cubed room, that then has 4 6 hatches in it, 1 for each side Mhmm. In the middle. And, you can climb to eat you know, to the ceiling. You can drop through the floor, and it leads to another cubed room.  Yep. And as we learn out later in the movie that there are a lot of these rooms all connected into 1 giant cube.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  So the movie is aptly titled. And so that’s really, I think it’s a very premise driven movie. They do some interesting things with characterization in here. I have to say, well, it was interesting reading a little bit about the history of the development of the script on Wikipedia. Vincenzo Natale is the writer director.

Clip:  Yeah.

Todd:  And he had this initial inspiration, to set it, make a film set in hell, which is kind of where these characters find themselves in. Right? Not literally, but, you know, you’re trapped. And you can’t get out, and you may never ever get out. And there was going to be cannibal in here, some edible moss that grew in the walls, this real concern that they had to eat and drink that would be an aspect of the film, and some kind of monster that roamed throughout. The guy eventually credited as the writer for the film. His name is Andre Bijelic. And this is the only thing that we can see that he’s done. Helped him strip this down and just kinda make it this bare premise, which probably works a little bit better and certainly a lot easier to shoot because the way that they denote these different rooms in the cube from 1 to another is just they change the color of the walls.  Right. They’re all lit from behind, with gels. And so, apparently, they shot all the ones that would take place in red rooms first, and then they changed the gels to green, shot all the scenes that would take place in a green room next, and and kind of shot the movie in that order. But, yeah. Like you said, it’s a real easy way to save some bucks. But, again, it’s a very premise driven movie. It’s an interesting premise. It’s an interesting concept.  Yeah. And then they try to characterize throw some characters in. I I think for me, this isn’t really my favorite film. I think the thing that really holds it back for me is the character development

Craig:  Sure.

Todd:  And the acting. I I feel like some of the acting’s just a little overblown, especially by our 1 character who kinda turns evil. I couldn’t really get behind him. I felt he was really just hamming it up the whole time.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  I remembered that from the first time I saw this. I think the first time I saw this was back in 97, 98. This is only the second time I’ve seen it. But that’s the 1 thing I remembered about this movie the most was this 1 actor is totally hamming it up. And, it took me out of it quite a bit. It made it seem like a lower budget production even than it really was. So Yeah.

Craig:  I, yeah, I can I can see that? And I think that you’re right. Critics were were kind of mixed, you know. It got some praise that even won, a few awards, but the critics who had some problems with it kind of felt the same way that you did with though it’s an interesting premise, it’s lacking a little bit in characterization and, some people are a little bit disappointed that the you never really know what’s going on.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  I mean I mean, these characters speculate as to what might be happening to them and why. And there’s a tiny little bit of very foggy explanation, but ultimately, you never know. Like you said, these these and that’s how it opens up. The the the first thing we see is this guy wakes up in this room, just this big square room, and it looks like the design reminds me of the puzzle box from

Todd:  Oh, yeah. Hellraiser. The around the outside.

Craig:  Like, if you were inside. Yeah.

Todd:  Yeah. It’s cool.

Craig:  Like, if you’re inside that box, that’s that’s what I kind of imagine it looking like. And this guy, you know, he wakes up alone. We don’t know anything about him. He he looks around and he eventually opens up 1 of those hatches, and, he goes into the next room. And he’s standing there and we just hear kind of this quick noise, kind of the swooshing noise, and then almost all of a sudden, he just starts to fall apart. And as it turns out, he’s been sliced, huge, or diced, or whatever you wanna call it, by this wire trap. And then it cuts to the title, and then we have we see another guy asleep in this room, seemingly the same room, but we find out, of course, later that it’s not. And somebody else comes into the room, and they’re all dressed in, like, these kind of industrial, like, overalls that have their last names printed on them.  And right away, which also may kind of be a weakness, I I guess you could say because everything happens really quickly in the beginning. All of our principal characters come together, and nobody knows why they’re there. Nobody knows where they are. They can’t remember how they got there, but they’re seemingly trapped in there. And then it just becomes kind of this, character study of what it would be like if you were trapped kind of in this rat maze with a bunch of strangers who you know nothing about. So there are, of course, trust issues. And and that was 1 of the things that I thought was interesting about the movie too is that we, as the audience, are as in the dark as the people in the movie. Just like the people in the movie, you just kinda have to believe what people tell you because what choice do you have?

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  The the main guy that you were talking about that ends up kind of becoming I mean, ultimately, the device, the cube itself, and the entity, whatever it is behind it is, I guess, kind of the antagonist, but really it becomes more of just a human nature thing where

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  The 1 guy that you were talking about, Quentin, he kinda starts to lose it as it becomes kind of Todd of the flies, every man for himself Yeah. Kind of deal. But this guy, Quentin, intro when he does introduce himself, he tells them that he is a cop. They just roll with it. And I I thought that it was good that through the whole movie, I was wondering, is this guy really a cop? Because I don’t know if I buy it.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah.

Craig:  We we never find out if he is or not. He doesn’t handle pressure very well. No.

Todd:  He missed that bit of training. Yeah. For sure. Right. Like, and he keeps, you know, spouting off something that has might have been better spoken by action, which is I can read people like a book. Like, I can just stare at someone’s eyes and I know who they are, which isn’t actually quite true. But he’s convinced of it. And he just is, like I said, kind of over the top from the very beginning.  I think 1 thing that maybe makes it more convincing that he’s a cop is he immediately recognizes 1 of the other characters, an older guy named Ren. I don’t believe it. This guy’s the wren.

Clip:  The what?

Todd:  He’s the wren. The bird abattaca flew the coup on 6 major prisons.

Clip:  7. You’re kidding, right? You can get us out. Maybe. An escape artist.

Todd:  Yeah. Harry fucking Houdini.

Craig:  And and that’s the thing. Like, they all come together, and there are 6 of them. Not including the guy that we saw get killed right at the beginning. And in fact, that guy that we get see killed right at the very beginning, they never come across him.

Clip:  So we don’t

Craig:  even know that guy could have been in this place in an entirely different time. We have no idea, but there’s 6 of them. There’s Quentin. He’s either black or Hispanic, and and he’s, like, the tough guy. There’s Worth, who is this younger looking guy. He, from the very beginning, I thought was kind of shady. Like, he claims that he’s a little bit out of it because he hit his head or something.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  But he’s just initially pretty quiet. And then there’s a lady whose last name is Holloway, and she appears to be pretty transparent. Yeah. Yeah. She claims that she’s a doctor, and and I believe her. I don’t know. She’s got some kind of accent. I couldn’t really figure out where she was from.  Then, another a younger girl. And when I say younger, I don’t mean like a child, like

Todd:  Like college age.

Craig:  Twenties. Yeah. Yeah. And her name is Levin. And it turns out that she’s kind of this math whiz. Ren, who you mentioned, who is who who supposedly is an expert at breaking out of places, and and we meet all of them first. But I did think that it was funny because Wren comes into the picture and immediately kind of keeps them moving along. And I feel like everybody else kind of follows him just because they don’t know what else to do.  Mhmm. He has figured out that some of these rooms are trapped, and he’s using his shoes, his boots. He tosses them in the room to see if a trap gets triggered. And if it doesn’t get triggered, then they assume that they can proceed. And right away, he opens 1 hatch and he says, oh, wait a minute. The air smells funny in here. I think it’s some kind of, like, biochemical triggered trap, which I don’t know about prisons. I’ve never been in 1, but I didn’t know that any of them might have had, like, biochemical sensors.  But apparently, maybe they do because this guy Yeah. Knows about it. I found it kind of funny and ironic that this guy who’s, you know, the expert at breaking out of places, he then immediately gets dispatched.

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  I don’t remember why. What was it? There there was something that he didn’t see coming. Some trap that he didn’t

Todd:  He leaped in there, and, there was a spray on his face. And he goes, mared. Uh-huh. And it’s some spray comes into his face. And I guess they decided it might have either been a sound, bass trap, or something. I don’t know exactly what it was. But, yeah, he ends up triggering this trap. He gets sprayed in the face.  They pull him back in, and he completely loses his face. It’s probably the goriest thing that we see in the movie aside from the the intro Right. With that guy who just falls into pieces. He’s immediately out of the picture. It’s kinda funny, like you said, because he’s supposed to be the expert, and he’s the first 1 to go. It’s it’s pretty smart writing.

Craig:  Right. And it it increases the tension a little bit because these other people are just Joe Schmoes. You know? They don’t know anything. And it’s not as though I feel like what the movie tries to do and it fails a little bit is they’re kind of trying to throw these various characters together so that any 1 of them is kind of an every man. Like, I I think that you’re supposed to kinda think, oh, well, if they could be in there, it could be me. The the characters have discussions about why are we here? Why us? What is this? What is the purpose of this thing? And as much as they kind of philosophize about it

Todd:  There’s little basis for it.

Craig:  Right. They they they theorize, but they don’t know. Yeah. And they don’t find out, and neither do we.

Todd:  Yeah. That’s

Craig:  I’m okay with it. It doesn’t bother me because I I think that what it’s supposed to be is more about human nature, kind of an allegory about human nature and survival. You know, ultimately, what will you do to survive even if that means at the cost or expense of other people. Yeah. And and that’s that’s all kind of epitomized through Quentin. And, again, I feel like that’s just kind of, a weakness because he becomes clearly the bad guy

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And everybody else is just kind of

Todd:  Fine.

Craig:  A lamb for the slaughter.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. It’s like if he weren’t there or he got dispatched early on, everybody kinda would have gotten along more or less. That’s the sense you get. So it’s not like a a true Lord of the Flies situation. It’s not a very skillfully woven tapestry of conflict and controversy between these people. And I think that’s a failing of this film is that other other movies have really done it better. And in this case, because so much of the action of the movie, the the the thrust of the movie kind of relies on that I don’t know.  I just it just after a while, it just kinda got a little tedious for me to watch. And I and, you know, when you’re watching a movie like this, there’s sometimes this promise that there’s a puzzle behind it. And there’s a bit of a puzzle behind it. Obviously, they have no idea where they’re going. They’re just testing rooms for traps and trying the ones where there’s not 1. But who’s to say that the right way out of this thing is through all the traps, you know? Right. Nobody really knows. But at some point, Levin, who comes across as a student she has a very funny explanation for who she is or why she’s not so important.  Levin, what are you?

Clip:  Nothing. I just go to school. I hang out with my friends.

Todd:  What else?

Clip:  There is nothing else. My parents are these people. I live with them. I’m boring.

Todd:  But then, I think kind of improbably, Quentin notices that Levin has her glasses on her. And, occasionally, she’s putting them on. And he asks her, what are these for? Why aren’t you wearing them? She says, oh, I just wear them for reading. And he says, well, so and so, Holloway, her jewelry was stripped off of her, which I guess they talked about. I don’t remember.

Craig:  Yeah. They did.

Todd:  Okay. You’re the only 1 who has an accessory, basically, so this must mean something. The people who put us in this cube must have had a purpose for this. So they kind of go back to these numbers that they’ve been seeing, which are in the corridors between the cubes. And when I say corridor, it’s more of a little hatch.

Clip:  Yeah.

Todd:  It’s like about 2 feet deep long between the different sections of the cube. And there have been some numbers stamped in here, like, 3 3 digit numbers in each 1.

Craig:  Yeah. They look like serial which

Clip:  is what

Craig:  I kind of thought that

Clip:  they were at first. Yeah.

Craig:  So there’s that explanation. They figure out that

Clip:  each numb each room has, its own

Craig:  number, like, the rooms are numbered. Somehow, she comes up with the notion that any room that’s marked like you said, each 1, it’s a 3 sets of 3 digit numbers. And if any 1 of those 3 digit numbers is prime, then that means that the room is trapped. And, that’s how they navigate for a while, and it works for a while. Ultimately, somebody, I think it’s Quentin goes into a room that they have deemed safe and is almost killed, but somehow kind of implausibly escapes the trap, and comes back in. And so they realize that that’s not been the case. As what I that I was thinking about as I was watching this movie was it’s there’s a lot of math. Now math wasn’t my strong suit, but they convinced me well enough that there was kind of this intricate pattern for these numbers that did have some significance.  And I couldn’t even begin to explain to you what it is, but, like, they do. Like, they they go out of their way, you know, it’s, some of the numbers plus some of the numbers minus some of the numbers, and if it all comes out to these factorials, whatever whatever. And ultimately, I think that the movie just does a really good job of faking it. Yeah. Like because nobody’s gonna actually really try to test out this math theory.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And I read that, in fact, that’s true. Like, they do figure out this equation or or whatever it is. But, you know, the stuff that I was reading says that it it it really mathematically doesn’t work out.

Clip:  Uh-huh.

Craig:  In the movie, they they play it like it Todd, and I bought it. I’m no mathematician, so I’ll take your word for it. Good job with math.

Todd:  Yeah. Good try. I read a mathematician actually helped them work this out, but maybe it wasn’t a very good 1. I don’t know. But like you said, that’s we just have to take them to face value with this. And it really all kind of leans on Levin being a math whiz. And so you also kind of wonder, does everybody here have a purpose? Like, whoever put them in this cube, were they all put here for a reason? Like, were they given a fighting chance? You know? Was this like some kind of saw type scenario or whatever? So she’s kinda going through trying to figure out this math. And when Quentin almost dies, he ends up picking a fight with Worth for no really good reason except he just doesn’t like his looks.  And I think this, again, is supposed to be that, oh, he’s a police officer. Something to him seems fishy about Worth, so he just starts pushing and pushing and pushing him until Worth finally springs out and says, there’s no way out. And everyone looks at him and says, well, how do you know that? And you must know something. And it turns out that Worth is the guy who designed the outer part of this cube. He said, I’m an I’m an engineer or whatever, and I designed or architect or whatever, and I designed the outer shell. He tells Levin how large is it and, she’s able to work out the dimensions as to how many of these cubes would be in here. It’d be, like, 26 by 26 by 26, which means there are just, like, a 1000 of rooms in here thousands of rooms

Craig:  in here. 17,500 and 76 rooms.

Todd:  Which,

Craig:  which is crazy.

Todd:  It’s crazy. And then then again, that also makes the movie even less plausible when you

Clip:  Right.

Todd:  When you come to it. Because then it becomes this case of where it turns out these rooms are shifting. There’s this noise that gets made every now and then, this mechanical noise. It turns out that these these rooms are constantly shifting. And so even though they’re trying to work their way through it, the rooms are moving. Through a dialogue, that, again, I didn’t really buy and you alluded to it earlier, Worth just basically surmises that if he didn’t really know what he was working on, because he didn’t know anything else about this thing. He just was was hired to design the outer part and that’s it. And he was paid a bunch of money for it.  That’s all he knows. Then he surmises that everybody working on this project didn’t know what little piece they were working on and, then he makes this leap that there’s nobody in charge.

Clip:  This may be hard for you to understand, but there is no conspiracy. Nobody is in charge. It’s it’s a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan. Can you grasp that? Big Brother is not watching you. I mean, somebody might have known sometime before they got they got fired or voted out or sold it, but if this place ever had a purpose, then it got miscommunicated or or or lost in the shuffle. I mean, this is an accident, a a forgotten perpetual public works project. Do you think anybody wants to ask questions? All they want is a is a clear conscience and a fat paycheck.

Todd:  I mean, none of that makes sense because somebody’s gotta put the damn thing together at the end of the day Yeah.

Clip:  And test it.

Craig:  It’s all very yeah. It’s it’s all very philosophical and and frankly pretentious.

Todd:  Yes.

Craig:  It it kinda just comes down to this. Why does anybody do anything? Well, because they can. You know, like

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  Why would somebody make this to put people in? Oh, well, because they can. Holloway says, but you but why put people in it? Well, because that’s what it’s for. Like Yeah. No particular reason. And and it just it does it just becomes I don’t know. I don’t think that giving us a reason would have made me like it better. In fact, maybe would have cheapened it to some extent. I think part of the purpose of the movie is The mystery? Just yeah.  Well, it’s just like the exploration of how these people responded. Why it’s happening is not as important as just the fact that it is, and let’s see what happens. But the other thing that kind of bothers me is there is that indication that everybody’s in there for a reason, but we never really know why everybody’s in there.

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  And and like you you said, the initial conceptualization was that it was, you know, all of these people trapped in hell. And and so you wonder if maybe for the guy worth who created this, if this is some sort of punishment

Todd:  or Yeah.

Craig:  Yeah. Or or something along those lines. But I have no idea why Holloway’s in there, unless it’s just because she has medical experience, so maybe she can help some people, but she doesn’t really. No. And is Quentin in there just to kind of be the wild card?

Todd:  Maybe.

Craig:  Because I don’t understand whatever his purpose is. And the 6th person who we haven’t mentioned yet is a guy named Kazan who, is played by a guy named Andrew Miller. Who’s the only name that I even wrote down because I didn’t recognize any of these actors. But the reason that I wrote his name down was because I thought he did a really good job. He plays, a develop me developmentally disabled person. I I think that what he was going for was autism.

Todd:  Yeah. It seems to be.

Craig:  I was really impressed. I I thought that he played it very well in a very believable and not cartoonish kind of way. I’ve worked with many young people with autism and, you know, he was displaying a lot of the kinds of behaviors that, a lot of the kids that I’ve worked with display. And and it’s not he doesn’t do it in an exploitive way. It’s it’s not, making fun. It’s not to be laughed at. I I was really impressed by his performance, and we find out his purpose. The reason eventually, again, they realize that the math equation is even more complex than they thought before, and Quentin gets all ticked off and is yelling at Levin, you you should be able to figure this out.  You’re the mathematician. And she basically says, this equation, whatever it is, is too complex. I can’t just do it in my head. Nobody could do it in their head. And then Kazan comes up with the ant answers.

Todd:  Yeah. So he’s like a savant.

Craig:  Yeah. He’s a savant. And and so then he becomes very useful in in helping them get through. I guess, ultimately, what they figure out because they get in this 1 room that, appears to be room 27 or something, which Levin says doesn’t make any sense because if this is a 26 by 26 6 cube, there should not be a room 27. It doesn’t make any sense. But they just kind of keep moving along nonetheless. They’re trying to get to the edge, which logically makes sense. Like, keep moving in 1 direction.  Eventually, we’ll get to the edge. But, eventually, I guess what she realizes once they realize because they hear that noise, this grumbling noise at various time intervals. And what they eventually realize is that the rooms are shifting, and she realizes that it’s like a combination lock. It starts out in 1 position, and then it cycles through a cycle until it eventually cycles a bat around to the start position. And in the start position, that 27th room is on the outside of the cube. It’s it’s like a a gate, a bridge from the cube to the outside of the shell. And so then they, you know, once they realize that, then they hit frustratingly have to get back to that room that they passed who knows how long ago. And, again, I don’t even really understand this because, like, they passed that room a long time ago.  And if the thing is moving around, how do they know how to get back to it?

Todd:  Yeah. Maybe

Craig:  maybe it’s math.

Todd:  It’s it’s some weird math. I mean, it doesn’t make a lot of sense because she talks about the Cartesian coordinates. Right? So each of these permanently stamped numbers in the rooms are supposed to give the coordinates. They’re only gonna give the coordinates of the starting point. So how is she navigating through this constantly shifting box of rooms using the numbers that only tell the starting point just to get back there? I guess, what she’s trying to do is is just hope that they stumble upon this room or hope that the things that are shifting around are somewhat close together so they can move in that direction. But then again, also, they’re they’re stymied by the fact that some of these rooms are trapped. So they don’t you know, it’s not just strictly a navigation, problem, but it’s also well, you know, maybe the room you need is is over on the other side of this this room next to you. But if that room’s trapped, you can’t get through it.  So they do end up actually at a point where they end up going through a trap room on purpose. This is before they figured out, I think, that things were shifting around. But they thought they were getting close to the edge. Yeah. So this room this is kind of the set piece, I think, of the movie, really. It’s supposed to be, this room that’s sound activated. And of course, Kazan, you know, they’re it’s it’s it’s a down room. It’s 1 below them.  So they’re all sitting around the hatch and Kazan’s going, and

Craig:  Yeah. He has verbal tics.

Todd:  Yeah. And, you know, then all of a sudden all these, early nineties or mid nineties CGI, wires cut across the room. And so they realized they can get through the room if they can all just be really quiet. Now, they even answer the question, well, why does opening the door to the room not set these off? And they’re like, well, maybe it’s programmed to ignore that. So that neatly solves the problem of opening and closing the doors in the room, being an issue. So there’s this big set piece. And now, suddenly, Kazan, who has these verbal tics, is able to control them.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  And furthermore, there’s a fight, first of all, and it’s significant. There’s a fight because Quentin’s like, there’s no way this guy is gonna even continue to come with us because he’s just a liability, especially in this freaking sound trapped room. He’s gonna get us all killed. And Holloway’s know, like, we can’t leave anybody behind. How could you? This is an awful thing. And they’re like, well, we’ll come back for him. And then, you know, Holloway’s like, you know that’s a lie and blah blah blah. Mhmm.  Well, then anyway, they end up deciding to let him go through, but there he is with his hands over his mouth sitting at the edge where he was before.

Craig:  Making the noise.

Todd:  Making the noise. Like, what what okay. At least move him to, like, 2 rooms up or something like that. Like, get him out of there. You already know yelling into this thing’s gonna set it off for everybody else. So

Craig:  Yeah. And but to be fair, I thought that this was the most tense part of the movie. This was kind of the only part of the movie where I was kind of holding my breath on the edge of my seat.

Todd:  It’s so true.

Craig:  Like, are they gonna get through here? At the same time, it was really frustrating to me because, Worth goes first and, apparently, they don’t need to check the hatches in this 1. Like, they’re just gonna guess.

Todd:  Yeah. Just opens 1.

Craig:  So they he he he gets he gets 1 of the other hatches open and he, like, sets up, he props it open with a shoe or something. And then the rest of them start coming. I think I don’t know. Levin goes at some point. Holloway goes at some point. But right before Kazan is going to come in, Holloway and Worth are waiting for him in the room. Like like, go wait in the other room. Like, it doesn’t make any sense that you would be in that room where the spikes shoot it out of the walls.  Like, go in the other room and get him to come that way. That way, at least, if he, on purpose or inadvertently, makes a noise, he’s the only 1 that gets it. But Yeah. And and then it also frustrated me because, like, Worth is standing there. Like, he has to be in there to, like, direct them. Like, they can’t figure out where the open hatches. Like, yeah, they can see it. Like, you don’t need to stand there and, like, point to it.  Yeah. But then when Holloway comes down, she stands there by him, and he’s, like, gesturing for her to go. And she points at Kazan, like, no. I’m waiting for him. But she totally vocalized something in there. Yeah. You you and, like, are what is wrong with you? Like, I I guess you’re just hoping that if you’re really quiet, like, it won’t hear you. Like, why would you even take that risk?

Clip:  It

Craig:  doesn’t make any sense.

Todd:  It was a little implausible. Yeah. And in that regard, the way it was played out.

Craig:  And and there’s more tension where, like, Kazan does get down there, but then he’s walking along and pants, like, get caught on the the thing that they have to turn to open the bottom hatch. But he gets off of it. But in the process of getting off of it, he actually kind of turns it. And so then the last 1 to come through is Quentin. And I don’t know, like, was he gonna fall through the trap or kind of opened underneath him or something, and he just avoids, like, falling through or something. I don’t know. But Kazan excited that the guy is getting through us and I don’t know. He verbalizes again, and then Quentin is able to, like, quickly enough swing his way through the open door, which is dumb.  Like

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  It it was instantaneous every other time there was a noise, but he has time to react and, like, swing his way out just in time. Yeah. But at least it was tense.

Todd:  It’s true. It was tense. And but you’re right. You just kinda had those problems where you’re going, really? So, yeah. They get through and that’s, like you said, it’s probably the most tense oh, it’s for sure the most tense scene of the movie. In a movie where you figured there’d be more tense scenes Uh-huh. For a movie that’s really dependent on this idea that there are all these booby trapped rooms, we don’t get a lot of that. Right?

Clip:  Yeah.

Todd:  We get a little bit of it at the beginning. We have this 1 room here, and the rest of it’s just them fighting in the rooms that they’re they’re safe in because they figured out how to find the safe rooms. Anyway, they finally do get to the edge. And, even though they’re wrong about the coordinates and things and things are constantly shifting, there’s, I guess, right enough to make it to the edge. And they open it up and, sure enough, there’s this huge gap, between the outer shell and the cube structure that they’re in. Basically, Holloway volunteers, to try to swing across it using a rope that they make by taking all their shirts off and tying them together. And so the whole team lowers her down on a rope so that she can get kind of enough length to try to swing across to the other side, push herself off and swing across the other side. Of course, it doesn’t work.  There’s nothing for her to latch on to or hold on to on that other side, or she can’t even reach it. Then there’s this bit where something slips, and, she almost falls falls down. And at the last second, Quentin yanks, grabs the very end of the rope as it’s falling out of that hole, and somebody grabs his legs and he’s and they’re able to save her. So she climbs up the rope and Clinton gives her his hand. But then he looks at her and starts to have second thoughts and decides to drop her instead. So Right. Quentin, because he had a big disagreement with her earlier, decided to just off her right then and there.

Craig:  Well, and that’s the thing. Like, tension has been building between them. And when I say between them, really just between Quentin and the rest of them because he’s starting to lose it. And he’s getting very angry and very irrational and violent, with all of them. He’s pounded on worth several times at this point, and he’s been in a big nasty fight with Holloway, the 1 that he drops at this point. I don’t know. First of all, the whole let’s swing on our clothes thing was like the stupidest idea ever, Beth. I guess

Clip:  What else did they

Craig:  do? Yeah. Right. Exactly. Then he catches her and then, you know, it’s so Dramatic. Projected. Like yeah. I mean, like, he pulls her up and, you know, they do a close-up on her face, and she’s so happy. And then she looks at him as like, oh, no.  And it cuts back to him, and he’s obviously, like

Todd:  Super pissed. Oh.

Craig:  I mean and crazy now. Mhmm. Got crazy. Her go. And and it’s the the the movie projects this so much, not just in his performance, but, like, his lips are getting all chapped. Like, he he looks like he’s

Todd:  Yeah. Going crazy.

Craig:  Losing it. Right.

Todd:  And he wasn’t far from it to begin with. I mean, the moment he woke up in there, he’s overacting basically and intense. So it’s not a lot of build really. It’s not like you see this guy slowly go crazy. You kinda had the, the idea from the beginning. This guy was the loose cannon and he was gonna cause problems.

Craig:  Right. So but they they keep going along. I don’t remember. I feel like at this point then they’re like, well, we found the edge. Well, let’s now try to go down. And and and, like, there’s lots of fighting and and Quentin is beating up Worth. And at 1 point, he throws Worth down through 1 of the bottom hatches and Worth ends up like, he that guy, Worth, I think he would have been dead, like Yeah. 20 minutes before they actually kill him.

Todd:  Made of rubber or something. I know.

Craig:  The Quentin throws him down into this room and then all you hear is this laughing. And so they all crawl down there and they realize that they’re back in this the room that they started in.

Todd:  Right. Because the the body of, Wren is there.

Craig:  And it’s at that point I think that Levin figures out that they’re moving and they need to find that 27th room. And so they go looking for it, and, at some point, Quentin is coming in last always. And at some point, once everybody’s through, Worth, like, jams the the hatch up as Quintin’s coming through it. So it’s, like, Todd his, like, neck pinned, and they run away and get away from him. And they’re looking, you know, to find the room by themselves, which they eventually do. And then, of course, irony of all ironies, Levin realizes that the room that they’ve been looking for all along the bridge was literally the first room that they found.

Todd:  Because her glasses broke right off the bat, and she found a piece of her glasses in that room.

Craig:  Yeah. And she had said she had said from the big get because everybody Quinn’s like, we gotta move. We gotta move. And she’s like, no. Let’s just stay here. Somebody will come for us. And he’s like, nobody’s coming for us. So, of course, they did leave and have been gone this whole time, and she’s, like, I knew it.  Like, we should’ve just this was it. We should’ve stayed here the whole time. But, of course, how would anybody have known that?

Todd:  Yeah. And well, and the other thing, you know, that when you talk about the shifting of these rooms, they talk about how massive this thing is. Right? 17,000 or so things. And somebody rightly says, well, if all these rooms are shifting, it must take days for

Clip:  Yeah.

Todd:  These to shift back to their original position. So, okay. Well, how many days have they been in there? You know, I mean, it didn’t seem like that long. It’s not really told to us in the movie, but they just kind of have to assume. And and it turns out, they don’t have to worry too much about that. Because by the time they get to that bridge room, it’s almost where it needs to be. And they they figured this out. But when they’re there, suddenly, there’s there’s kind of a moment, I think, between Levin, the girl, and Worth, the guy.  Worth, for some reason, decides he doesn’t wanna leave.

Clip:  Right.

Todd:  He I guess he’s supposed to feel guilty, but it’s a combination of maybe feeling guilty about being a part of making this thing, even though he didn’t know. But also, you know, his sad story is just there’s nothing waiting for him on the other side. You know, it’s just nobody because he’s alone. And so he’s just like, I’ll just stay here. And she’s Right. Yeah. Okay. Whatever.  And so and so she, you know, is is kinda phasing him. Like, no, you can’t. You gotta come with us. Why would you give up now? And at that point, suddenly her head flies back and, a big spike comes up through her chest. And there is Quentin who has made it back to them.

Craig:  And He’s all covered in blood now. Like Yeah. Like Like, what has this guy been through in the last 7 minutes since we saw him?

Todd:  I know. And how did he find his own way? I mean, it’s kind of it’s kind of crazy. Anyway, yeah. So, yeah. He’s, he kills her her. Then he almost it looks like he about kills Worth. I mean, I think he stabs him a few times in the stomach or something. And they’re yelling at, Kazan, go through the hatch.  Go through the hatch. Because by now, I’ve, you know, the the hatch is open and they can see into the other room, which is, I guess, the bridge room. And, Yeah.

Craig:  And it’s just like this bright light.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  You you don’t really see what’s out there.

Todd:  So he goes, starts to go into the hatch, but Quentin grabs his legs and tries to pull him back in. At the same time, it seems like he’s gonna be successful. Worth grabs Quentin’s legs from this side. And what basically happens is Quentin is now straddling, the break between the rooms, and here comes their shift. And that bridge room slides up and over and down and, slices, Quentin, which was it was sad. We got all these great, these great bloody gross effects for some of these other interesting kills earlier in the movie. And here is the big big bad guy, and we don’t even really get to see but a blood smear on the wall to imply that he’s gone. You know?

Craig:  You’re right.

Todd:  Right. Just a budget thing, probably. But yeah.

Craig:  And then and then Worth is left alone. And now the you know, he’s obviously gonna die because the rooms have shifted again. But, you know, he’s got this self satisfied grin like, well, at least I killed that jerk. And you see Kazan, you know, standing on the bridge, whatever that means. At the other end, it’s just this bright white light and he’s staying because they took off all their clothes to make the rope or whatever. And so he’s just there, like, in his white under shorts and undershirt. And I feel like it’s supposed to be symbolic, like, he’s the innocent 1 and that’s why

Todd:  he made it

Craig:  made it out or whatever. Deserved it or something. And he goes walking towards the light, and then that’s just it. They cut it out. And and I read that they filmed the scene that followed that showing what was outside the cube. And the director said, when we got to editing, that was the very first thing I cut. He said, I thought that, you know, it was far better if we didn’t know if the audience didn’t know what was out there and what was going to happen and what was all behind it. It’s kinda leaves it this mystery.  And I have to say I agree. I I think that was the wisest choice because whatever else it might have been, I I think it would have been a let Todd. I don’t I don’t know what it could have been out there that I would have been like, oh. Uh-huh. So I I don’t know.

Clip:  Well

Craig:  Who knows? You know, as far as we know, it could be heaven. It could who knows what it

Todd:  could be?

Craig:  Yeah. I do I do like that final image of Kazan just kind of shuffling towards the light. I thought it was an interesting way to go.

Todd:  Yeah. I don’t know. I I felt like as a bit of a cop out and, and I didn’t really care for it too much, especially because like I said, it’s not like you have to solve the central mystery of the movie. But because all of the Lord of the Flies stuff was just so unsatisfying and a little contrived and improbable and poorly acted. Sorry. That’s kinda how I felt about it. You know, it just I I was I was hoping for something to to walk away from the movie with a little something like, oh, that’s interesting or whatnot. But I kind of expected to not know.  I mean, I really expected not to know. I I figured it would be that kind of film, so I wasn’t too surprised about that. You know, it’s funny too because so he’s the he’s the 1 to live. Like you said, he’s sort of the innocent 1, which begs the question, well, then why the hell was he in there?

Clip:  Right.

Todd:  You know? Is this truly like this it it it’s not a truly random thing. You know? We’re not I don’t think we’re supposed to philosophize that this is truly 100% this corporate bureaucratic thing and people just get plucked from nowhere to put in here because we see that there is a bit of a method to it. You’ve got the the woman who’s good at math. You have the the guy who can break out of prison. You have the the dude who can actually do math in his head. Mhmm. You you have the doctor who can take care of people. And you have Worth who, knows the cube.  Right? So

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  So, you know, why why did he survive? Oh, I guess he’s the most deserving of it, but then again, he clearly wasn’t deserving of being put in there in the first place. Right. And which also leaves Quentin, and so he’s the cop and we kinda see he’s unhinged from the beginning. But there’s a a reference a little earlier that maybe Holloway, the doctor knows a little bit more about him because she says something about him liking young girls, and then he accuses her of knowing a little too much about him. So once again, there’s sort of like this sort of sin implied, that there’s a reason he’s in there Todd. So it’s a little inconsistent there or there’s just a logic I’m not getting, you know. Or maybe it’s part of the whole experiment. It’s like, the you get the 1 innocent guy in there who should hopefully live.  I don’t know.

Craig:  I don’t know either. And and I feel like the way that we’ve been talking about it for the last 45 minutes or whatever, 1 might think that I didn’t like the movie. And that’s not true. I did. I actually think that it’s a a really clever premise. And is the acting great? No. But this is a low budget Canadian film. Yeah.  For what

Todd:  it is?

Craig:  I don’t I don’t know any of these actors. I I didn’t even look them up because I knew I didn’t recognize any of them. I I know that some of them have done some TV and stuff like that, so it’s it’s not necessarily the case that they’re complete amateurs. But, these aren’t, you know, like, big name folks that you would have major expectations of or anything. And most of it was shot with a handheld camera, and it was all shot in this 1 room. And that could have been so tedious. And just little decisions like changing the color of the room from room to room. I I thought you know, I I got the sense of them moving through space.

Todd:  Right.

Craig:  It didn’t feel like they were always in the exact same room.

Todd:  That was good. The visuals were good. You know, a lot of the visuals in this movie were quite good and and well done.

Craig:  And it feels and and I don’t mean this as a criticism. It feels in many ways like a play. You’ve got, you know, this really confined space, this really limited set piece, and a lot of dialogue, and that’s kind of what what drives it forward. In fact, I can see, you know, if somebody had a really cool, a great budget and some really cool technical opportunities, it could be a play.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And that might potentially be interesting. III again, I don’t remember. I didn’t go back and watch the sequel and the prequel, but of course they do build on the mythology and you do get a little bit more information about maybe. I don’t think that there’s ever a really clear explanation of specifically who is behind all of this, but I I think there’s more exploration of it. And I think that it, you know, it’s some big entity, whether it be a government or some sort of corporate entity or something, and and it’s nefarious. And you know, they explore that in in the sequel and in the prequel. And like I said, the the sequel is more high-tech. The prequel is less high-tech because I think, if I remember correctly, the prequel is supposed to be cube in its initial incarnation, and so it’s it’s less technological, and and kind of more, simply mechanical and and that kind of stuff.  I I remembered liking the second 1 quite a bit. If I remember correctly, and I could be totally wrong, I think I remember the prequel being a little bit tedious and boring, but that could just be my failing memory. I don’t know. But I do. III think that for the premise alone, it’s interesting and and worth watching. It is a little bit heavy handed, and it does leave some things to be desired. But I think that the premise is strong enough to make it worth at least 1 viewing, and and people talk about it. You know, I’ve heard people talk about it, and, it does have kind of a cult, following.  And I understand why because it is unique, and I appreciate that.

Todd:  Yeah. Well, it’s definitely unique. And like you said yeah. It it what more can I say? I don’t really have anything else to say about the cube. I just, III did really I did really enjoy it.

Craig:  I’m trying Todd be nice. I You are. You are. I feel like we I don’t know. Because I didn’t hate it. I don’t think it’s a bad movie, and I’m glad that somebody recommended it because I have I’ve sat down and watched it probably 2 or 3 times. So it’s it’s obviously, there’s something there that holds my interest.

Todd:  It’s hard. It’s like you know, and it’s kinda like I said before. We’ve seen so much worse. So it’s hard to come down on it too hard. Right? You know? Mhmm. Even with the shoddy acting and, you know, kind of a lot of implausibility. But for me, I guess, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. III actually, this kind of movie generally is my cup of tea.  I mean, these very high concept, puzzle y sort of kinda movies. I like those sort of Lord of the Fly type situations. They could run thin after a while like the freaking Walking Dead, you know, where I basically quit watching that because it was the same thing over and over again. Just, oh, people can’t get along. Big surprise. But, this movie didn’t go that far, but it just didn’t go far enough in the realm of plausibility for me, to to to be super interesting. So that whole Lord of the Flies aspect of it just because kind of kind of fell flat. And, the puzzle aspect of the movie wasn’t strong enough or comprehensible enough to to keep my interest either.  It’s not like I felt like I could follow along with them and do all these math equations and, you know, and help them figure it out. So

Craig:  Right. That’s true. It reminds me of a movie, from 2015 called Circle. Have you seen this movie? I think I saw it on Netflix. No. All of these people and there’s a bunch of them. I don’t remember how many of them there are, but it’s a much larger group. They wake up standing on these platforms in a circle facing 1 another, and they realize that if they step down off, of the circle, they get killed.  They get electrocuted or something. And, they finally come to realize again, it’s like a time interval thing where every few minutes or so, there’s, like, a noise, and they have these buzzers in their hands, and they have to vote for who will be the next 1 to die. Okay. And if they don’t and if they don’t vote, somebody just dies at random. And and I it’s like they figure out it’s gonna be a last man standing kind of thing. And I like that movie. You should check that 1.

Todd:  It sounds interesting.

Craig:  Yeah. But it’s it’s all very much like that. Again, it’s just all these people standing around on a dark sound stage for the whole thing and talking through, you know, all the moral quandaries that go along with that. Because, of course, there are old people, there are sick people, there are children, there’s a pregnant woman, and, like, how do you decide who’s worthy of, being alive? Totally different movie, but it reminded me of this. So I think I’d see

Todd:  I’d see circle over cube. Yeah. Okay.

Craig:  Fair enough.

Clip:  Well, thank you so much for listening

Todd:  to another episode. Thanks for requesting the cube. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. You can find us on Facebook. You can search for us online. Just Google us 2 guys in a chainsaw, and we’re everywhere your favorite podcasts are to be streamed, downloaded, or otherwise found. You can also visit our website 2 guys at redfortynet.com, and you can, access all of our past episodes, stream them online, or download them there as well. And leave us a note there on our Facebook page, and let us know what you think.  Until next time. I’m Todd

Craig:  And Craig.

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

We were pleased to once again welcome Stephen King super-fan Jordan to guest with us on her request this week: 2017’s take on Stephen King’s iconic story, IT.

The second part to the story is set to release next week, a scant 29 years after the original miniseries scared our kid pants off. You may remember we did a two-part series of podcasts over that series and Tim Curry’s legendary performance as Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

We reference that project AND the book, of which all three of us are intimately familiar…but maybe not quite as familiar as Jordan, who is such a fan of King’s novel that she bears a custom tattoo to commemorate its impact on her life. Thanks again, Jordan, for your request and your unique insight into this terrifying tale.

It’s not one of our wackier conversations, because this week’s episode is a seriously dark characters study of a disturbed young girl, directed by Lucky McKee. It was also one of Rian Johnson’s first projects!

Episode 183, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Todd:  And I’m Todd.

Craig:  This week, I told Todd that I thought we should do something a little bit more contemporary, and I shot him a few ideas. As it turned out, most of the ideas that I threw out there were kind of dark. And the one that we ended up going with this week is 2000 two’s May, directed and written by Lucky McKee. I don’t know a whole lot about Lucky McKee, except for that, when I was researching this movie, I noticed that, oh, that’s my dog. Sorry.

Todd:  Your dog has a lot to say about this movie, apparently. Or Lucky McKee. Maybe he knows Lucky. Sounds kinda like a dog’s name, doesn’t it? Lucky McKee? Yeah.

Craig:  She must know, that, we’re gonna be talking about some dark stuff. She’s getting a little irritated. When I was throwing out some movies, I I threw out some names and, it turned out that a couple of the movies that I threw out there really unbeknownst to me were by Lucky McKee. Another one that I threw out there that he had done was The Woman, which is another movie that I would like to talk about soon. Again, another dark one. But this one, May, came out, I believe in 2002, and I’ve read a couple different things. If you look at IMDB, it shows that McKee had directed one film before this. I think it was called All Cheerleaders Die or something like that.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah.

Craig:  But then I looked at Wikipedia and it said this was his first movie. So I I’m a little bit confused. I know that he ended up remaking All Cheerleaders Die in like 2013, and I don’t think that I’ve seen that film, but, the stuff of his that I have seen, I don’t know if saying that I like it is the right way to go, but it’s, some intriguing stuff. And I just remembered the reason that I threw Mei out there is because I had seen it a long time ago, and I remembered the general plot, but I didn’t remember a lot of specifics about it other than that it was pretty dark. But I kind of wanted to revisit it, and now I have.

Todd:  And that’s  our podcast, folks. Thank you for listening.

Craig:  The end.

Todd:  No. We’ve revisited it.

Craig:  I I’m really interested to hear what you  thought  of it because it’s it’s a really interesting movie. Had you heard of it, seen May at all?

Todd:  Absolutely not. No, I hadn’t heard of this at all. So I was really, intrigued when you threw it up there for us. Now Lucky Mckee, McKee, I I don’t know that much about him either. But I just do remember that we had done a couple things with him. And I think, he did a segment with of Tales of Halloween, which we really Yeah. Yeah. Really liked that show.  And then the name, maybe the woman. I think I had I had read about the woman. That’s been on our list you know for a little while and we probably will do it soon. But no, I hadn’t even heard of this movie and I was really happy. When I was watching it actually got a bit of audition vibe. I don’t think you’ve seen that movie yet, Chris.

Craig:  I haven’t.

Todd:  But that’s a Japanese film and it it’s not the same thing, but it’s got a little bit of the same vibe to it. It’s dark and it’s we’ve seen darker, but, it’s more of a character study, I think, than anything else. And it’s got, you know, a slasher element to it, but not I don’t know. When I say slasher movie, I think of, like, something that’s very, energetic and, you know, there are people running around and being chased and and slashed. Right. Kind of our typical eighties slasher movie kind of thing. This isn’t that kind of movie, I think, but, you know, people do get slashed and killed. So it’s billed as a slasher film more in the style maybe of Maniac.  Yeah. Than Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday 13th or something like that.

Craig:  Yeah. It does feel like more of like a a kind of a psychological profile really more than anything else. I think, you know, I was I was talking to my partner last night and I said, I don’t think this movie would have worked without Angela Bettis. Angela Bettis is the lead actress in this film

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And she’s worked with Lucky McKee several times. She’s in the woman and but and she’s done lots of other things too, you know. She’s she was in Girl Interrupted. I had completely forgotten she was in that, but as soon as I read that I remembered who her character was. She played an anorexic patient in Girl, Interrupted and and was really good in that. She was also in one of the remakes of Carrie. She played Carrie, and I think that was a really fitting role for her. There’s just something about her.  I mean, she’s got kind of a sissy SpaceX kind  of  quality about her.

Todd:  She can kind of play pathetic. Right?

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Pathetic and sad, which is is really how I feel about this poor girl in this movie. Abused and beaten down, you know, kind of stunted. Like Carrie in a way. Yeah.

Craig:  Exactly. And oddly enough, you know, I think that Angela Bettis is actually a very beautiful woman.

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  But she plays the vulnerability so well that you believe that she could be kind of this outcast character.

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  I I really think that she carries this movie and and makes it I don’t know. I she’s she’s sympathetic at the same time that she’s odd and perhaps even frightening in in some ways, but I’m so impressed with her. The premise of the movie is that, this young girl, May, is born with a lazy eye and her mother appears to be somebody who is concerned with appearances.

Todd:  It’s a little bit of of a montage in a way of her growing up. Apparently, there was supposed to be a much more of this Yes. To establish her character, but he ended up cutting a lot of it out because it just slowed the story down too much. He he got to the point, pretty quickly and then moved on now with the adult version of her. But there’s a scene, that I thought was really interesting. Well, of course every scene with the mother just has this little zinger that her mom says where you just kind of wince like

Clip:  oh. Right.

Todd:  She’s a terrible mom and, one of them is you know she she has she has to wear an eye patch over one of her eyes. I think it’s to try to train the lazy eye.

Clip:  Uh-huh. Do  you wanna make friends? And keep it covered.

Todd:  She moves it aside and instantly a kid comes up to her and says, oh, are you a pirate? And they all start laughing at her and walk away. So she learns to pull her hair back over it again, you know. So it’s like her mom is vindicated in this horrible way. You know, even though she’s giving her this terrible advice. And then she she gives her a doll, in the movie. Her mom apparently makes things, makes dolls, crafts. It’s not really clear, but she ends up carrying this through herself as an adult. And her mom gives her this doll and she says

Clip:  I’ve always said, if you can’t find a friend, make one. Happy birthday, sweetheart. Her name is Susie. Susie was the first doll I ever made. She was my best friend, and now she’ll be yours.

Todd:  And it’s kind of a creepy looking porcelain y doll with these big glass blue eyes But she gives it to her in a glass case and the girl instantly tries to open this glass case to take the doll out of it and her mom’s like no no no no, this is precious. This is a very very special doll and so this poor girl even her doll is encased in this. She can’t touch it. Right? She can’t feel it or hold it or anything. It’s it’s sad. You know? She’s got this she has to make this friend and it’s probably not her fault. But it’s because her mom’s kind of overbearing and in a sense she’s just like unable to make an emotional connection with anything, even a doll, you know. Right.  She’s prevented from having any kind of contact with it. And so, it’s really the doll really I think kinda becomes a symbol really for her in the movie. Just boxed off, you know, boxed off from the world kind of in her own little glass cage. Right. And able to reach out of it. Right? Except just stare. Just stare out like the doll does. And and that’s kinda what her character does is stares around a lot.

Craig:  Right. Right. And and like you said, they did, initially try to establish more with her as a kid, but it just Craig out too long. I guess they decided. And and I think I agree. I think that it was wise to just get to her, as a young adult. How old do you think she’s supposed to be? Like 20?

Todd:  Yeah. Maybe

Craig:  20. Like out of high school, but

Todd:  Not too far out of high school. Maybe maybe like 2021 or 22. Yeah. Somewhere somewhere in there.

Craig:  She, works in an animal hospital. Before we move on, the very, very, very first thing that we see is her standing in front of a mirror covering one of her eyes, and you see blood, and and she’s weeping. And then it cuts immediately away from that into, you know, her youth story. Of course, obviously, you know from the beginning we’re gonna be building up to that point. We don’t know what’s going on. But she talks immediately about how she looks at the world and she looks at other people and she says, you know, you see people and you see parts of them that you really really like, but then once you get to know them you start to see parts that you don’t like. Yeah. And and that really becomes, you know, a major issue for her.  Pretty much right from the beginning, sees this guy. And when I say sees this guy, I mean, that’s literally it. I mean, she just sees him from a distance. And his name is Adam and he’s a mechanic, I think. And he’s played by Jeremy who has done a lot of things. He, was in wrong turn. He was in clueless, very recognizable guy. In fact, I may be making this up, but I don’t think so.  I think that he was cast in the Leonardo DiCaprio role in Titanic before he was original eventually turned down and and Leo got it. I think I remember reading that.

Clip:  Wow.

Craig:  Don’t quote me on it. But, anyway, she sees him, and she just, like, is immediately infatuated with his hands. She just loves his hands. A lot of what we get from her in the beginning is just kind of her inner monologue where she really just wants a friend. You know, she, I think she says to her doll or says to herself, I need a real friend. She wears these glasses that correct her lazy eye, and we see very early on that she also gets corrective contacts that, correct her eye. It’s just such a difficult dynamic to describe because she’s supposed to be awkward and strange, and she is, but at the same time, from a purely physical perspective, she’s not an unattractive person. No.  She’s a nice looking young woman and when her eye is corrected, she looks she looks totally normal. Now, she doesn’t act totally normal. She’s a little bit off, but she looks normal, and so you could understand how people would find her interesting, attractive, appealing, but we have more insight kind of into her inner monologue which I don’t know. Gosh, it’s so hard to describe. It’s just such a strange dynamic. And and and that to me is kinda what makes the movie fascinating.

Todd:  Yeah. She’s a pretty person, but like you said, she’s a little awkward and and shy, and like I you know, she stares at the world. And so it also makes her easy to be a victim as well. Easy for people to prey on her. And I think there’s also just this feeling of dread that I get in the beginning of the movie. It’s like Carrie, you know. It’s like, oh my gosh, I’m gonna watch this poor girl have people take advantage of her. And I think that also permeates the movie and gives you a lot more sympathy for her as well.  And provides a good counter balance for some of the weird kind of twisted things that she kind of And the movie’s really good, I think, about peeling back these layers of her onion slowly and not really hitting you with it all at once. We we get insight into her inner monologue simply from her talking to her doll at first. She’s talking to her doll like it’s a person, like it really is her only friend and, she’s talking to it through the glass and everything. And you can see that she’s picked up on her mom’s craftiness or whatever and she also makes things, makes dolls and whatnot. She has an interesting friend at work. Let’s just put it that way.

Craig:  It’s so funny because we picked this and then I, you know, went to IMDB as I usually do to see who was in it and who directed it. And I saw that Anna Faris was in this movie. Yeah. And I had completely forgotten. I had no idea. This has to have been one of the first things that she ever did.

Todd:  Well, she’s done, like, 3 or 4. She did scary movie and scary movie 2 before she did this. But,

Clip:  Oh, wow.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  But I I I had just completely forgotten that she was in it. I love her. I think that she’s hilarious. You know, obviously, she’s not playing it for the comedy here, but she is the, like, receptionist at the animal hospital that, May works at. And it’s funny because this animal hospital that she works at, it seems like the veterinarian here is, like, totally inept. And really, it seems like May is the one that kind of keeps everything together and knows what she’s doing in this hospital. But Polly is the name of the character that Anna Faris plays, and right seemingly from the beginning for me, I got the very distinct feeling which ends up being true that Polly is flirting with her

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  And kind of coming on to her. And initially, it seems like Mae just is a little bit oblivious and and kinda just doesn’t get it. But again, it just kind of goes to show how kind of socially inept she is. Yeah. She she doesn’t know how to respond to people.

Todd:  Well, that opens her up to so many influences, you know, because everything is kind of new and and odd and strange to her. So then she’s gonna kinda kinda not know what to do with it. So sometimes, she just ends up going along with it and you’re not sure if she’s being again, I don’t you’re not sure if she’s being victimized or if she’s okay with this. It’s really hard to read her.

Craig:  It is. And Pauley, Anna Faris says these goofy lines. Like, she’s awkwardly flirting with May and she says things like

Clip:  You should call me one of these nights. You know, we’ll hang out and eat some melons or something. Right. And and at one

Todd:  time, she’s like, do you like pussy? And she’s like, what? What? She’s like, pussy cats.

Clip:  Cats. Pussy cats. There’s

Todd:  a fair amount of comedy in this movie to be fair. A dark comedy for sure. But, yeah, there’s a

Clip:  fair amount.

Craig:  Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Todd:  Todd be, honestly, or else it would be really really down.

Craig:  Well and and there’s weird stuff going on. Like, at at one point, Polly kind of catches May cutting herself Mhmm. With a scalpel. Then Polly’s like, well, here. Try it with me. And and so she cuts her, and at first, Polly’s like, ow,

Clip:  Ow, what do you

Craig:  freak that hurt? And then she’s like, but but I actually kinda liked it. Yeah. I’m doing my best Anna Faris breathy voice.

Todd:  That’s really great. She she looks so much like Britney Spears. She looks like she could be Britney Spears’ sister, you know?

Clip:  She does.

Craig:  She does a little bit.

Clip:  That’s all

Todd:  I did when I could think when I was watching this.

Craig:  Yeah. She’s she’s got dark hair in this movie. She’s kind of a signature blonde. You know, I I watch the stuff that she’s in. I like her. You know, she was in the House Bunny, which I thought was a hilarious movie. She’s got a hit TV show right now, and, I really like her. So I was kind of intrigued by her performance in this movie, which is different than the other stuff that she’s done.  Meanwhile, she’s also not Polly, but May is, like, awkwardly stalking Adam. Yeah. Like, she’s following him around. She’s trying to find ways to bump into him. At some point, she is kind of stalking him in, like, a coffee shop or, like, a little bistro or something. He’s reading a magazine or something, but he falls asleep. He has his head resting on his hand and he falls asleep so that his head falls down, but his hand is still up in the air, which there’s a lot of imagery and stuff going on in this movie that’s big time foreshadowing and stuff.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  You know, we already know that she’s obsessed with his hand. And now here he is with his head down and just his hand up in the air, and she goes over and she kind of lightly caresses it and then puts her face in it. So, like, his hand is caressing her face and he wakes up and he’s like, hey, what’s up? And she runs away awkwardly and, but they kind of start a little relationship. Yeah. They meet in the laundromat. They have lunch in the park, and he seems really nice. At first, it almost seems like he’s a little bit intrigued by the dark nature of her, because she says that she works in the animal hospital, and she’s like, well, you must think that’s gross. And he’s like, no.  I love gross. Disgust me.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  And she tells this horrible story about this dog that they worked on, and they stitched up with the wrong sutures and, like, all its innards fell out, and she had to, like, fix it or whatever. And it’s he kind of is looking at her like, what is wrong with you? But he’s he’s still kinda into it.

Todd:  But then, you know, he takes her to his room, and he is I guess he’s kind of does art or something on the side. Uh-huh. So he’s a little bit of a creator person as well as she is. And kind of like her, his art is a little on the dark side. It’s like 90s goth type stuff. You know, where he’s got cutouts of things and nails glued to stuff. And and and, you know, he shows this to his this room to her, and he asks her, does this scare you? Do you think this is weird? And she’s like, no, I think it’s cool. And then they start to make out, and when they’re kissing, she just up and up what? Bites his tongue or bites his lip or something?

Craig:  Well, yeah. I mean, that’s I I feel like that’s kind of the second date, you know. Yeah. Other things other things go on too. And the first time he tries to kiss her or something, I don’t know, she gets mad at the doll. Like, you kind of see her coming unhinged a little bit. And and what you said before, I think, is absolutely right. I think that the doll is kind of a manifestation of her inner self or something.  And and it it’s almost like it speaks to her even though it doesn’t physically.

Clip:  Right.

Todd:  It’s not

Clip:  a supernatural thing, but it it seems like in her mind, this

Todd:  doll is thing, but it it seems like in her mind, this doll’s speaking to her. Yeah.

Craig:  Right. And gives her advice and things. And so then when things go poorly, she gets angry at the doll. But you’re right. Eventually, they do have the date. And the the thing is, when they have this date, he tells her that, he’s just finished working on a movie. He says that when he was in college that he had been interested in filmmaking, but he dropped out of college, and he’s just now put the finishing touches on his movie. And and yeah.  And she says, well, can I see it? And so they have an a nice dinner, and she I think she makes a macaroni and cheese and and serves them Gatorade in a wine glass. Oh. And, and then they sit down to watch this movie and his movie is called Jack and Jill. It’s weird.

Todd:  Artsy student project, basically.

Craig:  Right. And and not great by any stretch of the imagination, you know, very much a short student film. But really kind of what it’s about is, like, erotic cannibalism.

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  These these two people, like, it seems very sweet and they’re, you know, having a picnic in the park, and then they start eating one another,

Clip:  erotically. Erotically eating each other.

Todd:  He, like, bites her tongue out and, like, then she like, he’s going down on her chest, and he’s, like, chewing off her yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s it it just gets ridiculously bloody, and she’s sitting there watching it, and she’s she kinda likes it.

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, and and and, like, she’s smiling and she’s trying to snuggle up with them. And when it’s over and it’s only a few minutes long, he says, what did you think? And she said, it was sweet. Uh-huh. She says, except for I don’t think she could have bitten off his finger in one bite. That part was kind of Farfetch.

Clip:  I thought that line was so funny.

Craig:  It’s just like not not Farfetch’d that they would be, you know, eating one another, but that he he could bite off her fingers. She could bite off his finger in one bite. That that was a little Farfetch’d.

Todd:  Well, and you know as I was watching this movie, I was trying to figure out just in the back of my mind. I was wondering is this the way she is? Is this kind of her coming out of her shell or is she just so easily influenced by others and so inexperienced in the world that she takes totally deadly seriously and fully embraces every little weird thing that comes her way? Maybe she wasn’t into blood until and and guts and stuff until she started working at an animal hospital and

Clip:  she

Todd:  was exposed to it a lot and that kind of intrigued her. And then maybe she never really thought of this in an erotic way until she makes this connection because she sees this movie with this guy. And so, she likes the guy and so she thinks she needs to like this too and then that becomes kind of a part of her, you know. And then later, this receptionist is coming on to her even more and more strongly and overtly and they end up having a sexual experience and Again, I get this feeling like throughout this scene, which by the way is a super hot scene. The movie’s shot really well, and I think that the sex scenes in this movie, what, there’s 1 maybe 2, are really well done.

Craig:  Yeah, and and not gratuitous.

Todd:  Not gratuitous. Yeah. Just, like, really sorry. Just really steamy hot, hot, sexy.

Craig:  No. I get it. I get it. Enjoyable. It’s it’s more about sensuality than Yeah. It’s not porny. No. It’s not.  And

Todd:  and it gets you into her head, like, this is, you know, what she’s feeling now. This is excitement, this new thing. It’s really erotic and it’s really sexy. And the whole time I’m thinking, you know, maybe she really never thought about girls in that way, and but her friend is coming on to her and so now this is kind of becoming a part of her as well. It’s not that she’s really experiencing an awakening so much as she’s absorbing all these little twisted pieces. You know what I mean by twist, but just all these little different pieces of things that people are throwing at her and it’s becoming almost too much for her to Todd handle. She’s not equipped to deal with it.

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, and I think that you’re absolutely right. And I think that that’s part of what makes the movie so interesting is that she’s so susceptible to influence. She wants so desperately to be liked and and to be loved that she is just kind of willing to go wherever she thinks people want her to go. Yeah. And and that’s and that’s the thing, like, you know, what you mentioned before after they watched the movie, that’s when she and Adam start making out.

Todd:  She bites his tongue.

Clip:  She she

Craig:  well, she well, she bites his lip hard Mhmm. And and draws blood. And then she takes the blood and, like, wipes it on her face and and he freaks out as I suppose most people probably would.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  And she’s, like, what it it’s just like your movie. And it does leave you wondering, you know, is that something that was something that was repressed within herself that she’s allowing to come out? Or is it just because she saw what she thought that he thought was erotic and and sexy and so she wanted to do that. Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, it’s it’s a a a fine line and I I just think it I don’t it’s just so interesting. And and Angela Bettis just does such a good job of I just I believe this person, you know. I believe her as a character. She’s so odd and she’s so out there, but at the same time, she’s really sympathetic because she’s so alone and she just so desperately desperately wants a connection with somebody.  And then after that, you know, he he gets out of there. Yeah. Like, they were about to get down like, that it was gonna happen, but then she freaks him out and he runs off. And then she, I think, the next day or or soon thereafter goes to his house, but before she can knock on the door, he opens the door because his roommate says, don’t blow smoke in here or something. So he’s standing on the other side of the door with just his, again, his hand sticking out of the door holding his cigarette and he’s blowing his smoke out. And he doesn’t know that she’s there, and she overhears them talking about her.

Clip:  She’s pretty. You know, I don’t think she’s playing with a full back. That’s not what you wanted to be playing with. True. At least she knows she’s not out of her mind. Okay. You know what? We’re not talking about Mae anymore. I’ve successfully escaped that limiter.  Who’s Mae? Some weird chick Adam just dumped.

Craig:  It’s such an interesting scene because they are literally standing maybe 2 feet from each other, but he doesn’t know she’s there. And and you see her emotion when she gets so happy to hear him speaking well of her and then when he calls her crazy, her look just totally changes and you can just she’s she’s devastated.

Todd:  Yeah. It’s heartbreaking.

Craig:  It is. It is heartbreaking.

Todd:  And that’s kind of when she more or less ends up falling into the arms of the girl at work, Polly. Polly. Who’s been coming on to her in a totally different way. She he’s she’s very overt. She’s really and you feel bad for her Todd because you could see that Polly’s really probably just playing with her. I mean, totally hot and you get the sense that she sees her as a plaything.

Craig:  A challenge, maybe. Mhmm.

Todd:  Yeah. Fun little challenge experience, and so, you know, they kind of, have a have a moment where, you know, it’s very well, they they have sex, basically.

Craig:  But there’s also an interesting moment when they’re making out.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  May it kinda seems like she’s into it, and then she sees that Pauley has, like, this big hairy mole on her finger.

Todd:  And she’s totally intrigued by it.

Craig:  She’s intrigued by it and maybe a little bit grossed out, I think, by it too. And it goes back to that, you know, from the very beginning. She said, you see people and they have there are so many good things about them, and then you see the not good parts. And and in in this case, it’s it’s purely physical, but it seems to bother her.

Todd:  Yeah. And she also was, like, really taken by her neck. Yeah. Polly will turn her head to the side to, you know, to say something over her shoulder, and she’s just staring at her neck as it’s stretched out in her direction.

Craig:  I think one of the very first things we hear her say to Polly you know, Polly’s talking to her, and she just says to her, you have a beautiful neck, and Polly’s like, well,

Clip:  thank

Craig:  you. It’s all building to something obviously, you know, she notices specific things about people. She’s infatuated with Adam’s hands. She loves Polly’s neck.

Todd:  And later, she goes to Polly’s house and Polly answers the door in a towel and, she hears another woman in there and she can just see over Polly’s shoulder nothing but two legs. Mhmm. Just kind of kicking around and, Polly’s like, oh, I just had to hit this. You know, you know you’re the one I’m really interested in, but who can turn down those legs? At some point, she just has to cover up. Like, she adjusts Polly’s arm in the doorway because Polly has a gown on and she adjusts the gown so she doesn’t have to see the other girl’s legs because it’s almost too much for her to handle. And of course, she cries and she sort of runs away. So you feel sorry for her again. Again, she sort of turned down, but now here’s Polly’s friend’s legs.  She just fetishizes all of these physical things as well.

Craig:  Right. And meanwhile, she’s still kind of stalking Adam but Adam is clearly over her. Now, one of the parts that I was really interested in because I thought it was an interesting part of the movie, but I’m not really sure what to make of it. At one point, she and Adam are in the park. There’s a group of kids playing nearby and May says to Adam, why are they all touching everything? And and he says, because they’re blind. And after Adam kind of ditches her and is, avoiding her, she’s in the park and she sees them again, and then she goes to volunteer at the daycare or whatever it is. And there’s a horrible scene with the, receptionist at the daycare who is totally awful about, you know, these kids with special needs, but she ends up volunteering with these blind kids and she makes a special connection with one of the girls who kind of like her is an outcast and keeps to herself. Now, I felt like there was something going on here symbolically, but Yeah.  I felt like maybe it was kind of going over my head. Am I reading too much into it? No. Is it just that she felt a kinship to them because they were different?

Todd:  Maybe, of course, maybe connected to their eyes Todd. An eye has always been a problem of hers and seeing things. But I felt like this was the most contrived scene of the movie. Obviously, the scene is meant to have some serious emotional impact. It’s just one more jarring thing that happens to this poor woman. But, yeah, she is, playing with these kids and she’s attracted to that one girl, like you said. And then she decides she’s gonna bring her doll in and introduce the kids to the doll. But, of course, her doll is inside this glass case.  So what are these kids who can’t see do? They reach out and they feel. They touch things. And I I kind of wonder, if you’re gonna look maybe for some hidden subtext here, is even these blind kids who cannot see can touch and feel things to to make out their world, You know? And this is the thing that she can’t do. Right? It’s it’s like Mhmm. Again, symbolically, she’s been this this doll is boxed in. She can’t even touch her own doll. But these girls, that’s all they know. And so they end up shattering the case around this doll because they’re trying to take it from her because they wanna feel it and she’s like, no.  No. No. You can’t open it. You can’t do that. It’s gonna ruin her or whatever.

Craig:  Right. She’s special. She can’t

Todd:  come out. And they’re trying to do it. You know, they’re trying to get it out of her. And finally, it Todd and it falls and it does shatter. But then the glass goes all over the floor. And as the kids are crawling around on the glass, they start getting cut and bleeding. And she’s got blood on her face. And it’s it’s a little over the top, to be honest.  And it’s maybe trying a little too hard for the symbolism, I think. In a movie that otherwise was pretty believable, this is a really contrived scene, I think. But you’re right. I think there’s below the surface, there’s something here talking about just how stunted she is, and how unable she is to to even break out of that box.

Craig:  Well, I mean, it’s even just sad that when she you know, it’s kinda like show and tell except it’s mostly tell because they can’t see. But, you know, she she says this is my best friend. Mhmm. And just that in itself is sad. And throughout all of this, she appears to be being tormented by this doll. Yeah. Almost as though I don’t know if the doll is supposed to be her, you know, behind this glass cape.

Todd:  Maybe a piece of her mom.

Craig:  Right. Exactly. Like, you know, her because her mother made it and her mother gave it to her, you know, like, she feels judgment from it. She gets she gets angry at the doll several times.

Todd:  It has these perfect big blue eyes that stare straight ahead, which her eyes can’t do.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s pretty creepy. But yeah. Okay. So the the kids, you know, get all bloodied. And I think that the implication is that somehow she gets tiny shards of glass in her eyes. Because when she gets home, she starts rubbing her eyes, which, of course, is the worst thing you can do if you have

Todd:  Glass in them.

Craig:  Something abrasive in your eyes. Right? She tears at them with her fingers and when she wakes up the next day, she looks in the mirror and her eyes are just a bloody mess. But then, the very next scene, I felt like time must have gone by that we missed because in the very next scene, she looks fine. She’s sitting on a bus stop and this weird guy sits down next to her. He’s got this crazy, like, moose, like, weird mohawk, and he’s a recognizable guy too. He’s play he’s he’s credited as blank in the credits. I don’t think he has a name. But his name is James Duvall, and and he was in Independence Day, and he was in Donnie Darko, recognizable guy.  And and at first, he seems like he’s being really nice to her.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  She’s kind of blase about it at first, but then he kind of says, you know, do you wanna hang out? Do you wanna go get some jujubes with me? And, eventually, she concedes and they go and then they end up back at her house. And and, you know, it’s been well over a decade since I’d seen this movie, so I didn’t remember what was gonna happen. But at first, it seemed like he was being very nice. But then when they got back to her apartment, he started acting weird.

Clip:  Really weird. Like Like He’s like,

Craig:  it’s really hot in here. Do you mind if I take off my shirt? She’s like, okay. But I did think that it was really clever that when he took off his shirt, she’s like, oh, I really like your tattoo and it was Frankenstein’s monster.

Todd:  Yeah. Very very clever. Very clever. A little on the nose, but yeah. Yes.

Craig:  Then he’s like, oh, man. I’m still really hot. Do you have any ice cubes I can rub on my nipples? Oh, yeah. The nipple ice cubes are on the second shelf just

Todd:  What even is that? Is that a thing? But then he goes to the freezer and he opens it up and the cat is in there. Oh, we didn’t mention she killed she killed her cat. And in anger, she threw

Craig:  Polly’s cat. She’d been watching Polly’s cat.

Todd:  Polly’s cat. That’s right.

Craig:  Right. In anger, she had thrown the ash tray that I mean, there’s so many little things that yeah. The little blind girl made her an ash tray with her name in it in a fit of rage because the cat wouldn’t come let her pet it or something. She threw it and and killed the cat and the cat’s in the freezer. Then she tries to stop him, but he opens it anyway. And then when he sees it, she’s like, are we best friends now? Now that you’ve seen what’s in my freezer, are we best friends? And it’s so like, it sounds so ludicrous.

Todd:  It is kinda ludicrous.

Craig:  But the way the way that it’s delivered, it’s sad. Yeah. Like, this poor girl is just desperate for some connection.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And she’s messed up and I I think that on one level, she knows she’s messed up, but on another level, she just wants somebody to accept her for what she is and for who she is and she just keeps getting kind of rejected at every turn and

Todd:  Well, and then he just outright rejects her. Says, no, we can’t be friends. You’re a freak. Yeah. And this is the what breaks her, I guess. Right?

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  She sees some scissors and the the scissors are symbolic. Right? It’s what her mother used to cut fabric.

Craig:  Sewing scissors. Right?

Todd:  She uses to cut fabric to make the dolls and the things and stuff. And so we get these little flashbacks through her history. This is an interesting way, I think, of showing her mind snapping. I think it’s just like all this stuff ties together. All this stuff is stacked up. And now, you know, this is the last straw. She grabs those scissors and just stabs the guy straight in the forehead.

Craig:  Through his hand. I thought that was really cool, like, because he puts his hands up, like, to protect himself, and she stabs through his hand into his skull, which, like, you know

Todd:  Could that really happen? I guess. I don’t know.

Craig:  I I don’t know. I mean, sewing scissors are sharp. I don’t know if you could go through somebody’s skull, but, like, his hand is, like, pierced, to his head. Mhmm. And and then he’s dead and she’s kind of covered in blood and you do see all those very creepy flashbacks, which in the moment were mildly uncomfortable, but in the flashbacks, you know, just piecing them all together, it just, wow, you know, this is crazy.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  And she then it just cuts back to her standing there kind of blank faced and she just says, I need more parts. And and that was the first thing that she said to him when he had approached her at the bus stop. He’s, like, hey, what’s up? And she was just, like, people watching, and she said so many beautiful parts, but no pretty holes. W h o l e s. Not Yeah. At first, I heard

Todd:  it the other way. She had just come out of her lesbian experience, and she was staring at a girl as she walked by.

Craig:  No. But, like, I mean, that’s the thing. Like, she like you said, she fetishizes these specific parts of people and but nobody’s perfect. She’s looking for something perfect, but she can’t find it.

Todd:  Yeah. And it’s an interesting I mean, it’s a manifestation of a of a lesson we should all learn. Right? I mean, nothing is perfect. Nobody is perfect. You can’t get that. And if you’re obsessed with finding perfection in people, you’re always gonna be turned away because there are flaws there. Uh-huh. In a sense, I feel like that’s sort of the way what the movie’s about.  Maybe I’m jumping the gun here because that’s more or less the last scene kind of comes to. Right?

Craig:  Well, it is. I mean, there’s another scene where she talks to Adam in the park, which I read was, you know, heavily cut. I think that initially that guy, blank, whoever he is, was actually in the scene with him, and they just edited it around him. So it was just the 2 of them, Adam and May. She plays it kind of cool with him, but she’s still kinda creepy. Like, she shakes his hand and she holds on to it and kisses it. And then when he leaves, she’s like, later, hands, which I loved. And then the next thing you see is she’s measuring Polly, measuring her neck, with the tape measure.  And Polly’s like, why are we doing this? It’s like, oh, I’m gonna make you a blouse. Because she does. May makes all her own clothes and she has a really interesting fashion sense. And then Polly’s new girlfriend Ambrosia shows up and May comments on her legs. But she also says as she’s measuring Polly’s neck, she notices that gross mole on her finger again.

Clip:  You ever thought of having this removed? My grandma said it’s imperfections that make you special. What do you think?

Craig:  And And May just kinda shrugs her shoulders like, I don’t know.

Todd:  Yeah. Don’t buy it.

Clip:  Yeah. I

Todd:  don’t buy it. I know. Well, it’s an interesting thing coming from this girl. Right? This girl who clearly she’s pretty perfect except for that mole.

Clip:  Right.

Todd:  Whereas, here’s May, and her whole life she’s been living with this imperfection that’s more or less defined her and kept her from getting close to anybody. And so, it’s almost the same sense of people when they talk about the nobility of the poor. It like, okay. Well, you’ve never been poor. It’s real easy for you to talk about how noble it is. Poor people generally don’t wanna be poor.

Craig:  Sure.

Todd:  They they don’t feel noble at all. So it’s it’s very patronizing. And so in a sense, it it feels a little I mean, it’s a nice sentiment and it’s Yeah. Probably true, but coming from this girl to this girl, it sounds kind of patronizing. Mhmm. You know? And she doesn’t even know it, but it definitely would be received that way, I think.

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, yeah. I I totally agree. I hadn’t really thought of it that way. You know, and and because when they kinda just shrugs it off, you almost see poly kind of questioning yourself, like, oh, maybe I

Clip:  should get it taken off. Maybe this

Todd:  is gross.

Craig:  Yeah. But, this this all leads up to the final act. And now I have to admit, we’ve taken requests. I’m thinking specifically of Bone Tomahawk where I’ve said we got tricked because this doesn’t feel like a horror movie for most of the movie. And I would say up to this point

Todd:  It’s not.

Craig:  It’s kind of a psychological thriller, I guess, but it’s more like you said right from the beginning like a character study. It doesn’t feel like horror at all.

Todd:  Well, if Carrie is horror, then this is horror. The only difference is that you and Carrie, you know, there’s a supernatural element. Right. She has these psychic powers and can make things happen. So that’s kind of the horrible dread that, you know, you know something bad is gonna happen. It’s just gonna escalate. I feel like with her, you do get the sense starting off early in the movie that you’re gonna watch this woman slowly break down.

Craig:  Yes.

Todd:  And it’s and it’s escalating. So I did feel I would legitimately call it horror, but like you said definitely more psychological thriller than outright, you know scary horror. It’s not scary yet. Right?

Craig:  Right. And that’s that’s what I was going to say Todd. Like, from the very beginning, there’s a sense of dread because you, at least, I had the very distinct feeling that something bad was going to happen.

Todd:  Well, something’s gonna happen to her eye? Well, yeah.

Clip:  Because it’s yeah. It’s a pretty

Todd:  distinct sense.

Craig:  Telegraph right from the beginning. Oh, man. But now in this very final act, which really is probably I don’t know, maybe the last 15, 20 minutes of the movie, is when things get very dark. It’s Halloween and May makes herself a costume. Really, She dresses as Susie, the doll. She calls Polly. And I also have to say that from this point, there was such a distinct shift in character for May and I thought that Angela Bettis played it so well because it’s it’s really abrupt and it’s a a distinct difference, but it it didn’t seem jarring

Todd:  Mhmm. To

Craig:  me. It it seemed like just now she is embracing something. And all of a sudden, she’s more confident.

Todd:  Yeah. More calculating. Right? But also just she maintains that earlier part of herself where you just feel like some of her just not there. Mhmm. It’s not this calculating, like, I’m gonna do these mean things to people and get my revenge. It’s just this sort of, hey, I’ve done this once. It worked out. I have an idea, and I’m just gonna go through with it.  Mhmm. That she just had enough space in her head for this kind of thing. And I think that’s been built up. Of course, the movie, you buy it. I I bought it for sure.

Craig:  I did too. It’s not like she has some stunning physical transformation, but she does, you know, she puts on some dark lipstick and and she combs her hair down back behind her shoulders and and she just looks different. And she goes to Polly’s house and under the ruse of having made her a blouse or whatever, they’re sitting there together and May is sitting behind her as though she’s going to put this blouse on her, but instead she takes these two scalpels and puts them up to Polly’s neck and it’s almost like it’s an erotic game, like, Polly thinks it’s an erotic game. And she says, I know you would never hurt me, May. And then May slits her throat. And I just found that moment so Horrifying. Horrifying and satisfying because because you see, you know, Polly thinks it’s an erotic game, you know, Polly kinda got off on getting cut on her finger before.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  But then when they slices into her neck, you see this look of shock and horror on Pauley’s face, like, she she really didn’t see it coming.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  You know, Anna Faris Anna Faris must have been a a baby when she made this movie but I I enjoyed her performance. You know, it’s not like she’s gonna win any awards for it or anything, but she was an interesting character.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And then, Polly’s girlfriend, Ambrosia, shows up and she’s drunk. And all I wrote down was May has an awkward conversation with Ambrosia. And and the reason that that’s that’s all I put there was because I thought that it was really interesting, and I thought that maybe you would put the clip in. So, you know, there you go.

Clip:  There you go.

Craig:  But, she in the end of it, she stabs Ambrosia in the head, and she’s lugging around this cooler. Like, the it’s so calculated. Like, she brought this cooler with her. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she’s just carrying it out. And at this point, she’s walking down the street and this girl walks up to her and goes, great costume. You got any cold ones in there? And Meg goes, yes, I do.

Clip:  Just keeps walking. It’s funny.

Craig:  I love it. And I read I wouldn’t have noticed this, but I read that the girl who talks to her is in the costume of the zombie cheerleaders from cheerleader all cheerleaders die, which was his previous film

Clip:  or whatever.

Craig:  But then she goes to Adam’s.

Todd:  Yep.

Craig:  Adam is at his house with his new female friend.

Todd:  He’s not real nice to her. It’s funny No.

Craig:  But but in this at the same time, like, Adam was really a nice guy. It just she freaked him out and rightfully so, she would have freaked me out too.

Todd:  I don’t know. Do you feel like he was really a nice guy or that you’re kinda getting the sense that, I mean, yeah, of course. He was intrigued. He was being nice to her, but was he also being nice to her in a sort of way that that Polly was being nice to her in this sort of bemused, intrigued way that ultimately didn’t take it very seriously and was kind of just poking her a little bit just to see what would happen because she’s so weird. I don’t know.

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, I I never got the like, I never thought, like, he was thinking in the back of his mind, oh, I’m gonna marry this girl someday. You know, like, it wasn’t like that. It was more like, oh, here’s this kinda weird girl, but she’s pretty and I can, you know, we can probably have a thing and and but I also he he he also didn’t give me the I’m only being nice to you to bang you, and I’m really just a jerk. You know? Right. It seemed like he was sincerely being nice to her, and then she freaked him out. But again, you know, there’s awkward conversation. I I feel like Adam’s new girlfriend is kind of amused that she can kind of flaunt her and Adam’s new relationship in front of May, who she clearly knows about, like, he’s obviously talked about her.  Yeah. You know, this last freaky girl that I went out with or whatever. And they’re drunk, and she ends up stabbing his girlfriend right in front of him which freaks him out. And then we don’t see anything after that. The next thing we see is her at home, and she opens up her cooler and opens up one of the packages in the cooler, and it’s Adam’s hands.

Todd:  Yep.

Craig:  And she says to the hands, you’re gonna look perfect. Now one of the things I can’t believe that I forgot to mention this earlier. For the first half at least of the movie and I may be wrong, Maybe it’s just because late nineties, early 2000 music, a lot of it all sounded alike, but it seemed like they were playing the same music over and over again.

Clip:  Oh, I don’t know.

Craig:  Did you notice that?

Todd:  No. I didn’t.

Craig:  It it it reminded me of, The Loved Ones. Was that the movie where the psycho girl

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Kidnapped the guy? Yeah. And and she kept singing that same song over and over and over again.

Todd:  Right. Right.

Craig:  It reminded me of that. It it now when, she is killed these people, there’s new different music and we just get this montage of her sewing an outfit, but then also sewing together these parts that she’s made and blank, you know, the punk guy, he’s the arms. She uses Polly’s neck, she uses Ambrosia’s legs, and she uses Adam’s hands. I don’t know what she used for the torso, but Yeah. She she makes like a cloth doll head. I mean, she’s making a doll really.

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  What she’s doing is with with human parts. She had killed the cat with the ashtray that the blind girl had made her, but she had saved the letters that made up her name from the shards, and she lays them out once she’s got this doll all made up. She lays them out and she starts rearranging them. First, she lays out May, and then she starts rearranging them, and she ends up with Amy. So the doll’s name is Amy, which, of course, is an anagram of May, but I I read this. I would have never put it together. Ami, a m I, in French means friend.

Todd:  Oh, really?

Craig:  Yeah. Which I kinda knew, you know, mon ami, you know, I’ve heard that. It’s not like I’ve never heard it. But so she’s made this friend and she puts doll eyes on it

Todd:  From her doll.

Craig:  And she starts talking to it, but but then she gets up upset and she kind of emphatically says, see me. And then she kind of starts to break a little bit, and I just thought it was just absolutely heart wrenching. She says, all I want see me. She just she wants somebody to see her.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  But I I I guess she thinks that the dolls eyes aren’t sufficient. So she goes to the mirror and she agonizes over it, but she cuts out one of her own eyes with a scalpel and puts it on the doll. Now, I wanna hear what how how do how would you describe this these final moments?

Todd:  I think it’s kind of just, a magical realism. I I think it’s or just a poetic thing. I don’t think it actually happened. But she lays down next to this to this doll. She kinda goes quiet, and I think what’s happening here is she’s dying. I think she’s dead. But but it’s not clear at this point. It’s only afterwards I thought about, oh, yeah, she probably died.  Because what happens as she lays down next to this doll, which has got her eye on it, is that the arm lifts up and starts moving towards her, and that hand of Adam’s caresses her cheek, and then the screen goes out. So to me, this was more like her last escaping delusion, you know, sort of thing. I mean, you can interpret it that way. You can kind of interpret it as a magical realism kinda thing. You can kind of just interpret it as it’s a poetic thing that the movie is doing, but it’s not actually happening. It’s just sort of a vision putting a cap on all this. She put together all of these perfect parts from these imperfect people, and she thought then that would be the perfect friend for her in this weird twisted way. And, she can’t live any longer.  What’s what is it? I guess, the last pit bit is her own eye. I that she’s taken out her good eye? Was that was that her good eye?

Craig:  I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure.

Todd:  I think it must have been. It was her good eye was the left one. Yeah. It was the left one and so she took it out and put that in the doll and I guess that completed the doll. It was a perfect part what she considered the perfect parts of everybody that she’d interacted with, including herself. So there she’s one with the doll,

Clip:  I guess.

Craig:  I just it felt tragic to me. It left me feeling, you know, it’s not like I went into a depression or anything, but it it left me feeling very sad. And and the movie overall, I think, just ultimately ends up being very sad. This this poor sad girl

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  Who all she wanted was to connect with someone, anyone. And she she never could do that until, you know, she created this Frankenstein’s monster. Yeah. You know, really, ultimately, at the end.

Todd:  Well, her own flaws, right, were just thrown in her face. And, that’s ultimately because of her horrible mother making that such a part of who she was that it didn’t need to be. Then that’s all she saw in other people was their flaws. You know, she could see the one perfect thing, but everything else about them bother her. You know, it’s just kinda projecting herself onto them as well, and that becomes the the lens through which she views the world. I have this terrible flaw that’s never gonna let me be a perfect person. All these other people could be perfect, but they have, and they have these perfect parts, but most of the rest of them is rotten. And so, they too, you know, I won’t be able to connect with.  So, you know, it’s just this vicious view of the world. But, like you said, at the end of the day, she she becomes her little Frankenstein, puts together this monster, which is sort of her fever dream of the perfect person that she can finally connect with. But it requires a piece of herself too. It requires that acknowledgement that, you know, she too is mostly imperfect, but she’s got that one thing that she has to complete it with and then that kills her. Because then you’re not whole when you do that. Right. You know, you can’t rip those things out.

Craig:  Yeah. You know, ultimately, the reason that I recommend that I suggested this movie was because I saw it a long long time ago when I remembered it having an impact on me. Watching it again, I don’t think that it’s a perfect movie, but it’s different and a little bit strange, and I think that Angela Bettis’s performance in it is noteworthy. I I I don’t know. I mean, where do you fall on it?

Todd:  I think, you know, I look at this as very much in a way a product of its own time. I noticed that it didn’t get very good critical reviews. And I I mean, I’m sorry. It got very good critical reviews. Yes. But it did not get good commercial success.

Clip:  Right.

Todd:  And that really is maybe because there were a few films at this time. There was a little period of time where there were these groups of filmmakers doing movies like this. It was kind of a thing. I would Rian Johnson was the an editor on this movie, and he did this before now Rian Johnson now is huge. He’s been doing this the new Star Wars movies. Like, he’s very well respected director. But this was one of his first projects. And, about a year or 2 after this, again, in the early aughts, he wrote and directed Brick.  And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Brick, but that’s this sort of Mhmm. Moody, multilayered, you know, very high concept, sort of, detective story, hardboiled detective story taking place in a high school. It’s got a lot of the same flavor. Hard Candy came out around this time. Again, this sort of, like Yeah. What you know, you said one of the characters in here was in Donnie Darko. You mean, you talk about a perfect. I mean, think about those Donnie Darko ish kinda movies.  This is one of them. And so maybe just of compared to some of the other films that were coming out around this time, this just wasn’t connecting with people enough. You know, it wasn’t weird enough maybe when it was stacked up against some of these other movies that were surrounding it, you know, being made by some of the same groups of filmmakers. And in this way, I feel like it actually stands the test of time. I think it probably if I had seen and saw that this movie was made now, I would think, yeah, this is like a brilliant it’s kind of a throwback to those things. Audition, again, Japan, but the same deal. I think that came out in 1999, and it still has the same the same flavor to it. But I I I just think there’s a lot of smart filmmaking going on here.  It’s like a person who crafts a really good novel. There are layers. There’s symbolism. There’s a lot to think about. There’s a lot to ponder and a lot to question. And there’s a lot to talk about afterwards. And it actually has something to say. Mhmm.  It actually has really good, smart, valuable things to say about life and relationships and who we are and how we view our the world and each other, how we treat each other. You know, it’s just I really I really like this movie.

Craig:  Well, good. I’m glad to hear it because I didn’t know. I didn’t know what you would think. It’s it’s different. It’s very different from the type of fair that we usually talk about. But that’s part of the reason that I wanted to do it too. I’m glad you enjoyed it.

Todd:  I did.

Craig:  And now we can cross it off the list. It’s been on our list for, what, like, 4 years. Now we can cross it off.

Todd:  We’ll maybe just do a couple more dark films. Maybe space them out a little bit. But I’m I’m interested in doing The Woman, very much so. That I’ve

Craig:  Oh, man. Yeah. I I honestly, I didn’t even realize that that was Lucky Mckee Todd. But now that I know that it is, it makes sense, because he definitely has a dynamic. But I would say that movie is significantly darker

Clip:  Wow.

Craig:  Than this one. Yeah.

Todd:  Well, let’s do it.

Craig:  Alright. Well, I’m glad you liked it. And folks, if you all haven’t seen that, you can rent it on Amazon or on, YouTube, either one. It’s out there, and I would say, check it out. But until, that time, you can find all of our many, many back episodes all out over the interwebs. Just just Google us. We’re all over the place. Any place where you can find podcasts, you’ll find us.  We also have a web page, and a Facebook page, and we love hearing from you. If you have any comments, questions, recommendations, suggestions, anything along those lines, we really enjoy talking to those of you those handful of you out there in the world who are listening.

Todd:  We enjoy talking to both of you.

Clip:  Thank you.

Todd:  You to both our listeners. We could maybe buy them all, you know, a meal at McDonald’s sometime.

Clip:  You know?

Craig:  Yeah. And take you out for a slushie or something.

Todd:  They’d all fit in the van pulled up to Sonic, wouldn’t they?

Craig:  Alright. Until next week. I am Craig.

Todd:  And I’m Todd.

Craig:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

We pay tribute to the late, great Rutger Hauer with today’s episode. He passed away recently at the age of 75, but his legacy lives on in films such as Blade Runner and The Hitcher.

Episode 182, 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 Craig.

Todd: Well, today, as we often do on our podcast, we’re going to memorialize another famous actor who has passed away, who’s at least Dabbled in the horror genre. Just, what, couple weeks ago, I guess. Rutger Hauer passed away at the ripe old age of 75 from an unspecified illness. But, yeah, he he he lived a good life, it seems like. Most people probably know him most famously from Blade Runner.   Right. He played The villain, in Brett, Blade Runner, and, he did a fantastic job with that. He actually he turned down the lead role in Das Boot in order to play this. So, clearly, he made a a better choice there. Das Boot’s a good movie, but I don’t think it would’ve I don’t think anybody in there was quite rocketed Todd stardom as they were, from Blade Runner. So, Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies, and he’s fantastic in it. And, you know, he’s always had this look. He just He played a lot of evil characters, and he didn’t wanna get typecast.   So at some point, he really started, turning down those roles and branching out. But, Gosh darn it. He makes a pretty good villain. He does. Kinda looks the part. Right? He’s he’s Dutch, and especially in his younger years actually, even into his older years, he’s a pretty good looking dude. He’s a handsome guy. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Some guy. 

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. Really cool. Very well respected, but also apparently a pacifist. I mean, actors are actors. But of a fun bit of trivia, you know, he He actually grew up in Germany during the occupation, and so he said that he was a pacifist, and and is and was very active in his life with these causes like, AIDS awareness 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  Greenpeace, a very noble thing. So, anyway, we are memorializing his passing today By doing The Hitcher now I don’t know. I you know, I remembered this movie a little differently than it turned out. The Hitcher was always seemed to be available in the horror section, And it always, in some way, was billed as a horror movie. And then when I watched it the 1st time, I was actually in college. My college roommates said, oh, man. If you never seen The Hitcher, you’ve gotta watch this movie. And so we turned it on and we put it in.   And I remembered certain scenes from this film. And I remembered it being really creepy and really scary sort of not slasher movie, but kind of killer hunter type slasher movie. But watching it again this time around, I don’t know, Craig. Would you consider this horror, really? 

Craig:  I don’t know. You know, when you suggested that we do it, I looked it up because I don’t think I’d ever seen it. In fact, I’m pretty sure IMDB lists sit as a thriller. And I think that’s fair, but, yeah, I I think that I would consider it a horror movie. It’s It’s definitely scary, and he plays a really wicked, villainous guy in this movie. So I would consider it horror. In fact, Entertainment Weekly ranked it at some point as the 19th Scariest movie of all time. 

Todd:  And Really? 

Craig:  Yeah. I don’t know. I agree. I mean, to consider finding oneself in the position That, c Thomas Howell, finds himself in in this movie would certainly be nightmarish 

Todd:  That’s true. 

Craig:  And and scary. So, yeah, I would consider it horror. It’s maybe a little bit different from our usual fare, but it’s a frightening movie. And and you’re right. Rookerhauer does make a good villain. And I think that part of that I don’t know. He like you said, he’s a handsome guy. He He he has these really strikingly beautiful, in my opinion, piercing blue eyes. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. For sure. 

Craig:  He’s a dapper fellow. He’s a he’s a good looking guy, but he just has this kind of menacing presence. And, Yeah. I and he scared me in this movie. 

Todd:  Well and the movie, I as it was originally written, apparently, was even much more horrific. It got toned down quite a bit in the preproduction process. The writer of this film, Eric Red, who also, by the way, wrote Near Dark Uh-huh. After this. And and this has a clear near dark vibe to it. Yep. But, he was, like, 20 years old, and he made a short film and was trying to get funding for it. He couldn’t get funding for a bigger movie, so he ended up, I don’t know, driving cross country.   And during that time, he came up with this idea for this movie about a killer hitchhiker. And so he wrote the script and shopped it around. It ended up in the producer’s hands. And the the producers who eventually produced this movie just went back and forth on it. They just felt it was extremely brutal. It was extremely violent and very mean spirited in its original incarnation. They spent quite a bit of time in preproduction and then wrestling with the studio even up into the The time they started shooting, what kinds of things they would leave in and what things they would leave out. As it turns out, I would say the movie, Even though it’s scary and there’s horrifying things that happen in here, it’s certainly not as gory or as brutal as a lot of things we’ve seen.   But It has this way of kind of getting under your skin a little bit just by not showing everything. I think it’s Yeah. It’s a movie that does that well, don’t you think? 

Craig:  Yeah. I I do, and I read those things too. In fact, you know, some some major studios like New Line and and some other studios turned the film down, and they had a difficult time getting studio backing from it. And, eventually, they did. 

Todd:  It’s hard to imagine a studio like New Line turning I’m like this down, isn’t it? 

Craig:  I know. Right? And, you know, from what I’ve read, ultimately, the filmmakers kinda had to pull their punches a little bit. You know, they’re they they had some really gruesome and and really dark things planned initially, And and they had to pull back on that a little bit. You know, ultimately, I would say Todd doesn’t make a huge difference. I mean, you you get the idea of exactly how brutal this guy is. You know, I I also read that it’s meant to kind of, in some ways, be an Allegory and and Rooker Hower’s character, John Ryder, is kind of just supposed to be, like, kind of this epitome of evil. Like, he’s supposed represent evil. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  If I had 1 complaint about the movie and, really, you know, I was in entertained and I enjoyed it. But And maybe this is intentional. I don’t know. But the thing that kind of bothered me was I never really understood what this Villain’s motivation was. 

Todd:  Yes. Like Exactly. Mhmm. 

Craig:  Like, why is he oh, excuse me. Go ahead and go ahead and bleep me out. Why is he messing with This 1 guy so much, you know, ultimately Todd his demise. Like, I I I I kinda didn’t get that. And and maybe that’s something that was kinda lost in translation after all of these changes they had to made. I I’m not sure. It certainly is frightening, and he he certainly is, you know, a very real and and ominous threat, but I just kinda just kinda didn’t get it. Like Yeah.   Why this guy? And and he really, really goes out of his way to mess with this guy. 

Todd:  Yeah. You know, by the end of it, you get this feeling that he basically had a death wish. Like, he he expected to end mean, he gets it in the end. Alright? He gets it in 

Craig:  the end. Right. 

Todd:  It’s not one of those movies where he gets away and it’s super bleak. I mean, it turns out a little bleak, but you get this feeling from the beginning, I mean so so what happens is this guy, this kid played by his name is, is Jim, and he’s played, like you said, By the the the boy from ET. The older brother. 

Craig:  One of the boys from ET. The older brother. The main kid. 

Todd:  No. Of course not. The older brother. 

Craig:  No. Not the older brother. He’s one of Friends, I think. Right? I don’t know. See, Thomas Howell yeah. See, Thomas Howell was, really big in the eighties. Yeah. And and he had, you know, this kind of, I don’t know.   Nice boy, boy next door look about him. I’m a he’s probably most famous from The Outsiders. He was the lead in that, but he was in lots and lots of movies. And and he he’s still working. 

Todd:  Like, a ton. He’s never let up. It’s it’s insane, this guy. He’s got Yeah. Got, like, 5 or 6 different projects every year since he started. It’s it’s Oh, 

Craig:  yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, you you know, he’s he’s this really kind of nice, sweet, boy next door kind of guy. And it’s kinda funny to see him in some movie because I feel like they kinda try to I don’t know. In the beginning, like, he’s smoking cigarettes. 

Clip:  You know? Like 

Craig:  like, they kinda try to portray him as Being kind of, you know, this rebel, you know 

Todd:  Kind of a pretty boy way. Road. Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. But, anyway yeah. So in the very beginning, he’s driving along, and, he keeps falling asleep, at the wheel, which in itself is nightmarish. I’ve actually done that. It’s really scary. 

Todd:  Yeah. Me too. 

Craig:  In order to, you know, try to keep himself awake. He he sees this hitchhiker, and he picks him up in a trucker hauer, and Rucker Hauer is very ominous and threatening kind of from the very beginning. And, like, right away from the very beginning, Rucherhauer is basically like 

Clip:  What’s so funny?   That’s where the other guy’s at. Who’s the other guy? The guy who was driving that car back there. The guy who picked me up before you did. Was that him in the car? Yeah. I’m sure it was because it walked very far. Why is that? Because I cut off his legs And his arms and his head, I’m gonna do the same to you. 

Craig:  It’s immediate. Like, he, like, you know, has a Switchblade, like, you know, holds it up to him and stuff. And and, see Thomas Howell, Jim, somehow He realizes that the door ajar light is still on on the passenger side, so he kicks him out of the car. And one would think that that would kind of be the end of it, but, no, the hitchhiker then continues to, You know, follow and pursue and torment him for the next hour and 35 minutes. 

Clip:  Yeah. It’s 

Todd:  so funny. 

Craig:  And that’s what the whole Movie is about. 

Todd:  It just lays its its cards on the table not even 10 minutes into the movie. And then the rest of it, you’re thinking, how much longer can this stretch out? Like, it it’s Actually, it’s gets a little improbable after a while. He he’s 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. He’s always there. 

Todd:  He’s supernatural. And it’s like, not only is he always there, but it’s like he’s lying in wait. He knows that this kid is gonna stop at this gas station so that as the kid gets out and explores the gas station, he’s behind a truck inside the garage, Ready to just burst out and surprise him. You know? I mean, it’s one of those kinda deals. So that one aspect of the movie really, Alright. We’ve seen a lot of improbable stuff. I’m not against your improbable movies. Right? It just makes it fun, but the improbability of it for so long If you compare this against a movie like Dual, the Steven Spielberg movie, which this shares a lot of similarity with, the Steven Spielberg movie is much more probable, you know, Even though that villain is also a little more supernatural.   So something like an evil truck. Right? 

Clip:  No. Or something like Yeah. 

Todd:  It’s like a you never see the guy’s face who’s driving the truck, so it’s it’s skillful in that way that it it does feel like the truck itself is evil or the guy in in it is a little more supernatural. But, Somehow, the situations in that just seem a little more realistic. And this, like I said, it’s like, boom. I’m here. Boom. I’m there. You didn’t think I’d be here, but I’m here too. You know? Oh, and then I came in, and I slashed up all the cops while you were in the jail cell.   You know? And and you didn’t hear it. 

Craig:  And framed you for it. Yeah. I know. Like, he I know. And he keeps, Oh my gosh. It’s so funny. Like, I I kept, like, yelling at the screen, like, get off this road. 

Clip:  Right. Like, turn. Like, 

Craig:  if you stay on the same highway the whole time, he’s just gonna keep messing with you. Well, 

Todd:  To be fair, when you’re driving across, like, Arizona and and, basically, most of the western side of the United States, there aren’t many options. 

Craig:  Oh, I know. But then that was something else that I kept thinking too. Like, I don’t know. Like, first, he’s supposedly, what he’s Doing is, like, delivering a car. Like, he’s from Chicago, and and, he wants to get to California. And He’s been waiting for an opportunity to, like, deliver a car to California just so he can 

Todd:  Move there. Right? 

Craig:  There, which which is fine. Whatever. But then once he picks the hitcher up and and this guy you know? Like, He just keeps coming across things. Like, after he kicks the guy out, the next thing he sees is, like, this station wagon with this all American family in it with, like, the kids playing in the back, and then the hitchhiker pops up in the back and is, like, you know, teasing him, like messing with the kids and stuff. And eventually, he finds That car and we don’t see what he sees, but, you know, apparently, the whole family has been slaughtered, and It makes him barf and stuff. But at some point, he ends up without his car, and he ends up, like, walking through the desert. And, like, it seems like every few blocks, he just finds some oasis in the middle of the desert. 

Todd:  Super lucky. 

Clip:  Lake Lakewood. There could 

Todd:  be nothing for, like, like, a 100 miles. But when he needs to find something, when his car has crashed, he can just walk Todd a motel or a restaurant Todd whatever. Right? 

Craig:  So it’s a little improbable, but in that way, it almost Here, I’m gonna go getting on meta. It it almost feels like a dream. 

Todd:  Oh, I was just gonna say that. Yes. 

Craig:  Yeah. Every every time you know, he’ll have an encounter with the hitchhiker and and the guy will be very menacing. And, like, that’s really all he does is, like, menaces him mostly. And and that’s like and he’s killing all these other people along the way, but then anytime they actually encounter each other, like, he just shows up. Like, the kid will, like, Todd at a a restaurant or something, and he’ll just be sitting there. And he he closes his eyes, and comes and sits down across the booth from him 

Clip:  Right. 

Craig:  Just calmly, like, hey. I’m here again. I’m gonna pop your eye out with my Switchblade, but really calmly. Like, I don’t know. It’s It it’s it’s kinda bizarre. It does feel it feels very dreamlike. 

Todd:  It it wouldn’t it be funny? I mean, this movie could have ended like Like, this kid was imagining this guy the whole time. Right? Or, like Yeah. He was really the killer, and this guy was just you know, something he was imposing upon the world to try to It was his alternate personality or something like that. But but it clearly doesn’t end there. I mean, I guess you might be able to look at it that way, But it clearly doesn’t end that way. Well, there’s a weird moment alright. There are a lot of weird moments in this movie. But there’s a weird moment in the middle, and I Let’s just jump around.   So Jennifer Jason Leigh is in this. She’s pretty young. She’s pretty good. 

Craig:  Oh my god. She’s a baby. 

Todd:  Yeah. So cute. She is. And she’s plays a a waitress at a diner, the only person apparently who works at this diner, who gets dropped off at her diner every day by a bus. That’s how remote this diner is that he also manages to stumble into. This is might be the 3rd time he’s gotten away from this guy, and he’s been looking for a phone that he can call, which is also quite quaint, looking for a phone that he can call from, and he finds it in this diner. So he manages to call the police, and they say, stay where you are. And then he strikes up a conversation with this woman who feels bad for him and makes him a cheeseburger, and they have their little talk and their little dialogue.   As he’s eating this Cheeseburger and these fries, she wanders away. And there’s this kind of interesting scene where she goes in the back into the kitchen, And she doesn’t come out for a while, but there are noises back there. And it just slowly kind of dollies in on his face while he’s absolutely eating this cheeseburger. I liked this scene a lot because in the back of my head, I’m thinking, oh, crap. Is that dude here too? And is she getting it in the back? And is this kid slowly starting to realize that might be what’s happening? And is that what’s going through his head? And then just when you need to, You suddenly realize he’s holding a finger. Uh-huh. A severed finger in his hand that is somehow in made its way into the fries. And he bites the finger, and he looks at it, and he screams, and he runs in the back.   He’s here. He’s here too. And at that moment, the police come. And as he runs out of the place, the police hold up their guns and, tell him, you know, get down on the ground. And, they think that he’s the killer. Now Right. This scene is kinda bizarre. I liked it up to that point that there’s just this tension here.   Like, you know This guy’s popped up, like, 4 or 5 times. He’s gonna pop up here, and you’re just waiting for it to happen. But he doesn’t tell this woman anything about really what’s going on. He’s really quiet about it, doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. You would think that he’d be like, barricade the doors. You know, lock up everything. There’s just killer on the loose, and that’s why I’m calling the cops. Then he kinda lets her go away.   And I don’t understand how a severed finger ended up in the fries. 

Craig:  Well, I don’t either. And there are so many moments like that. Like, Okay. So there’s that one where the severed fingers I guess the implication is that this guy is just always 1 step ahead of him, and he’s just messing with him, but it doesn’t really make any kind of logical sense. I mean, the the the image of him picking up A severed finger and nearly popping it in his mouth. I mean, that it’s great. It it’s a great image. It’s it’s really unsettling.   But, right, how did it get there? And then there’s another point. I don’t even remember how it happened. Like, I think it was the 1st time that he got arrested, And he was in jail, and then, like, he he, like, took a nap in jail and had a nightmare about the hitchhiker, and then he woke up. And his cell was open, and he, like, walks out into the jail, and he just sees, like, this German shepherd police dog, I guess, is just kinda, like, walking around or whatever. Mhmm. And then he turns a corner, and the dog is there. And as he continues around the Corner, he sees the dog, like, licking the slit throat of 1 of the cops, and all the cops are dead. And then he runs away, but not before he grabs one the cops’ guns.   So then he has a gun. And but then he ends up in another restaurant or a bus stop or some I don’t remember. Ruckerhauer shows up and sits right across from him. Jim has the gun pointed at him under the table. John, the bad guy, says 

Clip:  That guy is empty. Yeah? Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Clip:  You never checked it, did you? So help me. I’ll blow you in half. Alright. Squeeze the trigger. I will. Oh, I will. Because you can sure have shit better when I squeeze mine. 

Craig:  And we see that he doesn’t even really have a gun. Just is, like, making a, you know, a finger gun under the under the table, and he just goes like, bang, bang, bang. And Jim freaks out and starts pulling the trigger, and it’s totally empty. And Ruckerhauer is like, see. I told you. You didn’t even check the gun. And then he hands him a handkerchief, and when Jim opens it up, all the bullets are in there. So We’re supposed to believe that Rucker Howard came into this police station, killed all the cops, knew exactly what gun the kid would take, emptied all the bullets out of it just to set up this scene for later. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Clip:  Like, what? It’s 

Todd:  It it’s it yeah. And and and also during this scene, This diner’s got people in it. I I mean, I think there were people in it. There’s certainly somebody around serving him. But, you know, he they can calmly have this conversation. It must have been 12 feet away from the guy behind the counter wiping things down. Clearly, this intimidating sequence. And then he grabs his head and he pulls him towards him, which he which The kid lets him do Uh-huh.   And then he licks 2 coins and sticks them on his eyes. I don’t know if that was supposed to be a reference to the, You know, the whole thing where you put coins over a dead body’s eyes or or whatnot I 

Craig:  guess. Right. 

Todd:  Crossing the river Charon or something. And it’s just like He just succumbs to this. 

Craig:  Yeah. And then he sits there with his eyes closed with the pennies over it. 

Clip:  Yeah. Like, what? Like, where is your 

Todd:  And you you suddenly gave up now? You know? Like, if there’s any number of things you could do here. But anyway and at then at this point, I think he gets back. Gets on the bus. He hangs out there for a while after Rutger Hauer’s character leaves, who’s by the way, his name is is Jim Ryder, which I thought was hilarious. 

Craig:  John 

Todd:  Ryder. John Ryder, yeah, which I thought was hilarious. And then, he ends up getting on a bus that pulls in and who happens to be on this bus, But that woman from earlier from the diner. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  And he pulls her away. Well, he waits for her to go to the bathroom, And then he jumps in the bathroom with her in the back of this small bus and holds the gun to her head and is like, I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. You believe me, don’t She’s like, I guess, and, asks for her help. Okay. I guess it could happen. But it Well, I all very contrived. You know? It just all felt a little too contrived. 

Craig:  It is. And, you know, I I feel like we’re being a little bit over analytical for 

Clip:  the movie. 

Craig:  Who cares? You know? But, you know, it 

Todd:  matters when you’re watching it because it kinda takes you out of at least me, it takes me out of it a little bit if it’s too much like 

Craig:  It did. And especially, like, in that restaurant scene that we just described, Jim even says to him, Why are you doing this to me? And the guy’s like, oh, you can figure it out or something like that. Like, what? No. I can’t figure it out. Like, why are you messing with this? I don’t I don’t know. I don’t get it. It’s also intricately planned, I guess or just conveniently, it it makes it look like Jim is going on this killing free, killing drivers, and and tons of cops. Like, there are so many dead cops. 

Todd:  So many dead cops. These cops are really ineffective and don’t help each other out too well, apparently. 

Craig:  No. I know. And and, god. I don’t know. And and, like, you know, he met this chick once in a restaurant, and, you know, then the cops came to arrest him, and he was gone. And then he bumped into her again on the bus, and He’s like, it’s not me. I swear. You have to believe me.   And she’s like, okay. And then the then the, like, the cops, pull over the bus, and he’s all ready to surrender. Like, he does this several times. Like, he tries to give himself up Several times. At this point, apparently, Nash, the waitress, also had a huge Huge revolver on 

Todd:  the car. That was surprising. 

Craig:  What? Like a giant cop gun? 

Todd:  Like, like, 45 inches. 

Craig:  Where did that Come 

Todd:  from home. Massive. Yes. I think this everybody must have them out here. You know? It’s just maybe that’s 

Craig:  just guess, Like, I don’t know. If you live in the California desert, you better be back out. 

Todd:  Yes. Wild American west still lives on. 

Craig:  Right. And it’s like, you know, at this point, like, the dirty, I I guess they’re not even dirty cops. Like, they just believe because, like, there’s been a whole slew of dead cops along the way. And so, this this cop is like, You killed my friend. I’m gonna shoot you. 

Clip:  And and 

Craig:  Nash pops out. She’s like, 

Clip:  I saw what you were gonna do. Earl or whatever 

Todd:  because she knows them. 

Craig:  Yeah. She knows them. And and And so then they run off together, and then there’s, Nash and and, Jim run off together in a cop car. 

Clip:  Yeah. They steal the cop car. 

Todd:  That’s so crazy. 

Craig:  And then there’s a Huge chase where, like, first, the cop cars are shooting them, and then, you know, fortunately, the hitchhiker just runs up parallel to them in his truck and takes out the cops. 

Todd:  Shoots the 2 cops straight through the window, which was a shocking scene. Yeah? 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  But he’s there all of a sudden. 

Craig:  No. Like, he’s always just right there. And and then, like, a helicopter comes, and he Shoots down the helicopter. 

Todd:  It shoots the helicopter down. I was my head was between my knees at this point. I just couldn’t take that anymore. He aims his handgun at the helicopter, bang, bang, and this helicopter suddenly spins out of control. 

Craig:  He’s just so nonchalant about it. Like, he has No expression on his face. Like, he’s just totally deadpan, like, bang bang. I shot down the helicopter and, man. It I don’t even know. 

Todd:  Well, it does kinda make you wonder if the movie’s just meant to be just, you know, a dream or or just some unreal thing. Well, the score. And this is, another reason why it reminded me of Near Dark. Of course, there’s the setting. It’s kind of a road movie. Near Dark was kind of a road movie. It’s set in the eighties. Yeah.   And it’s very similar setting and and and feel to it, but the score in this movie is very similar to Near Dark’s score. It’s this very ethereal eighties ish, Never Ending Story had a score like this. It’s the sort of thing that Tangerine Dream used to do, but it’s Yeah. Right. Not not in this movie anyway. But, it also lent a very dreamlike quality to it and also the fact that, this isn’t like this sort of thrill ride every second there’s some exciting thing going on kind of action movie. There are long stretches of quiet and of contemplation and of just sitting and thinking and looking and staring and doing and driving and whatnot that again, Near Dark was very similar in this way. There’d be extreme graphic, brutal, crazy violence and then these long scenes of just character talking Mhmm.   And stuff. Except Except in this movie, there aren’t many characters. You know? You’re not getting to know a gang full of people. You’re getting this 1 kid who’s just in a situation and this guy who seems like, Superman and then a bunch of cops who come and go and this girl who kinda pops Sin barely knows him. We don’t really get to know a lot about her. 

Craig:  No. Not really. 

Todd:  So it’s it’s very it’s much more plot driven than it is character driven. And so I don’t feel like it really earns its pace. And for me, it dragged a little bit because of it. 

Craig:  Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, I wasn’t bored. You know, it’s it’s an hour and 37 minutes long. You know, it’s not that long, and the action keeps up, but it’s it’s all the same. I I mean, it’s it’s just this guy, you know, stalking this this kid. And and and that’s not to say that it’s boring, and that’s not to say that It’s not fair to say it’s all the same. It’s not because there are different set pieces and, like, these when when I say, you know, like, these car chases and the helicopter Like, these are major action scenes.   Yeah. You know? Like Yeah. And and this this really isn’t you know, for the type of movie this is, It’s not low budget. I think I think that it it filmed on, like, a $6,000,000 budget or something, and and it shows. I mean, things are blowing up all over the place and major car crashes and gas stations are exploding and Mhmm. There’s big time stuff going on, but As much as you say it’s plot driven, it is, but the plot is so simple. Yeah. I mean, it it’s just this guy tormenting this kid.   And that’s it. That’s the the whole movie. 

Todd:  And The whole movie. And every scene kind of ends the same. The cops are Mhmm. Whatever Other outside threat, like, okay. The cops are also after him, but they’re dead at the end of every scene that they’re in. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  The cops end up getting killed. And this guy And then 

Craig:  they drive away. 

Todd:  And then they drive away. Yeah. And then and this whole bit where they are in a shootout with the cops, like, they’re really getting themselves in some serious hot water here. Like, I know. The judgment is way off, but it, again, it just feels like come on. He was about to give himself up, and now he’s driving down the road shooting at the cops. I don’t know. And she’s doing it too? 

Craig:  She’s like And and, like 

Todd:  No. I won’t shoot. 

Craig:  Well, and that’s that’s the thing too. And then she’s like, Oh, okay. She just met him. You know? Like, she doesn’t even know him. Like, they don’t have any connection at all. Yeah. But all of a sudden, she’s, like, You know, pointing guns at cops to, like, stick up for this guy that she doesn’t even know. Why should she believe him? Right.   You know? She doesn’t have any reason to believe him. See Todd Howell, he’ll certainly never listen to this podcast, so I feel pretty safe in saying he’s kind of a little bitch. You know, like, see Thomas Howell, I’m sure he’s a lovely fellow, but, you know, he’s not like some tough Eighties protagonist guy. You know, he he’s kinda wimpy, really. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And he he cries a lot and, like, he’s calling the cops, Like, 

Clip:  I just wanna turn myself in. Like, it wasn’t me. It was the hitchhiker. 

Craig:  And, like, every time he does that, they’ll be like, okay. And then the hitchhiker will show up and blow the cops So, Wade, so he’s in trouble and has to keep running. I don’t know. Yeah. It’s it’s kind of silly overall. 

Todd:  It really is. 

Craig:  I I think The the the part that, surprised me the most was, when he’s with Nash, they they end up after this huge Chase and huge shootout with helicopters and cars exploding. They end up at a motel, and I don’t know how because they don’t have any but they get a room, and she wants to call her dad. And he says, no. You can’t. I I don’t really know why, but He goes to take a shower, and she secretly calls her dad. And I guess the dad tips Pits off the cops. I don’t know because they show up eventually. But while he’s showering, she’s laying in bed, and, of course, Rutger Hauer is there, you know, just In the room. 

Todd:  Like a vampire. Right? It just suddenly Right. He’s there. And this is interesting. They very clearly did not have sex Because when they wake up, all their clothes are still on or when he you 

Craig:  know, whatever. 

Todd:  And it’s it’s not a scene, obviously. And he’s in the shower. And then Rutger Hauer’s character, it’s like, There’s a flash of lightning, and he’s standing over her. And then Mhmm. There’s a, like, another flash of lightning, and he’s, like, laying in bed next to her. 

Craig:  Spooning her. 

Todd:  Spooning her, basically, and he’s kind of running his hands over her and whatnot, which is really creepy. And then, of course, The kid comes out, and they’re gone. And the door is open, and he realizes she’s gone for some reason and, presumably, because this guy took her. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  And then I can’t Can’t remember. The cops show up at that point, and then they take him to a truck stop, which must have been next Todd, or maybe this was in the parking lot. 

Craig:  Yeah. I think it’s all one. Like, I think it’s like a truck stop motel 

Clip:  Okay. 

Craig:  Kinda deal. But, yeah, he runs outside and the cops are there, and it’s like all of a sudden, they believe him and they know The, you know, the hitch it it’s it’s so weird because, basically, this hitchhiker guy has set himself up to be caught in this moment. Like, It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. 

Todd:  None of this does. 

Craig:  I mean, it it’s it’s a really interesting setup for a scene because, like, The the kid thinks, you know, as they have for the whole movie, the the cops are gonna think it’s him. They’re gonna arrest him, and the cops are like, oh, no. No. We know it wasn’t you, but we need your help. And then totally unrealistically, they send him into this scenario. And what has happened is Rucker Hauer Has apparently, I guess, disengaged the cab from the bed of a semitruck, And he has, chained up Nash between the cab and the bed, and she’s, like, suspended between the 2. And and it’s like he’s just sitting there with his foot on the brake. Like, if he takes his foot off the brake, I guess, is in drive.   It’s gonna pull forward, and she’s gonna get Mhmm. Yeah. She’s gonna get ripped in half or whatever. So they send Jim in. They’re like, oh, you need to go in there and talk him down. Like, what? Like, why would they it doesn’t even make any sense. 

Todd:  Well, Yeah. This scenario, it’s a cool set piece, and this is one of the 

Craig:  It is. 

Todd:  The few things I remember from this movie as being so horrifying. But I also thought the movie ended here. In my memory, the movie ended here somehow. But, no, it’s got another half hour to go. Yeah. But he’s he goes into the cab. He sits in there, and he has this quick little dialogue with him. But, basically, Rutger Hauer’s Characters like pick up the gun that’s on the floorboard. 

Clip:  Tell you what. I’ll let you hold the gun on me before I do anything. 

Craig:  He’ll catch you. 

Clip:  Yeah. Sure. Dora. So what? 

Todd:  Once again 

Craig:  Well, and all of a sudden and all of a sudden, it seems like this villainous guy is, like, Some, like, depress like like, what? Like, he’s depressed? 

Todd:  Like He gives that off, 

Clip:  doesn’t he? Like get it. Yeah. So much killing 

Todd:  has just, 

Clip:  what’s really taken it out of me. I just can’t 

Craig:  go on. 

Todd:  Just one more, And then you can just shoot me. But he set up a terrible an unwinnable scenario. If he shoots him in the head, his foot’s gonna come off the clutch, and their girl’s gonna get ripped in half. What he doesn’t do is shoot him in the head, and so he just looks at him like, oh, I’m so disappointed in you. You know? You don’t have what it takes after all. And He lets his foot off the clutch, and the girl gets ripped in half. 

Craig:  Ugh. The and this this is the only thing. Now I I read that it was, you know, studio or whoever that that decided that they couldn’t go there. Like, they couldn’t show it. But that felt so cheap to me. Yeah. Because you just see him take His foot off the clutch, and then you see her kind of scream and you kind of see the tension tighten, you know, kind of in the chains around Her wrist, but then it just cuts to black. Yes.   It opens back up. I don’t know. Where is he? Be like 

Todd:  The kids, like, in a hospital or police station or something. 

Craig:  Yeah. They they they totally pulled their punch on this one. Like, Show rip that girl in half. Like, if you’re gonna raise the stakes this high. And for me I don’t know. For some reason, that set piece seemed really familiar. I don’t know if I’ve read about this or I’ve just seen the scene or or what, but, You know, her, you know, being stretched out between, you know, these these 2 things and and the threat of her being Todd in half. I don’t know if it’s been copied another movie or or what, but that was so familiar to me.   But it really surprised me that there wasn’t, like, a deus ex machina. Like like, somehow, at the last minute, she would be saved. I I didn’t expect her to get killed, and she does. 

Todd:  Yes. 

Craig:  But the fact that they cut to black and don’t show it, and then you’re just, like, you have to realize, oh, he did it, and she’s dead. Yeah. That made me mad. 

Todd:  It’s not it doesn’t really do justice to her character. I mean, it just makes her even more of a throwaway character in a way. 

Craig:  It’s fun. The guy that’s interrogating, I think, Rucker Hauer or, yeah, I think he’s talking to Rucker Hauer. And, of course, he’s not giving them. He he has no driver’s license, and he has no criminal record. 

Todd:  He’s like a man from nowhere. 

Craig:  I know. 

Clip:  He’s, you 

Craig:  know, he’s this big enigma, and they can’t Figure it out. But the guy who’s interrogating him is this little snivelly guy, and I recognize him. I don’t know what his name is. I didn’t write it down, but he played Evil principal Snyder on Buffy the Vampire Slayer the series, which, ironically, Rucker Hauer was the main villain In the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie with Christy Swanson, which I used to watch all the time when I was a kid. Little trivia there for you. But anyway 

Todd:  We’ll put that on your IMDB page, Craig. 

Craig:  Right? So so the cops have him, but he’s not talking and I don’t know. There’s some weird thing where, like, Jim I don’t they’re they wouldn’t put these guys together. It doesn’t make any sense. No. For some reason, like 

Todd:  They do. 

Craig:  You know, they they take Jim into the interrogation room and, like, he shakes his hand, But then immediately spits in his face. Like, what is this? Like, what kind of drama are 

Todd:  you trying Todd here? I don’t And then and then the cop pulls him away. Well, this was a mistake. Well, yeah. Of course, it was a mistake. You guys are idiots. 

Craig:  Yeah. You dummy. But but Jim very ominously says, you’ll never hold him. They’re transporting him in what? Like, a bus or Something. I don’t even know. 

Todd:  I’m a tryna figure that out. 

Craig:  Bad guy. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Jim is, you know, with 1 of the other cops, and He he grabs the cop’s gun and points it at him and kicks the cop out like he’s going all vigilante, and he’s gonna go find this guy and take care of him. I mean, I guess that’s basically what happens. Like, we see lots of shots of Rucker, Howard, just sitting very calmly in the bus, like, looking at things. Like, oh, look. I see the cop’s gun, and, oh, I’m watching them play Hard. Like and and and then, you know, conveniently, just as Jim pulls up On this transport bus or whatever it is, Ruckerhauer, you know, gets the shotgun away from the cops and blows the cops away, And then he, like, kicks the the back door of the transport bus open, and Jim is right behind him in the police Car, and Brooker Hauer dives out of the back of the bus through the windshield of the Car. Oh, it’s amazing. It’s such a cool scene. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  It’s ridiculous. And the, the windshield Shatters like it’s, you know, just like a regular window. Like, cars don’t have safety glass or whatever. Mhmm. Oh Todd. But it it’s fantastic. I mean, just 

Todd:  A great 

Craig:  merits of being a really cool scene, like him Diving out of the back of this bus and diving through the windshield. And and I read that, You know, Ruckerhauer, like, busted one of his own teeth out doing this. He did a lot of his own stunts. He did a lot of the stunt driving, and people were Super impressed. You know, even the stunt guys were super impressed at his, abilities in that capacity. And, but, Again, what is the end game here? Like, he dives in there and and Well I don’t know. Like, then he’s all bloody, and they kind of fight or something. That’s kinda 

Todd:  how it goes. Like, everybody else is suddenly out of the picture, and it’s just these 2, and there’s a truck. The truck that that they’ve had that the that Jim, Ruckerhauer’s character, has been driving, that he took from somebody earlier in the in the film. And, there’s kind of a bit of a standoff out in the middle of nowhere between them. And Jim, who’s the kid, gets inside the truck, but he’s a little incapacitated. He’s down, and Rutger Hauer’s facing him with his shotgun, shooting at the truck, slowly walking towards it. It’s like this sort of high noon standoff type thing. But then he manages to hit the the gas and drives right into him, which would have killed him.   Right. Would have killed him. He flies back, like, 20 feet, but then Right. Gets up. 

Craig:  Well, at first, I thought I thought he was dead because, like, they they show this. Like, he’s laying there on the ground, and you can kind of see him breathing, and then it seems like he stops breathing. So I thought that he was dead. Jim walks up to him and, like, looks down over him, and I feel like he even maybe points the shotgun at him or, like, Pokes him in the head with the shotgun to see if he’s dead. Yeah. And it seems like he’s dead. And and I read that They originally planned on ending the movie with Jim shooting him, like, in the head while he was down on the ground. But I guess they thought that was too brutal.   Like, I guess it’s too brutal to shoot a man when he’s down or something. So, Jim turns his back And Let’s him stand up. Yeah. John jumps up like he’s some kind of freaking superhero. Like, he’s fine, And and Jim turns around and shoots him 3 times point blank with a shotgun through the torso. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  So You’re like, dude’s dead. Yeah. 

Todd:  It literally ends there. Like, the guy falls down. Jim turns around and leans forward on the on the hood of the truck As the credits start rolling He’s a badass. Yeah. 

Craig:  He just 

Todd:  suddenly, from from total wiener through the whole movie, he’s a badass for the last 2 minutes. You know? It’s problematic. I think it’s it’s it comes across as a little overdramatic. Again, I don’t feel like the movie really earned this moment, because it’s trying to build up something, I think, between these 2 characters that never really sinks in, Because we never well, we’re flat out told that the bad guy doesn’t have any motivation, really. He’s some dude from nowhere who apparently just likes killing people who, for Mhmm. No real good reason has latched on to this kid and decides that in the mid while he’s killing all these people, he’s gonna kind of make this kid his project. Yet, at the end of the day, he’s really setting him himself up to die anyway at the end. Like Yeah. 

Craig:  He’s Like, he just kinda gives up And or it Seems like he does. I I don’t know. 

Todd:  I think it’s Weird. It’s been suggested, I think, by people that this movie has some homoerotic overtones in it. I could kind of 

Craig:  Oh, I can see it. 

Todd:  I mean, it’s there, but I’m not sure I’m gonna give the rider enough credit to say that that No. You know? There’s there are moments. Of course, when he first gets into the car and he’s they’re staring he’s staring at him, and it makes him uncomfortable. And he says some words, well, why are you looking at me like that? And he’s just, I I like looking at you or something like that. 

Craig:  Yeah. There’s even a gag. You know? Like, 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  They pull up to, like, a traffic Stop or I I don’t know. Like, there’s been an accident or something. I don’t even remember what it was, but they they pull up and some cop stops them. And Rucker Hauer, I think, is, like, pushing his gun into Jim’s side, but it looks like he’s getting fresh with them. Mhmm. And so the cop Calls them love 

Todd:  Sweethearts. Yeah. 

Craig:  Something like that. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  So, yeah, I I can see it. And I don’t know. I mean, there is Rucker Hauer and and I think that, you know, this is just kind of typical of him. He has an intensity about him that is almost seductive. 

Todd:  Right. 

Craig:  I mean, he he has those piercing eyes, and he’s just so Smooth and cool. 

Todd:  With that smile and that grand Uh-huh. Very evil very, very, very over the top smooth, creepy, evil. 

Craig:  And And they and, again, like, I I feel so bad saying it because it’s mean. But but, see Michael Hall, you know, or see Thomas Howell. Who am I talking about? See Michael Hall? That’s the guy from, like, Breakfast Club. See, Todd, how old? He’s kind of got an effeminate 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Thing about it. 

Todd:  He does. He does. 

Craig:  You know? And and so I I can see it now. I don’t think it was intentional. I don’t think that’s intentional subtext, but I could see how people could. 

Todd:  You can read it into the movie a lot. Yeah. The the gun scenes under the under the table. The the kid and and the girl don’t don’t, You know, very clearly don’t have sex or whatever in their relationship. 

Clip:  Just just, 

Todd:  you know, whatever. I don’t know. Again, I like you said, like I said, I just don’t think that that was Probably. If it was the writer’s original intent, it’s very poorly written. 

Clip:  It just Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. So I I mean, I think at the end of the day for me, I I had fonder memories of this movie than I kind of had after watching it the 2nd time so many years later. It’s not a bad movie. No. It just has these sort of core problems that made it really hard for me to recommend it as, oh my gosh. Like, that movie had an impact on me. At the end of the day, it was an interesting plot. Some stuff happened.   It was exciting. It had good action scenes. Yeah. It was scary, you know, and very good moments, especially can put yourself in the place of this guy and you could imagine this kind of thing happening to you but, the thematic core that kind of, like, settles and Sits with you after long after a movie is over that these movies can can often have. That that’s the thing that kinda grips and grabs, and I just didn’t feel like it was there. So it’s not A movie that I’m gonna sit and think about long afterwards. You know? So 

Craig:  I know. I and I no. I actually liked it. This was the first time I had seen it or at least that I remember. So if I have seen it, it was when I was a kid, and I don’t even remember. But I liked it. I I was entertained by it. The but it was just I was bothered the whole time.   Why is he doing this, and How is he doing this? Like, how is he always there? How is he always 1 step ahead? Like, I just don’t get it. And and I and I kinda kept expecting the movie to tell me at some point. Like, there was gonna be some sort of connection. Like, Maybe Ruckerhauer is his dad or, you know, like, I don’t know. Something that would connect these guys other than just, oh, you happen Todd be the 1 rando guy who got away from me, so now I’m gonna torment you forever Mhmm. Until I eventually give up and and allow myself to get captured. And that’s the other thing too. Like, he’s so enigmatic.   Like, the police don’t even believe he exists for the whole movie. And then he basically just throws himself under the bus. Like Yeah. Yep. It’s me. Like, here I am. Now I’m depressed, and I’m, like, Suicidal in a truck. Like, I Well, that I don’t know. 

Todd:  That should have been, like, a real pivotal scene. That should have been, like, a like, that scene should have meant something. You know, here he is. He set himself in the situation where he’s finally surrounded by cops. He’s giving himself up. There there should have been something more meaningful about it. Like, something about killing this girl was a thing. You know? Or this confrontation, this moment with him in the truck was kind of a do or die kind of Somehow revealing something about him or his character or his motivations or, you know, just a Special turn in the movie, and it really wasn’t.   It’s just another thing he did, and now he’s captured. So Right. Yeah. 

Craig:  Well and and I also kind of feel like he shouldn’t have died at the end. Like, he he was so Seemingly superhuman, really, throughout the whole rest of the movie. It just it it felt a little bit Sheep that you know? 

Todd:  Just blasted point blank by 

Craig:  a shotgun? Right. And then he’s dead. Yeah. I don’t know. They made a sequel. C Thomas Howell was even in it. And and I and I’ve never seen it, and I don’t really know anything about it. I just read the synopsis, And it says, he plays the same character.   He plays Jim Halsey in the sequel. The sequel came out in 2000 3. 

Todd:  Todd, it happens to him again? 

Craig:  Yes. Like, he he and his fiance are, like, traveling cross country, and they pick up a hitchhiker. Why? Why? Like, And it’s Jake Busey, which is hilarious. Oh, geez. But, seriously, like, In the eighties, you were terrorized by a hitchhiker for an hour and 37 minutes, and then you’re gonna pick another one later. 

Todd:  Well Like, 

Craig:  it doesn’t even make any sense. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And and they they also remade it. And I have seen the remake, And it wasn’t particularly memorable either. Like, I can’t remember. I think what I do remember about it is that The guy and the girl were more of a team. Like, it was they were together a lot and, but it it followed basically the the same premise. As I remember, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. And, you know, I just happened to catch it on TV or something, and and I sat and watched it. I mean, it it it Had to have been alright, but I don’t know.   Yeah. I don’t it’s you’re right. Like, it’s kind of an oddity. I don’t really know what to say about it. I don’t know that I would necessarily recommend it. I I I enjoyed it, and And I Rucker Hauer is is very scary. He wasn’t even originally cast. Sam Elliott was cast in that role first.   And, apparently, like, he just blew everybody away with his audition, and they were just absolutely thrilled to have him. But then there was a scheduling conflict, and and Ruckerhauer was 2nd or even 3rd choice, I think. But I I do think that he’s very good in it. He is very Sinister. He’s one of those few people actors who is sinister Almost because they are charming and and charismatic. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And he’s played, Rucker Hauer has played vampires. He he played, like I said, he was in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which was goofy, and he he totally was hamming it up in that movie, but it’s fun. But he also, played Dracula. Was it it was it Adario Argento Craig I don’t know. It was 

Todd:  Dracula three d. Yeah. I don’t Yeah. 

Craig:  I don’t know. And I I didn’t see it. 

Todd:  I think he was in Dracula 3 legacy in 2005. He actually played Van Helsing in Dracula three d. I’m sorry. 

Craig:  Gotcha. But but he does have kind of that that vampire type thing where, like, it’s sexy sinister. Well and I and I mean that as a compliment. I think that he’s, was. You know? I I think he lived a long and full life and had a very successful career, and and so it’s sad that he’s gone, but, you know, he certainly leaves a a legacy. But, He was a cool guy, and and he’s very charismatic on screen. And and he’s good. He does a good job in this movie.   It may not be the greatest movie. It may be a little bit nonsensical in fact, but, he plays that sinister, Quiet villain quite well. 

Todd:  Well, it’s interesting you mentioned the vampire thing because, apparently, according to an interview that Anne Rice gave, He was her original vision for Lestat when she was writing the book. 

Craig:  Craig. See that? 

Todd:  Yeah. Totally. So, Yes. I agree with you. Go out and check out some of his other movies, especially if you haven’t seen, like, blade runner or whatever. He Still has, like, 5 projects that he’s filmed that are still in postproduction. So you’ll be seeing him in a few more movies even posthumously here. He’s been on a couple television series lately, acting up to the very end.   So, really a go getter, very well respected by pretty much everybody. And seemed just like a high quality person even though he could play that sinister, sweet villain role so well. 

Craig:  Yeah. He was charitable. You know? He worked for all kinds of of, you know, very noble causes. He he was a cool guy. 

Todd:  Yeah. Well, Thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. You can find us on Facebook. Just search 2 Guys and a chainsaw, or you you can find our website. It’s 2guys.red40net.com. Just leave us a comment on either of those places. Tell us what you thought of this show, And, also, any requests that you might have.   We have a short pile of them, coming up, and so I think, before long, we’ll be doing a few, maybe a month more of requests coming up. So Yes. Get those in. Until next time. I’m Todd 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

We were extremely excited to spend some time chatting with scream queen and horror icon Linnea Quigley on today’s episode. Since her debut in 1975, she has racked up more than 160 screen credits and shows no sign of stopping. We were honored to ask her about her experiences working on the low-budget horror features of the 80s and 90s, as well as her work with her personal passions such as animal rescue. Special thanks to Ms. Quigley for taking time out of her busy schedule to join us today!

Also, we talked about Creepozoids.

Creepozoids + Linnea Quigley Interview

Episode 181, 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: Guess what? We have a very special episode for you here today. We’re extremely privileged to have with us a special guest from a number of movies that we’ve done previously on our podcast. Some movies actually that, uh, are some ended up being some of our favorite episodes, and also some of the best responded to episodes from our fans.

And so we’re absolutely delighted to have ms Linnea Quigley here on our show today. Hello Lynnea. How are you? 

Linnea Quigley: I’m doing good home. Boy. 

Craig: It’s so good to hear. 

Todd: It really is. It really is. 

Linnea Quigley: My homeboys do it. Yeah. I’m doing really 

Craig: good. 

Todd: Oh great. We hear you. Are you out in LA right now working on working on a picture?

Linnea Quigley: No. I’m here to stay like a lint on a track. 

Craig: I’m here. Yeah, I know. 

Linnea Quigley: I’m going to stop with that. 

Todd: That’s fine. So the movie that we’re watching today is creep as voids, but of course we’ve had you on. Um, we’ve had the movies Sorority Babes and the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, Night of the Demons, Return of the Living Dead.

Some of your most iconic movies turned out to be some of the most iconic movies of the eighties ch Craig and I are both children of the eighties, actually. So we grew up watching your movies and really respecting and admiring your performances in those. So. Yeah. Well, I think that, um, creep has Lloyd’s was maybe one of at least two movies that you’ve done with director David DeCoteau.

And we read online a little quote from him that said that he said he particularly enjoyed working with you on this film. Oh. So you also worked with him on Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama. Do you have any special memories from working on that set? 

Linnea Quigley: Oh yeah, I was, he said I could pick whatever part I wanted.

And you know, of course I picked that part cause it was really cool and it was just weird because we would have to wait, you know, through our budget and we had to wait for the bowling alley closed. So, you know, we could go film, which was like around nine, 10 at night. And then we would go in there, we’d start makeup.

And then we’d be ready to film at family, go in at nine and then at 10 we do that. And Andrea was just a little boy when he did it and coming into maturity. And so it was just really funny. He would cause a lot of habit cause he couldn’t go with the, the older girls, you know, to the bars or anything. And I was, I stayed there.

I didn’t really want to go out. So it was just funny because you know. It’s hormonal to kick in, and he’d come into my room and get under the mattress and flip it over. And, you know, I guess that’s how he said, admiration or something. 

Craig: Well, it sounds like you guys had a lot of fun. Um, you know, as I was watching, this was the first time I had seen Creepozoids I had read some things about it, but it was the first time I’d seen it.

And as I was watching it, I saw the five main actors. You all were all very young, um, and very beautiful. And I thought. These guys must have had a good time. Ms Quigley surely has some good stories she can tell us about working with this crew. 

Linnea Quigley: Oh my gosh. It was wonderful. Cause we always had the same people pretty much working on a crew, you know, the same wardrobe.

A lot of times the same makeup people, same camera and DP, uh, sound producer. So. It was, it was like home. It was like doing something at home. So it was really cool. It was fun. 

Craig: I bet it looked like fun. And that’s what I thought when I was watching this movie. It seemed like you all were having a lot of fun doing it.

I was reading some reviews and some of the reviews were not particularly kinds, but, uh, all of them said, um, if you’re a fan of Linnea Quigley, you’ve got to see this movie. And I agree. I am a big fan. Um, I’ve been a fan of all your work. You know, as Todd said, we were growing up, kids and adolescents in the 1980s and back then, I doubt that I knew your name, but I certainly recognized your face and in a lot of these iconic roles that you played, and you were just always such a joy to watch on screen.

So did the falling into the horror genre just kind of happened naturally? Is it something that you. Intentionally pursued or is that how kind of things worked out? 

Linnea Quigley: It was just how things worked out pretty much. Um, I was a fan of horror films and, and the low budget films, I didn’t know they were a little budget on us watching him as a kid.

It seems right. There was no, it wasn’t like, it was divided like, Oh, this is high budget and this is love. It was just like everything was the same. I didn’t know anything about anything, you know, and filming. And so, um, it was like, I just enjoy the ones that. Happened 

Craig: to be low budget. Well, we certainly do too.

And that’s one of the things that we appreciate about these kinds of movies is the craftsmanship that has to go into them. You know, films today with CGI, we don’t have anything necessarily against CGI or big budget effects, but, uh, we have a lot of admiration for these kinds of practical effects that take so much artistry and creativity.

And so to be around all of that, I can only imagine was a lot of fun for you. 

Linnea Quigley: Oh, it was, it was, it was just so, it was so fun to just make fun of ourselves and the other person and the scripts, or, you know, they were. Silly, but I think they reached a large 

Craig: audience. Oh yeah. And 

Linnea Quigley: you could watch them and people said it got them out of depressions and things too, which is crazy.

But, you know, I guess going into another world and experienced, 

Craig: yeah. Well, it must have touched lots of people because you have a huge fan base. Um, and everything that I’ve read, you know, I’ve, I’ve read. Things where people have talked about meeting you and how kind and gracious you are. And I know that you do a lot of the conventions and things and you’re always willing to greet your fans.

And you know, all of that is evidenced by the fact that you were willing to do this with us, which we are so grateful for. But is that something that. Is fun for you to go out there and really interact with these people who have known you and admired you for so long. 

Linnea Quigley: Yes, it is. It really is. People are really sweet in the horror circuit, believe it or not.

Um, yeah, cause people give it a bad name that I’ve gone to, you know, do these things where you get animals out of shelters. Like when I checked with me to the shelter and we get animals out and they’ll be standing in line with the. They’re animal. They got a dog or cat and they’ll be talking about, Oh, you know, boy, you got it with the chainsaw and there was blood everywhere.

It was great. But you know. They would not. If there was an animal in it, that would be it. They would not watch it. 

Craig: Oh man. Greg is the same way. I talk about that all the time. 

Linnea Quigley: They’re really Dell on that stuff. It’s great. 

Craig: Oh yeah. 

Todd: Well, you’re very active with animal rights organizations, right? PETA, some charities, things like that.

Can you talk a little bit about your work there. And why that’s important to you? 

Craig: Yeah, 

Linnea Quigley: well, right now I got a place that has some land and I’m going to do the paperwork about, Oh God. Um, it’s, I’ve got, uh, a building and I’m going to have the sanctuary. I’ve already got two guests, a dog and a cat. One of the dogs, like the other day when I was coming back from the 

Craig: Egyptian theater at 

Linnea Quigley: like one 30 in the morning was like, you go down this like 

Craig: kind of a 

Linnea Quigley: desolate road and.

There was something in the headlights. I’m like, what is that? A Wolf? And I’m, I get out and it’s this huge Malamute Husky, I think Wolf high bread and I, I got it in the car and you know, it needs a home. So anybody, you know, it really needs a home. It’s so sweet. It’s so sweet. It’s just a doll. It’s 

Craig: like a big Teddy bear.

Yeah. I saw him. I saw him on your Facebook page and I thought that that was really admirable. So yeah, if you’re interested in helping out this dog, you can go to Ms Quigley’s official page and the information is there. Um, and I’m a huge animal lover too, so I appreciate, uh, all your efforts in that capacity.

Linnea Quigley: Oh, thank you. Yeah, it’s like I, and the other day it’s like I was on the, like a freeway type thing and there was a dog that was running and I like ran out into the freeway and I’m like trying to get it and then it ran the other way and I’m like, Oh my God. I was terrified. I was going to hit get to semis are going by.

And I was like so terrified it was going to get hit. I was so terrified. I finally had to scare it. Into another place and I felt horrible. It’s like. I forget what movie it is, where the diet, the kid has the deer and he has to be mean to it to go away. I’m like, get outta here. Go. And I’m like, I mean to be mean, but 

Craig: I had to or it would’ve gotten hit 

Linnea Quigley: bad.

Todd: Well, I’ve been no way. I’ve been eating vegan for the last three or four years now, and I started out doing that just because, just for my health, you know, to see kind of what that would do for my body, how that would kind of clean me out. And it’s really interesting how once you start doing that, it has another effect on you.

Like after a while I thought, yeah, this is really pretty easy. And. Eating meat started to feel a little disgusting, and then I started to kind of question why are we even doing it in the first place? And this wasn’t a road I’d even thought of going down, but it was just a natural consequence of how I was eating.

Linnea Quigley: That’s interesting. That’s really good. 

Craig: That’s great. 

Linnea Quigley: And you’ve been so many things that are good. 

Todd: Oh yeah. Right? Yeah. Especially like, yeah, way better now. Now, have you been a, an animal person your whole life? Have you been eating vegan, vegetarian your whole life, or is this something that, again, there was like a moment or something that that kind of awakened you.

Linnea Quigley: There was a moment, I wish, I wish, I wish I could have started earlier. I didn’t correlate them together when I was growing up. I didn’t correlate, Oh, you know, animals are killed for this. As a kid, you know, you have that stupid chart, you know, grain protein or meat, 

Craig: vegetables and fruits or whatever it is that you 

Linnea Quigley: have, you, they drove into 

Craig: your head.

Linnea Quigley: At least they did. Then. So I grew up with that. But. I think I was around 22 or 23. I went, okay, I’m changing. 

Craig: Well, and you know, uh, Todd and I both grew up in the Midwest, uh, very near where you grew up. In fact, we, uh, both from, we’re both from Missouri, and that’s where we met, is, uh, in my hometown of Kirksville, Missouri, which is, uh, in the very Northeast corner.

So we’re very close to where you grew up and, and so we know how much meat and hunting and those. What types of things are ingrained in the culture. And so it’s kind of difficult to break away from that. But you, uh, when you were fairly young, uh, moved to LA, which is where you were encouraged to begin modeling and acting, um, was that something that you had even considered?

I mean, I know that you had other interests to you. You’re a performer, a singer. I know that you had an interest in law enforcement and at some point, um, when was acting something that you want. Does you do or is it just something that came up and you found your success and just kept going with it? 

Linnea Quigley: I think it just happened because I was so, so shy.

I didn’t, I didn’t think it was even possible. Yeah, like no way would it be possible. It just seemed like so far of a 

Craig: reach 

Linnea Quigley: because growing up in Iowa, it’s like you don’t really, at least I didn’t have any kind of a. Of a thing that, Oh, I’m going to be able to be famous. It was just such a far away thing and I didn’t think I was pretty enough or talented enough, and you know, I couldn’t even make cheerleader.

And so it was like, I just. Didn’t think it was possible. And it’s like when I moved to LA, I kind of came out of my shell and acting as safe because you have a script. 

Craig: Right. And you know 

Linnea Quigley: it’s not going to deviate from them. When you go to a party or something, there’s no 

Craig: scrap. You’re just there. Yeah, I understand that entirely.

It’s funny to me that you say that you were so shy, but I have also read that you’ve said that you much prefer to play roles that are very different than who you are. In your day to day life, hearing from you that you’re shy is a little bit surprising because you know, one of your trademarks is your willingness to, uh, do some nudity, uh, in your films.

And I’ve, I’ve read. Yeah. You know, I’m taking these quotes. I hope I’m not misquoting you, I’m just taking them from your IMDV page. But, um, I, I’ve read that you have said that sometimes in film, nudity can be imposed upon, uh, performers and that sometimes it goes too far, but I also read that you also take it as a compliment that people appreciate.

Your body and, and men and presumably some women, you know, want to see your body has your, um, stance on. Nudity in film, uh, changed at all, uh, over the years. Um, or do you think that the standards of nudity in film have changed over the span of your career? 

Linnea Quigley: Oh, it’s definitely changed because when I was doing movies, the big stars, that was like, and also the little ones.

Would not do nudity. It was like a big, no, no. In fact, most of the actors was like, they told them, if you do nudity, you’ll never work, and they, you know, this and that. And so it was kind of a thing where you had to go, well, I’m going to go against the grain and do it because I want to work. So now it’s like everybody, I think.

Maybe Sharon Stone might’ve broke the, the big actress getting nude and supposedly showing something. I don’t know if she did or not, but, so I think that kind of broke up in the Hollywood stars all start doing nudity too. You know, I could be wrong, but 

Craig: no, I, Todd and I were talking about this. Yeah. Todd and I were talking about this, uh, before we, uh, called you and, um, we just.

I don’t know if we would be sad to think that you ever felt imposed upon. Um, did you feel that way at times or was it always just something that you were willing to do for the craft? 

Linnea Quigley: It was something I was willing to do for the craft. My dad was a 

Craig: doctor, so it 

Linnea Quigley: wasn’t like nudity was like, you know. Uh, and it wasn’t like a religious family or something where they usually is just horrible and disgusting.

So I was lucky about that. 

Craig: A lot of people 

Linnea Quigley: grew up in very uptight households. 

Craig: Sure. 

Todd: And it seems like horror in general, especially like in the eighties and nineties. When you know, some of these movies that we’ve been reviewing have been done. It was almost a given. It was almost a requirement. Yeah.

You’ve got to appeal to that teenage boy crowd, and so there’s going to be a shower scene. You know, there’s going to be a lovemaking scene here, blah, blah, blah. And it seems like as we grow up, you know, these films that are being made nowadays don’t seem to have that same. Standard or is it just what we’re watching?

I’m not sure. What do you, what do you see from work? 

Linnea Quigley: You know what? I don’t know. I still haven’t seen John wick yet, and I want to see it. It’s like a mad, maybe Kanno gets naked. I don’t know. Yeah, but it seems like, well, it definitely was a formula then. There was. The nudity, uh, the shower scene, usually with the nudity that would be worked in there some way.

Lovemaking and then monsters and blood, 

Todd: that kind of thing. 

Linnea Quigley: Yes. Yes. Lingerie, things like that. In fact, I got to do one movie cause one girl. It changed the way they filmed because, uh, they now film nudity first because one girl, like did they filmed with her and then it came down to the Nudie scene and she was like, Oh, I got them now.

They can’t film without me. And she refused to do it, so they just kicked her off. It was on graduation day and got me, cause I had come in and audition. And I was second best. So they gave it to me. 

Craig: Well that’s interesting cause that leads to, uh, we had, um, a gentleman that you’ve worked with. Uh, mr bill over’s jr did, uh, our podcast with us.

In fact, it was he who, uh, recommended you, so you have him to either anger or blame. Uh, because after we finished talking. After we finished talking about his film, um, we continued speaking for a little while off, you know, not recording, and we specifically asked about you because we’re such big fans, and we said, maybe you could put in a good word for us.

And he said, just contact her. She’s lovely. She’ll do it.

So we really appreciate it, 

Linnea Quigley: man. 

Craig: He is. He was very kind guy. Um, but one of the questions that we asked him was, were there any roles that came along that you passed on that you later regretted passing on? Or were there any roles that you took that you later regretted taking? 

Linnea Quigley: Well, you know, there’s always going to be a movie.

You go, Oh God, it’s just terrible. But yeah. I feel like everything happens for a reason, and for some reason that happens that I did that bad film. Maybe it taught me something, maybe it helped me in some way. You know, I met somebody there that was doing another movie, so I think everything happens for a reason.

Craig: Yeah. It’s really regret. 

Linnea Quigley: Yeah, I mean, you gotta do that. I mean, my mood, I just let the wind blow me where I was going to go because I wasn’t sure 

Craig: really, 

Linnea Quigley: and it blew me in a direction that is letting me save animals because I was going to like move closer into Hollywood, but it had me come here. Wow. 

Craig: Well that’s great.

Cool. 

Todd: And you’ve been working and you’ve been working in the horror genre almost exclusively, but you’ve done some other roles out there too. Is horror is something that you’ve just kind of fallen into your comfortable with? Have you, have you wanted to kind of branch out into other roles? Or maybe there’s some non horror roles that you’ve done that or that really stand out to you with some of your famous ones, some of your favorite ones.

A 

Linnea Quigley: lot of them are comedy. That I do. A lot of them are like the comedy horror, so it’s like I’ve done silent night, deadly night, which is a, you know, and chic, kind of like, well, it’s a slasher film. It’s definitely a slasher film. And I’m trying to think, graduation day. So deadly night or strictly 

Craig: in a slasher films, 

Linnea Quigley: but I’ve mainly done ones like how I would change the hookers and sorry, babes that were just.

Craig: Oh gosh. So much. So much serious. Yeah. 

Linnea Quigley: And I love sorority babe, because I got to play the bad ass, and it was just so much fun to do that. 

Craig: Uh, we loved it too, and we just had a great time talking about it. We laughed and laughed, and we’ve gotten such a wonderful response to that episode. Uh. You’re constantly working.

I mean, you were gracious enough to agree to do this with us, but your schedule is so busy that you know, it took some time to arrange. So you’ve been working on a lot of things. Is there anything that you’d like to plug that’s coming up? I saw on your Facebook page that you were, you were promoting a film called death care.

Is there anything going on with that, or are there other projects that you’d like to mention? 

Linnea Quigley: Two is in September. And then Brett Mullins. Is doing a killer babe in the film fiasco or something. That’s something dumped the ask. I get it wrong every time I’ve got to learn 

Craig: it. Like sorority babe. 

Linnea Quigley: Right. And I had it written down.

I can’t find it now, which is usual for me. Oh wait, no, I have it. Killer babe. And the frightening film fiasco 

Craig: sounds great. 

Linnea Quigley: Yes. That’s the name of it, which is a great name, but hard to remember for me. Yeah. And then there’s some other ones that Judy, as my manager has lined up and some convention. Then I get to go to Salem again this year.

I don’t get to go overseas this year, but. You know, obviously in the States and in Salem, so that’s cool. 

Craig: Excellent. 

Linnea Quigley: Just trying to get somebody to help with fixing up Moulin Rouge for the animals so that it’s a better place for them to be in while they’re looking for homes. Yeah. But I’m just lucky it had that building.

Craig: Yeah, absolutely. And you know what the building 

Linnea Quigley: was, but once you know what the building was 

Craig: originally. No, 

Linnea Quigley: I 

Craig: square dance hall. Oh,

Linnea Quigley: speakers in there. These big old speakers and yeah, it was a square dance all. 

Todd: Wow, that’s great. 

Linnea Quigley: So it’s perfect for Moulin Rouge then. Yeah. You know, the dogs will be doing the CanCan and everything. 

Todd: Well, you have been working so hard and so steadily just over there. The last several decades is there are, is there any idea of calling it quits on the horizon?

Maybe focusing on some of your other pants? 

Linnea Quigley: Oh my God. No, no, no, 

Craig: no, no, no. Never. That’s so good to hear. 

Linnea Quigley: Never. Never. No. Yeah. Why? You know, I don’t see any reason why. 

Craig: Oh, I don’t either. And we, we can’t wait to continue seeing you in things. We, uh, have overstayed our welcome a little bit. Uh, and we apologize.

We want to be very respectful of your time. Uh, again, can’t thank you enough for doing this. You know, we’re just, uh, a couple of guys we met. Uh, in our college town. Um, now Todd is off doing things in Beijing. I’m still back here in the States, and, and we just do this, you know, as fans. Um, and for somebody of your stature to agree to, uh, come and speak with us, um, you have no idea how much that means to us.

Linnea Quigley: Oh, wow. I’m, I’m happy you homeboys. No. That’s like the worst, the worst, like homeboy accent,

like in a gang, I guess. 

Craig: But no, I think own 

Todd: pretty Sarah that, yeah. Yeah. 

Linnea Quigley: I put like a two DOP on, I mean, and rap so. Thank you for having me on. It was a scream and I tell you, 

Craig: thank you so much and best of luck in all your endeavors, including your, your animal, uh, your work with animals. We love you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. 

Linnea Quigley: Thank you. Bye bye. 

Todd: Bye 

Craig: bye.

Todd: That was a trip, wasn’t it? 

Craig: It wasn’t trip. She sounds like a fun lady. 

Todd: So do you want to get started talking about this movie? Oh God, sure. I wish we had picked like Hollywood chainsaw hookers or something. Yeah, 

Craig: I do too, but Oh well. 

Todd: So a creep has voids is a, you know, we’ve done a, some of Linda’s more iconic films.

This was one that was a little higher on the list of low budget films made around that same time, but also a little bit earlier in her career before some of the more breakout hits of night of the demons and whatnot. So. It’s nice here to see David  in one of his earlier films, although it’s pretty typical of his films, which are very low budget, a shot very quickly, clearly for very little money.

But he’s always said, and we mentioned this the last time we had a one of his films on here, is that he makes movies to be seen, right? So he’s, he’s looking for that script or that concept that’s going to get butts into seats and he just tries to make it as entertaining as possible using what little he has.

Effectively as he can on the screen, usually in a very, very short amount of time. I think this movie was shot in like 12 days, 

Craig: so, yeah. Well, and this guy, he’s super prolific too. Like he’s got tons and tons of credits. You know, he’s done several puppet master sequels. Um, he did a series of movies. Called the brotherhood, which were like these homoerotic thrillers, of course, sorority babes, slimeball ball aroma, which we really liked.

And right now he’s working on a whole series of lifetime movies that are being produced by Vivica Fox, and she’s starring in all of them, and there’s like five or six of them in production now. So this guy, you know, he gets around, you can talk about some of the, I don’t know, you could be critical about some of the elements of the lower budget.

Aspects of his movies, but he’s clearly doing something right cause he’s getting a lot of stuff done. 

Todd: Well, it’s kind of like, you know, again, going back to like, um, Linnea Quigley story, you know, you, you get into this and it leads you places, right? You just never know where, where it’s going to go. And horror has been a jumping point for a lot of people, right?

We talk about Roger Corman all the time. We talk about a lot of these names keep popping up because you know, these movies. Especially the earlier ones, they’re so cheap. They use a lot of the same people. They use even some of the same crew, I guess. So this becomes a bit of a community and they all help each other.

So somebody gets a break, somebody ends up using them in their films. And then you get a guy like Jack Nicholson, who starts out in Roger Corman’s shop doing some low budget films and is now super, super mega star, right? There’s so many of these stories, James Cameron, whatnot. So. 

Craig: Didn’t Dick a toe start working with him?

Isn’t that where he got his start too, wasn’t it corpsman? 

Todd: Maybe. Yeah. Yeah, he did. Yeah. So it’s just, yeah. You know, you just can’t knock the genre 

Craig: to my right. And the production company is full moon and isn’t that, is that Charles bans production company? 

Todd: They’re making tons of money 

Craig: and, yeah, and they were pumping out movies too, you know, in, in the era before.

We had hundreds of cable channels. We talked about it a million times, but it was video store culture and they had to keep pumping out these movies to make money. Nerds like you and me were always excited to see. What was going to pop up on on the shelves, especially these movies that didn’t get a lot of public or publicity really.

So unless you subscribed to Fangoria or some other publication like that, you may not have even known that these movies were coming out. They would just appear on the shell. 

Todd: Yeah. Literally on the shelf. They’d never really made it to theaters because you know, most of these movies, the directive video market was huge.

And we’ve talked about that before too, about how, um, you know, you couldn’t make movies fast enough in this golden era where almost any concept would go. If you could shoot at cheap enough, you could get a cool look and covered a nice concept, uh, get a few beautiful girls in there. Kind of follow the formula, have a shower scene.

This movie’s got it too. Right? And, and then it’s on the shelf and, and there it is. And then it gets a second life on cable. And some of these movies have really, even though you might watch them, like, you know, for this film, for example, is not my favorite film. But, uh, you, you watch them, it gets a bit of a cold following.

It just finds its niche audience that for one reason or another, whether it’s ironically or whether it’s, you know, truly out of a love or, or some special memory that they have attached to watching that movie well into adulthood. These movies are still being seen. They’re still making money for the people in them and the people producing them.

So, 

Craig: you know, and, and you and I both have favorites from that era that are certainly not. You know, high quality films, but it’s because we did catch them on cable and late at night or on a Saturday afternoon or whatever. And um, they were entertaining. Yeah. This movie is, is not great. You know, I, I know that you said it’s not one of your favorites.

I actually liked it. I thought that it was kind of fun. It definitely, you know, you can be critical of some of the effects and, and possibly some of the acting, even though I thought the acting was. Above the standard of a lot of the things that we watch. That’s true. You know, I really enjoyed Linnea quickly in this film.

You know, if you are a fan of hers, you are getting exactly what you’re signing up for with her. You know, she’s spunky. She’s fun, she’s sexy. You know, it really looked like everybody was having a good time. Um, you’re going to get to see. Her boobs cause you usually do. And that’s, that’s great. Uh, it’s, it’s funny, her take on nudity was interesting to hear about.

Uh, and it was also, I read that in this movie there are only two women in this movie. There’s her and she plays Blanca and another woman who at the time was going by the name Kim McCaney and she plays the role of Kate and the two women were initially. Cast in the opposite roles, but Kim McCaney had reservations about doing the nudity and Linnea quickly didn’t, so they switched roles.

Ironically enough, after this film. Kim McCamy changed her name to Ashlynn gear and became a porn star, 

Todd: like a really famous porn star. 

Craig: Right. So I guess she got over her reservations at some point, and I didn’t get to say it to miss Quigley, and I don’t know, she’ll probably never listened to this. Um, but, uh, I actually have a lot of admiration.

I, you know, I. Backed actors and actresses who say, you know, for whatever reason, I choose not to do this, and I stand for him by that choice. I also have a lot of respect for actors and actresses who are saying, who are willing to say, you know what? If that’s what the role calls for, that’s what the role calls for and whatever insecurities they may have, whatever discomfort they may have at being, you know, seen at their most vulnerable by.

Thousands or millions of people, they do it. I actually find that to be very admirable that she’s somebody who was, was willing to take on those roles when perhaps others weren’t, and she said that, you know, she kind of felt like. She had to, to some extent, if she wanted to get the good roles, but that she was also willing.

And so she, I don’t know, she just seemed like such a cool lady. 

Todd: She did. She really, she really does. Just, just like in the movies. Right? I mean, she just, yeah. That’s what I really enjoy. You know, watching movies with her in it, it’s simply the whole package. She’s spunky. She’s usually tough and in charge.

And even if she’s the victim and she’s kind of running around screaming, she still seems to have this edge to her. I just think she gets cast that way. And uh, and that’s really unique actually. There are not many women in the genre who play roles like she does. She’s a very record. Even if you don’t know her name, just by seeing her characters up on the screen, you’re probably going to recognize her.

You see enough of these like, Oh. It’s that. It’s that woman. 

Craig: Yeah. She has a really unique look. She’s very petite. In fact, they had to buy children’s shoes for her to wear in this because they couldn’t find adult shoes small enough. She’s very petite, very thin. Um, not to be disrespectful, but well endowed, uh, in the chest area.

And, uh, she’s got, you know, a very pretty kind of girl next door kind of look. But another thing that I find so unique about her is she. Has a really unique voice. Her voice is kind of in a lower register. Then you would expect coming from her body, and it just kind of adds a depth to her character. She doesn’t really come across as the bubbly bimbo, whereas she easily could.

With the way that she looked, if she chose to go that way, but she doesn’t, you know, she seems more like a real person that you would know as opposed to just some stereotype, just some pair of boobs jumping around. You know what I mean? 

Todd: Yeah, exactly. No, I get exactly what you mean. Again, that’s the most appealing thing I think about watching movies with her in them, and so a lot of fun.

Linnea Quigley: You know, it’s not the dying. I hate when I ran from the 

Craig: front. It wasn’t because I was 

Linnea Quigley: afraid of dying. 

Craig: It’s the rats, isn’t it? 

Linnea Quigley: There were a hell of a lot of them where I grew up. Thinking get used to it when 

Todd: as we were watching this movie, which is basically an alien knockoff more or less, and it even follows some of the same beats of, of like aliens.

The second one, it’s set in the, in a not so distant future. It’s actually the past for us. 1998 when the whole world had been overrun by war and stuff. And, uh, people are scrambling trying to survive and people are deserving the army and they’re mutants running around everywhere, which we, I thought we were going to get to see more mutants, and I guess we didn’t.

Uh, but then there’s acid rain. Acid rain is what keeps everybody from running around outside too much. And so we just have a group of, I mean, it’s a very small cast. It’s like six characters. A group of people who are kind of walking through the wasteland. This acid rain hit. And so they go inside this, this building that they’ve run across, that’s an underground shelter.

Then they discover that there’s something else down there with them. 

Craig: Yeah, and there are funny parts, you know, this is one of those movies that I don’t think was intentionally funny, but there were, I think it was just bad writing in some places, like the way that they knew that it was going to rain is because one of the actors.

Bursitis acted up like, like you could have just had the thunder, I mean, that would have been indication enough instead of this guy, Oh my bursitis, it’s going to rain. 

Todd: And then these shots of the clouds that we get to see at regular intervals, just to remind us. Oh yeah, there’s still acid rain outside, which by the way, this is stock footage of these clouds rolling it in this thunder.

I had been an, I don’t know how many of these low budget films that we’ve seen, maybe all the full moon productions had them. I know that at least a couple of Roger Corman’s had this exact same stock footage of thunder and lightning. It was 

Craig: very handy, right? The hand drawn animation for lightning. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s pretty, 

Craig: and it’s all set against an eighties synth score, which I actually kind of thought was fun.

I mean, it’s nostalgic. 

Todd: It’s a, it’s a very aggressive score too. I mean, it’s really in your face and it’s clearly trying to make up for the lack of on screen act. It’s trying to get you pumped up. You know, this is another one of those cases, I think where the guy who is doing the score had a lot of work to do to try to make these scenes of crawling through a tunnel very slowly.

So you’d like really exciting. 

Craig: Well, and there were clear limitations and other ways too. I mean, they’re supposed to be in this big facility, obviously is not big at all because they just keep running up and down the same hallways and ending up in the same locations over and over and over again, three rooms.

Right. And, uh, you know. Split off and something will happen to a couple of them and just one of the other people who was away from them just immediately appears like, Oh, what’s going on? 

Todd: Like, because 

Craig: they’re literally just like 10 feet away from each other at all times. But when they get into this bunker, you know, it seems almost too good to be true.

There’s food there. There are, you know, this is supposed to be like a post nuclear. Wasteland, but the electricity works that there’s a computer that’s like online, I don’t know how all 

Todd: this stuff works. Thankfully there’s also a working shower. 

Craig: Yes. Which, which, uh, Blanca finds immediately, it is like, Oh, I’m going to use this here at about five minutes.

Todd: And there it 

Craig: goes. And then they go and eat in the mess hall, which is clearly a nod to, uh, alien. The first one. 

Todd: Yeah. Down to the clothes they’re wearing. Really? 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s clearly a throwback or just a cheap copy, whatever you want to call it. But what happens is there’s a creature in here, the nerdy one who was actually my favorite, Jesse.

He was cute. He was played by Michael Aronda, Alton. Really? These other actors and actresses didn’t do much. Um, the guy who played, um. Ken Abraham, or, excuse me, he played Bush. His name’s Ken Abraham, and he’s like the, the Butch one. Um, he’s a big time reality TV editor now. He does like top model and real Housewives and Jersey shore and the jerseys, chores, spinoffs, like he’s kind of a big deal.

Todd: Well, he’s the one who got to make out with, uh, Linnea Quigley in the shower 

Craig: right after they eat. They immediately go. And that was one of my favorite lines. He follows her and he’s like, I’m gonna stand guard. No, you’re not. 90% of household accidents happen in the bath. I’m standing going, 

Linnea Quigley: no, you’re not.

I’m not. No. You’re going to come. And so backside

Todd: expert, line delivery there, 

Craig: and then boobs, and at some point a pretty gratuitous, uh. Shower sex scene, I was, I was a little bit surprised how gratuitous, frankly, and I always wonder how those things work cause they both looked very naked, 

Todd: close, very naked, pressed up against each other just as far as you can go.

Craig: I would boys have issues 

Todd: with that. I don’t know 

Craig: the, the, you know, the miracle of Hollywood, whatever. But eventually Jesse. Yeah, I don’t know. There’s this whole thing on the computer where like he finds somebody log and it doesn’t really ever amount to anything. I’m not even really sure what it was supposed to be.

Um, but it ended very ominously with like, uh, I haven’t written for a while, but. Yeah, I’ve done it and I’ve covered my tracks and the blood was really hard to clean up. I’m not exactly sure. It seemed like there, like the scientists were going stir crazy or something and they figure out that what they were trying to do was find a way for humans to produce their own amino acids so that they wouldn’t have to.

Eat. And I just thought it was so funny that they kept saying amino acids are the building blocks of life. Like I know I went to junior high too. 

Todd: That’s right. But I think you need more than amino acids. A lot of other nutrients you got to get into your body as well. 

Craig: But eventually Jesse, he crawls through an air shaft cause he hears something and a big monster attacks him.

And then it’s the next morning and I, there was somebody in his bed and they’re like, Oh, they’re going to find his dead body. No. He’s seemingly fine, so they go back to the mess hall and they’re all eating and talking about how good the food is, and somebody’s like, come on Jesse, you have to eat because we need your strength or whatever.

He takes one bite of food and immediately starts like bleeding out of every orifice in his face and 

Todd: turn green. 

Craig: It’s basically the chest burster scene from. Uh, alien, 

Todd: but not as awesome 

Craig: without a chest purser. Right? Not as awesome, but th th the exact same tone, um, is what they were going for. And then they run around a lot.

A lot. And they keep finding reasons to get separated. And like for some reason the monster will, like, it keeps attacking Jake, the leader. It keeps attacking him and just dragging it back to its layer. I have no idea why. 

Todd: Just leaving them there. Like there’s this, well, the layer is, is in a, um. Accessible through some kind of duct work that’s leads right under the desk.

And uh, you know, it’s discovered pretty early on by the young guy. So that’s why he’s, uh, that’s why he’s attacked, crawls through this duct work. And it’s funny the way this is shot because you can kind of tell they didn’t have an actual tunnel. They just had some metal to put up against the wall and on the floor.

And the camera’s coming around and they make, it just seem so labored to crawl through this tunnel that it kind of works against the movie’s favor because when they’ve got a really. Really flied on this tunnel. They’re still crawling at like a snail’s pace, right? Music is like pumping in the background like dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

And I’m like, dude, this monster totally would have had you by now. 

Craig: I know. And it’s like the monster will kind of keep appearing to. People and not attacking. And then sometimes it will attack and its motives are just completely unclear. 

Todd: Yeah. And it’ll attack them, but then it’ll like do whatever it does to them to make them go through this, that, you know, kind of semi chest bursting thing, but then one person 

Craig: ends up like spits on him or pees on him or something 

Todd: that does something, but I’m not entirely sure what, but it just.

Turns them kind of Blackie and then Linnea Quigley. She’s hurt. She’s the only character actually outright gets killed by the monster. 

Craig: Just picks her up. 

Todd: And Thompson. 

Craig: That’s after. It’s just her and Jake left. And I was really disappointed that she died cause I really liked her character and I thought that she was going to make it.

I was surprised that she died and you didn’t even, it wasn’t even really a great death, you know, like the monster picked her up and then you just saw her feet dangling and blood coming down and that’s it. Like it was pretty unceremonious. 

Todd: And the monster is, um, it’s got these giant pinchers and then these long, slimy teeth.

And you know, with the way it’s filmed at first, you don’t see all of it. You kind of see some of it. And so it’s really kind of does it a little more justice that this thing can kind of lift people up and shop their heads somehow. But you never really see the detail. Like it’s not gratuitously gory in that way.

Again, I think it’s just a budget limitation. They had this big mask and this big outfit, but they didn’t have. You know, a lot of makeup effects to be able to show the effect on the human. And so there’s very little of that. And then later on, the monster turns one girl into a zombie. I guess 

Craig: that was weird.

Like all of a sudden she’s a dead eye and she has a fight with Linnea Quigley. And I wonder, I read that the actual actress didn’t do the scene. They, they used a stunt double, and so they put makeup on her. I wonder if that’s why. She like they had to put some kind of makeup on her because otherwise. We would have recognized that it wasn’t the actress, but it was really strange and unexplained as are most things.

There’s also giant rats running around. And when I say running around, they’re just stuffed animals that like they, somebody off set will like throw at a character and they’ll catch it and then like, pretend to struggle 

Todd: with it. 

Craig: Um, and, and they were, I thought they were cute. They reminded me of the zombie verse kind of.

Todd: Yes, exactly. That’s exactly what I was thinking. Zombie verse. 

Craig: But again, no explanation for why there were giant rats there. They just were and they attacked and it was because one of them bit Kate in the neck. That’s why she apparently turned into a zombie. And then there was a pretty decent fight scene with a Linea and the other actress.

Yeah. Not amazing, but choreographed. Some work went into it. 

Todd: People were flying across the room, hitting the walls and stuff. It ends up down to Jake by the end of it. And, uh, again, I mean, it’s kind of funny to watch, but they’re, they’re really trying hard to give you a lot of tension in this final scene with Jake and this monster who by now.

We’ve been able to see full body, which is clearly a rubber suit. So it’s a little sad 

Craig: when you didn’t think it looks that bad. I mean, yes, it was clearly a rubber suit, but I thought that the design was pretty good. I mean, 

Todd: head up wasn’t bad. 

Craig: I thought that, you know, it was pretty evident that they were kind of at least trying to make it look like the Xenomorph.

Um, but a little bit different, you know, it was a little bit more. Upright, I guess probably cause it had to be, cause it was just a guy in a suit. But, um, and then at the end it seemed bigger. And I read that they did some, you know, crane work with it. And it did, it moved awkwardly. But I thought the design was okay.

I really. I don’t have much terrible to say about this movie. I didn’t love it either, but for, you know, I sat here and watched it in the afternoon and it’s short. It’s only an hour and 12 minutes 

Todd: seemed longer to me. 

Craig: It did. It seemed a little bit longer, but I think that part of that is because in this final act, when it’s just Jake and the monster, I felt like they were stretching for time.

Like it’s just cat and mouse. For. Good 10 minutes, but it’s not 

Todd: even, it’s not really interesting cat and mouse though. That’s the problem and it’s kind of simple symptomatic of why there’s very little tension, I think, in the movie is because we’ll a, as we kind of outlined earlier, there’s no rules established that are clear that we can follow.

So we don’t really. No, the Monster’s abilities, we don’t really know what happens to people. We don’t know how he’s traveling because he just shows up sometimes, like in the corner of a room, suddenly he’s there kind of inexplicably. So we don’t get to see that. And again, like we said earlier, it’s the same three locations and so it all gets quite familiar to us.

And so that even kind of adds to that. And then this final fight scene. I mean, it’s clearly a smaller room than they’re trying to make it seem. It’s supposed to be almost like a library of shelves, you know, just shelves, stretching very far. But then these shelves are all like kind of like wire shelves that you could easily like see through.

And Jake grab some random package off of the. One of the shelves and opens it up and it’s got a syringe and a bunch of chemicals or something into it. And so he starts frantically putting the syringe together, not really knowing what it is, 

Craig: but somehow he believes that if he injects the monster, that will kill it.

And he’s right. 

Todd: Yeah. And then it’s, it’s all just like these closeup shots of the monster walking of the Monster’s feet going and then, and then another shot of Jake, you know, standing up. Quietly against a shelf and then a shot of the Monster’s head moving forward. And then Jake is inching along the shelf and it’s basically like that back and forth.

And then so he injects the them. Finally, after a whole bunch of this, he finally gets up behind the monster in Jackson with this serum and falls back. Triumphantly, like he knew it was going to happen. The monster falls forward and stops moving, and Jake, I guess is nursing his shoulder and he’s nursing his shoulder for a good five minutes, which gives us enough time to see the most bizarre part of this whole movie.

Craig: My favorite part. 

Todd: Oh yeah. Which is I think where most of the budget went right into this puppet thing. Creature baby 

Craig: with felons. Yeah. It made absolutely no sense at all. Comes out again. It’s like the chest burster like it bursts out of this Monster’s head or abdomen or something. I don’t know. And it, it’s kind of like a human baby monster 

Todd: hybrid.

I swear I’ve seen it before. I swear. 

Craig: It looks like the baby from like it lives or. 

Todd: Yeah, it does in the face, but it’s very articulated. I mean, it’s got, it’s got that eighties, you know, animatronic head thing going a hundred percent and I’m like, wow, I did not expect that to show up in this movie. 

Craig: Well, no, 

Todd: certainly not the evil baby with fangs, but then also like, um, it’s the best looking special effect in the whole thing.

Oh, I loved it. Yeah. 

Craig: And then the, the baby keeps attacking him. 

Todd: The baby keeps the tagging, which once again, we talked about this a million times. It’s like. Leaps on him, sort of. Somebody tosses it on him and then he like rolls around with it. Like he couldn’t just Chuck this thing away from him anytime he wanted or step on his head or kick it away.

Uh, it shouldn’t be the threat that it’s being presented at, but you know, I guess his shoulder just really, really hurts. 

Craig: He ends up strangling it with its own umbilical cord. Was really clever and like you said, the animatronic was actually pretty sophisticated. Like I was really impressed with the facial expressions it was making as it was dying.

Like it, it really looked kind of like it was an agony and then you could kind of tell and it started to fade away. I loved it. Oh, I was very B-movie creature. I loved it. 

Todd: It was, and I know that this has shown up in some other movie or, or, or ends up showing up in a future movie because it just looks way too familiar.

Way too familiar, and that’s too expensive of a puppet for, for full moon to not reuse two or three more times. 

Craig: Oh, right, right. And that was the thing again, you know, in the moment. I couldn’t, I didn’t think to ask. But I would have loved to have known. Like if I had been on that set, I definitely would’ve stolen one of those rats 

Todd: cause they were super cute 

Craig: and I’m sure that that baby was too expensive to go missing without there being.

An issue, but, uh, I bet anything that’s sitting in somebody’s storage locker somewhere, it’s so cool. It was such a cool prop. And then that’s, you know, that’s pretty much it. 

Todd: It was a nice cap to a movie. I mean, like, like I said, I, this was not my favorite film. I found it a little bit of a chore to watch at times.

Kind of dragged really slow and there really wasn’t much tension. Like you said, it had its moments that it had some nice characters in it, but it was nice to finally at the end, kind of, it’s like they saved all the goods for the end. So you know, you watch it through long enough and then you know, that’s how you should, that’s how you should do it.

Give everyone kind of a big, a big bang at the end. And that’s how I felt, you know, and ended. So for that. 

Craig: Jake crawls away in the last, the last frame we see is that the baby wakes up. It’s not really dead. And supposedly there was a, they had planned to do a sequel, but it just, it never happened. I would have, it would have been interesting if they, you know, I would love to see where they would go with that.

Creepy baby, but, uh, I don’t know. Without Linea, I don’t know. That would have been worth it. 

Todd: No, probably not. 

Craig: It was also a remade, I guess, in 97 note, excuse me. Uh. Oh, gosh, yeah, 97. It was remade under a different title, hybrid. Um, and I looked that up and it has terrible reviews. And just from the box art, it looks awful.

But there are, and, and as I alluded to in our interview with miss Quigley, you know, I read every single fan review. Uh, on IMD for this movie. And they were, they were pretty harsh. Uh, some of them tongue in cheek. There were a couple of people who appreciated it for the B movie that it is. But for the most part, people were pretty critical.

But there was a lot of love for Linnea Quigley. And I, I understand why, you know. Not many of my friends and family are horror fans, so when I told them, Oh my gosh, we’re interviewing Linda quickly. They’re like, who? But fans of the genre. No, this woman is an icon. I mean, she really is, you know, she’s been labeled America’s scream queen.

Um, she has been called queen of the bees as in queen of the B movies. And, and she really is, uh, she may not have found the same level of fame that some of the other scream Queens of the eighties. Achieved, but within the genre, she is very loved. And now having spoken to her in real life, I can understand why.

She just seems like a lovely person. She seems very down to earth, very charming, and it was incredibly gracious. For her to do this with us, and so we’re very appreciative. 

Todd: Yes, we are. Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Well, that’s another episode of two guys in a chainsaw. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend.

You can find our Facebook page just by searching two guys and a chance on Facebook. We get a lot of comments, questions, and a fan reaction there. You can let us know who else we should have on the shelf or what other movies that you would like us to review. Just leave us a request there. You can also go to our website to guys.red 40 net.com where we have all of our back episodes available for streaming, or just find us on your favorite podcast surfing app.

Until next time, I’m Todd 

Craig: and I’m Craig 

Todd: with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.