2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

Often hailed as the second-worst movie ever made, this sequel to the iconic horror classic is a real head-scratcher.ften hailed as the second-worst movie ever made, this sequel to the iconic horror classic is a real head-scratcher.

Episode 160, 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, Craig, we continue our month of sequels with 1 that I know you and I were both excited to revisit. This is called Exorcist 2, The Heretic. And it almost seems heretical to even have a movie called The Exorcist Part 2, after the original was just so iconic at the time. Of course, we weren’t alive then, but you know, it was a pop culture phenomenon. It won lots of awards and it’s still I think pretty terrifying movie. Oh yeah. And   the second film in the series is a considerable departure from the original for a lot of reasons and it is decidedly not terrifying. When we were coming to do this, my reminiscences of seeing The Exorcist 2 was that it was so boring I fell asleep watching it the first time I’ll have to say that as I was watching it again. I was also nodding off This time around as well, so I don’t think that my assessment of this film has changed much since I first saw it. How about you, Craig? What’s your history with this movie?

Craig:Well, I don’t know. I think I’ve probably only seen it once before and probably a decade or more ago. It’s 1 of those things where like, How dare you make a sequel to The Exorcist? Well, of course the studio is going to want to. You know, it did so well. There was so much buzz surrounding it. Of course, they’re going to want to cash in on that. Plus, soon after The Exorcist came out, they, I think the same studio, if not a different studio, I don’t know, but The Omen came out, which was somewhat similar in   nature, and it had done really well. And so they really kind of tried to push a sequel for The Exorcist. They wanted to get it going right away. But they faced several roadblocks from the beginning because nobody who was involved with the first 1 wanted to do a sequel. The writer and director were not particularly interested. Linda Blair and Ellen Burston, the stars of the first movie, were not interested in doing it. They did not want to reprise their roles. And initially, the studio wanted to rush through it and make it a really low budget kind   of affair, kind of a la Silent Night, Deadly Night 2, where it would really just kind of be a rehash of the first movie showing unused footage and unused angles from the original film. It just didn’t really appeal to anybody. But they got people working on the script and they eventually got a script that Linda Blair got on board with. She said, all right, the script’s good, I’ll get on board. She said from the beginning, I’m not doing that makeup again. I’m not doing it. And you can’t blame her. We’ve never done The Exorcist and probably   never will just because it’s such an iconic film and what are we going to say that hasn’t already been said about it. But to get into that makeup was a really strenuous process. And she was a young girl. And she was strapped into that bed for days at a time. They were throwing her all over the place. So it was really kind of a traumatic experience for her as a young actress initially, and she wasn’t willing to go through that again. But when they presented her with this new script and she thought it was interesting, she   said, okay, they still couldn’t get Ellen Burstyn. They wanted her, and they wrote her character into the script. Louise Fletcher, who plays a major role in this movie, was originally cast as Chris McNeil, the mom, because she bears a striking resemblance to Ellen Burston. But After a series of rewrites, she got transformed into another character, and the mother was written out. You know, her absence is explained by she’s working, you know, she’s a popular actress, so she’s away shooting a movie or something. So They finally got a script that people got on board with. They started   shooting it. And then while they were shooting it, the scripts ended up going through so many rewrites that it eventually ended up being not even really comparable to what the original script had been. And I think pretty much everybody involved was disappointed in it and when it came out audiences were disappointed in it to the point where the audience for the original screening laughed through things at the screen, walked out, and it wasn’t received well at all. It seems like the director has is

Todd:a lot to blame for that, John Borman, who had done deliverance, you know, before this.

Craig:Of

Todd:course, he did Zardas after that before he did this, so you know it’s not like he’s a bit of a 50-50 guy at that point. However, he didn’t like the original. He thought it was distasteful. He was openly disdainful about it. So for him to finally get the job of doing this 1 is quite strange, except that he read a screenplay by the screenwriter, the original screenwriter for this film, who’s also a playwright, named William Goodhart, and he saw that this screenplay took a totally different angle with it instead of going down the rabbit hole of   demons and darkness and blood and gore and anything like that, anything terribly shocking, it was trying to explore this metaphysical angle about human consciousness and the nature of good and evil and trying to give a kind of reason for Linda to be possessed and by the end of the movie it turns out she’s special. It really takes a different angle on the themes. It’s a totally thematically a different movie. And he thought, okay, that is a movie that’s really interesting to me. I’m really interested in doing all of this, making a grand movie. Well, especially now,   when you look at it, it’s so hokey, all this metaphysical stuff. Part of it is because it’s so dated But even at the time I think audiences laughed out loud at certain points in this movie where these little contraptions come into play they’re supposed to hypnotize them. And so it’s just weird but the bottom line is this wasn’t what anybody was expecting from a sequel to The Exorcist. If you’re a fan of the original, you know we’ve talked about this before because we do a lot of sequels, if you’re a fan of the original doing a   sequel is necessarily going to be difficult because you’re going to want to give fans more of what they liked about the sequel, but if you just simply rehash the original, nobody’s going to like that either. So you’ve got to ride this line. And he just, he fell too far on that other side of the line, I think, of it was nothing like the first 1. And nobody wanted to see this kind of a movie. Maybe if it had been different and hadn’t been called The Exorcist, it would have had a thing. But by the third movie,   William Peter Blatty had come in so disgusted by this 1. I mean, nobody had anything nice to say about this movie. It was just absolutely, except Martin Scorsese, apparently. He came to the defense of the director saying he thought it was interesting that the attack that he did in a very bold statement, but everybody else, almost like cursing and swearing.

Craig:Well, the thing is that, you know, I think that it was doomed to failure either way. I mean, you either do what the studio had originally planned and just kind of make the same movie again, which may have satisfied some people, or you go in a completely new direction. And I respect the decision to take it in a new direction. And frankly, I think what is probably the major disappointment for a lot of people with this movie is that this 1 does not have the urgency that the first 1 has. Yes. The first movie, the danger   is clear and present, and it’s very scary pretty much throughout. And in this 1, the danger is more kind of lurking in the background.

Todd:I would go so far as to say the danger is really not present at all. It’s like none of what happens in this movie really even needed to happen, right? I mean, everybody could have left well enough alone. And I think that’s how I interpret it anyway. Maybe I’m a little mistaken. I think you’re right. The catalyst for it is that the priest, there is a priest who is called in by the cardinal to investigate the death of Father Marin, who was the guy in the original exorcist who at the very end gets possessed and then   himself and then throws himself out the window.

Craig:Well, see, and that’s very confusing because it’s not. That’s who I always think of him too.

Todd:Oh no, you’re right. It’s not him. It’s Max von Sido’s

Craig:character. Right. And he dies, you know, the demon I think causes him to have a heart attack, and he was the guy in the first 1 who was supposed to be the exorcism expert. He had performed lots of exorcisms before, And the guy that you’re thinking of, the guy that iconically jumped out the window and fell down that big flight of stairs, he was kind of a new guy. He was Father Charis, right? Something like that, yeah. And it doesn’t focus on his character. But you’re right. I mean, that’s how it starts out. The church wants   an investigation because Father Merrin had had this great reputation, but this has marred his reputation. And apparently, you know, he had done all this writing and the church had wanted to canonize his writing and stuff. But now, because several people died during this whole experience, including him, people were thinking that he was a fraud or maybe even a devil worshiper or something along those lines, and so they’re kind of trying to clear his name. Meanwhile, Reagan, again, played by Linda Blair, but it’s so almost bizarre because this is supposed to take place what, like maybe 2   years after the first 1?

Todd:4, but yes, it’s still bizarre. Is it 4?

Craig:Uh-huh. Yeah, Because all of a sudden, I mean, the first time you see her, like, she’s super sexy, and like, it’s like they’re kind of playing that up. Like, she’s like in like a crop top and… Oh

Todd:yeah, no bra.

Craig:Right, and she’s, you know, developed as a lovely young woman, and I think in the first 1 they had to downplay, you know, they were trying to downplay her age. I think that Linda Blair was actually older than the character was supposed to be, but they did a pretty good job of making her seem younger. Well here, you know, she looks significantly older, which was a little bit jarring to me. Yeah, me too. But anyway, you know, she is continuing on in her life. She’s now living in New York with her nanny, who is reprised by   the same actress from the first movie. Her mom is out of the picture working. We never see her. She’s referenced a lot, but we never see her. And she’s seeing this psychiatrist, I guess.

Todd:I guess some kind of therapist, yeah.

Craig:Yeah. Dr. Jean Tuscan who works with, it seems that she works with children with special needs. Reagan has been receiving therapy from her, and she seems to be fine except for either she doesn’t remember the events of the first movie or she’s claiming that she doesn’t.

Todd:Right.

Craig:The therapist, played again by Louise Fletcher, who’s a great actress, I think, and looks fantastic in this movie and I think does a really good job in her role in this movie. She wants Reagan to process what has happened to her so that she can leave it in the past.

Clip:I do. I   do. But you keep telling me you don’t remember about that time in Washington. I don’t know if I believe you.   I remember being very sick and having nightmares and that’s   all. Those bad dreams are still inside you.   There’s nothing wrong with me.   Reagan, I want to show you something. You see this?

Craig:She introduces this machine, which is really stupid. Oh my gosh. But I mean, you know, if you think about it from a realistic perspective, it seems really stupid. As a movie contrivance, I don’t care, fine, whatever. But the the machine can hypnotize 2 people and meld their consciousnesses, I guess. It’s like they can, you know, get into 1 another’s minds and the doctor thinks that she can go into Reagan’s mind and kind of walk her through her memories and her nightmares and help her to process them and get over it.

Todd:It’s like dreamscape except in dreamscape we had this like hugely scientific facility and they get into these machines that with wires and things sticking all over them, it’s clearly like a big deal. This is 2 flashing lights on a stick. Yeah. This is,

Craig:and headbands, like sweat bands.

Todd:Yeah, like sweat bands. They just slap on their head. It doesn’t really matter, apparently, where these electrodes are placed on their brain and and it’s all done in a very very casual air Like there is nothing terribly interesting about you know It’s just like let me pull out this little machine from my pocket that will let me get into your mind

Craig:well and it’s silly and you almost feel like the actors know how silly it is because people can just jump in and out. Like, I’ll take over. Yeah, take the headband off her and put it on me and it’ll

Todd:be fine. Like you’re handing the controller to somebody to take over your video game while you go to the bathroom?

Craig:Exactly, exactly. At first, Reagan doesn’t want to do it, but then the priest comes to do the investigation and for whatever reason that interests Reagan, so she wants to do it. So she and the doctor hook up and meld up, and it’s a whole process where they have to, I don’t know, like make your tone go lower. I don’t know, you know, silly flashing light stuff. And it’s so funny the first time they do it because they show the process and like to indicate to us that they’re going under. All of the actors have to roll   their eyes into the back

Todd:of their head. Looks terrible.

Craig:It looks so stupid and it’s just so funny because it really just seems like the actors are rolling their eyes at the whole scene. Ooh, okay, I’m hypnotized now. It’s terrible.

Todd:Although, I’ll give them some credit because they could have just hooked them both up and said, okay, now you’re in a deep sleep and here you go into your dreams and then somebody rolls their eyes and the other person rolls their eyes and suddenly they’re there. I thought that the tone matching thing was kind of clever. There’s a little bit of play that they do with it as far as trying to indicate to you what state each person is in, whether 1 person is in trouble. Like for example, while they’re in their state and they’re connected,   the nurse, sorry not the nurse, I’m gonna think of her always as nurse ratchet, Jean the doctor, a therapist or whatever, starts seeing visions of the exorcism. Reagan was in and her heart starts beating very very quickly and the tones and the flashing on the machine start going to affect that so it’s like it’s tapping into their brain waves or their their mental state or whatever and I’m gonna try to be really generous to this movie and say that there are some things in here as silly as this whole contraption and stuff is, at least they   made some interesting use of it to add some drama to the scene. I’ll give it that.

Craig:Jared S Yeah, I thought that this scene was interesting too because once they’re both in, we don’t… Okay, so she’s reliving. Regan is reliving or revisiting the exorcism, the part of it where Father Maren died. And we get flashbacks. And the evil Regan is not played by Linda Blair. It’s a stand-in. She looks enough like her that it doesn’t, it’s not that jarring. But I almost, I almost feel like when Linda Blair was like, I’m not getting in the makeup, they were like, okay, well, we’ll get a double. And then they were kind of like, well,   just slap some makeup on her.

Todd:Like. It’s not the

Craig:same. No, in the first movie, the makeup is so disturbing. Like it’s so gross and real looking, and in this it just kinda looks like some really good Halloween makeup.

Todd:Yeah, I imagine that again was the director didn’t wanna throw anything too terribly exploitative in this movie, nothing too horror. Yeah. It just looks a little cleaned up, like you said, a little cleaned up.

Craig:Fair enough. The cool thing that I thought was they do some interesting superimposing. So they’re reliving this and then it comes to the point where Father Marin starts to have a heart attack which is what happened in the first movie, like the demon is causing this heart attack or whatever, and it starts to freak out Dr. Tuscan and she’s like convulsing and the nurse checks her heart and her heart is palpitating or something. I don’t remember what she said. And so Reagan comes out of it. They set off this alarm to wake them up and Reagan   comes out of it, but the doctor doesn’t. And Reagan goes over and at first I thought it was kind of strange. Like she puts her hand on her chest like she’s feeling her heart. It looked a little unnatural to me at first. It almost looked like she was feeling her up. But then I realized it was because they were setting up for this scene where the 2 scenes, like the flashback or the memory or whatever it is, and the present day come together through superimposing so that demon Reagan and good Reagan are like holding hands over   the nurses or not nurse now you’ve got me doing it yeah you know of course Reagan doesn’t realize this but I think that it’s supposed to show that they are still connected or whatever. I thought the effect, though it may not have been executed as well as it might be today, I thought that it was a cool effect and served its purpose in showing that this demon is still a presence, an influence.

Todd:Yeah, it was, and it was really cinematically a very, also very technically good scene. I mean, everything lines up pretty well, and the superimposition and the way everything goes. It does look a little bit like even Demon Regan is fondling her a little bit, but then they go a little Dario Argento on us. Now here, I just finished saying that this was fairly cleaned up as far as the makeup goes, but then you get this gross scene which is a close-up on her heart like you’re seeing the inside of it and you can see Regan demon   Reagan’s hand actually grabbing the heart like she’s trying to rip it out or she’s trying to manipulate it or squeeze it hard or something like that. And I thought that was a little shocking. Maybe the most shocking, disturbing scene in this whole movie is this 1. Yeah. It starts out with a little bit of promise, although that promise is bookended by a whole lot of ridiculousness that really takes you out of it, you know?

Craig:Yeah, so then the priest jumps in because you can do that apparently.

Todd:I know where she is. It’s so funny too. It’s like he’s looking at this machine for the first time. He’s also very disdainful to the doctor in their previous conversation about her whole emphasis on the physical aspects of stuff, you know. She’s talking very much about consciousness and about mental illness, and he’s saying, we’re dealing with evil here. It’s a spiritual supernatural thing. But then when he’s seeing this machine and seeing it in action, he jumps in and he knows exactly what to do. You know,

Craig:let me take over.

Todd:I know where she is, you know, and he jumps in and puts it on like he’s done this a thousand times before. Again, it’s just a hokey, you know, get down to her, talk me down, right? Talk me down to her, stare at the light. And you know, you don’t really see any visual representation of what’s going on. You just see them staring into the light and the blinking after a while. It’s probably supposed to hypnotize the audience about as much as it’s hypnotizing them. Sure.

Craig:The only thing really of significance that happens, I guess, I mean, it’s all significant, but the demon says in the flashback or whatever it is, She is mine always. And so it’s planted into the priest mine and us, the audience’s mind that the demon really wasn’t expelled, it’s just been repressed. Like it’s inside her, it’s latent, but it’s still a threat. From then on, the very next thing that happens is Reagan goes out and she’s really good with the kids, the other special needs kids in this place, and She talks to them. And I have to   say, you know, there are parts of this movie where Linda Blair’s acting is bad, but there are also parts of the movie when she’s playing sweet Reagan McNeil, where she’s so endearing. Like she’s just very sweet and she’s really pretty. I didn’t remember her being that pretty.

Todd:She’s unbelievably cute in almost every shot. Even when she’s got yellow eyes and stuff it’s almost even she’s even cuter.

Craig:And apparently like she was falling into a bad drug habit at the time, and she was late on set every day, and it was just a mess all around. But whatever, they got through it. But after this happened, she goes out and she’s talking to these kids, and 1 of the kids is drawing, and so she draws with them, and she draws a picture, and then a nurse gives it to Father Lamont.

Todd:For some reason.

Craig:And it’s a picture of him. It almost kind of looks like floral fronds coming out around his head, but he immediately knows that it’s fire and it freaks him out and he’s like, ah, there’s a fire somewhere. And Dr. Tuscan’s like, what? You’re crazy. But they run around and they eventually find a fire in the basement. And as they’re trying to put it out, Dr. Tuscan looks at him and it’s an exact replication of the picture that she had drawn. It seems to me like what they’re suggesting is that by having done this thing with the   machine they have awoken something inside of her, which is, I get, like it would make sense that they’re, you know, maybe they’re poking at the demon and that maybe gets the demon going, but it almost seems like they’re awakening something else, which comes up later, as you said, like it turns out that she’s special. Yeah. And it doesn’t seem like there was any indication of that before, but now there is.

Todd:Yeah. Well, that’s part of the problem with it, is that there never really is any indication except for this thing that’s said that she’s mine and that gets it into his head that you know maybe she’s still latent. There is not now nor anytime in the almost till the very end of the movie is there any change in her really and her personality. She’s having weird dreams and stuff but she’s not like slowly becoming evil Reagan again. Right. Now, I will say though that 1 of the nice things about the, clever things about the script is   how it all ends up being a little interconnected in that there is this continual fire motif. So the reason that the fire freaks him out is because this guy had a terrible incident with a fire a little earlier in his career when he himself was doing an exorcism. And this is 1 of the very first scenes of the movie. I think it is the first scene of the movie.

Craig:Yeah, I think you’re

Todd:right. He’s like in, I can’t, is it Africa? Is it somewhere in Africa?

Craig:I think it’s Mexico.

Todd:Mexico, you’re right, it is Mexico because they’re speaking Spanish. And there’s this intense scene where this woman is obviously possessed and there are tons of people in this house holding her back and there’s religious iconography everywhere. There are all these candles up against the wall and he comes in and he’s terrified by this. And as he starts to do his thing, this woman breaks loose and she knocks all the candles down and it’s seemingly the demon inside of her, whatever, like willingly self-immolates her body. So she stands there going up in flames, cackling away. And so   we see this image of this woman with the close up on the face, the flames looking up around her and her looking out and smiling. And so this relates to that. Yeah, right. And it’s

Craig:thematically important because she says, why me, why me? I help people, I heal people, why would this happen to me? And that becomes significant, because I’m jumping ahead of myself, there’s a whole other subplot that we’ll get to here in just a second, but as it turns out, There are people in the world who are special and who are healers and the devil has sent this 1 particular demon to torment and kill these special people and it turns out that Regan is 1 of these people. Like you said, you know, not a lot is changing in   her, but things are happening and kind of the next thing we see is she’s having a nightmare and she sees like a tribal village and there’s some weird imagery with like a swarm of locusts. They look like grasshoppers to me, but they call them locusts throughout. And then she sleepwalks out under her balcony as she lives in this gorgeous Manhattan apartment. This insanely expensive apartment. Oh, it’s ridiculous. It’s like wall to ceiling, windows, right behind her bed. Really huge. And she walks out onto this huge balcony, which is my worst nightmare, because I hate heights, period.   But it also, it has a railing, but the railing is disjointed, there are big gaps between it. This is like the stupidest

Todd:railing that could be. Yes, it’s a railing and there are literally 2 big gaps like somebody supposed to walk through these, except it leads right out into the edge and over it. So when I’m watching this movie for the first time I am also afraid of heights. I’m thinking why in the hell is there does this railing not go all the way around here. I don’t care how trendy and cool this house is, there is no good reason for this to be a death trap like this.

Craig:Exactly. Okay, so she’s sleepwalking, she walks out onto it, she walks right up to the ledge, and I read that There was nothing going on here. There were no effects, there were no safety nets, nothing. Like this poor young actress just walks up and stands on this ledge where she could have, you know, a big gust of wind could have come and

Todd:she could have just flown right off. I have to say that really pissed me off. First of all, the scene terrified me and then when I went back and I read that they actually shot it that way I was so angry. I mean that is such an irresponsible thing to do. It is. As a filmmaker and I can’t believe that there was a set full

Craig:of people that allowed that to go down. And where was their insurance agent? Like, don’t they have insurance people on sets?

Todd:So I had to go back and look at that scene and see it like frame by frame to see what she put herself through. And sure enough, I think her arms are out a little bit, because you know, she’s kind of like, it’s almost like she’s drifting towards it. She’s got her arms out, and is blowing through her things. And I could tell maybe she was using, because she’s staring straight ahead. I mean, that’s the whole point of the scene. It’s like she’s sleepwalking almost off the edge. It looked like maybe she was using the left   or the right side of her arm to just feel like it would brush up against the railing, which could kind of tell her where to stop. And then you could see her foot goes right up and her toes curl over the edge. So you could see how deliberate she was about making sure she didn’t go off. And I’m thinking, oh my God.

Craig:Yeah, you couldn’t, you couldn’t, there’s not a amount of money that you could pay me to do that. Like, just walking out on that balcony, period, I would have been prostrate on the ground. Like, get me out of here.

Todd:It’s awful.

Craig:But you know, you suffer for your craft, I suppose. Anyway, so she has this dream. And so she and the priest link up again with the machine and Reagan starts speaking as Pazuzu, which is the demon. And she tells, again, there are just so many stupid things. Like she tells the priest, like, she says, call me. And he says, Reagan, Reagan? And she says, no, call me by my dream name. And so he calls her Pazuzu. And then Pazuzu takes him on this whole trip or whatever. Now I’m not a priest but I am Catholic and   priests are not just gonna mess around with demons like that. Like, okay, what are we gonna do? Where are you gonna take me? This will be fun.

Todd:This will be fun, right?

Craig:But for story purposes, Pazuzu is like an evil god of the air or something. And so it can fly around on the wings of these locusts or whatever. And it takes him and it shows him this village where another, and it’s lazy because it’s flashback and exposition and also trying to advance the plot, but it just, it feels lazy. But we see Father Marin in this tribal place, I think it ends up being in Ethiopia, and he’s trying to exercise this young African boy. And The guy that they got to play, Young Max Sedow, I don’t   know who it was, but he looked just like

Todd:him.

Craig:He did. So, good job. He tries to exercise them and he can’t, and then, I was like, what is happening? They’re climbing cliffs, I’m like, what is going on?

Todd:It’s almost deliberately disjointed. You really, is this the same day? Is it later? Are we in a different place? Who are these people? You’re right. It’s just cut, cut, cut,

Craig:cut, cut. And it turns out, I mean, I didn’t figure this out until later, but it turns out that it’s this, I don’t even know if this is historically accurate or geographically accurate, but in the movie, there are these big churches built into the walls of these huge cliffs, and they have to climb up the cliff to get there or whatever. And they go there and he, because it’s a holy place, he’s able to exercise Pazuzu. But Pazuzu tells our priest, Father Lamont, that the kid is still alive. And the guy’s like, oh, well, if he’s   still alive, show me where he is. And he’s like, well, I can if I want to. And I could take him back right now if I wanted to. So he flies him again to some other tribal area that we don’t know where it is. And they find this guy who is now a grown man, but the guy like turns into like a leopard and chases them off

Todd:well it’s so dumb it I mean let’s just talk about this flight for a second too because the way that this is filmed is they had some footage of actually pretty impressive footage of a locust flying stationary that the bottom of the screen basically is this locust like we’re right behind it or we’re riding it and it’s flapping its wings and at the same time we are you know POV over it drifting through these villages and over land and whatnot across the terrain of Africa but whenever we dip into these villages it’s like the people can   see this little locust or presumably maybe there’s more on top of it? I don’t know. And they’re running from it, like they’re scared. It just… Why, Craig? Why is it so bad? It’s like Godzilla, you know? It’s like people running from Godzilla down these streets and away from this locust. Yeah. That’s flying through the town and so much of it looks fake. You know, he tried to film all this on location and it proved to be impossible so they actually had to film a lot of these scenes that take place in Africa and all these exotic   locations on Warner Brothers’ backlots outside and it shows, you know, there’s just something about these scenes that don’t look quite right and authentic. Sometimes it’s the backdrop and sometimes it’s the way things are built like the mud huts and things like that look They just look a little too built. Artificial. Artificial, yeah, thank you. Like you’re in a theme park somewhere.

Craig:Right, and I agree with you. I didn’t make my partner watch this 1 with me, but he was like, how was it? And I was like, well, And really my general feeling is I don’t really think it’s that bad. I don’t think it’s as bad as the reputation that it’s earned but what I said was the parts that are bad are so bad that it kind of just Mars the whole movie and and and that’s 1 of the things and I also just thought there was just too much going on and Like the original cut I   guess was 3 hours long and they ended up cutting it down and it’s almost a pretty clean 2 hours now, but There’s just so much going on with these side stories that you just don’t get particularly invested in any of it, I guess.

Todd:And that’s the problem with a kind of metaphysical-ish movie, too, is because so much of the action is happening in these weird ways, like in people’s heads or in these dreams or these dream trips or whatever we’re supposed to be, which gets back to what you said earlier. There’s no urgency here. Right. All of this supposedly exciting and crazy stuff is going on between 2 people who are strapped to a dumb machine, you know, staring at flashing lights. It’s not affecting them here and there in the moment. And it’s almost like if it weren’t for the   suggestion that she might still be possessed by this demon, they could all just shut it down at any time and just say, oh well, well that was interesting information, but you know, because there’s no danger to anybody, there’s no immediate danger to anybody in this film until towards the very end.

Craig:Right. And so when they come out of this, you know, when they come out of the hypnosis, they’re not supposed to remember anything, but they do now for unexplained reasons. And both the priest and Reagan remember what they saw. And this is when they start to realize that this boy also was a healer, like the girl in Mexico, and so that they’re building towards that. And then Reagan immediately goes out and starts talking to this girl. And again, she’s so charming. I totally believe that she would go out and talk to these special needs kids. But   she starts talking to this girl and she’s like, what’s wrong with you? And the girl is like stuttering and stuff, but she says, I’m autistic and I can’t talk. And Reagan’s like, well, you’re talking to me right now. And the girl’s like, I am? You can hear me? Yeah. And then the mom and the doctor come out, and the girl is talking. Reagan says something when the priest and the doctor are the only ones left around, like after the mom’s taken the girl away or whatever. And she’s like, I just started talking to her. And at   first she was talking on the inside and then she started talking on the outside. And so of course, we’re led to believe and it seems like even Reagan is starting to realize that she is some sort of healer as well. And she even says that she would like to start working with the other children, but the doctor says, no, not yet. You know, we don’t know what’s going on. It’s too dangerous, whatever.

Todd:The Doctor says, literally says, please don’t try anything like that again until you’re older. Yeah, it’s just so dumb. Again, there are these crazy things happening. People are getting into each other’s dreams. She’s healing people, stuff like that. But there’s just this sense that, oh well, business as usual at this crazy clinic. You know, they’re interested in it, they’re pursuing it, but it doesn’t have the weight and the gravity that it should have. And then the things that the movie lends such weight and gravity to are almost a little too overwrought and a little silly. It’s   just off balance to me, I think. I think that’s why it feels so ridiculous.

Craig:Yeah, it is unbalanced because then, you know, I’m most interested in Reagan’s story. And then, right after this, we leave her for, well, for the most part, for like a good 15-20 minutes. And Lamont goes to the church and is like, I need to go to Africa to investigate. And they’re like, no, you’re bad. And so we’re taking you off the assignment or something. But he goes anyway. Well, before that even Reagan and Lamont meet at the Museum of Natural History for whatever reason. And they talk, they have this big talk about universal consciousness.

Clip:Father, do priests believe in ESP?   Some do. In fact, a French priest tired of shut down thought that we’d all come together eventually in some sort of mental telepathy. A kind of world mind in which everybody would share.   When is that supposed to happen?   I don’t know. Father Marion himself believed that with modern scientific research it could happen quite soon. I mean the kind of research that Dr. Tusken is doing.

Craig:That was a good thing unless it wasn’t. And like. That’s right, that’s how he puts it. Like, because either, you know, we can all be mind melded together for good unless we become corrupted and then we’re all mind melded together for bad and then that’s bad. So Lamont goes off to Ethiopia looking for this boy, Kukomo, who was the 1 that was possessed before. And there’s a whole big thing where he visits the church and like he tries to talk to the elders, but then the elders think he’s like a devil worshiper or something. And then   Ned Beatty shows up and takes him to the village where Kokomo lives. But for unexplained reasons, the villagers won’t tell him where Kokomo is. So he looks around for him for a long time. And then he eventually finds him, and it’s James Earl Jones, much younger. And like, when he finds him, he’s like, in this ceremonial garb where he’s like dressed as like a locust and he’s sitting in this temple or something. I don’t know. But he’s like, you have to make the choice. You have to decide between good and evil. Evil’s trying to corrupt you   because the priest even relied on Pazuzu to help him find the boy, which again is stupid and silly. But then like there’s this whole thing It’s like you have to take a leap of faith and you have to make a choice and you have to walk over these broken shards of glass that are sticking up out of the ground. And the priest is like, okay, well, I’ll do it. And so he does. And he steps on the glass and there’s a gross shot where it like shows all the glass like coming up out of the top   of his foot. And then he falls as though he’s gonna fall on the glass but when he like startles back into consciousness they’re in a lab and Kokomo’s like a locus scientist.

Todd:I was hoping you could explain this to me.

Craig:No. I can’t. I have no idea what’s going on.

Todd:I have no idea either. In fact, I don’t even know what the point of this whole scene was. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. You’re right. So he stands up and he’s in a lab and it’s this lab totally devoted to locusts. There’s like locust paintings on the wall. There’s locusts. I was thinking is this like, is this a weird mind trip that he’s having where he’s melding the modern with the tribal as though this is just sort of a modern version of what you might like a religious place, you know, where you have all   this iconography and stuff all up around devoted to 1 singular purpose where everybody, you know, is studying God or studying this deity or whatnot, but in this case, it’s a locust. And so you got locusts on the walls. Everybody’s studying locusts there. Locusts in big containers in here. That’s kind of what I thought might be happening, but then it just drops. Like it’s done. And he brings him to James Earl Jones who looks like a scientist, glasses, smiling, laughing, everything.

Craig:Lab coat, right?

Todd:Brings him to these locusts in the in the big containers. We get lots of really cool close-up shots of locusts doing all kinds of gross things. There’s a little bit of voiceover where he tells him some stuff about Locus and I guess some of it’s supposed to be significant, but it went right over my head.

Craig:Yeah, it went totally over my head too.

Clip:But most importantly, the brushing of the wings changes their personality. They become a destructive, voracious, marauding swarm with a single mind. A locust mind, if you will. The evil swarm sweeps relentlessly over the earth, possessing all that it touches Evil breathing evil by contact when   the wings of brush you is there no hope once the wings of brush you   we try With the help of science.

Craig:I don’t know. The point that we’re supposed to get, I think, is that if the locust’s wings like touch you, then you’re like marked and then the other locusts will eat you or kill you or something like that. But the whole point is, it’s a metaphor, obviously, and it’s supposed to be like, once you’ve been touched by evil, you’re forever marked by it. So like once Pazuzu has touched you, you’re forever marked and stained by that or whatever. But then James Earl Jones is like, but we’ve genetically engineered this 1 locust who we call the good   locust. That’s a really creative name. Good job. We call it the good locust and it doesn’t do that. It’s going to eradicate this problem. It’s going to start a whole new wave of good locusts or whatever. And so in my notes, I just have, so Reagan is the good locust, and then, yeah. Like, that’s

Clip:what it turns out to be.

Todd:Oh, and gosh. And then he’s just back in the United States again. I mean It’s just it obviously there’s a lot of stuff cut out of this movie You know there’s a lot of how do people get from here to there? Like I said, I was left a little wondering the significance of the information that he had except like you said okay it was it’s a metaphor but but what good does that do him

Craig:oh they try to tie it back in at the end but it’s just I mean it’s

Todd:it doesn’t drive him along to solving this problem you know you know None of this is it’s it’s like a movie that is three-quarters exposition

Craig:Mm-hmm,

Todd:it’s all backstory all exposition all telling us how everything is going to be significant Just wait until the last you know 30 minutes and and we’ll actually get some action here that has some bearing on the characters. It’s going to have some urgency.

Craig:Well, yeah. I mean, and it’s really more like the last 15 minutes of this 2 hour movie, which is fine, whatever. But meanwhile, Reagan is still back in the United States and something happened to the priest where the villagers thought he was a devil worshiper so they were throwing rocks at him and Reagan was doing her tap recital and she could feel it, she was getting stoned too. She falls off the stage, she gets hospitalized and then while the priest is still in Africa apparently now they can mind meld

Todd:whenever they want. Yeah. Right.

Craig:I don’t know. It’s so weird. The priest comes back, Reagan runs away from the hospital where she’s been admitted because of that whole incident, and Reagan steals the mind melder machine, as I like to call it. They meet up again at the Museum of Natural History, because that’s their special place. The favorite meeting rendezvous place. And They go to a hotel.

Todd:They go to a fleabag sleazy ass hotel to do their mind build again. I’m thinking, oh, this is good for this priest.

Craig:And he’s not dressing as a priest anymore, I notice. Like he’s not wearing his clerical collar. It’s like he’s a fallen priest or something

Todd:at this point. And once again, you know, there’s a lot in the exorcist to do with the background of that 1 guy that we were talking about earlier, Father Karras. The more interesting of the priest in that movie, where he’s clearly got… It’s strongly hinted at some deep-seated psychological sexual issues that maybe he has, maybe some urges

Craig:that he has. Well, and he’s having a crisis of faith. I mean, that’s a huge part of the first movie is a crisis

Todd:of faith. Yeah, and all of this is also linked in there as well, because she gets at him in certain ways by making certain comments that are really bad. And here, you know, there’s this odd scene toward the beginning of the movie where Lamont and the Dr. Jean are sitting down and having a chat. It’s very brief.

Clip:Do you have children of your own?   Yes I do, too. A boy and a girl. I’d like to spend more time with them.   Must be difficult with all your responsibilities here.   Not to mention the complications of being divorced.   You seem to manage. Your heart is good.   It’s hard to live alone. Don’t you ever need a woman, Father?

Craig:Yes.

Todd:So there’s that. And then a little later on, when he’s going to Africa and these villagers are ostensibly taking him to see this guy, but they end up taking him to see a prostitute. And he looks up at her and I thought, oh, are they trying to kind of go here? But then he just walks away from that. And then here’s this bit where he’s in this fleabag hotel with this woman. I thought maybe something was going to go down between them, or he was going to get these urges, or there was going to be some   implication.

Craig:Jared Well, it almost seems like there should have been because in the final act, there’s a weird scene.

Todd:Jared Yeah.

Craig:Jared God, I don’t even know. It doesn’t even matter how you get there. They mind-meld, the priest goes into like this weird trance. Well, first, when they mind-meld the original priest, Max von Sydow, whatever his name was, says She’s special and I’m turning her over to you. You’re responsible for her now. And then Reagan comes out of it, but he really doesn’t. Like he’s kind of in a trance, like a waking trance. And he just starts walking away and she’s following him. And ultimately he’s leading her back to DC where all of the events happened. And   she calls Dr. Gene and Sharon, the nanny is there too, and says, you know, we’re going back there, he’s going back there and I have to go with him, I have to make sure he’s okay or whatever. And so they’re all headed to DC and I don’t even really understand what’s going on. Like all these weird things are going on and at 1 point the priest says, oh, I can feel the power. It’s getting so close. I can do anything I want. You called Jean, right? And she’s like, yeah. And then, Like all these supernatural or   seemingly supernatural things start happening to seemingly try to delay Gene and Shannon from getting there?

Todd:It seems to be, but I’m still confused as to why they’re going there. What is it about, Is this like a haunted house thing? Where they have to go back to that original room? It’s really important? Like, I couldn’t figure out for the life of me, even after it happened, why he was being compelled to go back to that place. And that’s a real problem. Did I miss something? Because they visited it earlier. Did I miss something important except for the shot of a locust, like, you know, up in the corner, buzzing its wings?

Craig:No, I don’t think you missed anything.

Todd:There’s just a big gaping hole, and that is motivation. Why is it important that he goes back to this place? How is this suddenly sinister that he’s gonna find something there? And then there are these supernatural forces that are trying to keep the other 2 from catching up with them

Craig:I really don’t know and it’s very confusing to me because at some point I   think it’s Kokomo or whatever his name is, says you have to rip out the heart of the demon or something like that. And then somebody else says to the priest, when he says, well, I have to save the girl or something, and somebody says, well, which girl are you going to save? Are you going to save Reagan or are you going to save Pazuzu? As though they are 2 different people, which has never been explored or introduced before. But then eventually they do get there and well the priest and Reagan get there and they you know   go back into the house at which by the way They were not allowed to reuse any of the original shooting locations, so they had to recreate everything on sound stages and stuff. It looks the same. Anyway, they go back and he goes in and opens the door to her old bedroom and is freaked out and she’s trying to help him. Reagan is. He just points at the door and she goes and opens it up And there she is. So now we have Evil Reagan in the bed and good Reagan not like they’re 2 separate entities. What   like yeah, I really don’t understand what’s going on. And then to make matters even worse, she, evil Reagan, you know, looks, you know, all possessed and cut up and gross for a second, but then they transform her into very sexy, hair blown out. Like, like she’s like this sex pot on the bed and they’re both talking like Pazooz is talking and Reagan is talking and Pazooz calls the priest and is like come to me or whatever, you’ve chosen me and so he like jumps out with her? Yeah, he like makes out with her for a little   bit.

Todd:It’s just, again, I thought maybe there was that implicate, I thought, oh here’s my payoff. This very slightly alluded to by a few very brief references was, oh okay, all along he’s sort of been lusting after Reagan and that’s gonna be his undoing or he’s or just some woman to come on to him. He’s paper thin if that’s what it was supposed to be. But yeah he jumps on her.

Craig:It’s very confusing.

Todd:He starts making out with her.

Craig:Meanwhile The women are on their way Like they’re playing almost crashes and then the demon like takes over the cab and makes it crash right in front of the house And the cab drivers dead and then this is the other part that I didn’t understand at all all of a sudden Seemingly out of nowhere now Sharon is evil. Yeah Like she is trying to help Pazuzu. And I think that this was supposed to be kind of this whole crisis of faith thing. Like there had been a little hints dropped where she said like she couldn’t even   look at Reagan for like 2 years, but now She’s back and it seems like it’s only when she’s with Reagan that she’s at peace So I don’t know if that’s supposed to mean that somehow she’s attached to the demon inside of her or something. But Sharon sets herself on fire using the gas from the car accident to keep Dr. Tusken from getting in. And then just all hell breaks loose and it’s like Pazuzu tells the priest to kill Reagan and he starts to he’s like strangling her but she’s pleading with them and then she starts pleading   not in the voice of but using the same words as the Spanish girl who he had been with beginning like you know why me why me I’m a healer why me or something like that and then all of a sudden

Todd:he’s back to normal really quickly

Craig:right really quickly

Todd:he leaves on to the deck yeah yeah and attacks the other Reagan the evil Reagan at which point all hell really breaks loose. Like the walls of the building start breaking apart and the floorboards are coming up.

Craig:A swarm of locusts attacked.

Todd:It’s just mass chaos and then it’s like the floor breaks apart and there’s this big chasm now and Reagan’s on 1 end by the wall just on this tiny little ledge and he’s battling the other Reagan in the bed and the bed’s tipping towards the hole. And then we get this shot of him literally reaching into her chest and pulling out her evil heart. Like literally has a dripping heart in his hand.

Craig:Well, the whole floor collapses and everybody falls down to the bottom. And then Reagan and the priest walk out and they find Dr. Tuscan and Dr. Tuscan is like crying and she’s like, I’m so sorry, Reagan. I understand now, but the world won’t the world isn’t ready. And so so the priest and Reagan just walk away like they’re just gonna

Todd:walk into the sun

Craig:right like I don’t need she’s like you have to get out of here before the cops get here like why like she didn’t do anything like what is the world not gonna understand I don’t get it there’s a little moment where Sharon says like before she dies she’s all burned up she’s like oh I chose evil and the priest is like no your beautiful soul was corrupted or something like that and she says oh Reagan and Reagan’s like oh Sharon this and he dies

Todd:the whole time this this long-ass scene is going on I’m sitting here thinking where are the neighbors hasn’t anybody stepped out to see what’s been going on this entire house

Craig:collapsed Yeah this is DC it’s not like it’s… And then they just walk off into the sunset and the indication that I got was like they’re going off now on their own journey and like because she’s special now I really don’t understand what the end is supposed to mean.

Todd:Well, she’s been identified as a healer and now she’s been put into his care and so they’re gonna go off and I guess start to heal people.

Craig:I guess but why would they have to hide anything?

Todd:I mean she could go back. I guess she’s older now She’s a couple days older. So now the doctors deemed it’s okay for her to start using her gift I would just go back to that clinic and start healing people there and kind of you know start small. So are we also supposed to believe there are other people like her? I was thinking like maybe maybe if you continue with this like Exorcist 3 like now they would have to assemble the Avengers or something maybe her next task is to go out and find the others and   then they can join forces and overcome evil for good. It’s a mess of a movie.

Craig:The Exorcist 3 is actually based on the actual sequel that the original writer of the novel   wrote. And   so I feel like they kind of abandoned this story. And Then there was another, so there was a sequel and then there were 2 prequels that were filmed at the same time. I don’t know, I saw 1 of them. I don’t remember anything about it. Then there was a TV series maybe last year, a couple of years ago, and it got really, really good critical reviews. Apparently, I didn’t watch it. I want to because Gina Davis played the lead and really spoiler alert yeah spoiler alert if you haven’t watched the series and you want to I   only know this because I read spoilers but it turns out that Gina Davis is Reagan and it kind of wraps up Reagan’s story in the first season and then they got a Second season which took it in a totally different direction and also still got really good critical response. They didn’t have the ratings. They got canceled. Anyway, you know in terms of this movie, I really don’t think it’s that bad. I thought that like If it weren’t a sequel to the iconic Exorcist, it was an okay movie. It was fine. I mean, I wasn’t bored. It   was confusing at times, but there were some interesting things going on. It had amazing, amazing talent as far as the actors are concerned. Now, when Reagan was playing Evil Pazuzu and Sexy Reagan at the end, it was pretty laughable. It was pretty bad. Beyond that, you know, Everybody who was involved with it says it was crap. It was a low point of my career. I Don’t think it’s that bad. I was going into it with really super low Expectations I wasn’t looking forward to watching it really And I watched it and I was like, it was   fine. You know, like,   I   wasn’t a terrible movie, but it just it by no means holds up to the original.  :00

Todd:I think I’m gonna, I’m gonna match what you say, but I’m gonna go a couple notches down from that. I think the movie’s pretty dumb and it’s pretty dumb in some extremely laughable ways that anybody should be able to see before they commit it to film. Or once you’ve committed it to film and you’ve put it together, you’ve got to know this movie’s in trouble and something’s got to be fixed and some of it just requires such a suspension of disbelief that it’s it’s supremely frustrating you know you have and I think  :00 – :25 I will also give them the benefit of the doubt that this movie’s been chopped up a lot. Obviously, if your original movie was 3 hours, you have to cut out a lot of stuff to get to 2, then there’s probably some stuff in there that might have clarified things, or some of these threads might have just been a little more consistent or a little more obvious, and they’re all we’re seeing is little fragments of it maybe. So I would say regardless of whether it’s a sequel to The Exorcist, my opinion is it’s a ridiculous movie but  :25 – :32 it is not the second worst movie ever made and that is what people are claiming. I mean the Razzies or whatever,  :32 – :32

Craig:you  :32 – :39

Todd:know, they put this at number 2. Like Ed Wood, number 1, which is also not the worst movie ever made. They got this  :39 – :40

Craig:in number  :40 – :47

Todd:2. Come on, it’s not that bad. Anybody who really thinks that has never really seen a truly bad movie.  :47 – :51

Craig:We’ve reviewed a dozen movies that are  :51 – :23

Todd:way worse than this, you know, this is competently filmed. And let me transition into some some nice things about it. You know, some of the acting is quite nice. They’re definitely well regarded actors and actresses in here. This might be the low point of many of their careers, but they all had good careers and it would have been so much worse if they weren’t in it. I will say that Richard Burton’s performance in here is 1 note. I mean he just stares off into space the entire time They said he had a drinking problem, I guess  :23 – :54 and was drunk on half this movie and that shows but it’s like he never got Any other direction? It just gives you no emotional range whatsoever, which makes it also hard. It’s like, man, this is not the guy you want at the party, you know, let alone to spend 2 hours with. But, you know, as I said earlier, there were some interesting visual things happening here. He was clearly trying to do something different. And I’m not gonna knock a person for trying to do something different and failing. The worst thing is just to do something completely  :54 – :09 boring. So I’m very mixed on it. I’m not gonna say it’s a good film at all. I’m not even gonna say it’s really a watchable film. It’s super confusing, but I don’t I’ve seen so much worse that I don’t feel Like I wasted complete 2 hours  :10 – :15

Craig:Yeah, and I think that we should do part 3 at some point because  :15 – :15

Todd:yeah  :16 – :48

Craig:people hold that in much higher regard. And I know I’ve seen it, but I don’t remember much about it. But it might be interesting to talk about. Anyway, at the end of the day, I don’t think that it’s as bad as its reputation makes it seem that it would be. I didn’t find it unwatchable. 2 hours for me is pushing it. I prefer a good hour, 20 hour, 30, but it was fine.  :49 – :51

Todd:I guess I’ll just leave it there.  :51 – :52

Craig:It was fine.  :53 – :21

Todd:I managed to stay awake this time barely so that was good. Well thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. We have more sequels coming up for you to round out the month. And then we’re going to get into your requests again. So if you do have some requests and you haven’t submitted those in, go to our website, 2guys.red40net.com, or you can check out our Facebook page where we have pretty lively discussions going on there as well. Just leave a comment on 1 of our posts  :21 – :27 or post something to that page and let us know what you’d like us to review in the near future. Until that time, I’m Todd  :27 – :28

Craig:and I’m Craig  :28 – :30

Todd:with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

February is once again our Month of Sequels again this year. We already did the David Cronenberg version of The Fly and gave it high marks, so we thought we’d give the sequel a spin.

Episode 159, 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 are into our month of sequels. We did this last year in February, it was Todd’s idea and I thought it was a good 1 and so we decided to do it again this year and when we started talking about it I just went online and started searching around for interesting horror sequels and I kind of made a list of things that sounded interesting to me. And I sent it to Todd, and 1 of the ones that I sent him was the movie that we’re doing this week, which is The Fly 2. There are a couple of reasons I wanted to do this. First of all, we’ve already done The Fly. Our friend Simone co-hosted with us that week, and We had a lot of fun talking about how sexy Jeff Goldblum is and all that stuff.

Todd: He’s a big Jeff Goldblum fan.

Craig: That’s right and I was surprised to find out that neither Simone Nor Todd had seen the fly to and that’s the other reason that I wanted to do it is because this is a movie that for whatever reason I saw a lot when I was a kid I feel like they must have played it on cable or or I don’t know network cable or something when I was a kid and I’m pretty sure that I saw the fly 2 well before I ever saw the original.

Todd: Oh I see.

Craig: Yeah and I may have been drawn to it because Daphne Zuniga is in it and I was a big fan of hers from Spaceballs. And Eric Stoltz plays the main role. He plays Martin Brundle, the son of Seth Brundle, Jeff Goldblum’s character from the first movie. When I was a kid I really liked it and I haven’t seen it in well over a decade I’m sure and I was kind of interested to go back and check it out and I don’t know my feelings about it are a little bit mixed positive for the most part but a little bit mixed. You hadn’t seen it, right? So did you know anything about

Todd: this? I knew nothing about it going in. I didn’t even realize that it picked up right where the first 1 left off. And actually, I mean, I think it’s a fine movie. There’s nothing horrible about it. It’s perfectly serviceable. I just, you know, I think after watching The Fly, both versions, you know, and you can go back and listen to our podcast on The Fly. We’re not going to talk too much about the originals, but you’ve got to a little bit when you’re talking about the sequel. On our original podcast about The Fly, I talked about how not only is The Fly by David Cronenberg an amazing and emotionally powerful film, but even the original with Vincent Price is surprisingly emotional for a different, slightly different reason, but along the same lines. It just seems like this story of this scientist who gets unwittingly pulled into his experiment and starts to transform into a fly. The wonderful thing about it is it really focuses on the people around them. What does this do when the person is breaking down? Yeah, it’s horrible for you, but it’s interesting how both of those movies seem to focus more on how does it affect others and that’s where I think the real emotional resonance is. I didn’t have high hopes for The Fly 2. It’s not, I think, a very notorious film, but it just doesn’t really mine that same emotional content really that the original 2 did, it would be difficult to do it or else you’d be kind of making the same movie a third time. Sure. And it really tries to, I think. It’s trying to get there, but in the end of the day, I think it’s just kind of a monster movie, you know? Yeah. And that, so as a monster movie, perfectly fine. Perfectly fine. We’ve seen much worse. Of course we’ve seen better. But there’s nothing wrong with this film. But in the lineage of what came before it, it’s a bit of a letdown.

Craig: Well, that’s how I ended up feeling about it too, and watching it again. And in the first, I don’t know, 30 minutes, maybe even 45 minutes, I don’t know. I thought that it was really kind of going places. And then in the second half, it didn’t fail to entertain me. I was engaged and I was enjoying it and there were interesting things going on, but I Did find myself thinking you know this it really is inferior to The original and that’s not really saying much. You know the original is kind of well excuse me I guess I’m talking about the Jeff Goldblum, which isn’t the original, but the 1 that directly precedes this movie. It’s kind of revered as a classic for the reasons that you’ve said, not only because there was a lot of innovation with the special effects and practical effects, but also because it does have such emotional resonance. And like you said, they go for it here, and there are parts, there’s 1 part in particular that just kills me in this movie.

Todd: I think I know which part you’re gonna say

Craig: to me. Oh yeah, I’m sure it’s really hard for you to guess which part

Todd: it is. I can’t wait for us to get there,

Craig: but I ultimately I did end up enjoying it And I think that some of that comes I think Eric Stoltz does a really good job in this movie You know he’s got kind of an interesting role to play The movie moves at a really fast pace. It’s an hour and 45 minutes and it moves along. So there’s a lot going on. So I expected that we would have tons and tons of plot to cover and maybe we do. We’ll see how it ends up. But I ended up not taking as many notes as I expected to.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Like you said, it basically picks up right where the first movie left off. I don’t remember what Gina Davis’s character’s name was in the first movie. Do you? No. Veronica?

Todd: Something like that.

Craig: I think it was Veronica something like that But anyway, we find out in the first movie that she is pregnant She has become pregnant by Seth Brundle and and she became pregnant by him after he Did his whole teleport thing and it was really before he had started to go through any major transformation but the DNA swap had already happened so she’s pregnant with this weird fly DNA baby and we knew that At the end of the last movie and this movie picks up when she is giving birth Gina Davis chose not to reprise her role. They wanted her to They asked her and she declined For a couple of reasons. First of all, there was a fantasy birth scene in the Jeff Goldblum movie and she had found that somewhat traumatic and didn’t particularly want to relive it, which is what this role called

Todd: for. Yeah, that would have been everything she did in this movie.

Craig: Right. Well, that was the other reason that she wasn’t particularly interested, is that her character only really appears in the very beginning and she dies in childbirth. And that’s what happens. You know, it’s this tense birthing scene and she ends up giving birth to some kind of, I don’t know, like the science here is pretty wishy-washy She she gives birth to some kind of like pod or something and and then she dies even before an infant emerges from this pod.

Todd: Yeah, I thought that was hilarious. This pulsating, grotesque-like pod thing comes out of her stomach, and then after they’ve clipped the cord, they break it open like they know to do this or something. And you’re right, inside of it is this perfect, fully formed infant. Yeah, I think when you’re dealing with genetics and DNA mutations, especially in science fiction and horror, we have to give a lot of leeway to anything can happen. And that’s pretty much where you’ve got to go with this. There’s no hard and fast rule about what the fly can and can’t do, how fast he mutates, how he mutates, and this sort of thing happens a couple times in this movie.

Craig: Right. And that’s, you know, okay, so that’s where it picks up. Well, she gives birth at the facilities of Bartok Industries, which I don’t know, I know it played a role. Was that who he worked for in the original?

Todd: Was he maybe getting its funding from some investors or from some guy or something. Maybe, maybe. I think it’s kind of like that in a little bit because the Bartok Industries in the original had kind of nothing to do with him. He was on his own doing his own thing and under very little supervision as I remember, Pretty much in his apartment. Well, not his apartment, like a studio somewhere.

Craig: Sure. Well, anyway, now they are running the show, apparently. And when this baby, who they named Martin, is born, They keep him under observation, like strict observation. They basically raise him in a lab. They tell him eventually that he has this genetic disorder that’s incredibly rare, only 2 people have ever had it him and his dad of course they don’t go into any detail and and tell him that he’s a fly or anything but the main side effect I guess of this genetic disorder that is observable is that he ages at a rapid pace so when he’s 11 months old chronologically he’s really like 3 or 4 year old kid. And we see them doing, you know, like some blood tests on him and it’s a little heavy-handed. Like the scientists, there are 2 scientists that seem to be kind of in charge of him. I called them the bitch in the douche bag because that’s basically. Well,

Todd: you’re right it’s heavy handed. These 2, it’s established pretty quickly, Well, when he’s a baby or an infant, Dr. Janeway says to Mr. Bartok, who is, of course, the head of Bartok Industries and basically considers this kid his surrogate father because he’s like his corporate parent.

Craig: Right, right.

Todd: She says to him, As a clinical subject, I find him astonishing. But he does try our patients when it comes to medical examinations. And by the time we see him, you know, years later as he gets older and older, these people just hate this kid’s guts. Like, nobody can be nice to him at all, especially these 2. It’s hard to see why. He’s not a bad guy.

Craig: No, not at all. He’s actually very polite and mild-mannered and like he totally goes along with everything that they tell him to do and they’re just mean.

Todd: Yeah. Is it just jealousy or is it just this weird like he plays a trick on 1 of the guys. He’s got this, of course, when he looks like he’s, I don’t know, 10 or 12, he’s really only what, 4 or 5 months old, he has all these science experiments, he can put together all these things, he puts together this contraption that goes onto his head and interestingly enough, kind of makes him look like a fly in a way.

Craig: Yeah, it’s

Todd: got little antennas and stuff He like squirts water at him the bad scientist and he’s not again kind of weak How it establishes their hatred for him? It just seems awfully strong

Craig: it and honestly like seriously the kids there are 2 kids You know that play him as a child 1 very young who we only see for a matter of minutes really and then another 1 Who’s probably like 10 who you know? He’s a cute kid and like he’s a mild-mannered kid like It just doesn’t seem like there’s any reason for them to have such animosity. I mean, I guess everybody hates their job. I don’t know.

Todd: Maybe if your job was to take care of 1 kid every single day that was not yours, yeah, I guess it’s like a few years of babysitting, that would turn anybody off, especially if your kid is aging at a rapid pace and you have to go through all these phases so quickly Well,

Craig: and and like they they give him these shots every day that they tell him, you know is to slow his genetic mutation or something I don’t know but like it’s in the lady doctor even seems to like find joy in stabbing every day

Todd: I feel bad for this poor kid. Well, we’re talking absurdity. There’s this sequence where he is getting his blood drawn, and he’s a little older by this point, and she stabs him, and he says, oh, you missed the vein, and she doesn’t even seem to care. And then, like, The needle breaks off on his arm. Like how does that even happen? It was just so bizarre.

Craig: I always thought, you know, it’s silly, but when I was a kid I always thought, Oh, it’s because, you know, he’s this genetic mutant, so maybe his like tissue is really super strong or something like that. I don’t know if that but you’re right. First of all he says you missed the vein and then the needle breaks and blood starts shooting out of it. If she missed the vein blood is not going to come shooting out of the needle. But whatever science be damned. When he looks about 10 years old, we also find out that he’s incredibly intelligent and his mind is maturing even more quickly than his brain and he’s Super, super smart. So he wants to get out of his little room, but they won’t let him. And so he, I think, memorizes the number on 1 of the mean doctor’s security tags, and he gets into the computer and he makes himself up a security tag where he can pretty much go over he wants. The first night that he gets out he finds a lab full of research animals. He takes a liking to this beautiful golden retriever And they spend a very nice evening together and like the dog lays in his lap and he pets the dog and it’s have some wine some snacks Candlelight no, it’s just you know, he finally has somebody to talk to you know it’s like it’s kind of his actual first real connection with anybody. He feels a connection to Mr. Bartok, I don’t know what his name is, because Bartok treats him favorably and calls him his son so you know he does feel a connection to him, but this is a guy that just shows up a couple times a week to pat him on the head and, you know, like, it’s not a real relationship. Yeah, it’s it’s it’s not affectionate. It’s just, you know, okay, you say you’re my dad. So you are. So whatever.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: So it’s sweet that, you know, he makes this connection with this dog

Todd: And I just have to say he makes his way to this dog You know you see a lot of crawling through air vents and movies This has to this has to be some kind of record for the largest air vents I’ve ever seen anybody this kid could practically walk through the air vents in this facility

Craig: You know cuz they’re always like sneaking around and try and get away and in this movie like he’s creaking through these air vents and it’s the noisiest thing ever. Like, surely somebody would hear, like, what is that? Like, uh-oh, raccoons in

Todd: the vent again or something. They’re like whole rooms and hallways in the, up above the suspended ceilings and all of these offices.

Craig: It’s crazy. Anyway, so the next day, I guess, they serve him dinner in his little lab room. But he stuffs it away in a plastic bag, and then he’s going to go take it to his friend, the dog. And so he goes to find the dog and the cage is empty but there’s a tag on it that says that it’s been moved to like area 17 or something. I guess intuitively he finds this place and he walks in to this big observation deck full of people who don’t notice him walking in wearing his huge helmet and we get the reveal of the pods from the first movie. Oh it is dramatic too. Oh yeah it’s this big orchestral score. Like it’s very exciting. And so, you know, having seen the first movie, we know what the pods are. They’re these teleportation pods or whatever. And that’s what caused all the trouble in the first 1. And so he watches as they put this dog in 1 of the teleportation pods. And of course we know that something terrible is going to happen but he doesn’t and it’s very You know like he’s waving at the dog and like the dog sees him and is like whimpering and excited to see him and stuff and then the teleportation happens But then this monstrous creature of a dog Jumps out and attacks the scientist now I have to say I have been putting myself on a time crunch to watch these movies. And so my partner has been forced to watch these movies with me the past several weeks. And this is not a movie that is up his alley at all, but he agreed to watch it. And I told him, because we are both big time dog lovers, as soon as we saw the dog, I said, do not get attached to this dog. And he said, oh, does he at least get to live for a while? And I was like, I don’t remember, but don’t get attached to him.

Todd: Yeah, sort of.

Craig: And after I said that, you know, like, he’s like, does he get to live for a while? Like then it’s right away that he gets teleported or whatever. And then this, you know, puppety monster dog jumps out and he’s like, oh, well that’s stupid. And I was like, no, seriously, it’s horrible. Like, don’t even think about it anymore. Cause it pops up later and it just devastates me. But that’s getting ahead of myself.

Todd: This is how you you break Craig down is you put seeds like these in the movie. Just put dogs in there when horrible things happen.

Craig: I can’t. I can’t handle it. I don’t like I I can watch people get you know hacked to bits by chainsaws but you hurt animals and I just can’t deal with it. They’re just too sweet and innocent and I can’t deal with it. But anyway, so the kid is traumatized by this, but Bartok is there and he tries to comfort him or whatever. And then we cut immediately to his fifth birthday party where he’s Fully grown, Eric Stoltz. Yeah. Bartok tells him, for your birthday, what do you want? And Eric Stoltz is like, you know what I want. He’s like, OK, I know. You want your privacy. You want to get out of this room, because he’s lived his whole life in this room, where they can watch him from behind mirrors and stuff. And he says, all right. And he takes him on a walk and he takes him to this lovely studio apartment and says, this is your apartment. You know, it’s your private place. No more prying eyes, no more mirrors.

Todd: Yeah. No more 2 way mirrors. Now real quick, before we get there, this scene for his birthday party, when he asks him if he wants his privacy, he tells him to say the magic word and make the mirror go away. Martin turns toward the big double mirror and I guess does something or literally says some word under his breath and the mirror shatters?

Craig: No, he throws the champagne bottle at it. Oh he did?

Todd: Okay, that makes a lot

Craig: of sense. Bartok hands him the champagne bottle and says they had a weird scene before when he was a little kid And it seems so odd like I don’t really even know how this It just seems like such an odd concept in this movie, But when he was a little kid, Bartok said to him,

Clip: You know, it’s knowing the right magic word that makes it happen. It’s a real magic word, a secret word, that you keep locked away inside your heart, and you never tell anybody. You know, you don’t tell anybody, and that’s what makes the magic work.

Craig: It’s so dumb. It’s so random.

Todd: Yeah. Well, you know, when the credits come up on this movie, it says that they’ve got 5 writers on it and in some ways it shows and this is 1 of them. Like you just wonder if this was something that was just a nibble of a bit that should have been bigger or in an earlier draft of the script made a little more sense than it does in this movie. But you’re right, it just seems super random. It does come into play later, but again, It’s just, it’s really poor. Yeah. It’s weird, it’s weird.

Craig: It seems superfluous, like, you’re right. Like it was a plot element that kind of just got diluted at some point and it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense.

Todd: Well, okay, that makes sense, because I didn’t see him toss that bottle and I was thinking is he psychic now? What is this magic word? You know? Yeah

Craig: No, he tosses the champagne bottle.

Todd: And then he also offers him a job.

Craig: Because they’ve been working on these telepods, But they can’t get him to work. Yeah, and so he wants Martin to continue his father’s work And he says, you know, your dad was kind of a genius and maybe that was passed on to you so I want you to work on it Martin says I don’t like these things and He’s like I get it. It’s about the dog. I’m really sorry. And he says, I promise you, we did everything we could for your dog. And I promise you, it didn’t suffer. And so he convinces him. And so then, Martin starts working on the pods.

Todd: Interestingly enough, Jeff Goldblum makes an appearance in this movie, which was clever. He’s not actually in the movie as himself, obviously, because he’s dead. And he’s not in here as flashbacks either, but if you remember from the first movie, he had this thing where he was videotaping his progress. And that was a pretty happy accident because then they can pull up these videotapes, which are, you know, in storage at Bartok Industries, for him to watch. So that’s how he gets to know a little bit about what’s going on. And I feel like here there’s a real missed opportunity. It’s really just a couple times we see him talking about some very specific things about the test or about himself, but there’s almost a total detachment between this kid and these tapes of his father. Here would have been a very interesting moment to get him a little emotional about, you know, I mean, he’s kind of maybe by this point since they’ve let him out, they’ve given him a little more free rein, He’s diving back into his father’s work to continue it. You’d think, oh, he’s starting to maybe feel an attachment or start to question, you know, what was my dad like? What was his work all about? What drove him? You know, what’s driving me? What’s my legacy? There’s none of that. It’s just not that kind of movie. And so he watches a couple tapes and I think 1 of the tapes was actually pulled from a deleted scene that they didn’t include in the original fly, so that’s kind of nice. They had originally intended to do another tape that would have required Jeff Goldblum to come back and get makeup and stuff. And so I guess they canned that idea. They didn’t want to pay him or he wasn’t willing or something like that. So we don’t see too much more of him, but we do get little glimpses of him, which is always kind of nice.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: When you can throw back to the earlier movie with a character. The only other guy who carries through in this movie is the, like the third, the second guy, like there’s kind of a love triangle thing going on in the original and that character, Stathis, I think was his name.

Craig: Yeah,

Todd: yeah. He comes in later, played by John Getz, but he’s the only guy carrying over from 1 movie to this 1. Sometimes a sequel can seem really cheap if there’s absolutely no link, you know, this kind of link between the 2. And so it was nice that they could do that, I think.

Craig: Well, and I thought that it was cool, and I guess probably just kind of a happy accident that the footage that they were able to use was footage that was not used in the original. So it feels kind of fresh. I mean, it’s not, really. But it feels like it, because we haven’t seen it before. I mean they could have very easily just used some of the footage that we actually saw in the first movie but you know that would have been rehashy which there’s nothing wrong with that I suppose but it’s nice that they had this additional footage that they could show us. And the only thing that bothered me about it was that they dubbed over Gina Davis’ voice and the lady who replaced Gina Davis, apparently they cast her because she looked like Gina Davis. Well, you barely see her at all.

Todd: Yeah, she’s got an oxygen mask over her most of the time anyway.

Craig: Yeah, so what’s… And she doesn’t sound anything like her. I almost would have rather they had somehow, you know, cast somebody that sounded more like her than looked like her, because that took me out of it just a little bit, but I agree. It is nice that we get this cameo of Jeff Goldblum, even if it is old footage, but old footage that we haven’t seen before, so awesome.

Todd: And he is also working night shift because he doesn’t sleep. It’s just like a fly, you know, he has a very short lifespan. Yeah. And so he’s working around the clock. And while he’s on night shift, he decides to go out and I guess explore a little bit.

Craig: He’s looking for something organic. He gets the pods working where they will effectively transport non-organic material, but he needs something organic so he goes out looking for a plant or something.

Todd: And then there’s a bit of hearty har har. He sees a little fly on the ground that is attached to a string that gets pulled away and then gets tossed again. And so when he grabs it and goes around the corner, it turns out that there is a woman in there who is practicing her fly fishing. Yeah, at work. Oh my god. Really? Which 1 of the fives idea was this? It’s

Craig: a really…

Todd: Yeah, it’s not clever, it’s really stupid.

Craig: It is. But anyway,

Todd: this turns out to be, like you said, Daphne Zuniga. I think she did this just a year or 2 after Spaceballs.

Craig: Yeah, Mel Brooks recommended her for the role. And she’s not, you know, I like her. She’s really pretty and she’s really endearing. She’s not the greatest actress in the world. Especially towards the end of the movie where the emotions start to get heightened. She’s a little melodramatic, but she is very charming and they do. She and Eric Stoltz have a nice chemistry, which I appreciate it. But her name is Beth and she has a cactus,

Todd: so… There’s some organic matter.

Craig: Right. I mean, it’s clear that he’s immediately drawn to her, as a young man who’s never been around a nice pretty girl before would be. And so he tells her that he’s working on the most important invention of all time, and she’s like, haha, good line, Romeo. Heard that 1 before. Yeah. He’s like, no, seriously, come look. He tries to transport the cactus but it comes out a mess.

Todd: And she’s not even impressed by that. Like, come on, throw this guy a bone. He may have come out wrong, but he teleported the darn thing.

Craig: Right, true. Like, the pot was still OK.

Todd: She just like rolls her eyes, OK, try again later. Call me back when you get this right.

Craig: Exactly. And immediately after that, we have that scene that you talked about before where the needle breaks off, but what’s interesting about that scene is that he tells the doctors that for the first time ever, he slept for 2 hours. And he’s impressed by that. And it seems like we’re supposed to believe that because he met this girl and had this interaction like he’s feeling and potentially becoming more human or at least that’s kind of The impression that I got.

Todd: It kind of gets dropped. It’s tenuous. Again, this seems to be like a thread that they’re maybe introducing, but it doesn’t really go anywhere else from that. It quite goes the opposite, to be honest. So after this, there is a romantic montage where we see him dancing with her in the shadows of the lab sharing a candlelit dinner with champagne on the catwalk above the lab. Doesn’t really take us out of their lab too much, actually. At this point, it’s basically the first movie. With this little twist that this guy doesn’t know, he didn’t do this experiment to himself, he’s already this way, we’re getting exactly the same thing. There’s a relationship kindling between these 2 people and you know it’s not going to end well anyway if that’s the way that the first movie went. So I was kind of rolling my eyes at this a little bit. Maybe if I’d just seen the movie by itself it wouldn’t have felt so weird. Although it still feels a little rushed.

Craig: It does, but at the same time it’s so 80s. Like you know what I mean? There were always these romantic montages. And so, I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s nostalgia or what, but it didn’t bother me. In fact, I thought it was kind of cute. And especially since he, you know, like, he doesn’t have anybody. Like, he’s really just alone. And so now at least he has a friend to, like, dance in the lab with. You know, that’s nice.

Todd: I just wanted to know if he had told her he was 5 years old yet.

Craig: I know. I know! They sleep together later. I turned to my partner and she just slept with a 5 year old. So bad. But it’s okay because he doesn’t look 5. That’s all that matters, right? No, I’m just kidding That’s a terrible joke.

Todd: He performs like a five-year-old too, so That sexy was awful, okay,

Craig: yeah, so so they you know they have this little romance and then she, there’s gonna be a get together, like a work get together, like in the building, I guess. I don’t know, it’s all weird. It’s like it’s this big compound, I don’t even understand. So she invites him, she’s like, would you come? And he’s like, well, are there gonna be people there? She’s like yeah, he’s like oh, okay.

Todd: You know how I’m about people

Craig: Yeah That’s totally me like are there gonna be people there? Anyway, so he goes and she’s there and she looks all cute and she’s talking to 1 of her girlfriends And she’s like, I don’t know. He’s really shy hoping he’s that I hope he’s having fun or whatever We see him and he’s just standing there very awkwardly but this group of people walks by and they’re talking

Todd: Genetics we don’t make them we just keep my life You kidding? He’s our pride and joy here and specimens Our longest running engagement, so to speak. 2 years. That’s been alive for 2 years? You call him Timex. Takes a lickin’, keeps on tickin’.

Craig: And so he gets curious and he walks in the direction that they were coming from. And this didn’t bother me when I was a kid, but it’s so stupid, really, now. He walks out, like, onto the roof. Now, the scenario is stupid, because why would this thing be where it is? It doesn’t make any sense. Like he’s like on the roof and he looks down into like this big… You remember in Star Wars?

Todd: When Luke Skywalker gets tossed into this pit, and I don’t even, was it at Jabba the Hutt’s place, remember? Yeah, yeah. And everybody’s looking down and this cage opens up in the 1 corner and out comes this giant monster towards him and the ground’s covered with hay. Yeah. And all that. That’s like what this pit is. Right.

Craig: But it’s like an observation deck. And like they’re like a story above the bottom of the pit that they’re looking into. And it’s just this gross, nasty pit. Like, why? Why would there be this, like, observation deck on the top of this building right outside of an apartment? Like, I don’t, or whatever, I don’t even know.

Todd: Because it wouldn’t be super dramatic if it wasn’t.

Craig: Right, fair. Okay, so then this is the part that just kills me, and I, it really shouldn’t, but it does. So he looks down there, and what’s in there is his dog, in its terrible, terrible, deformed, tortured state. And this is clearly a puppet. I don’t even know if it was animatronic, if it was being moved by somebody off screen, I don’t know. It doesn’t look real at all. It looks totally fake, but it’s grotesque and it’s making these horrible, sad whining sounds.

Todd: Now wait a second. When you say it looks totally fake, Do you just mean that something this grotesque is going to look fake, or did you think it was kind of ineptly made?

Craig: Well, I don’t know if inept is the right word, but it didn’t look organic to me. It looked like…

Todd: Little bits and pieces were moving.

Craig: Yeah, like it was slimy and stuff, but it looked like a Jim Henson creation more than something that was actually alive. And thank God, because I couldn’t have handled it if it looked more real than it did. I can’t handle it. What I’m getting at is I can’t handle it even though it looks fake.

Todd: It’s just cruel. The idea of

Craig: it is

Todd: just terrible.

Craig: They’ve kept this poor, horrible, suffering animal. I’m going to sit here and cry talking about it. That’s how awful it is. Like, they make a point of saying it’s been 2 years, 2 years that this poor animal has been suffering in this terrible pit. And like not only that, But like they shove in like some slop for it to eat and it really is

Todd: just

Craig: like just disgusting and it drags itself over and it you know is Eating this slop and it’s clearly miserable and Then it just howls like in misery and it’s terrible. And of course it has a terrible impact on him because he knows what it is and he cries and cries and runs out and Daphne Zuniga chases him. And I don’t even know if she knew what was under there or Understood what the significance of it was I don’t know but he shuts

Todd: her out. He blames her for it somehow Yeah, why I don’t know

Craig: right? I don’t know either. I mean I guess just because she’s part of the organization, I don’t know. Maybe because he’s 5. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he’s 5. But he runs away and he locks her out of his space and he says, I never want to see you again. Don’t come around here or whatever. And then thank goodness, you know, he doesn’t waste any time in going back and putting this poor thing out of its misery. But the scene just kills me because he walks in and the dog lunges at him as it had lunged at the scientist earlier. But of course it would, it’s a terrified, in pain animal. I mean, that’s their instinctive reaction. And when he doesn’t react in fear or with violence then it calms down and it actually it seems as though it recognizes them And you can just see this poor, fake, disgusting dog. You can see its tail start to wag and it just kills me. Like literally I’m crying. And he sits down with it. He sits down with it and puts his head in its lap and pets it and then, thank God, puts it out of its misery. But I swear, and I’m sitting there with my partner and we’re both just silent and just staring at the screen and I look over at him and he doesn’t even look at me and he goes, I hate this movie.

Todd: Well, no joke. I got to get, I got to come to your side on this 1. This, this was the most emotionally heart wrenching scene in this film by far. This got to me too. What a horrible, horrible thing. You know, even back with him, befriending this dog. I mean, forget for a minute that it’s a dog and we just, bad things happen to animals is horrible, but it was almost Shades of Evil speak. You remember that with Ron Howard’s brother? Where he, you know, was this kind of lost guy and his only real friend in the world is this little dog, and then something terrible happens to this dog of his. It’s not just a cute dog that he found, but it was his companion for a while. And then something horrible happened to it, and his consolation was at least it was put out of its misery, but he didn’t forget about it. And then it turns out it hadn’t been put out of his misery so you know he’s got reason to be pissed off at Bartok who’s freaking lying to him all the time. Now okay so first of all let me finish with the dog thing. I thought the dog puppet was pretty good for the 80s. I know what you’re saying. Nobody’s going to think that this was a real creature, but I thought it was pretty good as I thought all of the special effects and practical effects in this movie were very good, the creature effects. The director of this movie, Chris Wallace, this is 1 of his first directing gigs, and 1 of his few actually, but he came up through Roger Corman. He worked on Piranha and Humanoids from the Deep, which is 1 that we’ve done. He had a small role to play on Star Wars Return of the Jedi doing creature design and effects. And a few years before this movie was the creator and designer of the Gremlins, which is another movie that we’ve talked about, and we’ve talked about him on that episode as well. Fantastic job on Gremlins. You can even see a little bit of that in this, when you see the fly at the end, I think that he’s almost got gremlin eyes, but you know, he comes up he does enemy mind. He does the origin, all the creature effects for the fly, which were outstanding. Yeah. Which we’ve done on this show. Then he went and did the makeup and creature effects for House 2, which we also did on this show.

Craig: Love it.

Todd: And I guess by this time, they had asked for a number of people to direct. David Cronenberg wasn’t interested in directing this movie. He wasn’t available, I guess, to direct the second 1. Boy, I would love to have seen this, by the way, directed by David Cronenberg. That would have been interesting. Even Sam Raimi was offered the part of directing this, but he and his brother Ted had written a treatment for it that was super goofy, and I think they were just afraid to put him behind it after that. And so he ended up with it. And so, you know, first time director, but obviously he made sure that the creature effects were solid because he also did them for this movie. And I thought it was good.

Craig: Well, it certainly was effective in tugging in my heartstrings. I shouldn’t say it looked bad. I just I mean it was it was good and it was heart-wrenching I Would say overall I thought the creature effects were good too And I actually like you said how interesting would it have been to see if David Cronenberg had done this because I feel like this movie, they must’ve felt like we have to step it up from the last 1 because they do. I mean, the eventually there is the complete transformation. He turns into, you know, this giant fly. And I really liked those effects too, and of course they were all practical, and they did a lot of really cool stuff with the camera work, and only showing certain parts of it at certain times.

Todd: Not to dwell too much on this, but I just have to say once again another really missed opportunity here Something that didn’t make a lot of sense to me is like we just said he gets really angry at her Why does he wait until so much later in the movie to get angry at mr. Bartok? I expected the next scene to be him storming into his house or his office and screaming at him like, you were my dad and you lied to me about this dog and blah blah blah blah blah. And there’s none of that. None of that happens.

Craig: Right. No. I mean, he does eventually get mad at him, but for a different reason. You’re right. That would make sense. But it’s at this point in the movie where he starts to change. After the whole needle in the arm thing, he told the doctors that he wasn’t going to take his medicine anymore. As it turns out, as we find out later, they’ve just been injecting him with placebo the whole time anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. But at this point, he starts to change. The wound from the needle starts to seem infected, and then it starts to progress. I guess before that, it’s important to say that he forgives Beth. Awfully quickly. Very quickly. But you know, that doesn’t even ring untrue to me. Like he reacted emotionally in the beginning. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t do anything. And so it’s like he realizes that and he gets over it and he apologizes and they get back together. And then they have sex in his apartment. The sex scene wasn’t that bad, except for in the very beginning of it. She’s like straddling him, and they’re having sex. And I turn to my partner, I’m like, it’s always fascinating to me when women have sex with all their clothes on. I know that I’m not really experienced in that whole area, but that’s interesting to me. But wait, look, now she’s taking her top off. But anyway, they do it. It’s a very 80s, safe for network television sexy. Steamy, all of her

Todd: clothes on. They got the sheets completely wrapped around them and there’s some gauze in front of

Craig: him. As you do, you know.

Todd: Of course. Just like when you get out of bed, you make sure to wrap yourself in a sheet so your partner doesn’t see you naked. Right, exactly. In the morning.

Craig: You don’t want that. No, that’s just you. But anyway, so they are back together, they have sex or whatever, and then she sees his wound and she’s like, you should have that checked out. And so he goes back to the mean doctors and like, oh, it’s just an infection. But the point is, at this point, he starts to progress pretty quickly. This would be my only actual complaint. Overall, I really actually still think this movie is fine. I enjoy it. But the makeup effects, when he starts to change, I was not impressed by. Jeff Goldblum, the makeup effects with his gradual progression were so good. And this, like especially when he first starts, like, you know, eventually he turns into a great big giant fly and that looks cool but when it’s just kind of his face starting to change it looks to me like Halloween makeup or or stage makeup it looks very plasticky and prosthetic II and I don’t know I just wasn’t particularly impressed what Did you feel the same way or am I overreacting?

Todd: No, it really didn’t bother me too much. I thought it all kind of happened too quickly. Once again, This movie doesn’t take its time and quite frankly I’m glad it didn’t. It would have been really boring if it did. But 1 thing that was a hallmark of the original is just seeing that gradual change. It’s just more and more and more depressing. That’s just David Cronenberg. He loves this kind of stuff. Whereas this movie, it’s like he’s all seems fine. And then he looks down at his arm and it’s a little goopy. And then the next scene is he’s on his girlfriend’s houseboat, which I was like, oh, I didn’t know she lived on a houseboat. You know, suddenly he looks like half of his face looks like Frankenstein. I just thought, well, this is gonna go quickly. And I guess it does. I don’t know. I felt like there should have been some catalyst. I mean, it just turns out this is his destiny. This was always going to happen. They were prepared for this to happen, and eventually they just keep injecting him with nothing to make him think that his condition is being addressed. And then without any real catalyst, suddenly it goes from manageable to, oh my god, I’ve got half a day left.

Craig: Right. Well, and that’s the thing. He sees, OK, so he finds more videos, I guess. I don’t know if they were hidden from him before or whatever. But he sees the guy from the first movie, Stathis, you know, warning about these changes or whatever, and then he sees his dad in the evolution to the Brundlefly. And so he knows what’s going to be happening to him. And then Bartok comes and he confronts Bartok. You want this to happen?

Clip: Of course I want it to happen. You’re the pattern and the prototype for a whole new age of biological exploration. With you as the model and the telepath as the tool, Bartok industry will control the form and function of all life on earth.

Craig: Corporate greed, blah blah. It’s alien. Right, exactly, Exactly. But so he escapes and he goes and he finds his girlfriend and they’re on the run together and he’s continuing to evolve, devolve, whatever you want to call it. And he has this whole monologue at 1 point where it’s like he’s passed the point of no return and he has this monologue about how he’s actually getting better, like his senses are better. It’s all very spooky.

Todd: And it’s like the first 1 once again, but not as convincing, maybe just because it happens too quickly. But there’s this aspect to the first 1 where not only does Jeff Goldblum actually kind of get some superpowers But he’s also almost half delusional like this is a good thing It’s obvious that he’s falling apart But it’s almost like the way he copes with it is trying to convince himself that he’s not, that this is an improvement. And in this movie, he just kind of jumps straight to that half evil sounding, I have all these powers now and I am improving, and then pulls 1 of his eyes out or something to reveal the fly underneath and gets really sinister towards her.

Craig: Yes. And so she calls Bartok because she thinks they’re the only people that will know what to do. And obviously they’re the people, not that did this to him, but that have been fostering it or whatever but I understand her rationale like there’s nobody else who are you gonna call and so she calls them and they come and get him you know we kind of skipped over at this point he’s just like Jeff Goldblum did like he kind of turns into spider-man and he can jump on buildings and climb on walls and stuff. But they come to get him and by the time they get him back to the lab or shortly thereafter, he kind of goes into a cocoon again, which again, like, hello science, like flies don’t do cocoons. He’s not a butterfly, but whatever. But eventually he breaks out of the cocoon and he’s this huge fly. And I don’t know, you know, it had to be in part costume and part probably puppeteering and maybe part animatronics and like I said before they did a lot with Camera work so that you would only see its leg moving or you would only see its head moving but I found it to be very effective. It looks big, it looks menacing. I thought it was pretty scary. I thought it looked good.

Todd: Oh, it was a fantastic monster at this point. Yeah, I loved it. And again, at this point, it just became a monster movie for me. I think that was the letdown for me was, okay, now he’s this giant, no bones about it monster and it’s going to be alien in this research facility as he picks people off 1 at a time. And I, You know, I love to point these things out, but this, it’s just so funny, like how this Ms. Jane way is by herself in the lab monitoring this guy and he breaks out and all she can do is sit there and scream. I’m thinking This is like the loneliest, most understaffed advanced research facility in the whole world. They’ve got something of such significance and there seem to be like maybe 8 people in the whole building to deal with it. And it’s of course the 8 people we want to see die.

Craig: Yes, and you do. He kills both butthole doctors, which I appreciated. There’s also been this butthole security guard who’s been giving him crap the whole movie. I think he eventually kills him. Is he the guy that gets smashed in the elevator? I don’t remember. Somebody gets their head smashed in an elevator.

Todd: 1 guy gets his face melted off. He sprays his acid vomit on him. I was really quite surprised. I really wasn’t expecting this from this movie. I was expecting creepy creature effects. I was not expecting the in-your-face dwell on them extremely gory death sequences. I mean, some of the goriest stuff I’ve seen in a movie and it’s well done as well. So yeah, this guy’s head being crushed, the camera doesn’t cut away at all. It’s just here. Here’s a guy’s head being crushed for a few seconds. Here’s this guy’s face being melted off. And then after his face is melted off and he’s reached up and he’s peeled off half of it, he’s lying on the ground, and when they come in, he’s still alive, just sitting there gurgling. I’m like, oh my God. And you would think that would have the same emotional resonance as the dog, but no. The dog was worse.

Craig: No, no. Yeah, totally. Well, and that’s the thing, like you’re right, it does kind of become alien for a while, and it’s just him kind of running around killing people. And this is so silly, and maybe it’s just people like me who will appreciate things like this, but they highlight that Even though he has become physically this monster, at 1 point the guards sic a Rottweiler on him. I have a Rottweiler, she’s my big baby girl. And this dog runs up to this big monstrous thing and like is barking at it at first and then is like, oh shit. It’s a big monster. Maybe I should just chill out. And the big fly pets the dog. Like, and I know that that may seem so silly to some people, but to me, what that indicates is there is still humanity in him. You know, that part of him that was so moved and so connected to his little doggy friend is still in there somewhere. He’s not just a monster.

Todd: It’s a nice idea and that does come across, though I think it’s pretty clunkily handled. And also I like this moment where he comes up to her, where he comes up to Beth. Beth is kind of cornered. He walks up and they have like a look and then he walks away. Again, it just seemed, I don’t know. I mean, it’s like the scene that they had to have, you were expecting it. You can’t do the movie without it. But when it was done, I was kind of like, oh Like there I don’t know like there’s supposed to be some chemistry there. Maybe somebody should have said something When he walked away, I just thought man if I was Beth I’d be like, all right. Well, that’s that Yeah, I mean it was good while it lasted but looks like I’m gonna have to move on

Craig: Yeah, there was definitely more of an emotional connection between Gina Davis and Jeff Goldblum.

Todd: And He wasn’t 5.

Craig: Right, he wasn’t 5. But anyway, we left out at some point in the movie, 1 of the videos he’s watched, 1 of the last ones, he found out that the pods can cure him, but the only way they can do that is by extracting healthy DNA from somebody else and giving it to him and giving his bad DNA to somebody else which would kill them.

Todd: Yeah, the way he found that out was he just asked the computer, remember?

Craig: Yes! Like he’s like, okay Google! Can my DNA be replaced? Oh god, that was so funny. It was like he was at, like he invented Siri and like he was just… Siri, can my DNA be replaced?

Todd: You know, without these movies to record it, nobody really realizes how amazing our computers were back in the 80s. We really took several major steps back in just a couple decades, kids. You just need to know that. It was pretty funny.

Craig: But anyway, he figured that out. And that’s why initially when Beth is like, isn’t there anything you can do? He was like, no, because it would mean I would have to kill somebody else. Well, now they’re all, you know, cornered in the lab and it’s just him and her, Beth and Bartok. And Bartok, I feel like is holding her at gunpoint or something. And somehow he gets the advantage, Martin does, and he grabs Bartok and he drags him into the pod and he tells Beth.

Todd: First he drags him to the computer and gets his claw on his finger and makes him type the password on

Craig: the computer. The magic word.

Todd: Which was dad. Aww.

Craig: I know. Aww. Well, and like, that’s the thing. I actually kind of thought that was sad because Bartok was the guy that told him about the magic word So I’m guessing that when he chose that word he was thinking about Bartok as his dad.

Todd: Yeah And there’s also a moment earlier when he’s confronting Bartok, which you already went through, but he has this line where he looks at him and goes, I loved you. And then he stormed out, which wasn’t the best delivered line. But again, they’re trying to hammer this home, but it’s just so clunkily handled. And once again, we haven’t really had much time to see the relationship between these 2. It’s really hard to believe that Bartok’s interactions with this kid was nothing more than every couple of months popping out of his office ducking his head in and saying hello. You know, we still throughout the movie don’t get an indication there’s much more between them than this. So if it’s this really sad situation that he, even despite this, had these strong, affectionate feelings for Bartok, it just does not come through.

Craig: Agreed. Agreed. But, you know, I think that that bothered me less just because he had nobody so even the most tenuous Relationship would be something that he would cling to because he had nobody except for the butthole doctors That’s true and and Bartok anyway, whatever it doesn’t matter he He drags Bartok in and he indicates, because the fly doesn’t talk, he indicates to her, to Beth, to hit enter, which is All you have to do to start the sequence. It starts the sequence and they transport and you see this monstrous, gross Frankenstein slimy thing pop out, but then Martin walks out and he’s fine and Bartok is now this hideous monster thing. So it’s the happy ending. And then the most satisfying part of the movie to me, and it’s cruel, it’s horrible, It makes me a horrible person for feeling this way. It ends with a shot of Bartok now in that gross pit cage that the dog was in before and somebody feeding it the slop. I shouldn’t wish that on anybody, but he was really mean and I’m glad that he got what was coming to him.

Todd: But he was mean to that dog, damn it.

Craig: He was. I hope that he has to stay in there for 2 years before somebody puts him out of his misery.

Todd: Yeah, I was not expecting a happy ending to this movie. I thought, you know, the guy’s transformed into a fly, what more can be done? But yeah, it’s genetics, right? So we can fix all that.

Craig: I guess that there was a sequel to the actual original, The Fly. I don’t remember what it was called but I guess that they gave it a happy ending too so yeah sort of this is kind of in keeping this is kind of in keeping with that I guess but

Todd: that 1 was ridiculous by the way

Craig: oh I haven’t seen it I haven’t seen and I feel bad I definitely need to see the Vincent Price 1. But, you know, when all is said and done, my memories of this movie were fonder than maybe they deserve to be. It’s not great. Honestly though, I think that if it weren’t a sequel, that if it were just a standalone movie on its own, I would have thought, you know, this is a pretty good 80s monster movie.

Todd: I like keeping in mind 80s.

Craig: Yeah, right. Compared to the original. No, it’s not as good. The original is better, but I still liked it. I was entertained and I liked the characters. I, you know, the ones that you’re supposed to like. I thought Eric Stoltz did a good job and Daphne’s Inigo was serviceable as the sweet, you know, romantic pairing or whatever. It wasn’t perfect And there was certainly some hammy acting especially in the final act, but I think it’s a fun movie. I like it

Todd: I think I’ve said about everything I could say about it. I agree with you It’s a fun movie and if it weren’t a sequel to this I probably would have received it a lot better again considering it’s a movie from the 80s so you have to forgive some of these tropes.

Craig: Yeah, yeah.

Todd: Things that are pretty typical about the movie, the rushed romance, you know, the ridiculous science, and even some of the hammy acting, you know, is forgivable. At the end of the day, as a sequel to The Fly, it just really let me down. I just thought there were so many interesting places They could go with it, and it just turned out they just wanted a big monster movie and so even the first Three-quarters of the movie even though they were rushed through could have been almost faster,

Craig: maybe

Todd: You know But that bit with the dog in there killed me. So that took some skill.

Craig: Yeah. Well, I mean, it is what it is. And that’s, you know, it’s always hit or miss with sequels. And as far as sequels go, they’re hardly ever as good as the first 1. No. There, you know, there’s the rare exception where they’re as good or sometimes even better. But In terms of sequels, I think that it is a serviceable sequel. I’m glad that we got to see Jeff Goldblum again. The guy that played Stathis, it really felt like they just kind of stuck him in there because he was in the first movie.

Todd: He did

Craig: nothing. He didn’t have much to do. It at least honored the first movie, you know, like it acknowledged and appreciated the first movie and I liked that. It’s not amazing. It certainly didn’t win any awards nor would it ever but if you’re a fan of the fly and or if you’re a fan of 80s movies which I totally am I’d say check it out

Todd: it’s not a waste of your time and it’s

Craig: 1 of those 5 writers on the film was Frank Darabond.

Todd: Yeah!

Craig: Who went on to do even bigger and bigger things. He’s got, you know, this guy’s got his fingerprints in a lot of really interesting movies throughout the years.

Todd: Correct me if I’m wrong, didn’t he do like Shawshank? Green Mile.

Craig: He’s a writer, kind of 1 of the show creators of The Walking Dead, and he did The Mist, and oh yeah, he’s had his hands all over a lot of stuff. He did the screenplay for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Did you know that? No. Yeah, so anyway. Yeah, again, There were some talented people working on this film, and I think the special effects were quite good as well. Much better than a lot of 80s special effects.

Todd: So oh, definitely, definitely. And practical. And you know, if you listen to this podcast at all, you know that we’re big fans of Practical Effects. Mmm. And they were, they were good. Well, we are going to be back with you for the next couple of weeks with a couple of more sequels. We’ve got some interesting ones planned, so I hope that you will tune in for those. If you enjoyed this episode, or if you didn’t, I suppose, you can drop us a comment on our Facebook page or our website, which I will let Todd give, because I can never remember how it goes.

Craig: 2 guys dot red40net dot com. We really ought to change that.

Todd: But I’m too cheap. You remember it. Anyway, let us know what you think of this movie. If you have fond or not so fond memories of it. Or just engage with us in conversation about whatever you would like to talk about. We really do love to hear from you and we try to get back to everybody who contacts us so drop us a line. We’ll be back with you

Tommy requested this sequel-in-name-only to Prom Night. We enjoying chatting about this surreal, odd little movie that should make a bit more sense than it does. The spirit of a dead prom queen haunts and possesses poor Vanessa to avenge her death…or something.

Episode 158, 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. And I’m Craig. Well, Craig, today I think we finish up our month of requests, but we have received so many requests this month. We’ll probably do some more requests in the near future after after February. What do you what do you think?

Craig: Oh yeah, definitely. We’ve gotten some really good ones.

Todd: You know, we feel a little guilty doing a month of requests and during that month saying, hey send in your requests, when really we’ve already pre-selected

Craig: all of the requests. And pre-recorded.

Todd: It’s true. Sorry, folks. So we’re gonna honor those requests that are coming in starting, probably starting in March, because we have something special planned for February that I’ll probably tell you about at the end of this podcast just to keep you listening.

Craig: This week’s movie is actually a really nice transition.

Todd: It is, isn’t it? Because we could have done it for February. Yeah. So today’s movie was recommended by Tommy and it is Hello Mary Lou! Prom Night 2, the 1987 supposed sequel to Prom Night. That being said, it bears no relationship whatsoever really with the previous film. In fact, it was originally written as a completely different film, and the producers just renamed it Prom Night 2 to capitalize on the popularity and success of the original Prom Night. I mean, they have some similarities. They both have to do with Prom Night. They both have a principle that is highly involved in the stuff that’s going on. There is murder that happens in this movie, and they’re both Canadian productions. This has to be the most Canadian of Canadian movies we’ve seen thus far on this.

Craig: Oh my gosh. I don’t know I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t know if I know what the characteristics of a Canadian movie are but if totally kind of weird and crazy is how you define Canadian movies then yeah Totally Canadian. No the other I was also reading they were like, they said there were other connections like the the high school has the same name as the high school in the original movie and supposedly that was totally coincidence. I don’t know, I find that a little suspect.

Todd: That’s a little hard to believe. I read that the director was, or actually the writer was asked to go in and do some additional directing on a couple more scenes when they decided to rename it. Maybe to give a little more tie-in and also I think they decided that the blood or whatever needed to be amped up just a little bit even though there’s or I don’t know they just didn’t feel like it really worked as well as it could and so he went in and added a few more scenes and I don’t know you can see a list on the trivia of it, but I don’t really see how those few more scenes really did anything different to an otherwise weird movie that’s a bunch of weird scenes strung together anyway.

Craig: Yeah, I read the same thing that you did, and the scenes that were put in post, they’re some of the crazier scenes, so I feel like they were trying to dial it up a little bit but I don’t know I had never seen this movie before I own it I’ve owned it for years but I had never watched it and you know I had heard a little bit about it here and there. I knew that it wasn’t really a direct sequel and I had heard that it was kind of, you know, it has a little bit of a cult following and but that’s kind of all I knew about it. And I was watching it and I just, it was so weird. Like it reminded me of so many things like I feel like I don’t know if it was inspired by directly or if I was just ripped off connections but yeah well it totally did It’s a mess like

Todd: it’s a mess of a movie. It’s like it’s like I think it’s a movie of ripoffs. It’s just 1 scene after another references some other horror better horror movie

Craig: well like they explicitly reference the Exorcist and there’s You know a possession thing going on here. It felt like so much to me. It felt like an early Nightmare on Elm Street movie. In tone and in imagery and stuff, it felt so much like an early Nightmare on Elm Street movie. And then the end is just demon carry, like explicitly. Yeah, it really is. They just take all of these elements from these other movies and paste them all together. And I can’t even really say that it doesn’t work. Like it’s cohesive, I guess. It’s wacky and off the wall, but I don’t know. I mean, I had a good time watching

Todd: it. I think we’re gonna have a lot of fun talking about it. I was really excited when Tommy recommended this movie and I think I really push for it because I remember remembering this movie, you know what I mean? Like, the cover, I knew I owned the VHS tape and in my mind I was thinking, oh yeah, as a kid I watched this all the time. I think we’re pretty honest about ourselves on this podcast. I think, you know, what we make up, what we might lack in intelligence and witty dialogue we might make up for in telling pretty personal stories about ourselves. Yeah. You know, we lay

Craig: it out for our viewers and- I’m worried about what you’re going to say. There’s only so much I need to know about your adolescence, Todd.

Todd: I think upon reflection, let’s just say I think I more or less wore out this tape on 1 scene and 1 scene only because that’s the scene I remembered And there is no other scene from this film that rang a bell with me at all. I mean, quite honestly, I really didn’t watch it very often. Just, you know, we’ll get to it. Okay, yeah, all right. There’s me, baring my soul for you guys. No, this movie, like you said, it feels like Carrie crossed with Nightmare on Elm Street. It really does. And then, like you said, there’s an exorcist bit thrown in, and then there are just bits and pieces of pretty typical genre fare throughout the movie. I felt it was like pretty predictable in many ways, although there were a few surprises. I think the unpredictability came from just the wackiness. You’re like, oh so this is gonna happen, You know,

Craig: and not knowing where it

Todd: was all going to end up. But at the end of the day, where it ends up is about where you’d expect it to end up. So, yeah, I mean, let’s just dive in. This starts out with a sort of flashback sequence in 1957. Well, I should say it starts out with a bunch of just credits and some shots of the high school being empty. And then it takes us to a trunk that I thought originally was in an attic, but I think later we find out it’s in the basement and the trunk is ominously zoomed in upon and kind of shakes and lights up or whatever. And then we go back to our flashback, 1957 prom at this school. Maybe before that there’s the confessional scene?

Craig: As the title would indicate, prom night 2, hello Mary Lou, which is a hilarious title by the way. Yeah. But yeah, this girl Mary Lou, she’s living her life in the face or whatever. She sure is. And she’s like, she’s real pretty and I couldn’t tell if this was like a Catholic school or if it was just like adjacent to a church. Like I couldn’t tell. But anyway, she goes to confession and her confession is hilarious. So funny and so cliched, but I love it. And then it goes to their prom in 1957 and she is a prom queen nominee and there’s all kinds of intrigue. I guess that she’s dating this guy named Bill, this good looking guy, and he gives her a ring with her initials on it. But then he’s walking around and he can’t find her and he ends up backstage in this gymnasium and he finds her, to say making out is really kind of an understatement. This girl gets around, but she’s making out with this other guy, Buddy, I guess, backstage. And she says something like, it’s not who you come with, it’s who takes you home, or something like that. I don’t know It’s almost like Billy her boyfriend and buddy are friends and then they like kind of commiserate about like oh, yeah you know Mary Lou, and she’s like that or whatever and So she wins prom queen But

Todd: There’s some people in the bathroom making stink bombs or something and Billy takes 1 out of the toilet or something and he goes up as Mary Lou is crowned prom queen in very Carrie fashion He goes to the catwalks above and he lights that and drops it down on her now He’s not really meaning to hurt her but he’s meaning to get back at her for ditching him and

Craig: well, he’s an idiot She’s wearing a taffeta dress. She’s gonna go up like a birthday candle. And she totally does, right?

Todd: Her dress catches fire and she’s up in flames. And I read actually that up until this point this was the longest person on fire stunt that had ever been done.

Craig: It looks pretty good.

Todd: You did, and she’s up in flames for a while.

Craig: Yeah, and it’s cool. I don’t know how much of it is an actual fire effect and how much of it is other movie magic, but it’s kind of cool. You see her face looking at him. And like you said, he didn’t mean to hurt her. He was Just trying to do a prank because she jilted him or whatever like they lock eyes Dramatically and and I mean she just she goes up Part of

Todd: what makes it so funny, what makes it feel so long, it’s like nobody comes in to help her. No. Like everybody’s just standing watching. Buddy Cooper, you know, the guy, makes this sort of half-assed attempt to approach with a coat but just backs right away. And she just burns down in front of everyone in this campus while they just stare. So it’s a little odd in that way. But yeah, so you get your kind of Carrie moment, but clearly she locks eyes with Billy, and you know this is all going to come into play later. And then we end up in the present day. There’s this family, and again it feels like this woman feels like Carrie with friends. She’s totally sissy spaceck-esque, redhead, very, very fair, homely looking. But you know that just with a little bit of eyeliner and stuff, she’s going to look totally hot. She’s sitting there with her family who is and her mom is ultra religious again like Carrie’s mom

Craig: very much

Todd: And this is the point at which the movie just shows its fakeness ineptitude I think probably the way this was written on on the page It looked great But the way that it’s played out you have this extreme dynamic contrast between the mother, who is this prudish, like almost practically Amish woman, you know, sitting there praying and almost talking in King James style English to her daughter very properly, and then her dad, who’s kind of like, oh, you know, whatever Okay, but you know very subservient to the wife and not even in a way that it seems like she’s beaten him down That’s the problem with it It just rings really false because this guy just comes across as a dude who could be really cool and is really cool, but whatever his wife says, all right, I’m just gonna go along with it.

Craig: Yeah, it’s a weird dynamic, and throughout the movie, they appear, and the dynamic remains the same. But every once in a while, he’ll talk about when he and the mom first fell in love and it almost sounds like she might have been normal at 1 point. And somehow now she’s whatever. Now she’s a crazy religious fanatic and like, Well, I guess we just have to deal with it. Like… Yeah, yeah.

Todd: An interesting touch is the next scene is they’re in a 50s style diner drinking coffee. Vicky and Craig are on their date. Now they’re both sitting on the same side of the table drinking coffee as high school students. It’s a little weird. But okay. And they’re just talking about the prom.

Craig: I feel like Vicky is supposed to be the good girl. She’s established very early on as, you expect her to be the final girl, which, spoiler alert, she is, but I think they’re just trying to establish her personality as she may not be as oddly devout as her mom, but she is a good girl. She’s a nice girl, you know, and her boyfriend, Craig, great name, He seems like a good guy. You know, he’s nice and 1 of the problems that I had with the movie, because we’re introduced to other characters too, and like, I guess Monica is kind of Vicky’s best friend. And then there’s also another guy is his name Josh.

Todd: Yeah, the nerdy crazy guy or whatever. The 1 who’s cracking wise all the time, but he doesn’t.

Craig: Right, and he like runs the computer club or something. I don’t know. By himself, yeah. Yeah, by himself. The problem that I had with it was that aside from Vicky and Craig who? You are kind of rooting for throughout the rest of the characters were really unlikable Mmm, the first thing that I have written down about Monica and Monica is Vicky’s best friend. The first thing that I have written down about her is Monica’s a bitch. Now I don’t remember why I wrote that down.

Todd: Oh I know

Craig: why. But she must have done what she

Todd: do. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to talk about Vicky before she’s gone, but I think it would be a good idea to talk about Vicky in front of the camera. So, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to talk about Vicky before she’s gone, but I think it would be a good idea to talk about Vicky in front of the camera.

Craig: That’s right! So I wrote Monica’s a bitch. Well then later on, Monica is kind of like the nice friend who’s worried about Vicky when things start going on. So like it’s kind of uneven. And then like Monica and Josh kind of have these weird scenes that pertain to nobody else, like by themselves, or they have kind of like these really cute flirty moments. I’m like, aw, that’s sweet, look how sweet they are. Oh, look, Josh is the sweet guy. And then later he leverages his power for a blowjob. And I’m like, what? Like, you’re not a nice guy at all. Like, you’re all horrible.

Todd: I didn’t even feel like they were that well drawn. There’s another woman named Kelly, who’s the prissy girl who thinks she’s all that. She’s convinced that she’s gonna be the prom queen. And the way that we’re introduced to these characters, it’s in for a pretty rapid fire succession. And the other problem, I think, with getting behind these folks is we never really get to know them all that well. Aside from these instant stereotypes that they’re painted with, there’s such a, like this movie is, you can’t knock it for not moving. I mean, it’s always moving forward, but it’s just, it’s almost like you can never stop to take your breath because once 1 crazy scene happens, now you’re gonna get another scene, now you’re gonna get another scene, and therefore some of these characters, we don’t see them for a while. There’s a good distance of 20 minutes. Josh kinda comes in at the very beginning, and then maybe like 3 quarters of the way through, and then towards the end, he has a very prominent role in the plot, but we’ve barely seen much of Josh before that. It’s like that with Kelly, it’s even like that with Monica, and then there’s another friend, Jess, who comes and goes like that.

Craig: Oh yeah, I totally forgot about her. Yeah. Yeah, she’s the she’s the first 1 who well, right? Well, I’ll get there in a second, but I also wanted to say that they also introduced I mean, I guess it’s not really introducing It’s reintroducing they the principal of the school, but he’s Craig’s dad and he’s also Billy from the 50s. Yeah. So he was Mary Lou’s boyfriend or whatever. And then I guess Buddy, the other guy that Mary Lou was making out with, he’s a priest now. Yeah. And like, and so they just really quickly establish this. They do. Like, you see them for just a second, just to let you know that they’re still around, and they come into play later. Principal Nordam is played by Michael Ironside, who has just been in like a billion movies. And he’s a great actor. There’s no way you’re not gonna recognize him. He really is. And they don’t give him much to do. No. Aside from look kind of menacing.

Todd: Didn’t the first prom night also have a principal who was related to, who was like the father of 1 of the kids?

Craig: I don’t remember. I don’t even know if I’ve seen it, frankly.

Todd: Oh, we did it.

Craig: Have we? Did we do it?

Todd: Greg did it on this show. Yeah. Go back and listen. I’ll wait. We were not impressed with Prom Night at all. I’ll remind you of that. I think this movie is 10 times more entertaining than Prom Night. I don’t know if it’s a great movie overall, but it’s certainly… I would recommend it over Prom Night if you’ve got to sit down and watch 1 of them. No, like that scene where he’s talking with his son is just so awkward. And I feel like Michael Ironside is such a good actor, but it seems like in this scene like he’s not sure what he’s supposed to be doing. And so he just kind of says some stuff to his son about how he needs to go to college and his son is saying, oh, I want to take some time off. And he’s just kind of like, well, I kind of wish you wouldn’t. And then his son leaves. And most of what Michael Ironside ends up doing through this movie is just pensively staring. Like you said, he’s not given anything to do, and so you really can’t even latch onto this guy as well. I found it really hard. I felt I was like a waste of this guy in this movie, I thought. Yeah, so

Craig: they introduce these people randomly. And gosh, like you said, I mean, it just moves so quickly. I don’t even remember Vicky’s mom told her that she couldn’t buy a new dress for the prom. So her friend Jess, who I guess is like a theater girl, I don’t know, she’s this tall beanpole of a girl with huge 80s hair. Jess tells her like, well, you should go check like the props closet or whatever. It’s like, oh yeah, that’s a great idea. So she goes down there and she finds that haunted crate, which I still don’t even understand what’s going on. Having seen the whole movie, I don’t, like, did somebody put all of Mary Lou’s stuff in a crate and lock it up down there and it’s haunted now? Like I don’t even understand what’s going on.

Todd: It doesn’t make sense. It would be like the kind of thing that in a better movie, this crate would have been some of Mary Lou’s heirlooms from 1 of her boyfriends or something that he had tucked in a shoe box and stuck up in his attic and practically forgotten about.

Craig: But no, it’s an enormous, like not enormous, not like the size of a room, but you know, like 1 of those army crate that you would keep at the foot of your bed or whatever.

Todd: Yeah, and it takes up half the prop room. And so it’s hard to believe this thing has sat dormant for 30 years without anybody opening it up.

Craig: Right. And it rumbles and like light comes out of it. And I don’t even remember how, you know, Vicky opens it up for some reason. And then There’s a picture of Mary Lou somewhere and it breaks. I don’t even know. So we just get all of these obvious clues that Mary Lou is around, like haunting or whatever. And There are just so many random things thrown in. Like you said, it’s just scene after scene. And I have to believe that a lot of this is due to sloppy editing. Or I don’t know, maybe it could be sloppy writing or a combination of the 2. But there’s a whole scene where Vicky has to comfort Jess because Jess reveals that she’s pregnant. And it goes on for a while.

Todd: Yeah. And then- It’s belabored, actually, the scene.

Craig: Yeah. And then Jess is alone in like the prop shop or something and everything starts going crazy you know like things start flying around and I thought surely they are not going to kill off the girl who just revealed that she’s pregnant.

Todd: Mmm, yeah.

Craig: They are. She’s the first to go.

Todd: It’s totally Nightmare on Elm Street too, isn’t it? I mean it’s like a total ripoff. Yeah. Like a cloth comes around her neck and gets dragged across the floor. Actually there’s an interesting fake out where you think she’s gonna get beheaded by a paper cutter, but then it actually takes her straight up to the lights instead and hangs her. And I thought, oh, okay, you know, they’re gonna all think she killed herself. And then at the end of the scene, it kind of backs off very dramatically and slowly like, all right, and, and scene. And then the next shot is suddenly of a body flying through the window and landing in the lawn. And I was like, who is that? Was this another kill? And it’s her. And then they said, oh, well, she, you know, she must have committed suicide. Okay, she hung herself and then threw

Craig: herself out the window? Well, and everything in the prop shop corrects itself, which is also very Nightmare on Elm Street.

Todd: That’s right.

Craig: Like Mary Lou’s ghost cleans up. Yeah.

Todd: What’s that movie we watched 2 weeks ago when this was like a favorite technique?

Craig: Oh yeah, the rewind.

Todd: And there’s a tiara, right? Apparently Jess’s big mistake was prying a glass jewel out of this tiara. That’s what got the trunk upset and sent the trunk after her. And then we see, again, it just immediately cuts to this priest again, And I guess he’s doing his nightly rites, which includes sitting down in front of a little shrine that he’s built to Mary Lou. Like, he has been so troubled over these last 20 years that this is, I guess, the focus of his ministry.

Craig: Yeah, in my notes I have, priest, praise, 2? 4? Mary Lou? Like,

Todd: what is happening? There’s a lot that goes unexplained, and it’s not like you have to explain all of it, but you have to wonder why, all right, maybe Jess is the first person to open this trunk, but Mary Lou seems to have a lot of powers. Maybe it’s the tiara, maybe it’s the dress, maybe it’s the ring. At any given time, there’s an implication that maybe any 1 of these things or maybe all of these things. But then, you know, there’s just these ominous signs that happen randomly in different people’s places, the picture shattering in the principal’s office or the priest just getting weird feelings. So, it’s a little muddy, you know, kind of the rules of how her spirit is awakening or being given powers to do this, that, and the other, the limitations of it. And the motivation, that gets pretty muddy too.

Craig: Oh yeah, it gets really muddy because like you said it, I mean it seems, is it just Mary Lou? Like that seems like that’s the implication that like she’s haunting specifically Vicky. But seriously, she’s got some serious powers because they have Jess’s funeral and everybody’s there of course and then Vicky just casually wanders over and sees Mary Lou’s grave. Like I don’t even know why she would know about this girl from 30 years ago or whatever. And then there’s this stupid scene where Kelly, the mean girl, taunts her a little bit. But then we get into this weird sequence that goes on for a long time. Vicki having these weird visions. She’s in her school, but it’s like she’s transported back in her school like to the 50s, but it’s not even just like she’s just transported back to the way that it was. It’s like some hellish nightmare version of the 50s.

Todd: It’s like Silent Hill. Yeah. Suddenly the school is like all rusted and dingy and nightmarish. And again, something pretty straight out of Nightmare on Elm Street too, right? Totally. But it’s not really cohesive, right? It just, you kind of wonder why. And that’s why, you know, Freddie, Freddie’s goal is just to give people nightmares and to torment them before he kills them in those nightmares. What is Mary Lou trying to accomplish here? Is she a master over dreams too? Is she kind of possessing her? And so she’s kind of getting this crossover hellscape visions. And then they’re so random too, right? It’s like she’s in the cafeteria and the cafeteria lady serving up bugs and gross stuff and then like, presumably Mary Lou’s face floats up from the dish. And then she runs down and she almost gets like assaulted by a guy who I don’t know if he was supposed to be somebody in particular, but you know, like a 50s guy with sunglasses. And it just goes on and on and there are like 2 or 3 of these. Like there’s 1 where she’s- yeah,

Craig: there’s blood in the water fountain.

Todd: Oh, I called that totally by the way I was like she’s standing Blood in the water fountain in 321

Craig: Yeah, yeah But no, you’re right I mean then then there’s a little break or like she fights with her mom about college or whatever and like she has a fight with her mom and then she goes up to her room and starts putting makeup on like I don’t even understand what’s happening and her reflection which is done up even more than she is like winks at her and that freaks her out so she starts taking off her makeup. It’s so weird. And then the next day at school, like Kelly hits her in the head with a volleyball and all of a sudden, whoop, we’re back in flashback again.

Todd: Yeah, Hellscape flashback. Where the volleyball net’s a spider web that she gets caught in and twisted around. And then she wakes up screaming, I’m not Mary Lou, because everybody’s calling her Mary Lou, which the principal hears, because he happens to be near her.

Craig: Right. So he goes and checks on the crate. Like, he knows that there’s a haunted crate in the props room and like no, right he just said Get it And as you know as much as I’m laughing and saying I don’t get it like in the moment I didn’t get it and I was a little confused but it moves so quickly that you know, I was Engaged, you know, I was interested on what was going on It was very confusing but it at least it moves quickly and they move from 1 confusing thing quickly to the next. So it’s not like I had time to linger, you know, like, all right, just roll

Todd: with it. You’re just kind of wondering, is Vicki possessed? It’s sort of like they don’t really want to commit because she’s quite normal, except for she’s being haunted by these things. She seems to be cursing and swearing maybe more than she normally does. And so I felt like that was the implication. But then, like I said, with all these other weird things going on as well, it’s not your standard, like, this person gets possessed and therefore all the evil is kind of emanating from them. It’s like there’s just a bunch of evil happening everywhere. Yeah. And oh, she might also be getting possessed, and so maybe we need to worry about that. But we’re, you know, we’re almost, we’re about halfway through the movie and it’s still not clear.

Craig: To be fair, that’s not atypical. When you’ve got these possession movies, like it is, you know, sometimes I suppose it’s kind of all at once somebody gets possessed, but a lot of the time it’s kind of gradual and you know, they start to change gradually and things happen gradually. And I think that that’s supposed to be what’s going on here. But and that’s what it ends up being. She is being possessed by Mary Lou. But that’s not entirely evident from the beginning. And then these weird things start happening. And there’s this scene with Vicki in her bedroom. Yeah. Where like she puts on this you know I don’t know big sweatshirt or something like she’s going to go to bed and then she pulls a sketchbook out of her closet and then she gets in bed and she drops, well first of all, she’s got this nightmarish carousal horse in her bedroom, which I don’t know why anybody would have that. I mean, even if it weren’t evil, it would scare me. Yeah, and you see the eyes move as it walks by her, and then she gets in bed and she drops something on the floor And she reaches over and she picks it up and she gets back into bed and there’s a big Sketch a really good sketch of Mary Lou in her sketchbook Then the rocking horse starts rocking and she says get out of here This is my room. Leave me alone And then she is totally assaulted by her sheet. And the thing that really struck me about this scene and scenes moving forward was that they were really, for me, almost uncomfortably sexual.

Todd: Like, yeah, there’s quite a bit of this moving on.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, OK, so when I say she’s attacked by her sheet, It’s almost like her sheet becomes like a airtight bag. Sucks to her. Sucked in around her. Yeah, and so she can’t get out. And the horse is rocking and its eyes are moving and then at 1 point it’s got this big gloopy tongue that like comes out and flops around, it’s disgusting.

Todd: Yeah, it’s Freddie though. Yeah, totally. You know, it’s like Freddie’s tongue coming out of the phone.

Craig: Yes, absolutely. The whole thing, the whole thing, very Nightmare on Elm Street. While she’s sucked under this sheet, you also see These hands under the sheet come up on her body and they’re just groping at her in a very sexual way. I can’t believe I’m going to say this out loud, but I’ve had sex before. So you know, it’s not like- Oh my

Todd: God. We’re really revealing personal things on this show, aren’t we?

Craig: And I’m not even married. But, But, like, so it’s not like I’m uncomfortable with sexual content, but it just seemed, it just a little bit out of place to me. And I guess, contextually for the whole movie, because things like this continue to happen, I guess really it’s not that out of place, but it was just a little bit surprising. I don’t wanna say shocking, It’s not like I was horrified, but it was a little surprising to me.

Todd: Well, I think it’s because you got to consider the source, right? Presumably who’s doing the haunting here is Mary Lou. So it’s this woman from the past who was clearly got around herself, right? Bit of a bitch, but she was unfairly and unjustly set on fire and died a horrible death. And so I guess she’s coming here to get her revenge. But, you know, in the way that Carrie gets her revenge on everybody because, like, everybody is implicated in taking her down and being an asshole to her.

Craig: Yeah, right.

Todd: Mary-Lou should have some pretty specific targets here, you know? And you can say, okay, sins of the father, and so maybe because, you know, maybe she’s going after Craig because she’s the son of Billy who set her on fire, even though he did accidentally. And of course, she’s going to go after the father, Cooper, because whatever, because he didn’t throw the thing over her or whatever. But like this girl, Vicky, she’s gonna be her tool, right? She’s supposed to be possessing her and using her. That’s what she’s doing. So why is she going to these extra lengths on her to also get grabby, touchy-feely, molesty. I think subconsciously, whether you’re consciously thinking of this or not subconsciously, it’s just really odd. Again, it’s just a kitchen sink kind of movie and I don’t think these things really, I don’t think there’s a cohesiveness behind a lot of this stuff. I really feel like they were going for Nightmare on Elm Street 5. And while it makes sense for Freddie to do, to just terrify them in whatever ways is gonna terrify them, and he gets very sexual, you know, with the kids, because they’re adolescents, and it’s a thing, for her, it’s hard to justify.

Craig: It’s weird, Yeah, I don’t know. And I mean, from there, just… I don’t know. A lot happens very quickly.

Todd: Then they just throw in these odd little scenes like they’re trying to remind us, Oh, by the way, this is a high school movie and we still have some other characters that we want you to get to know for 10 more seconds. Josh and Monica are walking along the street. Such an awkward scene.

Craig: That’s what I was saying before, like they’ll throw in these scenes like they try to make them cute. Josh plays the very like, oh, you know, I’m that guy that the girls like, like the guy that I was in high school. Like I’m the guy that girls want to be friends with, but don’t really have any interest in. And like, so he’s trying to kind of ask Monica to go to the dance with them and she’s kind of pretending like she doesn’t want to or whatever and then they end up kissing and I’m like oh that’s cute they’re cute but really not I mean like they’re their characters aren’t after being bitchy to that 1 guy in the beginning she doesn’t really do anything else that is untoward or anything but Josh does like he gets totally gross

Todd: yeah

Craig: and so what’s the point like what’s the point of this scene we don’t care it doesn’t advance the plot at all

Todd: it doesn’t It doesn’t really help us in the slightest. In fact, do we even see them going to the prom together at the end?

Craig: No, because she gets killed before prom. Oh, that’s right.

Todd: Well, we don’t see Josh Mourninger, you know? And that’s another thing. Like, people get killed left and right and they don’t really… Notice. Oh, it’s not true. People don’t get killed left and right

Craig: No, they don’t get killed left and right but like Prominent people like Monica who is with them all the time like she gets killed eventually and then nobody even like is Vicky goes back to Mary Lou’s grave and the priest.

Todd: He also happens to be there.

Craig: Yeah, it happens to be there. And then like she cusses him out. So I guess we’re supposed to realize that she’s kind of changing or being possessed or whatever. And then he goes and performs an exorcism. Yeah. So like there’s like a 30 second exorcism. And then he goes and visits Principal Billy and says, Oh, she’s back and she’s going to possess somebody and she’s totally going to get you. She won’t get me because I’m a priest. But then there’s a scene in the diner where Vicky’s talking to Craig, and he picks her up from home for school, and he’s like, you look terrible, which she does. She’s like, well, great, thanks. And then they go eat or whatever. I get that we’re kind of supposed to be getting that she’s becoming possessed, but it really isn’t entirely clear. I was still confused as to what was going on.

Todd: We’re not seeing much of a change in her actual behavior. We’re seeing her get freaked out a lot, but we’re, you know, especially up to this point, we’re not seeing her behavior change much except for these occasional times where she cusses someone out. But then when she does that, it’s not like the people around her act like so shocked, like oh my God, Kelly, she would never say damn or hell or the F word, and she just did this time, you know? Help me out here, because I cannot pinpoint why the priest has enough information to make such a grandiose claim. What has he seen or what has he experienced up to this point for him to go into Billy’s house all upset with this grand theory about demon possession and all that?

Craig: I don’t know. I guess just because I don’t even know what led him. You know he performs that exorcism whatever I I Guess he must just suspect and then when his Bible catches on fire I guess that’s his confirmation,

Todd: but I don’t even know what why he felt the need to do the exorcism like he’s never You know this movie the only times we see him He just you know there’s like that confessional scene early on.

Craig: And he randomly shows up while Vicky is visiting the grave. Like, she’s there randomly, and then he just randomly shows up. I don’t know. I don’t know. But then, you know, I feel like we’re really kind of getting to the good part because Vicky is in class and Kelly, the snotty girl, says something snotty to her and when Vicky looks at her she sees Mary Lou, So she slaps the shit out of her, and I love that part. So Vicki has detention, and the teacher leaves her alone in the room. She sees chalk, just, you know, magically or whatever, right, help me on the blackboard. And she goes up to the blackboard and she touches it and all of a sudden the blackboard, you know, it’s obvious the way that they did the effect, even though despite the fact that it’s obvious, I still thought it looked great. They inverted the scene clearly so that actually really the blackboard was in the floor and it was a pool and she gets pulled into it and then she gets dragged around in there kind of like it’s a whirlpool or whatever and Then she disappears and I and I I appreciated that that this is 1 of the scenes that the producers or whomever Insisted that they Shoot and post and put in but I’m glad because it looks good. It’s it so she gets sucked in Then we go back to the magic haunted crate and it starts rumbling Vicky I’m doing air quotes right now Vicky comes out of it completely nude And that’s the point where I feel like they’re finally just really shoving it in our face, okay, she’s not Vicky anymore. She’s now Mary Lou. And I have to give the actress credit. Wendy Lyon. I have to give her credit because she really does play 2 different characters in this movie. And there is a clear distinction between her characters in her physicality, in the way that she talks, in her affect, you can tell when she’s Vicky versus when she’s Mary Lou. And that’s not an easy thing to do. So I will give her credit for that. But then from here on, we’re dealing with Mary Lou, and Mary Lou is just a nasty bitch and she’ll cut you in. Yeah. You know like.

Todd: Watch out. So now we know she’s possessed. Kelly’s asked Josh to fix the vote and he has said well I will for a price and she’s offering money, he types something into his computer.

Craig: And I totally knew what he was gonna type, right? Like you knew what he typed, right? Like they don’t show it, but like she looks at him with disgust and she’s like, you’re so gross or whatever. It’s just, It’s so weird because it’s so uneven. Like, first of all, he’s supposed to have this thing for Monica, and like they’ve just had this sweet, you know, kissy kissy moment. And so you think that he is like puppy dog in love with her. And also, like he’s just supposed to be kind of the nerdy outcast guy. And now all of a sudden, when the snotty popular girl asks him for a favor, he’s telling her that he will exchange that favor for a blowjob like yeah

Todd: what

Craig: you are very bold for a nerdy high school boy but she rejects him

Todd: in the moment yeah yeah the next scene is in a confessional and this is 1 of the minor scenes I do remember from my childhood and it’s Vicky in the confessional. It’s a revisiting of the confessional scene the very beginning of the movie with Mary Lou in 1957. And he’s like, what? Yeah I know And then she burst through the confessional. I thought this was ridiculous.

Craig: It is ridiculous, but I have to give them props for being bold. Being the good Catholic boy that I am, it makes me uncomfortable to even hear that kind of language in a church or in a confessional. But you know, they went there. And then she kills him with a crucifix, which, you know, I thought was a pretty bold move. You’ve got the whole infamous exorcist crucifix scene, which is crazy, but this may be 1 of the only other times that I’ve seen somebody take something so religiously iconic and use it in such a way.

Todd: Stab it in his mouth, yeah.

Craig: So then he said, I feel like we are totally working up to your favorite scene because.

Todd: I guess you want me to describe it. Well,

Craig: let me set it up for you so you can get in the mood. The friend, Monica, they go to gym or something, and then of course they’re in the locker room after, and Monica kind of calls her out for acting weird. Vicki is at first just kind of cool and cold with her and then she says something that really irritates Monica. And so Monica goes off to shower and take it away.

Todd: You’re really trying to make this awkward for me, aren’t you Craig? So Monica goes into the shower and Vicki comes in after her a minute later and she’s also completely naked and she approaches her and puts a hand on her shoulder and says oh I’m really sorry whatever and Monica’s like that’s okay and like they’re making up but even from this moment it’s feeling pretty weird and awkward And not just because of the situation, but also the way it’s staged and the way it’s acted, it’s actually quite poor. Vicki laughs and kind of hugs her and then starts to kiss her and Monica runs off freaked out.

Craig: I also have to say the fact that, you know, Vicki and the actress who played her, they both seem very sweet. They’re wholesome. And to see her then, you know, Monica throws on a towel, but Vicky then just continues to slowly and coolly pursue her throughout the locker room, Completely nude. And when we’re saying, when I’m, you know, we see nudity in horror movies all the time, but it’s usually…

Todd: Topless.

Craig: Or if you see a full body shot, it’s usually relatively brief. Now this girl just walks around bush to the wind, like for… Lingering long shots. A good 4 or 5 minutes, yeah. And she’s a lovely young lady, you know, like she would have nothing to be ashamed of in her nudity. And I read that it wasn’t scripted that way. It was scripted that, or at least it was insinuated or implied that she would be wearing a towel, but they shot it with her completely nude. There’s just something about that, her confidence and her nudity, that makes her even more menacing.

Todd: Yeah, she’s really not her, right? She’s just a body that somebody else is possessing. And so why would that person have any qualms or any care about the body that they’re possessing? They don’t have any attachment to it. So yeah, I’m nude, I’m not, it doesn’t matter to me. So you’re right, it seems very cool and spooky. Now what I was really getting at was 2 things. First of all, I thought the encounter in the shower, it took Monica way too long for her to think something was weird about it.

Craig: Yeah, yeah.

Todd: It just didn’t ring true. And the second thing was, Monica’s reaction isn’t like, oh, Vicki, you’re gross. It’s pretty disturbed and that’s fine, but she runs away. And the way that she runs away is in the way that she feels like Vicky is a danger to her and I don’t feel like Vicky has come across as a dangerous person to her.

Craig: Yeah that’s in this moment.

Todd: You know it’s like she just tried to kiss her she was maybe trying to get romantic with her but you’re not gonna like suddenly fear for your life at that point. Sure. You know slinking around the room and she does. And so, you know, she’s going between the lockers and she can’t get out of this place for some odd reason. Like doors are locked. Again, in a better movie, like maybe the doors would supernaturally lock around her. Here, we really have no idea why she can’t get out. And so she just gets into a locker Vicky slowly is walking singing very quietly and menacingly On oldie

Craig: and then she does she does the Freddy Krueger hand Like I swear to God it’s it’s directly out of Nightmare on Elm Street. She takes her hand and runs it along the lockers, like she has Freddy Krueger claws, and it even makes the sounds.

Todd: The same sound.

Craig: Yeah. She doesn’t even have the claws, but it still makes the sounds. Like that had to be intentional. It had

Todd: to be. Homage or ripoff, I guess you can choose.

Craig: I was surprised by the culmination of the scene because Monica hides in a locker and then Vicky just kind of, you know, she walks by and then she turns around and she looks at the locker and She sings some appropriate a wop-bop blue-wop a wop-bam-boom Yeah, and then the the lockers collapse in on Monica and blood all shoots out And again, this is another 1 of the scenes that they added in in post, but I was just surprised that Monica died. Because she was kind of the best friend and well, they needed more blood and death in the movie. I agree entirely that they needed it. I was just kind of surprised that’s where it came from.

Todd: Well, yeah. And because in service to what? You know, plot wise, like, why did she have to go? How was she standing in her way? She annoyed her? Okay, maybe Mary Lou is really that bitchy, I guess. But, you know, it’s like this, again, I feel like this girl’s got bigger fish to fry. Why is she still hanging around doing high school things, letting her best friend annoy her and then killing her? It just feels like the scene was there because they needed a kill and they ripped off of Nightmare on Elm Street to do it. And honestly, I feel like every scene in this movie happens in slow motion. This movie is almost 2 hours long and it could have been an hour and a half, an hour or 20 if the scenes had moved a little faster. Even the scenes that are murder, kill scenes, they’re really drawn out and I think that the people shooting them really think that they’re making these long and suspenseful, but I didn’t really feel that. I just felt like they were lingering a long time on these images and all of this stuff because they thought it was really creepy. Whereas I felt like it would have been more effective to cut away from this stuff a little earlier, or put us through this kind of a shock and then let’s move on. Instead of lingering too much, you start to see the seams and you start to get a little bored. I did anyway. Yeah. I felt the pacing the movie suffered in that way.

Craig: Yeah it’s drawn out a little bit longer than it needs to be I agree. Yeah. And just as this podcast is ending up… But you know like other things happen like Vicki is obviously you know possessed now and so other things happen, like she goes and she there’s 1 weird scene where she starts making out with Craig and like she’s getting all hot and heavy with him and then all of a sudden she knees him in the junk and then like she’s taunting him like yeah calling him a fag and and I didn’t even understand what the purpose of that was I

Todd: didn’t get that well then there’s the scene where she’s you know back in her room and again it’s just bing bang boom and now her horse is a pet like its tongue is still hanging out she’s wondering it and stuff like that and her dad comes in to give her a pep talk about going

Craig: to the prom and I’m glad you’re laughing I’m sorry like This part just made me really uncomfortable.

Todd: Yeah, it could have done without this.

Craig: Yeah. You say it!

Todd: He starts giving him this very nice dad pep talk about going to the prom, and she’s like, thank you daddy, and she comes up to him, and she just starts completely making out with him. Gross. It’s really gross, but also he’s not like immediately pushing her back. I know! And I couldn’t tell if it was just ineptly done. Like, they wanted this shot to go on a little while. So they were like, just look a little uncomfortable for a bit and we’re gonna shoot this. And then the editing should have caught away a lot sooner. So dad just sort of stands there and lets him kiss her while he’s kind of moving his head a little bit and kind of looking uncomfortable. And then mom pops in from behind and says, what’s going on? And you know, the girl runs out and the dad just kind of turns around like, oh, and

Craig: then mom chases after the daughter. And it couldn’t total carry white moment where the mom is like chastising her, you know, and throwing all of her religious stuff at her. And then Vicky like supernaturally throws her mother through the door. Like she doesn’t physically touch her but like with her mind, with her telekinesis. It’s such a ripoff. It’s a huge ripoff. But that’s not even, oh my, that’s nothing in comparison to the end. We finally get to the prom. It’s a fun 80s prom scene, great, whatever. There’s a whole bit where Kelly, the annoying girl, finally goes to Josh, who’s in charge of counting the computer votes. I love how they make a big deal out of computers. Like, computers, they’re so exciting and new. So she finds him, you know, he’s waiting for his date, Monica, who obviously doesn’t show up because she was crushed in the locker. And so then he’s just drinking beer by himself, like in the audio visual room or whatever. And she comes in and he’s like, I told you what my price was, because she asked who won. And he’s like, well, I’m not supposed to tell but it wasn’t you, I told you what my price was. And so then she blows him, which is really uncomfortable. And then he starts to go in and fix the computer votes. But Mary Lou slash Vicky apparently senses that he’s doing this. So she grabs like the ethernet cable in the gym. And electrocutes him through the computer and and Makes it so that she I mean she was rightfully going to be the queen anyway, but she you know fixes it so They announced that she’s queen she goes up. She looks super happy. She’s standing there, and then all of a sudden the principal, Billy, shoots her. Which I found kind of, I found really shocking, because I thought, you know, like, God, I mean, that’s still Vicky. Like, yeah, you couldn’t have thought of maybe something else to try before you just waste her. But whatever. So she falls over and like she’s dying and then it seems like she’s dead. But then she kind of wakes up again.

Todd: Well, she doesn’t just wake up again. Mary Lou bursts through her chest.

Craig: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which actually, you know, it looked pretty good. It did. There’s a scene just like it in Poltergeist 3, which is not a great movie, but a movie that I love nonetheless, where a person literally comes up out of the body of somebody else who’s just died. And when she first comes out, she looks super burnt up and demon-y. And it’s not great. You can clearly tell she’s wearing a mask like you can see the seam of the mask Not even like glued to her skin Mm-hmm as time goes on like that kind of fades away, and she looks more like she did in life, But the scene after she comes up out of the body, Mary Lou, this gross burnt up prom queen, is standing on the stage in front of this whole auditorium full of kids. And then she makes the electricity start malfunctioning and it all turns into like this big fire. It could not be more of a ripoff of Brian DePalma’s Carrie. I mean it virtually looks like the exact same scene. And I’m not complaining. I mean it looks pretty good and it’s perfectly fine to pay homage or whatever.

Todd: You choose, rip off or homage, right?

Craig: Right, right, right.

Todd: Yeah, it’s an excuse anyway. Well, we were just making an homage.

Craig: Oh my god, like how did you even get away with this? It’s the same exact scene.

Todd: Well, it’s not as good a film. That’s probably partly why. That’s true

Craig: And then the other thing

Todd: is it just goes totally batshit crazy from here on out, too There’s this sort of you know showdown and and I’m wondering like what did Craig do Because then she’s really going after Craig. Like, I thought, oh, she’s gonna turn and it’s gonna be a big showdown between her and Billy. But Billy just disappears for a while, And she starts running after Craig. I’m like why so anyway she goes after Craig And he you know the 1 place he decides he can run to is the prop closet Which was convenient down to the creepy trunk and so there’s a lot of creepy trunk stuff and there’s a bit of the old switcheroo where he’s locked himself in a room and suddenly he hears Vicky’s voice on the other side and like a dumbass goes and opens the door and Vicky comes through except we know it’s not Vicky, we know it’s just Mary Lou pretending to be Vicky because she has Mary Lou’s ring on. Right. The trunk opens up and there’s just this huge void and Craig starts to get sucked into it and then the dad comes in. So then Billy shows up to save the day and the way he does is he’s got her tiara and he approaches Mary Lou and I guess the way this is supposed to be happening is that he is kind of consummating the night the way it was supposed to be by giving her her crown, and suddenly she turns to him and she’s all nice Mary Lou, and then we get what is sort of a pseudo flashback scene kind of rewriting of history kind of thing maybe where the 2 of them are I got the notion this was like, you know in Purgatory or whatever like they’re dancing

Craig: supposedly. I think that what it’s supposed to be is like her tormented soul is appeased. Like she gets what she was supposed to get from the beginning. She had said something, I don’t even remember who she said it to, but she said something like, you know, I was in the prime of my life. I could have been anything. I could have done anything This was just the start she gets crowned and they have their dance as prom king and queen and it seems really nice And it seems like her soul I guess is then appeased And then does she just go away?

Todd: Like, it’s like that we’re done. Like, suddenly they’re gone. I thought maybe they were whisked away. I thought maybe there was like a sacrifice element like for Billy, like, Like she had to have a soul and so he was offering up his, you know, by appeasing her. But then, you know, he had to kind of continue it out by, I don’t know, dancing with her through all eternity in the spirit world.

Craig: Sure, something. But, cause they were gone. Yeah, they’re both just mysteriously absent. And then Craig opens up the crate, which closed again apparently. This time it’s Vicky and it really is Vicky and she’s like, I didn’t know what was happening. You know, it looks like, I also thought it was kind of funny because then it looks like it’s kind of a happy ending Like I don’t know how they were going to explain to the rest of the world what happened at this prom All the cops you know the cops and the ambulances are there, and the kids are okay. There’s actually a line by

Todd: the cop. We get that shot outside the school and the cameras pan across the cops and 1 cop is talking to a reporter and the line is, I don’t know what we got here, something strange. And I thought, that’s a pretty good summary of the movie actually.

Craig: Yeah, yeah. Well yeah, so Vicky and Craig are standing there and the dad, Billy, approaches and…

Todd: That shocked me. I was like, oh, I guess he’s okay. Everything’s fine.

Craig: I guess he’s okay. I kept expecting the other dead people to show up I’m like, oh everybody who died is gonna show up and it’s gonna be fine. No, apparently they’re still dead But

Todd: just the 1 who had the other body bursting out of her body,

Craig: right? She’s okay.

Todd: Yeah,

Craig: and so the dad’s like, okay Well, let’s go or whatever And he puts them in the back seat of the car and then he gets in the car and he turns on the radio and it’s the Mary Lou song from the 50s that we’ve heard a bazillion times like it’s the only song that ever plays on the radio in this town And and so we hear the Mary Lou song and Vicky’s like oh No, what’s happening? The dad puts his arm like back behind the passenger seat and we see that he’s got long fingernails and he’s wearing Mary Lou’s ring. As it turns out, Mary Lou has now possessed him and he drives away and Vicki and Craig are freaking out and the license plate is Mary Lou 2 and they drive away and that’s the end.

Todd: It’s total Nightmare on Elm Street Twisted 2, right? Oh yeah,

Craig: totally, totally. Oh my gosh. Ultimately, I had never seen this movie before, Which kind of surprises me. It’s not a good movie really, but it’s so bizarre that it’s really I think worth watching and there are interesting things that happen throughout it and some interesting cool effects and even though the the story is wacko and doesn’t really make a lot of cohesive sense, I don’t even know if it’s fair to say that I was entertained by it, but It was so strange that once I was a good half hour into it, I had to see the rest of it to see how it was gonna play out. Like it was just that odd. So I’m glad to have seen.

Todd: I don’t know how I could recommend it or who I would recommend it to, but it’s a weird little movie.

Craig: It has like a surrealistic quality to it. If you knew what kind of movie you were getting into, if you knew it wasn’t going to make a lot of sense, sort of like I watch the Giallo films, I just get into the atmosphere and the set pieces and I just go with it. I think if you knew this, if the movie wasn’t really setting itself up to make sense, but you came into it like you were kind of coming to a David Lynch film or a Dolly sort of thing, then it’s a little more watchable Maybe and I guess maybe that’s an argument that could be made Maybe if we had the filmmakers on here talking about their film, they would be like, yeah Well, you know, we were trying to keep it surreal and and make it not clear what was going on and yeah, you know, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but the plot’s not important. It’s really more about the atmosphere. Okay, you know, I could almost get on board with that kind of argument.

Todd: Yeah, and it got poor reviews, almost universally poor reviews, But 1 of the only positive reviews that it got referred to it as the blue velvet of

Craig: horror movies. Oh, David Lynch.

Todd: Yeah. I see that. I’ve never even seen Blue Velvet, but I’ve seen some of David Lynch’s other movies and they are weird and you don’t know what’s going on and you’re totally confused. And this maybe wasn’t even that confusing, but I can see the parallels. Certainly not of the same quality, but similar in nature, I guess.

Craig: I think If you wanted to save yourself the trouble of maybe, like you want the vibe of a Nightmare in Elm Street movie and you want it just delivered to you like a huge shot in the arm over, you know, almost 2 hours, then you could probably put this movie in. You’re not going to get Freddy. You’re not going to get stuff as good as that. But you know, it’s going to be a lot of that same stuff. 1 scene after another of just dreamlike, surreal, bizarre imagery that doesn’t really have a through line, but if that’s kinda what you’re looking for, that’s what you’re gonna get here.

Todd: I’m glad we did it. Oh, me too. It was fun to talk

Craig: about. Yeah, thank you so much Tommy for recommending this film to us. And It was fun to talk about. Yeah. Thank you so much Tommy for recommending this film to us And it was fun to talk about and I think that’s why you know what Craig I’m just gonna say we really need to thank our listeners for Yeah For being engaged enough to give us these things because it does make for better shows sometimes than you and I would do alone. Like, you know, we pick these movies for our own reasons, but when somebody challenges us with something that we wouldn’t necessarily be quite on board with or come up with ourselves, we usually find some gems or we find some interesting things, we get exposed to other stuff. Absolutely. So yeah, we’ll definitely continue requests after March. But what we have coming up in February, we liked doing it so much last year, we’re going to do it again this year. And that is sequels. Part twos. It’s the second month of the year and so we’re going to hit 4 or 5 part 2’s next month.

Todd: And then we will. We definitely will get back into requests. We’ve gotten so many good ones and we so appreciate when you engage with us on social media or wherever. We really do try to get to some of the stuff that you’ve recommended, even if it’s stuff that we would not necessarily choose on our own. So don’t stop recommending. Yes, We keep a list. Just be patient with us and we’ll do our best.

Craig: All right. Thank you so much for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. You know where to find us. We’re on Google Play. We’re on Stitcher. We’re on everywhere podcasts are. You can also go to our website, twoguys.red49.com. You can leave us a comment there. You can leave us a comment there, you can leave us a comment on our Facebook page. Again, send us requests, send us your thoughts about these films. We do love to hear from you. Happy 2019. Until next time,

Todd: I’m Todd. And I’m Craig.

Craig: With 2 guys and a chainsaw

Major thanks to Francis and the others who requested this 1950s-style monster movie from the 90’s that was such a staple of our childhoods. We were reluctant to do this one for so long because we are both so familiar with it, but in the end we were happy to revisit it in all its B-movie glory. Thanks again for the request!

Episode 157, 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: We’re continuing our Request Month with Tremors, which was a 1990 film and this was requested by long-time listener Francis. So thank you, Francis, for requesting what was really 1 of my childhood favorites. Actually, it’s funny. I remember renting this movie. I remember a lot of people renting this movie. I remember the posters being up in the rental stores. And then as I was reading through the trivia, and maybe it was on Wikipedia, I’m not sure, it mentioned that this, although this movie did make a little bit of money back, it was a bit of a box office disappointment. Although it went in like at sixth place when it came out, but it made back like 4 or 5 times. It’s theatrical run in VHS Rentals. It was like the most popular rental in 1990. So yeah, I guess that kind of makes sense. We all knew this movie. We all watched it a lot. It was a lot of fun and it’s a really good, I think, film that blends horror and comedy together in a really, really good way. It’s not too funny and it’s not too scary. It just is what it needs to be in any given scene and it all works really quite well, I think.

Craig: Yeah, I think so too. I mean, We’ve put off doing this a little bit and I think the only reason that I was a little bit hesitant to do it Is just because I’ve seen this movie so many times I couldn’t even tell you how many times I’ve seen it I rented it and watched it when I was a kid. For a long time it played on cable regularly and I watched it a bunch of times. But when we were picking movies to do for request month, this is 1 that our friend had mentioned a couple of times. And so we decided to finally go through with it. And it was fun to sit down and watch again from beginning to end. It is a fun movie. It’s really reminiscent to me of, it’s kind of a throwback to the B movies of the 1960s, the monster movies of the 1960s. It captures that vibe really well while at the same time, like you said, really balancing out the comedy. And it’s just, it’s well executed. It’s good acting and and fun practical effects and It’s really got a lot going for it.

Todd: It does and it’s actually kind of a family-friendly movie There’s there’s a little bit of blood but it’s mostly monster blood The creature effects are pretty terrifying at times. And I guess from time to time, some of the killings are a little… If you’re old enough to imagine yourself in that situation, it’s pretty terrifying. But, you know, as a kid, I think, you know, we all watched this together. It was 1 of those kind of movies. And I was also surprised to hear that this initially got an R rating. The only reason that it got a PG-13 is at the last minute they decided that they wanted to go for something a little more family friendly. And the reason it was R mainly was language. And so this was something that was blatantly obvious to me watching this now because it’s been ages I probably the last time I saw this I was probably a teenager yeah but blatantly obvious to me now how many f words have been changed or overdubbed yeah into more ridiculous words

Craig: yeah like mother humper and stuff yeah but it almost even kind of adds to the charm of it to me a little bit because it’s you know the what they redubbed over all the F words, they got really creative. And I mean, yeah, it’s, it’s now as an adult, it’s very obvious to me, but I don’t even know if I noticed at the time. I just thought it was funny. I just thought they were using funny words

Todd: My favorite line is when 1 of the characters kills a grab oid and then he gets on the radio It’s like

Craig: we killed it And congratulations Be advised, however, there are 2 more, repeat, 2 more mother humpers.

Todd: So it works better that way, it sure does. And I think what really makes this film work for me is the characters. They’re so well drawn and you kind of like them all. Especially the chemistry between our 2 leads, Earl and Valentine. Val is played by Kevin Bacon. Aside from Flashdance, this might be the movie that I, even to this day, have most associated with Kevin Bacon.

Craig: Well, it’s interesting that you associate Flashdance with Kevin Bacon since he’s not in that movie.

Todd: What am I saying?

Craig: You’re probably thinking of Footloose, would be my guess. Thank you, Footloose. Footloose. Yeah, and I don’t know. You know, this movie came out in 1990. I think it was slated for release in 1989, but it got pushed back. And I don’t remember, you know, Footloose was earlier in the 80s, but not a lot. And Kevin Bacon is still looking very young and fresh-faced in this movie. And it’s a lot of fun to see him kind of in his glory days, not to say that he’s not still. I mean, he’s still a very handsome man, still very successful. But what was funny to me in reading about this was that he took this movie and they started filming. And at 1 point, he collapsed in front of his wife in tears and said, I can’t believe that my career has come to this. I can’t believe that I’m making a movie about giant killer underground worms. And At the moment, he kind of felt like it was a low in his career. He’s since come to embrace it. In fact, just last year, or I don’t know, my sense of time is so skewed anymore, but recently within the last couple of years, they tried to get a TV series going on sci-fi. There actually was a TV series years ago on sci-fi, but they were trying to do a new 1. And Kevin Bacon was involved and was gonna reprise his role and was gonna star in it and they filmed the pilot and then it got canned. It didn’t get picked up. So he’s since come to embrace it, but at the time…

Todd: Yeah, and then Earl is played by a guy named Fred Ward, who you’d recognize if you saw him. He’s been in a lot of different things. But again, this is the 1 movie that I most associate him with. Maybe it just came at the right time in my life, or it’s the 1 that’s really stuck with me the most. And they just have a chemistry on screen. You know, they’re 2 handymen out in the middle of nowhere. I mean, they’re out in the middle of Nevada in this town called Perfection that has a population of 14. It’s just a store and some houses and like a trailer and then some couple’s bunker, like end of the world bunker. Right. And that’s it. And I don’t know how they get so many jobs there. This is the thing that you just kind of have to suspend your disbelief that this town of 14 people is so busy and that everyone has these very distinct jobs and things to do.

Craig: I guess.

Todd: But, you know, just from the very beginning, we’re introduced to them and Kevin Bacon turns around. He’s just, you know, taking a leak off the side of a cliff and he shakes his buddy awake in the back of a pickup and he’s where he’s sleeping and he falls out the back and says, you asshole, and makes a comment about a stampede because the first thing he sees is cows standing there. And then they just have this repartee, you know, this dialogue back and forth. And what’s really neat about this movie, I think it’s very well written in that there are lots of little moments that have payoffs later. Comments that are made, things that are said, situations that happen that later on have a payoff. And some of them are so clever that you kind of forget about them. But this is 1 that comes at the very end, is his comment about a stampede. But they also have this game where they, whenever they’re arguing, they settle all their arguments or disagreements by playing rock, paper, scissors. And It seems like Val always wins. No, he always loses. I’m sorry. Val’s, you’re right. It seems like Val always loses. And so he’s kind of the cockier, younger of the 2. And then Earl is the older, supposedly wiser 1, but really they’re, they’re pretty well equals, you know, in this and in there. And they, you know, I know guys like this and they played it just like people I know. Just good old boys who just go out and they know how to get stuff done with their hands and work hard. And their goal is to get out of perfection. Basically, they’ve about had it by the time we’re there. They just feel like they can’t do anymore and they wanna go to nearby Bixby.

Craig: Yeah, the other thing, and I totally agree with you that those 2 guys, You know, I think that it just comes from the fact that they’re both good actors and and we believe their relationship They just seem very comfortable with 1 another you believe that these guys are friends and and have been for a long time and that’s cool, But the other characters, you know, it’s such a small town and I we see the entire Population because there’s only 14 of them granted at least 1 of them is dead first time we meet them and some of them are dispatched rather quickly. Just even the supporting cast. Oh yeah. They seem like, you know, real people. They seem like small town people and like you said, they’re all likable, you know. Well most of them. There’s 1 pain in the butt kid and that’s his job to be the pain in the butt kid Melvin and he’s super annoying and gets on everybody’s nerves but even that is a little bit endearing yeah but I just and there are some really good people in here, like Michael Gross from Family Ties. Gosh. Michael Gross filmed the last episode of Family Ties and started this movie like the next day or something like that. And he was, you know, that was a huge show when it was on. And so he was definitely a familiar face in households across America. So he plays Burt. His wife, Heather, is played by Reba McEntire in her first film role. And Reba McEntire is an amazingly talented musician, country singer, and songwriter. But she totally pulls her weight here.

Todd: I mean,

Craig: she plays her part very naturally, and she seems like a very real person and they’ve got good chemistry. It’s not like they’re some romantic, it’s not a lovey-dovey type thing, but you totally buy them as husband and wife and she does a really great job. Just everybody. I don’t want to go through everybody, but there’s a guy named Miguel, a Hispanic guy played by Tony Gennaro who’s really endearing. There’s a mom and daughter. Nancy is the mom. The daughter is Mindy, played by Ariana Richards, who would very soon go on to play the young blonde girl in Jurassic Park. A guy who runs the store, Chang’s General Store, the only store in town played by Victor Wong, who you would totally recognize from lots of, any movie that had Asian people in it in the 80s. Yeah. Victor Wong was in it. That’s right. I remember him specifically from The Golden Child. He was hilarious in that movie.

Todd: Oh yeah, I think of Big Trouble and Little China.

Craig: Yeah, well, yeah. Totally recognizable, especially if you’re a kid of the 80s. And it’s a really nice ensemble. The movie is tight, you know, and that it’s all pretty much in 1 location. It’s this relatively small cast of characters, and it all takes place over just a couple days. I don’t know, it works, you know? I believe this little town of perfection and these little folks that live there and that they would look out for 1 another. It’s cute.

Todd: It is. It’s economical. The script is very economical. It shows us a lot in a very short period of time without having to tell us too much. Everything unfolds very naturally from the beginning to the point where the story is really flying by up to the point where it gets really serious with the monsters. And even then it’s moving, you know, at a nice pace. But it doesn’t take long to set up these guys and their pickup and they decide they’re going to leave town. And it’s funny. It’s funny the way they do it. But in the meantime, they’re going around and they’re hitting pretty much every character in the town. They go into Chang’s store and they have a conversation. And That’s when Bert and his wife are sitting in there and they have a quick chat and we kind of set them up and Melvin the boy is kind of like the boy who cried wolf He’s always yeah being super annoying and then playing really mean pranks on people and he’s always on everybody’s last nerve And then of course the Nancy and Mindy There’s a guy named Nestor who seems to come in a little later. Maybe we see a snippet of him in the beginning, but he might be the only character really that’s not very well drawn. You almost wonder if there was a scene or 2 with him that got cut out of the final show because he’s in there and he’s really in some pivotal scenes but you almost forget like it’s like oh where did this guy come from

Craig: right right by the

Todd: time he is but yeah it goes through all this and they finally they’re on this job and they’re taking out the septic tank mess into a truck and it spurts all over them while they’re talking about. Now what’s the 1 thing that’s gonna make us finally leave? And then the next shot is them piling everything in the back of their pickup. And it’s funny, because they take off out of the town and it’s like they are the ones who encounter 1 thing after another that lead them to turn back around and come back and warn everybody that there’s a problem.

Craig: Right. And along the way they also meet Rhonda who is a graduate student from some university, I don’t know, and she’s out there, she’s a cis- well, she’s studying seismology. She’s obviously being set up as the romantic counterpart for Kevin Bacon, even though he has a very distinct type.

Clip: You will have Long blonde hair, big green eyes, world class breasts, ass that won’t quit, and legs that go all the way up.

Craig: Earl, you know, gives him a lot of crap for that. Damn it, Valentine. You won’t go for any gal unless

Todd: she fits that stupid list of yours from top to bottom.

Clip: Well, sure.

Craig: Yeah, and there’s dumber than my hind end. I mean, like that… Bobby Lynn Dexter. Tammy Lynn Baxter. Don’t matter. They’re all the same. Dead weight.

Todd: Ooh, I broke a nail.

Craig: Makes my skin crawl. Well, I’m a victim of circumstance.

Todd: I thought you called it your pecker.

Craig: And Rhonda is not that, you know. She’s a very pretty girl. She’s played by Finn Carter. She also was in a movie that I loved as a kid, but it was so obscure. It was called How I Got Into College. It was really funny. Anyway, she was in that. And so she tells them that there have been some weird readings on her, you know, machines or whatever. They are driving out of town and they see the old town drunk that they know up a like a power line, I guess? And they think that he’s just crawled up there and passed out so they play rock-paper-scissors and of course Val loses so he has to go up there to try to drag this guy down but when he gets up there he realizes he’s not drunk, he’s dead and they take him to the town doctor’s trailer and the doctor says, well it wasn’t a heart attack or anything, he died of dehydration, He had to have been up there for 3 or 4 days. And of course, that’s mysterious. And then we get a cool scene with a sheep farmer and he’s just kind of hoeing rows in his garden and his sheep start to freak out and he’s kind of puzzled by that but he keeps doing his thing. And then I don’t feel like we see much, but we see that something happens to him. And when Val and Earl come around there, they see that his place is torn up and all of his sheep are dead. And so they’re looking for him and they can’t find him. But they see his hat laying in his garden. And so Val picks up the hat and his face is underneath it. And obviously now they know something’s wrong. They head back into town to warn everybody, but they think that there’s some psycho killer on the loose. And I read that initially, that’s what the filmmakers had intended. They didn’t want there to be any suggestion of a monster until later in the movie. They wanted the audience also to think that this was going to be more of kind of a psycho killer kind of movie only then to reveal the monster later. But the studio wanted a creature movie. And so they made them film some scenes that indicated the creature early on. So we know it’s a monster early on, but it’s relatively slowly revealed. The first way that it’s revealed is Val and Earl, first there’s this road crew working. And they warn them as they’re coming back into town that something bad is going on. And then they go back into Perfection and the people in Perfection are like, oh, okay, well there’s something scary and we’re in this big valley and so we can’t reach anybody outside. So Val and Earl, you guys go out to Bixby and get help. So they go out to get help, but the road has collapsed, or something has collapsed down over it because the road crew has been killed, and they find the dead road crew. So they’re gonna head back into perfection, but their car gets tied up, the truck gets tied up on something, they finally break free, and when they get back to town, there’s this huge snake-like thing attached to their back axle, and that’s what had tied them up. And that’s kind of the first sense we get of the monster, but even that, it’s a misleader.

Todd: Yeah, it doesn’t give you the full scope of what

Craig: this monster’s going to be. Right.

Todd: And this is 20 minutes into the movie. The movie, again, night’s tight, 98 minutes. It’s gone by so quickly, it feels like 10. Yeah. That’s how quickly all this happens. And so we get another scene with a guy and his wife who are clearly out building a house and maybe living in a trailer while they’re doing that. And I thought that this scene was the most terrifying of all of them because it is really seriously scary and sad. You know, they’re out there and they’ve got this generator going and suddenly all the power goes out. It’s nighttime and he goes over to find the generator and sees that the generator has been like sucked into the ground and when he pulls the cord away it’s just like it’s been chewed up and then suddenly he starts sinking into the ground. He’s getting pulled down by this thing but it’s just a heart-wrenching scene where this guy is screaming and he’s yelling and there’s nothing he can do and his wife is clawing at him and trying to pull him out and there’s tears in her eyes and he just slowly, slowly, slowly goes under. And I thought, this is really quite dark for this movie. Like, I don’t remember, I mean, I just don’t remember that scene. I don’t remember it being so dark at that time. Or maybe when I was a kid, I just didn’t see it quite the same way. My wife, she remembers this too, and so we were able to watch this together. Which again, thank you, Frances, for that opportunity. I always love these movies. We can watch together. And she just could barely watch it. She was like, oh, this is awful. You know? And so this woman goes to the car and tries to start the car, but the keys aren’t, well, how about the keys are in there? I can’t

Craig: remember. She can’t remember. Yeah, the keys aren’t

Todd: in it. But somehow she gets the lights on. I don’t know. Anyway, the car starts to sink into the ground as well, and she gets pulled down, and the car gets pulled down into the ground upright. And this scene I do remember because it’s quite it’s cool that shows you from far back just kind of over the hill where you just see these 2 beams of light streaking up into the sky and a wiggling back and forth and eventually 1 of them goes out and then the other 1 goes out and the cars buried you know but you don’t see the fight for the finale but when Kevin I’m sorry when Kevin I’m just gonna call him when Kevin Bacon when Val and Earl go out there to find them, I guess, because they go out to warn people and they find, you know, no sign of them. They said, that’s odd, I wonder where their car is. Well, maybe they just took off. And he says, well, where’s that music coming from? Val does. And they walk over to the spot in the ground and as they pull aside the dirt, there are the headlights of the car shining up at them. And that was just iconic to me. I don’t know why that scene really stuck in my head, but I just thought it was really clever. But as far as it being as dark as it was, man, that came out of left field for

Craig: me. Yeah, it’s sad. I mean, it’s the doctor and his wife, the same doctor that they had taken the dead guy to. And you’re right. I mean, I think it’s just, it’s seeing them being torn apart, I think, is what is heart-wrenching. And you can kind of put yourself, Not maybe in a giant killer worm situation, but in a situation where you don’t know what’s happening and something bad is happening to your loved 1 and you can’t help them. Yeah, it’s kind of a helpless. And then, you know, the wife getting submerged in the car, I mean, that’s, it’s a frightening image and she’s all panicked. And I also read that, you know, that was supposed to be a much more elaborate effect. We were supposed to see the car being submerged more. She was supposed to bust out of the windshield and be standing on the hood of the car as it was submerged and then she would get sucked down into the sand. But they just ran out of time. They filmed it at night and they ran out of nighttime. The day came and they just had to move on. But I actually really, it’s maybe 1 of those happy accidents because that scene with the beams of light shining up in the air in a really unnatural way, you know, as far as car headlights are concerned, and then slowly 1 goes out and then the other goes out, so you get the impression that it’s been completely submerged. I actually thought it was really effective.

Todd: So much better, yeah. It’s like, you know, when the shark in Jaws doesn’t work anymore, you get a better

Craig: effect.

Todd: Right. Yeah.

Craig: Right, and I don’t remember how this happens. You know it’s so funny cuz Val and Earl just keep going back and forth like trying to get out of town and then something happens And then they have to go back and then they send them out again and then they have to come back. So I don’t remember exactly how it happens but eventually they get sent out on horseback and there’s this great horseback riding scene through the desert but of course eventually the monsters attack the horses and get the horses and this is then when we get the full reveal. 1 of the what they eventually the Chinese guy Chang eventually names them and he names them Graboids and that’s the name they keep throughout the whole rest of the series. Like that becomes their official name. It’s such

Todd: a corny name, you know, and it’s supposed to be. It’s just funny.

Craig: Yeah, it’s hilarious. But 1 of the Graboids exposes its true self. And it’s this huge worm. It’s really reminiscent of the worms from Dune in that it’s subterranean and it travels really fast. What makes it a little bit different, I guess, is the snake things are actually, they come out of its mouth. I don’t know if it’s tongues or whatever, but they come out of its mouth like I

Todd: don’t know if it’s like

Craig: tongues or whatever but they come out of its mouth like tentacles and then they can grab on to things and draw them back into the big worm’s mouth and that’s how it eats. It pops up out of the ground and rears up and roars at them and they see how big it is and then it chases them and they’re running next to this big concrete ravine. And eventually they come to a place where they have to jump across this ravine. And Val’s like, we’ll make it, we’ll make it. And they jump and of course they don’t make it and so they’re down in this ravine but then the worm runs into the concrete wall and dies from the impact. Yeah. And so they’ve they’ve got 1 and Rhonda shows up and she sees it and Kevin Bacon digs up. I have 1 of my face, such a stupid line but it’s so funny. You know Rhonda and Val are kind of talking and then, or no excuse me Rhonda and Earl are talking and then we hear Val from offscreen. Hey! Hey, check this out! I found the ass in! And it cuts over to him, and he’s dug up the whole thing, and he’s pulling up the hind end of it. And gosh, I don’t know, it’s probably 20 feet long, good 4 feet, maybe 5 feet across. It’s a great big thing and it looks very alien.

Todd: We don’t even know where these things come from and it’s never explained. Why these things suddenly jumped up and were doing it, like were they always kind of in this area? Did they get awakened somehow? Are they from outer space or whatnot? And I don’t remember, I’m pretty sure I saw the sequel. There have been like 6, 5 or 6. Do you know if it gets explained at some point?

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t remember. I’ve seen them all. Oh really? Oh yeah I’ve seen them all and I don’t remember if it’s ever explained or not and the characters speculate but they they just don’t know. You know at 1 point Rhonda, you know, she says well there are no fossils of them but maybe they predate fossils, but that would make them billions of years old, or whatever, millions, I don’t know. And she’s like, and we’ve never seen 1 until now? And good question. Where have they been all this time? How has nobody ever seen 1 in all this time? And it’s not explained here. I don’t know if it’s explained later or not. I mean, the, in the future movies, the creatures continue to evolve and they turn into different things and they build on, you know, the mythology of them. But I don’t know if it’s ever explained where they come from. But yeah, I mean, even within the context of the movie, it’s a little, because Edgar, the guy who was up on the power lines, they said he’d been up there for 3 or 4 days. Well in that time nobody noticed them. And it turns out, you know, they think they’ve killed this 1 and they’re all excited. You know, they’re planning what they’re going to do. They’re going to sell it. They’re going to make all this money. And then Rhonda’s like, wait a second. And she pulls out her seismographs and she realizes that she’s gotten readings from different areas at the exact same time. So based on the readings that she’s gotten, she speculates that there are 3 more of them. And it turns out that there are. And 1 of them comes and starts chasing them right away.

Todd: It’s just like a movie like this, there’s always a scientist, right? There’s always some scientist who’s gotta be there, part of the group, who can impart this important information that nobody else could possibly know. Yeah. It’s part of the formula, it’s kind of funny.

Craig: Oh yeah, it definitely is. And again, it goes back to those B movies. There was always a scientist there to explain things that were going on. But this leads to 1 of my favorite parts of the movie, just because it’s so fun and cute and silly. And another 1 of the grab boys shows up and starts chasing them. They’re trying to get to Rhonda’s truck. But this is when they figure out that these creatures operate by listening to the vibrations in the ground. And so if they stand perfectly still, the creatures can’t locate them directly. They can get kind of close, but if they’re not making any movement, then they’re kind of blind. The creatures are kind of blinding them. And they also, as they’re running away from this thing, 1 of them says, get up on the boulders, because they’re in the desert and there are all these big rock formations and they figure out that if they get up on these big rock formations then the things can’t get to them. And so they sit up there all night, 1 night, and they keep testing the ground to see if the thing’s waiting for them, and it is. I mean, it’s just waiting them out. And they say, oh, that must have been how they got Edgar. He sat up there for 3 or 4 days until he just died So they don’t know what to do, but Rhonda’s truck is probably I don’t know 150 yards away And while Val and Earl are arguing about what they should do Rhonda grabs where this came from I have no idea, but there are these huge poles laying around right next to the rock formation and she grabs 1. And I had never noticed this before either, but it made me smile. She grabs 1 of these poles and the pole that she grabs couldn’t have been longer than 4 feet long. And then they then they use them to pole vault from rock formation to rock formation. And the reason that I said the 1 that she grabbed couldn’t have been more than 4 feet long is because when they actually start pole vaulting, the poles are like 8 feet long. Like, significantly bigger than when they actually grabbed them. But it’s just fun imagery, you know, because like they do this long shot of this long line of rock formations and all 3 of them are just pole vaulting in unison, you know, 1 right behind the other. It’s cute. To the next. Yeah, it’s fun and it’s silly. They get to the truck and the worm chases them but they get away and they get back to town. Then once they’re back in town, that’s kind of, you know, we still got a good amount of the movie left, but really most of the rest of it is kind of a showdown in town where they have to get everybody together and they start out in the store and then the Gravoids attack and everybody ends up on the roof. I don’t know, there’s a lot that goes on.

Todd: There’s a lot of

Craig: stuff, yeah. Yeah, but it’s really, you know, at that point just kind of falling under siege and trying to stay safe.

Todd: Well, you know, and I think the action of this movie is really well done. In every situation, there’s always a moment where you’re just like, how in the world are these people going to get out of this? And there always is some crazy, weird thing that they do to figure it out. And it’s really satisfying in that way. I was reading a screenwriter the other day, it was giving advice, I think it was, I can’t remember who it was, but he’s written 1 of the last couple Mission Impossible movies with Tom Cruise, and he was talking about how to write good action and he was like you need to put your characters in impossible situations. Then anything that comes up, you can bring in other things, it only makes it worse. They can get lucky but it’s got to be bad luck, you know? And so it’s just like as an audience you’re constantly wondering how in the world can they get past this and I feel like the movie does a really good job of that. This scene in the you know the store a lot of the people in town are already in there and talking about what they’re gonna do and how they’re gonna make a break for the mountains because in the mountains they’re safe because they’re mountains and these creatures can’t get there. And then they can get over to Bigsby and get help on who’s going to go do that and what truck are they going to use and how are we going to outrun them and that sort of thing. And the worm comes in and it eats Walter, which is really sad, you know. And then they end up climbing up on the shelves inside the store and hopping from shelf to shelf. It’s kind of like the pole vaulting really, except without poles. They’re running across the top of these shelves, hopping from shelf to shelf, and then climbing up onto the roof through a opening that’s at the far end of the room. This is where things do get a little muddy and a little weird with the creature because supposedly this thing can’t see. All it can do is sense vibrations. Yet it’s able to figure some things out and do some things that seem like it would require sight, like it would require knowing exactly what these people are doing. I mean, they’re not on the ground, they’re leaping from thing to thing, but the next shot we see is 2 of these tentacles have grabbed the base of 1 of these shelving units, and it’s very deliberately pushing it over to set them going down like dominoes. I was kind of like, oh yeah, there’s some holes in this. And there’s several of these moments.

Craig: I just feel like, of course when they made this movie, I very much doubt that they thought that it would have spawned 6 sequels and and there’s a seventh 1 on the way like I don’t think that this is going anywhere anytime soon but yeah it’s

Todd: I don’t know like maybe it’s just knowledge we don’t have is that kind of

Craig: well I don’t know I mean I feel like they were trying to pack as much into the 1 movie I assume they only thought they were gonna get 1 movie It doesn’t really make all that much sense like in the same way. Where did they come from? Why are we just seeing them now? And then as soon as they show up, they immediately get really smart. Like, they learn, they figure out the people’s behaviors and they learn and it’s almost like mentally they’re evolving at just a ridiculous rate, you know? Like, they set traps and stuff, the grabboids do. And that’s some pretty sophisticated stuff.

Todd: It is. It’s like they’re learning, you know, they’re burrowing under their homes to try to, and their homes, So once everybody’s kind of up on the roof, Rhonda’s over on a water tower and the other family’s up on their roof and the 1 guy is up on his trailer and they can all kind of see each other and yell at each other from above. You know, there’s yelling and stuff going on. You think, doesn’t that create some vibration in the ground? Apparently not, because the thing is pretty silent when that’s going on and they’re not so worried about doing that. Yet later on in the movie they do a lot of yelling to try to distract the creature and it seems to work to a certain extent. So it’s a little uneven on that. And then here’s the other thing that bothered me if I’m gonna get nitpicky, and you know, I like to get nitpicky. When they first kill that first creature, right? They’re in this culvert and that creature barrels into that concrete wall and that’s what kills it. Well, it barrels into the concrete wall, but it kind of breaks through a little bit. So you can see that the concrete wall isn’t that thick. Okay, fine. So something harder than dirt is gonna kill the creature. Yet we see them burst through a lot of stuff in this movie, including the cinder block wall bunker of Bert and Heather later on. And it has, doesn’t have that effect at all. You know, of killing.

Craig: To be fair, it’s when it hits that concrete ravine, It’s going at full speed chasing these guys and it hits it at full speed. Once everybody else gets up on the roof in town then they start thinking about who’s not with them and and that’s Bert and Heather. And so Bert and Heather are down in their basement, which is like you said, like a bunker. It’s like, I mean, there are guns, you know, just lining the walls and you know, it’s very, I don’t know, it’s, It’s kind of crazy.

Todd: It’s a funny reveal because early in the movie, and we don’t see them a whole lot before this, but every time they come in, they’ll mention something about guns. You get the sense, okay, this is the couple that’s into guns or into survival or whatnot. And then we see them in this bunker, I originally thought, oh, it’s just like their basement. Yeah. She turns on a machine, that’s what sets the vibrations. I’m not sure what that machine is. Is it some kind of thing you put bullets in and?

Craig: It was, yeah. You know what that is? No, I mean, she was putting, I couldn’t tell if she was putting. Shells? Yeah, like shells, like casings, I don’t know.

Todd: Yeah, it was some kind of machine. It looked like a stone polisher or something. I don’t

Craig: know. Yeah, like an agitator kind of thing.

Todd: But it’s filmed against their workbench there. And so, you know, and they’re talking and whatnot, and he’s got a CB, the radio and it seems a little militant, you know, militaristic like. But it’s funny then when this grab-oid bursts through that wall at them, they run away from it and they run back and the opposite wall, which we see for the very first time, I think, at least that’s the impression I got, is just guns from floor to ceiling. It’s just a huge rack. And they start grabbing the guns off the wall, and then shooting them out at the monster, and then grabbing another gun, shooting them out at the monster. It’s so funny, and it’s so funny how that’s just, the fact that they waited to show us that wall of guns until they absolutely needed it was brilliant.

Craig: Well, and it’s also funny, because it goes on for quite a long time. I’m sure in real time it’s only a minute or a minute 30, but it seems like it goes on for a really long time where they’re just unloading gun after gun after gun into this monster. But it’s just the people back in town, they hear over the CB, they hear the monster breakthrough and, you know, they all get this, these sad looks on their face like, oh, that’s it. But then they start hearing the guns firing and it goes on for so long. But I just really liked this scene because they just unload these guns into this thing and it takes forever and eventually Bert busts through this glass casing over this enormous shotgun which they later refer to as an elephant gun and he unloads a couple of huge rounds from that into it, and eventually they kill it. And I like that. They’re not invincible, these monsters. They’re just really tough, but you can kill them if you have the right resources. And what I was getting at before was that 1 grab boy just hit the concrete super hard at full strength, but this 1, the walls kind of start shaking before it eventually pushes through. So to me it almost seemed like it didn’t hit it head on, just like in the town where it was kind of loosening up the foundation and then kind of pushed its way through. So that didn’t bother me so much. And I just love that set piece. I just love that set piece. And it looks really cool when the wall collapses and the monsters, you know, it’s just its big head, but it’s rearing all over the place and roaring at them. And the little snakes that are coming out of its mouth, and 1 of them grabs Heather at some point. But they kill

Todd: it.

Craig: And so now they’re down to what? 1 or 2? I don’t remember. There’s Just a couple

Todd: left. And all the effects are practical, which is very nice. I mean, this was before we really had too much of that CG. I mean, a couple years later, Jurassic Park would blow us away, but up until that point. And it’s really well done. I mean, it’s not a cheap movie. I mean, it’s a lower budget film for what it is, but it doesn’t look it. I thought they did quite a good job with all that.

Craig: Oh yeah, I like it a lot.

Todd: A bunch of stuff happens. I think Nestor gets killed and his truck is swallowed. They all are on the roof, but the monsters are smart now, and so they’re burrowing underneath these homes and the homes are starting to collapse. So they’ve come up with this plan and it’s a weird plan but their reasoning is that they can’t just get in their truck because we’ve seen it swallow vehicles But he has this cat, you know, it’s caterpillar, it’s got treads, it’s like a tank. Yeah. Piece of farm machinery. And he’s like, that thing weighs, you know, so many tons, so it’s not gonna be able to do that to that. And so we’ll hook it, we’ll hitch it up to this other semi-trailer thing that’s junkie that’s sitting over here and we’ll use that to sweep everybody around. We just got to get out to it first. And so they come up with this plan and they do it and it’s really great. It’s a great action sequence. Earl and Val are arguing about who’s going to go out and get the cat.

Craig: I’m making the run for the cat. Like hell you are. Get real, Earl, I’m faster than you.

Todd: I’m best at driving the cat.

Craig: Not while I’m around. Look, damn

Todd: it, now listen to me. I’m older and I’m wiser.

Craig: Yeah, well, you’re half right.

Todd: They do their rock, paper, scissors thing, and Earl wins. And just as he’s about to go, Val says, hey, good luck, buddy, and he elbows him in the ribs a little too hard, and Earl doubles over and Val takes that opportunity to run off and do it anyway. So, you know, it’s kind of unexpected moments like this are really peppered throughout the movie and really kind of keep you on your toes.

Craig: And it’s really fast paced, you know, the action keeps up. There’s not a dull moment and like, it’s just clever. They come up with this plan before even they decide who’s gonna run off. Miguel says, why don’t we turn on this little lawnmower tractor and send it off down the road? And then they’ll chase that as a distraction. So they do that and then it works and you know the monsters follow it. And then Val takes off running but then the tractor turns over and so their attention is back on Val and he’s running. Rhonda yells at Val stop stop they’re coming and so he stops and so the monsters stop and they’re probably within like 5 feet of them and they’re sending out their snake tongues to like feel around, and they’re super close to him. And so she comes up with this idea, because she’s on a water tower, she climbs down the ladder a little bit, and she kicks and bursts the pipe so that the water falls onto the ground and causes vibrations which draws the monsters. Which is just clever.

Todd: Yeah, so now she’s in danger.

Craig: Yeah, right, they come and they start trying to take down the water tower. Meanwhile, he gets the cat and he gets it hooked up to the trailer and he starts going through town and everybody’s jumping in and he gets Rhonda and you know they make it out to the Gummer’s house, to Bert and Heather’s house and they take too long. This frustrated me. They take way too long to get in because they’re like inventorying their guns or something. My partner watched it with me too and I was yelling at the TV, I’m like, hurry up. Are you serious? What is wrong with you? Come on. Like they were taking forever. But they all get in and it seems like everything’s great and they’re gonna make it. There’s nothing that the monsters can do to get them. And then the monsters set a trap. They dig out part of the path or whatever so that the cat falls into this trench and is disabled and then they’re stuck there. Fortunately Bert and Heather have made some homemade dynamite out of household chemicals.

Todd: In the right proportions. Right.

Craig: They use 1 and they throw it and 1 of the monsters, 1 of the graboids, eats it and blows up. And so then there’s only 1 Graboid left, but this 1 last Graboid is the 1 with the Stumpy tongue because it’s the 1 that’s tongue got torn off by the truck earlier And it’s apparently really smart and once the 1 gets killed by the dynamite then this 1 is too smart to fall for that.

Todd: And he spits it out.

Craig: Yeah, right. But they use the dynamite to, like, if they throw the dynamite, every time it explodes, it hurts. And even if the grab-oid’s not right next to it, the vibrations are so intense that it hurts them and they run away. The monster does. So they use it to help them get to a set of rocks and then eventually Val comes up with a plan And this is their big fishing plan.

Todd: Yeah, they go fishing and they’ve got this really long. It looks like a rope, but it’s kind of weird and Bert and Heather just have everything in their pack.

Craig: All right, how much we need?

Todd: I don’t know, but pretty quick, 15 seconds

Craig: at least.

Todd: What kind of fuse is that? Cannon fuse. What the

Craig: hell are you using it for? A cannon.

Todd: This is hilarious. And they tie it, you know, they light 1 of these things and they tie it to this and then toss it way out like a fishing line. Get the grab oi to eat it basically, like you said, and then the grab oi explodes. And the second time they do this the grab oid eats it and they think they’ve got it but then it spits it out way up in the air back toward the rocks and it lands on their whole stash of Explosives and they all have to leap off the rocks really fast and everything explodes So now they’re out there without their explosives, except for 1 Val still had in his hand. And he has to come up with a real quick plan because they’re all gonna be sunk here in a minute. And so he tears across towards the cliff. We saw this cliff earlier in the movie.

Craig: It’s the 1 he was peeing off of right in the beginning, yeah.

Todd: Exactly. Again, it’s just really neat how all this kind of wraps around. He tears off towards the cliff and the Graboid’s chasing after him and he gets to the cliff with his buddies. He tears the fuse a little bit so that it’s really, really short And he’s like, not yet, not yet, not yet, okay now. And he lights the fuse and he tosses it behind the grab oint so that it shocks him and makes him run away, which would be directly towards him on the edge of the cliff. And at the last minute he leaps over it as It crashes through the side of the cliff, and he looks over the side as this thing is falling and says,

Craig: Can you fly, you sucker? Can you fly?

Todd: And it can’t fly. It hits the ground and explodes.

Craig: Yeah, and it totally grows, you know, like it just splats like a water balloon on the ground below. And that’s pretty much the end. I mean, there’s a little bit of resolution where we see, you know, of course Val and Rhonda are gonna get together and… Yeah, and if I

Todd: were to criticize anything that was so unnecessary in this movie. There weren’t many moments except at the beginning and at the very end of this sort of chemistry kind of playful flirting between the 2 of them. Most of the movie is everybody doing what they’ve got to do to survive. It felt like that romantic subplot was really shoehorned in there, you know?

Craig: Yeah. I mean, not that this is really all that relevant, but there was a part when the whole big showdown in the town, There was a part where the monsters were chasing Rhonda and she got caught up in some barbed wire and her legs get tangled up in it and Val comes to try to help her and he says, And so that’s what she has to do. And I read, I just thought it was just a funny anecdote that she didn’t rehearse that scene and she didn’t wanna rehearse that scene because she wanted her reactions to be realistic as though she had to deep pants in front of Kevin Bacon in 5 seconds. Which I thought was kind of funny. And then right after that, a scene that we kind of skipped over. It all happens so fast. It’s easy to skip over things, but there’s a point where it’s chasing them and it chases them. They’re running across the porch of the store and it’s like a slatted porch. And as they’re running, the slats of the porch are just flying up behind them. And it’s just such a cool, practical effect. It is. There was some sort of mechanism under there that was firing these boards up right behind them. And it just looked really cool. And just in general, the practical effects, I think they looked great, you know, things looked pretty real for the most part. I mean, the blood and stuff of the grab boys, I mean, it just looked like some kind of gelatinous goo. It was cool looking and it didn’t look super fake and they did a good job of not allowing us to see behind the curtain. They revealed enough that we could see and it looked pretty realistic and I would just say that overall for the whole movie that was kind of the case and I just it’s it’s cool you know and I I I’m sure they expected this to be a one-off but because of how well it did in video sales and rentals. They got a sequel and then I don’t remember, there was, I think there were 2 sequels and then there was a prequel and then there were more sequels and they kept doing, have you seen the sequels?

Todd: I think I saw the second 1 a long time ago. And I think the 1 thing that links them all together, right, is the character of Bert.

Craig: Michael Grossman.

Todd: Yeah,

Craig: Michael Grossman. Yeah, he’s in all of them. And I think that 1 of the sequels was actually the pilot for the TV series, which actually ran for like 13 episodes and then it got canceled. And that’s the only 1 I haven’t seen. I’ve seen the movie that was the pilot, but I haven’t, I didn’t watch the show. But you know, they kept building on them. Like in the second 1, I think it was like apparently the grab boys, that’s kind of they’re, they’re like butterflies and like that they go through a metamorphosis and the next thing that they turn into like they’re called shriekers and they’re these little like two-legged things they kind of look like those Chattery teeth from when we were kids with the little feet Because they just got there just like these they’re like a potato You like it just a big head and mouth on these 2 little teeth. And they called them shriekers and then eventually the shriekers evolved into these creatures that could fly, but The way that they fly is that they would ignite their farts and that would shoot them into the air. So they were ass blasters. Oh my gosh. And like they, I know they get these crazy names in every 1. And then in the last 1, I don’t remember them all, I have seen them all but I don’t remember them all, the last 1 was called like Tremors of Cold Day in Hell or something and at this point they are relying pretty heavily on CGI and like the Graboids are jumping up into the air and flying through the air and then burrowing back down into the ground But what I will say, you know, they’re they’re pretty low budget The sequels all are and it shows But they’re all entertaining. They’re not great movies, any of them, by any stretch of the imagination. But they’re fun. I’ve watched every 1. There’s a new 1 in pre-production, and Michael Grossman is going to be in it. And I’ll watch it too. I mean, they’re just, they’re fun, no brainers. They’re, it’s just good, silly fun.

Todd: Well, I really, I enjoy this movie and I was worried, you know, going back and watching it so many years later that I would revise my opinion of it and I really haven’t. It was just as fun now, Maybe even more fun for me now. And maybe that’s just because we’ve ended up watching so much schlock lately that it’s good to see something a little nice, but yeah. And there are just a couple other things about this film that I think are cool. There are little moments of comedy and even little subtle things like at 1 point the annoying boy is sitting on the counter while they’re talking and he’s like eating gummy worms. You know, blink if you miss it, but if you do notice it, and we did because we happened to pause the video at that moment to go do something and I was like, wait a second, is that a jar of gummy worms next to him? And there’s another point when the grab boys tentacles are going through the store, searching through the store and it reaches out and it like squeezes a can of tomatoes, You know, so it looks like it’s, you know, something bloody or whatever. And then just these little things peppered throughout the movie that I caught this time around that I don’t think I caught the first time. And just kind of showed the care and the joy, you know, that went into it. It’s a movie that I would say, you know, just feels full of joy through in and throughout except when that old guy and his wife sucked into the sand. The director of this movie, Ron Underwood, this was 1 of his first big movies and he went on after this to do almost a movie a year for a little while. He did City Slickers after this, also a very well regarded movie. Heart and Souls, speechless, Mighty Joe Young. Then he got to The Adventures of Pluto Nash, and we all know that that didn’t do so well. And he’s been all over TV since then.

Craig: Yeah, big stuff, yeah. Like, that Once Upon a Time, the Disney characters. I mean, you know, he’s been very successful.

Todd: And the writers of this movie wrote Short Circuit before this, and that’s what I’d like to go back to and watch again, because again- I love that movie. I remembered loving it as a kid, and I haven’t seen it since, and I really hope that my feeling of it doesn’t get tainted by watching it now. But you know, they did Short Circuit, which was a great film. A bit of trivia that we found about them is that they got the idea for this movie. They worked in the US Navy and they were, you know, cinematographers and they were shooting footage for instructional videos basically and they’re out in the desert standing on some rocks and thought, what would it be like if there was something here and we could not leave these rocks. And the idea evolved from a concept that they started calling land sharks, which is such a goofy name. And then of course Saturday Night Live used to do a thing about land sharks, so they had to change that. But at 1 point, you know, it was like beneath perfection, which I guess gives off that feeling of the mystery that they originally wanted to have before they settled on Tremors but yeah those guys wrote some really good movies too. They did Batteries Not Included.

Craig: Oh, it’s a cute movie.

Todd: I love that movie. You know, they did the screenplay for Heart and Souls as well. So anyway, yeah, I would totally recommend this movie to people. And I, that’s kind of what I expected to say when we first sat down to watch it. And I was happy to have that affirmed this time around.

Craig: Yeah, I’m glad we did it. Like I said, I was a little reluctant just because I’ve seen it so many times, but it was fun to sit down and watch it from start to finish again. It was just as fun this time as it was in the beginning and so thank you for the request. It was well worth it.

Todd: It sure was. Well, we had a great time doing this and we’re looking forward to doing a couple more requests this month before we go into February where we might have another theme month planned for you. We’ll see. Until then, you can catch us on Google Play, on iTunes, or on our website, twoguyz.red40net.com if you want to catch up with some of our back episodes. We have over 150 of them now. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend and help spread the word. And also if you have more requests, please send them our way. You can find us on Facebook if you search 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. You can leave a message for us there or on our website as well. We’ll be sure to get it. We respond to every message we get. Until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Kicking off Request Month is this request from long-time listener, Karthik. We enjoyed having a rare political discussion (don’t worry folks, we don’t get too deep) and dissecting this film that made bank at the box office and spawned a few sequels and a TV show. Thanks for the request, and if you have any more, please let us know!

The Purge (2013)

Episode 156, 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, Craig, after we got done with our holiday goodies, we decided to dive into request month as promised. Go into our little backlog that we have of requests. Today’s request comes from a longtime and loyal listener, Kartik. He wanted us to do The Purge. So we are reviewing 2013’s The Purge, which was the first of a, what turned out to be a franchise basically. I think there are what, 4 of them now?

Craig: Yeah, and a TV series.

Todd: And a TV series. So I had never seen this before, so I was excited to see it. Although I did have this notion when I went in that I wasn’t going to like it. I felt like this might be the kind of movie that I don’t care too much for, which is just people doing terrible things to other people without much point to it. And so that’s what kind of what kept me away from the series from the beginning. But anyway, how about you?

Craig: Well, I had seen it before. I saw it when it came out. The previews, I remember the advertising campaign was pretty compelling and I thought it seemed like a cool concept at the time. You know, this was in 2013 and it seemed a little far-fetched, you know, very dystopian and kind of crazy. And so I saw it in 2013 and I thought it was alright. I liked it okay. What the critics had problems with and I agreed was that it had this great promise of kind of being this night of mayhem and then everything in the movie turns out to be confined just to this 1 house and you’re really kind of left where I was and the critics were left thinking it would have been more exciting to kind of broaden the horizons and see what was going on outside and in other places. And as it turned out, you know, the director actually kind of agreed and said, well, you know, we only had a couple million bucks and like 19 days to shoot. And so We were pretty limited in what we could do and he said we were hoping that it would do well enough to get a sequel and then we could expand and that’s exactly what they did. Part 2 is more chaotic and it’s set outside and in various locations And so it’s a little bit more exciting. But going back and watching this 1 again, I liked it better than I remembered liking it. I still don’t think that it’s amazing and it certainly has its flaws, but I think that it also comes with the difference in time. Now that we’re in 2019, the movie is a little bit scarier because it feels a little bit closer to home.

Todd: Yeah, it is. And that’s so depressing to say, isn’t it? It’s true. Well, the premise is a solid, I don’t know, it’s a solid premise, it’s a nice premise. Again, it still seems a little far-fetched, but maybe not as far-fetched now as it did then but you know it’s a movie so you suspend this belief. The whole notion is that America, the United States, is run by you know a new group of people. In fact they’re pretty faceless, pretty nameless. That’s part of the creepiness factor of the movie, I think, is that there is this semi-dystopian future where the U.S. Almost seems like a fascist state, maybe. The New Founders is what they’re called and referred to through the movie. And they’ve established this ingenious way, according to the movie, of basically eliminating crime in the US. And that is that they have a 12-hour period every year where any and all crime is legal, including murder. And they make a point of that, including murder. And this is supposed to basically get it all out of our system. It’s supposed to purge us of the, you know, the feelings that we have and the need to commit crime. It’s like an escape valve, basically. We’re practically crime-free except for this 12 hours. So, it’s an interesting idea because then you immediately think, well, what would you do during that 12 hours? And you get a little bits and pieces in the beginning of the movie of how people are planning to spend it, you know? And some very normal people are planning to go out and get revenge on their boss or by killing them or doing whatever during this period. So it’s a really interesting premise. It’s a great, I mean, it’s a great premise for, in this case, it’s basically the premise for a home invasion movie.

Craig: Yeah, I mean, I think what makes it interesting to me is that, you know, not only is it legal, but it’s sanctioned, you know, like by society, like, it’s okay, you know, you can be considered a normal, decent human being and good citizen all throughout the year. And then really this 1 night, not only is what you’re doing legal, but and not only is it okay, you know, virtually in the eyes of at least the people that we see. And that’s the thing, like in this movie, we really only kind of see 1 side of society. We see the privileged. So we don’t really get so much insight into what’s going on with the underprivileged. And the later movies deal with that. And I haven’t seen them all. I don’t even remember which ones I’ve seen. I know I saw the second 1 and I watched the TV series, which I actually really enjoyed, but It explores other aspects of society. But this 1 we’re dealing mostly with very privileged people. And so not only are these actions approved, but they’re celebrated. Like you’re doing your patriotic duty. Yes. To go out and do

Todd: this. Exactly, and that is an interesting spin on it as well. Like you said, it’s like their patriotic duty. And any time a character in this film kind of questions what they’re doing or says something, it’s almost kind of shot down by the others. Like, now remember all of the good that the Purge does. You know, this is our duty as Americans, basically, is how it’s couched, it’s how it’s announced by the television.

Clip: Commencing at the siren, Any and all crime, including murder, will be legal for 12 continuous hours. Police, fire, and emergency medical services will be unavailable until tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. When the purge concludes. Blessed be our new founding fathers and America, a nation reborn. May God be with you all.

Todd: You know, this movie is obviously trying to make some social points. It has a kind of an agenda, but I think 1 of the bad things about this movie or 1 of the negative, I wouldn’t say bad, just 1 of the weak parts of this film is it doesn’t seem to really know the point it’s trying to make. At least maybe it’s trying to make a lot of different points and so not 1 of them comes through as a general theme. Like for example, I see there’s a little bit of criticism here of the military. I don’t want to say criticism, but at least questioning of what does it mean to serve your country and to die in service to your country.

Craig: Right.

Todd: There’s a lot of that going on through here. I think, you know, especially there are some moments where the characters say, thank you for your sacrifice. Right. Which is something that we say almost verbatim. It’s like a catchphrase that we use for military people whenever you encounter them. Oh, you’re in the military? Oh, thank you for your sacrifice. And I grew up in a military family. Both of my parents are veterans. You know, and they hear that a lot too. And they have mixed feelings about that. You know, they say like, it’s nice to hear, but it’s become this thing that people just feel like they have to say. It sounds almost trite, and I don’t really feel like there’s a lot of meaning in it. Not that my parents feel like people should be running around thanking them for their sacrifice, and maybe that’s part of the problem as well. Right. So Eddie, just that that is used in the movie very pointedly. I think that the filmmakers absolutely were trying to draw some parallels there. But you know, as we go on until we talk about it, you’re going to see some other parallels as well too that they’re trying to draw. And I’m not saying you can’t, you know, skip along all of these things, but it does kind of muddy the waters a bit when you When the movie is finished and you’re sitting and you’re thinking about it, you’re like, what am I supposed to get out of it? What am I feeling?

Craig: Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s just it’s really dark and and it’s it’s pessimistic up until the end, you know It’s it’s it’s not like there’s some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not like, I mean, I suppose I guess the movie focuses on this 1 family. I don’t remember their last names. Sanden. The patriarch is James played by Ethan Hawke. And then there’s the mom, Mary played by Lena Headey, a son, Max, who’s, I don’t know, probably like 13, 14, and then the daughter, Zoe, who is a teenager, under 18. Like, I don’t know Exactly, but under 18, that’s important because she’s got this boyfriend who’s 18 that’s too old for her, whatever. And it focuses on this family and they are, they’re a wealthy family. The dad works, he’s like a CEO or something, you know, he’s a top dog in this security systems company and that’s what he does is he sells home security systems for the purge. And he’s doing very well. Obviously, you know, this family has built their, to say empire is not really fair. I mean, they’re very wealthy, but it’s all been built. They’ve profited from this. And so of course they support it, or at least the parents do. And I guess there’s supposed to kind of be an arch where they kind of come to realize that it’s bad, but that it’s kind of underplayed. And ultimately, you know, in the end, nothing really changes. So the whole thing is kind of dark and depressing, really. And like I said, I’m not going to sit here and be super, super critical of our government or anything like that. But it’s a very strange time in America right now. And things are very different than they’ve been in the past. And for many of us, it seems like things are potentially going down a kind of dark road. I’m not suggesting that I think that we are headed towards the purge or anything like that, but you know, I’m almost at a point where very little surprises me. And so, and so, you know, this the movie is is kind of just scary in that light in that it doesn’t seem as out of the realm of possibility as it did in 2013.

Todd: There’s a kind of sanctioning or tolerance of violence and hate right now that we’re experiencing that’s pretty shocking to us and a movie like this in 2013, you know, it seems so far-fetched. And now in America, this kind of thing, it doesn’t seem as far-fetched, even though it’s, things would have to get pretty darn bad for this to happen. But it’s chilling in the beginning because, and I think the movie does a really good job of setting up this really uncomfortable, almost stomach-turning atmosphere. I mean, you’re going to see the Purge, you’ve seen the previews, you know the premise going into the movie, usually. And if you don’t, you’re going to get it very quickly in the movie from almost the very beginning because the credits start out with surveillance footage of the previous Purge and it’s just all of these people killing each other basically on Purge night, which is this night. And then we get into this, you know, almost gated community, beautiful McMansions up and down the aisle, and people are putting out these blue flowers, which is their way of showing their support for the Purge. You know, it’s like hanging out your flag, right? It’s like putting out your yellow ribbon. It’s like putting your election sign on the lawn. You know, this is very tied into American traditions here. And then, you know, they’re talking about, you know, hey, have a safe night, have a safe night. And it’s just said so casually, you know, like have a good day.

Craig: Well, right, and you know, the mom like runs into a neighbor on the street, this, you know, very suburbanite blonde, pretty middle-aged woman.

Clip: So are you having your annual party, Grace, or? No, too much trouble. We’re just gonna lock down, watch some purge events, nothing special. Well, thank you for the cookies. Good night. You’re welcome. Have a safe night, Mary. And you, Grace.

Craig: That’s part of what’s so chilling about it is just how casual it is. You know, like they’re having purge parties. You know, like these wealthy people who are secure behind their fancy security systems, they gather and celebrate. Like it’s the finale of like American Idol or something. You know, like it’s an event, like it’s a television event. It’s just, it’s chilling. Oh yeah. We are that, you know, we are, we’re a voyeuristic society. And should something like this happen, it would be televised and people would watch it.

Todd: They talk about it the next day you know they get right at the water cooler. It would be a thing you know and and doesn’t even dive into the I don’t even think it gets close enough to reality, you know, I mean think about the social media aspect Think about what people are gonna be posting and sending to texting to each other and messaging It’s not like all cell phone communication goes down at this time. Right in this way. It’s really evocative I think that the things that was immediately coming to my mind was the lottery. Uh-huh. Shirley Jackson. Shirley Jackson just 1, it’s just an iconic short story of American fiction. It’s very short but it’s very much the same way where these people get together and they’re just matter of factly talking about this ritual that they have every year that they believe helps them, helps the crops to grow and all that. And it’s, you got to go out and read the lottery. If you don’t, if you haven’t read it yet, you need to read it and then skip forward about 2 minutes and pick up this conversation because at the end of it is you find out what they’re talking about is they they ritually stone a person to death in the middle of town. Again, it’s just like this movie. In fact, it’s probably very much inspired by it. They’re just matter-of-factly talking about it. It’s their patriotic duty. Of course we have to do it because it’s what keeps society going. And so therefore, like, we’re not even considering, you know, we’re not even questioning it. And that’s, again, this notion that we’re not even questioning it anymore because it’s become this ritual for us that we all believe is doing good. That sort of thing just really strikes home right now in politics in America, so it’s pretty scary.

Craig: Yeah, it is. And I think that the film is being critical of a particular facet of American society, you know, the wealthy, the elite, you know, the 1% or whatever. It focuses so much on that in this movie and the dad in particular, you know, the kids are a little bit more skeptical and they’re kind of questioning and especially the son who’s the youngest 1, which would make sense, you know, a young kid who hopefully still has some decency and innocence that is just human. But then you’ve got the dad who is so jaded, you know, who just very sincerely looks him in the eye and just says, yeah, I understand that bad things happen on this night, but think of all the good the purge does. And on the news, you know, we get little news clips kind of in the background every once in a while, and they talk about how, yes, it’s where we’re getting rid of the undesirables in society. And the undesirables are the homeless, the disabled. The rationale is these are people who are not contributing in any useful way to society and we’re better off without them because then we don’t have to support them and then wealth and resources can be more evenly distributed to the worthy.

Todd: Yeah. Ugh! Like… And it goes, you know, and it’s saying this too, and who is the worthy? Well, here’s a guy who makes his money off of this night. Yeah. I mean, he sells security equipment specifically for this to the wealthy specifically for this night. And so here you’ve got a guy who’s profiting from this as well and that is why his family is up in this 1% and why they are so kind of immune, basically, you know, at least consider themselves immune. Them and the whole neighborhood, you know, they say early on when they’re sitting around the table, I wouldn’t say it’s a hundred percent successful, at least for me, at really giving me sympathy for this family, but it could have been a movie about a bunch of rich, terrible people doing terrible things to other rich, terrible people, and then you really just wouldn’t even care. Right. It would undermine the message it’s trying to make. And in a way, that is what the movie is, but at least they try to throw a few bones the other way with this particular family to make them seem like the kind of people you might want to root for anyway. Because, you know, the dad, at the same time, he’s checking boats, like he’s bragging about how much money he made at the dinner table and then he’s checking the the listings for the new yacht there basically he wants to buy he sits down and he mentions to the kids as the kid as the purges going to start now we’re lucky because we make enough money that we don’t have to worry about our safety on this night. Now, that’s as far as it goes, you know? But he makes mention

Craig: of it. See, but that’s the thing. Like, yes, I can certainly find sympathy for the kids, definitely, even though the daughter is so stupid, she’s so dumb throughout the whole movie. And the kid makes really foolish decisions too, but I can excuse that because he’s a kid. And the parents, like the mom’s fine, I’ll get back to her in a second, but the dad is just so douchey. Like, and I think that the reason that I have such a problem really specifically with him, but with all of them is because I know these people. You know, these are people who are polite in society and who, you know, I’m sure within their family love each other very much. And you know, if you knew them on a casual basis, you would think that they were decent people. And yet they endorse these terrible practices and ideas. And I know those people. You know what I mean?

Todd: But that’s also now it’s in a world where this doesn’t happen. Whereas in this world, everybody endorses it. It’s kind of like giving people a bit of a pass even though it’s wrong. It’s like where you give people a little bit of a pass if they were racist like back in like 1850s because everybody was racist in the 1850s and so you have to be almost super humanly wonderful in order to not hold some of these tendencies. It’s not to excuse it, but at least we kind of put them in a bit of a box, if you will. And I feel like this movie is putting this family in that kind of, in the world of the movie, this family feels like a lot of people feel. Now, the problem is we don’t get outside of this family or this neighbor. We don’t know how the poor feel. We can imagine they don’t feel happy about this at all, but the movie doesn’t really give us those answers. So it’s pretty nebulous.

Craig: Right, and that’s the thing, the only representative, so the purge goes down, you know, it starts or whatever, and they lock down, then they all kind of split off from 1 another. The daughter has this boyfriend who the dad doesn’t approve of, and it turns out that even though she told him to leave, he stays behind in the house, so that’s going on and causes some intrigue later on. But really, they’re all just kind of watching the monitors. The son, by himself, happens to see on the monitor this guy running down the street, begging for help, and it’s the only black person in the whole movie.

Todd: No, no, not true. There’s a black woman later in the movie. Later in

Craig: the movie. Oh, that’s right, you’re right. You’re right. So I guess it would have been better for me to say the only person outside of the socioeconomic status of most of the rest of the people that we see.

Todd: That’s right.

Craig: Apparently, I read that this guy appears in at least 3 or 4 of the movies. I don’t remember.

Todd: He’s in at least 2, yeah, of the sequels.

Craig: We don’t really get to know him as a character. I mean, he’s really more just a prop, a rabbit running scared. And I don’t even wanna necessarily call that a flaw because I think that that’s kind of intentional. I think that he’s more supposed I think he’s supposed to be a little bit nebulous. You know, we’re not supposed to know a lot about him. We don’t need to. All we need to know is that he’s on the other side of it. But he’s the only person that we see on the other side of it. And so we don’t get any exploration of what the rest of the world thinks. And to be fair, again, the other movies do. The other movies follow the people, at least the ones I’ve seen, on the other side. And the people on the other side recognize exactly what’s going on here. They recognize that they are being systematically exterminated. They recognize the motivations behind it, and they recognize the depravity behind it. But it’s, I think that that’s commentary on how when you’re on the winning side, it’s very easy to dismiss those concerns and it’s very easy to justify your actions when they only benefit you and you don’t really see any negative consequence.

Todd: Yeah, you’re totally insulated from it.

Craig: Right. I don’t wanna say I have friends like that because I try not to associate myself with those types of people personally. But I certainly know them. We’re in, again, a weird place where racism is rearing. It’s very ugly head and people are very vocally being very critical and discriminatory towards, and as much as it has to do with race, because it certainly does, It’s really about social economics more than anything else, I think. This movie, I feel like it scratches the surface of it, and that’s good. I think for the first movie, and they’re lucky that it did well enough that they got to explore it further, but to just kind of scratch the surface here, I think they did a reasonably good job.

Todd: Yeah, I mean, maybe as good as you could hope for. I mean, again, I think that’s 1 of my main criticisms of the movie, just from a thematic level, is it does just scratch the surface of a lot of these little ideas instead of really honing in on 1 of them. It’s not to say that the movie has to have a point, but clearly this movie is trying to make a point. I mean, this is 1 of those movies. And so it would have been better for me to get a bead on what that point was and not have to watch a sequel or 2 or 3 to get that. So that’s just my criticism of the film. I mean, it’s not my only 1, but it’s definitely the 1 that was haunting me throughout. Oh, this is what they’re trying to say. Oh, wait a minute, okay. Oh, I see, they got that in there. Oh, I see, all right, now it’s kind of about the military. Oh, now it’s about, you know, this even the violence within the community of these haves and have nots, these haves, right? It’s like they’re the more haves and the less haves, and there’s the jealousy, right? The neighbor who meets the mother outside, what her name is Mary, the neighbor Grace, who meets Mary outside and gives her cookies, is really quite sinister in her kindness, right? It’s clear she’s being a little fake and it’s clear there’s an undertone here and that’s that she makes a comment about.

Clip: You know your husband sold a new security system to almost every home in this community. You know, some people are actually saying this neighborhood paid for that new addition on your home. Are people really saying that? Relax, It’s just good old neighborhood gossip. Nothing to worry about. You’re too sensitive.

Todd: And that turns out to play into it later on in the movie.

Craig: Right. I mean, ultimately, I think that, and it may be a little bit heavy handed, But I don’t necessarily think that that means that it’s entirely wrong. But I think that what is being suggested here is that these people, when it comes down to it, they’re just depraved. Yeah, It’s under the guise of patriotic duty. Really what it’s about is just allowing your most base human instincts. It’s just like completely surrendering to your id. Just doing whatever you want to satisfy your impulses. So if you’re jealous of somebody, then you have the right and privilege to do whatever you want to do to them. If you despise somebody because of the way that they look or because of the way that they live or the way that you perceive how they are a detriment to your existence, then you can just do whatever you want. It’s kind of like just like a devolution of society.

Todd: Yeah, well, and it also just kind of shows how we, as society, create these systems or these belief systems to allow us to justify that, you know? The movie gets even religious toward the end of the film, where even, I mean, this is, you could call it a ritual, you know? It happens for 12 hours every single year, you know? Like I said, it’s very reminiscent of the lottery. It’s something that they all believe just like religiously has to happen because it satisfies our base instincts and resets, resets those, you know, that it comes into our bio biology. It comes into our DNA of what it means to be human. Even toward the end, 1 of the final scenes, I’m just going to kind of jump ahead a little bit. I don’t think there’s a problem with that, right? No, no. The family is completely surrounded by their neighbors who are going to kill them. And before they do, they all join hands around them like a religious ceremony and do almost a prayer like thank you for your sacrifice and blah blah blah blah before they start to do their thing. So it touches on that too, And that’s really deeply unsettling because again we can see evidence of how religion is used very easily. Almost in some ways seems designed. Certain sex, certain people take it that way anyway. Designed to justify this sort of, we’re like this and you’re like that and therefore you’re less human than we are and therefore we’re allowed to Do or say or feel a certain way towards you?

Craig: Yeah, and I think that 1 of the problems with the movie, you know okay, so I fall pretty far on 1 side of the political spectrum, but I could see how this movie would be off putting to some people who maybe thought because it seems very pointed. You know, we’re talking, we’re not hitting on a lot of the plot because frankly the plot is less interesting than the issues surrounding it.

Todd: It kind of sucks actually I think.

Craig: It’s all right, it’s all right, but it’s kind of typical of the movies. Yeah, I mean it was just, you know, it’s a home invasion movie. It’s very typical of the movies that were coming out around this time. There are shades of funny games, big shades of funny games, I thought. What was the other 1 with the mask people who came in to the big family dinner? You’re next.

Todd: You’re next, yeah.

Craig: Lots of shades of that. Because it just, it becomes that, it just becomes a home invasion movie. These people in these creepy masks show up at their house and well, the son takes in that scared guy who was running down the street and the neighbors rat them out and so this group of well-dressed clean-cut looking kids in these scary masks show up and they give them you know an ultimatum.

Clip: Your home tells me you’re a good folk just like us. 1 of the haves. And your blue flowers tell me that you support the purge. We want to treat you fairly, so listen closely. Mr. And Mrs. Deman, your sheltering is nothing but a dirty homeless pig. A grotesque menace to our just society who had the audacity to fight back, killing 1 of us when we attempted to execute him tonight. The pig doesn’t know his place and now he needs to be taught a lesson. You need to return him to us. Alive. You have until our provisions arrive, provisions which will help us break into your elegant home. If you don’t, if you don’t deliver him by the aforementioned time, we’ll release the beast on him and on you.

Craig: They just call him terrible names, like street trash and pig and all

Todd: kinds of horrible names. It’s really in the face, in your face, yeah.

Craig: Yeah, and that’s kind of what I’m getting at because I feel like the filmmakers are targeting a particular group of people. I mean, Especially the Home Invaders, I’m sorry, and I don’t want to alienate any of our listeners. I’m not trying to take a major political stance here, but they look like college young Republicans.

Todd: I mean,

Craig: that’s what they look like. You know, they’re very clean cut, white kids, you know, in expensive clothes, and you know, well manicured hairstyles, and all that stuff.

Todd: Speaking very eloquently.

Craig: Yeah. Well-educated. And I feel like the movie is really pointed in targeting that particular group of people. It’s a little narrow-minded. I get that it’s an hour and 25 minute movie, so it’s not like you can explore all of the social constructs of America. But if I fell on that side of the political spectrum, I would feel like it wasn’t a fair representation because I know many many very decent good-natured kind conservatives and and Republicans and not all of them are the way that they’re being portrayed here. And the movie doesn’t go so far as to call out a particular political party, but it seems very pointed, and I could see how that would be off-putting to some people.

Todd: Well, and it doesn’t have to be as pointed, you know, and that’s another criticism, I think. Sometimes the movie is a little too on the nose with it. It’s like, you know, we get it, you can be more subtle. Like what you said, the name-calling is just so nasty. It’s like, oh please, you know, I mean, you’d have to be a really awful depraved person to just even talk about another human being like that. It would be just as realistic for these people to say look he’s just a you know even just the dregs of the society or he is an undesirable or something like that, you know, as the way that we as human beings will often try to use coded language or use downplayed language, dog whistles, if you will, to feel more comfortable talking about things without being so direct.

Craig: Well, yeah, but again, and that’s where I think the movie was just a few years ahead of its time because I see that kind of ugliness on the news and on social media all the time.

Todd: It’s true, now.

Craig: It’s like people have been emboldened to behave that way. And you know, I never thought that racism went away. You know, I always knew it was there, but it was quieter. And there was just kind of an understanding that if you had those beliefs, you’re better off keeping it quiet in public society. You know, maybe in the privacy of your home and with people who you know share your same feelings, then you would have a little bit more safety. But now it just seems like for many, and certainly not for everybody, and I don’t think that America is some dystopian society or anything, but for some people, they feel emboldened enough. And to call this guy street trash and a pig, I have seen so much uglier stuff in real life. Yeah, true. Which makes it even scarier, I suppose.

Todd: Well, To me, I’m thinking he’s trying to persuade, right? He’s trying to persuade him to let him go. I would have thought he would have kind of assumed that the more polite he would be, even talking about this guy, the more likely he could hedge his bets that they would hand him over. But maybe then again, that’s what the movie’s saying, is that everybody in this neighborhood would maybe talk this way, you know, or accept it.

Craig: Right, but I feel like that’s what’s going on. Like he assumes that they share his sentiment because of who they are. Again, I hate to bring race into it, but again, you can’t not bring it into it. I think that this guy, this polite, and the guy that plays the leader of this group does a really good job. He’s very chilling. He’s very chilling. He seems very entitled, emboldened, and he plays it all with a very cool affect that’s really unsettling and he does a good job.

Todd: No, it’s like you said, that’s where the funny games feeling comes in, he’s straight off of that. The actor’s name is Reese Wakefield, he wasn’t in funny games, but he’s basically playing 1 of those characters.

Craig: Yeah, and I read that he got cast on the very last day of casting. Like everybody else that had auditioned was playing it way over the top and he came in and just delivered it in this really cool, calm fashion with this just kind of chilling smile and chilling gaze and the filmmakers were just thrilled because you know it just worked perfectly and they were down to the wire. So he does a good job, but it’s almost just like he just anticipates their comradery. He just expects that you’re 1 of us, you get it, so just hand them over to us. They’re not really opposed to doing that. First of all, there’s kind of a bit of silliness where the daughter’s boyfriend says that he’s gonna go down and have a man to man with the dad, but really he’s going to try to kill him. I just think it’s such a stupid plot point, like, oh well yeah, I’m going to talk to your dad so we can be together and then I’m going to come back upstairs and be like, well I killed him instead, but at least now we can be together. Like, okay, Good plan, Romeo.

Todd: It’s so dumb, yeah. Although this apparently happens, you know, I don’t know.

Craig: I guess, well, and I also read that this was a rewrite. Like, initially it was supposed to be the daughter who was actually gonna try to kill the dad. Oh my gosh. But the studio didn’t like it, and so they forced a rewrite and wrote in this boyfriend, and it’s all just kind of stupid, and it doesn’t really matter anyway. But that happens at the same time that these people are showing up. So there’s all kinds of things going on. When the guy, the poor guy, gets in, the thing that the family is most concerned about is their safety. Well, then all of a sudden this new group of people shows up and they’re demanding that they turn over this guy to them. And it’s not that they’re entirely opposed to that. They don’t know where the guy is. You know, like he’s hiding in the house. He knows that he’s prey. He knows that he’s the hunted. It’s not like they’re in their toast and marshmallows together or anything. And so it becomes very like there’s a whole cat and mouse thing in the house where they’re running around looking for the guy and they don’t I mean eventually they find him which leads to what I feel like is supposed to be the character’s enlightenment like oh we realize that if we turn him over, we’re just as bad as they are. And so ultimately they decide that they’re not going to, and instead they’re just gonna stand their ground and fight for their home. But it just, the epiphany, it’s just too sudden and it just doesn’t ring true to me at all.

Todd: I agree with you, I do. And I was really on board with the movie up until this point. I felt like they were building a really solid web here. Because even still when this guy was led in, we’re really not even sure of his intentions. Right. We’re not even sure if he’s actually seeking sanctuary or if he’s part of a plot or if he’s just, you know, another guy just trying to get in, this is way of getting into the house, if he might be with, because we’ve had that little sinister bit with the neighbors, I thought maybe it was part of this plot by the neighbors to take these guys out. And so when they’re inside the house, they’ve got the threat from the guys outside who are saying, who’ve set up this real moral dilemma, right? We’ll let you go if you just turn this guy who you don’t even know, don’t even care about over. And then you have this guy who may or may not turn against the family, right? So they’re not even sure. And then you have the son who is actively trying to help this guy hide, who’s, you know, potentially putting his family in danger because of it. He’s got this little robot that’s running around and he’s guiding the guy into a hiding spot. And indeed, the sister tries to go to that same hiding spot and he springs out and holds her up as a hostage. So wow, nobody really knows what’s gonna happen. You can’t even trust the people outside the door that once you turn this guy over they’re gonna be true to their word because they’re freaking psycho and they yes they make no bones about that either it’s like a weird it’s like again it’s almost over-the-top weird how these people are outside skipping and dancing around like wearing daisies in their hair like hippies, you know or whatever and wearing these Smiling masks, you know, which which again it creates that dichotomy, you know, that’s really really spooky You know, good guy Fox mask or whatever.

Craig: But yeah the the director I’m looking for his name James DeMonaco he wrote and directed it. Oh, right, okay. And he’s been pivotal to this whole series, like he’s stuck with it. It’s almost the only stuff that he’s done. But apparently his whole life he has been fascinated with Charles Manson and the Manson family. And so he based these characters kind of on the Manson family, which is why, you know, they’re kind of hippie, you know, and the girls are in these, you know, kind of flowy dresses and they’re skipping around barefoot and it’s all kind of, you know, 1960s free love kind of stuff. And I thought that that was interesting. But again, it is a movie, so I don’t expect it to be some sort of manifesto, but I just feel like there was so much that kind of went unexplored. Like, like you said, this guy in their house, they don’t know who it is and we don’t know anything about him. I remember thinking the first time I saw the movie, I bet he’s in on the plot. I bet he’s just a lure or some sort of distraction or something. And it turns out that he’s not. But 1 of the things that I feel like it doesn’t really explore enough is the survival instinct. I mean, you see it in this guy. We don’t, again, we don’t know anything about him, but it doesn’t seem like he has any mal intent. He just wants to survive. But when push comes to shove, he is willing to hold the daughter hostage. And I believed him when he said, because the mom and the dad both end up holding guns on him. And he says, if you don’t put your guns down, I’ll hurt her and then I’ll hurt you. And I thought that it was interesting that he said hurt instead of kill, you know, kind of gave me the impression he didn’t want to kill anybody, but if he had to, he would do what he had to to survive. And I also thought that in that moment where they do, they best him, they get him down on the ground somehow, knock him out, and then they tie him up in duct tape, but he wakes up before they can secure him to a chair. And so the dad has him down on the ground and he tells the mom, get the letter opener and push it into his wound. And she does, she gets this letter opener and he’s got this big wound in his side and she just stabs him, you know? Like she sticks it in until he complies, which he eventually does, and then they get him tied up, but then, you know, they just get these looks from their kids, like I can’t believe you’re doing this.

Clip: I can’t. Oh yes you can, baby. I can’t. Baby, I need you right now, okay? Hey, look at me, Huh? Look at me, Mary. Mary. What’s wrong? This is so wrong. It’s so wrong. This is so wrong. We don’t have any other choice. We don’t have a choice. Don’t touch me. Okay? Look at you. I’m sorry. No, no, no. Don’t touch me. When did this happen?

Craig: Again, it’s that whole moment of epiphany where the dad kind of gets a look on his face like, oh yeah, I can’t believe we’re doing this. And I think that part of the reason that it rang false to me was just that it happened so quickly. And also I don’t know what I would do in their situation. And I consider myself a decent human being. I mean, if you’ve got a choice between saving a stranger who you don’t know and who has, even if it was in self-defense, threatened your family, you have the choice between saving them and putting your entire family at devastating risk or just surrendering them over, I don’t know what I would do. And probably, I would have probably gave him up. You know, like. Yeah,

Todd: it’s probably, I mean, yeah. And it is a really interesting moral dilemma It is a and it’s very very well set up Well, anyway that moral dilemma is really well set up Like you say the way it plays out from here on out at least from to my mind was extremely disappointing There really aren’t I don’t know. I suppose there’s another twist coming not for me I found the movie entirely predictable from here on out. I was a little disappointed he wasn’t in on the plot. You know, I was a little disappointed that it became so straightforward, but I was willing to go along with it because as soon as okay, so you’re right You’re absolutely right. I didn’t think it really rang true dad’s conversion to okay We’re gonna stick but but he says he says in the movie says we’re gonna stay and fight and I was sitting here going F. Yeah, you know, all right. This is it You know, this is the die-hard moment and and this movie in a way reminded me a lot of straw dogs. Have you ever seen straw dogs? The Dustin Hoffman movie? It’s personally, that’s my favorite home invasion movie, because it seems to be fairly true to what a home invasion would actually be like. We’re not all going to turn into Bruce Willis and suddenly get the strength to be able to fight people and to be able to think quickly and create traps and do whatever. We’re just gonna bumble around and we will be really, really lucky if we come out on top because we’ve never had experience with guns before. We’ve never had experience under this kind of duress. We don’t have military training, none of this stuff. We’re just average, boring, slightly overweight guys who have, you know, desk jobs, you know, not you, me. Right. So,

Craig: you know? I was, I just thought you were talking about Dustin Hoffman. I wasn’t taking it personally. But thanks.

Todd: I’m just relating myself to Dustin Hoffman. And you know that I can relate to that because that is how I would be. I would talk tough because I had to, because I felt like I had to. But inside I’d be terrified and I’d be shaking and I’d be, you know, it would be impossible. You watch that movie and you think this guy is so inept and he knows he’s inept and he’s trying to rise to the occasion but it’s just so impossible because of who he is and I thought that’s what we were gonna kind of get with this movie. You got this family that’s completely sheltered, the guy sells this to… I mean he has a few guns in a closet that he says, that he opens up early and says just in case, but you don’t get the sense that any of them have ever gone target practicing. Again, it’s just these toys that they have, but they’re up against people who really mean business, and now they gotta defend themselves, and I thought, okay, this is gonna be the movie. And from here on out, it just hit every predictable beat I thought it would the people who come who you know they tear off the doors like it’s nothing

Craig: well that’s something that I feel like we kind of neglected and I think that it’s part of the social commentary is that the dad has to confess, you know, once these people attack the house and they turn off the electricity, the mom’s like, well, they can’t get in here, right? And the dad’s like, well. And he explains to her, he’s like, well the security system works, it looks really good, and we’ve done all these tests and it works 99% of the time because these things don’t happen here. These things don’t happen to us. So really, these security systems, more than anything, are a symbol. Yeah. We are protected because we are wealthy. They really don’t have much practical effect at all. And I thought that was an interesting, and it also adds to the guilt of the dad. And I thought that was interesting commentary, like we’re so sheltered, we’re so protected, but what we’re really protected by is our status and our money.

Todd: Yeah, it was brilliant in that way. So now I’m trying to figure out what the point that they’re trying to make because they really do a pointed job of, like we said, kind of like making these killers who come in or like the Manson family, whatever. I’m trying to think what point they’re trying to make here because these folks who are able to tear down the security system who are so Self-assured that they’re gonna come in and murder everybody They don’t have any armor. No, they don’t all have guns A few of them just have some some some knives and they seem totally uninterested in their own safety. Yeah. They just wander in and skip through the halls. It’s like they’re just trying to be as creepy as possible.

Craig: Well, and they treat it like it’s a game. And I suppose that that’s what it is for them. And Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to think. Maybe just like the family thought, oh, we’ll be fine because of who we are. I feel like that’s kind of what these invaders feel like too. We’ll be fine. What’s going to happen to us? Nothing’s going to happen to us. Maybe. I think what you’re getting to and what kind of bothered me is that all of a sudden when he says we’re going to protect the house, then all of a sudden Ethan Hawke turns into Rambo. Like He fights off like 6 or 7 guys like in a row like they just keep coming at him in a game room Which

Todd: you know the irony wasn’t lost on me there either, right? Yeah, it’s in this game room where he’s got a pool table and they’re doing flips over each other and he’s you know Ducking away at the right times and and he’s just fighting against some people with axes and knives and things where and he’s got a gun and it gets taken away but it’s just so I wouldn’t say it’s boring but it gets boring kind of in the way that when you see this over the top Rambo type action you realize oh he’s going to end up on top anyway and so what I’m seeing doesn’t really matter, you know, how it plays

Craig: out.

Todd: And so I thought it was just very paint by the numbers, and for the most part, everything, I mean, I called, almost everything that’s gonna happen. All right, he’s gonna take all these people out. Oh, this person’s gonna come around the corner and do this. Oh, there’s gonna be a standoff here. The poor black guy who we haven’t seen for the last 20 minutes, he’s gonna come in at the end and save them. All of this stuff, it happens. And I don’t think there was a single thing in this movie that I found unpredictable that surprised me.

Craig: Well, I was kind of taken back by the twist at the end. I mean, you’re right. He fights all these people and then, you know, so like he’s just taken out a bunch of people and then he turns a corner and the main creepy guy just stabs him right in the gut with this big serrated knife. And it’s shocking because it happens very quickly but it’s kind of anti-climactic and then he dies in his family’s arms and then the main creepy guy, you know, kind of showboats like, oh, well, you know, we didn’t want to do this, but here we are. And like, he’s going to kill the whole family. And then you’re right. The guy that they inadvertently took in steps in and saves the day, which kind of makes sense because the kids have been, especially the son has been helping him out. So it would make sense that he would help them out. But I also, Again, it’s a little on the nose. It didn’t bother me because I was rooting for that poor guy, even though we didn’t know anything about him. I wanted him to be okay, and I wanted him to be kind of heroic. But even earlier on, when he was tied up and they were kind of having their epiphany moment, he said to the dad, save your family, give me to them. You know, he doesn’t come out and say it’s fine, but that’s the subtext. Like he’s willing in that moment to sacrifice himself. And it may be a little bit on the nose, but still at the same time, it was nice to see some human decency in this movie that’s filled with such garbage people. Yeah. But the twist, all of a sudden, we see the neighbors coming in, and they just immediately take out everybody else.

Todd: Yeah, it’s like a dance ex machina It’s it’s is what it is. Yeah. Yeah, come in and save the day.

Craig: I really thought Finally, you know some decency, you know, these people, you know, they see that their neighbors are in trouble and they’re going to help their neighbors. But then it turns it completely on its ear. And it turns out that because they’re so jealous, and because they feel like they’ve been fleeced, you know, for this family’s benefit, they’re pissed and they’re going to kill the whole family. And it’s even worse because the guy that they should have a problem with is the dad and he’s already dead. And the main lady, whatever her name is, Grace or whatever her name is, says, well, he’s already dead, so I guess the wife and kids will just have to do. And like you said, they do that whole thing where like it’s ritualistic and they’re standing around them in a circle.

Todd: It’s, you know, it’s kind of, it didn’t ring entirely true to me, simply because if the kid had not brought this guy in, who clearly is not part of this plot, who just was a guy running down the street. None of this would have happened and nor would the neighbors have, did they have any other plan or way that we could see to come into the house? You know, they didn’t stage this and so it’s like they’re just looking out their windows and they see this opportunity. Yeah. That everything’s been torn down so they too can go in and so okay, I guess, you know, so it wasn’t a plot but they said they were opportunistic and she even says, I think her exact words are something like, we saw the opportunity to cleanse ourselves of our hatred. And that’s where it gets a little religious. She’s not really talking about their jealousy. She’s not, she’s talking about cleansing ourselves of our hatred through this purge. And so Again, it comes back to this whole notion that this purge is not just a political, but it also is this supposed to fulfill these deep, innate human needs.

Craig: Sure, right. But the black guy saves the day. He takes out, I think he takes out a couple of them and the rest of them just kind of cower and an interesting part I thought was when the neighbors who have now been overpowered are just kind of standing there in a line And the mom and the homeless guy from outside, I think both have guns and are pointing them at them. And the creepy neighbor, Grace, is like, just do it. Just do it, just get it over with. And the mom’s like, no, there’s not going to be any more killing tonight. See, she’s found her humanity. It’s all been worth it. So, so they just sit the rest of the night waiting for the 12 hours to expire at the table And right before the 12 hours expire, Grace, the neighbor, makes 1 final attempt, but luckily the mom, it’s so satisfying. The mom grabs her and just smashes her face

Todd: into the table. That was satisfying.

Craig: And like totally destroyed her face. Yeah, I loved it.

Todd: And they have to walk out, you know, and this is the thing that the movie leaves you with, which again is very interesting, but again, it’s just yet another point they’re trying to make. And that is, well, I mean, they’re gonna have to move, right? That’s, I know, that’s what I was-

Craig: How they face each

Todd: other the next day, you know?

Craig: Yeah, I was watching it with my partner last night and like that part happened where they’re walking out and I was like, okay, see you at the neighborhood association meeting at 10. Like, I’ll bring brunch.

Todd: Cookies, oh, we didn’t finish those cookies, you left me the night before. In 1 way, it sort of highlights a little bit how ridiculous this premise is in that this is something that you’ve got to deal with. There’s going to be attempts made on people’s lives that are unsuccessful during this night, and what, are people just gonna forgive it? Like, 12 hours everything is forgiven, but then you gotta live with these people from there on out. So if you didn’t manage to kill your boss, are you gonna have a job tomorrow? Nothing can be that neat in that pat, and it feels like, and you know, the movie doesn’t really address that, but at least it kind of leaves you with that feeling knowingly I think

Craig: well I was just going to say that on the 1 hand Where you know, that’s that’s kind of ridiculous On the other hand, it’s it’s kind of true to life because you do have to coexist with people, even people that you adamantly disagree with. Now, of course, obviously, this is an extreme. But I have felt offended by people that I continue to have to coexist with. And the 1 thing that I will say that this movie doesn’t really address and that is actually kind of a, you know, a light in the darkness in our current situation is that many times today when people behave in these disturbing ways, they are held accountable. Especially today in the advent of everybody’s got a camera, a video camera in their pocket at all times. You know, when people do some terrible things, they often are held accountable and some, you know, they lose jobs or they’re ostracized or whatever. And I suppose at least there’s that and hopefully that will continue.

Todd: Mm-hmm. That’s a very good point. You say that it’s very Pat and it’s a very, okay, now the mom has found herself. Now the father has decided that they’re going to fight instead of turning this guy over. And it is. And that’s really troublesome, I think, from the movie standpoint. On the other hand, it seems like maybe they’re also trying to make this point like, yeah, we don’t care about this stuff until it affects us personally. It’s true. You know, we have these ideas and these feelings and this patriotism and this whatever, and now suddenly that they’re actually bearing the brunt of this, now they’re changing their tune and maybe the purge isn’t so great after all. And I feel like that’s the point they leave us with because as the credits go up on the screen we hear audio and it’s basically more of newscasts post-purge and they’re interviewing different people on the street and the last 1 that we get is an interview from a man.

Clip: I lost my 2 sons last night. My boys, I was a proud American. Not anymore. This country’s taking everything from me.

Todd: And again, I just keep going back to the military. That is not an uncommon feeling that people have. You’re very patriotic. You feel like you’re doing things for the right reason, or you feel like you have a son or a daughter who are out there fighting for your country, and everything is well and good and right until they come back dead, and suddenly you start questioning, you know? Did they die for the right cause? You know, am I on the right side? And it’s very, and it’s sad, you know, that we do. We just, we turn a blind eye. In fact, not just turning a blind eye, but we get really militant about things sometimes and about these ideas and notions. And then, you know, oh, now I have cancer and now I have a whole different idea about medicine or about whatever, about life and what’s important. As much as I think the movie tries to make this point, it’s tried to make about 5 or 6 other points as well. And while it can do that, it’s not a big deal, and it certainly gives us a lot to talk about, I just feel like it could have been a little more focused in the thematic area. And then as far as the movie goes, I just kind of lost interest as soon as he became Rambo and all of the bad guys stopped seeing so sinister. They talked a big game, but then they walked in skipping and tripping and doing nothing to help themselves. It was just too predictable at that point.

Craig: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a bad movie. I mean, it’s not poorly made. I thought that the acting was fine, even though I did not think that this was Ethan Hawke’s best work by any stretch of the imagination. The writer slash director, I feel like he had a lot of ideas and maybe He was really fortunate that it did so well because he was able to kind of flesh those out in some of the later films. Now, the second 1 got really good reviews and then the other ones, and especially the last 1 I think, didn’t do as well either critically or as far as audience reception goes and I don’t even recall if I I know I haven’t seen the last 1 I don’t recall if I saw the third 1 or not but they

Todd: We did do a limited TV series, which actually has been picked up for a second season. And I really enjoyed the series quite a bit because it was larger in scope. It dealt with a variety of different characters from different walks of life. And it was entertaining. And my partner who doesn’t like horror, he enjoyed it as well and we’re looking forward to the second season. So I think and especially now, like again I’ve said it before but I think that the movie was maybe just a little tiny bit ahead of its time politically, but I understand why now it’s continuing to be successful because I think that we can draw more parallels. Not to say, again, that we are living in that world. But I think that the world that we are living in has opened our eyes to what possibilities could be. And maybe that’s why the franchise is continuing to thrive.

Craig: Yeah, I think you’re right. And well, in the first 1, clearly got its audience. It was only a 3000000 dollar budget and it grossed 89 million. It was, it actually at the time it came out was the lowest budgeted film to finish first at the box office since like 1988. So they would have been stupid. I mean, he got his wish, he got his sequels for sure. And thankfully, like you said, this plot of this movie is much better fleshed out when you expand the scope beyond this family. It’s just a little too problematic as a home invasion movie. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode. Thank you, Karthik, for listening as well and for speaking up and giving us the suggestion. Obviously, we had a lot to talk about. We did. Also, if you have any requests, we’re still taking them. Please find us on Facebook, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. You can also find us on our webpage, chainsawhorror.com and leave us a comment there as well. Let us know what you think.

Happy New Year 2019! Sure wish we could’ve brought you a better New Year’s themed horror film this week, but we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel here. If anyone has any better ideas, let us know and we’ll put it on the list for next year!

Episode 155, 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: Happy New Year, everybody. Or should I say, bloody New Year? Oh god. It’s gonna be one of those, isn’t it? It’s gonna be one of those. We have to find our joy when we get it when we review movies like this, I think. I guess.   Today’s movie is none other than Bloody New Year, a 1987 hit, that, I don’t know. I assume it came out in theaters, but I’ve only seen it on VHS. Now I will I do have one Todd thing to say about this movie, and maybe only 1, and that is the cover art for the VHS tape. Did you go and look that up? No. I didn’t. It is iconic. It it it is, something that I saw on the shelves absolutely, every time I passed by the horror section in those VHS rental stores. It is a, skeleton with, eyeballs and a party hat and a disco ball behind him blowing on a What is that thing called? 

Craig:  I don’t know. 

Todd:  The thing that shoots out. You know, you blow it, and it’s yeah. It goes out. 

Craig:  I know what you’re talking about. And and now that you describe it, I can picture Todd. So I know what you’re talking about. 

Todd:  Yeah. And with a cover like that, you would have thought I would have picked it up at some point in my childhood, but never did. Well 

Craig:  and with a cover like that, you would think, well, this will be fun. 

Todd:  The cover shouts fun, doesn’t it? The movie, not so much. 

Craig:  Would be mistaken. Yeah. 

Todd:  Horribly mistaken. So this is a film it is a British film Done by a guy named Norman j Warren, who apparently did a lot of these schlocky terrible movies. And, His previous hit before this was In Semenoid. Mhmm. I’m thinking we ought to put that on the docket for later. It seems to me that would be at least be a little bit more entertaining than this 1. 

Craig:  I don’t know. 

Todd:  We’ll see. So, we we, of course, chose this because it had new year in the title. It might be one of the last, that we’ll be able to dig up, but it was a bit on the nose. And so here we are. Bloody New Year is about a host of young adults who are basically shipwrecked on an island. The way it goes down is this. The movie starts in this really cool actual credit sequence Yeah. That looks like 16 millimeter home video of a New Year’s celebration in some ballroom of a hotel.   We later find out. It’s black and white, and People are dancing and drinking and having a good time. There’s a band playing on the stage. It’s there’s a big banner in the background that says, goodbye 1959. Hello 1960. And and then that sort of fades out to a larger frame and turns into color As the last of the partygoers exit the ballroom and 1 girl stays behind and absolutely wanders into the room, Putters around a little bit, goes over to a mirror, checks her hair, puts on some lipstick, walks away from the mirror, comes back to the mirror for some unexplained reason and suddenly gets yanked into it Yeah. By her own reflection. And then immediately, it cuts to a woman Springing out of the water in a beach.   And I thought for a second, is this supposed to be the same woman? I know. But it’s It’s 

Craig:  It was such a quick cut. Like, somebody reaches out and grabs her through their mirror, and then it’s just an immediate cut to this beach scene. It almost seems like You flipped the channel. Yeah. 

Todd:  That is the best way to explain it. It really does. Then I thought, oh, this woman kinda got pulled through the mirror and came out somewhere else. And I was really looking at her. I was thinking, is this the same woman? Is this some like, she warped there or something like that? But no. Absolutely not. It has nothing that I could perceive, to do with that 

Craig:  right now. 

Todd:  Anyway, this woman is among a group of people. We have Jan, who’s a brunette with long hair, Leslie, who’s a blonde, Carol, who we meet a little bit later, A guy named Tom with short curly blonde hair and a dude named Spud, which is great. And the, I guess, Leader of the gang of Friends, Rick? Yep. Maybe. Yeah. I don’t know. All of none of these characters are very well drawn out at all, Actually At all. There’s nothing to these people you don’t even care as the movie goes 

Craig:  on. Like, their relationships are very tenuous. Like Yeah. I think that Rick and, Jan are kind of together, and It seems like maybe Leslie and Tom are sort of kind of together or something, but, like, it it’s so tenuous, and it doesn’t really matter. Yeah. And, like, at at different points, they’ll kinda, like, crossover and I don’t even know. 

Todd:  It it was It’s hard to keep track, really. 

Craig:  It is hard. There are so many of them. It is hard to keep track, especially because none of them are really significant as far as character is concerned. Like, None of them has, I don’t know, any particularly unique characteristics or motivations or backstories or anything, they are just a random group of people who we know very little about and we care nothing Wow. 

Todd:  And they’re utterly interchangeable. Yes. Yeah. And it doesn’t help that most of the movie is shot at wide wide shots or medium shots. So You can’t even tell without squinting sometimes, like, who is in that particular scene Yeah. If you even cared. But it doesn’t even seem to matter. 

Craig:  No. It doesn’t really matter. No. Not really. 

Todd:  And they go to a fun fair. Hey. Let’s go to the fun fair, which apparently is British for, like, a carnival. Yeah. It’s this fun looking fun fair, and I at first, I was kinda I got pretty excited. I like seeing all this old footage of even if it’s 19 eighties, it’s still pretty classic, you know, with the, Tilt A Whirl and all these things in the haunted house, you know, that you can sit on and ride through. And, I like those scenes of the fun fair, and they’re Crowded with lots of people. 

Craig:  Yeah. I would have much rather have gone to that place than watch the rest of this movie. Like, it looks it looks pretty fun. It was a pretty decent setup. It reminded me of gosh. I don’t even know where they are, but it looks like like on the Jersey Shore or something, like, one of those, kind of carnival type 

Todd:  things, like, set up on a pier. 

Craig:  Like, that’s what it reminded me. I carnival type things, like set up on a pier. Like, that’s what it reminded me of, like, Coney Island or something. 

Todd:  I don’t know. 

Craig:  It was cool. 

Todd:  It’s what I think Coney Island should be. I’ve never been to Coney Island, but that’s kinda the other water. Coney Island in my head. Yeah. I would have much rather just watched footage of this place. Just People’s home videos of it would have been better than watching this movie. It was interesting, though, because, as they go as our characters go through the fun fair, That footage obviously gets cut with random shots of other crowds of people, you know, playing it on things. And if you watch very carefully, you notice that Most of the footage all of the footage with them in it, there’s little to nobody in the background or on the rides.   Uh-huh. Even though the rides are moving and there’s motion in the scene, And then they’ll cut to another shot, and you’ll see, like, tons of people there, but none of our actors. So it was clearly, like, shot on 2 different Todd, And the acting you know, the shots with the actors were shot when the place was basically empty, and they just spun the rides and made them go. It it I don’t know. It’s it’s done well enough that it’s not obvious, but I was I always look for this sort of thing, and so I thought it was kind of kind of telling. 

Craig:  Yeah. But, like, even in the beginning, the the plot just seems Kind of dumb. Like, it’s also circumstantial and stupid. Like, so all the the friends are there, And, like, they’re, like, painted out as being kind of the clean-cut, good guy kids. And then there’s a deal on the Tilt a Whirl where there are, like, these thugs. And, like, I guess these are, like, carny thugs, I guess. Yeah. Maybe.   And, they’re they’re bothering this girl. There’s this it it ends up being Carol. She’s A curly haired brunette, which is the only thing that distinguishes her from Jan the straight haired brunette. 

Todd:  Oh, but she’s also an American, we hear. 

Craig:  Oh, okay. Yeah. 

Todd:  Go figure it. 

Craig:  Right. And she’s apparently at this British fun fair by herself, and she’s Riding the Tilt a Whirl by herself, and these, like, carny thugs are, like, harassing her. Like, they just keep spinning her Tilt a Whirl seat. Like, they just won’t leave her alone. And so Spud, I think, and, like, calls over his other buddies, and they get up and get into, like, a brawl with these carny guys, which then turns into, like, a 1930 style chase through the at armhole. Like That’s right. 

Todd:  It it like, it seems like a silent movie. Like, there could just be music 

Craig:  in the background, like, do 

Todd:  do do do do do do. Like You’re right. And maybe that’s why I felt like this was the most entertaining part of the entire film. Oh, it’s silly. It’s silly. Well, it’s Silly because of the whole point. I mean, like, they leave what instead of actually just running away, running out of the carnival, they decide that they’re gonna Run-in between rides and run over rides and run around. I mean, just run everywhere except where they should go, which is just out.   Yeah. It’s but, actually, I like this sequence because it actually had some action, and the action was I wouldn’t say competently filmed, but it wasn’t entirely Uncompetently filmed. 

Craig:  Well and I felt like there was some of the spookiest imagery in the movie. Like, they run into the funhouse or whatever, And, the Kearny guys are, like, chasing them, and there’s kind of I don’t know if I would call it a strobe effect, but there’s stuff where, like, The lights are going off and on, and you’re just catching glimpses of things. And so you get kind of this menacing effect 

Todd:  Mhmm. 

Craig:  Where the the bad guys like, you’re just seeing glimpses of them every time the light flashes on for just a second. And that’s kind of intermixed with images of the spooky stuff that’s set up in the funhouse. And that was a little bit Spooky. I I mean, I would say that’s probably about as creepy as the movie gets. 

Todd:  Yeah. I mean You’re you’re not you’re not wrong about that. But then we get, you know, a Blues Brothers styles crash through the fun house Yeah. In a in a car. And I thought it was the bad guys, but, actually, isn’t it the A couple of our 

Craig:  other friends. Guys. 

Todd:  It’s Rick and Uh-huh. And the others who are coming in to rescue them. So they Destroy property by smashing into this, yeah, fun house, and pulling them out of it. Good thing they didn’t, you know, Run over them blindly crashing into 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  But, anyway, they all pile in the car, and they escape, basically. And the very next scene, almost as if you turned the channel, was is them floating on a boat. Yeah. At first, I thought, please, are you telling me they’re trying to escape on a boat, but I guess this was just part of the fun. This is Rick’s boat. Right? 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s a little sailboat. Terry Jaws 2, you know, lots of 20 somethings out on a sailboat. A tiny a good time. 

Todd:  It’s almost like a canoe with a, with a Sail. 

Craig:  With the sail. 

Todd:  Yeah. Pretty small. And, even though they’re way out, I mean, way out away from what looks like any shore, because we get this nice wide shot of it just floating out there. They run a ground of something, on the boat, and it damages the bottom. And the water starts coming in, and they say they have to bail. So they bail, and they swim to the nearest shore. And the nearest shore isn’t Apparently, where they left from, it is a island of some kind. 

Craig:  Yeah. Which I got the impression that they were that’s where they were trying to go anyway, but I I didn’t understand why. Like, I there’s just no explanation for anything like 

Todd:  stuff with them. It’s not like they have bags or things like they have a picnic packed or anything like that. 

Craig:  Right. Then they, you know, they just run ashore of this island. And and, Todd. I I feel like the movie makes some attempts at, like, trying to establish plot points, but, ultimately, you don’t care. But, like so they they get onto this island. They’re like, oh, we’re on this island, and they’re like, oh, look. Here’s a Danger. Do not proceed sign.   Okay. And oh, oh, look. Here’s a plane crash. Ashley. 

Todd:  I don’t believe it. Do you think anyone ever made it here without crashing? 

Craig:  But they had a rough landing. 

Clip:  Okay. What sort of plan this is? I’ve got no idea. 

Craig:  And then they keep walking along until they find, like, a freaking resort. Like Yeah. And it looks great. Like, you know, I would have been excited to find this place too because I woulda looked at it and been like, oh, it it’s gonna have a bar, so we’re fine. And that’s basically, I guess, kinda what they think. And I don’t know. It was it’s the Grand Island Hotel. 

Todd:  Looks like a big home. Yeah. 

Craig:  I mean, it it looks Nice from the outside. Like, sure. I’d stay there on an island, whatever. But then they go inside. And, mysteriously, as they are very quick to point out, everything’s all decorated with, like, Christmas decorations. And they make a big point of it, and they’re like, oh, it’s decorated for Christmas. But wait a second. This is July.   And when they and when they said that, I was like, you tricked me. 

Todd:  This is supposed to be our New Year’s episode, and it’s happening in July. 

Craig:  I know. It’s okay because Whatever. 

Todd:  Yeah. It was a little disappointing. The, the New Year’s thing gets kinda shoehorned in there. I think it’s still legitimately we can call this New Year’s Because there’s Yeah. It’s twist at the end, which There is a big face. Totally hold off on telling you we’re gonna we wanna keep the suspense for as long as possible. God. Yeah.   They’re they’re walking through this place. They find the bar. They find old magazines. And, obviously, because we saw the first part of the of the movie. We we we can figure this out pretty quickly. This is the same hotel we saw before and obviously has not changed since that party. So it’s been deserted. Something’s Right.   You know? 

Craig:  But but they make they make a point of saying all this stuff is new. Like, it doesn’t look Run down or decrepit. Right. It looks like somebody had just recently decorated, which further confuses them. Like, You know, had it been abandoned at Christmas time or New Year’s and there had been, like, cobwebs and dust and stuff, that would have been one thing. But, no, everything looks Fine. And it looks like this is, you know, a clean place that has just been spruced up for the holidays. It’s just odd that it’s completely out of Sees it. 

Todd:  And sort of like the whole rest of the movie, everything that’s odd that happens is kind of remarked upon and then immediately forgotten about. Uh-huh. They’re not Freaked out by this. They make no mention of it after that. They just find the bar, sit down, and, you know, start looking for bourbon. And the woman flips through a magazine, which is clearly an old magazine, and she sets it down. And when she walks away from it, The magazine mysteriously blows back closed. And then 1 of the girls is still wet.   Why nobody else is still wet? I don’t know. But one of the girls is still wet, and she is, let, in a room while I think it’s Spud runs off. It’s Carol, right, who’s still wet. 

Craig:  Yeah. And then 

Todd:  Spud goes off to find a blanket for her. In the meantime, we see this maid literally fade in to the screen like a ghost just materializes as she walks across and brings a blanket to her and says, here you go, miss. And she’s like, oh, thank you. And then she walks out. Again Yeah. Hey. There’s a person in this hotel you thought was deserted who Knew that you needed a blanket and came in and oh, thank you. It’s woman And, 

Craig:  yeah, and I feel like that’s what happens for, like, the next 20 minutes is just, oh, here are completely in your face clues that this is a haunted hotel. And stupid things that amount to nothing. Like, you said, like, the magazine blowing closed. And, like, at one point, some of them are playing Whatever the British equivalent of billiards is, I don’t know. The balls look different. I don’t know what it was called, but, like, the balls will rearrange themselves in the perfect order. And There’s 

Todd:  a lot of rewind in this movie. 

Craig:  A lot. Yes. They like 

Todd:  that cheap effect of of just reversing the film to make it look like something is happening in reverse. Uh-huh. 

Craig:  And and there’s, you know, like, Somebody’s always watching them. And at some point, Leslie, like, opens a window, and there’s somebody out there, but they run away. And Jan takes a bath and, like, the shower head, like, acts like a snake and crawls into the bath, and she kind of notices, but then she just kinda shrugs it off. That’s the thing that bothered me the most about this movie the whole time. So, of course, as it turns out And there is kind of some weird stupid explanation, but it’s basically a haunted hotel. But all these weird things start happening, and eventually, People start dying, but none of the surviving people like, they don’t even bat an eye. Like Yeah. Like like, they’re they’re they don’t act like they’re scared.   Like, I don’t even remember who it is that dies first. Somebody dies, And nobody like, like, they don’t even care. They just, like, run outside like, woah. That was weird. It’s So it’s so true. 

Todd:  It’s funny. Well, I love it because none of the electricity is working, and then, they go to the basement and Some spooky stuff happens, and then he turns on the electricity. And then finally, they have electricity in the place. And when they go downstairs, there’s, like, a Santa Claus, electronic Santa doll that is suddenly starts ringing its bell and walking on the counter on the lobby. And everybody’s like, woah. What’s that? And the dude says, oh, I just turned on the electricity. He picks up the Santa doll that’s not plugged into anything and just throws the switch off on the back. This battery operated Santa came to life when they turned the electricity on in the hotel.   This there’s a lot of just inept, Stupid, dumb stuff like that going on too. However, in at this moment, there is a really neat part. Okay. So I’ll give the movie a little bit more credit. It has this way of of at least doling out to you in bits and pieces what you’re supposed to put together by the end of it. When the electricity does go on, There and I think it’s after this little Santa incident. Everybody walks into another room while the camera pans into, like, the library or some other room downstairs where there’s a television that has also come on. And it’s a 19 fifties style TV, and it’s Showing what is obviously an extremely old program from, like, the early sixties or late fifties, whatever.   Right. From that night, basically Mhmm. That where these panelists And the writing is terrible. I mean, it’s really terrible. Yeah. But, anyway, these 2 scientist panelists are arguing about a new technology. 

Clip:  Professor Kaplan, you were describing for us your experimental anti radar device, which you launched in the opening hours of 1960. 

Todd:  Bending light, making the plane invisible. It it’s it’s interfering with light, with with time itself. Playing Todd. Very, very dangerous. Jeez, judgment. I’m And so if you’re thinking half with half a brain, you can think about the plane that they found, that they made a big point of Right. You know, that it crashed earlier and what they’re talking about on the thing. And you’re and you start to go, oh, this is kind of interesting.   Even though the movie is not interesting, this idea, this notion is interesting. And I Liked those bits where I learned a little bit more and it wasn’t actually thrown at me, at least for a while, exactly what’s going on. Because a lot of movies like this, they’ll just leave this stuff hanging. You know? Or exposition person comes in at some point and just explains a bunch of stuff that you had no Hope of knowing before. 

Craig:  Well, that kind of happens here too. That happens in, like, the last 10 minutes of the movie. By the time you already know. Yeah. Right. And, you know, okay. I’m I appreciate the fact that they threw in some intrigue, but the intrigue that they threw in is Dumb. Yeah.   Like, it’s it’s, like, it’s about, like, radar. They’re like, we’ve figured out this new way to use radar, and it’ll make a Playing invisible for one second. Like, oh, well, great. I mean, that’s really helpful. Like, what? Like, what is even the point if it’s only gonna be visible for one second? Yeah. And then what does radar have anything to do with the time Base continuum. Like, the like, the they’re not even related. Like, why would it it doesn’t.   Ultimately, it does it doesn’t matter. And, you know, I I fine. You say, well, some of these movies will just leave it hanging. It’s never really explained. Well, it could have just as easily not gone explained, and it would have made me different. 

Todd:  True. It’s still dumb. It’s still really stupid. If the explanation is bad and stupid, then, yeah, maybe it doesn’t matter. 

Craig:  But but and it doesn’t I mean, I guess it kind of amounts to something ultimately. But, like, they try to make it like, there’s this creepy, Like, zombie pilot that follows them around, like, through the whole movie, and you just keep getting glimpses of him. Like, he just keeps popping out from behind trees. Like, it’ll just be a a, like, a long shot, like, 50 yards away of a tree, and you’ll see this guy just pop his head out from the side. Pop it. Back back. Right. And it’ll, like, play this creepy, ominous music, and that happens, like, 3 or 4 times throughout Out the movie.   And so then I’m thinking, well, you know, he’s probably gonna be exposition guy, or maybe he’s a good guy who’s gonna help them or something. And, No. Ultimately, he’s just another one of those creeps or ghosts or whatever it is wandering around the island. 

Todd:  Oh, god. Halloween, this is not, For sure. No. When the power comes on, those projectors kick on in the cinema that is also downstairs in this hotel. And this is where that first kill happens that you just mentioned. The 1 guy walks close to the screen, and some character springs out of the screen and starts strangling him while everybody else kinda looks on? Uh-huh. And he gets scratched on the face, and then the character thing disappears. And they walk over, and they say, Oh my god.   Spud is dead. 

Craig:  Because he got scratched on the face. Yeah. What? 

Todd:  Apparently. I mean, nobody’s gonna they’re just gonna trust themselves about this. Nobody’s gonna make any phone calls. They just leave, like you said. 

Craig:  They run outside, and then Jan, Todd her credit, is the only one who freaks out, but not to her credit. She’s freaking out through the whole movie. Like, she’s the only one. Like, she’s just hysterical. Like, I just wanted somebody to slap her. Like, shut up. But what was so frustrating okay. So first of all, I wanna say When they go into the theater and they see that a movie is playing, first, it’s like an old fifties b movie, and I would Have rather seen that movie.   It looked fun. It was like did. It was like it was like brains, like, flying through the air. Attacking people. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. That looks fun. I would watch that certainly before I would watch this again. But then it switches over to old footage of the hotel. They’re like, oh, old footage of the hotel or whatever. It doesn’t matter. You know? The guy is kinda the guy that gets killed is kinda making fun, and that’s you know, one of them jumps out of the screen order, but they they run out after it’s happened. Jan is freaking out and nobody else is.   And Jan says what happened, and the rest of them act like she’s kind of crazy. Every single one of them Was there. 

Todd:  Saw 

Craig:  Yeah. What happened. And it’s not like there was anything going on to distract them. It’s not like you had a perfect view of what was going on, And now you’re acting like she’s just Craig? Like, you’re like, oh, well, maybe it was just electricity. Jumping out of the movie screen? Like, what? 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Oh my god. It’s so like, they don’t react to all that. I I could I just couldn’t get over that. Like, they’re not even Sad that he’s dead. Like, even if they could even if they could come up with some rational explanation, you know, like, Oh, well, it probably wasn’t that ghost that we all saw clear as day. Maybe it was just electricity. Well, he’s still dead. Yeah.   He’s your friend. 

Todd:  Fred is gone. Okay. Moving right along. It’s hard to feel any emotions At this movie, when the actors themselves aren’t feeling any emotion, and when all this stuff sort of happens, and it’s It’s all matter of factly happening. Everything’s in broad daylight, which isn’t that spooky. And, you know, we’ve talked about before movies that are really Successful at creating a horrific tone, and it’s almost even spookier when it happens, like, in broad daylight in a suburban area. Right. You know? A place that seems safe.   But this, it just seems like they couldn’t afford lights, so they just had to shoot everything with available sunlight because none of this stuff is It’s it’s not scary. It’s not shot in a suspenseful way. It’s just things just suddenly happen. It looks cheap, And it’s shot cheap, and the acting is unconvincing. And the reaction and everything that follows in the plot almost doesn’t even acknowledge what just happened. It’s just let’s move right along to the next event. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  And so it’s impossible to get invested in it. You know? It’s impossible to to to care at the slightest. And it’s And it’s not even that fun, really. 

Craig:  No. And it seemed you’re right. Like, it had to have just been they must have had $5 Todd shoot this whole movie because after Spud dies and, like, there’s like, everybody kinda Flits off, and then Carol is left by herself. And she’s just, like, sitting on a swing, and she says, poor Spud. Like, that’s the most sympathy that he gets. So then Tom and Leslie go off and they find this old house. Like, I don’t know what it’s supposed like, a servant’s quarters or a boat house. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be.   But they walk inside, and Leslie walks in first, and she gets tangled up in a net and Struggles in this net for, like, 5 minutes. Like, this is supposed to be, like, a horrific scene. Like, she’s Screaming and struggling, and she’s just rolling around on the floor in this fishing net. Like Calm down, Leslie. Like, we will get you out of the net. 

Todd:  This This is extremely half assed attempt to make it look supernatural, where there’s a close-up shot of her leg and and and almost like an evil dead tree style A rope that Uh-huh. Kind of ties itself around her leg, but that’s it. It’s just like this quick little shot of that and nothing else. 

Craig:  Well and it it’s and it’s supposed to I I guess it’s supposed to be, like, cutting her, and, like, you kinda get little glimpses of how the net is cutting her. But then when he finally just literally pulls it off her, like 

Todd:  Like, it was just a blanket laying over 

Craig:  the top of her, and he pulls it back. Then she she looks fine. Like 

Todd:  Well 

Craig:  God. And then they get attacked by a table cloth monster. 

Todd:  Yeah. She walks over to this little table on the floor, and suddenly this thing jumps out of it. And Again, it’s a guy in a under a black sheet with a little bit more net draped over him, like, grabbing her. But but, also, you’re thinking, Where is this movie going? 

Craig:  What are these random great. 

Todd:  Things that aren’t even in the hotel coming out of nowhere? It’s like It’s like walking through a haunted house. Yeah. This is random stuff just happens, and there’s no continuity between it. It just it doesn’t make any sense. And then she gets away from it, and then it comes sinks back into the table, and they walk over and the, you know, the table is solid again. Oh, that was weird. Again Yeah. They move on. 

Craig:  Well, they move on, but so much is left unexplained. Like, I don’t know. Like, Jan and Rick. By the way, like, Jane ran off into the woods all upset, and then the next time we see her, she’s just walking along with Spud, and she’s totally over it. She’s fine. They hear after from the beach. And so they start walking towards the beach, and then they see all these bushes Shaking. And and and then they start running and, like, I I don’t know what they’re running from. 

Todd:  They’re trying. It’s trying so hard. Like, there are just, like, maybe 2 shots of this sort of Evil Dead style camera moving really fast through the woods. Like, it’s coming at them, and they turn around as though it is. And they just, like, separate to make way for the camera to go back between them. Yeah. And then they have this exact same shot again where now they’re running apparently in the opposite direction, And the camera comes sweeping towards them. They turn around, and they separate, and the camera blows right past them again.   Like, what is going on? Is this monster just, like, doing loop de loops around them? Again, Or that, like, really bad reversal work. 

Craig:  It’s all just and this, you know, for the next, At least 10 minutes. I mean, that’s all it is. It’s just these random things that are happening that are supposed to be spooky. Like, they show up at the crash site and, like, they’re all the time looking in mirrors, and there’s, like, ghosts lingering in the background. And at the crash site, Why there would be a full size mirror at a plane crash site, I have no idea, but, there is. And Rick looks into it, and the dead pilot’s, like, pointing at a gun at him through the mirror. But he turns around, and there’s nobody there. And he looks back, and the pilot’s there.   And it it’s just all like, the island’s haunted. Like, okay. We get it. 

Todd:  Like The whole island is haunted. 

Craig:  What is the what is the point? Yeah. Like, Is something going to happen? 

Todd:  Carol’s alone in the house. Some arm comes into the frame. She wanders into the house. This is another house, I guess. And she Yeah. Yeah. There’s, like, a third house. There’s no sense of geography here.   Does she just No. Just know she’s in some other house. It must be nearby. And it opens up a snowstorm. There’s like a blast of snow coming through, And it’s this is like a 10 minute long sequence where it’s nothing but her stumbling against what’s apparently horrible winds Inside this living room with snow blowing in and blowing around her. This 

Craig:  And and, like, there’s, like, the sound of children screaming in the background. 

Todd:  Yeah. And then there’s nothing, and she’s outside. 

Craig:  And then she looks back inside, and I feel like she sees what is supposed to be like a figurine of her in a snow globe, which in and of itself kind of sounds like a cool kind of Creepy idea. But, again, it doesn’t go anywhere. It’s just so random. 

Todd:  Yeah. It doesn’t connect to anything. Like, what and and Still never. By the end of the movie, I still have no idea why that all happened. No. They all converge back into the the hotel. No one Todd the house, I guess. Yeah.   Because they think that somebody is still in there. Do they 

Craig:  Todd Tom? Right? They’re they’re looking for Tom. Leslie comes and says, you have to come help me. Something happened to Todd. And they go back into the house, and Rick goes to go through a door, but it just opens up onto, like, some giant cliff. And so, like, he’s hanging on the door. And, again, I don’t know if this is supposed to be supernatural. I didn’t see any cliffs around where they were. 

Todd:  Well, I 

Craig:  don’t know what’s going on. They’re like, oh, well, Tom must have gone over the cliff, So they leave. 

Todd:  Fully no. No. Then the guy from the fun park, one of the thugs from the fun park, and he’s got his chain. And I’m like, Where did this guy come from, and why is he here? And did he really care to follow them all the way to this island that they accidentally shipwrecked onto? Like, how does he know they’re on this island? Was he following behind them? Is this island actually that easy to get to? Like, I I had no idea. Or was this some supernatural thing? Like, they’re seeing their their worst fears? 

Craig:  That’s what I thought. I thought it must be the island playing tricks on them because it was Completely implausible that these guys would have followed them and shown up. Like, how could they possibly have? It doesn’t even make any sense. But, no, as it turns out, it really is them. And he starts fighting them, and he, like I don’t know. He gets Rick and Jan out of the way, and then he goes and he punches Leslie in the gut, and his arm goes all the way through her. And it turns out that she is a zombie now. 

Todd:  Yeah. Like Half of her face is in this weird silver makeup, and her hair is Spiked up with gel. 

Craig:  And it was my favorite because so now okay. So she kills the big carnival guy, And then Rick then throws the same fishing net over her again. And once again, she acts like she’s He’s like, I I don’t like she’s been chained up Houdini style or something like, ah. 

Todd:  Fishing net is her kryptonite. Zombie or something. 

Craig:  And then he smoke bombs her, like, bug bombs her. Like, I didn’t even understand what happened. He throws some smoking, Yeah. He throws some smoking thing in the house and closes the door. And so she’s screaming, and they run away. And they end up well, first of all, Jan runs and she falls in a hole and they pull her out, and then they run and they end up on the beach. And Jan says 

Clip:  This is a nightmare. Just awful. 

Craig:  And I thought, yes, Jan. You’re right. This is just awful. 

Todd:  So true. Then they end up back in the hotel. They’re running from something, who knows what, because we can’t see anything. And they’re in the bar room, and for no apparent reason, suddenly, this arm with a machete burst through the wall behind the bar. I was like, what is this? And it turns out, am I mistaken, that this was also one of the thugs? Yep. And another guy from the fun fair comes through the window. But Then through the ceiling comes zombie Leslie, and she grabs 1 of these guys and pulls him up. 

Craig:  Oh, god. This is hilarious Because they tried to make it an effect where she was supposed to be turning his head all the way around. But, like, they clearly couldn’t do anything, so they just had to Shoot it to where, like, she would turn it as far as she could, and then it would cut away, and then it would be, like, on the other side. Like, he just Turned his head to the there’s no twisting of the neck. Nothing. Like, yeah. 

Todd:  He’s such a cheap looking 

Craig:  They’re like, we’ll do we’ll do some Tricky camerawork here. And 

Todd:  and really slow too. It’s like this is not even it’s not like a quick twist. This is like a at least 2 minutes of her twisting his head slowly around. Camera cuts away. Oh, his head’s on the back, twisting more. Camera cuts away. It’s a full twist. And then 1 full twist isn’t good enough.   I think they thought this effect was so good. They had to do it a 2nd time Mhmm. Because it was 2 full twist. And this guy whose head should, I guess, be off by now. 

Craig:  Yo. Totally. 

Todd:  Yeah. He just flops backwards. So then she chases them down, and Jan gets stuck on the banister. At the end of the banister is this, like, carved duck element. 

Craig:  It kinda looks like the Mary Poppins, her, her umbrella. 

Todd:  It grabs, 

Craig:  and it bites, and it just hangs on. Yeah. Like so she’s just stuck there. And 

Todd:  Leslie comes to get her, and Rick shoots Leslie. 

Craig:  And cuts 1 arm off. Like, he goes to dismember her, and he gets 1 arm cut off, and then Jan’s like, what about me? Rick, stop. So he does. He shoulda kept Going. She should’ve kept going because in 5 minutes, they’re gonna get hit rewind and her arms They can’t get enough 

Todd:  of that effect. You sort of feel like the filmmaker, like, discovered this for the first time. You know, if I could play things backwards, it’ll look like things are mysteriously moving the way they shouldn’t. Oh, they say he also hacks the duck off, and so the duck head falls to the floor, and it’s got some green goo coming out of it. You know, this is so funny that for a movie called Bloody New Year, there’s almost no blood in this movie. 

Craig:  Yeah. And, you know, the as I was watching it, what it reminded me the most of was an after school special. Like, that’s what it felt like. Like, that’s how it felt like it was shot. Like, you know how A lot a lot of times, those after school specials could be pretty dark, like, if they were about drugs or something and, like, Helen Hunt was, like, Jumping out of a window and dying or something because she was on drugs. Like, they would be dark like that, or sometimes they would be Like, oh, it’s the scary one. And this felt like one of those. I don’t even know what this movie was rated.   What was it rated? Do you know? 

Todd:  It’s rated r. It’s surprised it’s rated at all. 

Craig:  I can’t imagine why. Like, I don’t recall there being really any bad language. There’s very little blood at all. All of the effects look super fake. 

Todd:  I don’t know. It might have been, you know, back in the day, early eighties and Mid eighties. 

Craig:  89? You’re right. It’s 87. 87. Yeah. So That’s pretty late. 

Todd:  They were pretty It was Bad. Really touched me about these, though. I’m sure this appeared on the video nasties list. 

Craig:  Probably. Who knows? 

Todd:  Yeah. No. It’s this doesn’t deserve the r rating at all. Tom shows up again. Rick and Carol leave, and they decide to wander around in the woods. And his idea is, well, If these guys have come here, they must have come here by boat. And so they must have a boat we can use and we can get off the island. So they go wandering through the woods, And they come across a 3rd crash site.   How did this plane have 3 crash sites? I don’t know. The one they stumbled across the 1st time, the 1 in the burned down house, and then this 1, which is by a camp an encampment. 

Craig:  Well right. Like, you would assume there’s only 1, but they look Totally different every time they go to it. Yeah. And and this part bothered me too because okay. So Tom shows up. They thought he was dead, but he’s not. But, like, he’s, like, out of it. I don’t know.   Like, he’s in shock or something. And so, they’re like, we have to find the boat. We have to find the boat. And Tom is kind of out of it. And so, Jan’s like, well, I’ll stay with him. You guys go find the boat and then come back and get us. That makes no sense. 

Todd:  Yeah. Like Why don’t we just all go find the boat? 

Craig:  Right. What a tremendous waste of time. Yeah. Like, just all of you go find the boat and go. Like Uh-huh. Okay. Found it. It’s like It’s not 

Todd:  like Tom is that incapacitated either. What is he? Just has a bit of a headache or something? Right. 

Craig:  Or just freaking leave him there. Who cares? You didn’t care about anybody else who died. Leave all day. 

Todd:  Well, we find We hear again through the radio that is set up at this Encampment site. Again, it’s probably this ancient broadcast coming through that talks about operation mirror. It’s Mayday. Mayday. Operation mirror. Instrument failure. Our position is 6 North 3 West. Altitude unknown.   And she holds up a mirror. I know where do these mirrors even come from. She holds up a giant piece of mirror from the ground against this crashed plane. And, again, behind her, this pilot materializes. But then when she turns around, he’s actually there. And Rick kind of comes up behind him. I’m not sure if he actually does anything, but It doesn’t matter because the pilot just explodes into dust. And then there’s this sort of Indiana Jones and the last crusadish type shot of him on the ground as dust being blown away until there’s nothing left. 

Craig:  That was so random. Like, the his head just Exploded out of nowhere. Like, what? Mhmm. What is happening? Just no explanation. Yeah. No you you just, Oh, well, his head exploded, and then he disappeared. 

Todd:  Something creepy happened. Yeah. It’s a movie built of what are some creepy things we could do, and let’s just Stack them 1 right after the other in this movie with a very tenuous thread linking them. And they find a boat. They see a little boat floating on the way. And so, Then back, meanwhile, Todd gonna start going weird on Jan. He’s lying at her lap, and he’s talking. And he’s like, I always liked you, Jan, But then, 

Craig:  you were always Rick’s girl. Mhmm. Suddenly, his voice changes, 

Todd:  and, he starts going after her. So Jan basically stands in 1 place, you know, kinda prowls around while he’s kind of half chasing her. It’s it’s terribly shot. It’s Again, none of this stuff is convincing, let alone suspenseful. 

Craig:  The only thing that I liked about this part, he chases her, and he chases her into an elevator. And it’s one of those old, Like you always see in movies in these old houses, the elevators that don’t have a door, they just have kinda like a cage door. He, like, grabs at her through the cage door and kinda pulls her out, and she’s struggling. But then she finally hits the button, and it starts going up, And it cuts his arm off. And then the only effect that I kind of liked was she’s standing in the elevator with her back kind of up against the back wall, and then arms, very Freddy Krueger style, come through the back wall as though it’s latex. And I think that it was latex or some sort of or some sort of plastic, But, like, whereas in Nightmare on Elm Street, it stretches beautifully and, like, it just, you know, is the perfect Silhouette of Freddie or whatever. This plastic, whatever it is, when it stretches, like, you see the stretch marks, like, When you blow up a balloon too far or something. And so it doesn’t look nearly as cool, but 

Todd:  at least they tried. It’s like they stretch the plastic, You know, where the rubber or whatever as far as it would go to make the wall, and then they spray painted it the color of the wall so that it was opaque. Right. But then when they start to stretch it, You start seeing cracks in this until you can almost practically see through it, except it’s dark on the other side, so you can’t. But you’re right. It just looks like somebody’s stretching a balloon. So the effect is almost totally lost, but the idea is that she’s being pulled into the wall of this elevator. And when Rick And, the other girl finally show up.   They, see her go into like, they see the last bits of her being absorbed into the wall. Again, it’s all these things, but none of it’s very cohesive. 1 guy just gets killed. A bunch of people just get materialized to and then disappear, and then this woman gets subsumed into the house. It’s really unclear to us what the ultimate goal of this haunting or these spirits are. You know? What are they trying to do for the to these people? You know, what’s their mission? 

Craig:  Well and even oh, so okay. So then another one of the fair guys wakes up and chases them around, and there’s a big kitchen sequence where everything in the kitchen freaks out and kills the fair guy, and things are flying around Matilda style. And but then they do the rewind trick, and so everything, you You know, it goes back to normal. And then Leslie well, they end up in the ballroom, and ghosts appear and, like, do, like, announcements, and one of them is Leslie, I think. And Leslie here in the last 10 minutes of the movie gives us the exposition. 

Clip:  There was an experiment. An experiment went terribly wrong. The government demanded to send up a plane on New Year’s Eve, a plane carrying a device that could change the structure of time and matter. This device could 

Craig:  And all of the dead people come back and are chasing them around the game room, and they end up cornering them in the game room. The only ones left at this point are Carol and Rick, and they’re, like, on the The billiards table and the it’s, like, spinning around and these ghosts are all around them. And then all of a sudden, they just get dumped out onto the lawn, Like, nothing happened. 

Todd:  Yeah. And so then they stand up, and they look in they look in, and the the room looks just like it was before. And, like, the literal look on their faces, Well, that was weird. And Rick just said very flatly, come on. We could still make the boat. Oh my god. So they run to the shore, and they go to the boat. But then as they’re on the boat getting ready to go, Rick turns around, and Jan, is standing, at a distance in the rocks on the shore calling out for him.   Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. So, you know, being an idiot, he gets off the boat and walks back onto the shore, gets his legs stuck in this quicksand, I guess, and Todd sinking to his head. Yeah. At which point, one of these thugs who has since turned into a zombie Stands over him, and we hear something fire up. And I was like, don’t tell me they’re gonna bring a chainsaw into this movie at this Boy, like, they’ve shored almost everything they could. The only thing missing is a chainsaw.   But no. It’s it’s an outboard motor. 

Craig:  Yeah. Uh-huh. 

Todd:  And, and, he fires it up, and, you know, the spinning rotor comes closer and closer to this guy’s face. And that’s it. I guess we hear his screaming. Again, there’s no blood. There’s not even blood splattering on anything. There’s not a gross sound of grinding or anything. We just get this now from this reaction shot of Jan far off on the boat that something bad has happened. And then, after that reaction shot of Carol, she gets Sucked down into the boat, and that’s the end of her.   And the next shot we see is of, again, this party from the 1959. And big surprise, here are all of the party that we have seen in a conga line coming by the camera like they’re now part of the party. Right. Except for Carol. And the camera pans over to that mirror that we had seen earlier, and Carol is on the other side of the mirror banging and Banging and banging on it like she’s trapped. Like, she can’t even get 

Craig:  Todd a 

Todd:  party or something. 

Craig:  Well, it says though they’re, like, in a Time loop or something, and it says, though, she is the one who grabs the girl and pulled her into the mirror from the first scene, or at least that’s the implication that I got. Okay. And then that’s the end. Like, I felt like they were trying to be clever. Like, oh, look. We looped back around. We’re right back where we started, but, God. Who cares? 

Todd:  It could have been a really clever prem. I mean, the premise actually wasn’t too bad. This notion that there is an island or whatever under this time loop because of some government experiment gone awry, it’s a nice idea, and some people stumble across it, but it’s so disjointed. It doesn’t have any internal cohesion. Like, why are there zombies? Why are there killer nets? Why is there a a table monster? You know? Right. Why are some of these things killing them? Some of them are appearing and being helpful and walking away, and some of them are just appearing in the mirror and doing nothing else, and others are appearing in the mirror reaching their arms out and exploding. You know, like, it it what things are coming out of movie screens. It’s just a big mess.   It’s like somebody sat down and looked at the scripts of 30 movies that horror movies that came before and picked, oh, there’s a good scene. There’s a good scene. There’s a good scene. Let’s just string all this together. And then let’s really let’s film it, like, really poorly, flatly with actors who can’t act and terrible dialogue, and, Let’s strip all the suspense out of it. And, yeah, bloody New Year. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I just can’t really think of anything good to say about it. It It wasn’t entertaining. You know? The the characters weren’t endearing. The acting wasn’t good. The the dialogue was terrible. The plot was disjointed. Like 

Todd:  It’s an ugly movie to watch too. It’s it’s muddy. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty much just crap. It’s So unremarkable that I couldn’t find anything about it. Like, I was trying to research and find fun facts and behind the scenes things. I couldn’t find anything. Nothing. If it’s a movie that’s kind of been lost Todd history, I certainly understand why. 

Todd:  The movie’s in its own time loop. 

Craig:  Yeah. I feel like the only reason that Anybody even knows about it or would stumble across it is because it has New Year’s in the title. And so if people like us are looking for a New Year’s movie to watch. They’re like, oh, well, Bloody New Year. We’ll watch that. And then it’s in Set in July, 

Todd:  but it has an awesome cover. That’s the other thing. That’s the only other thing that’s saved it. This probably got it rented, by really, really disappointed people back in the eighties. You know, I looked I was Trying to find something about this, I actually clicked through all of the actors and actresses on IMDB, trying to see if any of them did anything. And most of them, no. But Mark Powley, the guy who was Rick, has been a steadily working actor since this up to now. Yeah.   Mostly in Britain. So a lot of stuff I haven’t I don’t know or I didn’t recognize a lot of television and stuff like that, but that guy that guy’s not doing too bad. Susan Acheson, who played Leslie, Has had a fair amount of success again up until more recently, just, doing random things here and there. And, the guy, Steve Wilshire, who played Ace, he was one of the you you know his name is Ace because it’s paint on the back of his jacket, but he was one of the thugs from the 

Craig:  Oh, right. 

Todd:  He has been an extremely active stuntman in a lot of movies 

Craig:  Makes sense. 

Todd:  Since this. So yeah. But this movie didn’t make any of their careers. That’s for sure. 

Craig:  Oh, gosh. No. And it was the director’s last movie. I saw that, and maybe for good reason. 

Todd:  Yeah. He should’ve gone back to, like, In Seminoid 2 or something like that. Yeah. Well, happy New Year all the same. We do not recommend that you watch this movie? It’s not even so bad. It’s good. It it’s just even fall into that category. It’s just a slog.   But coming up this year, we do hope to find some much better movies that are much more worth your time. We’re totally gonna review those here in 2019. I think Craig and I also decided we’re gonna do some requests, this month for the rest of the month. So, if you haven’t put in your request, yet and you’ve been itching for us to do a particular film that you love, please, go to our Facebook page or go to our website, 2 guys.redfortynet.com. Leave us a comment on either of those places, and let us know what movie you’d like us to do. And we’ll put that on the docket for this month and possibly next month as well. Happy New Year. Happy New Year.   Until next time. I’m Todd, and I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Happy Holidays, everyone! For the big Christmas Day episode, we thought we’d do something a little different. We scoured the web and put together our own anthology of holiday shorts. Best of all, you can watch them all down below and follow along with us. There’s a lot of great stuff out there on the interwebs. If you found anything else you’d like to share, please leave us a comment below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6SUjgBhabw

Episode 154, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Merry Christmas everybody and welcome to another edition of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. Well I should say happy holidays right?

Craig: Say whatever you want man.

Todd: I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. Alright well we’re going to cover everything anyway. We know that the holiday season isn’t just About Christmas it’s about a lot of different things and the minute that we find a really good Hanukkah or Kwanzaa-themed horror movie, we will definitely be doing it here. Absolutely. There’s gotta be a good Ramadan. I feel like some horror movie themed around the fact that you can’t eat has to

Craig: be. I mean that just sounds like a horror movie, just that premise.

Todd: I hesitate to even say this out loud because I feel like it’s a million dollar idea. Maybe I’ll edit this part out, we’ll see. So we decided to do something a little different. You know, we have been oftentimes scraping the bottom of the barrel for these Christmas movies, although interesting ones do keep popping up. This time, we realized that there are quite a few fun little Christmas shorts out there, especially with the proliferation of the internet. These are things that any of our listeners could go out and watch after we’re done talking about them or even before we start talking about them.

Craig: Yeah we could even like post them on our site and you could watch them and enjoy them with us.

Todd: Let’s not go that far come on. That would be too easy. You’d have to dig like us. Well, no, that’s exactly what we’re going to do. If you go to our site, you’ll be able to see links to all of these movies that are out there. All of them are relatively short. None of them I think is any longer than like 15 or 20 minutes.

Craig: Right.

Todd: And a couple of them are just a couple minutes long, but we’re including them anyway because they’re kind of fun. We scoured several, I mean there’s a bit out there for these Christmas shorts and they all vary in quality, they all vary in creativity. That’s kind of what you get when you go to YouTube, right? So we tried to find the 6 most interesting ones that we ran across that other people seemed to enjoy that had relatively good production value and some creative thought behind them and were varied. We didn’t want 6 Killer Santa shorts Because there’s a ton of that out there. So we limited it to like 2. And the rest of this is gonna be, I think it’s a good mix. I think we came up with a really cool mix this year. How about you, Craig? I did too. So Let’s start off with the first 1. Interestingly enough, my wife and I just got done watching a documentary on Netflix called Tree Man, and this is about people who drive to New York. Apparently, there are very few New Yorkers who actually set up Christmas tree sales places, Christmas tree, what do you call them? Stands. Lots. Lots, whatever. They’re all from out of state. So, in New York City, there’s this guy who drives down like 500 miles from Canada, and he sets up his little Christmas tree stand, and that is like his family business. He’s away from his family for a whole month. So it was interesting that somebody had this idea to include the Christmas tree in a horror movie. What happens to these poor trees when they get shipped in from across the country, and how does it traumatize them? And how could they perhaps get their tree venge and that’s exactly what this thoughtful horror movie does it’s called tree venge and when it started out were you getting shades of recognition just from the score alone.

Craig: Oh gosh, I don’t even remember the score, but what I liked about this 1 is that it totally had like kind of like a 70s, low budget horror movie feel. It’s from 2008 and it was directed by Jason Eisner who did a segment in VHS too, I’m not sure which 1, and he also worked on Hobo with the Shotgun. And this 1, you know, it pops up with the music and like a very 70s looking title and the footage is kind of grainy. It kind of looks like a low budget horror movie from the 70s. And it was very Christmassy in the very beginning and so I was into it from the get-go.

Todd: Well it panned out across Christmas trees out in the fields, right? Out in their natural habitat and this music that was playing was ripped directly from Cannibal Holocaust.

Craig: Oh, that’s right. I forgot about that. Yeah, it’s this idyllic footage of like these snowy trees in the field. And I didn’t recognize the music at first, but when I went and did a little bit of reading about it, I saw that too. And I was like, oh yeah, that was the Cannibal Holocaust music. And it’s fitting, It works.

Todd: It is, you know, thematically it works. I mean, it’s sort of the idea is that here these outsiders come into all these trees that are perfectly happy living out alone in the woods, away from civilization. They chop them down, they bring them, and then they stick them in their house. And it’s funny because you never really get this sense of if trees were living and could talk what horrible things we actually do to them at Christmas time. But this movie, make sure you know. And it’s total tongue in cheek. It is hilarious.

Craig: Yeah, it’s funny, because you see all those trees and then you see a guy with an ax, like in a very ominous way, like in a horror movie kind of way. Then like the baby tree is like quivering.

Todd: And making little chirping sounds. Errrrrrr.

Craig: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Apparently, they’re not actually speaking out loud in a way that human beings can hear them, but they can communicate with 1 another and 1 of them is like, oh, I wish I’d stayed in school.

Todd: That’s right. You get little subtitles at the bottom and all you hear is this.

Craig: Oh, gosh. It’s hilarious.

Todd: Yeah, they come in and it’s so funny because they’re, and it’s like these are the most brutal tree rippers down of all time. It’s like, they’re like a few trees, you know, basically coming in and like taking a chainsaw to them and taking an axe to them and yanking them around. It’s hilarious. These guys get a little too into their work and then they go and they bring them to 1 of these you know places where they sell trees and it just takes you through the whole process so it’s kind of like all these little trees get taken home and then we see what happens once they’ve basically had enough in each of their environments.

Craig: The funniest part about this is the subtitles, because you just do get these little like squeaky noises from the trees, but the subtitles are just hilarious. Like when the people are cutting down the trees, they’re like, they’re killing us all. What did we do to deserve this? What did we do to them? And it’s just funny. You know, like it takes something, you know, that we just don’t consider at all and makes it funny. You know, like They cut down all these trees and then the ones that aren’t desirable enough just get burned like it’s a holocaust of trees. And then they do. People come and buy them and set them up in their house. And just, you know, little things like this family buys a tree and they go to set it up and they put it in the Christmas tree stand and they start screwing in the screws for the Christmas tree stand. Like the trees are like screaming. It’s mean, but it’s funny.

Todd: It’s well shot too, you know. It really takes the cinematography pretty seriously, as though this were a horror movie, zooming in on the screws and twisting and twisting like a like a scene from S.A.R. Or something like that. But then I think is it the family where the first kill happens where the girl stands up there unwrapping presents under the tree and the girl stands up in front of it goes, I got a doll. And the tree just grabs her. It’s like it’s branches wrap around her and pull her in. And just blood starts flying out everywhere. Like it’s eating her.

Craig: Tons of blood. Too much blood,

Todd: but it’s so fun. It’s spraying all over the family.

Craig: And the tree throws its star like a ninja star into the dad’s neck. And then it cuts to another family, and they’re opening their presence, and blood starts dripping down on their presence. And they’re like, what’s going on? And they look up and the cat is dead in the tree. The tree has killed the cat. Right. What’s the funny, you know, what I liked and really appreciated about this 1 was that it wasn’t afraid to like really go out there. Like It’s really gory, but there’s just lots of really crazy stuff going on. When people are still putting their trees together and stuff, this 1 guy has dug a hole out of the trunk and is like lubing it up.

Todd: Yeah, that was so

Craig: gross. And it’s this skeezy guy, like you could, he’s got this, you know, big grin on his face and you can totally tell like what he’s planning. It’s so gross.

Todd: I think my favorite though is the couple. They’re like making out on the sofa and they’ve got the tree behind them or something like that and the girl makes some suggestion, I can’t remember what it was, and he goes, it’s Christmas, I just want to f***. Like, okay. And at that point the trees grab them and the tree grabs them and then you get a direct nod to, again, 1 of these old Italian horror movies from the 70s, Zombie, where we have this slow motion kill where a woman gets slowly pulled against a splinter by a zombie that is going straight for her eye. And in this case, the tree branch piece starts going slowly into her eye and then it comes out of her eye and like out of the other eye and then out of her mouth and then it goes across to his eye and it’s like bringing them closer together by weaving itself between their eyes and their mouths until they come together at Christmas time. It’s actually pretty heartwarming when you think about it.

Craig: Well, in the end, I mean, it’s just total mayhem. Like, people are running in the streets, and lake trees are killing people in totally grotesque ways.

Todd: Kills a baby.

Craig: Yes, yes. I feel like that’s the cap. Like they saved that for the end where the tree stump just crushes a baby’s head. But there’s also like a blink and you miss it moment where a tree is raping a guy behind a snowbank. It’s horrible. It’s horrible. And that’s it. Like it just ends on all that mayhem. But I thought it was a really clever idea and I loved the 70s vibe a bit of it and it was goofy and fun. I really enjoyed it. It’s potty humor. It’s gross. Tasteless. Oh yeah, it’s totally tasteless. There’s a couple of these that we’re going to talk about. There’s 1 in particular that I thought, oh my gosh, this was actually kind of a really good idea. They could have made a feature-length film about this, but this 1, I think, just works really well in short form. You know, just give us, I don’t even remember how long it was, 10 minutes or, you know, it’s really short and it worked really well in that medium and I just thought it was really clever.

Todd: Yeah, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes goes on far too long. You know, there’s only so far you can take this concept of these inanimate objects. Sure, sure. And so, yeah, I agree. This worked really well as a short I do not want to see this expanded into a full length you’d have to do

Craig: no yeah No, but you know it totally seems like something trauma would do you know yeah,

Todd: it’s very trauma

Craig: anyway Super clever I I recommend it take a take a look at tree Venge. It’s my go-to word is cute. It’s cute. It’s cute,

Todd: watch it. We’re gonna be saying that about a lot of these. Tree-rape’s a guy and another guy loops up the tree. Was it the same guy who was looping up the tree?

Craig: I don’t know, maybe, I hope so.

Todd: You need to go back and watch. Yeah, me too. I hope it

Craig: was the same

Todd: guy. Well, speaking of cute, I don’t know if you’d call the next 1 Cute or not, but it’s fun. It’s just a couple minutes long and it’s called The Winter Stalker. And it is simply a short, almost like a kind of visual poem.

Craig: Yeah, I mean. Yeah, it’s just a few minutes.

Todd: The idea is that Santa is alone in a cabin, and you know, Santa watches you, right? So Santa, many people could say, kind of like Elf on the Shelf, right? Santa is a bit of a stalker himself. And so it takes that idea and runs with it a little bit and says, well, what if Santa really were a stalker? How would everything that we know about him, you know, having his list and people writing letters to him and stuff, how would all that really play out then?

Craig: Well, what song is that? Is it Santa Claus is coming to town? That’s the, he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake. It totally plays on that. It’s just really dark. And I appreciate when you take something innocent and just put a dark spin on it, that totally makes sense. Santa is writing letters back to these people. He’s like, you know I watch you when you’re sleeping, right?

Todd: In the meantime, we’re hearing like voiceover and we’re seeing quick grubby clips of, you know, again it looks like he’s in a tool shed or something like that by candlelight with his hands dirty and messy and everything gross, you know, scratching all this stuff out.

Craig: It’s just deliciously nasty. Like, there’s an imagery where the milk from the milk and cookies like gets splashed up on people’s faces.

Todd: Oh yeah. It’s totally. It goes to a lot of places like that.

Craig: It’s totally like a cum shot. It’s so nasty. But it’s hilarious. It is. And like, it’s so brief, but it’s really pretty artfully done. Oh yeah. Like, It’s well shot in those, you know, just those 3 minutes or however long it is. Well, it reminded me a lot of a short that was really popular on their internet for a while that

Todd: I think even won an Emmy or something. It’s starring Bill Oberst Jr. And it was called Don’t Take This Lollipop. Have you ever seen that? No. It’s a site that you go to. It’s called, and you should, don’ttakethislollipop.com and you click on the lollipop anyway and it tells you we’re going to give us access to your Facebook profile to watch this short. And then it sticks stuff about you and your friends into the short in the context of this crazy psycho guy who’s coming after you basically.

Craig: Oh, that’s funny.

Todd: It’s really cool. And it is this is almost almost I would say in many ways ripped directly from that, you know, it has a similar type vibe to it and a similar style of shooting. But again, I don’t wanna downplay this 1. It’s quite good. But then the ending, right? The ending of it is still like, well, it’s still Santa delivering presents. They still get their present. They get what they wanted and then that’s it. It’s not like he comes and murders anybody.

Craig: No, no. It’s funny, it’s just a nice funny take. I mean, it’s just looking at the whole mythology of Santa from a different perspective And it makes sense. I mean, that’s what makes it so clever is that if you think about it, you know this creepy guy that watches you all the time and knows what your deepest desires are.

Todd: It’s funny. He’d be going a little crazy, I think. He’d have a big bird and let’s just put it that way, but this 1 is more almost a little slapstick in some ways and that

Craig: is called Humbug. 2016.

Todd: Fairly new, right? 2 years old with a female writing and directing and starring team with this. I actually went to their YouTube channel thinking that maybe they had a lot more of these kinds of shorts that they’ve done and I don’t think they’ve done anything since like a year or 2 ago, and they only have maybe half a dozen things up there. But I was really curious to see what else they did because I thought the concept behind this was cute. Again, cute. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah, clever. So it starts out with this, for lack of a better word, goth girl. And she obviously hates Christmas and she’s like sketching in her sketch pad and like sketching decapitated Santas and stuff and she like colors the picture with her own blood like when you vote When you’ve only got 10 minutes or 8 minutes or whatever, how long it is, you really gotta nail the character right away. So she’s cutting herself and coloring her pictures of Santa with her own blood. And there’s loud Christmas music playing next door, which pisses her off, so she goes next door. Her neighbor is this cute, perky, blonde girl who’s super smiley, like over the top, ridiculously cheerful and happy. And…

Todd: She’s the embodiment of Christmas cheer, yeah.

Craig: Yeah, right. And she tries to bestow that Christmas cheer on to the grouchy neighbor but when the grouchy neighbor is just having none of it she tases her

Todd: all right we’ll do this the hard way

Craig: and then yeah And then ties her up in Christmas lights. And then I remember she tells a story about an old man.

Clip: That was the night old man Yates knocked on our door. We knew him as the jolliest man on the block. He brought us a peppermint icebox pie every year. So that’s what mama was expecting when she opened the door. But that’s not what he brought. Merry Christmas, she said. And I will never forget the way he looked. He looked different, like all the joy had been sucked out of him. And the thing he was holding, it was the most terrifying thing I have ever seen. It was a… Never mind, I don’t care!

Todd: The other funny thing about this story Is that as she tells it she takes a sip and sets from a thing of whiskey that she offers the girl that she doesn’t take So she takes a sip from it and as she sets the bottle down you see that it’s old exposition whiskey

Craig: It’s hilarious The cheery 1 tries to give the grumpy 1 some eggnog and she won’t drink it and so she force feeds it with a funnel.

Todd: It’s a three-step process actually. She force feeds her the eggnog with the funnel and then she tries to get her to sing. She breaks 1 of her fingers in a nutcracker which makes her sing and then she goes okay and then she climbs on top of her and just starts French kissing her.

Craig: Yeah, there’s some hot lesbian action. I was like,

Todd: whoa, okay. And then suddenly the kissing turns into sucking. And I thought, is she gonna bite her tongue off? You know, is it gonna get that dark?

Craig: That’s what I thought too, yeah.

Todd: But actually as she pulls away from her it turns out there is a creature the humbug is yeah she’s basically going through this ritual to pull this humbug out of her and it looks like a giant black sperm or something from alien or something

Craig: it’s gross but it’s it’s I don’t know it’s funny Like I wouldn’t go so far to say is it’s scary, but it’s it’s funny. And it looks good. Like the effects are pretty good. Like she pulls, She pulls this gross thing out of her throat and then the mean girl is cured and she loves Christmas too And so they go caroling together and if I remember correctly and I may be wrong But like they go caroling together and I feel like the mean girl still has like the blood crusted around her Whoever they go caroling to is also a humbug and slams the door in their face, but they’re like, that’s okay, and they hold up the taser.

Todd: Here we go. Doing it all over again. Oh my gosh. I thought this was hilarious. And what a clever idea. I mean, it’s truly original. I’ve never seen anything like

Craig: this before. It’s really cute. It is. You and I both, 1 of the, actually I think the next 1 we’re going to talk about is All Through the House, which is the 1 that we’re going to talk about is actually a remake of a short that comes from an anthology. What’s the anthology that it comes from, do you remember? Tales from

Todd: the Crypt, the original movie from the 1970s.

Craig: Oh, that’s right, that’s right. And it stars Joan Collins. And the whole way that this episode was inspired was I really like, I’ve never seen that original Tales from the Crypt movie, which I can’t believe. And we’re going to do eventually, which is why we didn’t do the Joan Collins version this time around. You know, Sometimes short form horror, it just can be really, really fun. And we’ve done 2 or 3 at least Christmas anthologies and we’ve done Halloween anthologies and we always really enjoy them. And it’s Not that I’m sure there are others out there that we haven’t seen, but I guess we were just feeling kind of lazy and we just kind of decided to put our own together this time around. But I’m glad we did because I do. It’s just kind of fun to get a complete story in 10 or 15 or 20 minutes and I feel like in that form good or bad you don’t you know like if it’s good you’re like oh that was so much fun if it was bad you’re like well it was only 10 minutes

Todd: yeah I didn’t waste a lot of time. It didn’t take too much time out of my life, which we can’t say about a lot of full length movies we’ve had to do on this podcast. It’s so true.

Craig: This 1. But Humbug was a good, this was an example I think of a good 1, a really cute, clever idea, playing on the whole bah Humbug and making it an actual entity. You know, who knows, somebody could have maybe made a full-length feature and maybe it would have been good, but I just, you know, in this short span of time, it was cute and it was funny and it was gross and…

Todd: The acting was good.

Craig: Yeah, the acting was good, the production was good.

Todd: Well, and it was just, you know, again, when you have a short, you only have so much time, you really need to make every second count. And what was great about this 1 was how unpredictable it was. I mean, you know, something like tree venge, you get the idea, you know, you’re just going to see a bunch of people getting murdered by trees and that’s going to be it. But in this, like every second, you’re thinking, where is this going? You know, and it surprises you by the end. Surprised me anyway. So I think that takes a lot of talent.

Craig: And I also like seeing these people who don’t have the advantage of a big budget. They’re financing this themselves, which means, or at least I assume so, I don’t know, but they’re financing this thing themselves. They’re probably shooting it on handheld cameras or at best some not studio level cameras, But with lighting and set prep and costuming and good acting, they can really do a lot. And it really showcases talent that we might not get to see otherwise. And I just really enjoy them. I spend a lot of time watching horror shorts on YouTube. There’s there are so many and some of them are really good and some of them go on to inspire feature-length films. Every year in my class, my English class, we do a unit on horror fiction. I show them these shorts. 1 of the ones that I have shown for years is Lights Out. That got picked up and got turned into a big budget Hollywood film that I haven’t seen. But the original short was really fun. And so I just like to see, you know, kind of maybe nothing will ever come of these low budget filmmakers, but sometimes this is where they get their start. And I just like to see these people who are passionate about what they’re doing have a forum. And with the internet now and YouTube, they have a platform and that’s fantastic. I love it.

Todd: Yeah, it’s pretty remarkable actually we couldn’t do something like this, you know 15 years ago, right? Couldn’t have found you know who watches shorts 15 years ago. You’d have to go to like a film festival, right? You just have to be totally into this sort of thing You know and to seek the stuff out and now You can go on and you can watch these and you can find other ones and it’s it’s spend a whole day going down the Dark rabbit hole of YouTube and oh yeah, the good ones are on Vimeo

Craig: The good ones are on Vimeo. That’s true. There’s some really good ones there Okay. All right Moving on to All Through the House. As you mentioned, this is a remake from the original anthology film from Tales from the Crypt. And this, the remake, premiered in the first season of the TV series on HBO, Tales from the Crypt, Which as a kid of the late 80s and 90s Tales from the crypt was like crack to me.

Todd: Oh my gosh.

Craig: I loved it so much It was scary, but it also had this great vein of dark humor running through it always.

Todd: Always these famous directors, high quality production value, famous people.

Craig: Yes, yes, that’s exactly it. And I was watching this last night and I was watching the credits and I was specifically watching the opening credits because I couldn’t remember the name of the main actress. And her name is Mary Ellen Traynor. She is such a recognizable face from the 80s. She was the mom from the Goonies. She was the mom from Monster Squad. This, the screenplay for this was written by Fred Decker who did the Monster Squad. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis. Like, like so many crazy Famous people involved in this it’s so fun. I love this. Like I said, it’s the holiday season. We’re busy I I watch the first half of these shorts last week and then last night I was running behind and so I made my partner watch the rest of them with me And this is 1 of the ones that we watched and he really enjoyed it too And he’s not a big horror fan the premise this it’s just it’s so wacky like and that’s what I love about Tales from the Crypt. It opens up and some great Christmas carol playing over the credits and it’s panning through you know this idyllic snowy scene and then into the house that’s totally decked out for Christmas. It’s so Christmassy. It leads up to the mom, Mary Ellen Traynor, murdering her husband with a fireplace poker.

Todd: Yeah. Just comes up behind him and says, Merry Christmas, darling, and whack over the head.

Craig: The guy that plays her husband, he’s famous too. I mean, every face you see in this, except for the little, there’s a little girl. I don’t know her from anything, but.

Todd: Oh, I’m sure she went on to do great things

Craig: I’m sure she did too I’m sure she did too but this woman apparently is murdering her husband for his money and she has a lover and like it’s so it’s so silly like she calls her lover and leaves a message on his answering machine.

Clip: Darling, it’s Elizabeth. I know you told me not to call, but I just had to tell you. It’s done. I did it. It’s all ours. The money, everything. We’re free. Merry Christmas, darling.

Craig: It’s total cornball. It’s so Tales from the Crypt. Like, you know, like nobody in their right mind would do that. It’s the stupidest thing you could possibly do would be to record your confession on an answering machine tape. But she does. But while she’s trying to drag her dead husband out to throw him down the well, because apparently they have a well.

Todd: Another bad idea, but.

Craig: My partner, god it’s so funny, my partner was like, ew, don’t throw him down there, you have to drink that.

Todd: Oh god,

Craig: But anyway, while she’s dragging him out there, we hear on the radio that this lunatic has escaped from the loony bin and has stolen a Santa suit and has killed several people in that area. And then he immediately shows up and it’s just mayhem. And it’s just so fun. It’s so fun and scary. It is

Todd: scary, Yeah, that’s right. But the 1 thing that keeps it from being 100% Scary is that it’s really played up for cheese and I’m actually pretty surprised because it Tales in the Crypts kind of like Twilight Zone, you know in many ways there’s always a twist at the end and they always go in all these different directions. Sometimes it’s a little closer to sci-fi, sometimes there’s a supernatural element to them, sometimes there’s a comedic 1. And this 1 is definitely more in the comedic vein where this woman, she’s a good actress and she plays really serious, but if you only saw her in this movie, you wouldn’t think her capable of playing serious because she hams it up so much. I mean, it was clearly a choice. And the villain, he just looks terrible, you know? He’s got wily eyes and this chubby face and these bad teeth and he’s your classic textbook, comic book killer escape from the mental asylum with an axe.

Craig: And he is, you know, I wouldn’t say he’s like a huge actor or anything, but he’s well known too. I don’t have his name written down, but you and I are old enough to remember LA Law. That show featured a character who worked like in this law firm. I think he was like a clerk or whatever and he played a character with special needs and that’s this guy And he just like he does he just looks he’s so crazy eyed and goofy looking but he is just a lunatic. It’s not like he’s menacing. It’s not like he’s stalking her around. Like the second he shows up, he attacks her and they fight and there’s all kinds of craziness going on.

Todd: Well, and there are a lot of inside jokes too, which is, you know, something we’ve got Fred Decker behind the helm of the of the writing. And this guy just has a love for the genre and you know goes back and he’s done what he did Night of the Creeps which was kind of a throwback to a 1950s style sci-fi horror film and he throws in a lot of these small Easter eggs. I don’t know if you were ever a fan of reading the comics? I didn’t. The reprints came out like in the, well, a whole bunch of reprints came out in the late 80s, early 90s, and I ate them up when I have almost the whole series at home. Oh, that’s awesome. And I got really into the history of these horror comics, and the guy who did the horror comics, the editor and kind of in charge of the whole deal, kind of like the Stan Lee of the 1950s horror comics was named William Gaines and he started Mad Magazine as part of this, his whole empire and that’s the 1 thing after the horror comics kind of got booted off the shelves because parents couldn’t stand him anymore. That’s the 1 thing that kept him going and then made him even more successful. So anyway, long story, but if you listen to the radio you hear that they’re in the Gaines County area. And when the guy, the policeman calls them up on the phone, he says, Mrs. Kamen, this is Sergeant Feldstein. And these are writers, editors, Feldstein, I think, Harvey Feldstein was either a writer or an artist for them. And Dean Kamen was a writer as well for Tales from the Crypt. He stuck those little things in there too, which is really cute. You know, it’s just a fun little short all around. It really is. And again, it’s like you really don’t, I mean, the situation she’s in, at 1 point she’s locked herself in the closet and you think she’s fine, but the real problem is that there’s a daughter upstairs. Right. And she’s excited for Santa to come. And so this guy dressed as Santa starts climbing up the trellis while this woman’s locked herself in a closet. So now she’s got to get out of the closet, but now she can’t get out of it. Right.

Craig: It’s

Todd: just a comedy of errors of her trying to escape him and then turning around and trying to save her daughter. Which is typical, you know, of these horror comics. There’s always a morality to them. This woman does something bad and so this is her punishment. Which is, again, what kind of separates, this could have been a killer Santa just Terrorizing a family it could have been this simple home invasion thing But it’s this woman getting what she deserved basically Yeah, that’s the idea behind this 1

Craig: And you’ve talked about that a lot when you know on the podcast how these tales from the crypt and you know there’s all kinds of them. Tales from the vault, there’s all different ones, but they are. Their morality plays and it’s usually about bad people who get what’s coming to them. And this is precisely that, and it’s a lot of fun. My favorite part, I think, was when Santa first attacks her, she immediately runs inside and calls 911, And they’re like, okay, well, where are you? And then she looks outside and sees her dead husband that she’s killed and realizes that she can’t have cops coming to her house.

Todd: That was clever.

Craig: Which I thought was so funny. Yeah. And then I don’t remember if then she hears on the radio or if the cops tell her that this psycho has been killing people with an axe and like she gets this idea. She goes, oh, they fight, she and Santa fight and she knocks him out and he’s knocked out in the snow. And so she goes out with the axe and axes her husband. And it’s so, it’s just funny. It takes her several swings, but she eventually gets him. And I just like, you know, these twists, like that could have worked out so well for her if she had won, you know? Yeah. If she had won, it would be so easy to say, oh, the psycho killed him. And nobody would have thought any different. Serendipity for her. Right. She doesn’t win. The Santa gets to the daughter, and the mom, after she breaks out of the closet runs upstairs and Nobody’s in her daughter’s room. So she runs back downstairs and she’s so relieved to see her daughter standing down there but then the daughter’s like look Santa came and she pulls Santa out from the other room holding his hand and the mom is just screaming, no, no, no. And Santa goes, naughty or Nice. And then it just like extreme close up on the mom’s face screaming, no. Like. I love it. I’ve seen that 1 a million times and I love it every time I see it. It’s, it’s, it’s good. It’s a lot of fun. Check it

Todd: out. It is great. Oh, and you know, Mary Ellen Traynor at this time was Robert Zemeckis’ wife.

Craig: Oh, I didn’t know that, no!

Todd: Yeah, apparently. I don’t think she is anymore, but at the time she was. I think he’s had a few.

Craig: Yeah, he has. All right, what’s next?

Todd: All right, the next 1 that we watched was called Do You See What I See? And it opens up on a gal coming over to smoking outside of a house and walking into it’s like a suburban neighborhood and things are decked out for Christmas. And she goes into the back and she meets a guy who’s in the back kind of grilling, who’s half dressed in a Santa outfit. And there’s a Christmas party going on inside and they have some banter back and forth.

Craig: You don’t find this out right away, but eventually you figure out her name is Sloane and she is going to her sister’s house for a Christmas party, her sister Jessica. And Sloane is like the kind of…

Todd: Janine Garofalo?

Craig: Yeah, yeah. Like the smoking cynical 1. And Jessica is like the perfect suburban 1. And when Sloan gets there, her brother-in-law Chris is like outside in the Santa suit like smoking weed and like they smoke weed together or whatever. Then the wife Jessica comes out and she’s like,

Clip: Chris, that’s just a rental. We can’t afford to have it smelling like weed.

Todd: It already smells like ass, Jessica.

Craig: I just thought that was such a funny line because you know, those rinsed Santa suits have to be so disgusting. Oh my gosh,

Todd: can you imagine? No! Even worse than any other costume, because they’ve got to wear them for a while. You’ve got kids climbing all over them.

Craig: Right, they’re covered in pee and they’re probably disgusting.

Todd: Usually fat, sweaty people like me in them anyway, to start out with, so.

Craig: Like you, okay. But Jessica, the good 1, is hosting an ugly sweater party. There were just some good lines in this 1. I actually really liked this 1 This is the 1 that I was talking about before when I said this 1 maybe actually could be developed into a feature film Yeah, and Jessica says something like she looks around it’s not snowy and she looks around and says

Clip: I want a white Christmas this year but I guess that’s not happening you’re having an ugly sweater party Jess it’s about as white as it gets

Craig: oh god it’s so funny It’s

Todd: got this sort of hip dialogue that actually works, you know? It’s a very modern sensibility, young, you know, 20-somethings.

Craig: You see from the very beginning that it appears like Sloan is being followed by somebody. Like you see like kind of a Michael Myers esque menacing presence like behind her kind of out of focus as she’s approaching the party and then they have the party and everybody shows up and they’re you know ugly Christmas sweaters and stuff and it’s very typical and there’s you know family tension between Jessica and Sloan because Jessica is trying to hook Sloan up with some guy and Sloan is just sick of Jessica interfering in her life and blah, blah. But meanwhile, we also see that somebody has picked a lock and gotten into the party and is down in the basement. And some guy gets sick on eggnog and goes down and is throwing up and he gets his throat slit. And it’s good production value. Like it looks good. And some stupid girl up at the party is like, I talked to a psychic and they said that I’m going to meet a tall, dark stranger. Ha ha. And it basically just becomes kind of this slasher for a second, but it goes by so fast. Like Chris goes downstairs And you’re not sure if he gets killed, but then somebody else goes down to look for him and he definitely gets killed. And then the killer comes up and the girl who was going to meet the tall, dark stranger gets killed right away. And then it’s just a massacre. Like, it’s just this guy in like a snow mask, a ski mask, just stabbing people left and right and people are running out of the party.

Todd: And I kid you not, Craig, I kid you not, about after the first murder and the killer’s like, I don’t know, bundling him up in the bathtub or doing whatever he was doing in there and we saw him I was thinking that’s interesting that he has glasses

Craig: Oh, I didn’t think that at all. I mean, I guess maybe I should have

Todd: yeah like what killer in a movie would have glasses You know,

Craig: yeah, he’s wearing a ski mask Yeah, cuz he’s wearing a ski mask and he has the glasses on like over the ski, like the whatever you call them, the side pieces are like stuck in the eye holes, but he’s wearing the glasses. It didn’t occur to me, but very good of you for noticing because it’s important. Because then he comes upstairs and he corners Sloan and Jessica and the guy that Jessica was trying to hook Sloan up with and he kills the guy. And then, you know, it’s very typical of these kind of Christmas horror movies that family who have been fighting and bickering the whole time now have to have 1 another’s back and protect 1 another, which is exactly what happens. And Jessica protects Sloan and I feel like Jessica even takes a knife to the side. She’s okay. Sloan, the bad girl 1, bests this bad guy and kills him. And Jessica’s like, what’s going on? And, and someone’s like, I don’t know. And, and why she would do this, I don’t know, but whatever. She takes off the guy’s glasses and puts them on. And then it’s this twist that There’s no way you could see it coming.

Todd: No.

Craig: And this is why I think that they really maybe could make this into an actual feature. It turns out that this guy, these glasses, when Sloan puts them on, she looks at Jessica and Jessica is a demon. And she looks around at all the people who have been slain at the party and They are all demons. So apparently this guy was like on a demon hunting whatever you would call it. I don’t know. I feel like I maybe missed something because you don’t see Chris, the husband die on screen and I just kind of thought that we had seen him die off screen. But then Sloan, the bad 1, opens up the basement door, and Chris apparently had been on the other side of it and goes flying down the door. Did it turn out that he was not a demon and that’s why he not got killed? Is that what I saw?

Todd: I think what happened, if I interpreted it correctly, and I had to rewind and look at it, but what she was seeing through the heads of display, I think was a video game. Oh. It was like an augmented reality video game, like we’re supposed to be seeing here really soon, where it mixes in other stuff with reality. And he just was taking it so seriously that he was going around and actually killing people. But the game was putting demon faces on them.

Craig: Well, that would make perfect sense and also be even maybe more clever

Todd: Yeah, otherwise it would be a little more like if they live right

Craig: right right

Todd: yeah And and that actually was I thought brought up some really interesting thoughts. I mean, we do have this kind of technology coming. We’ve seen demos of it, Magic Leap, and Microsoft has 1, and there’s all these things coming. You know, something like this could very well happen when a person either forgets they have their glasses on or is just crazy enough that they mix the real world and the fake world and they start seeing these things and they start creating real havoc. It’s kind of nuts when you think about

Craig: it. Well, and I think now, thinking back, that you’re probably right, and I think that that’s even more clever. Like, I just, I really liked this 1. The characters were interesting, the production value was good, it had that cool twist at the end.

Todd: Yeah, in fact like you said, it could easily be developed into a full length, probably, and it would, it could go in different directions with that, and it almost makes the short feel a little rushed. And at some, like you said, it all happens pretty quickly. You don’t want to see half an hour of this, but if it went off in some different directions or had some other characters in here, for sure it would make a great premise for a full length movie,

Craig: I think. And what differentiates it from some of the other shorts that we’ve talked about is that the characters seem Like they’ve got some depth to them. Like we could spend more time with them and learn more about them and their history and their relationships. And I don’t know, I just, I dug it. All right, we got 1 more, 1 more, sleigh bells. I won’t, this 1 was not my favorite, but it was interesting.

Todd: Well, we thought we would end with the oddest 1 of the bunch. This 1 is definitely odd. And although it looks like it was put together with a lot of heart and has some surprisingly good makeup moments or whatnot in it, it is 1 of these that looks like it was shot on somebody’s home video camera. Yeah, yeah it does. In many ways. So as long as that doesn’t distract you, It’s really the story about a woman who is she supposed to be a

Craig: witch? Okay, now I don’t know what was going on with her. There’s this woman, she’s, you know, totally suburbanite, blonde, she’s dressed like Mrs. Claus, She’s slim, she’s beautiful. The thing that I didn’t get, I don’t know, I understand why you’re asking that question because the she glides around everywhere. Like she doesn’t walk, she glides. Like I don’t know if they were pulling her on something or if she was like on a hoverboard or what. And there’s even 1 point where like it almost seems, and it doesn’t seem like a production mistake, It seems like it was part of the plot, but like her gliding apparatus seems to get stuck at some point. Did you notice that?

Todd: Yeah. Yeah, well, the whole short is filled with this sort of non-sequitur, unstated comedy that’s still kind of over the top. It’s a little naked gun-esque in that way, right? You’re not really sure if it’s ineptness or it’s just total wacky out there, like a bunch of guys sat around and thought, oh, this’ll be good to throw in there. Why don’t we throw this in? Or if it’s all kind of cleverly planned to be, to give this vibe, this level of, this layer of comedy to the movie that’s just really out there. Because it gets more absurd. It’s a very absurd kind of movie and story really.

Craig: And there’s nothing wrong, and that’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, I did think it was clever in many ways. Okay, so there’s this lady and she’s hosting Christmas and at first I thought that it was her friends that were coming over, but you eventually realize that it’s her family. And it’s her mother and father and her younger sister who show up at the door. And I guess she must live with her either older sister or just younger sister? She, the main lady, she’s hosting Christmas herself. It’s just her Christmas and she wants to make that perfectly clear. And everybody keeps asking about the other sister like well isn’t Amanda helping cuz Amanda’s always so good at this kind of thing and she’s like no this is my Christmas eventually there’s kind of a confrontation in the kitchen where and her sister seems very normal very millennial but at the same time like the the main girl whatever her name is has like put in a turkey and stuff and Amanda, the sister, is like, well, I took out your turkey because you weren’t having it making any cupcakes and how are you gonna have Christmas without my special candy cane cupcakes and the sister gets so angry that she kills Amanda and Then she she wraps her up. She wraps her whole body her whole body in Christmas paper and then brings it into the living room and people are like, what’s that? She’s like, nothing. She’s like, it’s pieces of Amanda. I mean, presents for Amanda. It’s so absurd and ridiculous, but funny at the same time. And then she’s cleaning up the blood in the kitchen and the brother comes in and he’s like, what are you cleaning up? She’s like, oh, I dropped some jam. And he’s like, oh, I love jam. And then there’s this disgusting scene where he like sucks like the bloody jelly gross off her fingers and like, ew, that’s your sister, you grosso. But the whole thing is absurd like that. It’s like this. And there are, you know, such silly lines like, where’s Amanda? Well, she’s a bit wrapped up at the moment like Just silly stuff like that. And then so the the brothers like is that the turkey? That’s never gonna cook in time We need something more warm more supple and like it goes on and on and on And so she cooks up Amanda and serves it to them. And they’re like, what is this? And I don’t remember what she says, but it’s something like, oh, it’s an Australian turkey. Meanwhile, there is a human foot sitting on the table.

Todd: It’s

Craig: just so silly. And then

Todd: they ask, well, what’s for dessert? She says, ginger snaps. And she looks over at 1 of the girls and I guess she’s ginger?

Craig: I guess. No, brand, it wasn’t even ginger snaps, brandy snaps which surely are not even a real thing. And then

Todd: you know it’s minutes later where she’s killed the sister, yeah. And she serves 1 disgusting, It’s like a cookie wrapped around raw meat. Yeah, the mother tastes. It’s like mmm. This is really good. It’s just so Yeah again, it’s like an absurdist play this thing

Craig: Yeah, and this the main girl keeps saying to the mother because at this point everybody else is dead. She’s killed the dad for unexplained reasons. She’s or the brother, whoever it was, she’s killed the sister to make the brandy snap. So everybody’s dead except the mom. And she keeps saying to the mom, say it’s the best

Todd: Christmas ever. Say it’s the

Craig: best Christmas ever. Say it’s the best Christmas ever. And the mom starts to say it, but then she chokes. So the main girl throws her into a wheelbarrow, like she’s going to take her to the hospital or whatever. And then this is where, like the whole thing is so bizarre, but I really liked the twist at the end. Apparently something had happened that had driven the entire community crazy. So it wasn’t just that this 1 girl had lost her mind, something had happened that had caused everybody to lose their mind. So she’s running the mom around in this wheelbarrow down the street. Meanwhile, everybody else in the neighborhood is murdering each other and, you know, just being totally loony tunes. Then the mom, a car hits the mom in the wheelbarrow. So the main girl goes back home, but she finds a Christmas card from her mom and she opens it up and it says, this was the best Christmas ever. And she’s so happy. And then that’s the end. Yeah. I don’t know. Like it was, it was clearly very low budget. It seemed like an early effort from an aspiring filmmaker, but it was ambitious and it was clever and you know I liked it I didn’t enjoy it as much I didn’t think it was as well-made as some of the other ones that we watched but I liked it anyway.

Todd: I did too, you know, I started out thinking I was gonna hate it and as it went on, I thought, oh, this is like, you know, some 12 year olds made a movie and thought this was funny. But the fact that it really stuck with it throughout, It really committed to this idea and this character and this just bizarre stuff that it was throwing at you up to the very very end. I thought, okay, yeah, some mind went into this, you know, they’re going for a kind of absurdist thing here and it actually cohesively sort of works. It doesn’t entirely work but it’s it’s fine you know. It’s again it’s 1 of those like comedies where you have to suspend a lot of disbelief where it’s you know people of course don’t notice that people are dropping off and there’s suddenly only fewer people at the table and they don’t even ask where they are. You know that kind of thing. You just forget about it and go with it. And yeah, it’s cute. It’s definitely among, and why it’s on this list is it’s among some of the better ones we found out there.

Craig: Yeah, and We did watch other ones, some good, some not so good, but there really are so many available. If you’re into this kind of thing, I would say check them out. There’s some fun stuff out there. You’ll wade through some crap, but you will find some gems. And honest to God, I do. I go on YouTube and Vimeo. They’re really good ones on Vimeo too. And there’s some really good stuff out there. And I bet money that some of these aspiring filmmakers will make names for themselves and we can go back and say we knew them when.

Todd: That’s right. Maybe they’ll call us in to critique at their…

Craig: Of course they will. I mean, why wouldn’t they?

Todd: Alright, well Merry Christmas everybody and thank you for listening again to another episode. If you enjoyed this 1, please share it with a friend. We have a lot more coming up, obviously. You can check out back episodes. We’ve done all holiday films this month. If you haven’t caught some of our earlier ones like Red Christmas or Jack Frost, go back to our website at 2guys.red40net.com and check out those as well. And like I said earlier, we will be posting links to the shorts that we reviewed here as well so you can share that as well. And if you do happen to find some other great Christmas shorts that we missed, please drop us a line at our Facebook page. Just search for 2 Guys and a Chainsaw and let us know what you found. And we’ll go out and watch them as long as they’re short enough. We’ve got the new year coming up for you. We’re big dorks and we still like to try to find New Year’s theme movies, so we’re probably gonna find another one for you. Until next time, I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig

Todd: With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Not to be confused with the Michael Keaton family tale of the same name, this direct-to-video horror-comedy divided us both. Todd thought it was funny. Craig thought it was stupid. Listen to find out why and laugh along with us at the ridiculous snowman puppet and corny one-liners.

Episode 153, 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: Happy Holidays everybody. We’re well into our month of December where we traditionally, and this year is no different, do horror movies that are Christmas themed or snow themed whatever we can find and this year we have 1 that is both this week this is Jack Frost from 1997 not to be confused with the Michael Keaton movie Jack Frost that also came out around this time If I remember correctly,

Craig: yeah the next year

Todd: This is the 1 that I think people like you and me It’s pretty unmistakable passing by this in the video store shelves. You had this cover with this evil looking snowman. And if I remember correctly, they, they went all out and they did 1 of these covers where if you turn it sideways a little bit, his mouth opens and closes. Did you get that?

Craig: That’s funny. I had forgot. I had totally forgotten about that until you just said it, but you’re absolutely right. Yes, they did.

Todd: Such a memorable cover for a movie that, at the time, just looking at this movie, I thought, oh, the cover didn’t sell it on me. You know, so lots of times we say the cover sold it and we watched it and usually it was crap. In this case, I looked at the cover and I was like, this movie is going to be total garbage because it looked like the kind of cover to a total garbage movie. And so I never picked it up. I thought it was clearly just 1 of these cash in on the Jack Frost movie by Michael Keaton. I don’t think it was. Not according to what we’re finding online anyway, it just so happened that these 2 movies came out close to each other. Whereas Michael Keaton turns into a snowman, In this movie we have a kind of child’s play angle where there is a serial killer who possesses snow. It becomes a killer snowman. And oh my gosh, I actually, I’m just going to lay it out on the line here I really enjoyed this movie

Craig: oh my god well then we’re gonna We’re gonna have some interesting conversation then because I did not.

Todd: Oh man, you guys are up for an interesting episode then. This was released on the 18th of November in 1997, right at the perfect time for Christmas, and it was directed by a guy named Michael Cooney who really hasn’t done much. And from what I read according to the makers of this movie, this was originally slated to be a $30 million big budget production directed by none other than Renny Harlan.

Craig: I know. Can you

Todd: believe that? This is Renny Harland like Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, he did Nightmare on Elm Street part 4, that was kind of his big break into Hollywood. Can you imagine him directing this movie?

Craig: No, no I can’t imagine. I mean there would have been lots more explosions and I would have liked it much better. I’m sure

Todd: Well with more than 30 million dollars It probably would have come out a lot better what apparently happened according to the makers of this movie is that they didn’t get him on board probably Gina Davis talked him out of it

Craig: or something like that. Wisely.

Todd: The budget was slashed it was made into I don’t think it I’m not sure if it was direct to video or not but it was it was slashed like under a million bucks and the minute that the puppet for the I should say the figure the puppet whatever for the snowman was seen by the director he said okay we’re gonna have to just embrace the wacky goofiness of this and go all-out comedy and that’s exactly what they did. So what you have here is an extremely self-aware horror comedy that is playing it up for cheese and laughs and goofiness and to me that is what makes this movie shine. This is why I got on board with this movie from the very beginning. The beginning of this movie starts out panning across a Christmas tree where we get this title sequence. It’s extremely Christmassy with the names of everybody involved in the production written on ornaments. And there’s this cute voiceover with a little Obviously an adult trying to play a kid which is dumb asking their uncle Henry to tell them a Christmas story

Clip: No, it’s late Go to bed Santa will be here soon No, I want a story Alright alright, you want a happy story? What do you want a scary story? I want a happy scary story happy scary story

Todd: Not a question my uncle or aunt or parents really ever asked me when I asked for a Christmas story. Right. But he starts off.

Clip: Once upon a time, there lived a man by the name… By the name of Jack Frost. Jack Frost? That’s right. Like in the song, Jack Frost nipping at your nose. Only this guy did it for real. You know how regular folk get up in the morning, eat something, then hurry off to do whatever for the day? Well Jack would get up, eat something, Then hurry off and kill someone. Because that’s what he did. He killed people. He’d stick knives in their faces and cut out their tummies, then stamp on their heads till their brains got all runny. Uncle Henry, I don’t think this is such a- You wanted a story. You got a story.

Todd: You can tell right away that this is set up to be a goofy, self-aware horror comedy, just from this part in the beginning. And I think that’s important. Oh yeah. Because if you jump in here thinking that this movie is taking itself seriously, you’re going to hate it, I think. And well, you hated it. I loved it for that reason.

Craig: I don’t know, I mean that opening part I enjoyed, it was goofy and like you said it’s super Christmasy and so you know it definitely sets a tone like if you are looking for a Christmas horror movie. I mean, you’re… Frankly the rest of the movie’s not as Christmassy as the opening makes it out to be. I mean, yeah, it’s set in the winter and it’s with the snowman and stuff, But it’s more just kind of, you know, it, oh gosh, what can I say? I mean, like, it’s about snowmen. I mean, it’s set during Christmas, but it’s not really all that Christmassy. But yeah, that opening section with the happy, scary story thing, I thought that was cute. And you know, the big dork that I am, an English teacher, I know that actually it is traditional especially in England to tell scary stories on Christmas Eve. What? Yeah, it’s a tradition. I don’t know if they still do it, but it was a tradition. I mean, think about a Christmas Carol. A Christmas Carol is, you know, a ghost story. And so that’s not out of the realm of reality for me. But we don’t really do it in America.

Todd: Well, I have learned something new today, Craig. I have learned

Craig: something new. Well, I’m a teacher, Todd. It’s what I do.

Todd: Thank you for educating me at all. So yeah, I was kind of into

Craig: it at that point. But I have to be honest, going in, I knew what it was about. And so, you know, my expectations weren’t super high but just even from okay I’m just gonna spill the beans like you did this is billed as a horror comedy, and I found it neither scary nor funny. Oh wow! So, like, it just kinda didn’t work for me, but that’s all right. You know, a lot of times, when we watch these bad movies and then we talk about them for an hour, I end up appreciating them more than when I actually sat and watched it. So maybe that will happen again, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Todd: The Uncle Henry even comes to a rhyme at the end of his story. It’s like he throws everything in the kitchen sink in here. And I can’t believe you don’t feel like this is a Christmas movie. I mean, granted, it’s not themed around like Christmas Eve or getting presents or Santa Claus or anything like that but it’s like every single opportunity that these people had to stick something Christmassy in the frame it’s in there. Even at 1 point when there is a guy crouched up on the kitchen floor backed up against the cabinets opening up a drawer trying to pull a knife out to defend himself. There is a tiny little snowman hanging from the drawer where the knives are. I mean, it’s like-

Craig: Yeah, yeah, you’re

Todd: right. Now, but they apparently shot this movie in like 70 degree weather, it’s also pretty obvious in many circumstances in here when the snow is fake. And when I say fake, like there is actually a scene that takes place behind a pine tree and you can see that the quote-unquote snow that is supposed to be on this exterior pine tree is totally cotton batting and that is the low-budget nature that we have of this movie. It’s unavoidable but I feel like they really embraced it. That’s what I liked and and again in the plot itself like as soon as that’s done our setup is these guys driving a truck through the blizzard and the truck on the side says, execution transfer vehicle. I don’t know if this is supposed to be Texas or what, but apparently this county or this state has so many executions that they have a special marked up transfer vehicle for. And at the same time, you know, and in the backseat, of course, of this is Jack Frost, the actual guys named the serial killer or whatever that the grandpa tells us about. And then who’s barreling down the other side of the highway in the opposite direction is this giant vehicle that’s like genetic testing institute. Like dangerous chemicals inside. And as soon as you see that, it’s like, okay, come on. You know, this is goofy. I mean, that’s practically like hot shots type humor right there. That’s, you know, that’s Mel Brooks kind of comedy. And the acting is goofy, and the lines, there’s tons of one-liners in this movie. Some of them work, most of them are growners, but I just thought that they were still kind of funny. There were some of them I still had to laugh out loud at, and we’ll get to those. Yeah. So they crash and the guy who plays a serial killer really plays it up like way over the top and he’s a pretty well-known actor. Well, not well known I should say but he gets around. He’s got like over 100 IMDB credits to his name. He does a lot of voiceover work. He does a lot of character work. And you have to say, this whole movie is filled with recognizable character actor faces.

Craig: Yeah, but recognizable in that way that like you know you maybe know them from somewhere but you can’t figure it out. I even looked, like you said, the guy who plays Jack Frost, and I do want to give him credit because he totally embraces it and plays it way over the top. He’s got the big crazy eyes and everything that he says and every reaction he has is twitchy and crazy and I liked him and I even liked him you know when he becomes the snowman but I feel like because the snowman is so limited in what it can do, it barely moves at all. And so he’s a little bit neutered as far as his performance is concerned. But he tries, and it is big and over the top and it’s not atypical at all. He’s the crazy guy in the back of the van being taken to be executed and he has banter with the guard in the back and he ends up like, you know, somehow overpowering the guard in the back and snapping his neck with his foot and stuff and like, fine, alright. And there’s some funny stuff like the the drivers of the truck are kind of taunting him and they’re driving through this big Blizzard and yeah, I mean you see it coming a mile away when the 2 Trucks are coming at 1 another and like the guy who’s driving the genetics truck, I don’t even know what that means. They’re just transferring around their genetic experiments. I don’t get it, but he’s pouring stuff in his thermos in this blizzard where they have 0 visibility. And then they crash. And it’s, it’s, it’s kind of, the crash is kind of funny because like in the aftermath, the driver of the prison truck is kind of sitting there and the other guy who is sitting next to him like his feet are just in the guy’s face like you Don’t even know if the other guy is dead or

Todd: Well the crash itself is such a low-budget crash. I mean, it’s so silly It’s almost like It’s almost like I was watching Batman from 1966, like all these cantilevered camera angles in the movie that skewed and went around, and this crash sequence, which is basically a view through the windshield, and it’s like they just spun the camera around. Yeah. And everybody is inside going, ah,

Craig: ah, ah. Yeah. Well, the whole movie’s like that. In the right context that could be really charming you know those old Batman shows you can still watch them and and they are goofy but they’re charming and I don’t know. This just didn’t do it for me, but that’s okay. All right, so anyway, they crash and the guy’s free. So the 1 guy who was driving the truck gets out and he sees the Jack Frost, the convict or whatever, who has somehow mysteriously been freed from his shackles. And he gives him like the crazy look. Yeah, not a scratch on him. Gives him the crazy look like, ha ha, I’m free now, you’re in trouble. But then I guess because of the impact, there was like some sort of fire and that was like heating up the tank that the genetics were in.

Todd: Now let’s be scientific and technical here, Craig. It’s a genetic acid. We learn about this later in the movie. Now it’s explained to us very precisely what this is. Yeah, it’s a giant tanker full of some genetic acid that is supposed to bond human DNA to inert objects in case there’s an apocalypse and we’re all dead. Somehow this is going to keep humanity going and that’s the invention of a scientist but it hasn’t been it hasn’t been experimented with yet.

Craig: Even on an amoeba.

Todd: Even on an amoeba, but they filled a giant tanker with it and drove it down the street in a blizzard.

Craig: Yeah, and so the tank gets really hot and it explodes, and as it’s exploding, Jack Frost looks at it and said this is gonna hurt like Just such silly one-liners. I love that I know and it’s finally I can forgive them from that actor because he’s so over-the-top I missed him throughout the rest of the movie. I mean, technically he’s there because he’s voicing the snowman, but he’s got these huge over the top facial expressions. You know, once, okay, so It explodes and it’s acid, so it just eats his body, like his body melts into the snow. It was very reminiscent of when Stripe, the Gremlin, in Gremlins melts at the very end. Very reminiscent of that, which I did enjoy. But then there’s a 3 second animated genetic cartoon. It’s hilarious. Yeah, it’s

Todd: kind of funny. It had a Christmas touch to it because it almost looked like little snowflakes and things inside floating around.

Craig: It did. It did. Yeah. And so, you know, as you already said, the premise is like his DNA melds with the snow DNA. And then just immediately, immediately, we don’t see it in full. Like we see that the surviving transporter or whatever sees it. But He turns into a snowman and he escapes. And then we jump to this family in a car who are driving around. It turns out to be this sheriff named Sam. And apparently Sam is the 1 who put Jack Frost away. And it was kind of on a fluke. He just stopped him on a traffic stop or something. Like apparently this guy had been terrorizing communities for years and years and years. But then he had gotten sloppy and had started putting body parts into the pies in the bakery that he worked in And yeah, so he it’s a little bit of everything

Todd: in there, you know Sweeney Todd.

Craig: I know But yeah Christmas they’re pecan pies

Todd: Favorite pies by the way.

Craig: Well good now. I know a teacher

Todd: for Christmas. Just without the body parts.

Craig: So anyway, like this sheriff, like just kind of randomly busted this guy on a traffic stop. The guy got found out and tried and sentenced, but he yelled at the cop after his sentencing, I’ll find some way to get you, I’ll be back. And apparently this has been haunting this guy ever since. And that’s what the movie ends up being, like Jack Frost, the killer snowman, comes back to exact his revenge, not only on this sheriff who put him away but on the entire community of Snowman Town.

Todd: Yes! It’s wonderful. What a crazy coincidence, huh? Now, I thought, now this sequence that where we do the flashback that’s between them, it had some really great transitions. There was some fine, fine filmmaking going on in this. And I have to say, as low budget as this movie is, we watch a lot of low budget movies that are really terrible and they’re shot poorly or, you know, they’re deficient in this way or this way and that. But sometimes we get across a low budget movie that even though you can tell it had limitations with money and with things with resources and things like that. Still the person behind the camera setting up the shots does a really good job and I felt like this movie was like that even though there’s a lot of goofy like the puppet oh my gosh this the snowman puppet is just hilariously bad and they know it it’s clear they know it and they don’t show it as much. And we get a lot of just like snowman hands like popping in and out of the screen or just you know close-ups on certain bits and pieces without actually seeing big full-scale, you know, far back views of what’s going on. But there is a lot of really cool camera work going on. This sequence really was quite impressive, the way it bounced back and forth between him and the family in the car and him reminiscing about his interactions with putting this guy away. It was good. I mean, there were points where like his head would turn and then the shot would be so perfectly lined up that when his head turns to the left, suddenly we’re back in the present, but his head’s kind of in the same position, and so it’s a little jarring, but it’s really cool. Anyway, there was a lot of that in this movie. As silly as it was, I felt like there was a lot of care that went

Craig: into this. Oh yeah, I’ll give you that. There were many times when I found myself thinking that the cinematography in this movie was way better than it should have been. It’s slightly above the made for sci-fi channel movies. And it kind of reminds me of those movies a little bit. And I am not against camp. And I’m not against bad movies. I really am not. This 1 just didn’t do it for me. I don’t want to be a big Debbie doubter about it.

Todd: I’m glad you liked it.

Craig: I hope other people like it. It just didn’t do it for me. But I will give it credit where credit is due. And it was shot pretty well. And you’re right, you know, they they made do with what they had. I read that, you know, they were supposed to initially have at least several of these snowman figures. And this snowman, you know, whatever it is, it’s a costume, a puppet, whatever you want to call it, it’s a good 6 feet tall probably, but it looks like something that you would see in the mall. And they were supposed to have, I guess, several of them that would have different looks or different functions or whatever, and they ended up only being able to afford 1. So they may do with what they had. And it’s funny, you know, in that silly, some guy in a felt costume is reaching his felt arm out from behind the camera to grab somebody. That’s funny. Yeah, it doesn’t even look like snow. No, not at all. And none of them do. Okay, so then we get into this town. Well, the sheriff sees the wreck and then They hear on the radio the next day that the guy never got to his execution, but he died in the car crash anyway so it’s no big deal and The sheriff has this family where he’s got this wife and this little kid who’s like a little he’s gonna be

Todd: a TV chef someday. He’s in his experimental phase.

Craig: He might be a little bit developmentally disabled. I’m not sure. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m just saying. Yeah, and like they set up these cutesy family things where the kid is so annoying. He drove me crazy. And I think he was written that way. I think he was supposed to be annoying. The kid makes the dad like these disgusting, like this disgusting, I didn’t even know what it was supposed to be. Like at first I thought it was like hot chocolate, but it was like super, super thick. Turns out it’s like oatmeal, I guess, with like marshmallows in it and stuff. And he’s like, look daddy, I made you something special. And special’s a good word for that kid, by

Todd: the way.

Craig: It just looks gross. And the dad’s like, mmm. And he’s like, I’ll put some in a Ziploc bag and I’ll take it with me and so like he takes it or whatever. Yeah. And so they set up this family dynamic. The sheriff goes into town where apparently they have like this big snowman festival every year And the first thing we see is this big, big, it’s not big at all, this little setup they have in front of like the town hall, I guess.

Todd: I guess, or the church. It was hard to know.

Craig: Yeah, I couldn’t tell. So like in the square, like you know, the center of town, They’ve got all these different snowmen and they have this 1 snowman, I guess, that’s like covered up, that’s like the big secret snowman that they’re not going to reveal until the end. And like the guy who’s in charge of setting it up like makes a point of like shooing people away, Like no, you can’t peek, you can’t peek, you can’t see it until the snowman festival. And then they never show it. That made me so mad.

Todd: I thought there was gonna be some payoff there.

Craig: I know, I thought surely This is gonna be like the finale, like, you know, some big scary snowman is gonna come out. No, we just never see it. But anyway, these snowmen, like, it looks like they’re made out of felt that you got from the craft store. Like, they don’t look real at all.

Todd: And they’re not, I mean, this poor town of Snowman did. You’d imagine they’d have master snowman crafters here, but these snowmen just look like some four-year-old kid made them. None of these look show worthy, Let’s put it that way.

Craig: Well, except for the naked lady 1 that 1 kid is making, that 1 was

Todd: kind of impressive. A little bit. Well, it’s a cute setup because this is where we meet everybody in the town. They’re all submitting a snowman to this thing.

Craig: And so, Right, so we meet all these people and none of them end up being particularly important. It’s just kind of like, let’s introduce you to these people so that we can either kill them or there’ll be some small part later. But there’s this 1 family who seems to be in charge of like the snowmen, I don’t know. Jay and Sally, I think, are the parents. And then the kids, there’s Billy, and I say kids, but they’re teenagers. There’s Billy and there’s Jill, who’s played by Shannon Elizabeth, which is the only thing that I knew about this movie really going in, was that this was Shannon Elizabeth’s first movie And she’s supposed to be I guess kind of like the slutty girl in town I mean, that’s not really overemphasized, but that’s kind of like the suggestion or whatever. Yeah. Shannon Elizabeth is funny. She is a gorgeous girl. You know, most people were introduced to her in American Pie and she was so objectified in that movie, but in a hilarious way and she totally embraced it and was down with it. So I was excited to see her in this movie and she is awful, Awful. Awful.

Todd: Well, it is her first role, you know? She is playing it over the top. She’s camping it up a bit as well. Maybe she’s just taking her cue from everybody else, or maybe it was just her first role.

Craig: I don’t know. Still very pretty, but the acting is, her acting is just absolutely terrible. And Shana Elizabeth, it’s so funny, you know, like she did this movie and then she did American Pie and she did at least 1 of the sequels and she did some other horror movies, like she did 13 Ghosts, and then she just kind of disappeared. And it’s because she like just totally withdrew herself from Hollywood and she lives, I am pretty sure She lives in Africa now where she works on an animal sanctuary and that’s just like her life’s work. She’s just given up acting and that’s what she does. And good on you, Shannon Elizabeth.

Todd: Yeah. It’s so nice for her. I would love to make a couple nice, really big paychecks and then be able to go around and do whatever I want.

Craig: I know, right?

Todd: Yeah. I’m surprised more actors don’t do that, actually.

Craig: But anyway, okay, so they introduce that family and a couple of other people. And then eventually the snowman just shows up. Like it just shows up outside the sheriff’s house. And so the mom pulls up and sees it and I’m like, ooh, this is ominous. Like are they going to kill the sheriff’s wife right away? But no, she just goes inside. And the son is like, look, I made you something else special. She’s like, he’s like made these stupid gingerbread cookie snowmans.

Clip: Look, I made special. I just cleaned up after your special oats. But these are extra special. This kid! This kid’s horrible.

Craig: And she’s like, well It’s not as special as the snowman you made.” And he’s like, I didn’t make a snowman. And she’s like, well, there’s 1 outside, but it’s not finished. So here’s this bag of groceries that I just brought home from the grocery store that happens to be full of snowman supplies. So take it outside and give it a face or whatever.

Todd: What I like about this kid is he goes outside He puts on it’s a tall snowman and he puts up like a trash can or something on its on its face So that he can step up on top of it And then he whoops out like a snowman oven mitt or something to give himself a reference so that he can make the most basic snowman face you’ve ever seen. 2 big black eyes, a carrot in the middle, and then he draws on a mouth. But he needed this as a reference. And then as he’s doing this, the gang, you know, the kids come by and 1 of them is Billy, 1 of the kids we met earlier. Was he the 1 making those snowman with the boobs? I can’t

Craig: remember. No, that was Tommy. Oh. And I didn’t say that like that for emphasis. I was just looking at my notes Yeah, it was Tommy

Todd: that you’re trying

Craig: to know Billy stupid, okay Yeah, no billy is Billy is Shannon Elizabeth’s brother and son of the people who run the snowman show. And he’s a bully. Billy the bully. He has a

Todd: gang and they have old fashioned sleds. This is like right out of a Christmas story right here. So Billy turns around and this kid knocks the the snowman’s head off Which the snowman isn’t very happy about and in a sequence of things It’s a little confusing because you’re not exactly sure what’s going on or how it could even physically work

Craig: And it happens in 1 second. Mm-hmm like it’s so fast

Todd: Apparently somehow Billy ends up on the ground and his sled gets pulled over him over his neck by I guess the snowman arms that shoot out. We’re not quite sure and anyway all you see is his head flying through the air and so his sled has sliced off his head And you hear in the background I didn’t do it This is actually our second kill There was a kill earlier that we didn’t see, but there’s an old man, Harper, who the police had been called out to and they noticed that he was killed in his rocking chair sitting out in the front of his house and his neck had been snapped backwards and they were just talking about how odd that was. So in this case, of course, now everybody believes that the sheriff’s son has killed this kid, but the kid insists that it’s a snowman and everyone’s just kinda hanging out, they all just kinda decide to disperse. It’s just so weird.

Craig: It is weird. And like Billy’s mom and dad show up and like the dad is like super mad at Sheriff Sam or whatever. It’s like, your kid did this. He’s a psycho. And he’s yelling at him. And like the mom’s behind him like, oh, calm down. And then when the dad finally runs off, the mom’s like, he just has a temper sometimes. And then she goes off And then Shannon Elizabeth just kind of like, like stomps through the scene like she’s mad too. Like nobody’s particularly sad that Billy’s dead. Like they’re all just kind of inconvenienced and irritated.

Todd: Well, maybe it’s because of the kind of guy Billy was, you know, maybe We all kind of knew that at heart. Even the priest who’s in like every other scene for some odd reason just kind of stands and solemnly nods. And that’s actually what ends it out. But I also loved the music that was going on during the scene too. A really slow dirge of God rest ye merry gentlemen as they’re loading Billy’s body into the ambulance.

Craig: Yeah. And I will say the music is kind of fun throughout, because it’s all Christmas music. It’s super fun. Yeah. It’s all Christmas music. And sometimes it’s very traditional in the lighthearted scenes. But then in some of these darker scenes they have some interesting arrangements of these Christmas songs. I did enjoy that aspect of it.

Todd: Yeah I thought that was fun.

Craig: That first death, like you said it’s not really the first death scene but the first kill happens off camera, we don’t see it at all. It’s so ridiculous. Yeah. I feel like it was smart of them to do that because it set the tone. Like this isn’t going to be realistic in any way. Like an empty sled, and you know we’re talking about these sleds with the metal rails, but an empty sled is not going to cut somebody’s head off. That’s not going to happen. But in the context of this movie it is and so you just go with it and I thought that it was actually smart of them to establish, okay, this is a world where this can happen so strap in.

Todd: Just strap in because more of this BS is coming. But it’s funny, you know? And his head flies through the air like that also doesn’t make sense. Anyway, so Sam ends up looking through files on Frost because he’s really upset still about Frost. And I think there’s a part of him that just thinks that Frost may be behind this because he’s called this FBI agent who was called in at that crime scene at that scene earlier where the crash had been happening and it’s this old well this is a federal thing now so oh you know something mysterious is going on some cover-ups happening and so he’s called this a federal agent guy just for reassurance that Frost is dead agents like oh yeah Frost is dead for sure later on we see you know a cutaway of him chatting with a dude who I guess is a guy from his name is stone he’s the guy who invented this stuff who’s from this company I you know the genetics company started

Clip: so you keep saying We hadn’t even tested the acid on an amoeba, let alone a human cell. This is a disaster.

Todd: So he ends up in town by the time this happens, but I think it’s hilarious then the next scene, which is inside of the house of the family whose child was just killed. So dad is fuming, mom is still trying to reassure him, oh, everything’s going to be okay, blah, blah, blah. She’s like knitting a scarf. And then the sister comes pouting downstairs, just like I guess any other Friday night, like she’s gonna go out.

Clip: And where in God’s name you think you’re prowling off to like some lady of the night? Our grief isn’t good enough for you? You may not have care for your little brother. Jesus, Dad, I loved Billy! Do not be forsaking the Lord’s name in my house, little girl! The Lord’s just sucked this house long ago.

Todd: Oh, it’s just filled with great lines like this and she storms out. What happens to Dad? He goes outside to sit and get some wood for the fire. And there’s the creepy snowman we see. 8 feet in front of him as he’s sitting down on this thing. He doesn’t notice that the very same snowman that was outside the sheriff’s house where his son was killed, where the sheriff’s son insisted that the snowman did it, is now standing 6 feet in front of him. So when he starts hearing voices calling out to him and he looks up and goes, who is that? What’s that? He has to look left and right around this snowman to imagine that there’s a person out there. It’s so goofy. Anyway, he’s got an axe that is in the thing and this voice is taunting him and he sees the snowman move and so he tries to pick up the axe out of this thing but he’s slow at it. I really like the serial killer vibe. It was very child’s play-esque to me, Just the way he was taunting him. Taunts him, yeah. Yeah, get it.

Clip: Push your back into it. Come on, come on, you can do it. That’s my boy. Get it, get it, get it. Oh, very good.

Todd: Then, again, in a scene that you don’t really see, somehow he approaches the snowman with the axe, the snowman swipes the axe out of his hand, and instead of axing him, he shoves the handle of the axe down his throat. That was surprising. He is so unexpected. What’s going through their minds with this? Are they like, ooh, we’re subverting your expectations?

Craig: This scene is a perfect example of their budgetary restraints because especially early on in the movie, when the snowman is kind of revealing itself as being alive, we don’t see the snowman at all. We just get huge reaction shots from the people, which is kind of hilarious. Like it’s just, you know, a dead on shot on the people, like, what? Oh! Like. And then all of a sudden they’ve got an axe handled down their throats.

Todd: Out of nowhere. Yeah. And it’s cute. This is funny. There’s kind of running gags through this movie. And 1 of the running gags is every time there’s a person who’s been killed and the cops are there the very next scene and it’s it’s always this trio of them it’s the sheriff and his 2 buddies who sit there in a trio staring at it and it’s in the foreground you know it’s like that classic shot of who we discovered a body in the trunk or whatever but it’s repeated every single time they find someone there to hilarious degrees and then they have this little banter in this dialogue back and forth and there’s 1 of the cops I think his name is Chris who he just makes these jokes he these these one-liners most of them are growners but I thought that was funny some of the stuff he would say.

Craig: I don’t even remember. I just remember that the snowman eventually steals his car. But the snowman kills the dad, Billy’s dad, and then he also kills his mom and kills her with a bunch of Christmas ornaments. Like, he kind of strangles her with the lights from the tree and then, like, smashes her face in a box of Christmas ornaments. Really brutal. It is. And, like, the effects, I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re good But they’re kind of fun like at least if you were to freeze the frame like They they look pretty good But I just feel like there were wasted opportunities, You know, just like with how they make a big deal of, no, you can’t see this 1 snowman in town, and then we never do. Like, just randomly in the very beginning when we’re being introduced to all these characters, This lady, Sally, says to her husband, when I was a little girl, I always wanted to be the angel on top of the Christmas tree. And the guy’s like, okay. Like, what is the point of that line if you’re not going to

Todd: impale her on the top of a Christmas tree, right? Right. It’s a good point.

Craig: But whatever, they don’t she’s dead. And then the they find, well, first of all, the guy, it’s Tommy’s dad, gosh, I don’t know what his name is, Paul. He’s like the guy who runs the hardware store or something and so he’s going around delivering assault to everybody. He sees them dead and he also sees the snowman and then he runs off and we don’t see him for a while. But the police find these dead folks and that’s when the, they’re not FBI apparently, but they kind of, that’s the ruse that’s great. I don’t know who they, I mean the 1 guy ends up being from the company or whatever, this genetic company. I don’t really know who the other guy is but it’s Agent Manners and Agent Stone and they show up in town And they’re very secretive but Stone, the 1 who knows about the genetics, clues us in that because they found this wet snow like footprint inside the house, he’s like, He’s like,

Clip: oh sweet Jesus, look at this. This thing is able to latently alter its elemental molecular structure. English, don’t English. It can freeze and unfreeze at will. It melted, came through the doggy door and refroze on the inside. You mean Jack came through the doggy door and refroze on the inside? What the hell have you let loose in this town?

Todd: And there’s some neat shots because of this, you know, like when he’s probing the the water spot on the floor we get a point of view up through the water, you know, and then they’re chatting and then when he sticks the probe in the water ripples and you know has that effect on the screen and we see that several times where they’ll give us some interesting shots through water sinisterly because we know that water is actually Jack Frost or contains his DNA or whatever like that. They do a pretty good job of trying to make this water seem pretty sinister when it comes out. We know that he’s gonna reconstitute himself somewhere else. But it’s this classic, we’re taken over here now and there’s a bit of infighting between him and the sheriff. Not enough of it really, but the sheriff kind of rolls over and is like, okay. But they make some set up this curfew and so the whole town, which is probably a dozen people that they could get for the crowd shot anyway, inside this, Again, I thought it was a community center, but I think it’s a church, because he sends the father downstairs to light up the furnace, and later on when we come in there, it’s supposed to be the church. I don’t know. It is a little confusing. It’s not a traditional-looking church in any way. It looks more like a community center. They make this announcement, and then they come back out, and the 1 guy’s going crazy running around, and the rest of the town gets to see this agent and his friend for the first time. This is when everyone kind of splits out. I think 1 guy, he takes Paul away and then he sends Chris out to check out his house and then because his wife is still home and hasn’t been contacted. At some point in here they’re like, somebody needs to find Jill and tell her her whole family’s dead. Yeah. I thought that was funny. Because Jill is out galavanting around with Tommy, right? There’s another 1 of these one-liners from the guy.

Clip: I would appreciate it if all you people would get off the streets.

Todd: Go darn a quilt or something. What the hell’s eating him? I bet you it ain’t his girlfriend.

Craig: So stupid.

Todd: I don’t know, it is stupid, but usually you’re the 1 who likes this stuff and I hate it. You’re like Grinch today, man. I don’t know. So he sends Chris to check things out. Chris stops in the middle of the road and there’s a snowman blocking his path, of course. And so there’s a whole sequence when the snowman gets in the car while he’s going back to get something to take it out and He runs over Chris and so the snowman is in the car going towards the sheriff’s house where his wife is

Craig: that whole scene It’s I didn’t even really understand the purpose of it Like I guess it was supposed to be the wife was in peril or whatever.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: But not really, because the cop shows up and there’s just a busted pipe or something. It’s like

Todd: a fake out, yeah. We’re supposed to think water’s pouring in from Jack Frost, but it’s actually coming from a pipe underneath the sink. From a drain pipe, which doesn’t make any sense, but anyway.

Craig: No, and then he just, the cop takes her away and takes her back or whatever, but that’s the setup for apparently, Jill and Tommy have been hanging out outside the Sheriff’s house. And this makes absolutely no sense. I know this was so stupid. Like, like they’d just been waiting outside the Sheriff’s house so that they can break in there

Todd: and make out. Why? Yeah. I didn’t get that either.

Craig: There was nowhere else you could go? But it doesn’t matter.

Todd: But the whole sequence is hilarious though.

Craig: Okay, this sequence is pretty funny. So they get inside And she says something about, what does she say? I don’t know, like a good man is hard to find or something and he’s like hard while I’m getting there. Like

Clip: I ask. I’ll get all scared in the dark. And then I’ll need a really big boy to look after me.

Todd: Big boy? You’re getting there?

Craig: I’m getting bigger. It’s a boner joke. Okay, great.

Todd: It’s a perfect movie for a

Craig: boner joke. My favorite part was like they’re like they’re looking at each other and it’s like oh we’re gonna do it so they start taking off their clothes but they’re in this like you know winter town And so like they’ve got all these layers on. So it’s like a minute of them stripping off all of

Todd: their layers. To like some Christmas strip tease music.

Craig: It’s so great. It’s so funny. That part was really funny. And then so they both get down to like their long underwear and it looks like she’s going to take her top off. I can’t believe we didn’t see Shannon Elizabeth’s boobs in this movie. It’s not like she was afraid to show her boobs later. I thought for sure we would see her boobs, but we don’t. But anyway, like when it looks like she’s getting ready to take her last layer off. She stops and she’s like, if we’re gonna do this, I’m gonna need a raging log fire and a bottle of wine. She turns around and walks off. You know, meanwhile, this is in somebody else’s house. I know.

Todd: It’s so silly. It’s so silly. And he’s like, OK. So she goes upstairs, and she turns on a hairdryer and the radio. He’s downstairs looking for a bottle. Of course, he opens up what’s actually a bottle of champagne between his legs and we get this, you know,

Craig: the pop, you know, pop, pop,

Todd: pop his cork, whatever. And a snowball hits the window of the kitchen, which startles him and makes him duck down. And somehow she hears this upstairs through the radio and

Craig: the hairdryer.

Todd: And so she turns it all off and is like, is everything okay? Anyway, goes back to doing her thing. Of course, Jack Frost comes in downstairs. This is the part in which I said he finds a knife or whatever, but it’s no good against Jack Frost This is where he has his we find out he has a superpower where he can shoot icicles out of his Fist which I wish I would you know, he should have done that more often to be honest

Craig: I’m guessing he probably does in Jack Frost 2, but I will never know

Todd: So he kills this kid by you know impaling it all of this is going on downstairs Of course, she doesn’t hear that she hears a snowball hit in the window, but she doesn’t hear this whole altercation downstairs. She comes out and she walks across the hall and notices that the bath is full of water. And she just calls down, oh, thank you, and walks in to sit down in the tub. And that’s when we get, I don’t know, this must be the most notorious scene of the movie. It’s up on YouTube. You can go check it out.

Craig: And you know, in theory, it’s really funny, but as, and I knew about it, I had seen it. When we talked about doing this movie, I said, this is the only part of this movie that I’ve seen. She’s in the bathtub, and the water, I guess, is Jack Frost. Eventually, he refreezes, so she’s encased in snow. Then she’s halfway trapped in his body like her arms are like through his body

Todd: yeah can’t move

Craig: and it makes a point of showing the carrot like float up in the water before it freezes. And then it also makes a very clear point of showing that once he’s reformed, that the carrot is not on his face, so it must be somewhere else. And he, like, for lack of a better word, bangs her up against the wall a bunch of times. And, you know, in theory it’s kind of funny, but I just felt kind of gross watching it. Yeah. Like, it’s, cause it’s rapey. Like, it literally is rape. It was rape, yeah. And it’s gross, and then he has, like, she dies. Like, he throws her on the floor, and blood comes out of her mouth, and she’s dead. And he’s like, looks like Christmas came early this year and I threw up all over the floor. Nope, too much, too far

Todd: Jack Frost. It’s a bit much. This might have flown in the mid-90s, but nowadays this is too much. Too far.

Craig: Yeah. Okay, so anyway, it all culminates. They all end up back up at the community center church, whatever it is. And Well, first of all, they end up at the police station and Jack Frost shows up and they kind of like the sheriff fights him off with a hair dryer for a while.

Todd: And then he has this really stupid idea where they’re gonna go, they’re locked back in where the cages are And they’re trying to find a way out. In the meantime, Jack Frost’s water is coming under the door. So he’s going to materialize at any moment. And because the sheriff discovered that heat is his weakness with the hairdryer, they’re like, quick, let’s get a lot of heat. So they pull a ton of aerosol cans out of the storage locker and tape them down to set them off. So they’re gassing themselves with aerosol in this room. Like they’re gonna die just from breathing this in, let alone their idea is what, we’re gonna light it and it’s going to explode while we’re here.

Craig: Well, but they’re gonna go out this window in the back, but it’s locked and they have to get the keys and the keys have been left in the door in this other side, like at the other end of the hallway. And the sheriff goes to get them, and he is the most inept person in the world. Like, they are literally just hanging out of the keyhole. He’s afraid to step

Todd: in the water, that’s what it is.

Craig: Oh my god, it takes him like 5 minutes, and like he’s fumbling with this huge key ring like just grab it like what is wrong with you but eventually he does grab it and not before Jack Frost like you know grabs his leg or something but whatever it doesn’t matter And then he has to let Paul out of the cell that he forgot that he was in, and he’s inept with the keys again doing that. But they eventually get out, and they do blow up the building, and they think that Jack Frost is dead, but he’s not, and he shows back up, but he’s like all put together wrong, like his head is where his arm should be.

Todd: And then they just run off. He’s like, I’ll come back here when I’m all pulled back together, and they go hold themselves up inside the building. It’s like, what? Aren’t you guys gonna like attack him again or do something? Yeah so they how they hold themselves up in the community center and Jack Frost comes in but this time they all have hair dryers and they’re set up it’s cute I mean I’m sorry but I thought this was fun I thought this was a funny part of the movie even though it’s silly where they’ve got this almost magnificent 7 thing going where they’re all standing straight in a row. You know, it’s kind of high noon and they form this barrier against him and as he comes towards them they whip up instead of guns they have their hairdryers And so they’re beating him back with their hair with the hair dryers into the cellar of this church, like literally into the furnace of the church and slam this furnace door and he completely melts away, obviously, inside the furnace. And they’re standing there and patting themselves on the back, at least the agent and stone are. And you notice that there’s steam coming out of it and it’s condensing again on the window and then Jack Frost reappears. And this is the craziest puppet part where he has icicles for teeth and he looks like a giant Muppet and again it’s like it’s a you know they don’t show too much of him but by now you’re so used to this silly silly puppet that it doesn’t even matter he bites the face off of the 1 guy and then is coming towards stone and they have a few words back and forth.

Clip: We know it’s you Jack. Ah, Humbug. Wait, wait, wait. I can help you. Maybe turn you back. But I’m having so much fun just the way I am. Wait, wait, wait. Then tell me what it’s like to a breach death. The dream of every man on earth. You’re immortal. How does that feel? Oh, it feels

Craig: Yeah, he kills him and then like he somehow like inserts himself

Todd: into him. Oh, this is so gross.

Craig: It was gross. Like he kind of wears him like a meat puppet.

Todd: Yeah, kind of like the cockroach thing in Men in Black or something. Yeah, walks him out and Stone’s kind of smiling, then he turns and he pukes up snow, which looks like they’re spraying, I don’t know, shaving cream or something on the ground. All the snow effects in this movie are so terrible. They’re really terrible. So he reconstitutes himself. So it turns out that the cop, there’s a whole deal that comes inside the car with him and his son, and then they sneak out. And as he’s running out, he grabs that bag of oats that he had left up on the dashboard and tosses it at the snowman. And as they run away from the car, they look inside and it’s like burning half of his face off. And he turns to his son, he says, what was in those oats? And it’s like, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t want you to get cold. And he said, what did you put in the oats? He says, anaphrase.

Craig: Which that’s super cute that he

Todd: nearly killed his dad. Almost poisoned his dad, yeah. Oh my gosh.

Craig: So stupid. Oh yay, congratulations. Thank God for you.

Todd: Would have been a short movie if he had eaten it when he got to work.

Craig: Yeah, I guess. I would have liked it better. Now they know. Okay, so then Jack Frost chases the sheriff. The sheriff tells the hardware guy or whatever, go get as much antifreeze as you can and be back in 5 minutes. And he’s like, okay. And so, good impression. Jack, Jack Frost chases the sheriff through like an apartment building, a brothel. I couldn’t, I have no idea what was going on here.

Todd: Just a bunch of rooms upstairs. No idea

Craig: what was going on. But he gets him in like the top floor and he, you know, starts stabbing him with an icicle. Meanwhile, the hardware guy has set up a antifreeze jacuzzi in the bed of his truck. Right at the last minute, the sheriff, who appears to be dead, wakes up and is like, I’m not dead, ha ha. And they dive out of this big picture window into the bed of this truck filled with antifreeze. And it’s very dramatic, but like struggling and whatnot. But then Jack-

Todd: He wrestles a bunch of crime into the water.

Craig: Yeah, Yeah, right. And then so it seems like he’s dead but then the stupid son is like, you forgot this arm! And picks it up and the arm attacks him and so like he has to pull the Sun with the arm wrapped around him into the back of the truck and then the arm melts too and everybody’s fine and everybody’s happy and they collect up all the antifreeze in jugs and bury them like Okay,

Todd: it consecrated ground.

Craig: Yeah, right But the last scene that we see is that underneath the ground the antifreeze is like bubbling and boiling so he’s not gone Oh my god, this movie was so dumb. IIII didn’t tell, like, I, my, I was watching it by myself, of course, last night in my living room, and then when I was done, I went back into the back and my partner was like, so how was it? I’m like, it was awful, it was terrible. And I was like, I’m kind of mad at Todd that we have to talk about this tomorrow. Are you serious? I hated it. I don’t know. Oh, I just thought it was awful.

Todd: I was sitting up cozy in my apartment, of course it’s nighttime, and I’ve got a Christmas tree up in front of me, and I had my laptop in front of me and a bowl of popcorn, and I sat and I watched this movie, and it just started warming me up with a Christmas spirit, and then when I realized it was gonna be a comedy, I thought, oh, this movie’s actually gonna be a little more fun to sit through than I thought, because I

Craig: thought it was just gonna be

Todd: bad, bad.

Craig: It wasn’t funny. Oh, I thought, oh. I didn’t laugh 1 time. In fact, like when the jokes would come, I would like give the computer screen a dirty

Todd: look. Are you serious?

Craig: That’s not funny.

Todd: That’s not funny. How about when he approaches them at the tail end and he’s like, somebody says, mother of God. And he goes, nah, bitch couldn’t make it.

Craig: Oh my God. There were so many one-liners at, well, there were so many one-liners like at 1 point somebody’s like who’s there who’s there It’s like it’s not fucking frosty What a stupid oh my god, it’s so stupid old man. I wish that I could remember all those one-liners. I swear to God I… Well, and like after they killed the snowman, they’re like, yeah, we iced him. Like, oh my God, are you serious? But

Todd: It’s said in such a corny way like seriously I felt like I was watching like if Mel Brooks made a Christmas horror movie This was almost it. You know if you go back and watch those movies. They’re almost as silly as this especially by nowadays

Craig: They’re smarter their L Brooks comedy is smart. Don’t get me wrong. I mean, it’s stupid, but it’s smart.

Todd: Yeah, but it’s also kind of juvenile and horror.

Craig: Well, yeah. And then right before Tommy gets killed, he’s stabbing the snowman. And he’s like, what are you? And he’s like, the world’s most pissed off snow cone. Like, come on. Like. I’m just like giving the computer a side eye the whole time.

Todd: To me that was the charm of the movie, man.

Craig: Okay, well maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood, but I will never watch this movie again.

Todd: I am putting this just to spite you. I’m putting this on my holiday rotation.

Craig: Well, good for you, but don’t even ask Next year if we can watch Jack Frost 2 because I refuse

Todd: now if you’re a completionist you really are

Craig: No, it’s true.

Todd: But Craig you got

Craig: no, you know that I am don’t patronize me You know that I am but I’m not gonna watch Jack Frost 2

Todd: Imagine what they did with a little more budget, you know, cult following behind them.

Craig: Fine, whatever. Hey, you have to admit,

Todd: you have to admit, it’s still more charming and more fun to watch than half of these garbage horror movies that rely so much on bad CGI for their villains.

Craig: Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, to be fair, we’ve seen way worse, we have seen way worse. But God, honestly, like That’s really how I felt ultimately at the end of it, was like it’s a horror comedy, it wasn’t scary, and it wasn’t funny. Like… All right, I’m sorry. Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! We’re gonna have to agree to disagree on this 1.

Todd: Well thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this 1, please share it with a friend. You can like us on Facebook where we have a page there. Let us know what you think of this movie, because we’re clearly so divided on it. I would love to get through second, third, or fourth opinions. We’re still in the Christmas spirit. We’ve got a couple more episodes coming up for you this December, hitting those Christmas horror movies, so stay tuned. And then of course we’ll have to find something New Year’s themed.

Craig: Don’t worry, we’ll think of something super dorky. Dorky. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig.

Todd: With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

It’s another Christmas-themed horror movie, duly noted by the word “Christmas” in the title and the omnipresent blue and red color scheme that drove Todd crazy. Actually, a lot about this movie drove us crazy, and not in a good way.

Episode 152, 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 it’s one of our many favorite times of the year. It’s, the Christmas season again, and we look forward to this every year. Every year, we try to find some Christmas movies to bring to you in the month of December, and, we’re gonna continue the tradition this year. This year, we are starting out with the movie that we actually had on the schedule for last year and just didn’t really get around to. I think we just ended up picking something else at the last minute. This week, we are gonna be talking about Red Christmas I don’t know how up and coming he is, but

Todd: Depends on how positive you wanna be, I suppose, about his his career. You’re right.

Craig: He made, this film in 2016 on what I hear was just kind of a shoestring budget. We’ll talk about, I suppose, how we think his efforts played out, but I I will say that, you know, for for a low budget film that was filmed in Australia, it, I’ll just it it’s worth talking about. Okay.

Todd: Fair enough. You know, it is a movie. It does exist. Take the efforts of people to put together, and so, therefore, yeah, it’s worth talking about. Like, you know, you baked a cake, and, the cake is it may not be the best cake in the world. It may, in fact, taste awful, but it’s worth at least nibbling at. Right? Right. You gotta give it a try.

Craig: No. I don’t know. Really, you know, I don’t think that this is a bad movie. What what attracted me to this movie, is Dee Wallace. Dee Wallace is an actress who’s been around forever. She was, really pretty big and mainstream in the I don’t know, maybe even the late seventies, but especially during the eighties. And she was in some big mainstream stuff, like she was in, The Howling. I remember her most from my childhood. She was the mom in ET, and I loved her in ET. She was so sweet and just such a a cool mom, in that movie. And and so I I grew up, really liking her, and and since then, she has really been working mostly in the horror genre, and she pops up all over the place. Yeah. Anymore, she tends to end up kind of in more of these lower budget films. But she she still does some, you know, bigger stuff too. She’s worked with Rob Zombie, and I just really like her. And I will say that though I don’t think this is a great movie, I also don’t think it’s a terrible movie. I really liked her in this. I mean, I just think that she has a presence and she’s a good actress, you know, even when given not the best material. She makes the best of it that she can, and I thought she did a good job in this movie. And and, frankly, had she not been in it, I don’t know that I would have enjoyed it all that much at all. But because she was in it, I I had a little bit of an emotional investment in her character. So yeah. I don’t know. What’d you think?

Todd: Because you have a crush on Dee Wallace, that saved the film.

Craig: I do kind of have I have, like, a I have, like, a mom crush on Dee Wallace. Like, I love my mom. I wouldn’t I wouldn’t trade my mom. She’s she’s great. But, you know, if I had to pick a a new one, Dee Wallace might be on the list. She’s cool. You know, we’ve talked about her before. She was in Cujo, put in an amazing, performance there. Stephen King Stephen King has said that of all of his film adaptations, he likes her performance in Cujo the most, which says a lot because there have been a lot of Stephen King adaptations. And Mhmm. You know, you’ve got Kathy Bates in Misery, and Stephen King doesn’t like The Shining, but you’ve got Jack Nicholson in The Shining. So for him to say that her performance is the fate his favorite, you know, I think that that says something. And I I get it. I don’t know. There’s just something about her. She’s a cool lady.

Todd: Well, I’m I’m not gonna crap all over Dee Wallace in your presence. Better not. I I think I agree with you. I think she’s fine, and she put put in, you know, she did the best she could with this material. She was a producer on this movie, I guess. Yeah. I’m not sure exactly what that means. If she was if she coaxed it all out. It. Maybe threw some money behind it or, you know, pulled in some favors for the for the this first, you know, not first time director. But, anyway, he’s early in his career. Hasn’t done a whole lot. Looks like he’s done some TV, maybe, in Australia or something like that. But, I I thought this was a terrible movie. I really, the movie just made me more and more angry the more I watched it. So, you know, I just, I didn’t think that she was enough to elevate the material. I just thought, oh, my Todd. I just it was hard for me to get through this and then when we were done with it, I was just mad.

Craig: Well, you know, I I can’t say that I’m terribly surprised to hear that you didn’t like it because it’s not a great movie. I I I’m a little bit surprised that you felt so strongly, about it. Oh, dude. The more

Todd: it just went on and on and on. We’ll talk about it. We’ll talk about why.

Craig: Right. And and there are things about it that I find to be problematic and there are things that I feel like I’m gonna want to apologize or, like, give disclaimers to our listeners

Todd: about it. Well, you didn’t make the movie, Craig. You don’t have to defend it if you don’t want to.

Craig: Well, that’s that’s that’s true. That’s true. And at the same time that, you know, some of the things that some of the choices that the writer slash director made, I don’t know. I I find to be a little iffy. But at the same time, it’s different. I’ll give it that. I’ll give it that. It’s different. I’ve never seen okay. So it’s a slasher and I’ve seen a 1,000,000 slashers and in many ways it’s, you know, relatively typical in that way. It also is very reminiscent. Did it remind you of You’re Next?

Todd: Yes. A lot.

Craig: Yeah. It reminded me of You’re Next a lot, but not nearly as good. Yeah. Not nearly as good. I actually quite enjoyed that movie, but it follows a similar structure in that it’s a family coming together for the holidays and being besieged by this menacing presence who then starts to kind of pick them off, 1 by 1. Menacing presence. The the in I don’t know if

Todd: you’d call

Craig: it interesting. Yeah. I don’t know if you’d call it interesting or unique or what you’d call it, but it there’s a twist on this one in that the opening scene opens up in an abortion clinic, and it’s shot in such a way that you really kind of only see people’s legs and arms, like, not identifiable features of people. But it’s shot in this abortion clinic, and you see, somebody walking into the abortion clinic carrying this, I don’t know, suitcase, briefcase, something, and eventually we find out and and witness that this is a bombing. Somebody protesting this abortion clinic has brought a bomb into the abortion clinic and it goes off and there’s mass chaos and people are running around and trying to get out. Then we see the what turns out to be the bomber walking around the remains of the clinic and from out of a bucket, like, gosh, you know, I wanna be sensitive. I I have, you know, I’ll just put it out there. I’m pro choice, you know, whatever I think a woman should be able to do with her body what she chooses to do. But wherever your stance falls, on the issue of abortion, I I can’t imagine that they really are disposing of fetuses in buckets.

Todd: Yeah. A bucket that gets kicked into the corner. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. You know, I guess what, this was supposed to be probably the late sixties, early seventies, I guess. Supposedly. Yeah. I don’t know. Sometime sometime in the seventies, I suppose.

Todd: So you’re saying it’s the guy who bombed it is the one who pulled this. So, close ups on the bucket and you’re, boy, you’re gonna get a ton of close ups in this movie because the movie is just filled with close ups. The whole movie is close ups. Yeah. That’s one of my biggest criticism, actually. The movies you can’t tell what the hell is going on from time to time because the camera is just zoomed in on everything, and it’s got these weird angles that are upturned. And so it’s every The camera’s below waist level, pretty much for most of the movie, pointed up at people, focused in so tightly that, and whipping around and all this stuff. I couldn’t tell what was going on. And so you’re saying it was the bomber who saw this little little red hand come up over the corner of this bucket and picked it up and and and went with it.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. It is. Now I’ve, to Todd be fair, I’ve seen this movie twice now. This is the second time I’ve seen it. I don’t remember if I picked up on that the first time, but I am certain that that is the case because the fetus mentions it later. So yeah. So this bomber takes this fetus, and then we see like you said, it is it’s it’s it’s hard to tell what’s going on, and it’s so much of the movie is shot in these very specific color tones. A lot of red and and quite a bit of green. Mostly red, but you know, throw in the red and green for Christmas.

Todd: Yeah. And why? You know, that’s the other thing I I couldn’t get. I mean, at one point in the movie, the I mean, we’re gonna jump around. That’s fine. But at one point in the movie, the power goes out, and that’s when we especially are getting. It’s it’s it’s it’s from the natural light. Now we’re getting into reds and greens. And I’m thinking, okay. This is really stark red and green. It’s like we’re in a submarine or something. Like, I think in the hunt for red October when the power goes out or whatever, everything kinda turns red and green and you you kind of imagine, okay, let’s like emergency lights or the glow of computer screens or something like that mixing together. But I don’t know I don’t know where this light was coming from. And then when the power comes right back on just a few minutes later, it’s the same way. The lights in the house don’t come on. Nobody turns on a damn light. You know? I mean, it’s just this crazy red and green. And we’re not just talking like highlights. We’re talking the whole screen is red. Yeah. Yeah. Again, like like you’re in some submarine movie and they’re sitting there hunched down waiting for the other sub to go by, you know. It’s what it feels like.

Craig: Yeah. And I guess I guess that was a stylistic choice. And I mean, it’s it’s it’s kind of I don’t know. I mean, I guess it’s kind of interesting to look at. I don’t know. You know, I wasn’t a big fan of it either. And the other thing, when it’s not lit in red and green, especially in those later scenes that you’re talking about when all the action starts taking place, there are times when it is so dark that I I literally couldn’t see

Todd: what

Craig: was happening. Like, I could maybe see a little bit of highlight, like, in the middle of the screen, but I still couldn’t tell what was going on. And I’m watching it on a computer screen during the day, so, you know, maybe if you were in the theater, maybe if you it was at night or you were sitting and watching it in the dark room, that would be different. But, yeah, I that stuff bothered me too. Anyway, the so after the abortion clinic scene, then we just get, like, I don’t know, maybe a minute of seeing what appears to be this fetus being raised in some crazy hyper religious, but not really religious, just like insane way. Like, he’s he’s chained up, and he’s and, again, like you said, you can see so little that you just kinda have to piece things together.

Todd: Not in a good way either. It just feels lazy to me.

Craig: Well, Well, see, and I wonder how much that had to do with budget. Now I I know that it was a really super low budget and then and in fact, I read that there’s a documentary about the making of this movie. And I don’t remember what it was called, but it’s it’s something about it’s about making a super low budget movie. Like, how do you go about doing that? And I wish that I had known about it before yesterday because I I would have asked you to find it. Because I would have actually been interested in in kind of seeing some of behind the scenes stuff here. I don’t know how much of it is due to budgetary constraints. Really, you know, when things are shot in full light, they look pretty Todd.

Todd: They do. I thought. In full light, it looks fine. In fact, in full light, it’s quite competent except for the zooming and things, you know, that some of these camera angles and whatnot. But even at that point, you know, when it is out in bright light for whatever reason, that’s not as intense. In fact, now that I think about it, you know, a lot of the movie seems pretty normal Yeah. Until stuff starts going down, and it turns evening. And that’s when maybe he decided that we could create a lot more tension and whatever by whipping out these camera angles and this crazy red and green color scheme that I felt was so I just it just muddied everything for me. I couldn’t tell what was going on half the time. I really I I there were times in this movie where I had to rewind just because I saw that something shocking or whatever happened, but I couldn’t even tell what it was. I couldn’t get the detail. Let let’s let’s breeze through really quick, through the plot because, we gotta talk about it as a whole, I think, in in some ways. Right.

Craig: Okay. So we the fetus gets raised or whatever, and then it cuts to 20 years later, and we meet up with, this family, on this beautiful, gorgeous estate, like this countryside estate in Australia. And another problem that I had with the family is that most of them are so unlikable that

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: I just didn’t care. Like, just die already. Now now the mom, Dee Wallace, is nice and normal, and she seems to be trying to bring her asshole family together to be nice to one another for the holidays. And then there’s a guy who they call uncle Joe, but, like, I didn’t really get a sense of who he was. Like, I couldn’t tell if he really was their uncle or if he was, like, the mom’s boyfriend. Could did you know?

Todd: I thought he was the mom’s boyfriend almost the whole time. I mean, it’s not like they were supremely affectionate with each other at any point where it makes it clear, but that’s how I felt anyway. Or maybe just me age. I don’t know.

Craig: I don’t know. But they anyway, they call him uncle Joe, but I thought he was the mom’s boyfriend. Whatever. He’s nice too. He’s like this kind of older pot smoking hippie kind of guy, but he’s just chill and cool.

Todd: Straight shooter. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. And the mom, by the way, Dee Wallace, her name is Diane, and then she’s got all these kids. There’s Jenny, who is kind of the waspy one and she’s, like, 9 months pregnant. And she has a boyfriend who happens to be black, which I only mention because they kind of make an issue of it, and his name is Scott. Then there’s Hope, who is the youngest daughter and she’s like a hippie artist. And, you know, I’m all about color blind casting, but these kids all look so different. I’m like, do they all have different dads? Yeah.

Todd: I thought Hope was maybe adopted or something. That

Craig: I don’t know. You just have Maybe.

Todd: Yeah. There’s nothing that says she is. That was the only thing I could think about. And the fact that she had to actively wonder about this, along with the fact that this is taking place in Australia, I guess?

Craig: Yeah. It is. And it seems like some of the kids maybe grew up in Australia, but Dee Wallace doesn’t have an Australian accent at all. Like No.

Todd: Half of them don’t. It doesn’t it’s also a

Craig: Some of them have British accents, don’t they? Yeah.

Todd: Or or just, like, total straight American accents. Like Yeah.

Craig: I don’t know. It’s very hodgepodge. Yeah.

Todd: It it it was weird. Again, I felt kinda lazy. Like, they didn’t even try to explain that either.

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. And then and then there’s Susie, and she’s like the prude sister. I I I got the sense that she was the oldest. And it turns out, like, she’s trying to have a baby, but she can’t. And and and her husband, I guess, is, Peter, who is some sort of minister, though it’s never really, you know, said what denomination he is or whatever. I guess it doesn’t matter. He’s also clearly gay, which they make, like, a huge point out of, but it goes nowhere. Yeah. I know. Like, he’s just constantly, like, obviously staring at the other guy’s butts and stuff. And, like, people, like, catch him in it and call him on it, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Like, that was so weird.

Todd: And he’s also painted and I think that this, maybe what kind of made me mad about this movie Todd, not that not that this sort of thing necessarily offends me, but I think it just starts to feel offensive when you feel like you’re being preached Todd. Or the whole time, I’m thinking, is this a pro life movie? And I don’t know. I’m sure it’s impossible to make a movie with the topic of abortion and not have this question thrown at you and not have to do this tap dance. Now keep in mind, we’ve watched one other movie about abortion, The Suckling Yeah. Which absolutely had clearly no political Yeah. Or whatever because it was so schlocky and tasteless, quite frankly. This movie, you know, from the beginning with the abortion rights protesters and abortion bombing, more than once in the film, the topic of children and child rearing and stuff comes up. This woman who can’t have the child, this woman, this mother who, you know, we find out Dee Wallace’s character, you know, was the woman in the abortion clinic. Big surprise. It’s not a big spoiler like you see it coming from the first 10 minutes.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: But then, you know, they’re even in the character of Peter. Okay. So they don’t make him perfect, but he’s so bland. Yeah. And not only is he bland, but he’s just bland in this how do I put it?

Craig: There there there’s just no interesting character development. Like

Todd: No. But but then he’s, like, he comes across as this really, really kind of nice pastor, I guess, who’s extremely tolerant of the shenanigans that are going on around him, and they’re throwing this stuff in your face. Like, somebody offers him a joint, you know, which he refuses, but he doesn’t condemn anybody for it. Right. His wife seems to be a little more prudish than even he is. At least he Yeah. You know, he kinda jumps to other people’s defense a little bit. And so it’s like, it feels like maybe they’re going over the top to try to again, if this fits in with a grander political point, it feels like the producer of the the director of this movie is really going out of their way to paint this guy as a Todd, wholesome role model who gets caught up in this, but it’s also cool. So please don’t judge him as a crazy Christian. You know what I’m saying? I get what you’re saying, but I don’t know. Like, his his character is just so muddy because, like, at the same time that he kind

Craig: of has this pious attitude, like, he is all the time leering at the other guys. And he Yeah. At one point, he like, it’s just so weird. Like, he follows his sister and her boyfriend or husband or whatever and watches them having sex and then goes

Todd: and jerks off in a closet. Like Yeah. A closet which, by the way, when what did you notice the big stream close-up on the coat hanger outside of the closet when he was there? Oh my gosh. I was like, really?

Craig: I mean, I I, you know, I get it if he’s like a latent homosexual and, like, you know, he gets stimulated by the side of a guy’s bare ass, but that’s your sister. Gross.

Todd: Like I know.

Craig: Oh, I guess it’s not his sister. I guess it would be his sister-in-law. Okay. Fine. Maybe that’s a little bit less gross. Well but not that much. He’s just kind of a

Todd: Maybe that’s why I’m just having such a hard time expressing my feelings about this because I don’t nothing is clear to me.

Craig: Yeah. And and then there’s there’s one other kid that it’s important we mention whose name is Jerry, and he has Down syndrome, which ends up being significant later in the film. And kudos for for casting, an actor, a differently abled actor in in this role. I mean, I don’t know how else you would get away with it. It would be pretty politically incorrect to have somebody portray it

Todd: who really wasn’t. But Yeah. Right.

Craig: But, you know, again, great. I I I’m happy for inclusive casting. So anyway so they’re all together. And, like, it’s typical family stuff, except they’re all kind of assholes and they, like, fight and and not just, like, throw barbs at one another as you do when you get together with your family for the holidays, but, like, especially the 2 sisters, Susie and Jenny, like, just freaking throw down

Todd: Yeah. Like, several times. It seems like they absolutely hate each other’s guts. You know?

Craig: And then Like, they full out fight.

Todd: And then Hope, the youngest one, seems completely disinterested in anybody and everybody. Like, she’s completely dismissive of the whole family, which made me wonder, like, if she was adopted, you know, or what what the deal was there.

Craig: Who knows? Anyway, the the action starts when this shrouded figure, comes traipsing through the countryside, and at first he stops, I don’t know, just some random guy’s house asking for directions. And he talks I don’t wanna say talks funny because that sounds derogatory, but he talks in an interesting way. And another issue that I have with this movie is that I feel like at the same time that they want us to sympathize with the murderer, he’s still just a crazy murderer. Yeah. Like like, he shows up at this guy’s house and and he just asks for help, you know. He he says, I’m looking for my mom. Can you help me find my mom’s house? And and, like, he talks strange and he’s dressed very strange, like, he’s a completely enshrouded, you know, in in this cape and, like, these bandages and stuff. And

Clip: My name is Capers. I’m looking for mother’s house. You get the hell off of my property now.

Craig: I’m lost. Mate, I don’t give a shit. You get the hell out of here, you little freak. Please.

Clip: Fuck out of here.

Craig: The this guy, you know, this backwoods Australian guy is super mean to him and, like, pushes him down and then pees on him. And when when the mean guy pees on him, he grabs his dick and tears it off and then kills him. Yeah. And and the there’s lots of gore. The gore effects are are good when you can see them if it’s not super super dark, and and the kills are gory to to the point of being silly, really. But, you know, whatever. They were going all out, and that’s great. Anyway, eventually the family is going to exchange gifts and the mom tries to do this thing where let’s go around and say what we’re thankful for this year and it really all just kind of blows up in our face because they’re all jerks and, Cletus knocks on the door. And the mom, being a nice lovely lady, invites him in and he has this letter and he keeps saying, I want to read this letter to my mom. And they keep kind of, you know, distracting and blowing him off and, like, he doesn’t know what presents are. And so Dee Wallace real quick runs into the kitchen and wraps up something for him and Oh my gosh. This whole bit about presence? What are presence? I kinda want to throw something at the screen.

Todd: I don’t care how weird your upbringing was. I don’t care. You’re a functioning adult to a certain extent. You don’t get this far in life without knowing something simple like what presents are. So I thought, is he pretending he doesn’t know what presents are? And then the preacher guy opens his mouth and says, Cletus, do you remember the gospel of Matthew, where the 3 wise

Clip: men go and visit the newborn Lord? Todd. Where the 3 wise men go and visit the

Todd: newborn Lord?

Clip: Yes. The Negroites. Excuse me? It’s, African American? Actually, the

Todd: the Magi were, from different regions around Israel.

Clip: They they weren’t American. Yeah. So they knew quite

Todd: Can you please stop saying that?

Clip: Well, the the Magi brought with them gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and we give each other gifts at Christmas in the tradition of the 3 wise men. Because it’s also fun.

Todd: He kind of, like, seemed juvenile to me. I, like, I couldn’t believe I was watching this.

Craig: I get what you’re saying. I think what they were trying to establish was that he’s just really messed up because of his upbringing and Sure. Honestly, like, I I did feel bad for him. Even when he was going around killing everybody, I felt bad for him because, really, he totally gets the shaft. I mean, it’s okay. So eventually, he’s like, I wanna read this letter, and they’re all kinda rolling their eyes and trying to get him not to do it. But he does. And the letter says

Clip: My father believed inventions, but I believe in love. I’m working to inform you of an extraordinary occurrence, an event which is impossible for you to know anything about.

Todd: Please.

Clip: Years have passed since I entered the world in such heroic circumstances. With my father’s passing, I have left his care and gone in search of my family.

Craig: And you can see and again, I’m gonna give her I don’t care what you say. I’m gonna give her credit for performance because you see on Dee Wallace’s face the realization of what he’s talking about. Mhmm. And eventually, she reacts, and she, you know, lashes out and and yells at him and tells him to stop because she knows what he’s talking about. Nobody else does, but she does. And she screams, you know, when he continues on and it’s clear what he’s talking about, the abortion, she freaks out and she insists that the men of the house throw him out, which they do literally. Like, they drag him out the door and throw him off the porch onto the ground. And again, as you might, because he’s just some creepy gross guy who smells like pee who showed up at your house on Christmas and you don’t know who he is or have anything to do with them, like, yeah, get him out of there. But at the same time, I’m thinking, Todd, this poor guy.

Todd: Yeah. I have to admit, at this point, I felt similarly. I felt like, okay. Maybe this movie is gonna turn me around a little bit because this is a bit heart wrenching. But then I started to feel like my emotions are just being manipulated. Todd, it was just a little too heart wrenching, and they were just a little too mean to him. Like, they throw the jar. You know, they’d given him this gift, which was a jar of peanuts because the youngest girl can’t have peanuts in the house and somebody screwed up. So they give him this jar of peanuts, and then they throw the jar of peanuts at him as they leave, which hits him on the head. And the mom’s just supremely nasty to him. Even though, I mean, it’s clear that mom recognizes who he is. Right? I

Craig: mean Yeah. Well, I don’t know that at this point she recognized I don’t know that at this point she recognizes who he is. Maybe she does, but she certainly knows. It seems like at this point, she thinks that it’s a really, really mean prank that, you know, it’s and and she even says that, you know, it’s it’s some pro lifers with access to files and a phone book. Mhmm. So, you know, she thinks that somebody has dug up these files and saw that she was there on that day and that they’re coming and and pulling this terrible prank as some sort of protest, which is far more logical than the truth of

Todd: the matter, which she eventually realized. That’s true. That’s a very good point. I mean, there’s no way. Let’s let’s put it this way. I don’t know if anybody understands how abortions work. I mean, I’m no expert in it, but I do know for a fact that they don’t pull fetuses out fully whole, you know. This just doesn’t happen.

Craig: No. This could never happen. You’re right. Okay. So then they try to go on with their holiday and they do. And again, like, you know, it’s fun for a little while and then they’re fighting blah blah blah. And and we see Cletus out in the woods. And at first, he’s weeping and, seriously, it did. It really did pull up my heartstrings. I felt so bad for him. Like, he was he’s outcast. He’s we find out later. I mean, we already know because the the the first guy that he killed caught a glimpse of him and commented on how hideous he was. So we know that he’s disfigured. We get to see him for a fleeting second in the final act, but he’s outcast. He’s horribly disfigured. He’s alone in the world, and here he is out in the woods weeping while this family is celebrating, you know, a couple 100 yards away. It made me feel bad. But then they just go ahead and just make him full tilt Craig, like, he gets really angry and he comes back and he starts picking them off 1 by 1. The first one that he gets, you know, Hope just they all go outside to watch the sunset, or some of them do, but then the 2 sisters who are always fighting get into a huge fight in the kitchen and so everybody else goes inside except for Hope. And she’s just kinda looking around the backyard when she gets completely split down the middle. Oh my gosh. From head to crotch with an axe.

Todd: Which is so improbable. Like, I’m all about creative kills. I think this stuff is great, but come on. This guy with this little ax, nobody cannot split someone No. From head to crotch in the middle. Even if you were strong enough, even if you could move your ax fast enough, even if it were sharp enough, there’s no way the physics wouldn’t allow it. It’s the the blade isn’t even wide enough to cut

Craig: the robot. Say the blade would have to be, like, a foot and a half. We’d be, like, long, and it’s not.

Todd: Pitting the pendulum type stuff right here, and this is totally not. So I groaned at that, and I thought, oh my god. Is this what we’re in for? And, yes, it actually is what we’re in for. There was a lot more of this improbable Craig stuff, and I hate this, man. I really do. I I I just have to say, part of the fun of a horror movie is the creative kills, and the creative kills are what we all kind of judge a movie on. It’s kinda part of the reason we watch them. Right?

Craig: Especially slashers,

Todd: I would say. Of course. Right? So that that on its face is good, but you’ve gotta make it at least a little bit believable. Yeah. You can’t play so much with it that it you just it’s lazy. Lazy. Lazy. Sorry. And so I lost so much respect for this movie at that point.

Craig: I don’t know. I thought, you know, totally implausible and and ridiculous, but, you know, the sight of, you know and again, everything’s in close ups. So you just see, like, a close-up of her legs fall apart in opposite directions. I don’t know. I thought it was kind of funny. I if anything that was really one of my favorite kills. The the they only get more ridiculous from there, really. Yeah. Or at least a couple of them. But but that’s that’s kind of it. Like immediately then, the family discovers her and they pretty much figure out what’s going on from the beginning. That that crazy guy has come back and is after them. And then it’s just very cat and mouse, you know, them running around the house, Cletus cuts off the power and at some point

Todd: Let let me sum all this up for everybody. Everybody wanders around doing really stupid things. Pretty much. Completely unmotivated, completely implausible stuff. They all end up in a garage or shed. I don’t know because I couldn’t really tell because this is how this movie is. You really don’t get a good idea of the geography of the place or where anybody is at any time because you can only see their faces or, you know, shot from these extreme close-up angles, and the camera insists on bouncing around like it’s being held by by that guy. Mhmm. And and and so you can’t ever tell, but they all end up, like, in this garage, and and there’s only one way into the garage. They even say there’s only one way into the garage. And she decides, well, I wanna go back to the house to get the keys so I can bring the car around. Like, no. And there are about 5 different times when they all find themselves And

Craig: they’ve already called the cops.

Todd: They

Craig: have. Like, the cops are on their way.

Todd: They’ve all got cell phones. The cops are on their way. They’ve all got cell phones. But and the movie doesn’t even make any good excuse. This is what made it a little different from Your Next. In Your Next, there was some of this going on, but there was usually a kind of an excuse why somebody would wander out or or there’s a motivation for it. In this case, it’s just somebody decides, I gotta secure the downstairs, and so they just go.

Craig: There are super stupid character motivations, like the pregnant girl’s boyfriend is, I don’t know, maybe the next one, the second or third. I don’t know. They all get killed eventually. But he gets killed and then for the next 20 minutes, she keeps, like, calling for him and saying, I need him. I need him. And they keep saying, like, he’s dead. But, like, that’s how, like, that’s how they end up getting out of the shed. Like, she escapes. Like, she’s going to go find him, and then they all have to chase her back into the house.

Todd: Yes. And then they end up upstairs in a bedroom. Again, they’re all together in a bedroom upstairs, and the guy’s not there. And then we see this camera this footage of a guy crawling up the trellis. At least, that’s what it seemed to be. The trellis is moving. He’s climbing up, I think. And she leans out the the top and sees that he’s climbing up. And so she tells the kid to lock the window, and she says, I’m gonna go outside and go around and cut the trellis down.

Craig: Yeah. This is the mom.

Todd: Yeah. It

Craig: didn’t make any sense.

Todd: Uh-huh. In the meantime, she hands a cell phone to the preacher guy and says, I’ve like, I guess she’s gathered up everybody’s cell phones, and she

Craig: says Everybody who’s dead because her uncle Joe is dead at this point, and Okay. The pregnant girl’s boyfriend is dead. So the the dead people, she’s got their cell phones, and like this is her plan. She’s like, I’m gonna hide them around the house and call them every 30 seconds as a distraction. But she even says, call mine Todd. And, she goes out and she starts trying to tear down the trellis that he was supposedly just on. Yeah. Where did he go?

Todd: What? She doesn’t she doesn’t she look up. She just very nonchalantly starts to pry away at this trellis. Is he there or not? And if he is, he’s right above you.

Craig: Yeah. And and then and then the preacher guy does call her phone and she acts super surprised and freaked out even though she told him to call it. Yeah. And, like and so she first of all, she’s already hidden these other cell phones kind of around the house. Then she takes her cell phone and, like, throws it out in the yard. Don’t you think you might need that later maybe? Stupid.

Todd: And what does she think what does she think this guy’s gonna do? He’s gonna run around and try Todd answer all these cell phones? Like, what the hell? It made no sense, and nothing ever even comes of it. Like, you think, okay. This is really stupid, but they must be setting this for some kind of payoff or whatever. No. That’s the last we see of these cell phones as well.

Craig: Yeah. The you know, the only thing that they’ll at some point, the pregnant sister trips and falls down and, like, goes into labor, so they’re dealing with that too. The only thing that I will say that I enjoyed about this whole middle part of the movie is that, Dee Wallace’s character, Diane, really takes charge. She’s she’s not this frail, you know, mother in distress. In fact, she’s the only one with any kind of sense at all. Even if some of her plans, like the whole cell phone plan, even if that ultimately is pretty stupid. At least she’s doing something. Everybody else is just kinda like, oh,

Todd: what do we do? Although arguably, they don’t really need to do anything except hold themselves up in a room and call the police True. Which they did. But yeah. I know what you

Craig: mean. And and and Todd be fair, you know, when they were all in the shed, Uncle Joe said we’re all here. There’s only one entrance. We’ve got a shotgun, but she wanted to get out of there. Anyway, you know, she’s pretty badass and she’s taken things into her own hands. Eventually, she finds and I think it’s right after she was trying to tear down the trellis. She finds this chain hanging on a window. And this, you know, it’s such clunky writing. It’s so stupid. But she finds this change this chain and it’s like this, Oh no moment. And then, Peter, the preacher guy, is with her and she tells him the whole story. And it’s, you know, it’s what we already know and have already figured out, but she lays it out for us.

Clip: I didn’t have a miscarriage, Peter. The baby had Down syndrome.

Todd: The baby? Bob was in chemo, and

Craig: we didn’t know if he was gonna make it. I just couldn’t do it again, if not after Jerry.

Todd: So you were Todd?

Clip: I went up and left to the city.

Craig: Which, you know, again, it glosses over it, like, you know, that’s a serious issue, you know. That’s a serious

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Choice that that women have to make, you know. And and I don’t know, you know. I I like you said, I can’t tell. I can’t tell if there’s a pro life agenda here. It it

Todd: kind of seems like there is. It sure seems like all all all signs point to it, especially this aspect. You know? It it glosses over it so much that it’s almost irresponsible. The whole movie seems geared towards she’s get she’s getting what’s coming to her. Right.

Craig: She’s being punished. Yeah. Right. She’s being punished for that choice, and that’s like I I understand that I have, you know, very liberal political viewpoints, but that’s not fair. You know? Like, that was a very she she had to make that choice and it was a tough choice to make, but it’s a choice that women are really faced with. And she was in a very difficult situation, and it would be very difficult for her to deal with her husband’s terminal illness and 2 children with developmental disabilities. And so she made the choice. Yeah. But anyway, that’s what it comes so she confesses this to the priest and she says, please don’t tell anybody else. He’s like, oh, of course, of course, I won’t. And then the scary guy chases them around more.

Todd: The priest gets it in the kitchen with a, on a and again, I couldn’t tell what the heck was going on. But I guess somewhere along the line, a blender without its cup in it It gets gets turned on.

Craig: Yeah. It gets broken. Well, before he gets killed and his death by blender, I actually thought was kind of cool.

Todd: Like It’s cool for an effects standpoint.

Craig: They’re fighting. He he and he and Cletus were fighting and the, like you said, like the the bowl or the cup or whatever of the blender gets broken so the blade is exposed. And the Cletus puts the back of the preacher’s head down on the blade and we can just see him from the front. So we see his face and we can hear the blending and eventually we see, like, blood like blending within and behind his eyeballs. It was kind of a neat effect.

Todd: It was a neat effect. Yeah. No. It was. I just couldn’t tell what was going on until it happened and

Craig: But before that before that, he, the priest, had been being attacked by Cletus and, like, Cletus, like, drags him across the floor and in his fear, the preacher starts, reciting the Lord’s Prayer and Cletus, at the end of it, starts saying it with him. So the priest or preacher, whatever he is, says, oh, do you pray? Will you do you want to pray with me? And they sit down and they pray together and the priest, now to be fair, he doesn’t know that Jerry is listening. But Jerry is listening and the preacher does this whole prayer like

Clip: Lord, we know it was your plan for Cletus to be born different with Down syndrome and other gifts that people may misunderstand. We know it was a sin for Diane to try and abort him. But, Todd, you kept him alive

Todd: and you brought him here today.

Craig: And Jerry hears all of this. Again, like the like, Cletus is praying with him and the preacher at the end says, do you have anything that you would like to say? And Cletus just says, I’m sorry. At which point, the preacher grabs a huge knife and stabs him. And it’s just these moments like, yeah, this guy is a brutal killer. He’s totally messed up. But in these moments, I just felt so bad for him. Like

Todd: Yeah. Again, I felt like my my emotions were being manipulated Todd I don’t know. You know, I mean, of course, what what do you? I’m not saying that that they shouldn’t make me feel bad for him, but I just felt like it was a little over the top and a little unrealistic. And this preacher and, you know, to be fair, if we’re gonna talk about the political motivations of the film being quite they are a bit muddied here by the fact that the preacher does kill him or tries to kill him, I should say. Tries

Craig: to. Yeah. You know,

Todd: and that’s, interesting. Like, you would sort of imagine that this guy, if he is so pro life, he would try to save this guy,

Craig: you know, and not

Todd: try to kill him. So, you know, there’s that aspect to it as well. Although, he’s seen him kill other people, so there’s that part of it too. But at this point, this guy’s down, and this guy should be easy to beat.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah.

Todd: You can get him down on the ground Craig. And at any point in this, I I thought any one of the other characters could have come into the kitchen and offed him. He’s shrouded head to toe in this getup, and then he’s wrapped in bandages completely. His face is so completely wrapped in bandages. There’s like like, I couldn’t even tell how he could see.

Craig: Well and he says he says when he first came in, they’re like, they ask him about they’re like, can we take your cloak? And he’s like, no. It keeps my skin on. Like, if he’s really if he’s really in that bad of shape, how hard could it be?

Todd: Yeah. And then how can this guy be this he’s kind of the magical killer in this where he isn’t there and then suddenly he’s there. How can this guy be so effective when he is so hobbled? Either a, by his physical state or, b, by what he’s all wrapped up in. I mean, I’m sorry, but I’ve walked around in a Halloween mask, you know, with eye holes bigger than this guy had. You can’t see crap. Yeah. So how is he so effective at this? And the whole movie just has no suspense because of the way it’s shot. Like I said, it’s very disorienting and not in a good way. You just don’t know what’s happening. You don’t know where anybody is, and you never get these, like, stalking shots of the killer. There’s never a moment where there’s there’s a pause and you and you you know he’s around the corner, but they don’t know he’s around the corner. There’s none of this suspense that is almost just essential to any kind of slasher movie. It’s just these characters running around doing dumb things and then one of them gets killed.

Craig: Yeah. I get and the more that we’re talking about it, I I I guess the more problematic I’m finding it because we skipped over a part. It’s really not essential, but, there’s one part where Diane and Cletus end up face to face outside the house. And, Cletus just keeps saying to her, do you love me? Do you love me? And, like like she’s trying to pacify him for a while, but ultimately, you know, she just makes her move and runs away or whatever. And there’s just a I don’t know. Like, in hindsight thinking about it, there’s just kind of a weird disconnect because she loves Jerry so much. Now granted this guy, Cletus, has shown up and killed a bunch of her family, but you would almost just think that there would be some some dynamic where she would feel guilty or she would feel some sort of maternal instinct because, yes, he’s he’s violent and he’s killed people, but in these moments, he also presents himself as being very vulnerable and it almost seems like, yeah, she takes the opportunity to pacify him for a moment. Why don’t you just pacify him indefinitely? You know, like Right. Just tell the guy you love him, be nice to him, let the cops show up, and then they can take him away.

Todd: Like And she and she engenders no sympathy because of that. Yeah. Yeah. Just like you said, it’s hard to like any of these characters.

Craig: And I agree. I I get it. You know, she he’s killed a bunch of her family. Eventually okay. So Jerry heard why Cletus was aborted, and so he confronts his mother and he’s very angry, and he says you you don’t love me and you would have aborted me. And she, you know, she tries to explain what I’ve already said about the rationale. The dad was sick. She just couldn’t handle it and she assures him that, you know, she loves him and they were happy to have him. But he goes off and then he and Cletus come face to face and he gives Cletus his Santa hat that he’s been wearing the whole time. Mom comes back around. She sees somebody sitting, but she only sees the top of his head, like, from behind the couch wearing the Santa hat and she thinks it’s Jerry and she says, I love you. I love you. I always loved you. I wanted you. We just couldn’t handle another baby, at that time. And so then she goes around the corner thinking that she knows where Jerry is and she rounds the corner with her shotgun and she hears mom and she shoots and it’s Jerry and she has killed Jerry. Yeah. And and she, you know, she freaks out, of course. And it’s sad. It’s a good performance. You know, she’s weeping and saying how much she loves him and, oh, my baby, my baby, etcetera. Meanwhile, Jenny is giving birth upstairs.

Todd: I know this. I’m sorry. That part made me laugh too. I was like, yeah. I saw this coming a mile away as well. Right in the heat of the moment. She’s gonna have the baby now.

Craig: Yeah. And the sister who she hates has to deliver the baby, and they do. But not without fighting. Yeah. Right. And then the sister, Susie, is like, I’m gonna go downstairs and kill that guy. And she runs downstairs and immediately gets an umbrella through the head.

Todd: Umbrella through the head. Yeah. Another creative and totally implausible kill.

Craig: I know. And the umbrella, like, the umbrella goes through her head and then it opens on the other side, like Hard and hard. Okay. That’s clever. Good job. And then the baby’s upstairs crying, which Cletus takes notice of, and the mom is trying to distract him. We totally skipped over a part where a sheriff showed up and got killed with a giant bear trap to the head. That was hilarious.

Todd: This is this was another instance of where this guy is in so many different places. He’s just wherever he needs to be to get the job done. Like, is he at the house killing somebody, and then 10 seconds later, he’s, you know, a 100 feet away from the house, confronting the sheriff, sneaking up behind him, I guess, with a bear trap in his hand? I don’t know.

Craig: Diane, the mom, tries to distract Cletus away from the sound of the crying baby by saying horrible things to him, like, I never wanted you. I hate you. And, she ends up tripping and, like, getting knocked out by the grass on the ground, I guess. And Cletus, goes upstairs and Jenny tries to hide with the baby, but he he finds them and he kills Jenny. But then the mom shows up and she I didn’t even really understand what happened here. Like, it like, did she try to tackle him out the window? Is that what happened?

Todd: Somehow she had a an anchor around her or something.

Craig: With a chain.

Todd: With a chain. And so she came in and she tried to swing the anchor into him, but then she ended up I thought it was, like, a flying leap out the window. Like, she didn’t intentionally like like, to drag him out. But, of course,

Craig: it’s on her both ended up going out. Yeah. They both ended up going out the window, and she her neck got wrapped up in the Craig, so she gets hung in the chain. And I guess he died from the 2 story fall after having been through all this through the whole movie in his whole life. I don’t know. And and then you hear sirens and see flashing police lights and it does this thing where it goes and does extreme close ups on, like, very specific body parts of all the dead people, like, here’s their ankles, here’s their hands. But just to remind us that everybody’s dead

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And then the last shot is on the baby. And so the the only one who survives all this is the baby, which again brings it back to that weird kind of pro life thing, which I don’t I don’t know if there was an agenda here, like, oh, you know, this all started with the attempted murder of a baby and now now the only one who survives is the baby. Yeah. If if there’s a message here, I don’t really get it and I think that maybe this was not the right forum. Like,

Todd: it’s a good way of putting it. I think that’s one of the grave sins of the film is it’s so muddy. You you can’t even tell. Okay. If there’s a message there, fine. You know, I’m not gonna deny somebody there. They wanna put some message or some theme into their movie, but at least make it clear. Right? Or don’t tell me Yeah. You you have no message or no agenda when it seems to me pretty clear like you’ve stuck. You put enough in there to lay enough red herrings. But, again, if there is nothing in there, what are you trying to do? You’re trying to make us think? Are you trying to give us things to ponder? Because

Craig: Right. There isn’t any Is there some moral here? Like, if if there’s supposed to be some moral, it’s really muddy because they all would have been really better off if that abortion had been successful. That’s

Todd: a good point.

Craig: I don’t know. I mean, all you know, ultimately, I I still, after all is said and done, I still felt bad for Cletus. I mean the whole time he’s just begging like Todd the very last second he’s begging her, just tell me you love me. Just tell me you love me. Like this poor guy just wants to be loved by his mother, which is not at all an uncommon trope and horror.

Todd: But I well, I felt bad for Cletus up to the point where I realized he wasn’t even a character.

Craig: No. No. He’s he’s gonna be plausible.

Todd: He’s a superhuman weird freak who’s alternately, very vulnerable and completely unstoppable and able to cleave a person in a single blow and punch an umbrella through their skull, you know. Mhmm. At at that point, I threw up my hands and I stopped caring.

Craig: Yeah. And and that’s fair. You know, I’m not surprised. I I can’t say I’m surprised you didn’t like it. This is one of those movies. I talk about my partner on here every so often, and, yeah, he really, really doesn’t like horror movies. But he’s a pretty good guy, and he’ll watch them with me sometimes, especially, like, seasonal stuff like this. Like, all through October, he’ll watch horror movies with me to indulge me. And at Christmas time, if I can come up with Christmas horror movies, he’ll watch them with me. And I made him watch this one and he thought it was totally stupid too. And and so I I get why, I get why you don’t like it. I I didn’t think it was terrible. It’s it’s certainly not good, but it’s watchable.

Todd: I don’t know. You’re right. You can pull it up on Netflix. It is watchable.

Craig: Well and that’s that’s that’s but we have watched some virtually unwatchable movies.

Todd: That’s true.

Craig: And this one where it’s not Todd, I’ve definitely seen worse and you said you were kinda bored with it. I wasn’t really bored. It’s only an hour and 20 minutes. It does seem a little bit longer than that, but it’s not that long and I I still I I’m I’m standing by it. I think that Dee Wallace puts in a good performance in a not very good movie.

Todd: There you go.

Craig: There are so many other Christmas horror movies that I enjoy so much like Krampus and Gremlins and, you know, there there are lots of good ones. Don’t watch this one. Yeah. If you’re only gonna watch 1 or 2, you know, watch one of those really good ones. But, you know, if you’re a horror fan and you’re looking for one that you haven’t seen, it it’s it’s not gonna be the worst one. We’ve reviewed worse, even worse Christmas movies. That’s true too. That’s very true. Alright. Well, if you enjoyed this episode, I I can’t imagine how you couldn’t have. As insightful as we were on this amazing movie. Thank you for sticking with us, and we have tons and tons, back episodes that you can check out. We are on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play. You can find our Facebook page. We’re all over the place. You can’t get rid of us. And, if you have anything that you would like to talk to us about about this movie or anything else, frankly, you can always reach out to us on Facebook. We love hearing from you. We will be back for the next few weeks with more, Christmas horror fair. We hope you are enjoying your holiday season. And until next week, I am Craig. And I’m Todd. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

More of a horror-comedy than straight horror, this quirky 80’s throwback took us both by surprise. Two Valley Girls try to adapt to a world without boys and the typical teenage fascinations when a comet passes by the earth and obliterates humanity, turning many of the few survivors into zombie-type creatures.

And yes: It’s also a Christmas movie! Happy Holidays!

Episode 151, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Todd: And I’m Todd.

Craig: And Todd was gracious enough to let me pick the movie this weekend. I chose Night of the Comet from 1984. This movie just kinda popped into my head. I have only had only seen it once, but I remembered it fondly. I I kinda remembered it being kinda cute and quirky and fun, and, I thought it would be something that we would have fun talking about. So, that’s why I picked it. Todd, do you have any, history with this movie at all?

Todd: This is just a movie that I saw on the shelves and always was interested in, kind of, but when I looked at the cover and read about it, I I think just back then, I thought, nah, it maybe it looks kind of I don’t know. It just there was nothing about it that really appealed to me enough to to make me pull it down and watch it, but I’ve always been curious about it. So I’m really glad you suggested it.

Craig: Well, good.

Todd: That’s Roaring, you know, level of enthusiasm there. Right? Yeah. Right? Well, I

Craig: you know Well, I mean, it’s it’s not. I wouldn’t say by any stretch of the imagination it’s a good movie. Well, no. I would say it’s a good movie. I wouldn’t say by any stretch of the imagination it’s a great movie, but it’s just it’s kinda different, you know. It’s, when it all boils down to it, it’s it’s kind of a zombie movie, but it’s got a little bit of a different take I guess on your typical zombie movie and I guess kind of what I liked about it is that the protagonists are, a little bit non conventional. The movie is about these 2 girls, Regina and Sam who are sisters. They’re just kind of these typical valley girl sisters who live in LA, and you know are going about their business, you know, Regina, they call her Reg or Reggie a lot. She’s played by Catherine Mary Stewart who had who’s really pretty and has a really recognizable face. When I was looking at her IMDB page, I think the thing that I remembered her most from was Weekend at Bernie’s. I think she was, like, one of the romantic interests in that movie. For

Todd: Yeah. But For me, it was the last starfighter.

Craig: Oh, okay. Yeah. She Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She’s totally in that too. And Sam is played by Kelly Maroney who was, one of the girls from shopping mall Oh, yeah. Which is a favorite of ours.

Todd: Everything leads back to that, baby.

Craig: Everything leads back to Chopping Mall. You know, it’s it’s kind of a simple premise, but an interesting one in that, you know, they’re both just kinda going about their things. The movie opens up with these news reports about how this comet is going to be going by earth, I guess, and, it’s the first time that a comet is gonna be passing this close since the dinosaurs were around, which maybe should have given these people some warning that maybe this isn’t an entirely good thing. But, you know, there’s there’s all this excitement about this big comet, and everybody’s throwing these parties and and celebrating and waiting for this comet to go by. And eventually, when it does go by, it wipes everybody out. That’s pretty much it.

Todd: That’s how the movie opens. Like, I would say this movie is I don’t know. I guess it’s a horror movie in the same sense that I am Legend is a horror movie. I thought of I am Legend, Omega Man. It’s one of these post apocalyptic kind of films where some big event happens and humanity is partially wiped out, and but a few people survive, and this is the story of those people who survive. But this is an interesting event in that the comet just, I guess, being outside and looking at it caused everybody to turn to to red dust. Yeah. Like like, it’s not like it crashed into Earth. I don’t think I don’t think it would. But it was like, as long as you weren’t outside looking at it, like, supposedly, most of the world was, because it was the must see event of the of the of the summer, then you would survive. But but you don’t necessarily you’re not gonna last long because you get infected somehow. It’s really vague, quite honestly, but like Omega Manor, I am legend. Like the survivors get infected somehow with the virus of some kind that turns them slowly into zombies.

Craig: Well, that’s what it’s it’s a little bit confusing to me frankly because that’s the premise, is that supposedly if you were one of the people who survived, you’re infected with this thing and you’re gonna start to deteriorate, except that doesn’t hold true for everybody.

Todd: Exactly. It and and, yeah, it’s all really weird. And zombie is maybe the wrong word because it’s not like they die and come back to life. It’s like they slowly transform into, I guess, a a monster physically, and then I guess the problem is we don’t see a lot of examples of this in this movie. I mean, it’s, it’s kind of to call it a horror movie, I don’t know. Is it is it accurate? Can you really call this a it’s billed as a horror movie, but there isn’t, for my sense, a lot of what we would consider horror in it. There aren’t many of these creatures out there. The ones that we see clearly, half of them are in dreams. And then mostly, it’s a comedy in a way and, I guess, adventure or thriller type story, like, survival story. Mhmm. I think part of my reaction to this movie, and I actually watched it twice because the first time through it, I have to admit I wasn’t really taken by it. And I thought, alright. What? This this is a cult classic film. There’s a lot of people like this. I must be watching this wrong. So I went back in the morning, and I watched it again. And I I I enjoyed it a lot better the second time through. And I think part of my reason for that is my expectations for the movie changed. I realized it wasn’t going to be a horror movie in in the sense that I was looking for. And once I realized that, I would think I was able to enjoy it better and look look at the other ways that, that the movie spoke to me if that makes any sense because it wasn’t scary.

Craig: No. No. No. It’s not scary at all. And, you know, talking about the zombies or whatever, I mean, they’re not traditional zombies. It’s because, like, they can talk and, like, you know, it it just seems like they just kind of turn into bad people, like like mean violent people, and then and then they die.

Todd: Yes. I guess. Like, in an indeterminate amount of time for indeterminate reasons. But it’s kind of like, Charlton Heston, Omega Man. You know that one. These you know, where they were vampires. They were like humans, except they were also vampires. So that made them bad and that made them scary looking, and they wanted to kill people.

Craig: Well, I I think that what I think what makes the movie appealing to me and I, you like I said, you know, I saw it and it’s it’s been 15 years since I saw it, and I just saw it that one time, and I just happened to pick it up off the shelves. I’ve mentioned this a 1000000 times when I was doing my internship, for my career. I I lived in a little tiny apartment away from my hometown, and I I, you know, was just living off the very basics, and I didn’t have cable or anything. And my mom bought me, like, a $300 gift card to the local video store, the rental place. And, so I was renting movies every night, and I I went through their whole horror section. This is just one of the ones that I happened to, pick up. And I think that maybe the reason that it’s so appealing to me is that it is so eighties. Oh, yes. Like it Up one side and down the other. Yes. I mean, it is quintessentially eighties. And, you know, with with the music and there’s great music

Todd: There is.

Craig: Great music throughout, Fantastic eighties music. And the the characters are so eighties and and the fashion

Todd: is so eighties. The fashion. And even the the I mean, it opens up with the main character. What was her name? It’s, Red. Reggie? Reggie playing Tempest in she’s like the worst employee ever. She’s like an employee of a of a theater, and the owner is behind the bar of the theater, ultimately trying to sell people on comet merchandise so they can run outside and view the comet, and trying to get her to do her freaking job of going up and down the theater and, like, shining a flashlight around, I guess. She’s got a you gotta call her, like, 20 times away from this arcade game.

Craig: We are not. Hey, Regina. Regina, give that thing a rest, will you?

Clip: In a minute, ma’am.

Todd: Look. I don’t pay you

Craig: to do that kind of stuff around here. Regina, I want you to clean everything up

Todd: so we can get out of here

Craig: in time to watch the comic.

Clip: Everything’s cleaned up. Damn.

Craig: I want you to take this flashlight and walk the house.

Clip: Aw, Mel. They throw things at me.

Craig: Who cares? Walk the house.

Clip: Have you ever been hit with dots, Mel? Milk duds? Those things hurt.

Craig: I I I oh, how are you, sir? The refreshments are right over there. And all she’s interested in is boning her boyfriend in the projection room. That’s right. I mean, it’s really silly, but it’s really funny and it is billed as a horror movie, but it’s also billed as a comedy and I I and I’m one of those people. I know that there are other people out there who it’s like people who don’t like their food to touch, You know? Like like, they they don’t want their they don’t want their comedy bleeding over into their horror and vice versa, and I am not one of those people. I think that comedy and horror go hand in hand, and and I love a good horror comedy. And I I think that this is a pretty good horror comedy. It was written and directed by a guy named Tom Eberhardt, who hasn’t done a whole lot. I mean, he’s got a a list of credits on IMDB. He’s done some things, not a lot of things that I really recognized. I don’t remember exactly how it was that he got interested in this concept, but when he got interested in this concept, he started just talking to teenage girls, which sounds really creepy, but let’s pretend it’s not. Like, he was he was working, I guess, in TV or something, and and he happens to be around all of these young women, in the 19 eighties, and he just started asking them, you know, what would you do if there were some kind of apocalyptic events and you were the last person on earth? And, the responses that he got were less about shock and horror and, you know, fears about being alone and it was more about, you know, that it would be exciting, you know, it would be an exciting time and you could do whatever you wanted and, you could go to the mall and get whatever you wanted and not have to pay for it. Whatever show goes

Todd: to clothes you want and, you know, but what about the boys? Like

Craig: Yeah. It was Yeah. That that was their only concern. It was like Yeah. And and and he had to bring it up, like, dating. And they’re like, oh, yeah. That might be a challenge.

Todd: I think it was viewing the movie through this lens, especially the second time around that warmed me up to it. Because the first time around, I’m like, give me a break. I I thought these girls seem very nonplussed about the fact that all of their friends and family and everything have just been wiped out because their primary concerns seem to be about cheering each other up, complimenting each other’s hair, jealousy over this one of the few guys left

Craig: on Right.

Todd: The planet. I’m I’m just thinking, are is this serious? And then when I realized after a while and especially the second time through, okay, this is kind of the point of the movie. It’s it’s a kind of satire in a sense that, I really enjoyed it for being relatively pretty clever in that regard.

Craig: So Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s a little silly but it’s kinda fun and, you know, you’ve got these I’ll I’ll continue to call them valley girls because that’s kinda how they’re described in the movie’s description, but they’re not entirely flat characters. In fact, I found both of the main characters to be very likable, you know, like, they’re they’re they’re kind of charming and endearing and and Reggie is kind of the tougher one, you know. She’s the brunette, and and she’s kinda the more street smart savvy one. Sam is her little sister, and though they don’t look like sisters at all, they have completely no, not at all. They they have completely different looks, but, she’s kind of the younger, a little bit more naive one, but they have good chemistry together.

Todd: They do.

Craig: You know, if if you don’t believe them as sisters, you can at least believe them as as friends and and they’re, you know, they’re they’re cute. And I I read that the director, he was inspired by these actual teenagers that he met, and then I also read that, Joss Whedon was inspired by this movie, to create the character of Buffy Summers, who is one of my absolute favorite characters in fiction, horror, whatever you wanna call it, you know. This girl who is on the surface seemingly very superficial and and silly and, you know, you wouldn’t give her, you know, much attention probably, but ultimately very capable of taking care of herself and, fighting monsters and all that good stuff. And so, if nothing else, I at least appreciate this movie for inspiring that character because love that movie, love even more the series that came after it. It’s got a little bit of that feel, not entirely, like, if you’re a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan like I am, it’s not like you’re gonna watch this movie and feel like it’s a long lost episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or anything, but you at least get a similar feel and I appreciated that. I don’t even know where to begin with the plot because seriously, it’s just these these 2 girls going about their business and Reggie works at the local movie theater. She’s an usher and Sam is a cheerleader and they’ve got this mom, stepmom, evil stepmom, I guess, whose name is Doris. They they they only refer to her as Doris, and I just think Doris is a funny name. And the the the mom is played by, Sharon Farrell, who I always remember most from Can’t Buy Me Love, but she was also the mom in It Lives, which we’ve talked about. Mhmm. The setup is that everybody’s waiting for this comet and and Reggie’s at work and, Sam is at home and Doris is, you know, being a bitch and Sam, like, trying to boss Sam around and

Clip: I want you home in 5 minutes after you finish work. If you wanna watch The Comet, you can do it here. Look, Doris, Like, I’m 18, okay, and I can watch the comet wherever I wanna watch the comet.

Craig: And it’s that type of dialogue. Yeah.

Clip: Which is

Craig: It just kills me.

Todd: And and, honestly, this dialogue is even funnier because of the the discord of the actresses. They’re supposed to be 18. It took about half of the movie for me to get in my mind that they were 18 because they do not look 18 at all.

Craig: No. I don’t know. Maybe Sam. Sam looks like she could be young, but Maybe. They’re they’re they’re probably 20 somethings.

Todd: It’s just sillier coming out of the these mouths of these women who seem so much older Todd me anyway than 18.

Craig: Well, and there’s I mean, the whole the whole beginning, like, really, I’m looking at my notes and it’s so silly. Like, Doris is throwing a party, you know, a comet party or whatever, and I guess that she’s flirting with one of the neighbors, Chuck. And, Sam says to her

Clip: You were born with an asshole, Doris. You don’t need Chuck.

Craig: And then and then Doris punches her. Like like, it’s so it’s so silly and and so funny.

Todd: The whole movie’s kinda like that too. The lines that are funny, but they’re kind of corny too.

Craig: Oh, they’re totally corny and, like, they’re totally scripted.

Todd: I I

Craig: have to give I have to give these actresses credit because they deliver the lines so naturally. Like, the lines themselves are are so silly, but these girls just go for it. Like Yeah. Like, yeah. This is how we talk. What? And, so, Reg Reggie and her boyfriend, the projectionist, Larry, get it on in the projection room. And then there’s the comet. The comet comes and there’s all these flashing lights and weird stuff going on, and then all of a sudden it’s morning and there’s sunrise and we see these shots of Los Angeles and it’s just like complete desolation. There’s no cars on the Todd, there’s nobody out around, and then when we see closer shots on, like, the streets, like on the streets where Doris was throwing her party, there’s just these clothes strewn about everywhere. Apparently, everybody just if what’s the word? I don’t know. Like, incinerated. Disintegrated. Disintegrated. Yeah. It’s Yeah. Everybody turned into dust.

Todd: Yeah. It’s vague, and I was looking for is there some symbolism here? Am I how does this work? And then it just gets more confusing when you realize that the people who are living and are left, there’s still some threat of some of them turning into these zombies. I don’t know. You can’t really unpack it. I think it’s just you gotta take it for what it is.

Craig: Well, they give a stupid explanation that if you happened to be in a steel enclosure when all of this happened Yeah. Then you were okay. Reggie and her boyfriend were in the projection room, which has steel walls. Sam, because of her fight with Doris, went and slept in the tool shed, which apparently has steel walls. So and so Reg and Larry wake up in the morning and I just have I couldn’t help but write these lines down because they were so funny. Reggie says to Larry

Clip: Oh, jeez. Don’t I get an egg with muffin or anything?

Craig: Oh, god. It’s so great. But Larry, I guess, had, like, lent out a projection reel to somebody overnight, and they were supposed to bring it back. And they haven’t brought it back yet, And so he’s all freaked out. And so he goes out to check and see if this guy is out there, and this homeless zombie attacks him with a wrench.

Todd: Right as he opens the door, the whole sequence reminded me of the first kill in Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Craig: Okay.

Todd: Where he where he opens the I don’t know, man. Where he opens the door, you know, he’s going through this, like, really quiet house, and he opens the door and suddenly without any warning there’s a zombie on the other side who whacks him with a wrench and he’s, like, completely dead. Then the next shot is a wider shot and the zombie pulls him through the door and closes it. It just seemed completely evocative of Chex’s chainsaw massacre. Okay. But alright. Just just an observation.

Craig: Take it or leave it. No. No. That’s good. That’s a good connection. You’ve seen lots of horror movies. Right.

Todd: Thanks, Craig, for not patronizing me.

Craig: Oh, wait. That was the teacher in me coming out. Good. That’s good. I would have never thought of that, but good.

Todd: The movie is stylishly shot, and that’s kind of one of the big things it has going for it. It’s rather silly, and it’s fun and funny but in a corny way. But the fact that it’s shot so stylishly, gives a little edge over its budget. The the movie had only like a $700,000 budget and by Todd it shows some of the scenery and the lighting and all this stuff. They’re they’re really trying to make the most of very little. But the fact that it is really well There’s some really interesting camera angles. There’s some really interesting nods to other films in there. I thought it showed that the director really really put a lot of craft and art in it. It made it more interesting to watch.

Craig: Well, and that was one of the things that I was struck by. I mean, they this is filmed in Los Angeles and they had to, in the days before CGI, find ways to make Los Angeles look completely uninhabited. And there are all of these shots, and they’re actually kind of really striking because when you think of Los Angeles, you think of it as being just, you know, a madhouse. 1 giant traffic tram. Yeah. Right. And and there are all these shots of the streets of Los Angeles just completely barren, and they pulled all of that off practically, you know, they they shot in the very early morning hours when traffic was lower and they just did really quick shoots like when the traffic lights would have traffic held off of certain blocks of, Los Angeles, so it would look like it was completely desolate. I guess that, you know, it was really a challenge, and they ended up I know that they did some shooting, like, in the very early Todd of these days, you know, if there’s a window washer in the background of your desolate shot, you just erase them with CGI. Well, they they couldn’t do that, and so I guess maybe there’s 1 or 2 shots I certainly didn’t notice, but there are 1 or 2 shots when I guess if you look closely there are, like, window washers in the background or something.

Todd: Oh, interesting. Because I was looking.

Craig: Well, yeah. For the most part, it looks very real and it’s kind of surprising, that they were able to do that. And in another case of where these limitations really force you to get creative,

Todd: I think what he does with all of these outdoor shots and desolate shots is they all have this really reddish orange as you cast to them. It’s it’s like a filter. It’s a gradiated filter that you’d put over the camera so that the top, you know, looks really really red and it kinda fades down to orange. But I’m positive that the reason he did that was also just to keep colour consistency across it. So no matter whether he shot in the morning or the afternoon or in the evening on whatever days in the whatever weather, he could make all of those shots kind of appear that they were done on a single day. But it also happens to lend this real cool stylized effect to it where every time we’re outside we get this reddish cast and then whenever we’re inside it tends to be blues and greens, excessively, quite honestly, like almost like a dream really. It’s stylish, but also almost to the point of ridiculousness when it gets inside because there’s smoke where there shouldn’t be smoke. And Sure. Like the radio station they end up going to after they retreat to a radio station, right, after this whole thing happens.

Craig: Yeah. Because it because the radio is still going, so they think there must be somebody there.

Todd: So they go to this radio station. It turns out that it’s just on, you know, auto play.

Craig: But this radio station I was in radio for

Todd: a brief while and I’d love how they portray radio stations on TV. They make them look like a music lover’s paradise. They’re these huge open studios with all this great decoration. This one, it makes it look like a dance club. It’s like dim lighting. There’s, like, neon flashing everywhere in there. I I had to, like, rewind to remind myself, where the hell are they? Because I thought they were in a radio station. This is so ridiculously not a radio station. At times, it looks like it’s a health club because it has, like, a room that’s like a gym in there. Like, what? How could this possibly be a radio station? But it it lends a very, eighties Mhmm. Stylized feel to it.

Craig: It is funny. They, you know, they go to that radio station and, like, there’s nobody there. But Sam eventually gets on the radio and, well and while they’re there, another guy shows up, Hector, hot Latin guy. Thank you. Like, that’s his role. It’s like Yeah. Good good looking Latino guy Last man on Earth. Right. That they can kinda squabble over. And, he’s he’s clearly more interested in Regina, which makes Sam Supremely jealous. Right. But, they they meet up there and and Sam goes on the radio for a second and she gets she’s, like, call the hit line if you are around or whatever, like, she sees the the phone for the call in line or whatever. So she gives out the number, and then she gets this weird call, but it gets cut off and, she says, I I couldn’t really understand what they were saying but it sounds like they were like part of a think tank or some sort of experiment in the desert or something. And then that introduces a component of the movie which frankly, I could have just done without. I mean, when it boils down to it, it’s kind of necessary, I suppose. It is because without it, there is no story. Right. It’s true. This is true.

Todd: It’s not. This think tank provides the only antagonist, the only conflict that just happens to them, yeah, while they’re out hanging out. That’s the only thing to resolve in this plot.

Craig: And it’s not necessarily that it’s it’s a bad plot element. I just feel like it’s executed poorly, like Terribly. There’s there’s this this this group of scientists who apparently knew the comet was coming so they, I guess, hold themselves up somewhere and they were gonna be the last people and, like, they didn’t expect there to be survivors and so now they’re trying to figure out what to do with the survivors. And it’s also contrived, like, you learn all of this over the course of the last, I don’t know, 45 minutes of the movie or whatever, but they didn’t expect there to be survivors. But now that there are, they don’t know what to do with them and, like, this site there’s a lady scientist. There’s one main lady scientist who seems really mean and, like, she’s the mean lady scientist who doesn’t care about the survivors or whatever. But she says at one point, we forgot to close the vents, and so we’re all infected. Like like like, they they knew this comet was coming, and they knew what it was gonna do, and they knew it was gonna happen, but they forgot to close the vents. So now, like, they’re all infected or something. Meanwhile, Sam, who slept in a garden shed, is fine.

Todd: That’s right. And these scientists keep in mind are, like, deep down inside a mountain fortress in the rock or I mean, it’s it’s this crazy ridiculous isolated underground compound which you have no idea what it’s for during non comet hours. Right? Like, what were they doing before the comet came? What was their purpose? It’s thinking,

Craig: I guess. Yeah. It’s really hard to say.

Todd: They’re just let’s just say nondescript super secret scientists who were working on something, but then this comet thing came and they somehow knew that this comet would be bad, unlike the rest of the world. And instead of trying to do anything about or warning anybody about it, they hold themselves up inside. Now when you said that they forgot to close the vents, I misinterpreted this or reinterpreted it because she says that they left the vents open a little bit, I think is what she said, because they hope they could develop a serum. And so my take on this was that the scientists purposely infected themselves a little bit so that they could develop a serum. Like like, they could make themselves, like like, kind of, like, vaccinated, like, expose themselves just a little bit but not enough so it would it would, inoculate them a little bit. I’m at am I misinterpreting this entirely? Because that’s how I heard it. But but but, of course, it did wasn’t working out great for them. It just meant that they were going to zombification just a little slower than everybody else.

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. But if that was their plan, that was really stupid. All of it’s stupid. Either way you

Todd: go, it’s stupid. But they’re, like, super serious, these guys, like, to the point of ridiculousness. It’s total b movie schlock.

Craig: It well, it is. It’s very b movie, you know, like, the evil scientists, you know. And, like, seriously, they are just there to provide some sort of

Todd: Conflict.

Craig: Conflict. Right. And and they’re totally unimportant and I’m bored with them and I would totally just watch these girls Yeah. See what they do. That’s true.

Todd: And did they listen in? Like, there’s this odd thing where she hangs up the phone or they hang up the phone, and so she’s not on the phone anymore. But then the camera zooms in on one of the mics in the radio room, and it’s like back at the super scientist secret laboratory, they can hear their conversation carry on.

Craig: Like I don’t know. There was some like, did they tap into the mic that was off in this radio station to get this information?

Todd: It was it was so it was so bizarre.

Clip: There’s no reason for us to bring those people or any other survivors back here.

Todd: What about the disintegration factor? You just wanna let that happen?

Clip: And you don’t know that the condition is progressive. I think we’ve established that, Audrey. Partial protection seems to result in a slowing of the overall effect, but progression is steady in any case. Drying of the body fluids

Craig: Oh, get to the point. Transition. We’ve heard this

Clip: a thousand times.

Todd: Ultimately What about the dust? Ultimately,

Clip: there is nothing left but calcium dust. Right. So there isn’t even enough hope to warrant bringing anybody back here.

Todd: But, anyway, these guys are gonna go out and get these girls. Because, you know, if there are survivors, you find out that they’re going to collect them and try to determine if they’ve been infected or not. And I guess if they haven’t been infected then their blood can be used to Todd Craig some kind of serum to keep everybody else inoculated or alive?

Craig: Yeah. I guess. And and that comes later. There are things that come before this that I wanna talk about because they’re my favorite parts of the movie, but, yeah, like, they’re collecting these people and, like, it’s it’s so when when we Todd these people that, I guess, they think are not infected so they can use their blood as, like, an antidote or something. And so they’re just, like, they kill them, I guess, because they say that they’re brain dead. Like, one of the ladies is, like, oh, I feel bad taking his blood and she’s, like, oh, well, we already disabled his brain so he’s brain dead anyway, so what difference does it make? And then and then they’ve got these 2 little kids there.

Clip: Why don’t we prep the children? When we’re finished with them, we can start on that girl. They’re so cute. I love working with kids.

Craig: Like, let’s kill them and drain their blood. It’s Yeah. It’s it’s so it’s so goofy. But before we get to all be because the whole last act of the movie deals with the scientists, but that’s boring.

Todd: It is.

Craig: What comes before that is so much more fun. Sam, has a nightmare about zombie cops chasing her and, like, Hector, he knows that his family is probably dead, but he he needs to go and and make sure and he does and they are and he encounters other zombies or whatever. But when Sam has this bad dream and she wakes up and she’s all upset and Regina’s, like, I know it will make you feel better. So they go to the mall. And then there is a shopping fashion montage Todd girls just wanna have fun.

Todd: Oh, it’s

Craig: delightful. I could have just watched that all day. Like, if if that had been the whole movie.

Todd: That’s that is the eighties encapsulated into one sequence right there.

Craig: Oh my god. It’s so funny. They’re just going like, they’re going around the mall. They’re trying on clothes, and somehow I feel like they loosely explained it, like their dad was in the military or something so they know where the the reserve is or something. You don’t actually see them getting the weapons, but somehow they get, like Uzis. Yeah. These machine guns and they’re, like, target practicing with the machine guns and and then they’re they’re trying on clothes and, like, they just casually set their machine guns down while they’re trying on clothes.

Todd: The casual nature of these girls’ familiarity with weapons and ability to use them is part of what makes us so hilarious.

Craig: I mean It is hilarious.

Todd: Look at it as intentional. Again, parody, they’re really trying to be funny, or you can look at it as absolute schlock. And I think it’s both. I’m really not willing to say what what, you know, one or the other, but it it does make it fun

Craig: to watch. And it oh my god.

Todd: For what it’s worth, you’ve got some very empowered women here leading this this story which I think is what makes it so interesting. Like you said, like, Buffy, even though they’re valley girl and they’re absolutely not at all they seem so clueless as to not at all be concerned about anything they should be concerned about or be emotional about any of bit of the people they’ve lost. Although, there is one little sequence where they talk a bit about, oh, the boy that they liked at school or whatever that, Sam does. Aside from that, they’re not acting at all like you would imagine people would act during this time. Still, when it comes to protecting and defending themselves, they they can do it. Yeah.

Craig: And it’s it’s adorable. And I totally see, you know, I can’t say the Buffy influence because obviously this came before, but I can see how this influenced Buffy because, eventually, you know, they’re at the mall. They’re trying out clothes. They’re having a great time. It’s super fun. But then it turns out that some sort of gang of thugs has, like, taken over the store,

Clip: I guess. The

Todd: Stockboys. The Stockboys at the mall. They must have been in I don’t know. Was the the warehouse the stock warehouse also steel?

Craig: I don’t know. I guess so. I also read there was, like, I don’t know, 20, 30th or something, Well, they did a commentary, which I would die to hear. I would love to hear that on the Blu Craig. But, they they talked about how they had so much fun in this mall scene, like, it was the middle of the night, like, it was an actual mall that the producers rented out for the or whatever, and they literally just got to run around and do whatever they want, and, they got to try on all these clothes and they had an absolute blast, And they said that the the production crew had such a great time too because they could just break any like, they they could break anything they wanted, and they were just, like, throwing stuff down and, like, they just had a great time. But, eventually, these mall thugs, show up, and there’s kinda, like, there’s a little bit of back and forth, like, the girls left one of their guns somewhere where the mall thugs got it, but they still have one of them and there’s kind of this shootout between and the girls are kind of separated and Reggie is the badass one with the gun and she’s, you know, totally taking people out left and right and, like, doing funny things, like pretending to be a mannequin so they don’t notice that she’s there, and then she turns around with her machine gun.

Todd: Oh, it’s total 80 schlock because the the these thugs have, you know, it’s indoors, it’s dark, and they’re all wearing sunglasses and shades. Like, half of them are, like, shirtless and, like, yeah, I mean, it is so so eighties.

Craig: It is. It’s hilarious. The whole scene reminded me of the scene from Mannequin where they run around and

Todd: Oh, yeah.

Craig: Sorry. I I love that movie.

Todd: I used to watch it.

Craig: We’ll never do it on this podcast, but folks, I recommend it if you’re looking for eighties mannequin. But anyway, so but the reason that it reminded me so much of Buffy is because Sam, the one without the gun, is running around kind of doing, like, tricky things, like, tricking them into being in the wrong place at the wrong time or and and when she ends up being confronted by them, she always has some really quirky quip to say to them.

Clip: How do you like that? You can’t hit anything.

Todd: That’s right. Like, they have no care in the world.

Craig: Oh, Todd. It’s so funny. Well, they end up killing all those guys. Then the the scientists show up and I I feel like, well, I said they kill all of them. That’s a lie. They actually end up getting captured and they’re chained together. Oh, yeah. And the crazy thug guy is, like, threatening to shoot them both

Clip: at the

Craig: same time, but then the scientists show up.

Todd: This is the part I don’t understand. When she notices the girls in the mall on the security cameras, he says, it’s time boys. And they all go out and try to kill these ladies. And I’m thinking, why? What is his end game here? Like, why are these guys trying to kill these women who came into the mall? I mean, you would think that there’d be a purpose that they would serve. Right. But they don’t end up killing them once they’ve got them. Instead, he seats them down chained up. This is so dramatic. They’re like chained back to back in the stock room. And he explains to them, we’re the stock boys, and we own this mall and blah blah blah, yada yada yada. And she’s like, well, what do you want? What do you want from us? Like, Todd do you want us to pay everything back? And I’m sitting here going, yeah. Like, what do you guys want with them? Like, I am dying to see what you want with them. And he says to them,

Clip: you wouldn’t believe what we want from you. In your worst nightmare you wouldn’t believe.

Craig: What does that mean? Yeah.

Todd: I’m like, oh, I’m on the edge of my seat trying to figure out what this is gonna be. And then he just starts playing Russian roulette with one of them. Yeah. And then the scientists swoop in and shoot them at the last minute. Because just before this, the scientists went to the radio station, they weren’t there, and they looked at each other. And one says, let’s try using some deductive reasoning. And the female scientist is, like, oh, deductive reasoning. And she runs away. And he says, where would 2 teenage girls who have nothing to do want to go? They look at each other knowingly. To a shopping mall. And that’s what that’s what leads them to this shopping mall. Must be the only one in the city.

Craig: You saying it sounds so stupid. I mean, you saying anything sounds stupid, but, you saying that sounds so stupid that, like, that’s literally what they say.

Todd: It is indeed. It is indeed.

Clip: Let’s go back.

Craig: Let’s apply a little deductive reasoning.

Clip: Deductive reasoning?

Craig: Where would adolescents with nothing to do go? They also they also they also refer to the mall as the shopping arcade. Yes. Well, at what point he says never heard in my life.

Todd: In some really on point dialogue. Just, you know, this movie has no subtlety. He says, well, this entire area is a capitalist is a is a is a capitalist palace or whatever, but let’s try the shopping mall first or something like that. Really, I mean, I think you guys are going for social commentary here in the writing, but you’re not making it subtle at all. No.

Craig: And it’s yeah. Wrong place, wrong time. So the scientists show up and this is the part of their movie that really bothers me because Sam has kind of been complaining that she has a rash and and she says, I get rashes. You know, when I’m nervous in stressful situations, I get rashes, whatever, but she’s been scratching at her or whatever. And she makes the mistake of saying that in front of the scientist. So the scientists take Reggie away and what they say, well, we’re gonna leave Sam here so that we can wait for Hector to come back, because Hector is supposed to be coming back. Now this just didn’t make any sense to me at all. If it were an apocalyptic event and I were with one person, whether it be my sibling or my partner who whomever it was, the last thing that I would do Is separate. Would allow somebody to separate us. Like, it doesn’t make any sense. And Reggie, like, they show the helicopter flying away and, like, Reggie smiling and waving, like, bye. See you later. No. That’s so stupid. And it it turns out it is stupid because evil lady scientist is, like, talking to Sam and she’s, like, oh, you have a rash? And Sam’s, like, oh, yeah. I get a rash sometimes. She’s, like, oh, okay. Well, I’m gonna give you this injection. It’ll make you feel better. Again, no. I’m I’m just gonna go ahead and pass on the injection, scary scientist lady.

Todd: I’ll work this out on my own. Thank you.

Craig: Yeah. I get rashes. It happens. I’m fine. Thanks. But so this lady gives her an injection, and she dies. Like, okay. I’m I’m making that sound really dramatic. She doesn’t really die. But in the moment and, again, it’s been 15 years since I’ve seen this. But in the moment, I thought, oh my Todd. They just killed her. She’s my favorite character. It was

Todd: this was, I’m I mean, when I saw this scene, I was like, oh my word. And it for the first time in this movie, I had an emotional response. Like, it was pretty heartbreaking. Just the whole situation is heartbreaking.

Craig: Well, in part part of the reason that I think that it was so heartbreaking is because it was not played super dramatically, like No. The lady just gives the lady gives her the injection and she just kind of keeps talking very nonchalantly the way that she always has been and then she just goes out, and I really thought she was dead. I I was mad. I was, like, you are kidding me. You’re kidding me that you just killed off my favorite character. Mhmm. But, again, folks, she’s not really dead.

Todd: She comes back. But that pissed me off.

Craig: I know it did. It pissed me off too. And I have written in my notes later, Sam’s not dead exclamation point. The lady scientist tricked the other scientist, which is yeah. Yeah. I I yeah. That that’s what it is, because then we go back to Reg and Reg is being questioned by another scientist, doctor Carter, who’s played by Jeffrey Lewis, who is so recognizable. And I looked at his IMDB page and he’s been in, like, a bazillion things, but nothing so notable that I could even mention it. But I swear to God, you’ll recognize find out

Clip: that

Craig: they’re harvesting blood from the survivors. And we also find out that the scientists are losing it. Like, they’re deteriorating because they left the vents open or whatever. And, this doctor Carter tells Reg your sister’s dead, then they’re, you know, they’re harvesting blood from people. And there are these 2 kids around, and the the 2 kids really serve no purpose except for Todd be, like, like, to make the audience be, like, they’re not really gonna kill the kids, are they? Like, that’s the whole reason they’re there. Basically. And, so eventually, Reggie, she breaks a chair or something and she knocks out this scientist and she’s running around the facility and everybody’s looking for her. And Hector, who okay. So Hector had gone back to the Craig station, where the lady scientist who quote unquote killed Sam is waiting for him and she kind of gives him the lowdown on what’s going on and then she injects herself with something, presumably killing herself. Yeah. But apparently, she gave him enough information that he can go find this hidden facility and he shows up there and he starts, like, setting bombs and stuff. But when he shows up, he shows up at the guard gate, and he’s like, hey, partner. Like, he plays like this Cowboy. Cowboy. It’s hilarious. Yeah. He’s talking to the guard at the gate. He’s like, hey. You like girls? Let me show you something. And he opens up the trunk, and dead Sam is in there and the guards, like, she’s dead. And he’s, like, no, she’s not. And then she pops up and I’m, like, yes, she’s not dead. Thank God. I was super glad.

Todd: I felt cheated. I felt cheated of the emotional yeah. I felt cheated of the emotional moment that was created earlier of Sam dying. I mean, if you had left that in the film, that would have cast a real shadow over the rest of it. And I think given it some serious weight instead of make it this fluffy, goofy b movie that it that it ends up being. Not that it I mean, it needed a lot more than that, but I’m just saying, I would thought that was a really powerful scene, and then to have her spring up later. No, I’m not dead after all. It’s kinda, oh, please.

Craig: I get what you’re saying because that scene where I thought she was dead really was a gut punch for me. Yeah. So I I I get what you’re saying, but I want this movie to be The stage white. Cheesy and funny.

Todd: Mhmm. I get that. Right.

Craig: I want it to be I want it to be light. And so I was glad when she came back. And I I think that had she stayed dead, it would’ve not that it would have ruined the movie for me or anything, but it it it really made me sad, Todd.

Todd: Poor Craig. I’m so sorry.

Craig: And I and I didn’t want her to be dead. So I was glad when she wasn’t. I was glad when she came back. We removed we review

Todd: all these films where people are just, like, torn limb for limb and shit like this. And you really really want this drill to survive, or else you’re gonna hate this film. That’s right. We’ve come to the core of your being

Craig: right here. Alright. And so then we’re in the scientist place and, like, we’ve got this goofy scene with these 2, like, heartless nurses who have already killed 1 guy, and now they’re gonna kill these kids. They really like working with kids, but they don’t have any problem killing them. And, like, they’re getting ready to inject them with this stuff that’s gonna make them brain dead, apparently. And the kids are like, wait. I thought you weren’t gonna give us a shot. And they’re like, oh, well, it’s just a a a quick shot, and then once you get it, you’ll get sleeping, you’ll go to sleep. And when you wake up, you’ll be at the North Pole with Santa and you’ll be with Santa forever.

Todd: Where did they pull that from?

Craig: I forgot to say. I can’t believe that I forgot to say. This is a Christmas movie, friends. It takes place right on Christmas. There’s Christmas music throughout.

Todd: Yeah. It’ll pass right by you.

Craig: It’s not really a Christmas movie, but it’s set at Christmas.

Todd: The silliest thing about this scene, aside from this whole notion that they’re telling them that Santa, is these kids look like they’re 1213, but they’re being played as that they were 5 and 6 years old. The girl’s running around with the teddy bear and they’re talking, like,

Clip: what’s this? Oh, blah blah blah.

Craig: Yeah. They’re totally obnoxious movie kids.

Todd: Oh, my gosh.

Craig: When the nurse is like, you’ll go with Santa, and the boy’s like, there’s no such thing as Santa. And then the scary, ominous scientist is standing in the door, and he says, what? You don’t believe in Santa?

Todd: That’s gonna help.

Craig: Oh, god. It’s really funny. It is. It is. My other favorite line there is when they’re trying to give the kids gas and, like, I feel like you don’t even see the kids when this, like, somebody’s coming through a door, so this is just kind of in the background. But the little girl says

Clip: I don’t know. My parents told me never to breathe anything from strangers.

Todd: Oh, man.

Craig: Oh, somebody had Todd have written that line on the set and said, just say it. Say it.

Todd: You probably won’t include it. Nobody’s stupid enough to include it, but please say it.

Craig: Oh, god. It was so funny. Okay. And so then so everybody gets back together. Reg and Sam reunite and they they take the kids and they go out and they find Hector and Hector’s got the getaway car and, like, they start to drive away and then he stops and, they’re like, what are you doing? And he’s like, hold on a second. I wanna see something. And all the scientists get in a van and, like, he’s obviously placed a bomb there, so when they started it explodes. But then a zombie scientist attacks the car and then Hector shoots the zombie and then apparently they’re fine and we cut and then we cut to what I guess is the next day or soon thereafter and it’s raining and the rain washes away all of the scary red dust from the dead people. And it also washes away the filter from the camera because the sky is not red anymore. And then we see Reggie and Hector and the kids and they’re a nice little family and they’re dressed in very eighties fashion clothes.

Todd: Oh, and this was so cute because now suddenly valley girl teenager who hates her mom and everybody so lame turns into the doting stereotypical goofy mom and is setting the kids up for a picture that she’s taking.

Craig: Yeah. It’s cute. Yeah. I guess Sam is on the other side of the street and so the kids are wanting to run over to them and Regina’s like, no, you can’t cross against the light, and they’re like, what are you talking about? There’s no trick. I know. And and she says, the whole burden of civilization has fallen on us. We have to teach these kids the right way to do things. And Sam’s like, oh, that’s stupid. There’s no traffic. I can just dance in the middle of the street. So she does, and then this sports car comes racing around the corner and almost hits her and there’s this cute teenage guy about her age in the driver’s seat. He’s like, what are you doing? You can’t just why did you cross against the light? And so now she’s, you know, Hector and Reg are this cute little family with their 2.5 kids or whatever, and now, apparently, Sam’s got a little cute boyfriend and they ride off into the sunset and then Reg and Hector and the kids play football in the street and it’s so cute, and then a cute eighties love power ballad comes on and, and the end.

Todd: That’s it. That’s it. It’s so charming in its pure eightiesness. I I I have a feeling that if, you know, our listeners who are younger than us who maybe don’t have the the level of nostalgia that you and I have for this time period are probably not gonna have wrung as much enjoyment from this movie as we Oh,

Craig: no. Yeah. Oh, no. Absolutely not. I mean, I I I think that this movie, you know, when it came out it it It did well. It didn’t make much. It Todd it do well?

Todd: It it made 14,000,000 from a $700,000 budget. Wow. That’s really good. It almost instantly became a cult classic. Now, I mean, it didn’t it wasn’t a mainstream hit. Let’s put it that way, but, yeah, cult classic.

Craig: Well, and it, you know, there are lots of fans of it now. I think that it was funny that the working title of the movie was Teenage Mutant Horror Comet Zombies. I think it would have

Todd: been even more successful if it had been.

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s kind of a stretch, but I don’t I I do think for me, you know, a child of the eighties, the nostalgia of it, that’s what endears it to me. It’s a cute movie. It’s cute. It’s funny and the lead actresses are super Adorable. Yeah. They’re adorable and you really really like them. That maybe is cross generational, but for me, it’s the nostalgia of the eighties. Like, I and it’s it’s funny because we keep talking about, like, eighties fashion. Yeah. It’s eighties fashion, but in the way that eighties fashion was portrayed in the movies. Yes. Over the top. People didn’t really Yes. Most people didn’t really wear those things.

Todd: Those were the things that movie stars and people in movies wore. Yep.

Craig: Right. But it’s definitely identifiable as as totally eighties and, I just have such nostalgia for that time period. I don’t know, you know, watching it again for the second time, there were there were times when I’m, like, dude, why did you pick this? Yeah. To myself. And then there were times when I’m like, oh, yeah. Now I remember. Yeah. Yeah. It’s fun. It’s just it’s fun. It’s it’s it’s not high standards as far as cinematography and filmmaking go, but it’s not poorly made. It’s it’s well made and, it’s it’s just a cute and it’s funny. It’s quirky. It’s not scary. It’s not scary. No. But it’s cute and quirky and funny, and I I like it.

Todd: It’s cheap. It’s the USA up all night film, you know. I bet they ran this

Craig: But a good one. Sometimes. Yeah. That’s what that’s what I kept thinking. It’s like those movies, but better done than most of them.

Todd: Less boring for most of it. Yeah. Yeah. I enjoyed it for many the same reasons you did, but I as I said, I had to watch it a second time before I could truly appreciate it, but I was motivated to watch it a second time.

Clip: So I

Todd: think that says something.

Craig: Good. Well, I’m glad you liked it.

Todd: Thank you again, Craig, for not being patronizing.

Craig: That’s what I’m here for. Alright. Alright. Well, thanks folks for listening to another edition of, 2 guys in a chainsaw. Oh, man. You’d think we do this all for you, but we don’t. We just do it to get together. Get together and laugh and hang out together, but we hope you enjoy listening to it. And if you do, you can find us all over the place. You can find us on, Facebook, on Stitcher, on Itunes, on Google Play. We’re all over the place. Any place that you can find your favorite podcast, you’ll be able to find us. We’d love to hear what you think of this movie or what you think of our thoughts on the movie. So please feel free to drop by our Facebook page and leave us a comment. We love interacting with you. Until next time. I’m Craig And I’m Todd. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.