2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

We love to do kid-oriented horror movies, and this week we turn once again to Tobe Hooper’s oeuvre for this modern update of the 1953 B-movie classic. It’s not the best, but it’s not the worst. Come join us for an in-depth review.

Episode 140, 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: There’s a fine line sometimes between horror and sci fi. Usually, the 2 kind of overlap quite a bit, especially when you’re dealing with aliens. This is Invaders from Mars, the 1986 version directed by Tobe Hooper, who we lost recently. I think we’ve done a couple of his other films. Uh-huh. Right? We did Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. I think we did the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre as well. Yeah. He’s done some well. I guess he didn’t really do poltergeist, but we all thought he did at one point. You know, he hasn’t had the most success of his career in his career, sadly. And, 1986’s Invaders From Mars was really no exception. When this movie came out, it was rated PG. It’s clearly aimed at kids, or families, at least. It’s l don’t know. You know, it’s a sci fi movie, but it seems to be considerably tongue in cheek throughout. But it has a very simple story and it’s a very touching story and it’s a story that I really enjoy. Now, I saw this movie with my dad growing up. My father really got me into 19 fifties sci fi old 19 fifties sci fi b movies when I was growing up. So I watched a lot these old black and white cheesy sci fi films, Plan 9 from outer space, you know, the original invaders from Mars, the original invaders are the Todd snatchers, and all these things. And some of them are really quite good and some of them are pretty lousy. I’m pretty sure that I saw the original Invaders from Mars from 1953 before I even saw this one. But I’m also pretty sure that not long after 1986, my dad and I sat down and rented and watched this. And I had pretty good feelings about it as a kid. My memories of this movie were that it was terrifying, to be quite honest. But, I didn’t really, honestly remember too much about it. There were certain scenes that lingered in my mind, but ultimately, most of the movie was a bit of a blur to me. So I was really happy to come and revisit this this movie, this week. Craig, do you have any history with this film at all?

Craig: No. You know, I thought that I had never seen it and in watching it again, I think that I must have because some of the scenes were very familiar to me, but I didn’t remember much of it. So I don’t know if I saw it when I was a kid, and I just don’t remember, or if I saw it in as an adult, and it just wasn’t memorable enough for me to really have any strong memories of it. But I love horror movies for kids. I absolutely love them. Some of them are some of my favorite movies. The the one that always comes to mind, which I can’t believe that we’re 3 years into doing this podcast and we still haven’t talked about is The Gate. Oh, yeah. But there are lots of other movies, and a lot of them come from the eighties, as this one does. You know, again, I’m gonna be nostalgic about this, and and I get it those of you who didn’t grow up in the eighties like Todd and I did, but it just doesn’t seem like they make movies like this anymore. Movies that are, you know, really pretty legitimately scary and from kids’ perspectives and and that are kind of honest. Like, the kids and the adults in this movie swear. Now, like, it’s rated PG, so, you know, it’s not like it’s excessive swearing. But, even in the opening scenes of this movie when the the main character, David, the kid, and his dad, they’re out laying and watching a meteor shower. Oh, that’s a bright one. Woah. Fireball.

Clip: Hey, look. There’s Mars. Where? Where is this? Well, it’s pretty close. Except the perihelion. Only 30,000,000 miles from Earth. Oh, only 30,000,000? Well, no wonder it looks so close. Smartass. Smartass. Hey, look. Here they come. Yeah. Where did they see them last? Yeah. This should be the heaviest shower this year. Holy shit. Jesus. That’s right. That one’s not gonna vaporize. It’s gotta make it through the atmosphere.

Craig: Wow. It’s a hell of a tale. It’s it’s nothing profane. It’s nothing obscene, but it feels very true to life.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And you just don’t really see that much in horror movies anymore, and I kind of miss it. I think that Stranger Things, you know, the guys, the Duffer Brothers who are behind that, I think that they are nostalgic for the same kind of things that I am. So I feel like they’re trying to do that with their show. I love that show. I love that show. So it’s not that you can’t find this type of stuff at all anymore, but it just doesn’t seem as common. And then I find that to be a little bit unfortunate. But, ultimately, this movie, I don’t think that it’s great, but there are things about it that I really like, and there are some amazing people in it. There’s definitely some cool stuff to be taken away from it and to talk about. So I’m looking forward to talking about it with you.

Todd: It’s so funny that you both of us say that we we kinda remember, but we kinda don’t. That’s usually never a very good sign, you know? -Right. Right. -As a whole, the movie Kind of like what you said. I feel like, as a whole, the movie doesn’t work really well, although I think it probably works pretty well for kids. And and, again, I think that’s the intended audience. But there are some really iconic scenes in here that are standout. And, honestly, it’s it’s really quite a shame that the movie didn’t do as well. Not because it deserved to, but because of what went into this film. This was a Golan and Globus production at Canon Films. They’re notorious, 2 guys from Israel. I think we’ve talked about them before, maybe even when we were talking about Texas Chainsaw Massacre too. But these guys just were able to get money from who knows where and pump Todd, 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 of dollars into movies. And a lot of movies were made by them. Most of them were terrible. Some of them many of them were just so terrible they were fun. And a lot of them some of them broke through, you know, and became good. I even watched, Over the Top. Have you heard of that one with Sylvester Stallone?

Craig: Yeah. Duh.

Todd: That one gets a a bit of a a bad rep, but I watched it the other day, and I actually thought that was kind of a sweet movie.

Craig: It is a sweet movie. Yeah. Sorry. I was just gonna, you know, wax nostalgic about that movie. I mean, come on. Sylvester Stallone and, you know, reconnecting with his son through arm wrestling. I mean, come on.

Clip: Right.

Todd: Cross country journey. Like, just a lot they were able to attract a lot of talent with all the money that they put in. And this movie has a ton of talent in it. You’ve got Toby Oh, my gosh.

Craig: You’ve got a Karen Black in here. I love Karen Black. And it’s so funny. Okay. So here’s my biggest issue with the movie. They’ve got all these great people and, you know, from a cinematic perspective, it’s it’s well done. It’s well put together. You’ve got special effects by Stan Winston who’s amazing.

Todd: Billion things since then doing visual effects.

Craig: And Louise Fletcher, you know, Nurse Ratchet. I mean, there are some amazing actors and and and people behind the scenes in this movie. And I really, really enjoyed seeing all of them. Yeah. And and the roles, you know, for the actors, the roles that they played were fun just for whatever reason. And I don’t know if it’s direction or if they were in a hurry or what, but frankly, and I apologize to those of you who love this movie, the acting is really pretty bad in this movie. Even even from actors and actresses that have put in

Clip: really good performances elsewhere, like like Karen Black. I don’t know that I would

Craig: ever go so far trilogy of terror, which has become a cult classic. She was in either House of a 1000 Corpses or The Devil’s Rejects. I think it was House of a 1000 Corpses because I think after that, they had to they had to recast her because her demands were too high or whatever. Then Louise Fletcher has done some amazing I mean, nurse Ratchet, I mean, that is such an

Clip: iconic role, and and that’s who you think about when you

Craig: think of that original film adaptation of flowers in the attic. She was the the original film adaptation of Flowers in the Attic. She was the grandmother. She was horrifying in that movie. So and and so you’ve got some really strong actors here, but for whatever reason, the acting just doesn’t come across very well. No.

Todd: And I think some of it might be the writing. Dan O’Bannon is the the writer on this, and Dan O’Bannon has also done quite a few things. If you look at connections, Dan O’Bannon did, the script for the original Alien. He did this well, he he did the script for Dark Todd with John Carpenter, which kinda set him off. But, you know, we we watched Return of the Living Dead, and I think I think we were a little mixed on that. I really liked it. I think you thought it was kinda stupid. But, you know, they did Lifeforce and he did the the screenplay for Total Recall. I mean, this is a pretty talented guy and I think that maybe the intent behind his script was not carried out, or maybe just they didn’t know what to do with it. Because, ultimately, there’s just a lot wrong here.

Craig: Well, I’ll tell you one of the things that’s wrong with it is it’s too long. Yeah.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: At an hour and 40 minutes, it’s too long. They could have easily shaved off 20 minutes because it’s a really simple story when it comes right down to it. And sadly, I wasn’t bored, and I did enjoy the movie. But I just I kept moving, you know, my mouse on the computer screen to see how much of it was left. Like

Todd: Yeah. It’s on. It it does. It goes for so long. And maybe as a kid, I had a patience for this. But I, may I I was checking my watch too and I was half falling asleep sometimes. Not not that there isn’t stuff happening all the time. You know, not that the story doesn’t move. It just doesn’t move fast enough or it

Craig: It lingers too long on unnecessary things because we get it. Like, as I said before, it’s it’s a simple story. Okay. So there’s this young kid, David. He and his dad in the beginning are watching this meteor shower, and, you know, it seems like they’re interested in the stars and the planets. And and and his dad is a really cool dad. He’s super nice. Like, he lets him stay up late much to the chagrin of his mother who’s played by Lorraine Newman who had fame from Saturday Night Live. And, like, the dad you know, I I guess this kid has a penny collection, which as soon as the dad pulls out this penny and gives it to him, like, look. I got you this penny that you would really like. Here, I’m gonna stick it in your coat pocket. I’m like, oh, okay. Well, clearly, that’s gonna be important later. Right. But the kid, wakes up in the night and sees a spaceship land in his backyard. It’s

Todd: giant spaceship. Yeah. It’s a huge space and

Craig: it looks pretty cool, and the lights are flashing or whatever. And he tells his dad about it in the middle of the night, tells both of his parents, and they don’t believe him, obviously. But the dad’s like, well, I’ll check it out in the morning. And so the dad does go check it out in the morning, and when he comes back, he’s weird. He’s different. Something is clearly wrong with him. He puts breath mints in his coffee and then, like, he chugs his coffee and it’s running down his chin and and he’s got this weird mark on the back of his neck that almost looks like some kind of wound or something. And he’s just super sketch, and, the kid notices, of course. And the dad, before he sends the kid off to school, is, like, you were right. There is something over the hill. Come on. I’ll show you. And the kid’s, like, no, dad. And and he runs off and gets on the bus. And that’s what it becomes. It becomes kind of an invasion of the Todd snatchers kind of thing, where all these people around this kid are being seemingly mind controlled by, like, some kind of hive mind or something. Whereas that’s a very simple story. The reason that I think that this works for kids and and still would work for kids is that the whole idea of it from a kid’s perspective is really really scary. You know, the fact that your parents are under somebody else’s control and your teachers and your friends and you’re the only one who knows and they know you know, so they’re after you. That’s really scary, you know, from a kid’s perspective. And I I think that if I had watched this as a child, I think I would have been really into it because I think that I would have found that really really scary.

Todd: I think as an adult, you watch this and and you brush over that a little bit. And what nags you about this movie is the fact that everybody listens to him a little too much. Yeah. Like, everyone pays so much attention to him. By by the end of the movie, he’s directing the military around, you know, and telling them what to do. Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You’re right. You know? And and, I guess, you know, there’s an interpretation of this film that’s out there that says that that there’s a reason for that, that the whole movie is kind of like this kid’s fantasy. Right? Where he’s the hero, because the end of the movie, we’ll just go ahead and spoil it because it’s kinda silly. At the end of the movie, you know, everything’s great. The day is safe. The kid goes to bed. And then, basically, he wakes up. And it’s all a dream, and he’s talking to his parents, and he’s telling them this fantastic story. And then, they all go to bed and then, suddenly, lights appear out the window and the same thing happens again. It’s this whole kind of wrap around deal where, oh, it was all a dream. Then I wake up in the morning and, oh, no. Actually, the invaders are coming and it’s all gonna happen. I hated that. I hated that freaking ending personally. And, and I and I guess if it it was in light of that, if you if the whole thing was a dream and it was all his fantasy, sure. Okay. I can get behind that. But, when you’re watching the movie as a plot, it’s really bothersome, and it almost seems ridiculous at some points in this movie. There’s a point in the film where he’s cowered with this nurse who’s the only person who believes him. So he gets to school and, you know, the the even the teacher is acting weird. He starts to notice the the mark on her neck on his the back of his her neck too. Even some of his classmates are getting this mark on his neck, and his teacher’s really got it in for him, and she wants to take him. And, he’s resisting, and he runs to the nurse, and the nurse is who’s played by Karen Black. And I guess, this is Karen Black’s real life son.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. The kid the kid that plays David is. Yeah. And you know, I I I get what you’re saying with the whole frustration, about the ending where it’s, you know, maybe a dream or whatever. But what I kinda felt like they were going for was a Wizard of Oz kind of vibe, where the kid wakes up and the dad even says something at the end, like, it sounds like your dream incorporated a lot of things that happened in your day.

Todd: And I hated that. I thought that was Well

Craig: and because it didn’t really make sense in the context. Like, there wasn’t enough backstory to really justify it.

Todd: Yeah. We didn’t see enough of the day.

Craig: You know, in the wizard of Oz, she’s like, and you were there and you were there and you were there. And, you know, that’s that’s kind I I feel like that’s the vibe they were going for. And I get that. The theory that this is all a dream even though there’s also, you know, at the very end, the suggestion that maybe it was just kinda like a premonition or something. Mhmm. It makes sense. And, yes, all of the stuff, like you said, like, he eventually ends up hooking up with the military and NASA and, like, he’s giving them this little kid who’s probably, I don’t know, 10, 12, something like that. He’s giving them, like, all of this information. They’re like, oh, yeah. That must be it. Let’s do it. And then, like Mhmm.

Clip: Okay. We’re going in for our big military mission. Come along with us, little 10

Craig: year old. Like, that doesn’t make that that’s that’s the fantasy that you have. The fantasy that Yeah. Adults are going to listen to you and that you actually are important in solving this problem and that you are going to play a pivotal role in solving this problem And you’re going to save the hot nurse who is your friend, and you are going to get to see the mean teacher that you don’t like eaten by the Martians. Like, you know, it it makes sense that that’s all from from a child’s perspective, that fantasy makes sense, but watching it as an adult, it comes across as a little silly.

Todd: It does.

Craig: Because you know that that wouldn’t happen. First of all, nobody would listen to him. Nobody would believe this fantastic story. Then even if it turned out to be true, the second that he alerted the military and NASA to it, they would push him aside and take care of things on their own. But I don’t know. I guess, I’m just, you know, I’m I’m reliving my childhood days and my childhood fantasies where I wanted to put myself in these movies. Sure. And if, you know, if you you put yourself in this movie at 10 or 12 years old, how exciting that you as at 10 or 12 get to be the hero in the story. And and I don’t know. I I think it’s kind of it’s kind of fun.

Todd: I mean, I’ll grant you that. It is kind of fun in that way if you’re a kid watching this and being the hero. But as an adult watching this, like you said, it comes across as silly. And, the we get these scenes where, you know, he’s cowering in the basement, in the boiler room of their school or whatever, and the nurse is with him, and they’re the cops are coming in to look for him, and the cops have been, you know, by this time, possessed by the the Martians as well. What in

Clip: god’s name am I doing here? But you’re so so stupid. I don’t know what I saw anymore, David. I’m sorry. I don’t know. It’s okay to be afraid. I’m not afraid. I’m petrified. Me too.

Todd: It just seems off and almost a little I don’t wanna say, it’s like she’s the damsel in distress, but she’s in her thirties, and he’s 12. It’s weird having that role reversed in a film and watching it as an adult. You get what I’m saying? It’s a little

Craig: Oh, yeah.

Todd: You know?

Craig: It is. Oh, gosh. I thought they were gonna make out for a second.

Todd: It’s so off putting.

Craig: And it’s nice, like, it’s it’s sweet that she’s really an endearing character in this movie and and, you know, she’s got his back and she’s all the time looking out for him. It actually became a little bit much for me at the end. I I think for the last 15 minutes, Karen Black doesn’t have any lines except to shriek his name.

Clip: Like, David. David.

Todd: She wakes up in harsh captivity and what does she do? She starts screaming for the little boy, you know.

Craig: And that get and yeah. I mean, it is even almost a little bit awkward to see, like because she, like, snuggles into him and he has his arm around her. It I mean, it’s very much what it would be if he were the adult male hero and she were looking to him for protection or comfort, but he’s not. He’s a little kid, and so it doesn’t really make sense. Again, I guess that it just, supports the theory that this is just a childish fantasy because that’s probably what he would see, You know, like, at one point in the movie, we see him sitting down to watch a horror movie, which is actually Tobe Hooper’s life force that he’s watching on TV. So if if he is a fan of that kind of film and stuff, you know, that’s what he would see. He would see the hero, probably a man, protecting the frail woman in distress. And so that’s how his fantasy would play out, and it makes sense. Watching it on screen, it’s a little weird and icky. At the same time, I didn’t know until after I had seen the movie that, this was mother and son. Knowing that in hindsight, it’s kind of cute. It’s cute that this mother and son got to play this together and it it for me, it takes away a little bit of that ickiness because Sure. Sure. Because because there is nothing, you know. Like, there it there really I guess we’re just sick and include you know, you know, that innuendo is only in our minds, really.

Todd: Yeah. There’s nothing in the film that, yeah, implies any kind of romantic relationship between the 2.

Craig: No.

Todd: Let’s talk for a second about this creepy teacher because, like you said, she’s a standout in the movie, and she’s relentless and brutal to the point where you just you wonder why is she so fixated on this guy on this kid. Yeah. But, of course, part of it could be that he’s a Martian, but the other sense, you just get a sense she’s that kinda teacher.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: She’s the biology teacher in the classroom, and they’re going to be dissecting frogs. And some other kid throws a frog at him, and he tosses it away aside. But instead of going after the 2 kids who threw the frog at him, she grabs his arm instead and yanks

Clip: him over. David Gardner, this may be the way you behave at your house. Please, you This is not the way you behave in my classroom. Heather, you supervise while I take this uncontrollable young man to the school nurse.

Todd: And we’ve seen no evidence that this kid is anything but controlled. You know? And Right. And as a kid, like you said, this whole notion that all these adults are out to get you, and they’re the ones who have the power, is it’s scary. There’s this great scene in this movie where, he’s already gone to the nurse, and he’s told her what, he thinks is going on. And, he creeps back into the, the classroom. I think I’m getting this in the right order. He creeps back into his classroom where it’s all dark, and he’s since had this encounter with these police officers who showed up at his house. And, he’s noticed that they were acting strange, and he sees in the hallway that the one of them is conferring with with the teacher talking about a field trip that they’re planning to go over that hill with the kids. And so, he creeps back into the classroom and he sees her riding 2 PM field trip today on the board, and then she goes into, like, a back room, like, the storage room of this biology class. And as he creeps back there, he sees from behind her sitting down at this desk. It’s this creepy scene. And as he gets closer and closer and closer, he hears these noises and whatnot, and she spins around, and she’s in the middle of eating one of these frogs. And she slurps the frog down legs and all and starts going back after him again. It’s it’s so gross. And this is one of the scenes that I remember as a kid. As a kid, you don’t forget something like that. And then, on top of it, like, at some point, he runs away. So the nurse ends up believing him. He tells this fantastic story. She says she’s gonna believe him, and he says, well, check the backs of their neck. And the nurse notices the back of the neck of this teacher just like David said. It’s a little weird, and the teacher’s real cagey about it. Then she notices the back of the neck of a little girl who’s asking for him. And so, she ushers him out the back window, hands him her keys, and says, just go to my house, let yourself in the back door, and I’ll see you later. Instead, he sneaks into a van that’s in the parking lot, and he probably doesn’t realize that this van belongs to that teacher. And I felt like we were revisiting Texas Chainsaw Massacre all over again with the scenes in this van.

Craig: Right. Yeah. Well and and the reason that he sneaks in there is because, you know, he’s trying to get away, but then all of a sudden all these people are looking for him, including his parents who show up at the school, and he knows that they all are whatever infected or implanted or whatever it is. But I just wanna take a second. Why is it that Louise Fletcher is just so scary? I I I think that I I think that she just her her gaze, she just has this gauge Yeah. Gaze that is so intense, and she’s so scary. I mean, really, the the movies that I remember her from, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which is a brilliant movie, and she’s absolutely brilliant in it, but she is just wicked. And what, is so disconcerting about her character in that movie is that she never loses her cool. She always remains calm, and she always has the upper hand. And the the it’s a very similar thing in Flowers in the Attic, which by, you know, most accounts is not a great movie, but she is so good in it. And she’s just that good in this movie Todd. Even given some of the silly things, that she has to do, like swallowing a frog and, for whatever reason, she always calls the the nurse sister, like, you’re pushing it, sister.

Todd: Yeah. What she looks at, she’s like, sister?

Craig: I think. Yeah. But she’s she’s just so I I wouldn’t say that this is one of her best performances by any stretch of the imagination, but Well, it’s over

Clip: the top.

Craig: She’s just kind of it is over the Todd, but she’s kind of that perfect example of your stereotypical schoolmarm, miserable kind of teacher who just takes joy in being mean to kids because she can be and who’s gonna stop her. And, like

Clip: I told you this boy was trouble, and he needs to be severely punished. David, what’s the matter? He knocked over a defenseless little girl. But And he’s a little snoop. Please, missus McElch. Why don’t we just talk with each other? Give him to me. Please let me talk to him. David, go inside my office. You are pushing it, sister.

Craig: They get these implants in the back of their neck that, like, mind control them or whatever. And, you know, just to see her, like, driving the school bus full of kids towards the towards the landing site where they’re all gonna go get infected, And then, like, aft

Clip: I don’t know.

Craig: I guess she drops them off or something. And then she’s driving the school bus, and she pulls up behind the car that David is hiding in. And she gets out and she pulls him out and is, like, trying to pull him towards the bus, but he gets away. It’s just I don’t know. It’s just I I love her. And even as silly as it is, it’s fun for me to see her in this role just outright playing the villain.

Todd: In a in a movie that’s pretty over the top, I feel like maybe her performance is the only one that really works here. Because, like, the dad is gosh. Like, the scenes with the dad, it’s like, okay. We get it. This guy is is clearly not right, and even his wife should see that this man is walking around like an absolute zombie, speaking extremely slowly, monotone. The military guys are kind of caricatures of military guys. They’re all very

Clip: over

Todd: the top. For some reason, her being over the top in this movie just seems so natural, you know.

Craig: It does. You know, and it’s it’s funny. I hope that she had fun with it. I I I have read about her that she’s actually a really lovely person and that she is, you know, that she’s a lot of fun. And on the set of, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, you know, it was just her and all of these men and all these men kind of formed this boys club. And because of her role, she just felt very shut out because she was the enemy of everybody, and that’s just kind of how, you know, that that translated not just on the screen, but on the set. Like, she just felt very excluded. And so at one point in the filming, she just came out for a scene completely topless, just just to break the ice and to let them know that she she was a fun lady.

Todd: Oh my gosh. That’s hilarious.

Craig: And I guess after that, things are a little bit more comfortable with everybody, but, it’s funny. You know, I I I I don’t know. I can’t imagine. I I am not that way at all. I’m not intimidating in any way, but I just think that that’s, you know, so funny that somebody like her would have to break the ice in that kind of way in order just to get people to be nicer. Yeah.

Todd: Well, nothing nothing will break the ice in a room full of men than a woman popping in topless. That’s that’s true. True. But it’s funny because even, you know, you can say it’s the Martians, but even when he hops in her van, her van is it’s like this woman lives and breathes biology class, you know?

Craig: Yeah. Yeah.

Todd: Because her van is just filled with, bones and things hanging and cages of, like, stuffed animals and stuff. And and and the way that he does this, almost shot for shot, is almost exactly like when the woman stumbles for the first time in Texas Chainsaw Massacre into the bone room of that house. Sure. You know? It’s like close ups and all these things and the sound, and it’s all very played for very scary. I thought it was an interesting almost homage to Texas Chainsaw when he went in there, and I was totally getting that vibe which also made her extremely creepy.

Craig: Well, and there are parts that remind me did Tobe Hooper did he did. He did Texas Chainsaw 2, right, also?

Todd: Yep. Mhmm.

Craig: Yeah. He did. And there were parts of this movie that reminded me a lot of that. In Texas Chainsaw 2, there’s a part where the heroine finds herself in this big underground lair and it’s like this huge extensive underground lair and something very similar happens here where David follows his teacher, Louise Fletcher, and she inadvertently leads him into the Martian’s underground lair. And it was very similar. You know, these big tunnels, you know, some, you know, suggestions of, like, the spaceship, but it was also, like, kind of semi organic, and and that’s where he eventually actually sees, the Martian creatures that were created by Stan Winston. And these creatures, you know, I don’t find them to be particularly scary. If I were a little kid, I might. You know, they’re they’re kinda cool looking. They’re great big. At one point, David describes them as huge, giant, ugly, slimy, mister potato heads. That’s kinda what they look like. But they’re these big, like, pod creatures with huge gaping mouths with great big giant teeth and 4 legs. And I read that they really only created 2 of these creature suits, and then they did trickery to sometimes make it look like there were more of them. But the way that these suits were designed was that one average height person had to stand in it and walk backwards so that it looked like the alien’s knees bent in the opposite way of human knees. And then that average height person also had a little person strapped in a backpack on his back, and the and the little person would, aliens had these little arms that would come out of their heads and the little person would do that too. And the average height person was also, had, you know, like sticks or something that were controlling the back legs. And they look kinda clunky, like

Clip: Yeah.

Craig: Their movements look a little bit labored, like, you know, they’re not graceful. But they’re slimy and and, you know, they’ve got those great big teeth and, you know, they they kinda look cool. And then there’s the the lead alien or or, like, the whatever they the supreme figure, whatever they call him. And he’s just a a giant brain, and he he literally looks like the brain from was it Metroid? What was the video game from the

Todd: Oh, yeah.

Craig: It eighties where the the the the final boss was just this

Todd: big Mother Craig.

Craig: Brain that he does. Yeah. Mother Brain.

Todd: Or he looks like a little bit like, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The what’s the guy’s name inside the Craig? Krang?

Clip: Krang.

Todd: Yeah. He looks like Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. That’s fun. I mean, if you’re talking about the, fantasy of a a kid, it works in that context.

Todd: Well, I think well, first of all, I feel like these these large creatures, Stan Winston always does an amazing job pretty much every time with these creatures. And you’re right. They’re slimy. They’re gross. They’re huge, hideous teeth. And at one point, one of them ends up swallowing, our our favorite teacher by the end of it.

Craig: Right. Right.

Clip: Which

Todd: is it’s incredibly satisfying. But Uh-huh. They look better as a still than they do when they’re, you know, in the film. Because in the film, they they’re these giant pods on these tiny stick legs, and it’s hard to believe that they have any coordination at all to be able to handle these humans like they’re supposedly doing.

Craig: Right.

Todd: Like, they’re putting them in this machine face down so they can get this neck drilled. And interestingly enough, you never see any of that. All you do is see these guys standing around, you know, while these humans are already incapacitated or, you know, caged up or whatever, because I I just find it and at one point, when the military is down in the tunnels, one of the guys approaches, the alien and hands him something. And to even hand this alien something was an awkward enterprise where there was a tiny little, like, claw like arm that had to shoot out the side of it and could barely hold the stick that was handed to it.

Craig: It just Yeah. It was like the actor had to very carefully, like, stick it in his hand. Like like, the hand didn’t actually move or do anything. Right. I know what you mean. And there are other time you know, like, they’re these big, you know, like, I in my notes, I kept saying, and then the teacher got eaten by a potato. Like, they’re shaped like a potato, and you can tell that it’s hollow. You know what I mean? Like, when they move, the the exterior moves in such a way that you can tell that it’s hollow inside. So it doesn’t really look real. Yeah. But but fun nonetheless. Yeah.

Clip: Well

Craig: And and we’re talking about we’re talking about a remake of a 19 fifties b movie, you know. And I’m sure that in some ways they were trying to keep true to that kind of feel. And in those 19 fifties b movies, the creatures didn’t look real, you know. They they did what they could with the effects that they had and I have to give them credit that they were using all practical effects here, almost all. The aliens, the big mister potato head aliens had a death Craig, and that was some kind of special effect. But other than that, it’s all practical. Quite good.

Clip: And I really like the

Todd: supreme being. I thought the supreme being actually was a supreme being quite good. And I really liked the supreme being. I thought the supreme being actually was pretty terrifying. Except he he he just needs better bodyguards. You know?

Clip: Right.

Todd: Right. At one point, David just runs right up to him and whacks him in the face before, you know, any tentacle or whatever could lash out at him. Think this guy needs more security. He’s got his brain exposed right there. You know? Todd also like, it’s cute because,

Craig: again, it’s so childlike, but, like, the military is totally ready to go in and kill these Martians. And it appears that the Martians’ reason for being here is because we earthlings have been exploring Mars and we haven’t found life there yet, but we’re close to finding life there and they don’t wanna be found. Yeah, the whole reason that they’ve come here is to destroy the rocket that’s gonna be coming to Mars to search underground, which is apparently where they live. But Todd, at some you know, the the the main military guy is like

Todd: So worried, boy? We’re not out of options yet? Marines have no qualms about killing Martians.

Craig: And David’s like, well, maybe we should just try to talk to him.

Todd: Like, it’s so cute. And then he does. Like, he gets in

Craig: front of the Martians, and and he’s like

Clip: Can’t you give me my mom and dad back and Linda and Heather? This is. It’s your turn now, David Gardner. No way. Poor little guy. Poor little guy. I’ll fix you. You dick ring. What’s your

Craig: Which I just thought was so funny. Oh, god. There were so many funny parts of this movie. There was one part after David and the nurse. I think her name was Linda. They escape from something. It’s it’s when they’re in the basement and this great big huge Martian drill comes up through the floor, which inadvertently rescues them from the implanted cops. And their dialogue in this scene is just so funny. Like, Karen Black. I don’t even know what

Clip: They must be telling to go to the old town. Oh, they are. I know they are. We’ve got to stop them. Oh, They’re everywhere. So just get the hell out of this crazy place. No. We have to find my mom and dad. We’re not going back there alone, David. We need help.

Craig: Oh, it’s so funny, and it’s so silly.

Clip: But if

Craig: you if you ride that wave of this is all a fantasy in the kid’s mind, this would be, you know, what he’s putting her in the role of the damsel in distress and he is the hero. And so the dialogue doesn’t really make any sense and it’s so silly in a real world situation. But if it’s in the dream or in the mind of a kid, it makes total sense that, he would set himself up to be the hero and comfort her. Yeah. I don’t know. You know, in talking about it in talking about it, I’m sitting here with a big smile on my face like it was so funny. Really, in the moment, I was kinda I don’t know. I don’t wanna say bored. I don’t wanna say bored because I really wasn’t bored, but I wasn’t laughing out loud and it was really more kind of rolling my eyes. Yeah. And when and when I was laughing, it was laughing because it was funny, because it was bad. But that’s okay, you know, like it’s alright, you know, some movies are so bad they’re good and I I would almost put that in this put this in that category that it’s it’s really kinda so bad it’s good.

Todd: And I also feel like maybe in Tobe Hooper well, I don’t think it’s a maybe. I think it’s clear that he was intentionally, for whatever reason, trying to poke fun at these 19 fifties movies by putting just including a lot of the same bad stuff in it. Right. Involving the military in just an extremely absurd way. David’s dad, I guess, works for NASA. He just happens to work for NASA. And then, at some point, they decide that, David knows who can help, and it’s this general who’s played by James Karen. And and I freaking love James Karen. He’s been in a 1000000000 days.

Craig: You’re gonna I didn’t, yeah, I didn’t look it up. You’re gonna have to remind me because he was so familiar. What do I know him from?

Todd: You know him from so much television. You know him from, like, like, Apt Pupil and Mulholland Drive and, like, a ton of movies, but we watched we watched Return of the Living Dead. And he was the guy in the beginning of the Return of Living Dead who ran he was the manager who ran the warehouse.

Craig: Yes. Yes. I know him from other stuff Todd, but now that you say that yeah. Yeah. He’s good.

Todd: And he’s still working. I mean, this guy this guy’s they got over 200 credits to his name and he’s still going. So it’s it’s pretty awesome. But, yeah, you see this guy and you know him, and he almost always plays the same kind of character. He’s really good at that heart of military guy who’s chomping on a cigar. But, you know, the minute they come in to this base and maybe as a for as a military brat myself, you know, I was kinda rolling my eyes at this about how these 2 could just get onto this military base as the marines. And then as they’re going through here, there’s, like, big NASA vans, and they’re, like, loading things on these NASA trucks. And I’m like, since when does the NASA have anything to do with the military? And then, you know, like

Craig: I was literally gonna ask you that because I know that you have that background. I’m like, are NASA and the military connected? Like, are they sharing a base?

Todd: Like It’s so weird. Like, okay. You know, this is something, again, again, that would be totally typical in those b movies because they they never did that right. They were just the military were just people. You know? They’d salute indoors, and they have crazy ranks. And who who nobody no. They didn’t have a consultant on set. Let me put it that way when they’re putting

Craig: that Yeah. The the the general calls, like, his little buddy, skipper, at one point. Like, I don’t think that’s the right title, but cute.

Todd: And the general’s office is hilarious. He’s got this giant portrait behind him. And if if you look at it from one direction, it looks like a big imposing wooden desk with wood paneled walls and stuff from the background. And then if you look at it from the other direction, you see all these, like, eighties, like, room sized computers that are there and these screens that are showing the launch countdown. And I’m going, what the hell? Like, what is the why is in the general’s office is this massive machinery that looks like mission control for some launch. And, like, okay. So this is where NASA comes in. And so they have their moment where David explains everything to the general, and it makes too much sense to him coming from a 12 year old kid. But, anyway, he asked his his second in command guy to go check it out. What was his name? Re Rinaldi? Rinaldi. That’s right. I love that guy.

Craig: Yeah. Rinaldi. And he was he was cute. That’s him. Maybe that was just me.

Todd: I wasn’t going through my mind, but, yeah, he was a very attractive man. I just thought he was I thought he was cute in a different way. I thought I’d he was just like the side dog to this guy. You know? And he just runs out.

Craig: That’s funny.

Todd: He’s the guy who runs out the room. It’s like he’s like, go check it out, Rinaldi, and he’s like, okay, I’ll go check it out. And then 5 minutes later, Rinaldi comes in with, like, all of this information. Yeah. The kids’ story checked out. This happened and this happened, and I called so and so and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. It’s like, that’s all we need. Alright? Get them in here. We gotta stop the launch. And then Rinaldi comes in again. It’s too late. There’s, like, a truck full of liquid oxygen barreling towards the rocket. And so then they turn around, and they look at the screens. And there’s, like, a computer it’s a total eighties, like, computer 3 d looking image of this rocket. Uh-huh. And a total 3 d looking image of a this this truck going towards it. I’m I’m watching this with my wife, and she just burst out laughing. It was so funny.

Craig: Oh, it’s hilarious. And then it blows and then it blows up and, like, the general has this look of shock and awe on his face. And then you see Karen Black, and she’s crying like like that rocket was her baby or something.

Todd: And and suddenly, the room kinda lights up, and they turn around, and it’s like they’re staring out the window at the they’re seeing this, like, you know, like, there’s suddenly a window in his office, like, down on the tarmac. And I’m sitting here thinking, the minute they heard something was barreling towards that rocket, why were they turning towards those computer screens? If there was a window in there, they could have been looking out. Right. So but putting that all in there, he’s doing it for purpose. Yeah. You know? He’s trying to pay homage to these old films, but it’s so ridiculous, you know, in a 19 eighties movie that it it’s hard for me to get past it. It’s hard for me to laugh at it so hard.

Craig: Yeah. And it’s silly, you know, that then, of course, the military is just all on board with this kid and they send out this massive, you know, group of troops, go infiltrate these tunnels, which they do. But and then David is there, and then David Right. They’re with them. Right. And then David runs, you know, like, he wants to save his mom and dad. So he runs into the sandpit, and the nurse follows him, and so then they get sucked down in there, and then everybody’s down there, and it’s just cutting back and forth, and it culminates well, the the nurse Linda is, like, on the, I don’t know, platform or whatever where they get the injections, and like so they’re fighting against time so she doesn’t get her implant. And all of the troops end up in the control center or whatever where the big brain guy is, And they shoot the potato head Martians and, they shoot the brain guy and then the brain guy retreats like back into the wall or something for a while. And they they rescue Linda and, everybody tries to run away. There’s a really funny moment of the Rinaldi moment where Rinaldi has gotten an implant and he comes face to face with the general. And it’s so funny, like like, he’s trying to fight the influence of the implant. And so, like, he’s raising his gun, pointing it at the general, but he’s also, like, shaking, and then he’s, like

Todd: Don’t Don Rinaldi.

Craig: Shoot me. So they do.

Todd: Right. General goes,

Craig: Rinaldi, no. And David David witnesses the potato heads using their death ray and he sees that it’s fueled by copper. So once everybody gets away, they’re running and running, but they find out that the Martians have sealed up the exit. But they’ve left one of their death ray’s laying around, so they David’s like, we can use this. He’s like, it takes copper. Hold on a second. I’ve got a penny in my pocket. The penny that his dad gave him in the beginning. So he puts the penny in the death ray and, the death ray yep. Like, it’s like a video game. And the death ray works and it opens up the entrance or whatever. And then everybody again, it’s funny and stupid. You know, their first goal objective, obviously, would be to get the kid out of there. But, no, they’re all they all run out and they’re like, come on, David. Come on. He’s like, I’m coming. Okay. And his parents. Yeah.

Todd: Then his parents come come walking down the hallway towards him. David. David. Come with us. Come with us. And he turns,

Craig: and he’s like, no, mom and dad. I’m not gonna go with you. It’s so funny.

Todd: You don’t know what you’re missing.

Clip: Oh, yes. I do.

Todd: Come on, Luca.

Clip: Mom, dad, I love you. Please understand, but I just can’t come with you.

Craig: So he runs out and they chase him, and the, spaceship is, like, getting ready Todd, like, it’s taking off, but the military has also, like, planted these bombs in there or whatever. And so before the bombs even go off I don’t even really understand this, but, like, the the parents catch David. But before the bombs in the ship even go off, their implants, like, malfunction. Yeah. And so they’re fine again. Yeah. I read that in that scene when the sparks had to come out of the back of their neck, it set, Lorraine Newman’s hair on fire, and she didn’t even know it until afterwards. But then everything’s fine, and the shit blows up. And then we get to that twist ending where he wakes up and it’s like it was all a dream, but then it starts to happen again. And he runs into his parents’ room, and we don’t see what he sees. We just see his face, but we hear the potato head alien noises, and he just screams, no. And that’s the end. I don’t know. I mean, it’s cute. It’s a cute movie. It’s not a great movie, but it’s cute and I do think if I were a parent and I had a kid who was interested in this kind of thing, who was maybe the David’s age in the movie, 10, 11, 12, whatever, however Todd he’s supposed to be. It would be a fun movie, I think, to sit down with a child and watch. Because I think that the kid would be way more into it than I would be and I would get a lot of joy out of seeing a kid enjoy something like this. Does that make sense?

Todd: Yeah. It makes perfect sense, and I’m I’m right there with you. And I I as a kid, I remembered really liking the movie even though I can’t remember a lot about it. I did remember a lot of those specific moments. And I think in my mind too, I conflate it a little bit with the original. I think as if I recall correctly, the original was quite dark except for the fact that that that special effects are horrid, you know, and the alien costumes are super cheesy and whatnot. But, the idea again that that you’re a child and all these people that you depend on and you trust and you need to get through your life are now turning against you, and you have, you know, you have to figure out what to do is a terrifying thought. I would sit down and watch this with my son. No question. But I know I’d be I’d be checking my phone. I’d be

Craig: doing some reviews to try

Todd: to get through it because it’s just not compelling enough.

Craig: Because you’re a terrible father.

Todd: That too. Yeah. Right.

Craig: I’m just I’m just kidding, guys. I give Todd a lot of crap, but he’s a good dad.

Todd: I don’t know. It remains to be seen.

Craig: Yeah. I guess we’ll see. No. No. It it’s fun. You know, my my niece and nephew well, especially my nephew. Nephew. My niece kind of gets into some of these things sometimes, but my my nephew is not into these scary things at all. So I don’t think that he would enjoy it. But honestly, like, I I can imagine sitting on a couch with a kid and watching this, and I I wouldn’t look at my phone because I’m not terrible. But I can imagine watching the kid more than I was actually watching the movie, just to see their reactions. And especially if they were enjoying it, I I think that would be a lot of fun.

Todd: Yeah. I’d be curious to know if a kid Todd, you know, because things things just move very quickly. You know? Cartoons and Yeah. Movies and things. The action just really keeps going. And a lot of older movies, that we love for kids are like that, you know, well plotted. I think of like Goonies to be 1, and this one is plotting, you know, in many ways, even though stuff is happening it takes so long to happen. And there’s just so much going on after a while that, I wonder if this would test the patience of kids or if the subject matter and just, you know, seeing what’s happening on screen and being able to put all of the distractions out of your mind, because they don’t think about, like, the military is portrayed stupidly in this movie or whatever.

Craig: Right. Right.

Todd: That would, overcome that, and they’d still be able to enjoy it. It’ll be an interesting experiment for when, when Kenji’s a little older.

Craig: I think that, kids again, it depends on their sensibilities, but if if they were into aliens or scary stuff, I do think they could get on board with this and I think that a lot of that comes from it seemingly coming from a child’s perspective. You know, I read I didn’t notice, but I read that it was even shot so that usually things were shot from a really low perspective as though you were seeing it through the eyes of a child. That’s not something that I noticed nor do I think that kids would notice it, but, you know, on a subconscious level maybe that would work. I don’t know. Again, I don’t think that it’s a great movie. I do think that I had seen it before and really didn’t remember much about it, and I think that that says something about the movie itself. But we’ve definitely seen worse, And, ultimately, I I don’t I don’t feel like my time was wasted in watching it. You know? It it’s a fun, cute, quirky, little movie. Is it terribly scary? Certainly not. Is it the most entertaining thing I’ve seen? Certainly not. But it’s got some good things going for it. It’s got, you know, some great people in it, some really fun moments. So, you know, I will give it a a very half hearted one thumb up.

Clip: That’s kind of on its side.

Todd: Your thumb is on its way, I per se. Right? My wife, enjoyed it a lot. We watched it together. So, yeah. It just I think it just depends. Depends on whether you’re in the mood too. Right?

Craig: Right. Right.

Todd: Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this one, please share it with a friend. You can like us on Facebook. Find us there. You can also find our web page 2 guys dot red forty Todd dot com and see our whole back catalog. Until next time, I’m Todd And I’m Craig. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Jeepers Creepers 3 sprung on us suddenly last year, seemingly out of nowhere. With a limited release in theaters for one day only, and an almost immediate release on VOD, we had high hopes for this film, based on the previous two. Sadly, we had to join the chorus of mixed reviews. But admittedly, it’s complicated.  Major thanks to the many people who requested this one as we wrap up request month!

Episode 139, 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 wrapping up our month of requests this week and we went back through some of our Facebook messages. A loyal listener of ours, Megan had asked us several times about our opinions of the movie Jeepers Creepers 3. And since we have reviewed both Jeepers Creepers 12, we thought, you know, let’s go for it. Let’s Mhmm. Let’s give it give it a shot. And so we did. Gosh, Todd, I didn’t even write this down. What what year did Jeepers Creepers 3 come out?

Todd: Oh, just last year. It was just last year in, September, I think.

Craig: Yeah. That’s right. You know, it kinda seems I guess, it maybe kinda seems like it’s been out longer than that because it was released. They did have a very limited theatrical release. I think that they released it in 1 theater. It came out, on video on demand, and it came out on, Netflix and I think some of the other streaming services, and it was released all at the same time, which generally, in my opinion, is not a very good sign.

Todd: You do kinda wonder. Right? Like, you don’t what Todd they not want people to see this too much in advance before they Todd making their money back on it? You know?

Craig: Are they are they anticipating a poor return? Right? Who knows? It’s obviously, the second sequel to the original Jeepers Creepers. All three movies were written and directed by Victor Salva. And, we’ve done this. We okay. So we’ve done both other Jeepers Creepers movies, and we did, another Salva movie, Clown House, very very early when we first started doing this. And anytime that we’ve tackled, a Victor Salva movie, we have made a point of saying that, you know, Victor Silva has a sordid history. He was convicted, of sexual misconduct against a child. Obviously, we certainly do not condone that kind of behavior. We find that to be abhorrent. However, you know, we you know talked about it and we came to the decision that we could still look at his art and try to objectively talk about, his work, kind of separate from his personal life. So just put throwing that out there again because I know that there are some people who are very passionate about, you know, not being supportive of of somebody with that sort of history, and if that’s the case and you don’t wanna listen to this episode, turn it off, and I applaud you for your convictions. But we are gonna go ahead and talk about the movie and be sad that something ugly happened a really long time ago.

Todd: Yep.

Craig: But anyway, so Jeepers Creepers 3. I really liked Jeepers Creepers 1 and 2 a lot, both of them. I thought that Jeepers Creepers 1, as far as monster movies are concerned, was pretty unique. One of the things that I liked most about it was that there was a lot of mystery, surrounding the antagonist. And for the first half of the movie, you real if you didn’t know anything going into it, you really just would have thought that this was just some really bad guy.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And it was only revealed about halfway or maybe even a little bit further through the movie that it was in fact this monster with these supernatural powers, and it he was quite scary in that movie. Obviously, going into the second movie, we already knew that and so they didn’t waste any time, you know, trying to be mysterious about, you know, who the antagonist was, and we just had another monster flick. But, it changed things up, with a different type of ensemble cast. It was this big group of high school kids as opposed to in the first movie when it was just these 2 young people who were being stalked. Now we’ve got this whole big group of kids in peril. And so I was really excited, really excited when I heard that Jeepers Creepers 3 was gonna come out. And I had initially heard that, it was going to return to the story of Trish and Derry, the, 2 main folks from the the first movie. So I was really looking forward to that, and as it turns out, it’s not. Not really anyway. I mean there there are certainly tie ins, but not really. This movie went in a different direction and, kind of, at least not in the direction that I had expected. And I I have to admit that I was super stoked about it and I watched it immediately when it first came out. And the first time I saw it, I was so disappointed. I was just so disappointed, and and I feel like I’m gonna have to kinda, in talking to you, kinda figure out why, I was so disappointed by it. Because subsequently, I’ve watched it 2 more times. You know, one day it just happened to be on sci fi, on cable, and I sat and watched it and then of course I watched it again for this And with each new viewing, I’ve disliked it less.

Todd: Well, he’s really turning you around here.

Craig: Well, no. I mean, really frankly watching it again yesterday for this podcast, I was kind of like man you were pretty harsh about this the first time you watched this. It’s maybe not as bad as as I made it out to be. Now I still don’t think that it’s on par with the first two, but, I’ll be interested to see what you think.

Todd: Well, you know, I think this is always a problem when you do sequels is the expectations, you know, trying to match expectations, especially when you have a really good solid film and especially if that film is really unique. And we one thing that we said about Jeepers Creepers was we thought it was really unique. It was quite original, despite the fact that at the end of the day, it’s a monster movie. You know, they just it takes you some it’s some interesting twists and turns. It really subverts your expectations in many many cases. And it has a sense of humor, and a great cast, you know, it was great. And so, then, going into the second one, what are they gonna do? You know, we said this about sequels before, like, are you going to just rehash what you did the first time to give fans what you think they want? Are you going to expand upon what you did the first time? Or are you gonna take it in a whole different direction and run the risk of alienating the people that liked whatever they liked about the first movie that you’re not including in the sequel? And in this case, I think we both came to the conclusion that that second one was really quite smart in the direction that it went. And it still had the feel of a very original movie, even though it was, you know, a sequel to this movie. And so I think with the third one, that’s probably what you were facing, I think, is this history of 2 really original quality, interesting, fun movies. How is that third one gonna measure up? And could it ever, you know? Right. What direction can they take it in? And I would say, I think this third film follows in that tradition, I guess, that Salve has of trying to do do something unique and original with each iteration of this movie. And sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. And with this movie and that’s why I feel it’s it’s it’s a bit uneven. In some ways, I felt like maybe he was trying a little too hard, to be original by trying to cram a lot of different stuff in here. And I think the thing that makes this movie a little more difficult for me, and it’s one of the biggest changes from the first two films, is its plot line. In the first two movies, is is a pretty singular plot line going through.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: The second movie, there’s there’s a slight parallel plot, you know, with a farmer and and, his son and all that kind of on their own little but but but that’s that’s almost a sideline thing that just comes in at the end. Whereas, this movie has, like, 4 or 5 different sets of characters in different locations who all have their things going on. And we spent a lot of the movie bouncing back and forth between them and trying to resolve them. And what that did for me for this film is it took away the whole feel of the first movies, which were these just these intense creature flicks. People find themselves in this perilous situation. They’re increasingly isolated and they have to, you know, defend themselves or try to fight back against this creature. In this movie, I just felt like all of these little plot lines, the back and forth really bogged down the the pacing to where you didn’t really even see the creeper that much, you know. I mean, don’t get me wrong. When he comes in, he comes in, he comes in strong. But it’s like he just kinda he can pop in here, he kinda pops in there, he pops and takes these people out, he pops and takes these people out. It’s just such a spread out haphazard affair that you just don’t get that intensity.

Craig: Right.

Todd: The scenes within themselves can be somewhat intense, but you’re not getting that build of these these these people that we spend a lot of time with in in kind of a confined situation, that we get to know them really well so that when they’re put in peril, you know, we really get a a stronger emotional attachment. I didn’t feel like I felt like there are just so many characters in this movie that, and they were all kinda doing their own thing that I never got terribly emotionally attached to any of them to the point where there was real suspense, in these the moments when they are are facing the creature.

Craig: Yep. Yep. There you go. That’s one of the things that I didn’t like. I’m just gonna I’m gonna that Todd. You’re gonna help me tick them tick them off. You know, I don’t need to repeat what you said, but yeah, you just don’t feel any real connection to any of them and I guess that in the first two movies, even though there was a much larger cast of characters in the second movie, you know, they were all confined in this small space and they were all very much kind of in it together. Mhmm. Whereas this, everything is kinda spread out like you said. And again, you know, something different. I guess I have to give credit where credit is due. I I probably would have complained just as much if not more if it had just been a repeat of the first two. Yeah. That’s one that’s one of the things that I I and I I told my partner I was talking to him about this and I said I think that part of the reason that I didn’t like it is just that it just felt so different in some ways from the first two movies and one of the major things and again this just isn’t in inherently bad, but the first movies literally were very dark. Now in the second movie some some of the things with the main characters happened during the day, but most of the action and the scary stuff happened at night. And I would say that 90% of this movie happens in bold bright daylight. Yeah. And that’s fine, but it just it was almost unsettling to me to see this dark mysterious creature in broad daylight to the point that it almost just kinda felt like he could have just been, like, a truck driver. You know? Like like, he he he’s wearing, like, this red T shirt and, like, he just looks kinda like buff and I don’t know. It was weird. It just felt so weird and different to me. I kind of the I mean, the monster himself in appearance is kind of bat like and I just you know, I would anticipate that he would do most of his stalking in the night time, and in this movie it’s almost entirely just broad daylight the whole time. And I I Yeah. It’s again, it’s not inherently bad. It’s just so different that it just felt like a kind of a different entity than the first couple.

Todd: Well, and, you know, it’s you but, yeah, I completely agree. And the the fact of the matter is that this the the the premise of this of these films, in case you haven’t seen the first two, is there’s this creature and he comes back every 23 years

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: And he has to basically kill a bunch of people in order Yeah. To continue to live. And it’s really still kinda mysterious why and kinda where he comes from and all that stuff. And it’s still not resolved by the end of this movie that we kinda feel like in an intended sequel to this one, we might be starting to get some answers. At least Yeah. Some people already know, which is another weird thing I think we’ll get to also. Right. So that’s that’s the the idea. And so, with those rules, and because he’s practically invincible, he can run around in the daylight and kill people. And then, I guess, the idea is that people sort of forget about it after 23 years.

Craig: And Yeah. I guess.

Todd: But that just kind of when it happens at night, and it’s more mysterious that way, and people, you know, are getting murdered and things like that, At the end of the day, when everything’s wrapped up and you’ve got all these sort of this sort of incident that happened where these people died and you Todd really knew why and that’s kinda how it goes in the history books, you know. Mhmm. It’s a little easier to swallow than here is a period of time in this one community where people are dying everywhere in all these gruesome and crazy ways, and we’re getting whisked away. And then at the end of it, you know, because it kinda the story kinda wraps around. This takes place just before the sequel. Mhmm. At the end of it, we know there’s gonna be a big busload of kids that are killed.

Craig: Right. Right.

Todd: It really makes it extremely hard to believe that the the next the 23 years later, people are going to not be prepared for this. They’re not gonna have done all their research and kinda know everything and anything, and this guy isn’t gonna be in real trouble. And how would this monster have survived this long if this was his approach for all of the decades previous, you know, that he’s been doing throughout human history? So it stretches credibility when it goes into this territory as well. It’s not just less mysterious when you see this stuff happening in the daylight, broad daylight in the middle of a field and it is almost like they’re just doing battle against, like, a guy, like you said. But, yeah, it starts to really stretch that credibility and I found that kind of, nagging at me through the whole movie as well.

Craig: Yeah. And you you bring up something interesting as far as timeline is concerned like in in the series of films, this movie actually transpires in between the first two. And the first two happened within 2 days of each other. So all 3 movies happen within the time frame of, like, 2 days. And I’m just gonna go ahead and say it now because it really bothers me. It’s gonna spoil some things for the end, but whatever folks. You don’t care. You’ve seen the movie. We find out in the very beginning, and it starts out dark. It’s cool, like, oh, there’s crows and they’re kind of the harbinger of the creeper or whatever. And, the creeper, you know, chases some kid down the road and and he can fly so he not the kid, the creeper. He can fly so he, like, you know, swoops this kid away, and then we see a big machete fall out of the sky and and a hand fall out of the sky. And then it says 23 years later, and we go to a scene where the cops are checking out the creepers’ truck and it becomes apparent because they say it in the dialogue that, this is happening immediately police station, and Derry, the main character, gets taken away by the creeper and we see in the very last scene of that movie that he’s killed. And then he shows up as a spirit in the second movie. So, you know, we’re we’re we know the time frame and then there are little hints throughout the movie. Like, we see, banners. Like, there’s a hay store, where we go a couple of times, and where one of the main characters works, his dad owns it and there’s a banner for the something county bantams, which is the team from the second movie. So there are these little hints and little connections, but one of the another problem that I had with it is that we follow this one kid buddy, you know, he’s not really a central character, but he’s in it a lot, and we see him a lot and he deals with the creeper left and right, like, you know, firsthand experience. The girl that he has a crush on gets targeted by the creeper and gets taken by him at some point, but again, spoiler alert, he lives and at the very end of the movie, we see him get on the bus that then is going to be the bus that is besieged by the the creeper later in that day, which you know is kind of cool in that it ties the movies together and it’s kind of a wink and a nod to the audience, like, oh, well, yeah. Here, you know, we’re setting up for the, you know, the next event or whatever, but it doesn’t make any sense No. Because because in the second movie, these kids on the bus get attacked by this thing and none of them have any idea what it is. Well, was that kid just asleep like because he had just spent the whole previous night dealing with this thing. Oh, gosh.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: I guess it I guess it’s picking nits, but that really bothered me. This is a pretty big

Todd: nits though, you know. I mean, it’s a pretty big, I I don’t I don’t get it. Maybe somebody’s explained it somewhere online to make it sense. Maybe he maybe he they let him off the bus early in between. I don’t know.

Craig: I guess. Maybe he got sick and had to go home. Yeah. That that could be it.

Todd: That’s the only way you could really explain that away.

Craig: Okay.

Todd: We we we get introduced, to this, cop. His name is Danny. Now, please help me out here. I I don’t remember him from the other movies, but is he a recurring character?

Craig: He’s not a recurring character from the other movies, but, he was in Monster Squad. There you go. Stan Shaw. Yeah. Uh-huh.

Todd: It does actually introduce a number of these characters who are presumably previous victims, like, they’ve survived encounters with the creature. And so this guy shows up, Danny, right on the scene, once they have this truck. And one of the neat things that I think they they always they always introduce something new, I think, in each of these sequels. And in this one, I thought it was interesting that they really ramped up the truck. Like before, the I, tell me if I’m wrong, I’m pretty sure that the truck was just a big ugly scary truck that he ran around and threw his bodies into. Yes. But in this movie, this truck is like a tank that his custom built, it’s kind of a mysterious death trap machine that has almost a mind of its own, in many ways, or maybe the creeper can somewhat control it from afar, or maybe it’s just it’s just it’s sentient and looks out for his best interests, or, you know, whatever is going on. As they’re investigating this truck, they’ve, you know, they open it up, they see these bodies in there, and one guy goes in to investigate and comes out, and he swings his arm back to point into it. And there are these metal gates. It’s like a Spikes. Spikes that shoot down and, you know, slam shut on the across the back of the truck, and, hurt his arm or cut it off. I can’t remember which. And then throughout the movie, we see that the tail one of the tailpipes, can shoot out a really long spear with a it’s like a win winches it back, you know, across, like, a supernatural distance. And then, I mean, I guess we’re going a little far ahead, but it drops, like, these these landmine things that can, like, fly around and and get cars. It’s it’s it’s all pretty nuts, and it sort of begs the question, why didn’t we see this before?

Craig: Exactly. Alright, buddy. Like, you are just nailing all these things on the head the things that really bothered me. This bothers me, like, because in the first movie, the truck was really scary, like, it was really menacing on the road and anytime it showed up you knew the creeper was coming, and it was super scary. Then in the second movie, it wasn’t in it at all. I guess he just had it, like, parked in a Walmart or something. And then in this movie and, yeah, in this movie, it’s the goddamn Batmobile. Like, what? Like, I That’s so true. And okay. Like, alright. Fine. Maybe I can even though it doesn’t make any from a physical it doesn’t make any sense. Like, where do these huge spikes come from, like, out of the air? Like, it doesn’t make any sense. And and then it the bombs, I I think that I could’ve dealt with the spikes. I think that I could’ve dealt with the big spear that’s, like, attached to the wire rope that can, like, you know, reel people in. I think I could’ve got on board with that, but then it starts dropping these, like, freaking guided missiles out of the bottom of it. And, like, like like like, they’re these balls that it drops out and they start rolling, but it’s not like they just drop out and, like, oh, well, we can avoid them and just, you know, go around or whatever. But, no. Like, they are, like, guided. Like They’re just Like, they’ll turn around and chase you. Yeah.

Todd: What? It’s this it’s this high technology for the creeper. And and it just it just sort of begs. So and I think it neuters him in a way too, you know, because it was just it was cool when he was this big scary demon who had these powers. But he has even though he seems fairly invincible, he does have some weaknesses, you know. We’re not actually certain what his ultimate weakness is, but we do know that he can have arms lopped off. He can be incapacitated, things like that. But now that he has a truck that he’s kitted out with all these fancy features in some way, like, I’m just trying to picture him, like, in the garage, tinkering with this stuff in his spare time. Like, you know, what is is this what he does, you know, in the 23 years between, this kind of soups up his car? You know, like, I it’s it’s just kind of like it’s it’s not so supernatural anymore, and it’s it loses that simplicity. And once again, you’re like, okay. And and I guess this is the other thing that I didn’t like about this about this movie or a flaw that I saw. And I really hate to do all this nitpicking because I really do appreciate him trying to go in a new direction.

Craig: I I get it. Yeah.

Todd: More than ever before, this this thing just seemed so invincible. Right? Uh-huh. That after a while, I just stopped caring about the little battles that he’d get in with all these people. I just figured everyone’s gonna die because if it wasn’t him, it was the truck. Either way, it just he just he just felt too invincible in this movie. Yeah.

Craig: There were

Todd: times in the in the first two movies where, you know, he he was in peril and it was kind of they they Yes. Made except for one moment in this film where they really, I thought, went back to, there’s a scene in this movie where I felt like they really revisited sort of almost the comedic elements of of him trying to overcome his weaknesses when he gets incapacitated, Todd, loses a wing or something like that. You know, it gets kinda silly. In this movie, except for one scene like that, I was just like, okay. Yeah. He’s, they’re gonna run, but the the spike’s gonna shoot out of the car and get them. And sure enough, it Todd. And, oh, yeah. You know, he’s they’re they’re gonna shoot at this truck, but we’ve all seen the bullets just bounce off of it. So it’s all gonna ricochet back at them, and it just got so predictable. Right. And I didn’t care about any of the characters too much. So I was like, alright, this is gonna be kind of a high body count movie. This thing’s gonna be pretty invincible, and I’m just interested to see where it eventually goes with his severed hand and this whole side plot thing that they get.

Craig: Right. And we’ll get there. My my gosh, you know, god, we’re just rambling on and on. We’ll get to the plot and we’ll go through it real quick. But, yeah, like, in the first movie, Trish could run over him with his her car and that would really incapacitate him. Like, he he had trouble getting up. He couldn’t fly. In this movie, he can get shot with a military grade, like, tank machine gun at point blank Craig, and he’s fine. Like, what?

Todd: He just stands up. And or he gets creamed about supposedly creamed by a semi. He’s in the middle of the road and the semi comes barreling down. And Trisha’s car was not a semi.

Craig: Right. It’s just

Todd: a normal car, but when when he gets hit by the semi instead of getting crushed beneath it, it just like he flies back like defying the laws of physics through the air with no damage. It’s

Craig: Okay. So we’ve got sheriff Dan who, you know, is like this kind of presented as this, like, trench coat wearing badass, and he’s got, like, this whole posse of people, like you said, that have lost family members or have had some sort of interaction with the creeper before. And so, you know, they’re kind of on their little mission. We really don’t even see them all that much. We see Dan quite a bit.

Todd: That’s the other I hate to interrupt you again, but, I mean, seriously, like, I thought this was an element of the movie. Okay. We have this, like, special they even have their own patch. Right? Uh-huh. Little flaming skull thing on them. Like, oh, wow. This is interesting. There’s like a gang of people who, like, get themselves worked up over 23 years, try to figure out this guy’s weakness and go it. It’s a revenge vendetta kind of thing. No. They barely show up in the movie.

Craig: Yeah. Which is kinda disappointing. I mean, I I feel like if he had focused on that, that could have been its own interesting movie. You know, all these people coming back who had, you know, some kind of personal vendetta. That could have been cool. You know, maybe even Trish could have hooked up with those folks, you know, and they could have worked to fight the guy together or whatever, but they really just play 4th fiddle, you know, they’re hardly there at all. And then we’ve also got this old lady played by Meg Foster. Now I’ve seen Meg Foster in several things, and she’s always so recognizable to me because she has these ice blue eyes, like, these these pale pale eyes. I almost wonder if she’s vision impaired because her eyes are so so light, in pigment. And she we, you know, we have, reviewed They Live, and she’s the central female character in that movie. And she was big in the eighties, and and she’s just got this really cool look. In in this movie, they just have her looking like she has been Todd hard and hung out to dry. Like, she just looks awful. She’s so Sorry, Meg Foster. I love you. Yeah. I think that you’re fantastic, but, oh, man, time has not been good to you, or they did a really good job of making it look like that. Yeah. But anyway, so apparently, she’s got this dead son who comes back and visits her every once in a while and she goes out and talks to him and Time’s up. It’s coming back just like I said. Why? Stop asking. It doesn’t matter. You tell me why it’s coming here. Pieces of it left behind. They’re full of secrets about it. And it turns out that her dead son is, one, the guy we saw in the beginning of the movie who was driving a car and who saw the creeper take the kid away and who saw the hand fall out of the air. And so he has the hand. But if I’m not mistaken, he’s also the same kid from the legend from part 1 where they talk about these young people who were on their way to prom and, you know, were on this certain highway and then were never seen again. Mhmm. I think it’s supposed to be that same guy. She, Galen, Meg Foster’s character Galen, has a granddaughter named Addison, who I think is supposed to be the main character, but it’s so sparse that she’s really not any bigger than anybody else. Galen tells Addison, I need you to go away for few days because her dead son had said he’s coming back here. He’s gonna come back to get the peace, which we know is the hand. And so she tells her to to go away for a few days, but, she doesn’t. God. You know, it’s so funny in trying to in trying to talk about the plot, like, it’s so choppy, like, it’s difficult to even and because it cuts back and forth to all of these people so quickly, like, you’ll just get a quick scene with 1 person and they’ll to somebody

Todd: else. Yeah. Well, then we see Addison and we kinda meet her, and she has a friend who’s a she goes over. Oh, I was so confused, Craig. Maybe you’re gonna have to help me out with this, but she goes over to a friend’s house. She has a, an and and then they they have some conversation with a friend’s mother and all that, and they’re outside. And then her friend has a brother who’s a total jerk.

Craig: Kirk. Yeah. Kirk the jerk.

Todd: Yeah. Kirk the jerk.

Craig: Kirk the I’m so clever. God.

Todd: You are, man. Oh my god.

Craig: You’re so you’re so lucky to have me as your co host.

Todd: I think it’s just because you’re bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning,

Craig: you know. And I’m at

Todd: a disadvantage doing this right before bed at night, so it’s damn time.

Craig: I got you, boo. I got you.

Todd: That’s alright. Anyway, Kirk the jerk, likes to catch animals, and his sister accuses him then of of, like, torturing them and killing them. He catches them to kill them and all that. So we know that he’s, you know, not a very nice person. And then, we also get to meet Buddy, who’s the one you referred to earlier. There’s all this stuff. I don’t know, man. We don’t have to go through all of it, but it, basically, the way they’re all connected is the likes horses and she has a horse, but, of course, their family can’t afford food for the horse. They have a bad reputation around town or whatever. She’s getting all her horse food and stuff from Buddy. But Buddy turns her down because they haven’t paid their bills, but he feels bad about it. So he chases her back down the road and brings her hay after all. And, you know, he approaches his father. His father’s angry that, you know, he’s doing it. And so there’s all this, like, sort of like silly little drama here that kinda means nothing. But Mhmm. I think their boyfriend, girlfriend, or at least we’re trying to establish

Craig: They have a crush on each other. Yeah. And he’s cute. He’s this dorky kid with freckles all over his face. He’s cute guy. Anyway Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead.

Todd: But and and I’m all about it. You know? And, you know, we wanna get to know these characters. We we wanna, you know, start to care about them and stuff, but all of this is just kind of a slog, really, I felt like. What was the movie we talked about the other day that felt like a lifetime drama for most?

Craig: Yeah. No. We Cujo.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We said that was kind of an interesting element of the movie and here it just feels like a bunch of filler.

Craig: It does and and it’s just like it’s just introducing all of these characters so that we’ll kind of know who they are when we get to the action sequences. And so you I mean yeah. I mean, we know who they are. Oh, okay. Addison likes horses. Oh, okay. Like, who cares? Like, it doesn’t make any difference. And Kirk’s a jerk. Oh, okay. Well, he’ll probably get killed. So but, yeah, it’s just setting it up for these, you know, action sequences, and the action sequences are are kind of fun. You know, the first one, like, Kirk and his, like, biker gang find the truck, and it’s, you know, kind of a long scene where they’re, like, looking at the truck and pounding on it, and one of them pees on it. You think somebody could be in there? Yeah. It’s warm. Of course, it’s warm, you dipshit. It’s been sitting out in the sun. Who’d dump it out here? Who wouldn’t? Finally, you know, they they discover that it’s booby trapped, so they and they see the bodies in the back. So, they go to take off on their bikes, but the truck shoots that ridiculously long spear on a wire rope, and it it gets Kirk through the leg. And eventually it reels him in and some of the a couple of the friends try to help him, but one of them just the one who peed on the truck just takes off, and it’s really all inconsequential. It’s just a setup for the creeper to show up and he does, like, the and the way that he shows up is he comes down and he lands right on top of his truck and he is literally framed by the sun behind him. So, I mean, again, it’s just broad daylight. Here he is in all his scary glory or whatever and the 2 that were trying to help Kirk run off and and the creeper grabs this great big long spear and throws it at them, and he he somehow nails them both through the back so they get speared to this tree. It just you really have to suspend your disbelief when it comes to this guy’s abilities.

Todd: Yeah. And also, I don’t know. I I always feel like inside and I think I had this problem a little bit with the first two movies, although it wasn’t that big of a deal. I always feel like the physics of everything is just a little off, like, his weapons and things and the things that it does to people are just a little Todd, like, it it reels this kid in, you know, and they’re trying to pull it out, but they can’t pull the spear out of his leg. I mean, it’s this long spear. It’s I guess it’s a little barbed.

Craig: I guess, yeah.

Todd: But then it proceeds to pull, reel him in toward the truck. So he’s pulled up against the truck and then the creeper shows up and all that. And then while the creeper is doing all this crap with his friends, he just kinda sits there.

Craig: Yeah. You

Todd: don’t see him struggling against the spear. You don’t see him, you know, trying to get away.

Craig: You know, he just he just kinda

Todd: sits there. And later on, we have a scene. Oh, okay. We gotta do this in order. Right? There’s all there’s all the horse drama, blah blah blah.

Craig: Well, the yeah. The the next thing we get really is, the old lady, Galen. We’ve. She is digging wildly on the hill for something and what she uncovers there will be significant. But, first, her granddaughter, Addie, goes to get away from her crazy grandmother, goes with Buddy to deliver hay because that’s what he does. You know, all of this is cutting back and forth between these different scenes, but eventually when Addie and Buddy get to this place, it’s like this big plantation, the first thing they see is that the horses are running away, which they find mysterious and then they stop and Buddy gets out and he starts calling for people and he looks around and he sees that all of these farm workers like, hiding under the trucks and the guys are, like, go get help, go get the sheriff, and they’re, you know, vaguely saying it’s it’s around, you know, it’s it took somebody and, of course, Buddy’s like, what are you talking about? But he and he gets back in the truck with Addison and then the creeper shows up and he throws a truck in the air and he he’s, like, throttling 1 guy until he sees the young people in the truck and then he drops that guy, and then he comes over to the truck. And it’s been established in the movies, the previous movies, that, like, he gets his scents, like, set on somebody. Like, he smells people out and, like, he is attracted to certain sense or whatever. And it becomes really obvious that he is, into Addie. And so, you know, he just stands there and menaces them for a little while, and then he takes her.

Todd: This this scene bothered me a little bit just because didn’t feel their acting was extremely convincing in the truck.

Craig: Yeah. They didn’t seem as scared as I would have been. Yeah.

Todd: No. They didn’t seem as scared and they were, again, they weren’t really doing anything. Like, he didn’t try to start the truck. He didn’t, you know, whatever. They just let this creeper go into one window and sniff around. And then when he takes her, he flips the whole truck on its side. Uh-huh. And then the next scene, or not not long after that, we see Buddy drive up in that truck. Right. How did he flip this truck back over? This kid is in a daze, you know, because his girlfriend’s been taken and so Right.

Craig: Like, he’s in shock. Like, he can’t talk, but

Todd: He can flip a truck, you know Yeah. Back back upright. So that’s that’s impressive.

Craig: And and we’re skipping around, you know, like, I I feel like they were really focused on the action which is fine. You know, you don’t want a boring movie. Like, there’s a scene where the after, the creeper has killed, Kirk’s two friends. He is, like, loading their bodies or whatever, but then he smells the pee on his bumper, and he’s really mad that somebody peed on his truck. So he chases the kid who ran away early on on his bike and, like, so, like, there’s kind of this cool bike scene, and the bike, like, does this huge jump and then this the creeper just swoops in and, like, gets the guy off the bike. Like, just as an action sequence, it looks really good. And that’s the thing, like, the movie’s got stuff going for it. It was too bright for me and not only was it too bright, but it felt like it was really I don’t know if this is the right word. Tell me if I’m wrong, but it just felt very saturated, like like, really, really bright

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Throughout. And that kinda bothered me, but I didn’t even look to see what the budget on this movie was. But there was just something about it that made it feel Cheap. More cheap Yeah.

Todd: The other 2. Well, there were some effects that were really poor CGI. There were some of the explosion effects in particular of the cars and things like that that were bad. And you’re right, overall, it just kinda felt cheap. Victor Salva is really, really good at staging these action sequences. And he’s really he’s got a great, eye for putting some really iconic scenes and sequences together without doing too much, ripping off of, you know, other things. What you said there was really unique. I mean, that Todd the bike flying in the air and the creeper just sweeping him up, and some of it’s in slow motion and

Craig: Mhmm.

Todd: And and through all of the movies, I’ve all I felt like he had a real eye for this kind of thing, and this movie does have that going forward at least. The action sequences are pretty good. They’re iconic really in a way many of them are. And so, it’s that that part is kinda nice, even if the acting isn’t always the greatest, even if, like you said, some of the effects, I think, made it feel cheap. Maybe the fact that was all filmed during the day made it feel cheap, you know. Me. Like a sitcom, you know, everything’s brightly lit. There’s an opportunity to use light and shadow and, you know, do kind of these cool things that you normally see in a in a, you know, high budget horror film.

Craig: Well, and to me, like, even a couple of the scenes that took place at night felt to me and I don’t know if this is true or not, but it felt to me like it was not particularly well executed day for night shots. And frankly, like okay. So I feel like the other important subplot is that Galen digs up the hand, like, I don’t know, she looks at it for a second and and it moves and that scares her, but it doesn’t stop her from touching it and it it grabs her, like, she starts having visions. And and this was kinda cool, like, her eyes go completely white. They’re almost completely white anyway, but they go completely white. Like, the hand, like, kind of pulls her up so that she’s suspended in the air and she’s kind of convulsing, you know, obviously having these visions. And eventually, Dan and his sidekick, Davis, come and and Todd talk to her because apparently she’s a member of Dan’s group because she’s dealt with the creeper or whatever. Be careful. You touch that thing. If you put your hand on it, you see you see how it came to be? And why did he? So Dan does. Like, they make this big production out of, you know, everybody kind of surrounds him and holds on to him so he won’t get I don’t know what they’re not I don’t know something.

Todd: It’s kinda weird.

Craig: Yeah. But he touches it and the same thing happens to him and he has these visions, and I desperately wanted to know what they were seeing.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: But but we don’t get any indication at all. Don’t. They don’t they don’t say anything specific. The only thing that, Dan says later on is that, it’s ancient. Like, it’s really old. Like, oh, okay. Well, thank God we know that. You know? And that’s it. I felt like it was setting it up for a 4th movie. I felt like we’re setting this up so that in the 4th movie, we can reveal to you what it is that they saw. But it kinda pissed me off. Like, give me something. Give me something.

Todd: Me too. Give me a small piece or or make it so that some knowledge that they have is gonna be used to their advantage. At first, I thought he’s like, alright. You guys go here. You guys do this. He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like that, but I felt like that was information we already knew. Uh-huh. I thought, oh, yeah. They’ve now the 2 of them have seen something, so now they’re going to be able to assemble this posse to more more effectively deal with the creature because they know his weak point. But that really didn’t seem to be the case at all. Uh-uh. No. And so, yeah, it was just like they had the knowledge of him and who he was. And So you’re right. It’s just setting it up, and it had no bearing on the movie, and it pissed me off Todd. Especially, the second time around. Okay. I thought I was gonna get at least get this guy’s vision, you know. Right. And we had nothing.

Craig: Just give give me a flash of something. A tiny piece.

Todd: Yeah. Something I could piece together on my own or, you know, it would be smart. Preview the 4th movie a little bit. Give give everyone a

Craig: little

Todd: bit of mystery, you know, and get people talking about what what what could they have seen, you know, what what did it all mean?

Craig: Well, and that’s the other thing like I feel like going in and with this script and with the way that he chose to deliver it, Salva must have felt fairly confident that he was gonna get a 4th movie and I’m not confident he’s gonna get a 4th movie. Been in the house. This one.

Todd: They they’re, you know, you can go online, you can see some people said that it’s happening or it’s gonna happen, and he’s got a script and all that stuff. But if you I mean, I go into the IMDB pro page of him and the only thing he has in development are 2 movies and this isn’t one of them.

Craig: Yeah. So well, the the same thing was true about part 3 though. I mean, there was a big span of time between part 2 and part 3, and it was rumored forever, and they they kept saying, oh, yeah. The script is written. It’s going into production. It’s going into production. It took forever. So wonders never cease, you know. We we may get a 4th one, but if we do, I have a feeling it’s gonna be a while.

Todd: It could be keeping it secret, you know, especially with all the controversy with him, you know, that that caused a bit of of fury around this movie when it was announced and talked about being cast.

Craig: It always does. It always does. Anytime he is behind the movie and and again like I I get it. Those those people who don’t want to see him celebrated, I get it. I do, and I I don’t wanna go I’ve talked about it before, so I’m not gonna rehash, you know, why we have chosen to go ahead and do these things.

Todd: But No.

Craig: Todd. I don’t know. I I’m so conflicted about it because I don’t want people to think that in any way that I condone that. I certainly certainly don’t, but I like watching movies. So Mhmm. Anyway alright. So then, you know, there’s really not much to it after that except for the action pieces, you know, the the Todd, you know, Dan’s squad goes after the creeper and that’s where they find him on the highway and, that’s when we get the, like, you know, heat seeking bombs or whatever, the the guided bombs or whatever. And Yeah. It’s not that that’s not cool. It is kinda cool. It just seems out of place. Yeah. So this ancient demon is also, like, some sort of, like, technician, like

Todd: Yeah. When you’ve when the movie’s gone on this long, I mean, we’re what, 20, 30 minutes away from the end. Yeah. And they’re still introducing new tricks and things that are pulling out of the hat that this guy has. You lose patience for it. Well, you you’re not confident. You really know the rules and what’s going on. And so, okay, next next time somebody comes up across and it looks like they’re gonna win, he’s gonna be shooting lasers out of the hubcaps. You know? Like, he just it just opens the door to anything. And, you kinda lose trust in the movie at that point. I I did anyways. Okay. Alright. Got these bombs fine. Alright. Just get me to the end. I’m I’m curious to see what’s going on with this disembodied hand and what these people saw and how it’s gonna help them with the creature. And I’m just gonna accept the fact that all these contraptions and gadgets are gonna pop out of this thing when the creature himself can’t deal with them, you know.

Craig: And it it doesn’t make him scarier. I think that you said it earlier on, like, it kind of neuters him. Like, I wanna think of him as being the thing to fear. He’s a demon or whatever he is for for Pete’s sake, like, that’s good enough. Like, he doesn’t need to have a Batmobile.

Todd: It’s like a sidekick, you know?

Craig: Yeah. Yeah.

Todd: It’s he’s not even in the truck half the time.

Craig: Right. And he’s listening to the police scanner to, like, know where people are and stuff. Like, what? Like, that’s a very that’s a very human thing, you know. Like, I want this guy to be a badass monster. I don’t want him to have to get on the police scanner to find out where people are. Gosh. Anyway, so they’re on the road, and then there’s this kinda cool scene where the the young guy who had the the when I say machine gun, I’m not talking, like, something you could hold. I’m talking about one of those huge circular guns, like, on a big tank or something.

Todd: Yeah. It’s a serious gatling gun. Yeah.

Craig: And and the people, you know, Dan and Davis realized that the everything ricochets off this truck, which also doesn’t make any sense like they’re shooting the tires. I read some, trivia that supposedly he has reinforced the tires with parts of his own skin and that’s why they can’t be popped. Okay. Like, that there is nothing to suggest that in the movie, but if I’m supposed to believe that, okay. But, anyway, the guy with the machine gun, like, shoots the machine gun at it and all the bullets ricochet off and and come back and hit I mean, it’s but on its own, it’s a a a cool scene to to watch. And then right after that Dan and Davis get one of the bombs blows up under their truck and they get thrown off to the side of the road and then they face off with the creeper and it culminates with Dan getting behind the machine gun on this now disabled truck, and the creeper comes running at him. And he’s running really fast, and it’s it’s pretty scary. And then he leaps into the air, and it cuts into slow motion, and it looks fantastic. It’s awesome. It’s such a cool scene with the creeper, you know, just kind of with his wings spread out slowly descending on this guy who’s struggling with this gun. And eventually, he gets the gun. It it was jammed or something, and he gets it unjammed, and he starts shooting the creeper, and he shoots him. And so the bullets are going through him and, like, shooting out, I don’t know, blood or whatever is inside this guy, and it’s kind of coming out in these dust streams behind him. And it looks so cool. Like, if you did a freeze frame of any of the 10 seconds of that moment, you could frame it and hang it on the wall. Like like, it it it just looks great, but, ultimately, it doesn’t really amount to anything because they just, you know, collapse to the ground together, and then the creeper gets up and walks away and magic and magically summons his hatchet out of the guy’s face. Well And that’s and that’s that’s it.

Todd: Here’s the problem with this scene. As awesome as it is and the fact that it’s so awesome makes it so iconic. He’s drawing attention to this. This is a climactic scene. This is Danny’s badass moment. And we’ve been with Danny all since the beginning. If there as much as it bounces back and forth and stuff between these 2 care the all these characters, Danny is sort of the glue that holds this story together. You know, he’s kind of the one guy who’s like touches all of these little little stories and is leading the charge against this thing And has this, apparently, some deep background knowledge of him, which has been enhanced by his holding the hand of this thing. He has this iconic little scene. It’s fantastic. And then we see that, oh, his hatchet went in Danny’s head anyway, and Danny’s now dead. That’s like, what?

Craig: Right. If anybody was gonna make it to the next movie, it should have been him.

Todd: Well, yeah. And then even if he doesn’t give him a fight, like he had a fight, and then it’s like such a lame

Craig: He doesn’t I mean, let him go down. I mean, I guess in kind of he does, but let let him go down in a blaze of glory or, you know, let us let us see him put up more of a fight. I don’t know. I mean, the gun thing was cool, but, yeah, it just happened so quickly. It’s it’s kind of a letdown as is the whole movie, frankly. I mean and meanwhile, Addison has just been in the back of the creepers truck for, I don’t know, half an hour, at this point. And there was a scene where she, you know, she and Kirk were both alive back there, like, they were tied up like they were bodies, but they were both alive and they both kinda get out of their restraints or whatever, and Kirk gets killed with 1 of the booby traps. And then there’s kind of a new another scene where the creeper realizes that Addie is alive, and so it looks like he’s going to kill her and they struggle, and she uses the same I don’t even know if she does it intentionally. It almost seems like it was just kind of an accident, but, the same the same booby trap that killed Kirk gets the creeper too and this spike goes through his head. And I feel like this is the scene that you were referring to earlier. Yep. This is so good. It’s funny because his his eyeballs start bulging out like Jim Carrey in the mask or something. Like and then one

Todd: of them pops out. Pops out and falls on her, and she were I I I half expected her mouth to be open screaming and it popped into her mouth or something. It was just it was hilarious. And I actually really liked that part. I thought, oh, my gosh. This is so much like the scene. And she runs out of the truck, and then the creeper starts coming after her. But, he’s he’s incapacitated in other ways too.

Craig: The implication that I got was that because this went right through his head, it just kind of generally incapacitated him. I actually liked that because it’s the first time in the movie and it’s at the very end that he’s, like, incapacitated Todd at all. And so, like, he tries to fly and we’ve seen him do it before, like, he usually is just, you know, very gracefully swoops up into the air. And this time only one wing opens And we have seen him, throw things at people from 100 of yards away and just nail them with complete precision. And now he’s trying to throw things at her, but because he’s only got one eye, he can’t aim, and so things are just kinda flying around her.

Todd: He’s switching the spear from aside from shoulder to shoulder trying to get the the Right. Good eye to line up. I mean, it’s pretty funny. And it was this was really missing from most of the movie and this was an aspect of the previous films that I thought was so cool about them was this. He’s got a bit of a personality to him and he’s not invincible. But for most of the movie, he is and he has no personality.

Craig: Right. Well, and and then that’s the thing, you know, like he chases for a little bit and then like you said he gets hit by a semi, but he’s not dead. He kills the truck driver as Addison runs away. And then that’s it. Like, that’s the end. Like, she got away and Buddy finds her and Buddy and the grandma find her and they all hug in the middle of the Todd, and that’s just kind of the end of it. And, like, you I guess, you know that that’s how you know he’s not gonna die at the end because Yeah. You know in part 2, he’s still around and and killing people, but it would and it just kinda it felt like a letdown. There was no really any climactic battle, and none of the stories really got wrapped up at all. Like, ultimately, the whole thing with Gale and the old lady, like, it didn’t really amount to anything. Like, I mean, I guess it could kinda maybe pay off if there gets to be a a 4th movie, but we didn’t really learn anything.

Todd: No. And the hand thing is so nebulous, like, I don’t even understand, like, so that was that was a piece of him that was cut off. And unlike other pieces of him, this thing suddenly has the will now to grant visions to the people who who possess it?

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Is it is it on rogue, you know? And he well,

Craig: and he and the creeper is super concerned about finding it. Like, he doesn’t want people to find his secret and, like so then when he goes to find it where it was buried, he finds it, but they’ve written a big note that says, we know what you are. And, like, he, like, drops to his knees in agony and screams and all the crows drop dead. Like, what? Like, why? Why is he so concerned?

Todd: Well, and it and it begs the question, why didn’t he just go straight for the hand for the beginning? Why was he doing all this other stuff? Like, he wasn’t on some journey. You know, this guy can this guy can fly in and and does fly in and swoop in any work he wants. And his truck can power itself up and run around and take care of itself just fine. You know, why didn’t he just go straight for the hand? That’s what her dead son was warning her about, but we Yes. We spent, you know, an hour and a half getting to that point.

Craig: And I don’t know you know, I read this on IMDB, so pretty much anybody can contribute to that. So I don’t know if this is really canon, but, you know, what I read about, oh, he reinforced the tires with, you know, pieces of his own body so that they couldn’t be punctured or whatever. Okay. Well, could somebody go touch his tires and have visions? He doesn’t seem particularly concerned about that.

Todd: But he chased that eyeball down. If anything could give you visions, that eyeball should be able to.

Craig: Right. So and then there’s the little ending where Buddy comes to see Addie and they kinda are, like, oh, we made it, whatever. And then he and he gets on the bus. And I guess that’s kind of satisfying. It ties it to the other movie Yeah. Even though logically Todd doesn’t make any sense. And then it the end end is this voice over. We had a narrative voice over in the beginning that kind of did a little tiny bit of recap just kind of establishing or reestablishing for us, what the lore of the creature was that it comes back every 23 years or whatever. And then at the end, we get the narration again and it turns out that the narrator is Trish from the first movie.

Clip: This 23rd spring is a call to arms. We will not fail and we will not fear. My name is Trisha Jenner, and this time when it comes, I will destroy the thing that killed my brother.

Craig: So

Clip: come and get me, you son of a bitch.

Craig: We see her as though she’s writing this on a blog or something. I liked that. Like, I I I wish I don’t know. I wish there had been more of her. I would have preferred to see her be more essential part of the movie, and I know that, like you said, I also read online the script is done there, you know, she, the actress, the original actress who played Trish is signed on, but I read that for years about the 3rd movie too, and, it didn’t come to fruition. So who knows if it’ll ever happen. I’m at this point, whereas I was super excited about the third one, I’m far less enthusiastic. If if a 4th one comes out, I will have high hopes and I will give it a shot, but part 3 was not a good indicator for me. And, really, you know, by its own merits, if if you were to take it out of the trilogy and it was just its own movie, it’s not bad on on its own. It’s not bad. I just think that it pales in comparison, to the first two. And so it was a disappointment for me.

Todd: That’s that’s an interesting point. If you were to just watch this movie and not see the first two, you might have a whole different take on it. Well, you wouldn’t be pissed off that this truck can do all these amazing things.

Craig: Right. You

Todd: know, maybe some of the story, you know, between all the different characters and the back story would be intriguing to you because you’d feel like it’s it’s getting somewhere. And, you know, one of the things that I think and made the first movie good, but was a little frustrating for some people, I think, is that, you know, there’s no explanation, like, where this guy is and, you know, so little information, about his backstory, and it really gets teased here. Not if not a not not much, but at least gets teased that it’s knowable information. Yeah. I don’t know. I I think maybe if you did see this by itself, you’d probably come away with a better impression of it than if you saw it as as the 3rd in the in the series. But Yeah. I wouldn’t say that there’s a machete order, like, you need to see the 3rd one, and then go back and watch the first one, and then the second one, you know.

Craig: Well, you could I mean, you you could watch 132 and then they would be in sequential order and maybe you would be left with a little better taste. I don’t but even that doesn’t make sense because then why is the the truck is so pivotal in the third one and then it doesn’t appear in the second one at all. Like, I don’t know. There’s there’s just some inconsistencies, but whatever. It’s a horror series, you know, if we were to talk about any other, you know, look at Friday 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street or any of those others, there’s there’s all kinds of inconsistencies.

Todd: So and much worse movies.

Craig: This Yeah. So so maybe maybe we’re being a little bit too harsh on it.

Todd: But Yeah. Well, that’s our job.

Craig: That’s why we make the big bucks. Oh. Oh, man. Alright. Well, thank you for listening again to us. If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love it if you would give us some feedback or if you would, share it with a friend or friends. If you’re new to us, you can always go back to our website at 2 guys dot red40.net. Is that it, Todd?

Todd: Too close. No. It’s 2guys.redfortynet.com.

Craig: There you go. Okay. We also have a Facebook page at 2 Guys in a Chainsaw. You can look us up on Stitcher, Google Play, iTunes, all kinds of places. And, again, we we love to hear from you. We thank you all of you who submitted suggestions for us to do this month. If we didn’t get to you, don’t be discouraged. We will certainly continue to do requests. So, if we didn’t get to you, maybe remind us of the things that you’d like to see or if, you have any new requests, let us know. Until next time, I’m Craig. And I’m Todd. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Normally we would wait until winter time to review a film about Nazi snow zombies, but we got several requests for this one. So we decided to throw it up during request month. And we both agree that this one is even better than the original. Non-stop fun from beginning to end, with an original plot and a funny cast, Dead Snow 2 gives Shaun of the Dead a run for its money.

Episode 138, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: We’re on week 3 of request month and, we’ve done Cujo, we’ve done Def by Temptation, and this week we decided to do one we’ve been putting off for a little while. This is a request that came in from Carson and Francis and we think a few other people as well over the last couple years. And the only reason that we have waited to do it so long is because honestly, we prefer to do if if we get a request for a sequel, we kinda wanna make sure we’ve done or at least both us are really familiar with the original. In this case, we hadn’t seen the original Dead Snow until, I think it was, was it last year?

Craig: It’s been a while. Yeah.

Todd: It’s been a while. Maybe it was 2 years ago. We saved it for the wintertime, to do Dead Snow as a movie I had seen and Craig hadn’t seen. We both pretty well enjoyed that movie. This time around, because Carson, Francis and a bunch of other people, originally wanted us to do Dead Snow 2, we decided we would go ahead, even though it is the, hot heat of summer, go ahead and cool ourselves off up in Norway with the ice You’re so witty. I swear, I just come up with this crappy banter off the top of my head. So this is the, 2014 film. It’s an Icelandic Norwegian production horror comedy, by directed by Tommy Wirkola. And, we saw the original Dead Snow. The original Dead Snow, I thought was a lot of fun. And, I mean, I remember when we did it, I think, you did too. Right, Craig?

Craig: Yeah. I liked it. I mean, I didn’t I didn’t think it was amazing, but I I thought it was funny. It was it was, yeah, it was a good time.

Todd: It was just a goofball movie, really, that just kind of tried to to take the zombie idea to the extreme. It was a bunch of people, cabin, instead of in the woods, it’s out in the mountains of Norway of, you know, a bunch of college guys and gals who got together to have a party. And, Todd be set by Nazi zombies. Yep. Who are looking for their gold. And, And Dead Snow 2 picks up immediately right where that leaves off.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: The end of that film, they basically decide that the way to get the zombies to go away is to return their gold to them that they had dug up, inside this cabin that they had found in a hatch underneath the floorboards. And, it isn’t until about the end of the movie that a couple of the characters realize this. And so, one of the guys, his name is Martin, who has, by this point, been bitten by a zombie and sawed off with a chainsaw, his own arm, in order to keep it from infecting him. Runs to the gold, gives the gold back to the zombie horde, which is led by a general, general Herzog and, runs to his car and he thinks he’s gonna be fine. And and, as he pulls out his keys, a single gold piece drops and lands on the floorboards of the passenger side. He looks down and goes: Oh shit. And at that point Herzog’s face appears in the window. And that’s exactly where this movie picks up. There’s actually quite a nice, recap of the first movie showing all of the gross gory moments actually from the first movie. And then it brings you right to this point and, sure enough he ends up surviving this. He tosses the the coin out the window. He has a bit of a deal with Herzog in the car and there’s a chase scene with him, zombies jumping on the car, him going down the road. Finally Herzog gets, thrown off of the car, and taken off by a

Craig: Yeah. A big truck. And his arm gets cut off. Yeah. It’s funny because when we, did this before I had never seen the sequel and I it’s been a long time and I didn’t go back and revisit that episode, but I I think that I said or I think that I asked you do any of these characters come back in the sequel and and you couldn’t remember? I I really I I appreciated Todd, you know. It’s a mixed bag. Sometimes in sequels, you get recurring characters. Sometimes you don’t, whatever. It doesn’t really matter, but, I kind of liked that this was really just a direct continuation of the original story. And I thought it was kind of clever the way that they did it because at the end of the first movie, you know, it it kinda seemed like Martin was gonna get killed despite all of his efforts or whatever, but you didn’t know for sure. And it was it was kinda cool to see this quick recap, which they did really quick, and, you know, it was fun, like you said, all the good gory stuff and the kills and all that, and then right back to where we left off. This movie, you know, I’m not gonna say that I absolutely loved it. It’s a it’s a good movie. What I will say about it is it’s, like, exceptionally well made. Like, it’s it’s it’s really super well made.

Todd: It really is.

Craig: It’s a big budget movie. I think it had a budget of, like, $35,000,000 or something like that, and it shows. And it’s shot really well. The cinematography is fantastic, excellent special effects, but, I think that what got me, you know, on board with it from the very beginning was that I already felt invested in this character. You know, I I knew what had happened in the first movie. Mhmm. And and I think that they did everything that I would have wanted them to do with the sequel. You know, they they amped up the violence and the gore, whereas the first one was, you know, these 6 people or however many people it was in this cabin. And, you know, the first movie was very gory and and there was lots of fun, you know, action sequences, but this just, you know, broadens the world even more and and there’s a lot more at stake. And and so they got that right, and and they did a lot by, you know, inserting new elements into the movie, which I really liked. And and the first thing that I thought was really clever was you had mentioned that Martin had had to saw off his arm, for fear of becoming infected. And then in this first action sequence where, you know, he’s driving along and Herzog is hanging on to his car, and eventually, he’s able to kinda sideswipe like this big semi truck, and and Herzog gets, you know, thrown off of his car, but not before his arm gets amputated and thrown into the floor of the of the car. Then Martin, like, falls asleep at the wheel, and he has a car crash or whatever. But then he wakes up in the hospital, and, the doctor tells him

Clip: When we found you, you were hurt. Your right arm was ripped off by the elbow. Yeah. Yes. It was cold when we found you. The snow kept you cool, which was good. Do you understand? And so we found your arm in the car. Yeah. It was a bit bruised and pale, but the operation was a success. We managed to put your arm right back on.

Craig: And and he pulls back he pulls back the sheet, and it’s the zombie arm that has been reattached to him. And it’s hilarious. It’s a great gag. And so then it’s like he’s got, like, this evil arm that, like, is super powerful. And, initially, like, he’s kind of not in control of it. Like, it does bad things. Like, it kills the doctor and, like, beats up the cops and stuff. And, but, eventually, he kind of starts to get control of it, but it’s still super powerful, and it’s got these supernatural powers and things. And I just thought that was a really clever addition to the mythology of the movies, and I appreciated that they that they threw in some new stuff. You know, like, it wasn’t just a complete rehash of the first movie. And for that, I give it major, major credit.

Todd: Oh, and it and it’s an integral part of the movie. It is Yeah. It is so cool. You know, this whole first bit of the film owes so much to Evil Dead 2.

Craig: Oh, god. Yeah. Yeah. Mart the guy I don’t I didn’t even write down his name, but the guy that plays Martin, especially in these first 20, 30 minutes, is so reminiscent of Bruce Campbell. It’s hilarious.

Todd: He is. It’s the whole recap. It’s the whole fact of sawing his arm off. Almost even shot for shot at some moments. It’s almost a direct homage to Evil Dead 2 with the voice over and everything, you know. Right. It’s so cool. Then, of course, in Evil Dead 2, we had him sawing off his hand. And there’s even a point in which, you know, his hand comes to Iife and causes trouble and runs around and is a character all of its own. And so, in a way, you know, this aspect of the movie really amps that up as well. But it’s done in a comedic way. -You know?

Craig: -Yeah. -There are movies -That’s funny.

Todd: Yeah, it’s hilarious. And the whole movie is a total comedy. And when you say that this movie is well made, I have to say the writing is really good too. Yeah. It is. There are moments here where I truly believe it elevates to the level of comedy that we saw in Shaun of the Dead. Yeah. Yeah. The wittiness of the things that the characters say and the hilariousness of the situations and the quality of the acting. And a lot of it’s intentionally cheesy. A lot of it’s intentionally silly. But a lot of it could have been eye roll and not have worked if we didn’t have such a talented cast behind it who’s able to just pull off the comedic timing. And the line delivery and and all those little bits and pieces that are necessary, you know, to to to make something really funny. And I think that that it works on every level. I really do. There wasn’t a minute of this movie that I wasn’t totally engaged, and and on board with.

Craig: Yeah. No. It is. It’s it’s funny, you know, I I I can’t say that I was laughing out loud. I mean, some of the some of the the jokes I I don’t wanna say they’re hit and miss because they’re all pretty funny, but some of it’s like, oh, hardy har. Like, I see what you’re doing there. You know? Yeah.

Todd: Of course.

Craig: I was go I was getting ready to say it’s not stupid. I mean, it is stupid sometimes, but it’s fun. You know? Yeah. It’s it’s very tongue in cheek. It’s it’s entertaining. It’s a fun movie to watch.

Todd: Well, it it does this really cool thing of of making the excessive gore and violence almost like, actually, I was reading a review where somebody said it’s like a cathartic safety valve. Right. Where, you know, just when you’re kind of, you’re into the movie and stuff like that, that these these over the top gore moments are just so they’re just so out there, and in so many ways, they’re just so tasteless. Yeah. And in your face that you just laugh, you know, you just laugh at it. And it and it really, I don’t know. Just the movie, the pacing and everything, I think, is really well done. So Martin, wakes up, of course, like you said, his arm goes Craig. And actually, Martin’s in trouble because he’s the only survivor of this whole incident. And immediately the police, are in the room there with him in the hospital accusing him of having killed all his friends. And one of the people that he killed was his girlfriend accidentally. He actually did kill her, in the first one. He swung around, thinking there was a zombie behind him and actually ended up impaling her with a pickaxe. And that was a pretty tragic moment, in the first movie. In an otherwise really hilarious and silly film. And, that also, you know, that element of it becomes a big element of this movie as well. And, you know, it’s hard to know if if, the director, you know, Tommy Warkola, who who wrote and directed this, along with a couple other people, had any of this in mind, you know, when they did the first movie.

Craig: Right.

Todd: They thought, you know, oh, we’re gonna, you know, we’re gonna have to leave these elements here. They’d be good for a sequel or if they just very skillfully, I think, plucked these elements and said, we can carry this on into the second one. Either way, it really makes the 2 movies feel like a cohesive movie. Oh, absolutely. Not just where one picks up where the other leaves off, but thematically and as almost one continuous story, it just works.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. And they, you know, we’ll we’ll get into kinda what the premise is of this movie really quick, but, like, I just appreciated the fact that it does. I mean, it you could watch these movies back to back, and it would just feel like one real long movie. You know? Like, it, it it it it literally, you know, is the next day after, the first movie, and it’s just a continuation of the story. And I also just appreciated that, while they did some new things, and I really loved all the new things, they stuck with what worked with the first movie too. The zombies are are gross and scary, but, like, you know, one of the things that we found hilarious about the first movie was one of the big gags was that people’s intestines were all all the time just getting pulled out, like like, you know, like Scotch tape. You know? Like and and they carry that over into this movie, and they do it over and over again. And it’s it’s it’s really just kinda like a wink and a Todd. Like, yep. We’re still doing this. It’s still gross and funny.

Todd: Within the first five minutes this happens. It was just like Oh,

Craig: and it’s a it’s a total gag. Like, you know, the zombies will pull people’s intestines out and and strangle other people with them. At one point, they pull some guy’s intestines out and use his intestines to siphon gas for their stolen Nazi tag. Like, it’s it’s it’s just hilarious. But kind of I guess what the the premise here is is that I I haven’t mentioned yet that not only did Martin get Herzog’s arm attached to him, but the zombie field doctor also attached Martin’s arm to Herzog. So it’s like they traded arms. But whether he had this power in the first one and just didn’t have any reason to use it or whether it’s something new, but it’s new to this movie. Now Herzog can reanimate any dead person to be one of his Nazi followers. Mhmm. And there’s a cool scene where he goes to, like, a churchyard, an old, graveyard cemetery, and he punches the ground. And and, you know, like, there’s just this really cool effect. All of the effects are spot on. Like, they just look fantastic. And he punches the ground and, like, light kind of lightnings through, the ground, and people rise up. And he kills a priest and he reanimates the priest and the priest is now, like, one of his minions or whatever, and he can do that. And that’s really cool, and he’s gonna do that throughout the movie. It’s like he’s, you know, increasing his ranks or whatever, like, building his forces. And, as it turns out, we find out later, that because he has the zombie arm, Martin is capable of doing the same thing. In the beginning, it’s it’s kind of, you know, Martin is on the run from the local cops because they think that he killed his friends. And not only that, but he had been tied down, like, strapped down in the hospital. And there was this hilarious scene with a kid. And that’s another thing that I love about this movie is that it doesn’t pull any punches. No. Like, there’s this this hilarious scene where this kid pops up at the foot of the bed in Martin’s hospital room where he’s being guarded and he’s totally strapped down. And I thought for sure that this kid was gonna be, like, a sidekick throughout the whole movie

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Because he was so goofy and annoying.

Clip: They’re wondering if I can get some more info. More than just a picture of the arm? Who? What? The zombie squad. They’re wondering if I can get some more info. They’re experts on zombies. They live in America. They’ve trained for this for years just waiting for a zombie outbreak to happen.

Todd: So they

Clip: can come here? What? Just tell them to come here Yes. But right now to get the zombies. If they’re our experts, they can kill the zombies for us. I know. You’ve seen the zombies? Yeah. Because they’re real. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And Martin

Craig: convinces the kid, tricks the kid into letting him go. And then he’s trying to get and he’s trying to get out, and he’s, like, there’s no way to get out. And the zombie arm just grabs the kid and, like, throws him through the barred window out onto the ground. And, Martin goes out there and, like, the kid’s unconscious or whatever, and he feels bad because this his little kid. And he goes to, like, try to perform CPR, but he’s got the zombie arm. So he just crushes the kid and, like, starts starts pulling his guts out. And I’m like, oh, yeah. It it’s I I forgot it’s this kind of movie. You know, nobody’s safe. Even the cute annoying little kid is just gonna get slaughtered here in this first 15 minutes.

Todd: Oh my gosh. And as the movie goes on, we see, like, people in wheelchairs getting killed and just, like, infirm. I mean, it just doesn’t even matter. This movie is just gonna go to all those places. It it they don’t even care. Actually, it works. You know? It’s part of the charm, you know, of the movie. It’s just going to be that funny. This thing of the of the zombie squad, they come into play now. Somehow, very shortly after this, Martin gets a phone call while he’s in the car driving away from the hospital with the police close behind. It’s from this mysterious guy who at first is set up to sound like this hardcore, like, secret agent or something like that. He’s the head of the zombie Todd, and his name is Daniel. Daniel, I’m the leader of the zombie squad. We we tracked your location. We sent, you know, Bobby in to you and what’s going on, how is he, blah blah blah. Martin gets kind of excited because zombie squad, you guys are professionals. Oh, you’re gonna come out and help me. Daniel’s like, don’t worry. We’re coming right there. Daniel hangs up the phone and swings around and we see that he’s like a kid. I think he’s supposed to be like a

Craig: He’s this dorky guy.

Todd: Yeah. A dorky guy in an attic, above his parents house, I guess, with 2 nerdy girls. One of whom can’t stop quoting Star Wars.

Craig: 2 nerdy girls, but, like, you know Take off their glasses

Todd: and they’re hot. Yeah. Right.

Craig: Exact like, they’re both, like, models. Like, they’re both gorgeous, but, yeah, one has glasses in a ponytail, so she’s a dork. Yeah. And the other one and the other one is obsessed with, Star Wars, so she’s a nerd. And, of course, you know, these 2 hot hot girls would be hanging out with this dorky guy who really, to be fair, is a very attractive young man as well. And, of course,

Todd: if he didn’t have the Coke bottle glasses on.

Craig: Right. But, you know, like, they’re they’re very serious about what they do, but they all, like, live in their parents’ attics and stuff and

Todd: We we’ve been telling everyone for years that it’s just a matter of time before the first outbreak happens. And what have we seen in return? Laughter, ridicule, Wedgies.

Craig: I don’t know. It just it just works. It’s so silly. So silly. It’s goofy as hell, but it it it’s it’s funny.

Todd: It it shouldn’t work, but it does. Yeah.

Craig: You’re on board.

Todd: It’s one of those things. Like, you could have been rolling your eyes at this, but it just it’s so funny that you’re just willing to let it go. And Right. And, I think it’s interesting that one of the girls, can’t stop quoting Star Wars. That’s, again, almost a direct homage to one of our characters from the first movie who couldn’t just stop quoting movies.

Craig: Remember? Right. Right. Uh-huh. The big blond guy. Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. And, and, honestly, like, what she has to say isn’t really that funny for most of it, quite frankly. It almost seems a little forced. That might be the only part of the script where I just kind of, like, oh, she’s about to say may the force be with you. And sure enough, she

Craig: says may

Todd: the force be with you. Kinda stupid. But, in any case, these three characters are a lot of fun. And, I think also so this, like we said, this is a Norwegian movie. And it was actually shot, in 2 different languages. So you’re able Yeah. To see this in English or you can see it in Norwegian either way.

Craig: And I know, you know, I know it’s not like they’re the first people to ever do this, but I just think that that’s really ambitious. But at the same time, it makes me wonder. Like, you know, I I would almost I would almost be willing to watch it again in Norwegian with subtitles just to see the different delivery and stuff. Because, you know, you know, when it comes to performance, every time you you deliver a line or a joke or whatever, it’s a little bit different.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: I’m I’m sure ultimately, you know, it’s the same feel, but, I was just impressed that. And I guess it must have just been because they were successful enough internationally, that, it was worth their while to shoot it in both languages. And I’m glad they did. And I guess all of these people now the the zombie squad, I think, are all American actors. No. I I looked at them. No, they’re not.

Todd: The 2 girls aren’t, are they? I looked at them. I thought they were, let’s see we had, well, Ingrid Haas and Jocelyn DeBoer.

Craig: Well, they I I I didn’t look at them much, but I saw that they had both worked or or at least one of them had worked with Amy Schumer, and they I think both of them and I may be getting people mixed up, but they had worked on American TV shows like Comedy Bang Bang and and stuff like that. So I just assumed they were American. They they played American very I I believed it, very believably. But maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know. No. I might be wrong, actually. I just I just looked at those last names and I thought, oh, you know,

Todd: I mean, of course, you can be wrong, actually. I just I just looked at those last names and I thought, oh, you know, I mean, of course, you can I just I just looked at those last names and I thought, oh, you know, I mean, of course, you can be American and be Hass, you know? But, anyway, yeah. No. You’re right. And I think this element of the movie was kind of funny and maybe played even better for international audiences because they’re obviously making fun of Americans in this. Yeah. You know, there’s this whole notion, okay, here are the Americans. They’re gonna come in and save the day, right? Yeah.

Craig: Like, they

Todd: try to do all over the world. These 3 nerdy people are gonna go all the way across. They even make, you know, they’re like, Norway, where’s that? That’s halfway. That’s all the way across the world. And, you know, they don’t even know where it is. I think at one point after they get their first zombie kill or something, they’re all staying there shouting, USA. USA. Yeah. One of the characters in the background is just rolling his eyes.

Craig: Yeah. But, you know, it as an American, you know, it did not come across as mean spirited at all. You know? Like, it was just it was we’re laughing with you, American audience. You know? Like, we’re we’re we’re gently poking at you. And and I I thought that it was it was funny and and well deserved because we are pretty lame. Yeah. Well,

Todd: it’s also kind of, like, all the Norwegian characters and all the people in Norway, they’re these everyday people who are in this extraordinary circumstance and, you know, they’re trying to get out of it. It’s that kind of classic movie trope. Whereas, the American actors here are these this, like, dead serious crack team, you know, coming in to, like, swoop in from halfway across the world and save the day which is such an American Hollywood trope, you know. Yeah. I just thought they were kinda playing those two things against each other. I mean, both tropes do also show up in Hollywood obviously, but I just thought it was interesting because that is such an identifiably American. It’s the kind of movie we make.

Craig: Well, and I thought it was really funny because, like, the way that they set it up, you just think these guys are total lamos who, you know, live with their parents or whatever And, you know, they just kinda have this zombie club or whatever. But they say, you know, they’ve never actually seen a zombie. They’ve never actually done anything real. And then so I’m expecting them to just be, you know, kind of the comic relief, you know, always getting themselves in bad situations or whatever. And but then when they shovels and pick, like, axes and hammers and stuff. And when they walk out, they say

Clip: Todd be a lot easier if you could buy weapons here.

Todd: I know. Is the matter with

Craig: this country? It’s a total jab in America. It’s funny. But as it turns out, when put in action, they’re actually pretty badass. Like they kick some butt with their hammers and shovels and and stuff. And so you know at the same time that it’s poking fun they end up being pretty heroic.

Todd: That’s right.

Craig: And I like that. The other thing okay. So the zombie squad tells Martin that these are not typical zombies. They’re not just the, you know, eat everybody in their path, infect as many people as you can kind of zombies. These must be cursed zombies. And cursed zombies either you are, like, protecting something like the gold in the first movie or they’re they’ve got some, like, unfinished business. And they tell Martin, you get you know, while we’re on our way there, we’ll get there as soon as we can, but you’ve gotta figure out, you know, what their goal is. And so he goes to a World War 2 museum and meets the the the guy who is, like, the desk clerk at the museum is, named Glenn Kenneth, and he’s kind of this, like, gothy gay guy. And I expected him to just totally be a 2 second character, like, you know, a joke at his expense because he’s, you know, femi and gothy and whatever. And then he ends up sticking around for a long time, and I actually ended up like, he was my favorite character. Yeah. He he was the great character.

Todd: Once again, you thought that he was gonna be this guy who was just gonna get totally creamed. You know.

Craig: Yeah, just a gag. I just thought he was just gonna be a gag, but,

Todd: But no, he goes, he actually performs some pretty important tasks. He’s the one who rolls his eyes at the girls when they’re shouting, USA, USA. And I was really quite sad to see him go, toward the end of the movie. Yeah.

Craig: And I was really surprised, you know. I really kinda thought he was gonna make it and he does it, which is too bad. But, he he’s a fun character and I I appreciate it. You know, there’s not there’s not a lot of positive representation of LGBTQ people in horror or in cinema period. And this guy, you know, like, he’s he’s pretty stereotypical and, you know, you laugh at the stereotypical things about him. But, ultimately, he’s a good guy and and you’re rooting for him by the end. And I was I was really sad when

Todd: when he got killed at the end. I agree.

Craig: But, anyway, so they he at this World War 2 Museum, Martin figures out that when the Russians were killed, they were actually on this mission. Like, there had been there was some whole big story that he reads off this placard, but, like, they were supposed to secure some German ship that they were hiding, you know, like in a Norwegian port, but then the Russian army destroyed that ship. And so then Herzog and his, crew killed like, slaughtered this entire Russian army, and then they got orders from Hitler to advance on the nearest town and just slaughter everybody in the town in retaliation for having lost this ship. And so Martin realizes that that is now the mission that they are trying to complete. They’re trying to make it to this town, and they’re gonna slaughter everybody. And that also kinda leads to how Martin and his crew of losers is gonna try to stop him.

Todd: And there’s a tour bus outside of this, this museum out in the middle of nowhere. There’s a tour bus of people unloading, and about the time Martin figures all this stuff out, he looks out the window because they hear some noise, and they see that the zombies have already, advanced, and they have, started slaughtering all these tour buses of people. So, they do this this total gag where they pose as mannequins inside the museum while Herzog comes in and takes him him and his buddies, loot the museum for, you know, antique weapons and whatever else they needed, to go on their way. And I guess one thing that they grab is an old antique tank that was at the museum,

Craig: which is It still runs.

Todd: I know. It still runs. And I guess I guess the museum was holding on to a bunch of live ammunition that could be used with the tank as well. Right. You gotta suspend your disbelief for this point. But anyway, after they take off, Martin and, Glenn run out and see the carnage there. And this is where Martin accidentally discovers that his hand has the ability to wake up people. He just casually goes down. He’s like, oh, what a terrible sight, and tries to close the eyes of 1 of the, dead tourist zombies.

Craig: It was it was the tourist that had been in the wheelchair.

Todd: Yeah. And was it a man or a woman? Was it?

Craig: I think it was a man, but I was questioning myself throughout because it was kind of an androgynous person. But

Todd: Well, he wakes up and, you know, kind of like, as as the 2 of them are looking off across the car and this guy ends up waking up behind them and just kind of this is kinda looking around and kinda comes up behind them, and startles him and he runs around. He turns spins around instantly, you know, his zombie arm takes this guy out immediately. But then Glenn is like, well, did you just do that? You know, just like we saw Herzog do, you know, through the window. And he says, well, let me try it again. He gets down and sure enough, they wake this guy up again And then, at this point, they noticed that he’s not attacking them. He seems to be, like, kind of under his control or his spell. And just as they kind of put all 2 and 2 together, a giant cleaver goes into this guy’s head, or it’s a hatchet that goes into this guy’s head that was thrown. And they turn around and they see that the zombie squad has finally joined them and this hatchet is thrown, by Daniel from the zombie squad. He’s like, yeah, my first zombie kill. Hey, come take a picture, you know. Right. So it becomes this running gag throughout it that this zombie is sort of like their little puppy dog. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. They keep waking him up, and they put him through hell. And if he dies or whatever, they wake him up again. And, he’s more and more brutalized as they go along. But he’s jumping up beside him just like a loyal dog would, you know, helping them out throughout it.

Craig: It it it’s kinda cute and funny and, like, because he even makes, like, little noises. Like, he’s not, like, grunting and growling like the other ones, but he’s making kinda, like, little

Todd: Wimpering.

Craig: I don’t wanna say not not literally like puppy dog noises, but just, you know, little kind of high pitched sounds or whatever. Yeah. Right. And, it’s cute. I have to say, honestly, that by the end of the movie, I’m like, oh my god. This poor guy. He’s like you said, they really do put him through hell. Like, there’s like, they just take him along. Like, he just tags along and, they split off, the the 2 girls, from the zombie squads split off with, Glenn and they’re supposed to try to slow down the Nazi zombies from getting to this town while Martin and Daniel and the puppy dog guy, go off. And Daniel said he he’s done his homework, and he knows all about how the Nazi zombies or before they were zombies had killed all of these Russians. And he says, and, they slaughtered them all and they just left them there. So they are, you know, buried under the earth, under the frozen earth, preserved. So we need because, Martin, you’ve got the zombie arm. We need to go wake up them and then they will be subservient to you And they will want their revenge on the Nazi zombies, and that’s how we’ll take them out. Hence, the red versus dead, you know, dead snow Todd thing. But they split off, and they’re, like, there’s there’s just some scenes of Daniel and and Martin and the puppy dog, like, in the car, like, driving for a while. And but at one point, the car gets stuck, and they use the poor zombie guy as traction.

Todd: Right between his legs.

Craig: They stick him under the car. Yeah. Like the the tire right between his legs and it’s not like it happens quick. Like the wheels are spinning right on his crotch. It, like, he’s, like, moaning and, like, clearly in pain. I felt so bad for this poor zombie guy. I was like, you guys, he’s your friend.

Todd: And then they wake up right back up and stick him in the back seat. It’s so quick. It’s hilarious. It becomes, you know, it’s funny, like, how the first movie was sort of a takeoff on the old cabin in the woods Yeah. Kind of movie. This movie is a war movie, you know, through and through. It’s there’s this battle army is advancing and it’s this ragtag group of soldiers who have to gather, you know, encounter them a few times along the way and have to gather this, you know, alternative force to come up and meet them and finally do their big battle. And so it’s got a lot of those elements in here as well. It’s quite cool. He ends up waking up all these Russian zombies, they get there and sure enough, you know, they’re subservient to them and they look mean. They look, they look meaner than the German zombies quite honestly when they get up. In the meantime the girls are with, Glenn and they are supposed to do this ridiculous plan of distracting these zombies. And they they think that they say, okay, we need somebody who’s nimble and light on their feet, who knows these swamps and can, lure the zombies out through this little, this swampland as they’re marching across with the tank. And then as

Craig: And that’s and that’s what they do. But I I just wanna mention that before that, they witness these zombies, like, roll through this rural area where they are just killing everybody in their path. And it’s like they come across don’t know if it’s supposed to be a small town or just, you know, kind of a small collection of houses kind of out in the rural area or whatever. But, like, there’s just this 5 minute sequence where they are just slaughtering these unsuspecting people.

Todd: Children, parents.

Craig: They run over kids in a sandbox in their tank. They, like, they’re killing old people on the toilet and, gosh. There’s 2 pregnant or no. 2 women with, baby carriages that are, like, running and they just shoot the, like, the tank arsenal at them and blow them out, you know, into the sky. It’s it’s so funny, and it’s gory and gross and Brutal. And it’s It’s just so fun. It’s so much fun.

Todd: There’s a woman pushing another woman away on a on a wheelchair, which she realizes she can’t go. The woman pushing just leaves the woman on the wheelchair, keeps going. The woman on the wheelchair is trying to go forward. She just falls backwards, and the zombie comes up right behind him and just stomps on her head. I mean, it’s just so terrible that it’s funny.

Craig: Yeah. Oh, yeah. And it’s over the gore is just over the Todd. Like, people’s heads getting crushed, intestines getting pulled out. It’s blood splattering everywhere, including on the camera lens. So, like, blood is, like, spraying and running down the camera lens. It’s, it’s it’s great. I mean, if you if you like gore, I mean, you’re you’re in for a good time.

Todd: So after they witnessed this, the girls, decided that they need to, you know, do their distracting Todd. And so they have this plan, and they turn to, Glenn, and it’s like, oh, you know, it can’t be me. And she’s like Hey, Talvik is your hometown. Am I right? Yeah. You must have people you love there. Yeah. Especially one woman that I love, long hair and big breasts. Do it for her. A couple of these, like, a kind of dated, kinda silly, cheap shot. Oh, he’s we all know he’s gay, but he’s gonna pretend he’s not kind of jokes. But, oh, well. Yeah. That that would be the only criticism I kinda have with this movie. But I think maybe Todd, some of that’s maybe some international humor that maybe gets lost. I think in America, those jokes don’t really fly even in 2014.

Craig: Yeah. I 2014. Fair enough. But e e even I thought even I thought it was funny. You know? Like, it’s silly and, yes, potentially a little dated, but I still got a chuckle out of it. I thought it was cute.

Todd: So so so he runs across the the yard. You know? It’s like this hopeless task. I thought this guy was gonna get creamed at this point. Oh, sure. We’ve seen that these zombies can run faster than anybody, and they take off after him. And he’s just this one guy, you know, leaping and prancing through. It’s just a big field.

Craig: And he just he just jumps right in front of them. Yeah. And he just jumps right in front of them and is taunting them. I think he says something like, I didn’t know there was an ugly face convention in town. And then when they do start chasing him, you’re right. Like, he’s not overly effeminate all the time, but, like, when he’s running, like, he’s got his limp wrists, like, in the air and they’re right behind him. Like Yeah. They could almost just reach out and grab him, and they almost do a couple of times. And, oh, Todd. But it’s funny and and and the girls are throwing fertilizer bombs and taking out these zombies and it’s it’s it’s all it’s all fun. Yeah. It’s good times.

Todd: Cove. Yeah. So they do their thing and they they kind of get away and, the zombies train their tank. Finally, Herzog and a few men, hold back, so they don’t all get decimated. And, they train their tank at, at, at them and shoot them from afar. And whereas these 2 could blast away 2 women in prams from like half a mile away, they can’t seem to shoot these people, you know, from, the distance of a foot football field.

Craig: Right.

Todd: So they end up, running away, from that. But I guess they’ve accomplished their mission.

Craig: Right. Slow them down.

Todd: And then we just get a big face off in battle. There’s there’s there’s a side thing going on that’s almost hardly worth mentioning because it’s just a big joke. Yeah. And that is that the local police have been alerted to what’s going on. There’s a police chief, I guess, and he’s pretty silly. He’s total comic relief making all kinds of quips and comments. And he has a female police officer with him who just kinda tolerates him and who’s just updating him on it. And they always arrive on the scene after something’s been going on.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: And, what’s what’s going on? There’s just a couple dumb jokes about seagulls and things like that. Yeah. See, and

Craig: and frankly, I wouldn’t even have mentioned it because if I had really any criticism of the movie, it would be that because it’s it ends up being entirely unimportant. Like, they don’t do anything. Like, they just kind of show up every once in a while and throw out some stupid sexist jokes, and it amounts to nothing. You you know, they they end up just being in the background kind of watching as things play out, and it I didn’t like them.

Todd: No.

Craig: Yeah. I I I I felt kinda bad because, the the lady like you said, there’s the the one female cop, And she was, a very pretty lady and, like, it seemed like she was probably a pretty good actress, and they just didn’t really give her anything to do. Like, she just got kind of paired up with this jackass cop guy who, I I didn’t really find funny at all. Like, he was just kinda stupid. And Yeah. So yeah. They’re there. You know? They they fill a good minutes of the movie, but I I you could’ve cut them entirely out, and I would’ve wouldn’t have missed them at all.

Todd: Yeah. They’re just there to answer the question, like, what are the police doing while all the stuff is going on? Oh, okay. The police are in Apton. Yeah. That’s it.

Craig: But you said okay. So the hours in the the movie, excuse me, the movie is an hour and 40 minutes long. And when I see that, you know, I I like a good hour 20, hour 30 when it comes to my horror movies and the hour 4

Todd: about that. You’re low Todd 10 minutes over my normal hour and 30. Well, this better be good.

Craig: I know. But I’m but seriously, you know, a good 80, 90 minutes, I think that’s usually just about right for a horror movie. And, I see an hour 40 or longer. I’m like, better be pretty good. But this one, there were probably about, I don’t know, 20 minutes left, and it came down to the big showdown. And I’m like, oh, well, if we’re gonna have this big showdown for the last 20 minutes, then I’m totally on board. And it paid off, you know, like, Martin and Daniel, I guess, somehow, inexplicably, head these guys off at the pass, you know, in this town that the Nazis are planning to decimate. Yeah. And Martin says something like, we’ve already cleared everybody out of Todd. And apparently, that’s true because we don’t see any citizens around. I don’t know how they manage that, but whatever. But then it’s just these 2 armies of zombies and they just go full on hand to hand battle combat and it goes on for a good 10, 15 minutes and it’s really really good.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And and I read that, some of the or or actually many of the people who played zombies were mixed martial arts experts, And so they didn’t have any difficulty with, doing these kinda crazy stunts and and all of this fighting. And it’s just so fun and it goes on for so long and it’s just a huge battle. And there are different things going on all over the place. Like, my favorite, I think, was, Herzog and the main Soviet general. They meet up and fight. And and the the main Russian guy is huge. Like, he’s like this 7 foot tall guy, and they go at it for a long time and, you know, just different people are fighting in different scenarios all over the place and it just keeps cutting back and forth and it’s all action packed and it’s all gory and and brutal and and fun and, oh, man. I was just like, yeah. I mean, this is it’s a payoff. It’s it’s a major payoff at the end of the movie.

Todd: It is. And, then of course the rest of the of the zombie squad team join up. There are a lot of fun little gags in here, like, one of the characters almost gets, taken out by a zombie but at the last minute, our little sidekick zombie runs in and leaves on, leaves on him and takes him out. And just just like a puppy dog, and the guy turns and looks at him and says, good boy. And, there’s this point where it seems like all is lost. Daniel’s in the tank and he’s getting over, you know, he’s inside the tank trying to fight those zombies off and take out the tank, but he gets overpowered. The girls are getting surrounded. The girls Glenn’s

Craig: already been killed. Yeah. Glenn’s been killed. He’s stabbed in the throat. Yeah. It’s funny. He’s like, you know, they’re all surrounded and it looks terrible. He’s like, I’m just gonna say it. I, Glenn, Kenneth, am and then he gets stabbed right in the throat.

Todd: Like he had to come out before he died. Right.

Craig: Oh, but Todd, I and it and it came out of nowhere. I didn’t see it coming and I really thought that he would make it. And I I really was

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Sad. I mean, it’s not like I shed a tear or anything, but I was like, oh, man. I like the

Todd: cool guy. Yeah.

Craig: And what’s gonna happen to his 2 kittens? That’s right. Because when because when Martin first found him, he’s like, please don’t hurt me. I have 2 kittens. Oh, god. Anyway That’s

Todd: so great. Carry on. No. That’s fine. They’ve, the Russian guy gets, killed finally by Herzog, and they noticed that then all the other Russian soldiers are totally weakened at that point and they’re taken out easily, they fall. And so, that’s when they put 22 together that in order for them to live, they’re gonna have to take out Herzog. And once they take out Herzog, you know, then the rest of the zombies under Herzog’s command or whatever are just gonna die. That’s when they focus on, getting on killing Herzog. And it’s basically Martin. Martin runs up to him. He’s, like, shows him his arm. You want this back kind of thing, you know. And, and he and Martin battle, and it is an epic battle. Like, they’re They end up in a house. And because Martin has the superpowered arm, and Herzog is a superpowered guy, they’re, like, literally, like, throwing each other through the walls from room to room in this house. And it is a fantastic battle sequence. It’s fantastic.

Craig: Yeah. And I I like it when they, you know, when they first, like, come face to face, and Martin says to him, don’t you just hate it when someone who’s supposed to be dead come back to kill you? Like, just there are so many good little one liners, good little jokes. But, yeah, that that fight is great. And, like, like you said, they’re throwing each other through walls and stuff, and at one point, Herzog grabs Martin by the head and puts his face down on a hot burner on the stove. Like, it’s it’s brutal. But eventually, you know, again, in this moment where everything culminates and it seems like everything is lost, the tank comes busting through, and it’s it’s just running willy nilly, like nobody’s at the helm or anything. And it comes busting through the house, and both Martin and Herzog end up on it. And so then they’re continuing their fight on there, and then that kind of leads up to the final showdown, which, I was really pleased with. You know, I I was really pleased with the way it went

Todd: down. Yeah. Martin gets tossed onto a car and the tank comes to a screeching halt and Herzog is standing over Martin and approaching him. But at this point, inside the tank, Daniel, has gained control. And, the 2 zombies in there are dead. And so, unbeknownst to Herzog, he spins the the turret of the tank around right behind Herzog’s head. And Martin has a funny line here.

Craig: He’s got like a whole monologue about, You know, he says, why didn’t you just stay on the mountain? It’s because you got greedy, isn’t it? And he he says, you know, that’s I liked it. You know, it’s it’s really clever. You know, he’s like, that’s why you lost the war. And he says, you knew that. Right? You lost. You guys lost, and it’s because you got greedy. And then he says, and you’re about to lose again. And then Daniel, blows Herzog’s head off. I mean, like, it’s point blank, like, this huge tank gun, right behind Herzog and he blows his head off. And then just as they had anticipated all of the Nazi zombies fall down dead and they won. Yeah. And, Martin survived. He looks terrible, but he he survived and you know, he’s like spitting up blood and stuff. And Daniel at one point had been stabbed, but he’s okay and the girls are okay and they kinda have a little moment where they acknowledge that Glenn didn’t make it and they’re sad. And I don’t know who says it first, but Martin and the zombie squad say to each other, it’s really been an honor to fight zombies with you. Mhmm. And and then they just kinda go their own way.

Todd: It’s just it’s just classic war movie, you know. It really is. It’s just so funny. And they leave, and then you think the movie’s about over, but Martin’s got one last task to do.

Craig: Yeah. This this part, I mean, I I appreciate it. I I think that it’s clever, but Oh, it’s clever. I’m so gross. It’s gross. It’s hard

Todd: to watch, but it does answer the question, if you had an arm that could raise the dead again, what would you do with it? And of

Craig: And I knew I knew what was gonna happen because it shows Martin driving and in the background, the song that’s playing is Total Eclipse of the Heart. And that was from the first movie. Right? Like, wasn’t that, like, his girlfriend’s favorite song? Oh, you’re right. I’m pretty sure. I’m pretty sure it was. Yeah. So, anyway, you say it because it’s kinda gross. I’m like, oh, I don’t wanna

Todd: say it. Oh my god. Okay. Okay. So he drives to church. He finds his girlfriend’s grave. He digs her up, wakes her to life. And, of course, she’s a gross zombie, but then they start making out. And it culminates in them actually, like, screwing in the back of

Craig: a truck. Complete with the whole, like, Titanic hand on the steamy window. Oh, god. That’s so disgusting. Like, it whatever is going on in there, like, yeah. They’re banging, but there’s it could it could be that they were like like, she was eating him. Like, it it sounds very exciting and and rough and Yeah. There’s lots of noises. And then, you see the pet zombie approaching like he’s found his master, and he’s like, oh. But so gross. Like, I Todd yeah. Like, you’re right. Yes. You know, if you had the power to reanimate dead people, surely it would cross your mind, but it’s disgusting.

Todd: Not in this way.

Craig: No. And and went like, he opens it up and she’s gross. Like, she’s all decomposed and, like, she’s one of the nastier Did you did you stay for

Todd: the end of the credits?

Craig: I did. I figured there would this this is the type of movie that you just figure that there will be a post Craig scene. So, I I scrolled through my browser and saw that there was gonna be one, and I saw that there was. So Yeah.

Todd: It’s It’s just a simple deal where the Nazi zombie, doctor the Nazi doctor zombie is in the woods, and he picks up Herzog’s head, which should be in a 1000000 pieces, but we’re supposed to be. We’re just blown across the the the countryside, and as he picks up the his head, the thing’s eyes open. So, you know, leaving it open for a sequel that hasn’t been announced and, I don’t know, 4 years later may not happen.

Craig: Probably not. And and, you know, like, whatever. It’s Yeah. It’s a goofy it’s a goofy zombie horror movie, and so I’m not gonna pick nits. But, like, the it really doesn’t make any sense. Like, if all of the other Nazi zombies fell over dead when Herzog got killed, why didn’t the field doctor Nazi zombie fall over dead? Yeah. Or if he wasn’t really dead, why did any of them fall

Todd: over? Fall over.

Craig: Like yeah. It’s it’s stupid, but whatever. You know, like, great. Leave it open for a sequel. And in fact, if they made Dead Snow 3, I’d probably watch it. Oh, for sure. It’d have

Todd: to be pretty darn good, though. I mean, this is a good one. I mean, this is a not disappointing sequel at all.

Craig: Agreed. Yeah. Oh, I would say that this might be one of those few examples where the sequel probably is better than the first movie. Now I for sure liked the first movie, but it was kind of limited in scope and this one just really opens it up to a whole another level of opportunities. Yeah. And and the first one was funny and the first one was gory and gross and I really liked it and I thought it was really good. I thought it was worthy of a sequel and and I think that this sequel is at least as good as the first one if not better than the first one.

Todd: Oh, it’s better. I mean, it’s not as derivative. Of course, being derivative was kind of the whole point of the original. It’s more of an homage, really. But, you know, this one was just way more original

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: I thought because it had that it had that luxury of, you know, really being able to take it in whatever direction it wanted. And, I thought it very much succeeded in that. I’m really disappointed, honestly, to see that Tommy Ricola doesn’t seem to be doing a whole lot right now. He’s got something some new project that was announced called Hansel and Gretel witch hunters 2, which doesn’t sound I didn’t even know there was a witch hunters 1.

Craig: Yeah. Neither.

Todd: You know, and aside from that, he’s in preproduction on a movie called War Pigs. I don’t know. We’ll be interested to see what that’s like. But at any rate, what a fun movie. What a really fun movie. And I’m glad we didn’t wait until, the wintertime, which we would normally do.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. Good good good suggestion, those folks who, recommended this one. I I get it. I I see now why we had several requests for this one. It makes sense. It was a fun one to watch. It was a fun one to talk about.

Todd: Well, thanks again for joining us for another episode. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. You can find us on Facebook. You can also find our website, 2 guys.redfortynet.com. Leave us a comment there. Give us more requests. We have at least, one more request coming up this, for request month. And, of course, we do request throughout the year. If you go to our website also, you can also find the occasional written reviews of films as well as our entire back catalog. Until next week, I’m Todd And

Craig: I’m Craig.

Todd: With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Request month continues with this early 90’s (and it shows) film with an all-African-American cast and crew, produced by Troma, and featuring Samuel Jackson and Kadeem Hardison from A Different World. It may be a bit plodding, but at least it plods with some style.

Episode 137, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, we continue our request month. We did Cujo last week. And this week, we got a request for a movie that I’ve actually been wanting us to do for quite a while. It is a film that I actually purchased on DVD years years ago with the intent to see it, never did. And then, before our last move, I got rid of about half of our DVD collection. I’m pretty sure this went with it. So, I was really happy when, our loyal listener, Gilly, recommended to us Death by Temptation, which, you know, if it’s it’s it’s actually a trauma produced movie, although it’s not really. The film is distributed by trauma, and it actually was released in 1990. But in in actuality, it’s it wasn’t you know, most of the trauma movies are not just produced, but, also, oftentimes, the scripts are made by or they’re sponsored by or they had some influence of Lloyd Coughlin and Michael Hertz, who are the, the Troma heads. And in this case, all they really did was provide money to finish the movie. They provided money for post production, some post production services for editing and whatnot and then released and distributed the movie. And, Lloyd Kaufman, in the intro to the DVD, says that this may be Troma’s best film that they’ve ever released. Now, I don’t think so, but, it’s definitely not one of their typical films. Meaning, it takes itself a lot more seriously than most of their other movies, and its quality is, well, it’s not a high quality film, it’s definitely much better than most of what trauma puts out Todd be quite frank. I’ll just put that out there right now. But, anyway, it’s definitely a product of its time. Craig, had you even heard of this movie before?

Craig: Nope. Never even heard of it.

Todd: Because you know I’m a big trauma nut. So this is Yeah.

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t know. Like, I know that you talk about, trauma a lot. And I, I I guess I’ve never really seen a Trauma film. I I can’t believe we’ve been doing this for, I don’t know what, 2 years or 3? Yeah. Mhmm. Oh, gosh. And and we’ve never watched 1, and now I can’t say that I’m particularly enthused to watch more.

Clip: Yeah. Especially especially if this is

Craig: a high quality one. Well,

Todd: absolutely. Like I said, this isn’t even though it’s distributed Todd quote, unquote produced by Trauma, it is not at all in any way, shape, or form really indicative of a Trauma movie. It’s really not. It doesn’t have their hallmark craziness to it. Right. It came out in 1990, and it’s really an attempt, I think, to, update the Blacula or, you know, if you will Right.

Craig: For the

Todd: modern day at the time. I think it was a couple years after this actually that Bram Stoker’s Dracula came out, which was, you know, another one of these update Dracula attempts. Sure. That was quite popular and very successful and well, I think pretty well regarded even today. Oh, yeah. This movie pretty much, fell the radar. I was reading online that its budget was about 5,000,000 and it probably made in its whole run a little bit over half of that back. So it wasn’t unsuccessful. It had a limited release in the theaters. I think it was originally called Temptation. And then in effort to, I think, highlight the quote unquote blackness of the movie, they added deaf buy to it. That’s d e f, you know. This is a real Right. Late eighties nineties term. And, it doesn’t even make sense really death by temptation, but

Craig: No.

Todd: In any sense, though, unlike most trauma films also, this movie has a complete cast of Screen Actors Guild members. I mean, there’s there aren’t really many amateurs in this bunch. All of them have some professional credit or work in the industry. You actually see quite a few familiar faces. One of them, who is touted on the cover of the DVD, is Samuel Jackson. And, this is one of his, I don’t know, you know, he had a lot of movies before this and a lot of movies after this, but he ended up in this movie as well along with a lot of even some singers of the time. Some soul singers and some musicians make brief cameos in this movie. And most of them not as singers or musicians, but you know, legitimate roles are just Right. Blink and you miss some kind of people in the background, and contributed songs to the soundtrack. For example, Melba Moore, a singer really popular in the seventies, had quite a few hits. She plays a medium in this movie and that might I I I definitely was her first film role. She was on TV, on a number of episodes of different things before this, but I believe this was her first feature film role. The singer Freddie Jackson, he’s in it, but just again, just kind of a background guy. Both of them contributed songs to the soundtrack. And then, our saxophone player who’s all in shadow here is a guy named Natje and, he’s a pretty famous jazz saxist amongst those who are interested in slow jazz kind of stuff. Right. So, yeah. And then, guys in here like Kadeem Hardison from A Different World.

Craig: Yeah. He’s Dwayne Wayne. Yeah.

Todd: Totally in this movie, you know, he’s one of the stars. The other star of the film, I guess, the his co star would be the guy who wrote and directed this movie. James Bond the third. And, although this guy, had done some TV work before this and a little bit of producing after this, this is the only movie he’s ever done. And that’s probably for good reason.

Craig: Yeah. You know, it’s funny because I kept, like, as we were watching it, I didn’t do any research before watching this at all. Like, I, you know, I had just gotten home from vacation. I was tired. I frankly, I wasn’t even all that stoked to watch this movie. And so I just, you know, I sat down and I put it on. I didn’t look into it at all. And as I was watching it, I kept thinking, how did this guy get in this movie? And how did he score the lead? And then after, you know, we watch or I watched it or whatever, I looked it up, and I was like, oh, well, he wrote, directed, and produced it.

Clip: So I guess I guess that’s how you

Craig: He’s that’s how you land the lead if you really want one.

Todd: I guess, and he’s arguably the lousiest, you know, actor in the film, I would say. Yeah. So, you know, that there’s something. I mean, there’s no excuse when you’re the director. You can’t blame it on the directing, can you? Right. Or the writing when you’re putting your own words in your mouth. Yeah. And and Bill Nunn, is in this too. He’s a very familiar face. He was in, Radio Raheem in in Do the Right Thing, just all over television and movies, just all over it. And I think he, he died a couple years ago, actually.

Craig: Oh, I didn’t know that. It’s too bad. Yeah. I recognized him right away and it took me a while, like, I couldn’t figure out who he was and I finally went on. I mean, he was so familiar. I knew I had seen him in things And I, finally, you know, looked him up and I don’t know what this says about me, but, what I recognized him from was Sister Act 2. Oh, yeah.

Clip: For sure.

Craig: He was the big he was the big friendly cop in, Sister Act too.

Todd: I think he was in all the Spider Man movies too. Like, the the

Craig: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Todd: The Tobey Maguire ones. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So oh, he’s all over all over film and and television. So, he’s in this movie. He has a pretty big role as well. So, I think this is already extremely atypical for a trauma production, which are usually non union pictures. A lot of people have come through the trauma shop sort of like Roger Corman. I wouldn’t equate trauma with with Roger Corman, but, in many ways, like, people like James Gunn. Right? The director who’s been in the news lately, especially, but who did Guardians of the Galaxy and then quite a few good movies. He came up through trauma writing and directing for them. His brother got his first acting roles in the in those movies as well. So quite a few people, got their start. Oh, and and Trey Parker and, Matt Stone from South Park.

Craig: Oh, I had no idea. That’s hilarious.

Todd: Yeah. But, again, like I said, not a typical trauma production in that the quote unquote level of quality is is considerably higher. The tone is much more serious, and, well, as much as we can say that this movie tries to be serious and tries to be of high quality. Right. But, oh, one more thing that has to be said about it is the cinematography. Now, it’s pretty well shot, I think, for the most part. At least, it carries that late eighties, early nineties vibe to a tee. I mean, it’s I think it’s trying extremely hard to be really stylish. And maybe for the time would have come across as pretty stylish for a B movie. And it, Spike Lee’s cinematographer is Ernest Dickerson. He did the cinematography for this. And Ernest Dickerson has gone on to be a huge director as well. He did Juice not long after this. Tales from the Crypt Demon Knight, he directed. And then, he went almost straight into television and pretty much every major television show you can think of he’s directed at least an episode if not half a dozen episodes of it. I mean, he’s he’s directed like 12 episodes of The Walking Dead, The Wire. So, he’s very well, sought after director. There’s a lot of talent that did go into this movie even though you might not see it all on screen in the finished product.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Oh, man. But I think there’s some things to be said about it. I really do. So we should probably just get started and start rehashing the plot a little bit. What do you think, Craig? You’re not really looking forward to this, are you? I can tell, Lord.

Craig: Yeah. No. Yeah. Oh, gosh. No. I’m not. So go to town.

Todd: Get started. Well, the movie looks cheap, and you can kinda see that from its very first shot. But you can tell it’s trying not to look cheap because this opening shot of the film is this, guy in a bar talking. He’s the bartender, and he’s talking on the telephone with some woman. And it’s poorly delivered. It’s absolutely hilariously stupid dialogue.

Clip: Look, look, baby. Hey. Hey. You had a good time. Right? So, I assume that you’re a big girl and that you’re taking something. So just

Todd: get an abortion. What’s the big deal? Hun honey. Honey, honey, you’re you’re groveling. That’s very unattractive.

Clip: But just dump the kid and we could kick it together. Right? Hey. I’ll even pay for it. Listen. Send me the bill and my check will be in the mail. It’s

Craig: terrible. Right. Oh, Todd. It’s terrible.

Todd: But it’s also the world’s quietest bar, and all you see is him. It looks like they shot Todd in an empty bar and just against the back of the bar. But the move the camera’s sliding sideways the whole time and trying to make this shot look a little more interesting. And it’s lit as is almost all of the movie in these blue and red tones. Right? And most of the movie seems to take place in this bar. All of the characters Yeah. Seems seems like they just pretty much hang out at this bar all day long. And he’s chatting up this woman at the end of the bar. And, she’s the woman that we’re gonna see a lot and she doesn’t have a name, but she’s our vampire. And she’s played by Cynthia Bond who I can only assume is the wife or sister of the director.

Craig: I didn’t even put that together. That’s hilarious. You know, I I looked her up and she had done some stuff, but nothing that I had seen and regardless, for some reason, she looked very familiar to me and I don’t I have no idea why that is, but you know, she’s this very beautiful woman, but it, like, just even from the get go, it doesn’t make any sense. Like, she’s obviously the most attractive woman in this bar, but she’s always just sitting by herself at the end of the bar and just like, I I guess, you know, like, the idea is that, you know, she’s kind of a trap for men or whatever. You know, men are drawn to her and as soon as anybody approaches or speaks to her, it’s just like, oh, yeah, let’s go back to my place. Like Yeah. Like, to be fair, you know, I I think that she maybe looks a little bit more mature than some of the other actresses. And when I say mature, I’m trying to be nice and not say older. But that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t take away from the fact that she is gorgeous and all of these guys are drawn to her immediately. She says to this bartender, I loved this line because I thought it was so clever. You say that she’s a vampire, which is exactly what I thought she was throughout the whole course of the movie. And then I was reading about it and everything that I read about referred to her as a succubus. Oh, that makes sense. And not and, like, she goes out during the day, so I guess, technically, she’s not a vampire. As it turns out, she is some kind of demon or something. I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter.

Todd: It’s kind of like near dark in a way, I guess, which I think was a couple years before this. You know, where they’re really trying hard not to not to call her directly a vampire and and there aren’t any fangs or anything Yet. Toward the end.

Craig: Till the end. Yeah. Yeah. But, she she says to this skeezy bartender, she says

Clip: Can I buy you a drink? Well, now that’s something I’ve definitely considered, except that it’s sort of against the house rules. Well, then why don’t you let me make you a drink at my house under my rules?

Craig: Like, that was, in my opinion, the only clever line in the whole movie. Let let me make you a drink. I thought that was so clever. Oh, and then it just all went down over there.

Todd: That was the highlight of the film for you, wasn’t it? Wow. Yeah. Well, it’s It was. It’s labored and that’s one of the big things about this movie is, like, I feel like this is an hour and a half that could have easily been compressed into 45 minutes. Oh, yeah. Because in it’s trying to be stylish, it lingers way too long on these shots. Mhmm. And it shows us way too much of stuff that’s really not that interesting dialogue that’s dumb or not that interesting or almost too normal to that’s not clever, you know. And it’s just, okay. We don’t need to see these guys shooting the breeze. Right. This guy goes over to her house and, I don’t know her townhouse. Yeah.

Craig: And,

Todd: there’s a long shot of him climbing up the stairs and stopping and looking around and climbing up a little more and stopping and looking around and then going up. And then, he ends up in her bedroom, which is this hilarious little place, with a giant bed with 4 posts on it and draped with white gauze and whatnot. And he lays down on it, and my favorite line in this was when she asked, what do you think of my bed?

Clip: Now this freaky bed says to me that you are one hot natured freakazoid that can’t wait to jump jump my bones because you know I’ve got the key to your pleasures.

Craig: Oh, gosh. It’s really silly. Yeah. And it’s funny, you know, she’s got this big, like I feel like we’re supposed to feel like it’s kind of this big, like, gaudy kind of gothic townhouse. But really, it seems like they just kind of had a room with a 4 post bed in it. Like, because that’s where everything happens. And, like, it’s so eighties like, like the the blankets or whatever are so eighties. Yeah. I mean, it’s just so silly. And he notices, of course, that she’s got mirrors, but they’re covered. And he’s like, why would some fine honey wanna cover up these mirrors? Like, it’s just so so stupid. And and then they have, shower sex and like there’s But leading up

Todd: to okay. Go on. Sorry.

Craig: Oh, no. I it’s obviously really important. Go ahead.

Todd: No. I just thought that this sex scene was so hilarious because it was trying so hard. It’s after he, you know, covers the mirror back up that she meets him, and she comes behind him. And she starts Todd he starts taking off his shirt, and this they’re just slowly she’s just slowly backing up across the room Uh-huh. Way across the room. And it’s like, I think they are in front of the bed for a little while, and then she takes off his his belt, and they’re backing up some more. And then, she puts the belt around his neck and starts pulling him around. And it’s like, it it was made so that any one of these moments, you could like freeze the frame and you have this sort of beautiful eighties looking picture, you know, of these like curtains in the front and them in the background embracing with that a shirt on. Or a little bit further on, they come in front of the door to the room where the light is streaming in from behind. So, now, it’s like a silhouette, you know, and they’re embraced there. And then, it’s like they go out the door.

Clip: I was like,

Todd: jeez. They just leave their they back themselves out of the room over the course of 5 minutes, not really doing much of anything except staring at each other. And then, yeah. Boom. We’re in a shower.

Craig: I will say, okay. So she’s supposed to be, you know, whatever she’s supposed to be, whether it’s a vampire, a succubus, whatever it is, you know, like, she’s a seductress. It turns out, I guess I’m jumping the gun here.

Todd: No. Don’t spoil the ending.

Craig: It turns out that she’s some demon who, you know, seduces men and whatever. Because that is her nature, we get at least 2 or 3 of these sex scenes and they’re pretty steamy. Like, now by today’s standards, you know, it’s pretty it’s kinda hokey. But this came out in 1990, so, I would have been, I don’t know, like maybe a freshman in high school, maybe a little bit younger than that. And had I seen this at that point, this would have felt pretty steamy to me. Yeah. Like like, it it was kinda hot. Like, they were trying to make it hot and she’s a hot lady And and the guys that she’s with aren’t, you know, hard on the eyes or anything. And, you know, like and so you see, you know, their business. I I I I shouldn’t say I shouldn’t say that because there’s really no nudity

Todd: at all. There’s backs, and that’s about it. Yeah.

Craig: You see her back. You see the guy’s chest and stuff. But, you know, if I was a 13 year old boy and had never learned how to search on the Internet, I would have, probably thought this was pretty hot.

Todd: It’s straight Showtime, Cinemax, with Zalman King’s Red Shoe Diaries kind of

Craig: You’re right. Right.

Todd: Steamy stuff, you know. It’s the Shannon Tweed kinda kinda movie without the nudity in it. No. You’re right. So and it’s and, again, it’s trying to be that kind of movie. It’s trying to be the sexy vampire movie. And I think, again, if you get back and you look at this in context, it probably was a little groundbreaking in a sense. You know what I mean? Like, it was probably a little different from what we had seen before. The vampires have always had a sex element to them. Right? They’ve always had a certain sexiness, but I would say up until this point and especially, you know, a couple years later with Dracula, with Francis Ford Coppola, I don’t think it had really been updated be in a long Todd. Sure. Not since like the sixties seventies when we had the, like, a lot of the European vampire movies like in, you know, lesbian vampires and things like that. Right. Primarily ground grind house fair, but this is kind of a mainstream ish movie, with mainstream actors that is taking vampirism and making it really sexy and really seductive with that 80 sacks in the background and the smoke in the foreground and the gauzy curtains and things, you know. And and Mhmm. I mean, I hadn’t seen this before I saw Dracula, but that was one thing that struck me about, you know, Coppola’s Dracula is how it seemed to be a very modern, sexy vampire. So I gotta give him a little bit of credit for maybe maybe jumping the gun on it a little bit and having a little bit of foresight to add these elements into the movie.

Craig: Yeah. And that might be the only kind of positive thing that I have to say about this movie because, you know, even that, you know, it’s not like I was sitting here behind my computer turned on. You know, like, it wasn’t that hot, but I got what they were going for.

Todd: Right.

Craig: This lady, she does her best seductress thing and she’s very beautiful. So, like, okay, I’ll I’ll give them that. Well, they they have shower sex and then like the water turns into blood. There’s all kinds of just inexplicable things that happen, but you just roll with it. And then, like, you just see from behind the door or you hear from behind the door, like, her making these, you know, wild animal noises and he’s, like, screaming and blood comes out from under the door. So, you know, she eats him, I guess. I don’t know. Okay. So then we cut to North Carolina. And this is the thing that absolutely drove me crazy about this movie were these, what do you call this? When they give you, like, time cards or whatever?

Todd: It was like interstitial titles. Yeah.

Craig: Oh, god. It drove me and then it will cut to black and then it will say later that night and then it will just be the same people in the same room but in different clothes. Like, did we really like, did you have to tell us that this was later? Like and if you had to tell us that this was later, your continuity is not just a strong point of this movie.

Todd: It’s so true. Stupid. Have you heard of a cross fade or just Yeah. You know, jump to the other scene were smart enough to figure that it at Right. That the scene after it happened later?

Craig: Next day, later at the bar. Like, oh my god. It’s so stupid. Alright. But then it yeah. It cuts to okay. What’s going to be our main story, which is there’s it cuts to North Carolina and there’s this kid. Now, at at first, it’s a flashback scene with Samuel l Jackson giving his best Samuel l Jackson.

Clip: You know? Like There have no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But Todd is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that year I am.

Craig: Plays this, I guess Baptist minister. The other thing about the movie that was a little bit confusing to me is there are all these kind of, like, dream I guess they’re supposed to be dream sequences. Yep.

Todd: Mhmm.

Craig: You know, like they’re they’re not happening in real time and they’re kind of fantasy, but I I couldn’t really tell what was going on. Anyway, he’s a preacher, he’s preaching, there’s a little boy and he’s the only one there, and I’m like, what’s going on? Why is he preaching? He’s just this one little boy. And then this female figure draped in all black rises up behind the little boy and approaches him and, like, puts her arms around him or whatever. Samuel L Jackson, I don’t even know what his real name is, is gonna send his son to his grandmother’s, I guess, for protection or something. And then, it just cuts so quickly between these scenes that you kind of don’t even know what’s what’s going on. Yeah. Then Samuel L Jackson’s driving in a car and the lady in black appears in front of the car and he’s trying to run him over or run her over and the wife, you know, his wife I guess, tries to stop him and they crash and they’re dead and then it’s his funeral and the little kid is there. As it turns out, this little kid is going to be our main character.

Todd: Joe. Yep.

Craig: Yeah. His dad was a minister. He’s now been raised by his grandmother. He just graduated from divinity school,

Todd: and his grandmother has a moment with him where he tells him that this moment this moment when you’re about to move on to the next phase in your life is usually the time when the devil tries to throw something in your path. You’re at a crossroads basically, and you need to look both ways before you cross it, and you make your decision. So she’s trying to tell him that, you know, this is the moment for him. And, I guess, he is also feeling a little cold feet or he’s, you know, not quite ready to make that leap. And so, he decides before he goes into the ministry, he’s going to go to New York where his brother is. And it turns out that, well, his brother’s name is Kaye, and He’s Kadeem Hardison’s character. And, his brother is conned completely the opposite way. Apparently, they both were in divinity school together. But, he left to go pursue acting and became somewhat successful. And so, now, he’s in New York doing that. And so, he’s like, sure. You know, he calls him up on the phone, and he’s like, sure. Come on out. You know, he says, I just wanna think some things over before I get going, and and I wanna come out and see you even though we haven’t seen each other in a while. We haven’t talked in a while. It alternates between trying to make it sound like there might be a little bit of awkwardness between the 2 of them, like, they had some minor falling out or that they just have lost touch with each other or that maybe there was even some judgment on the account of the younger brother, for the older brother not finishing school and going off and kinda doing his thing or whatever.

Craig: Well, you were right. It’s like Kaye is kinda like the prodigal son who’s gone out and done the thing that he’s not supposed to do. And it’s funny, you know, Kadeem Hardison Todd the best that he can. You know, I’m not gonna, he was on A Different World. He was funny on that show. I you know, I don’t know if he’s any kind of great actor, but it seems like he tries to do the best that he can with what he’s given here. But sometimes what he’s given is just so bad. And I also got the sense that either there really was no dialogue in the script or and they were kinda making it up as they went along, or it was written so hastily that they were just not really all that familiar with their lines.

Clip: Yeah.

Craig: It’s like it just kinda seemed like You’re right. Like peep like, people were kinda trying to Fill in the gaps. Keep the conversation going. Yes. Like, you know, try trying to make it trying to make it so there weren’t any big pregnant pauses, but, like, I know I’m supposed to say something now, so I was just gonna talk.

Clip: It was so bad.

Todd: I read some review that somebody wrote of this, and they said that, oh, they felt the dialogue between them was so natural and that their characters were were so pure, real, and and interesting and and flexible.

Craig: I read that same review, and I thought that that person must have been high on PCP when they watch this movie. Agreed.

Todd: I didn’t think I thought their dialogue was so boring. It’s because it was it was sounded like 2 people just trying to make up some dialogue like you said.

Craig: And supposedly, Kei has, you know, like, he’s been in a bunch of movies, like, he lists off all these movies that he’s been in. Now, I don’t know how Hollywood works or how filmmaking works in New York City or whatever, you know, maybe this is true to life, but, you know, supposedly, Kaye has been in this series of films like Bad Brothers or I don’t know, something stupid like that, but he lives like this junky one room apartment like and it’s just such random things like when Joel goes to visit him, he comes in and and Joel notices a machine gun on the mantelpiece. And he’s and k’s like, oh, yeah. I keep the knives sharp and the guns loaded. It’s just and then that never comes up again. The fact that he just keeps a loaded machine gun on the mantle. Like, what?

Todd: I’m sure that that was gonna come into play and it absolutely never did. And then he’s got this, and I don’t know if we’re trying to make some political point here or something like that. Uh-huh. But the the bay window in front is done up like a little bit reminiscent of the Oval Office. And he has one of these old televisions that looks like a piece of furniture sitting on the floor that’s kind of like the desk, and he has a dummy of Ronald Reagan behind it. And Right. He even mentioned something about, you know, oh, yeah. Reaganomics. Reaganomics. This is what’s our big problem right now, blah blah blah. It’s really odd and random. But, again, if he’s trying to make some point with that, it I don’t know. It kinda went right by me.

Craig: Yeah. I I I I guess it was supposed to be some sort of political commentary. I don’t know. But, like, it’s just so poorly written. There’s another, you know, the the vampire succubus lady kills another guy, but no, she doesn’t even kill him. She has sex with him, but then she tells him that she’s infected him with something that will never go away and you know, he’s like, oh, no. I don’t wanna lose my family because he’s, you know, like a philanderer or whatever. He’s like, this is the first time I’ve ever done this and I didn’t understand if that you know, this was early nineties. I didn’t know if that was supposed to be some sort of, like, AIDS reference or something. When I thought that she was a vampire, I thought, oh, well, she’s turned him to a vampire, but then it’s never explained. That guy never shows up again, except in kind of like a weird dream sequence. It’s just it’s just all over the place.

Todd: I thought this guy was hilarious because of their sex scene. You know, he is laying there on the bed, his shirt’s off, and he’s moaning it. She pulls a feather. It’s like a, but looks like a peacock feather and his eyes are closed and she just starts running this feather lightly tapping him on the face and lightly tapping him on the chest and he’s going like,

Clip: oh Todd, this is too good to be true.

Todd: What? You better be doing something with that other hand because I

Craig: I was gonna I was afraid there for a second that you were gonna start making the noises and that was really uncomfortable. But, yeah, he’s really into it. And then she, like, brings out a knife and at first he’s kinda scared, but then it’s the same kind of and, like, there’s this really intense close-up shot of her dragging the tip of the knife over his nipple. It’s it’s so Cinemax. It’s it’s, oh, it’s awful. It’s stylish. Stylish. Okay. The movie doesn’t Todd doesn’t explain itself at all. Like apparently this succubus or whatever it is has some sort of connection to Joel’s family and because of that she’s very interested in Joel. She says at some point like you’re the last in your line and and she wants to kill him because she’s the last in his family line. Why? We don’t know. I think I

Todd: I know. I I wondered about that Todd. But then by the end of the movie, I was kinda thinking back on it and I thought about the end the beginning scene, like you were saying with it where we get these kind of fast clips and Samuel Jackson’s running this woman over. Samuel Jackson sees this woman behind him, in the theater. And at first, I thought that might be from Joel’s perspective, but there was another part of me that thought that maybe this was from him and his perspective. Maybe, you know, he’s in there railing about temptation. Right? That’s like all he’s talking about is temptation, temptation. The movie was originally called temptation. Later on, we find out that this guy calls this, oh my gosh, I’m gonna blow it right now, but some undercover government agent has a name for for this woman and his name for her is Temptation. I was thinking with the religious context and everything of this movie that maybe she was literally, like, supposed to be temptation. And so as the preacher, he was trying to eradicate her and maybe she was a special demon or something that he had a vendetta against so that that him driving the car to try to to hit her was like a real thing that happened. And then later on, you know, of course, she didn’t Todd, And later on, she’s interested in him because now he’s come up. He’s become a pastor. So, he’s not just the next in the line, but he’s the next in the line of pastors in this family. And maybe the last one because the brother’s definitely not gonna become a pastor, and so she’s gotta take him out.

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t feel like there’s really any sense in going, you know, in a linear path as far as the plot is concerned. It Todd didn’t make any sense to me, like, so he’s the last in the line. Okay. So what? So you get him and then what? Like, I I I don’t it just didn’t make any sense.

Todd: He’s not actively going after her. Let’s put it that way.

Craig: No. Yeah. He doesn’t even have any idea who she is or what she is or anything, you know. And and, like, Kaye goes to the bar where she hangs out all the time, you know. She’s just this barfly who sits in the same seat every night and waits for guys to come around.

Todd: Well, she has all the hallmarks of a prostitute. I mean Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. You would think she was a hooker.

Todd: Why she doesn’t have the reputation just being the bar hooker? I don’t understand why people are still trying to pick her up.

Craig: Great. Because you don’t all you have to do is say hello to her, and she’s like, okay. Let’s go back to my place. Like, yeah. This she’s a hooker. Like, what is happening? And then so, like, Kaye is entranced by her or whatever and they flirt and like she puts on kind of this air like she recognizes him and he’s a big movie star Todd she kind of puts on this, oh, I can’t believe I’m meeting you, like totally out of character for her, and she asks for his autograph and like she’s totally sucking up to her him, excuse me. And then, it cuts to a scene which I thought was real. It ends up being a dream sequence where she’s seducing him in her bed, which we’ve already seen and she’s like feeding him fruit with it. And and the sexy saxophone player is in the background.

Todd: Sexy saxophone player.

Craig: And and, like, she, like, she peels this banana. I’m, like, are you serious? Like and, like, she so dumb.

Clip: She she breaks off the tip of

Craig: the banana, and she’s got these huge long, like, Lee press on nails. And she, like, feeds him, the bit of the banana and he eats it. It’s like, this is the best banana I’ve ever had. And and then and then she sticks one of those big long fingernails in his mouth and and he, like, like, sucks on it. And I about threw up. Like Gone.

Todd: That is disgusting. There’s a moment later when she dips her fingernail into, like, some wine and stirs it up and offers it to somebody. And I was like, man, I wouldn’t take that wine no matter what.

Craig: It’s so gross. Nasty. I know what is under you’re right. This dirt and poop under people’s finger.

Todd: That’s disgusting. Todd that scene, it’s so hilarious. You know, him laying shirtless like some Roman painting. Yeah. Being fed grapes and things. I was just thinking, this is no man’s fantasy ever. Nobody is fantasizing about laying there being fed grapes and bananas by a woman very slowly.

Craig: Well and and certainly, no man is fantasizing about a woman peeling a banana and then slicing the tip of it off with her fingernail and feeding it to you. That’s that’s horrible. That’s a nightmare. But it but it turns out it’s a dream. And, she she wants him to go back to her house, but he’s like, I can’t because my cousin’s coming or whatever. I I don’t know how they’re related. But then Joel shows up and Todd, I don’t know. They chitchat and it’s boring and then there’s like a pretty woman getting dressed montage.

Todd: Oh, my god. It’s supposed to, I guess, be funny or fun, but it’s it’s all shot in, like like, a medium to it’s it’s shot in, like, a wide shot. You you can hardly even see what’s going on. And, and it’s just so boring. Yeah. That went on for 5 minutes. And at this point, I’m looking at the clock.

Craig: Oh my Todd. I don’t even know how far we are yet, but at one point, it was after he showed him the machine gun. I I put in my notes, like, with the Todd bite. I’m like, we are 40 minutes in and nothing is happening. Like,

Todd: it was It’s happening. I guess, but

Craig: it was all boring stuff.

Todd: Boring. Yeah. And and and the other thing too is, you know, every one of these scenes with her taking out guys, we don’t know who these guys are.

Craig: No. We don’t care.

Todd: Most of them are dumb, skeezy with nonsensical pickup lines that would never work on anybody ever. They’re also very awkwardly filmed. Like, it’s not like you don’t care. None of these characters, they’re coming and going and never to be seen again. You don’t care about any of them. They’re not very well developed. Whoever we do see regularly is either these 2 boring guys who you can hardly tell apart except, you know, the fact that one’s supposedly an actor and one is not.

Craig: Well, and one’s reasonably attractive and the other one’s this little dopey dude. Dopey. Yeah.

Todd: Who’s not interesting at all.

Craig: No. And he’s a terrible actor. He’s awful.

Todd: Yeah. And and is is Bill Nunn’s character. And his character is the guy at the he’s supposed to be kind of the comic relief, I think, for a while.

Craig: I guess.

Todd: He’s the guy with all of the bad pickup lines. He’s extremely hard to pick women up, and they’re all ridiculous. Oh, I’m not even gonna have to get to the airport. I have a flight for,

Clip: Quebec. Tonight. And I’m going to work on this a new film project with Bruce Lee. Uh-huh. Between me and you. Mhmm. Bruce is not dead. Okay? While he was trying to pick me up, he told me he was a surgeon.

Craig: A surgeon?

Clip: I swear. I you know what? I am a surgeon, you know, but I just like well, like, I’m like a Kung Fu surgeon, you know, like, I I, you know, operate on people who, like, you know, get hurt doing con cumming and food and all that, you know. And but have you never met you somewhere before?

Craig: Bill Nunn is a charismatic guy, you know. Like, he delivers his lines to the best of his ability and I appreciated what he was doing because at least he was semi interesting to listen to, but I mean it’s just dumb and like then there are these random things that happen like there’s a whole scene where some over the top flamboyant gay guy goes and hits on some other guy in this bar, which is not a gay bar. The guy that he hits on is, like, oh, all these guys in the bar, am I that obvious? They just have this little weird awkward scene that amounts to nothing like, who are these people? We never see them ever again. Why did we just spend 5 minutes? I’m sorry. I just thought it was just absolutely terrible in every way and I can’t get over it.

Todd: Oh, there’s a scene with grandma, who’s throughout this film of getting just having restless dreams, and she’s just have getting really bad vibes about how her grandson is doing. And she’s sitting there holding a picture of him kinda rocking back and forth. Oh, my baby. Oh, my baby. And somehow, there’s some connection Todd with the succubus woman. Maybe she’s with him at the time or something.

Craig: I think so.

Todd: And, she sits up or whatever and and kind of lashes out and at the same time blood comes out of this picture for this grandmother. At least, she thinks it does and she freaks out and then she looks down and the picture is fine again. And then, the woman is like caressing a snake and saying, oh, it’s almost done. It’s almost time. And we’re, like, what? What’s almost done?

Craig: Right. You know? Like, what is the end game here? Like, if you just wanna kill this guy, just kill him. Like, I don’t understand what’s happening. And, like, the there’s a whole thing, the temptress or whoever she is, has already flirted with Kaye, but then Kaye and Joel come to the bar and she’s like hitting on Joel and pretending that she doesn’t know Kaye, which Kaye thinks is weird, but he doesn’t really say anything about it. After that, like this woman is obviously, you know, after Joel and like she comes over to their apartment at one point and to to take Joel out and Kay sees that she has no reflection in the mirror. And she’s just, like, do you have a problem? He’s, like, oh, no. No problem. And they leave. He lets him go. Yeah. And and then we find k goes to Doug who is the Bill Nunn character and he, you know, says, I think there’s something up with this woman. And at first, Doug is like, oh, no, you know, you’re just jealous or whatever, But then, Doug, after Kate, continues to pursue it. He’s, like, okay. I guess I’ll tell you that I’m a secret agent for the government who works on supernatural things. And, like, they get on their 19 eighties computer and Pulls up a database. Yeah. There’s some whole backstory about how some guy that this woman had seduced, you know, he went to the hospital and said that he had had sex with the devil and ever since then he sees snakes everywhere or something and then I guess Doug was interrogating him and as soon as he asked for the identity of the woman like snakes came out of this guy’s mouth and the guy died. So Doug knows this lady is no good and he’s telling Kay all of this and then in the very next scene, K goes back to his apartment where Joel is and he’s like, you need to stay away from this woman. I’m telling you, you need to go home. But he doesn’t give him any details. It’s just like it’s just like, oh, she’s bad news. Like, not she’s a demon or she has no reflection or she makes guys barf up snakes or whatever. Just like, no, she’s bad news. Stay away from her.

Todd: No meet my friend Doug and come look check out his computer file. None of that stuff. No. It’s so stupid. Well, the notion that Doug is a secret agent after we’ve seen, him sitting in a bar trying to hit on people left and right. And anytime anybody kind of starts to come closer, he just makes comments to people. He makes the comment to Kaye, that woman over there. I think she’s dangerous. I think that she’s, you know, whatever. What is he doing? He’s watching her take these guys home Right. Then just noticing that these guys never show up again. I mean, when is he gonna make his move? Right. Where’s the evidence gathering here? You know? It doesn’t make any sense. And then this whole deal now I will say this. Actually, I have to give the actress credit. I thought that her dual personality thing, how she could kind of turn on the charm and turn it off really quick was quite good.

Craig: Yes. I agree. The bit

Todd: when she goes over to his apartment and she’s so sweet and she’s really nice with her brother, and then when Joel leaves the room, she turns and she’s just suddenly and it’s not like a really dramatic change. It’s a very subtle change, that then, you know, is is very clear. And it’s it’s pretty skillful. I actually thought that that part of the movie was quite good. And then they also augment it a little bit by little lighting effects where they’ll they’ll slightly change the color on her face.

Craig: Right. Like, Highlight her eyes. Yeah.

Todd: Sometimes it’s really obvious, but sometimes it’s it’s really subtle and and it’s it’s in a better movie. These would have been really really nice bits. But then the whole thing of why is she even doing this with Kaye. Right? Why? Why why can’t she just say, I’m just more interested in your brother than I am in you. Right. Why does she have to pretend like she doesn’t know him after all and raise his suspicions and make him think she’s weird? Yeah. I know. It just causes needless drama for a person who’s trying to be smart and and sly about all this.

Craig: I know. It’s it’s dumb. K k and Dougie go to this medium, you said, who was played by a singer. I didn’t recognize For sure. And and they the this medium explains that she’s this demon and the only thing that, you know, the way that she wins is if she can corrupt a truly pure soul, and the only way to defeat her is if that truly pure soul can reject her or something.

Todd: Yep. I don’t know.

Craig: It’s dumb.

Todd: Once again, I’m asking myself, why has Doug taken this long to go to the medium if this is a really important thing of figuring out what he’s dealing with? Like, shouldn’t he have this been a part of his investigation a long time ago? Yeah. You know? Right. And there’s a weird thing here where then, she’s in the sweet shop with Joel at the same time. And I guess she has I guess she knows that they’re talking about her somehow. And she just gets this sudden mental connection with the psychic, and the psychic gets momentarily possessed by her and it warms them.

Craig: You’ve got you’ve gotta play that clip because it’s so funny. You think I do Oh, god. It’s so funny. But then what it boils down to is she’s trying to seduce Joel. And Joel, you know, because he’s gonna be a minister, you know, like, he doesn’t drink and you said that whole thing with the wine and her fingernail or whatever and she tries, you know, she comes on to him and he pushes her away, but eventually, you know, she he won’t drink the wine, but she dips her finger in it and then puts her finger in his mouth and then I guess he’s like drugged or something. And this whole last sequence made no sense to me. Kay and Dougie go to the bar and convince the bartender to roofie her with, holy water.

Todd: This is the worst. They yank the bartender outside, into an alley, the 2 of them. And he’s like, what are you doing? What are you doing? And, basically, Dougie says, I don’t have time to explain. Just put this in her drink. And Right. He takes and is like, okay. Okay. And he goes inside.

Clip: And it was my it

Craig: was my my favorite line of the movie was when Dougie says,

Clip: look, now when she drinks that holy water, she’s gonna start slobbering and farting and gagging.

Craig: And then she does. She starts convulsing and oh Todd, I don’t know, but she’s okay and they like she starts chasing after them, I guess, and that they inexplicably split up for no reason.

Todd: Oh, they it’s so dumb. They stand they run outside and they stand there like, where’s our car? We don’t know. And then they argue about what what where where they should go, this way or that way. There’s no difference. And follow that card. We’ll just agree to split up then. Alright. Sounds good. See you around. And then immediately take off running down the street in 2 different directions.

Craig: And Kei goes back to his apartment where he is like doing like karate moves. I I don’t know. And then this might I have to say that this really, even though it makes absolutely no sense, was probably my favorite scene of the movie was when K is in his apartment. He sees himself on the TV and then, like, his face on the TV eats him, like like, literally, like, he gets too close to the TV and the TV, like, opens up and grabs him and eats him and chews him up. And the big inflatable Ronald Reagan is, like, laughing, like, it was so surreal, but it it made me laugh.

Todd: It’s surreal and it’s also totally way out of place for this movie. It would work in, like, a Freddy Cougar type picture or

Craig: something

Todd: like that, but we’ve really seen no indication aside from possessing the psychic that this woman has these distant powers of manipulating the environment to this extent. Mhmm. And if she could, then why is she wasting her time doing anything else? Right. So, the fact that he goes in and he touches the screen, the screen eats him and then it spits out the bones and blood. It’s actually a

Craig: pretty cool scene and It is.

Todd: For a pretty low rent movie, the effect is actually quite good. At the end of the day, it just didn’t feel right in this movie.

Craig: No. It was out of place. At least it was fun to watch. Dougie gets killed too. He gets, like, he flags down some car and he gets in and the bartender’s like a demon and there’s a demon in the back seat and he gets killed too. And then it cuts to the final scene where the temptress is, I don’t know, messing with Joel or whatever and makes herself look like his dad. So Samuel L Jackson is back and Samuel L Jackson is, like, you know, telling him that he’s bad and he hasn’t done his duty or whatever. And then grandma shows up and she’s like, stay away from my baby. And the temptress like with her psychic abilities throws grandma against the wall and then she starts turning, you know, like we see her true demon face like she’s finally got like big fangs and these, you know, the all this makeup effects on her face and it looks okay, I guess. But it just comes down to the most boring conclusion ever. Like

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Samuel L Jackson like the Joel in his mind hears Samuel L Jackson saying, The Todd is your weapon. The word is your weapon. So he picks up a Craig, well, okay. So the demon is holding the grandma up by her neck against the wall for a good 3 or 4 minutes like this old lady would have been dead minutes ago. Meanwhile, Joel is like slowly crawling his way towards the bible and this cross.

Todd: Which where did they come from? Were they in

Craig: this woman’s room? Who knows? He finally gets there and he picks up the cross and says, I rebuke you demon back to the hell from whence you came. And she freaks out and there are terrible effects, like, and then she’s dead and then that’s it, like

Todd: Yeah. It’s pretty easy.

Craig: Oh, Todd. It was so anticlimactic. It was so stupid. The effects looked terrible. Like, I feel like they tried to do practical effects and then they realized that they looked so bad that they had to do weird, like, I don’t even know what that was.

Todd: How do

Craig: you think? Like, negative

Todd: like Yeah.

Craig: It’s like

Todd: he turned it to a negative for the, like, the real close-up of the demon’s faces. It’s on the floor writhing around to suddenly and like a negative. It’s just like kind of a black and white reverse print and for the most what should be the most interesting thing, you know, most interesting part that they clearly have spent a lot of money on, and then once it’s kind of blows up

Craig: You see that remains. Yeah.

Todd: It reminded me a little bit of the end of Evil Dead actually where it was supposed to like be bubbling and kind of sinking in. I just, I thought the miracle of the whole film was how how grandma managed to drive up from North Carolina to New York over, you know, by that evening.

Craig: Well, then grandma and Joel hug and then you think that’s the end, but then we get this end shot with like this limo driving up to the bar the same bar that we’ve been in forever and we’ve left some things out. Thank Todd. If you really need to see everything from this movie, go ahead and watch it. I don’t necessarily recommend it, but, at the very end, this limo pulls up to the bar and like the driver’s window rolls down and it’s like, okay, but he’s like a demon now. He’s driving the limo and inside, we see this woman lighting a cigarette for somebody who ends up being Dougie and like the I guess the implication is that now Dougie is the new temptress

Clip: or whatever.

Craig: Like, I don’t know if they were try you know, if they were trying to set it up for a sequel. My Todd. Thank God no sequel came from it.

Todd: After the bartender lights her cigarette, he she says, you should use she uses a bat. She she says you should use a light or the flame lasts longer.

Craig: Right.

Todd: And of course, this very same thing happens to Dougie and, as he takes a puff on a cigarette, he turns to face the camera and says, you should use a lighter because the flame lasts longer. Right. Like, it’s some profound line that somehow calls into focus the thematic thrust of the entire movie or something like that.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: I didn’t quite catch that and I I felt like maybe the thematic thrust of the movie, I I feel like down beneath it with all this weird stuff going on, somebody was trying really hard to make a point or was at least trying to, you know, put some themes in here that we were supposed to unpack or we’re supposed to subconsciously take on. And I felt like it was overtly religious, you know. I felt like it was this whole thing about temptation and fighting temptation and, you know, maybe through the generations and things like that. That was the only thing I could think of, which might also be why it was so shallow. I I feel like maybe at times, it was the movie was trying so hard to be symbolic that it just lost its grounding in real life whatsoever. And it became kind of a nonsensical bit of things happening.

Craig: Yeah. Well, and then the movie made me feel guilty because the the last, you know, right after the last shot then it cuts you, you know, what’s going to be the credits, but it says, you know, this movie is dedicated to James Bond and James Bond Junior, and then it says something like, I’m the last one, I’ll carry it on, James Bond the third or whatever. And I’m thinking, you know, this guy, I don’t know this guy, you know, he he’s a not a good actor, he made a terrible movie, but if he was really trying to do something, you know, to pay tribute to his family, you know, like, I don’t wanna crap on it too much, like, you know, that’s that’s nice, you know. I I’m sure they really appreciated the effort.

Todd: Oh, so I see. So I’m the succubus, and your grandma is the demon in the vehicle.

Craig: This is so sweet. I don’t know. Yeah. You know, it’s I I these people are artists and, you know, they’re they’re trying to do something and I’ve never I’ve never put out a movie that made 2 and a half $1,000,000 on a $5,000,000 budget. So I’m just some guy sitting on my couch behind the computer screen criticizing people. I have no expertise. I you know, it is what it is. I you know good good on you for for making this movie for your dad and your grandpa, and I’m sure they somewhere appreciated and and whatever.

Todd: I feel like the same team with a different story or a better writing could have made a really interesting movie. I feel like all the elements were really there. And and I’m I’m sorry, but I I do feel like it’s stylistically shot. It’s trying to be stylistic, and I think the absurdity of the subject material is the only thing that makes that all look quite silly. Generally speaking, especially if you put it in its time Craig. This would have had the appearance of a pretty hip looking movie.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: In the late eighties, early nineties with the smoke and the fog and the blues and the reds and all these things that really date it now and that we roll our eyes at now and even laugh at now. But for its time, that was hot.

Craig: Well and, you know, this was around the same time that, you know, Spike Lee was really, making a name for himself and putting out some really quality films, and it was a time when, people of color were really getting some recognition for filmmaking and acting and maybe this kind of Todd that wave. Does it compare in terms of quality? Not really, but at the same time it’s a good thing that these people who had really been marginalized in you know, in every industry, but in the film industry especially that they were getting an opportunity to do some things and getting an opportunity to reach audiences that hadn’t really been targeted at the time, and so I can appreciate that, for what it is, but I I can’t just because it was, a movie directed and and written by and starring a black man. I I can’t just give it credit on that merit alone. Right.

Todd: You know what I mean? Yeah. The best you could do is put it in context and say it was a nice experiment for the time. Right. Maybe as an art maybe as an art house movie, if you looked at it as a kind of surreal thing, it would play better than as a movie you’re supposed to take seriously with a plot that you’re supposed to follow, and things that are supposed to make sense. Maybe that it’s in the wrong place at the wrong time as far as that’s concerned. But it took me back anyway a little bit. I thought even the soundtrack itself, which is apparently is available on Orpheus Records, was pretty good for its time.

Craig: Sure.

Todd: You got a lot of that new jack swing, the late eighties late eighties, early nineties hip hop. I’m not sure we were calling it hip hop at the time. We were still calling it rap. But, you know, a lot of those same flavors and things come through very competently in the movie, and the contributions of these well established musicians, you know, reflect that. So, you know, it’s it’s it’s a mixed bag, I think. I don’t think it’s a 100% horrible, but I don’t think it’s the most watchable of films

Craig: for sure. No. It’s not.

Clip: Let’s just leave it at that.

Todd: Well, thank you again for listening and especially thanks to Gilly for making this recommendation. I I really appreciate. I really have been wanting to see this and I love, torturing Craig with these obscure things that, only I’m really interested in. We’ve got a couple more requests coming to you later this month as well. Don’t hesitate to give in your own at our website or online at, Facebook of 2 guys and a chainsaw. We will have more coming to you in the following week. If you enjoy this podcast, please share it with a friend. Until next time. I’m Todd And I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

This creepy story of a dog gone mad was a challenge to film back in the pre-CGI days of 1983. Based on a Stephen King novel, it departs from his book in a couple significant ways, which we discuss at length. Enjoy!

Episode 136, 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 kicking off our request month this month. We’re going to do at least a month of request because we’re getting a little backed up, and last month, we indulged ourselves with summer films. So this month, we’re starting off with a request from Adam and he requested Cujo, the 1983 film based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. Yeah. I was really excited to see this request. Actually, this movie, I’ve never seen it before and it’s been on my want to see list forever. I have read the book but, actually fairly recently. So the book was fairly fresh in my mind, going into this movie. Now, Craig, I think you’d seen this before. Right?

Craig: Yeah. I’ve seen it a bunch of times actually. This is one of the very few King books that I haven’t read. So, I’ll be interested to kinda hear your perspective and how it compares.

Todd: Yeah. I think around this time, if if I’m not mistaken, we had a bit of a, a, a string of King films. This wasn’t too long after Carrie came out. And, everybody seemed keen on making, taking Stephen King’s books and making movies out of them. Of course, he was cranking them out like 1 a year and and they were Yeah. All becoming bestsellers. This is sort of the, the golden age of Well, I don’t know. Stephen King still going pretty strong. And it has been for a while, but this was kind of the beginning of, of his career as a superstar bestseller. I have to say it’s not my favorite King book. It’s it’s interesting. It he, I think, pretty openly admits that he doesn’t remember writing much of it because this was during a period when he was drinking pretty heavily. I don’t know if he was doing coke by this time or not, but he’s he’s pretty open about all that. Right. And, he said it’s a shame, actually, because there there are parts of this book he really, really likes and would like to have the memory of having written having written them. I’m gonna compare this to the book a little bit, because I feel like I have to. The book opens up with the very first chapter. The very first sentences are about a serial killer in this town. This, like a lot of his novels, and stories and subsequently movies take place in this fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. And he’s created kind of a little little universe of his own Yeah. Where if you look at all of his books, as a whole, they they kind of reference each other. There are characters that appear in other ones And there’s even a sort of mythology that, surrounds them of kind of where these dark forces might be coming from that cause these things to happen. And so, in Cujo, he references the serial serial killer, which you never see in the book. It’s it’s it’s like, this guy, you know, decades ago was arrested and captured and executed or something. But the strong implication is that the spirit of this guy is still around and that it has possessed this dog as the dog gets rabies. If it’s about dog that gets rabies, that’s Right. That’s in essence what it is.

Craig: Well, and what you’re talking about, the serial killer that you’re talking about was the antagonist in one of his earlier books, and this book is I mean you you can’t really call it a sequel because it’s only semi implied that this serial killer maybe has possessed this dog, but the serial killer was the killer from The Dead Zone.

Todd: That’s right.

Craig: Which which I have read and, did enjoy. And The Dead Zone, the the movie version of The Dead Zone came out almost at the exact same time as this movie. I think the same year or maybe just a year before or a year after, And, but they were produced by different studios, so, they removed any references to the dead zone. Well, not all references. I mean, there are still some things like their characters that recur in both, like the sheriff in Cujo is the same sheriff, from The Dead Zone, but, those direct references and the suggestion that it might be a possession is removed, which I’m actually okay with. Yeah. Well Not not because it’s out of the realm of, you know, Stephen King’s reality. You know, that’s that’s fine. But, as a stand alone movie, I think that it would make it a little bit muddy, and I I actually just kinda like the idea that, you know, this is just a dog that got rabies. And and this is one of those I I Todd you last night and said I was looking forward to talking about it because I have feelings about it. I I I like this movie. I think it’s really good. I think there are some amazing performances in the movie. It’s scary. It’s it’s certainly scary, but, like, I find it to be really Todd. Didn’t just got sick and, you know, it’s not the puppy’s fault.

Todd: I think this is definitely something that King writes a lot in his novels. You know, we I talk a lot about sort of the morality of the horror genre and and, you know, going back to, like, the Tales from the Crypt and these kinds of comic books and and even, you know, radio plays that were, you know, popular in the thirties and forties, or we talk a lot about how there’s kind of an underlying morality to these that even though there are these terrible forces and they they surface in these unexpected ways and and people die and things get killed. In a general sense, it seems like there’s, an idea that only the people who in some way, shape, or form break some rules or, you know, quote unquote deserve it are the ones who get killed. And it’s the pure people who don’t break those rules, whatever they might be, that stay alive. One thing that I think Stephen King puts pretty strongly in a lot of his books is there are no rules.

Craig: Right.

Todd: There are terrible evil things out there, and they will get you no matter how good you are, no matter how bad you are. And I think the thing about Kuja that makes it such a bleak book, and, this is one reason why it’s not really my favorite, but I think it’s a really interesting book, is that I feel like, it sets up these characters. And it’s certainly also not outside of the realm of Stephen King where every family has, you know, problems. Every there’s there’s always a bad parent or husband and wife are having an affair or something like that. It’s sort of this acknowledgment, you know, that everybody’s got issues. And then this force, this evil, this something comes in and, those issues are nothing suddenly, you know, compared to what they find what they have to contend with. And I think that contrast is really striking. And that adds to sort of the tragedy of the book. I I I see this story as as kind of like a I mean, it’s like almost like a Shakespearean tragedy in a way where these terrible events go into into place and everybody’s gotta contend with it and the ending, especially in the book, is not happy. And that’s it. Bad things happen to people who are already struggling with their own problems. Now they have this to deal with and not a lot of good ends up coming out of it in the end. You know?

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. And one one of the things that I was surprised when we had talked about doing this, because it had been requested, I said it’s gonna be weird to talk about because it’s, you know, just these people trapped in a car, a dog menacing them or whatever. I it had been I guess it had been so long that I so long ago that I had seen it that I forgot that really as much as there is of that there’s at least as much if not more really of just a family drama. Like Yeah. The the whole first half of the movie is just family drama.

Todd: It really is.

Craig: And and it’s it’s good and you know it’s it’s well played, and it’s believable and I think that the actors do a really good job, but it’s a little surprising that so much of it is devoted to that and you really only get to the nightmarish stuff in the last 40, 45 minutes.

Todd: Yeah. In in in such a way that it’s almost not even a horror movie, you know. I mean, it is, but it because a terrible thing happens. But it’s sort of like an afterschools, not I shouldn’t say afterschool special, but kind of like a lifetime drama in

Craig: the first

Todd: half. And then the second half, this new element comes in of more drama, but it’s not supernatural. It’s a dog with rabies, you know, that that ends up trapping this woman, and son in the car. And they have to deal with that now. And so you’re right. It’s very much And that I think is what it’s why I brought up the whole possession serial killer thing because believe me, it’s not it’s implied in the book. Right. And it’s not dwelled upon and it’s not hit upon a lot. It’s just this underlying supernatural element that he has kind of added that can easily be taken away because, well, shoot, you can see in the movie they completely took it away. Right. But I think that makes all the difference really in making the book, more foreboding because that makes it seem like this dog, even though just like in the movie, it’s just this poor dog, and it got rabies and, it’s really tragic for the dog and even the dog himself it gets you in his head and he’s, you know, just talking about how sick he’s starting to feel and why he’s getting these different feelings that he never had before about his master. The dog itself kinda gets conflicted as the rabies gets over him, you know. Mhmm.

Craig: At the end of the day, when there’s this

Todd: implication that there’s that there’s a dark force possessing the dog, that makes the dog even more sinister. Like, when this dog relentlessly attacks this car and relentlessly does things, you just feel like it’s not just a dog with rabies. It’s like an unstoppable evil dog with rabies, you know. True. True. And that’s a sense that you really don’t get from the film, honestly. At least I didn’t feel it that strongly from the film. And so Todd that my mind, it wasn’t as terrifying. Does that make sense? It wasn’t Yeah. I wasn’t as on the edge of my seat about it because I didn’t I felt like at some point, this dog’s gonna wear out or it’s gonna hurt himself or, you know, 2 people are gonna show up and the dog can’t handle 2 Right. And he’s gonna end up dead. You know, that kind of thing.

Craig: Yeah. I I I get what you’re saying and I I haven’t read the book so I really hesitate to pass any kind of judgment because I’m really a huge Stephen King fan. I’ve read almost all of his stuff based on just what we’re talking about. I kind of almost think that I prefer that it’s just, you know, a dog that gets rabies because that’s in watching it not because it’s really similar in any way, but it reminded me of the movie that we did last week, The Reef, where it’s just it’s just this natural force, you know, like it’s not

Todd: Right.

Craig: It’s not inherently evil. It’s just, you know, one of the ugly parts of the real world and one might argue that there are some implausible things that are going on here and and that’s fine and and fair, but when it comes right down to it, this could happen. You know, animals get animals get rabies. People can get rabies if they’re exposed to it or whatever And and that I I think is the the the the realism of it, the idea that this could potentially really happen, makes it even a little bit more frightening to me.

Todd: Yeah. Oh, I I understand where you’re going. And I think, I mean, I think we should we should examine the movie on its own merits and I’ll stop talking about the novel, you know. No.

Craig: I’m interested. I’m really interested in the similarities and differences. Well, the funny thing is it is

Todd: it is almost an exactly faithful adaptation. I mean, there’s very little that’s in the novel that’s not in the movie. And every almost everything in the movie happens the way it happens in the novel. It’s really quite a simple story, really, with just a few characters. Right. You know, it starts out with, actually, really impressive scene. I mean I love it. Let’s talk let’s talk for a second about the cinematography in this movie. Yeah. Anytime you’ve got this, like, dog that you have to and it’s a Saint Bernard. And I don’t know. I never think of Saint Bernard’s as as scary. You know, they’re always the floppy happy. They’re big And they could be scary, but they’re the ones, you know, that wear the barrels of whiskey around the Right. Rescue you in the hills. Right? I learned that from all the Looney Tunes. You know? So, like, when you’re tasked with making this, you’re gonna use real animals because there’s no CGI at this time. Right. And and they used very little puppet work in here. I think they had one fake animal head. Was that right? That they use one kind of robotic and, like, 6 different dogs. Uh-huh. And you’re tasked with with shooting us in a realistic way that doesn’t look cheesy. They really pull it off, I feel like. Yeah. And that’s an accomplishment.

Craig: Yeah. With a few exceptions. But, yeah. Yeah. And that’s the thing too. There’s that old adage that you never wanna work with dogs or kids, or animals or kids or whatever. And that’s, you know, it’s it’s pretty ambitious to have this movie where really one of the central characters is this dog. And, you know, it has to be so well, at first, you know, it’s very sweet. You know, you talked about or you started to talk about the opening scene. It’s a it’s a really cute pretty scene, you know, like it could be, you know, out of Lassie or something, you know, like, we we watch this rabbit come out of its little hidey hole and, you know, it’s kind of like frolicking in the field and then Cujo, the big friendly Saint Bernard shows up and like chases it around. And it’s even funny because you can tell. I mean, these are clearly trained animals. Like, the dog is chasing the bunny, but you can tell that, you know, it’s not gonna grab it and kill it. Yeah. They’re they’re almost like playing together really. It just chases this bunny around and eventually, the rabbit, dives into another hole which I guess is kind of part of, I don’t know, like some underground cave or something. Mhmm. And the dog’s barking at the rabbit as dogs will do. It can only fit its head in the hole, and it wakes up these bats, and one of these bats comes down on its face and and bites it. And from that point on, of course, it has rabies because, you know, all bats have rabies.

Todd: Boy, woe to anyone who gets bitten by a bat. You’ve got all kinds of problems, it seems

Clip: like.

Craig: Yeah. Right. But, you know, as is really the case, I looked this up because I wanted to know about rabies. You know, it doesn’t manifest itself immediately. You know, it takes some time and it’s a slow progression and in animals it can take anywhere from like 8 days up to a number of months even sometimes before the symptoms begin to appear. Now it’s usually more like 8 to 10 days. But then once the symptoms do start to appear, they progress rapidly. And whether it be an animal or a human, once those neurological symptoms start to manifest, you’re done. Like there’s there’s nothing they can do for you, even if even if you’re a human being. Once once those symptoms start to come around, it’s over. Now in humans, if you can if you’re bitten by something that you suspect has rabies, you can be inoculated, and it’s it’s terrible. You know, it’s a a big huge series of shots that you have to get, but it’s almost 100% effective in in preventing the disease from from coming to fruition. So we we see this dog get bit, and then as the next 45 minutes goes on, it kind of progressively gets a little bit you know, it starts out with it just being it seems kind of uncomfortable and things start to agitate it more than usually, especially loud noises starts to agitate it. And, you know, whereas in the beginning, it’s very friendly. It starts to become a little bit more surly and and growly and and that kind of stuff until of course eventually, finally, it becomes violent and and horrible. Yeah. But in the beginning, it’s real cute and real sweet, like, which is which which makes it even and it’s a family dog. You know? Like, this family has this dog and they all love it. Like, it it’s their, like, their favorite dog and, gosh.

Todd: I don’t know.

Craig: It gets I’m such a dog guy like I swear I’m gonna have to put up on on our Facebook page a picture of me and my dog so you guys can get why I’m such a dog guy because my dog is the cutest dogs. But anyway, I’ll get I’ll get over the dog stuff and then, you know, once all that happens, then we get the 40 to 45 minutes of the family drama, and and it’s it’s intriguing. It’s, you know, it’s it’s interesting to watch. It’s even though, you know, nothing scary is happening for the next 40 or 45 minutes really, it’s certainly not boring, you know. I I was very invested. I was very invested in what was going on in these people’s lives.

Todd: Well, it’s clever. I think it’s it’s smart of them because in in the book, we meet Cujo before he gets bitten. And so even, family goes and and meets this other family that has the dog and gets to meet the dog. And, because it’s a big dog, the mother of 1 of the kids is a little leery about, you know, him, but the kid kinda latches on to him. And so his name is, Tad.

Craig: Yeah. Danny Pintaro. Yeah. From Who’s the Boss in his first movie and oh, my gosh, is he stinking cute.

Todd: He is so cute and he’s so good. And when he cries in here, it just breaks my heart. Yeah. That whole Oh, we’re gonna get to that. Well, anyway, what I was saying was, he actually gets to meet the dog before it contracts rabies and and, you know, kind of love at first sight, loves the dog. Mom’s thinking about getting him a dog, but she’s a little leery just because the dog’s big and the kid’s young and blah blah blah blah. Right. But anyway, in the movie here, obviously, where where the dog’s getting rabies right away. And even though Danny meets the dog before it, you know, starts showing the symptoms, I think it’s really effective that at least we get right off the bat, before we get into the family drama, we know immediately that there’s something sinister is gonna be happening. You know, I think it’s so important to be able to get through this next 45 minutes, I think. Sure. To know, hey, there’s an animal with rabies coming down the pipe, at some point. Right. Right. Yeah. And it’s interesting Todd because the the way that we meet, Tad and his family is his, father Vic and, mother Donna are he is afraid of this monster in his closet. And it’s really an interesting scene right after we have the creation of the monster, so to speak. We have the father coming in and no, there’s no monster in your closet and and, you know, the closet door seems to swing open by itself but you can tell it doesn’t quite latch all the way. Right.

Clip: He’s in there. I saw him. Really? Todd, you saw him in your dreams, in your head, nowhere else. See, Ted, there aren’t any real Ted, listen to me. There’s no such thing as real monsters, only in stories. There’s no real monsters, though. Really? Really. Really.

Todd: And you know, that’s a lie.

Craig: I know. You know? And then it’s a lie that we tell kids all the time.

Todd: Yeah. So you just it’s just it I think it instills the sense of foreboding from the beginning. Like, oh, boy. That is about to be proven wrong. You know, we all know it. Something’s gonna happen. It’s a great element of foreshadowing, I think, right at the beginning of the movie. There’s this guy named Steve in their life who seems to be a friend of Vic’s. I don’t think he’s so friendly with Vic, actually, in the book. But in the movie, it looks like at least they’re tennis buddies. And he’s a local Yeah. He’s a local furniture refinisher. Yeah. It’s so weird. Yeah.

Craig: He and Vic are tennis buddies, but he and Donna are a different kind of buddy.

Todd: Yeah. They’re a little more buddy buddy. You get what I’m saying?

Craig: Yeah. I mean, that’s the thing. Like, seriously, like, it’s very family drama. Like, you know, you got this nice family. They’re they’re the dad works in advertising, apparently, Vic. He’s played by Daniel Hugh Kelly, who has been in a bazillion things. Like, you’ll recognize him. I can’t really pinpoint him from any one particular thing, but he was in tons of things in the eighties. He’s still working. You would totally recognize him. But you know, they’re this nice family. He seems like a nice guy, good looking family, and, they got this little kid. And the mom is Donna who’s played by Dee Wallace, who You love I’ve said on the podcast before, I think. If not, I know what for a fact that I’ve said it to you several times. I love Dee Wallace. I I think she’s fantastic. She’s really a horror movie icon, and and continues to be so. I mean, she’s she’s still working. She works almost entirely in in the genre of horror. The thing that I remember her most for and the re she’s she’s done so many great horror movies. I think she was in The Howling. She’s, she’s just been in a bazillion things.

Todd: She’s good. She’s kinda like, the same way that Jamie Lee Curtis is, you know. She’s a woman, but she’s a strong woman.

Craig: Yeah. But soft too, you know, like she’s got this she’s got this very soft kind of maternal voice and, but yeah. I mean, you could tell that she if and you’ll find out that if need be, she can be a badass, and and she is. You know, it might be more appropriate to save this little nugget for later, but I’m gonna go ahead and throw it out there that Stephen King, has has gone on record as saying that Dee Wallace’s performance in this movie is his favorite performance out of any performant of the performances in any of the adaptations of his films, including he even thinks that she’s better in this movie than Kathy Bates was in Misery. Yeah. Like, he can’t say enough about how great she is in this movie. And, you know, Kathy Bates was amazing in Misery. It it’s difficult to compare, but I love, Dee Wallace in this movie, and she does do a great job. You know, like you said, you know, it’s these these people aren’t perfect. It’s kind of a a real life thing, you know, despite the fact that they have a beautiful home, you know, on the beach, you know, and, like, the dad drives a Jag. I don’t get the dad drives a Jag and she drives a broke down Pinto. I don’t play I don’t really get that. But they’ve got this great life and yet for whatever reason, you know, she’s stepping out. She’s banging Steve on the side. Yeah. And you can kind of tell even from the very even from when that’s revealed. Like, the way that it’s revealed is they they do a shot where you see Steve laying in bed or on his mattress on the floor because he’s, like, this bachelor or whatever. Mhmm. He picks up a trombone and and and plays the trombone, and it wakes up the person who’s sleeping next to him and it and it’s her. And and it’s kind of surprising, like, you don’t expect it, you don’t see it coming, but at the same time I felt like she did a really good job because even from the very beginning you can tell that she feels guilty about what she’s doing. You know, she knows that it’s bad and and she knows that she’s really got a good thing going on. It’s kinda like, you know, what am I doing? And and that plays, from the beginning.

Todd: It almost seems like an affair out of boredom or something. Yeah. Just like she’s just got this life and her husband’s always busy, but he’s not he’s not portrayed as too busy.

Craig: It’s it’s

Todd: not that simple. It’s not that cut and dried. And I think that’s part of what’s so beautiful about it. And like you said, it’s pretty believable. Right. Yeah.

Craig: Again, you know, that’s that’s that’s kind of it. She’s having this affair. Tad’s got Tad’s afraid of the monsters. There’s some really cute stuff where the dad, like, you know, carries Tad around his room before he puts him to bed, and he Tad calls it the monster words, like you have to say the monster words.

Clip: Monsters, stay out of Tad’s room. You have no business here. No monsters in Tad’s closet. It’s too small for you in there. No monsters under Tad’s bed. You cannot fit under there. Oh, there’s outside Tad’s window. You can’t hold on out there. Nothing will touch Tad. Nothing will hurt Tad all through this night.

Craig: And it’s just very sweet. And you get moments when you see them together as a family. There’s one moment where they’re having dinner. It’s not it’s like you said, it’s not so much that there’s tension. It’s almost just kinda like there’s like, it’s they’re bored. Like, he even says the dad even says, I think this marriage is running out of conversation. You know, because they’re they’re just sitting there not talking. Tad does something cute, and they all laugh. And so it’s it’s not like they don’t like each other, and there’s even a moment where they’re laying in bed and or or or she’s laying in bed, and the husband comes out of the bathroom after brushing his teeth or whatever, and he lays down and she’s just looking at him and, he’s like, what? And she’s like, well, you’re just so handsome or or something like that. And you can see in her eyes that she loves her husband, she cares about her husband, whatever has motivated whether whether it be boredom or whatever it is that has motivated her to have this affair, there’s definitely still love in this family. Mhmm.

Todd: But there are problems. Yeah. And that’s that’s the book. Alright. I guess I’ll go back to the book a little bit. We have this family. We have this family with these problems, and it’s very well spelled out. And and as much as we go back and forth with the dog who’s, you know, starting to show his symptoms of the rabies and we get inside the dog’s head a little bit, we’re seeing these troubles unfold here And that’s juxtaposed with this other family, this family that’s way out, outside of Todd, and that is, Joe. Yeah. The Cambers. Cambers. And, his wife Charity, doesn’t get said much actually, and, and their and their son, Brett. And they’re the kind of, like, a working class family, you know, of the groups. But, again, a very similar problems, except in this case, it’s Joe is a little more of an overbearing father as far as trying to kinda keep his family in line, maybe more expecting a traditional man’s role around the house. And you get the sense that Charity feels a little trapped by that and is uncomfortable, maybe even a little scared of him. There’s an implication maybe. He’s the kind of guy to hit them a little bit. In the book Yeah. It’s for sure, you know, that that’s the case. In fact, he’s played up, I think, a little more villainous in the, if you can call it that, in the movie, than he is in the book, quite honestly. And Charity ends up winning the lottery. And Yeah. Her whole goal really is she’s thinking of leaving Joe, because she’s worried about her son’s development. And you Again, you get much more of this in the book than you do in the movie. But the real reason is is like she kind of sees her son becoming him. And she’s not happy about that. She wants her son to be a little bit more like her side of the family. Because she comes, you know, she has a sister in New York or whatever who’s who’s who’s, you know, married to rich guy and they’re high society or whatnot. And she wants him to at least see what that’s like and and get out. And Joe never lets them leave, you know. He keeps them on a short leash. And so she buys him a new tool for his tool shed, and that’s how we get introduced to them. Joe goes in, he he repairs cars, basically. He’s a mechanic. And he goes into his barn where he has his, his shop and sees a new, it’s an engine puller, basically. And it comes in. It’s like, what is this? We can’t afford this. And Charity’s like, well, I won the lottery. I won $10,000. And her idea is she’s gonna trade this. This is her way of, getting this short escape, which she’s considering will be a long escape. But she’s still not quite sure of getting her and Brett to visit her sister, in exchange for, you know, giving Jill this tool. And Right.

Clip: In the

Todd: meantime, we get a I thought this scene was so crazy. The scene where Joe then, after he agrees to this, visits his buddy down the street. Gary. Right?

Craig: Yeah. I yeah. Yeah. It’s Gary.

Todd: Gary. And and and you talk about making this seem to be like it’s almost like Gary lives at a haunted house, dark, and it’s it’s got filled with smoke from his cigarettes. And it’s got beer cans all over the floor, and it’s a mess. And and Joe’s sitting there. This is his buddy, you know. And Joe’s like, well, while they’re gone, I’m gonna go down to Boston and I’m just gonna basically wine women and song it up Right. Without them knowing. So Joe doesn’t come across as a real great guy, in this movie.

Craig: No. And that it it’s it’s funny because I I’ll say it for the, like, 500th time because I haven’t read the book. But in the in the movie, I very much got the impression that, yeah, she wins the lottery, and she does. She makes that Craig, like, oh, I bought you a big expensive tool. Can I please go visit my sister? But I I got the strong impression that she was leaving and that they were not coming back. Oh, yeah. And and and the reason that I thought that was because she while she’s packing, she surreptitiously packs, the family photo album. And, you know, there there’s no reason to do that, you know, unless you’re not planning on coming back.

Todd: That’s right.

Craig: And and, you know, I was kind of glad because the way we don’t get a whole lot of their dynamic, not nearly as much as the other family, but just in a little bit that we get, you can tell that she seems to be kind of put upon, She’s very mousy, you know. She always kinda looks like she’s on the lookout, like Mhmm. Anybody might strike out at her at any moment.

Todd: Yeah. Weak. She seems weak. Yeah. And and and and helpless.

Craig: Or broken. Yeah.

Todd: Broken. Yeah. Broken is better.

Craig: I was glad. I, you know, I was happy, that she was getting her son away from that. The the son, who’s played by Billy Jane, another actor that you’ll recognize from the eighties. He was the annoying little brother in, Just One of the Guys. Todd, you know, he’s concerned because at some point just prior to them leaving, he has gone out and looked for Cujo, because Cujo hasn’t been hanging around the house as much as he usually does, and he goes out and it’s this scene that it’s it’s this, like, dense dense fog. And, he he goes out and he’s calling for Cujo, and he he kind of hears Cujo crying, which again, you know, breaks my heart. Can only imagine it’s how a parent would feel, you know, hearing a baby whimpering and crying and clearly in distress. But he he goes out and eventually Cujo comes out of the fog. And again, it reminded me of the reef because it was like that shark Oh, yeah. Coming out of coming out of, you know, the the the fog of the the ocean.

Todd: That’s an interesting parallel. It’s true, though.

Craig: He comes out and, like, you know, at this point, he’s looking pretty bad. You know, he’s dirty. He’s he’s kinda foaming at the mouth. He’s got kinda pus coming out of his eyes, and the kid is, worried about him.

Clip: He was tripping foam at the mouth. I think I better tell them. No. You do no such thing. Your father would just jump on something like that. You just leave him be, and you can mooch around your dad, and your dad will take care

Craig: of him.

Clip: Love school, Joe. Yeah. I guess you would. Tell you what. We’ll call you further tonight. When you talk to him, you say sort of casually, you feed my dog daddy, then you know.

Craig: That gets them out of there and then they’re gone in a way and and safe. So good for them. And really,

Todd: I I don’t think we ever really revisit them much again, do we?

Craig: No. No. We don’t see them again.

Todd: And this is the biggest change I think, from the book is that really it’s the story about these two families. It’s these two parallel stories and it’s not so cut and dried with Cho’s family. As a matter of fact, what’s interesting about it is that, Brett really idolizes his father. He idolizes his father’s hard work ethic and actually all of the a lot of the really good things about his dad. It takes us to where they’re visiting her sister and, there’s quite a bit of this sort of, inter family, you know, there’s there’s quite a bit of it’s just the same really, in a different way as what Dee Wallace’s character is going through. This sort of doubt, this, oh, am I doing the right thing? Maybe this is stupid. And she ends up, actually, kind of coming to the conclusion that that Joe’s got some good qualities and that her sister and her lifestyle is maybe just a little fake. You know, they’re a little too high society, a little too full of themselves. And, the things she kind of sees her husband through her son’s eyes, and it helps her to notice again that everybody’s a little complicated. He’s got his bad qualities, but would she rather he be like more like his father or more like, you know, her sister’s family? And he, she kind of comes to the conclusion that, yeah, I’m gonna go back and we’re not gonna leave after all. And I think that’s kind of important thematically, you know, in the book. Because again, it adds to that tragedy. Most of the tension in the book, I think comes from the fact that once Cujo starts going crazy and killing people, it’s like, who is finally gonna stop it? Who’s gonna be able to come back and do it? And it’s it toys with you considerably. Oh, the mailman’s gonna come by. Oh, he’s not coming by. Oh, you know, the kid’s calling back home to his dad and he’s not getting an answer because he’s worried about the dog. So he, you know, mom does let him call back and he doesn’t answer and then they call a neighbor to maybe go check. And so there’s all of these moments where there are opportunities for people to figure out something weird’s going on and go over. But for one reason or another, that that doesn’t happen. And so that is, I think, like the secondary tension of the book that’s completely lost in the movie. I think there’s very little of

Craig: that

Todd: in the in the movie. And so it becomes a very different kind of story as a result. And I think that’s why I said, you know, I think the book is a little more on the edge of your seat than the movie ended up being for me. But again, on its own merits.

Craig: Yeah, sure. Yeah. I’m I’m gonna have to read it now. I’m I’m I’m very interested. But the way that these stories converge in the movie is that Vic has some sort of issue with his Jag. I don’t know, like one of the wheels is wonky or something and he takes it to, the local mechanic and the local mechanic is like, you know, I’m not gonna be able to look at this for a while and, but the mailman is there and the mailman says you should take it out to Joe Camper’s house. He, you know, he works on cars. He’s honest.

Todd: Fair price.

Craig: And and he won’t rip fair price. He won’t rip you off, and he kind of insinuates that, you know, this mechanic is is no. Mhmm. So Vic’s like, okay. So, he takes he loads up the whole family for some reason and takes them all out there. And that’s when, Tad and Donna first meet Cujo. And and like you said, which I’m sure it’s similar in the book, Donna’s concerned as a mother should be. You know, like I have a big dog. I’ve said before I have a rottweiler and I, you know, I think that parents should train their children to have a respect for large animals, you know. You don’t know that you know they could be friendly they might not be and if they’re not they could potentially be very dangerous. So she’s a little skeptical at first, but the, you know, the camper son, Brett says, oh, no. Cujo’s a great dog. He loves kids. And so, you know, Cujo meets Todd, and he’s super sweet, and Tad likes him, but Donna notices, you know, that he’s got this wound on his nose. But, you know, big deal. It’s a dog. You know, it’s it’s it’s not a big thing. And and so that’s that’s how they establish that connection. I guess Camper, you know, fixes Vic’s car and all is good. Meanwhile, back in town, Donna has decided that she is gonna break it off with Steve. He’s not happy about the fact that she’s breaking it off and and she says, look, you know, I’ve got this great husband and I’ve got this great kid and it just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know what I’m doing, and and he kind of tries to convince her to stay, but apparently she’s she’s done. Unfortunately, when she goes back out to her car, he chases her out there and Vic just happens to be driving by. And he sees them and so he pulls a quick Huey in the street, but by the time he gets back she’s already gone. And but now there’s this seed of suspicion planted in his mind. Well, I guess at some point, Steve comes over to their house when he thinks that Donna is alone and she is, and and he gets really handsy with her and like this was, it kind of took me by surprise because like Vic and Steve were, you know, like they’re playing tennis, they’re pals, you know, he like he hangs out in their house, he’s nice to their kid, you know. I thought, well, you know, the fact that she’s having an affair with them, there must be something appealing about him, but then as soon as she breaks it off he turns into a total jerk.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And like he gets pretty rapey with her really. Yeah. She pushes him away and but in the in the scuffle something gets broken and Tad and Vic come in and she gets Steve out of there, but Vic says just tell me yes or no and and and she confesses. So now he knows and there’s this tension between them plus he’s got this tension going on at work because he works in advertising, but he their big campaign was the cereal campaign and now because the cereal had a certain kind of red dye in it all the kids that were eating it are like peeing and pooping red and thinking they’re hemorrhaging even though they’re really not. Like, so so his job is in danger. So there’s all this tension going on. And so he has to go away, and I think that he kind of wants to get away to think things over, but he has to go away for 10 days for his job. And and before he leaves, she stops him and says

Clip: I I just wanted you to know it was over. I just wanted to be sure that you knew that. I can’t make that it never happened, Vic. I can’t make like it never happened either, Donna. I know I know that.

Craig: So I

Clip: don’t know what I’m gonna do either. I don’t know.

Craig: So he goes away, but not before reminding her, you know, your car is having problems. You should take it out to the campers, and they’ll they’ll fix you up. Mhmm. Gosh.

Todd: There you

Craig: go. That’s basically it. There you go. There’s there’s 30 minutes of the movie.

Todd: It’s a good 45 minutes, actually. You’re right, because we’re about halfway through it after all this kinda happens. And then we get our first kill. Cujo’s, now pretty rabid, and he goes over and, Gary, this friend of Joe’s, who is, you know, the 2 of them are gonna go together, out to Boston. They’ve decided putting his trash out, and Cujo comes out and and, chases Gary down, jumps on him, and breaks through a screen door, to get inside the house. And poor Gary’s trying to load his shotgun, but he’s not fast enough, and Cujo basically rips his throat out. And so Gary is the first to go.

Craig: Yeah. And this is one of those moments that maybe the only moment, I don’t know, but it’s so early in the movie. Well, not early really, but early in the scary part of the movie that, it just was kinda humorous to me. Like, this dog this dog is, like, you know, supposed to be menacing this guy, and you’ve got a shot looking at the guy from behind the dog. And the dog’s tail is just wagging. Yeah. Like, this is just the happiest dog. I I read that normally they would tie the dog’s tail to one of its back legs to keep it from doing that because these dogs, you know, they’re just trained animals and, obviously, they’re not gonna put them in any sort of real peril. You know, they’re not gonna really work them up into any kind of frenzy or anything.

Todd: They were having a good time.

Craig: It was the only time I noticed it, but, it was pretty funny. You know, he’s wagging his tail wagging his tail, and then he attacks him and kills him.

Todd: Yeah. They have to be pretty creative with how they shoot this and real careful in order to make these this dog seem menacing. And, I’m sorry. When he was leaping up on him and stuff, I just I I didn’t find that terribly convincing either. Maybe because of the tail wagging, but maybe because that’s just what dogs always do to me, you know. Oh, I’m so happy Todd see you, and they’re up with their hind legs trying to get it, you know, pawing at your chest and stuff, and it’s Well, and that’s

Craig: Todd be of that. That’s fair enough that, you know, that it’s not a 100% convincing, but when you’re working with live animals, you

Todd: know you’re gonna do.

Craig: You know? Right. They do a pretty they’re pretty darn good job. Yeah. You know, there were, like, I think, 5 real Saint Bernards. They couldn’t even get the St. Bernards to be menacing enough sometimes, so sometimes they substituted in a rottweiler. I I couldn’t tell the difference, but that’s what I read. But, and I also read that the dog that gets the most screen time, the one that they used the most died of bloat on during the production, which is sad. Oh. But, anyway, you know, like, they’ve got the they’ve got these dogs, like, they’re all filthied up and they’ve got just gunk and blood and gross nasty stuff all over their faces. And the foam that they used for the dog’s mouth was made out of whipped egg whites and sugar and they had the hardest time getting good close-up shots because the dogs would just spend all their time licking this stuff off their face because it tasted good. And you can tell there is some close-up shots where you can tell that the dogs are just licking, licking like.

Todd: And you could tell that they’ve just smeared stuff on them too. That bothered me a little bit.

Craig: I’m like Oh, I don’t know. I thought Cujo looked pretty scary.

Todd: He did. I could see where you’d have the weepy eyes and things like that, but I thought you’re supposed to foam from the mouth, not over the mouth. Where was that foam coming from? Like, the pores above his nose? I don’t know.

Craig: The next kill is Joe comes over to pick his friend Gary up because they’re gonna go out of town and, Cujo makes quick work of him Todd. Like, there’s not much to it, You know, Joe gets in the house, he looks around, he finds Gary. Cujo shows up. Joe says, you’re rabid. And then the dog attacks him. We don’t even really see much of anything, but he never shows up again. So presumably, he’s dead. Yeah. And then the, you know, the really dramatic part of the movie is when, Donna takes Tad in their Pinto out to the Camber’s house, and they this car is on its last legs, and she’s just you know kind of hoping and praying that it will even make it there. And it does, but it just makes it there, and it dies. So they look around and it doesn’t seem like anybody’s there, and she gets out of the car and she starts calling, you know, out to see if anybody’s there. At this point, we start getting a lot more perspective shots from the dog’s point of view, which is kinda spooky, but Tad is having problems with his seat belt. He can’t get his seat belt off, and so she gets back in the car, but she still got her door open and she’s trying to help, and Cujo attacks. Again, Stephen King has said that he thinks this is one of the most effective scares in any of the adaptations of his movies. The dog jumps up, you know, Tad’s window is down just a little bit, and the dog jumps up, and just is growling and snarling and pawing at the window, and it’s filthy and it’s smearing up the windows with mud and blood and gross nastiness, and little Danny Pintaro, just starts freaking out as a child would and the kid and the mom is scared Todd. And eventually, you know, the dog comes around and she has to get her door closed, but they do, and but this little kid is freaking out, but not at all in an unrealistic way and totally in a completely sympathetic way, like, I felt so bad for this kid. I even felt bad for him as an actor. I’m like, gosh, either this kid was really because he was like 6 when they filmed this. Either this kid is just a really really talented little kid or he had to have been traumatized for life.

Clip: For a

Todd: ride to

Craig: hell out. Yeah. For a poor and the poor guy, I mean, it’s just he’s through the rest of the movie he’s crying and and, you know, there are times there are calm moments where he he has an opportunity to calm down sometimes where there’s kinda waiting, because from this point on, Cujo just stalks the car. Like, the car won’t Todd, they can’t get out, there’s nobody else around. I I was just impressed with him, and I was so impressed with her performance too because she does her best to keep her stuff together for the kid and she tries to comfort him and you know he’s saying it’s the monster from my closet and and you know she’s holding him and caressing him and trying to be you know, loving. But there even comes one point where they’ve been in there for, I don’t know, a day or a day and a half or something and he’s flipping out and there comes one moment where she just gets so frustrated that she kind of, screams at him. Nothing nasty. She just raises her voice because she’s so frustrated and I read that she has said in interviews that she’s been approached by parents who have commended her for that moment in that scene where she, you know, she’s she loves her kid and she wants so desperately to comfort him, but there just comes a moment where you just lose your shit, you know. And and, she has said, you know, I think that’s something that only a real parent can appreciate, is that that kind of frustration where you just can’t handle it anymore. You just can’t keep it together anymore, you know. And I don’t want to gloss over it because it’s such an intense half hour where they’re stuck in this car and, you know, they have a tiny little bit of something to drink in a thermos, but they’re trying to ration it and, you know, we all know how hot it gets in cars in the summertime and and they’re sweating and they’re the little tad, you know, just starts to look like he’s just wasting away and she looks awful Todd. And the dog just is relentless and just won’t leave them alone and at one point she thinks that the dog she hasn’t seen it for a while so she thinks she’s gonna try to get in the house because there’s a phone in the house that keeps ringing and every time the phone rings it agitates the dog. But she she tries to get in there and she doesn’t know that the dog is just right on the other side of the car, and it comes in it attacks her, and not only does it attack her, but she falls back into the car and it jumps right in on top of her and it’s savage. It’s just absolutely savage and she’s fighting and screaming and crying and her kid is just right there screaming. You know, she finally is able to get the dog out of the car, but not before she’s just mauled horribly and she has this terrible bite on her leg and, and, of course, you know now she’s got rabies. Oh, gosh. And it’s just awful. And it just goes on like that for, like, a half an hour. And it’s it’s it’s harrowing. It’s difficult to watch.

Todd: It is. And and, you know, I think for me, now that I’m a parent and, you know, I’m sorry. I I don’t when I say this, before I was a parent, I still had an imagination. You know? I could still empathize and sympathize with kids, you know, being hurt and things like that just fine. I could still get the full weight of it. But the mentality that I’m in now is just that when I watch these things or see these things or read these things and involve kids, like, just my brain naturally just inserts my own son. Of course in the place of it. So when I’m watching these movies, it’s like I’m watching, you know, this happened to my son. It’s like what’s happening in the back of my brain. And so it just has a slightly different emotional effect on me than it than it would have before. And, that is the thing that I think is is probably the most heartbreaking, especially about the book. And I feel like the movie even well, it does actually glosses over it a lot more. The movie would have had, I think, even more impact, if it had really focused more on the plight of the kid because he’s the the truly helpless one in this situation. There’s nothing he can do, and so his terror I mean, hats off to Danny Pintaro for pulling off what he did because without that effectiveness, the movie would have been even less effective, I think. But he just he just seems completely out of his mind. And then you see just the breakdown. I mean and and I think, again, this is where, you know, when you’re reading it, it just kinda comes through a little bit more because you get in the characters’ heads. But here’s the mom. She’s got this kid she’s gotta deal with. And she might be able to tough out some dehydration and some stuff like that. But this poor kid is starting to go into shock. He’s having Yeah. Seizures. He’s just kind of laying there unresponsive a lot of the time, and she’s checking to see if he’s still breathing. And it’s one of these moments, finally, both in the movie and in the book, when she’s like, I’ve gotta take care of this,

Craig: you know.

Todd: And she, you know, bolts out of the of the car, And, Cujo comes out and they have this kind of high noon stare down moment. Then he runs full force after her, and she goes after a bat that’s that’s been lying in the yard that she saw earlier on.

Clip: Mhmm.

Todd: Actually, I thought it was a really great scene too, you know, where she’s just fighting for a life against this dog who leaps up at him. And she’s wicks whips the bat around and just smacking him and and, the dog keeps coming, you know, against all odds, you know, straight after her s’more. And the bat breaks and so she has a sharp thing and when she falls back, on the ground, the dog leaps at her. It’s that classic, you know, she has a spike in her hand and the dog kinda leaps onto the spike, and then suddenly he falls over and Todd moving. And so, you know, she gets up and she takes Danny out of the car and he’s unresponsive and she takes him into the kitchen and she is, giving him CPR, like, Danny, Danny, come back, come back, come back. And he starts coughing and says, okay, he’s gonna be okay. And just at that moment, who comes bursting through the window of a Cujo, for that one last, just like in every horror movie, I’m gonna come back one last time. The at that moment, she’s there’s a gun, that was on the table that she whips around and shoots him. And also with that moment, I guess we kind of, you know, neglected it, but there’s there’s just every now and then there’s a scene of Vic who’s getting increasingly worried about his family because he’s calling and they’re not calling out there, and he’s wondering, well, did she run off with Steve and what’s going on? And finally, he’s just like, I’ve gotta go, and he leaves without settling the account or anything like that. And he shows up at that house just in the nick of well, not in the nick of time, right after she takes care of Cooper, basically. So that they can be together and they can have their big embrace, and that’s basically it. Now Yeah. That’s it. I the book again, I I I don’t know. Craig, you wanna read it. I don’t really wanna spoil it too much for you.

Craig: No. I already know what you’re gonna say. It’s okay.

Todd: The the kid doesn’t live in the book. This I know. Whole thing, I mean the book just makes you wanna freaking cry. She’s been unresponsive for a while actually, and she’s just laying there and doesn’t really know what to do. And, you know, she’s kind of in her head and hours go by and finally she decides jump out of the car, and the scene kinda goes down the way it goes down. But instead of having that last scare, her pulling him out of the car, that point at which she just finishes dealing with Cujo is when Vic shows up. So he comes running out of the car at her after she just laid the dog down, and she’s screaming, she’s Craig, and he immediately runs into the car, and he pulls out Danny, and he says to her, how long has he been dead? Wow. And you you don’t you don’t know. Like, she he has probably was already dead for who knows how long. She didn’t even know it. And that’s that’s how that ends. You know, it’s just horrible. It’s horrible.

Craig: And and Stephen King has said that if he could go back and change anything in any of his novels, that would be the one thing that he would change that he would let Tad live. And that’s why he lives in the movie, you know, that was his directive.

Todd: It it would never have played oh, my gosh. You’d I just they couldn’t have played that in the movie, You know? Not in the eighties.

Craig: It’s too bleak.

Todd: It’s too bleak for a for a mainstream audience at least. You know? It wouldn’t have gone over. Absolutely not. Now they made the right choice in doing it the way they did it. It did dull a little bit of the impact, but, I mean, you

Craig: Todd, maybe

Todd: we don’t want that kind of impact.

Craig: Oh, I would’ve I would’ve been absolutely devastated if cute little Danny Pintaro had been dead at the end. Like, it just would have made it feel, like, point you know, like, what was the point, you know. Like, she went through all of this, only just to be devastated at the end, you know. And that was something that I was curious about because you talked about, as you often do, you know, the morality of horror movies, and I kind of wondered in the book if there was any implication that this was kind of her punishment for her infidelity.

Todd: Not overtly. No. Quite honestly, there’s there isn’t because, again, just like in the movie, she says it’s over, and so many other people get caught up in this. The policeman we’ve neglected to say, a policeman ends up coming over Yeah.

Clip: And he

Todd: gets killed. Not overtly. I think you could probably read it a little bit that way, but it’s certainly not, not called out. No. It’s just like I said, I felt like looks like a tragedy. You know, bad things happen to people, and, they have to deal with it, and it doesn’t always turn out great. And that was just an example. And I feel like, you you know, when you when you hear that King was drinking and he was just kind of, like, you know, out of his mind when he was writing this, you have to think that he was probably going through a lot of emotional trauma himself, and he was just taking the out on this poor family in his book. But, yeah, I like I said, it’s not my favorite book, and it’s not my favorite movie. I think the the book was pretty powerful, but at the end of the day, I still felt like compared to a lot of his other books anyway, they just have so much more going on and so many more layers. You know, there’s still an additional layer or 2, but at the end of the day, this book was much more straightforward, and, not as satisfying for me. And then the movie had to simplify it even more

Clip: Mhmm.

Todd: To to make it that way. So it’s also like we said, it’s a very straightforward simple movie. There’s a bunch of family drama, which ends up kinda separating everybody. Unfortunately, you know, 2 of them end up getting as a result, getting stalked by a rabid dog for a while, until somebody can come and and, and find out what’s going on.

Craig: Yeah. You know, I I think that, you know, my assessment of it is that it’s a really good movie, you know. I think that it’s it’s really well made. I think that the the performances are super strong, especially from Dee Wallace and Danny Pintaro, but there’s nobody in it who’s bad. Everybody does a good job, but those 2 especially, they just it just kinda breaks your heart. But it’s it’s it’s hard for me to watch, you know. It’s it’s difficult to watch that cute little kid in distress. It’s it’s difficult it’s difficult for me to watch that poor mother having to see her child in that kind of distress and it gets really bad, you know, like, you mentioned briefly, like, he starts seizing and even the dog, the poor dog, you know, you were talking about when she’s fighting the dog at the end, like, she keeps hitting in the head with the bat, and it keeps falling down and getting back up. And I know it’s a movie. I know it’s fake. I know they’re not really hitting this dog with the bat, but even just the suggestion of it, it just kinda turns my stomach, a little bit and

Todd: It’s not the dog’s flesh. Yeah.

Craig: No. And, that makes me wanna cry I just talked about.

Todd: You’re such a sapper dog.

Craig: I know I am, but it’s it’s, it’s a really good movie. And if you are a fan of horror movies or if you’re a Stephen King fan, I you gotta watch it. I mean, you’ve gotta see it. Yeah. But, it’s it’s not something that I’m gonna be popping in all the time to watch because it’s it’s tough. It’s a tough watch.

Todd: Yeah. And again, I’m a little more mixed on it, but and one of the things we mentioned too that I really have to jump out and and and praise is not flawless because, again, like we said, what are how much can you really do with the animals? But I feel like the the cinematography in this movie does the best job it can do to try to make this seem like a very sinister situation and hopeless situation.

Craig: We never even talked about. There’s that one scene in the car where right after she gets attacked Oh, yes. Where the camera where the camera does this 360 thing, and it just keeps getting faster and faster. Oh my gosh. That was so cool.

Todd: It’s very inventive, and it it it’s it puts you right like, literally puts you in the middle of the action. You’re kinda freaking out along with them. You know? You have to see the kids scream, then you have to see her scream, then you see him scream again, her scream again. You realize they’re in this confined space. They’re just going back and forth and back and forth, and this is gonna be their life for a while. It’s it’s really effective at communicating that. John de Bont is the director of photography for this, a Swedish cinematographer, and he did a whole bunch of stuff, before he did this movie. But after this movie, he started doing a lot more stuff, and he’s responsible for some of my favorite. Die Hard, He was it Hunt for Red October, Basic Instinct, Flatliners. And one of my all time favorite movies with some of the best cinematography you’re ever gonna see is Black Rain, which is a fantastic Michael Douglas movie. It’s like a thriller mystery that takes place in Osaka, Japan. It’s just it’s just wonderful. And yeah. And he he directed Speed as well. And Twister, you know, kinda went into directing there for a little bit too. Not all of his movies were big hits, but, very big name in Hollywood, very successful, and you can tell. I mean, he’s very talented. Well, there’s Cujo for you. We have, other requests that we’re planning on doing, for the rest of the month. You can keep sending them to us as a matter of fact because, we might continue. If we got enough and enough interesting ones in there that we’d like to do and cross off our list, we’ll continue doing requests, for a while before we take a break and get selfish again. Yeah. But, anyway, that is our episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. Check us out on Facebook, where you could like us and send those requests in. You can see our website at 2 guys dot redfortynet.com where all our back episodes are as well as some written reviews, sprinkled in there from time to time. Until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

We wrap up our month of summer horror with another shark film. Very reminiscent of 2003 survival horror film Open Water, The Reef gives us a few more characters and a slightly different situation. It’s even also based on a true story.

Episode 135, 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 wrapping up our summer fun month, and, this week, I chose the film, and I recommended that we take a look at 2000 ten’s The Reef. I saw this movie years ago. I have no idea how long. Probably not too long after it came out. It was available briefly on Netflix, and that’s where I caught it. It was directed by, Andrew Trautsch, who had one feature film before this, Black Water, which I watched after I saw this film because I enjoyed this film, and I really liked them both. It’s an Australian film. You know, I I I can’t say that I’m incredibly well versed in Australian horror movies, but the ones that I’ve seen like The Loved Ones and Wolf Creek, which I know, Todd, you’re not a huge fan of.

Todd: But we’ll have to do some time. It’s it’s gonna

Craig: You’re right.

Todd: It’s required, I think.

Craig: The the ones I’ve seen, I’ve enjoyed, and and I would say the same for this one. I feel like when I recommended this, Todd, you said that you didn’t know anything about it. Is that true?

Todd: That’s a 100% accurate. I’d never even heard of it. Although with a title like The Reef, you know, it’s not, like, the most original title. Maybe I’d heard of it, but, no, I don’t I didn’t know this movie.

Craig: Yeah. It’s the title’s a little bit generic. And, frankly, you know, it’s it’s not the most unique concept in the world. It’s a shark movie. But I like shark movies. You know, of course, Jaws is kind of the penultimate, of, the big shark blockbuster movies. But this one, I I would say probably has a little bit more in common, with the film, Open Water. Yes. Yeah.

Todd: That’s what I was thinking the whole time. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. Which was an American film, but I would argue that, this one was potentially even a little better. And I don’t know if this makes the biggest difference in the world, but it kinda made a difference to me, is the fact that all of the shark footage in this movie is actual shark footage. There, there, there aren’t, as far as I know, you know, in fact, and I’m sure we’ll talk about this, there were some times when I found it hard to believe, like, seriously? Like, are these real sharks? Because they’re right next to these people. It’s kind of what you would expect, but at the same time, I found it to be, pretty tense and and scary, and ultimately, I liked it. What did you think?

Todd: You know, I enjoyed it. I thought it was tense. I thought there was at least one moment in here which was absolutely heart wrenching. And I think the best thing I could say about this movie is it’s I think it’s a skillful piece of writing. I think it’s a skillful, piece of directing because it seems to be 100% honest. They’re they’re not it it feels to me like if people are out in the middle of the water being terrorized by sharks, this is how it would go down. This is how people would react. Nothing’s really overblown. I think the even the character development itself isn’t really that much. We kinda get to know these people, but not really well. And it’s not like they’re these different personalities being played played off of each other for dramatic effect. You know, they’re all just basically friends and relatives who go out and are on a boat, and then this bad thing happens, and they have to fend for themselves. But they’re pretty much all on the same team the whole way. It’s just them against the shark. Right. And so in one at one level, because it was so honest, I feel like it lacked a lot of the dramatic panache that you get from a lot of other movies, but that’s not necessarily a knock against the movie. There’s certainly room for movies like this. You’re not gonna be watching this movie and experiencing one twist right after another. The thing about the film is it goes pretty straightforward in the direction you imagine it would go. And the only thing that’s suspenseful about it is who’s gonna live and who’s gonna die.

Craig: Right.

Todd: Right. So, you know, I mean, it’s it’s it’s it’s a fine film. It’s not my favorite. It’s not my favorite shark movie. But, you know, it probably swim circles around, say, I don’t know, Jaws 3 d, which you say. Can’t even put them in the same ballpark. Sorry, Craig. That was just a jab at you in That’s okay.

Craig: Fair enough. Hey. We we got really positive response from that episode, so you you can jab that meal all you want.

Todd: Joss 3 d has a lot of fans out there that came out of the woodwork after that one.

Craig: That’s right. Well, yeah. You’re right. And I think that part of the reason that it doesn’t have, I don’t know, you know, like, those dramatic twists and turns that you suggested is is, because it’s it’s another one of those movies that opens up. It’s set in Australia somewhere, I believe on the great barrier reef. And it opens up with this beautiful shot, this aerial shot of the reef. And and we get the title, and then it says based on a true story. Now, you know, we see that so often, and you always have to take that with a grain of salt. You know? For example, Open Water is also based on a true story, but nobody survived in that movie. So Who knows what

Todd: happened? Yeah.

Craig: Who knows what really happened? Exactly. But the true story that this is based on actually is pretty close to what is portrayed in the movie, except for there were fewer people involved. I think, in the true story, there were only 3 people involved. But Mhmm. In both the movie and the story that it’s based on, there was a survivor. And so there was somebody, you know, and I I guess we have to take them at their word, but, there was somebody who could kind of give an account of, these events that happened. And also in this movie, the predator, is a great white shark, which, you know, is very scary. We’re all terrified of great whites because of jaws and and just because they’re, you know, so massive and scary in general. In real life, apparently, it was actually a 10 foot tiger shark. Frankly, you know, in looking stuff up about this movie, I I couldn’t find a whole lot.

Todd: No. There really wasn’t a lot.

Craig: Yeah. I know. And I and I was a little disappointed. And and when I first watched the movie, I was a little skeptical because the movie kind of hinges on the idea that these people, this group of people, who find themselves, you know, capsized in the water are really being hunted by this one shark. And in the back of my mind, I was thinking that’s stupid. You know, like like, one shark is not gonna keep hunting these same people. But according to, you know, the person who actually survived, that is what happened. Now Right. Can they say with any certainty that it was the same shark? I don’t know, but I’m willing to take their word that they believed that it was. And that’s what happens here. But I guess that’s kind of, getting ahead of ourselves. So let’s kind of set it up the way that the movie does.

Todd: Okay.

Craig: Yeah. Go for it.

Todd: No. You go ahead, Craig. You’re you’re better at this than I am. I I have a terrible memory.

Craig: I know, but I wanted to give you a shot.

Todd: We’d rather hear your voice anyway. Yeah. Or let me just say you’d rather hear your voice anyway.

Craig: You’re starting to sound like my partner. Shut up.

Todd: Okay. Alright. Go for it.

Craig: So we get the beautiful reef shot. We get the based on true events, and then we meet our main characters. And that’s another thing that I love about this movie. There are only 6 people credited in the whole movie and one of those people has like 2 lines. So

Todd: When you’re doing a podcast this is just a blessing. Right?

Craig: So really, there’s only 5 people to keep up with. First of all, we’ve got Luke. And, you know, I’ll tell you who played them even though, you know, these are all Australian actors. I don’t know any of them from anything else. But Luke is played by, Damien Walsh Howling. And, at the very beginning of the movie, he is at the airport, and he is picking up his friend, Matt, who is played by, Guyton Grantley, I think. And Matt’s girlfriend, Susie, played by Adrienne Pickering. And, they also have in tow Matt’s sister, Kate, who is played by Zoey Naylor. You can tell from the very, very beginning. You know, obviously, you know, Luke and Matt are buds. That’s great. Matt’s got this fiance. That’s great. But you can also tell that there’s something going on between Luke and Kate, Matt’s sister. Like, they they’ve clearly got some history. You can tell that right from the beginning, and that kind of gets

Todd: Because there aren’t many people in your life that you would give a sausage to. Giant sausage. Giant sausage. Did you I’m

Craig: still not really sure that I get that, Joe.

Todd: Did you find that really strange? I I

Craig: mean, I I felt like there there had to be some story behind it.

Todd: But I thought we had to get the story at some point. No. I guess we’re just supposed to let our imaginations fill in the blanks.

Craig: Yeah. She she gifts him a giant sausage, and he’s happy about it. So, you know, memories, I guess.

Todd: I guess so. Those those earlier sausage days.

Craig: Yeah. My goodness. Awkward. Alright. Anyway, Luke delivers boats for a living, which sounds like a totally awesome job. So he has this boat available and, you know, there’s some talk about, oh, we hope we’re not keeping you from anything. He’s like, oh, no. No. It’s fine. You know, I don’t have to be there for a while or whatever. So, you know, it’s not it’s not his boat, but he he delivers boats, and and so they they’re gonna go kind of on this pleasure cruise or whatever. Before they actually get on the boat, they stop, at, the bait shop on the dock, and Kate is drawn to this wall that has all of these, shark jaws. The 6th character who only has a couple of lines, Shane, he, I guess he works there.

Todd: It’s pretty impressive. Yeah. It’s a Mako, Todd, Hammerhead. That one’s a white pointer. Wow. Where’d you get these? Out there. Yeah. Yeah. Strange about the white point, though. People reckon they don’t usually come this far north. Don’t worry. What do

Craig: they say?

Todd: It’d be more like they’d die from a beast and get killed by a shark.

Craig: First of all, I’m terrible at geography, but secondly, I I don’t really know all that much about Australia except for what I hear is that pretty much everything there wants to kill you. Like they, like they have the craziest animals, the craziest insects. Like

Todd: You have no idea. It’s almost it’s completely true. I I happen to, my wife and I traveled to Australia. We went to the probably around where these guys are. You know, everybody thinks of Australia, they think of the outback. But if you go up in the northeastern part of the state of the country where the Great Barrier Reef, you know, most of the diving and good stuff up there is, it’s actually rainforest. We went on a hike once through the rainforest carrying rafts on our back to do some white water rafting. And as we were going through, the guide told us now don’t touch any plants. Like, be careful what you brush up against. I mean, we’re going I mean, you can’t avoid brushing Right. Against plants when you’re walking through the rainforest on a trail. But there is a particular plant there, and I think they call it the fire plant or something, that no kidding. If you touch its leaves or its bark, any part of its foliage, it has these microscopic, like, needles that just enter your skin effortlessly. And inside of these needles is like a nerve agent. And so you can brush up against one of these leaves and he said, you will feel likes, for example, your hand is on fire. And there’s and these will be embedded in your skin, and there’s nothing you can do about it until all of this runs its course. And he says, eventually, you’ll calm down and everything will be fine until you take a shower or you get it wet or you brush up against your own hand and then boom, it activates everything and you’re on fire again. And my wife actually went Todd, botanical garden and they had one of these plants in the botanical garden. And the entire thing, like, had all these big signs on it, and I don’t remember what it’s called, but, like, you know, fire plant, blah blah blah blah and a giant glass case around it so that nobody would touch it. Even the plants are going to kill you. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. It’s it’s crazy. I mean, it it sounds like a great country.

Todd: Between it’s between them

Craig: and the Craig. Really cool people live there. Todd don’t go in the outback and don’t touch any of the plants or see any animals or anything. Right. Right. But anyway, this guy at the bait shop, he’s like, don’t worry about it because you’re more likely to die from a bee sting than to be killed by a shark, which I suppose statistically is true, but that doesn’t really make me less scared of sharks and more scared of bees.

Todd: I think there are, like no kidding. There are, like, 10 deaths from by shark, like, per year worldwide. It’s that low. Wow. Something like that. That’s Craig. That, but it’s it’s it’s really that low. It’s really it’s really low.

Craig: God. And it that surprises me with, you know, as stupid people are, you know, jumping in, swimming with sharks all the time, whatever. Anyway, so now we know there’s all these sharks out there or whatever. They go to board the boat and they meet Warren played by, Kieran Darcy Smith. He’s not a friend of theirs, but he works with Luke or for Luke. Like, he’s the crew on the boat. You know, he’s a nice guy. Everybody gets along with him.

Todd: Which is everybody in this. I mean, nobody has any problem with anybody. Right? No. The only Yeah. No. The only thing is, you know, the awkwardness between Kate and, and Luke, who they call Lou all the time. But but that remedies itself pretty quickly.

Craig: Right. Right. As soon as they get on the boat, they talk, you know, we find out that they have sailed the Mediterranean together, you know, for whatever reason, reasons we don’t really know. Like, I I I feel like she, you know, went off on vacation or went off to school or something, I don’t know, but she’s been away for a while. It it seems like they kinda just put their relationship on Todd, and it’s just been indefinitely on hold. Giving him a sausage to break the ice again. A giant Todd, you’re a little obsessed with this giant sauce.

Todd: I it’s the big mystery of

Craig: the movie for me. I’m sorry. This is all

Todd: I could think about while we were going through. When are we gonna hear about the sausage? Never.

Craig: I know. You you would think they would have, like, eaten it later, like, you know, beaten the shark with it or something.

Todd: Or back when they’re, like, talking about sex later on when they’re trying to pass the time, like, the story would resurface or something. Like, I thought for sure we would get a payoff.

Craig: I don’t I don’t know, but, like, if that’s some sorta, like, inside you inside joke, like, wow, Luke. Like, get it, Kate. Right.

Todd: As it stands, this is a sausage without a payoff, I’m afraid.

Craig: Oh, if I had a quarter for every time. But anyway, so they they talk and, you know, like, they’re giving each other eyes. You know, like, these people, they’re all very good looking, but not, you know, like, so good looking that you couldn’t believe that they were real people, but, you know, nice looking people. One of the funny things that having watched this because this was watching it for the podcast. This is actually the 3rd time I’d seen it. But this time, I watched it and I noticed that, Matt has, like, 4 lines in the whole movie. Like Really? He just stands around most of the time, but that’s okay.

Todd: With a stupid grin on his face mostly.

Craig: He’s

Todd: just happy go lucky guy.

Craig: Good, nice guy, whatever. Okay. So they are going to they’re headed to Cygnet Reef. I have no idea where that is, but that’s apparently where they’re headed. But on the way, they stop at this little island that Luke knows about, and it’s this tiny little island, you know, no people on it, and it’s it’s beautiful. And, Warren stays on the boat, but the rest of them take this inflatable dinghy out, to the island, and, they go snorkeling. And there’s just all this absolutely gorgeous underwater, videography.

Todd: There really is.

Craig: And and, you know, I’ve seen, you know, nature specials and things. The the Great Barrier Reef is. I mean, it’s just it’s it’s stunning. You know, the the the wildlife under there and and all that. It’s it’s it’s just absolutely beautiful, and we get to see some of that.

Todd: Well, I think this is a really big strength of the movie, and I think it’s really quite skillful of the director to do what he does here. And that is he uses this opportunity even though, to be honest, nothing super interesting happens until, like, almost halfway through the movie. It’s, like, 40 minutes in before we get to even see a shark, really. What he does here when they’re diving is he really gives a sense of what what the ocean is like and what diving is like. Most of the time you’re above water and you’re waiting, your head’s up there, and all you see is just it looks looks like flat land, you know, as far as the eye can see, nothing to see. But underneath you where your legs are dangling, there’s a whole other world, you know, that you are ignorant of until you stick your head under the water. And so it’s really neat that he has these snorkeling shots to kinda give us a sense of that world. Now I’m, I’m actually open water certified. I was lucky enough to actually that’s was one of the reasons for our trip to Australia. So I actually got to dive, and get certified on the Great Barrier Reef. And, some of the shots here that they do really capture well this experience of being under the water. And I think one of the coolest parts about it is, for example, there are shots where, of course, you know, we’ve all seen them. Right? You’re going across coral, you’re you’re seeing fish, everything’s up close, everything seems fairly shallow relatively speaking. But then, there’s this moment where I think it’s Kate. I think

Craig: it’s Kate.

Todd: It is. Mhmm. She she’s coming across. We’re kinda seeing from behind her and seeing her birds her eye her pea point of view. And suddenly that drops off. It’s almost like an underwater cliff basically, where suddenly it’s just completely deep and dark and you can’t see anything. Right. And that is a bit spooky. It is like coming up to the edge of a cliff. And it’s part of what’s so amazing about it. But in a in another way, it’s what gets a little bit scary about diving. And that is when you come across this sudden depth like that. And at that moment, the way that the camera lingers and the way that the music is and the kind of the look on her face through her snorkel and everything is really well edited to where you’re almost expecting something to just come out of that darkness. Right? Like a creature would jump out of the fog in a horror movie. It doesn’t but, you know, later on we revisit that same scenario and that that same feeling, you know, that we get. It’s like he’s priming the pump. He’s priming us for that moment that’s gonna come later. And it’s really well set up here, I think. It’s very well done.

Craig: Yeah. Oh, I couldn’t agree more. You know, like you said, all of this stuff on the reef, you know, is is very beautiful. It’s what we are, used to seeing when we see that kind of nature photography, you know, in the ocean. But like you said, there’s just that drop off. And and I thought that it was so it it built the tension because underwater, you know, they’ve got goggles, you know, so they can see. But in that great depth, their vision is very limited. You know? They can maybe see, you know, I don’t know, what, 15, 20 yards, but then everything just becomes very fuzzy and blurry and it’s just kind of like infinite space. And and later in the movie when they are being hunted by sharks, what’s his name? The main guy, Luke, is constantly underwater looking for them, and he’s just kind of looking into this infinite space and and the these giant sharks will just kind of materialize seemingly out of nowhere. And by the time that you see them, they’re right there. They just appear, and and it’s nightmarish. I love the ocean. I I absolutely love being in the water and being in the ocean, but it’s terrifying. You know, it’s it it is like outer space, you know. It’s it’s so it’s it it like you said, it’s it’s a whole different world and and I felt like they did a really good job of, really and and this movie has one and, it’s really Todd. And you know when when they’re looking around at all the pretty coral and the pretty fish, you know, it’s, the music’s very ambient and, you know, it’s it’s really nice and pretty. And then all of a sudden, when she sees this drop off, you know, there’s there’s just a change in the score to indicate that change in Todd. And, I just I thought it was really well done. It kind of had me at that point.

Todd: I would say the score saves it honestly. The first 40 minutes would be pretty boring without those musical cues and sometimes that works against a movie, you know, sometimes you can kinda see through that and that’s really transparent. They’re trying to make things seem scary with just the music, but really nothing’s going on and you feel a little cheated. In here, you just get a slowly building tension and I think the music contributes to that. Like I said, it’s really priming the pump for later. And I just think it skillfully does that. It just comes in at the right moments. It’s the right tone and everything. Like you, I couldn’t say enough good things about the music for this movie for sure.

Craig: Yeah. And and I thought that they also did a good job in this moment. You know, Kate, it’s mostly from her perspective at this point. You know, she sees a sea turtle. That’s beautiful. She sees all these little tropical fish. Beautiful. But then all of a sudden, she also sees a little sand shark, you know, and it’s a small shark. It doesn’t really pose any threat, but it just is a reminder these things are out there, you know, like, you’re on their turf, and I thought that was a nice little touch. They hang out on the island for a while, Luke and Kate, The the two couples split off, and Luke and Kate kiss, and then they talk, and then they kinda like, their talking gets kind of tense because he, it seems like, is totally ready just to jump back into their relationship, and she is still a little bit reluctant. And, so there’s some tension there.

Todd: Oh, but it’s so it’s so surface, like, I mean, remember, she’s the one who gave him the sausage. And earlier on earlier on in that scene, you know, she seemed to be the one to to wanna jump in, and he’s the one that held back. I I felt like this bit between him and her was so trite. Like, okay. Get over it already. We know you guys are gonna hook up again. Just this to me was the one unconvincing part of an otherwise honest movie was trying to force this little relationship drama between the 2 of them.

Craig: I’ll agree with you that the dialogue seemed a little silly. Is this just sex, or is it something else?

Todd: I don’t know.

Craig: You know what I think? I think you’re scared.

Todd: Scared?

Craig: Mhmm.

Todd: Scared of what?

Craig: Me. You? Us? But for me, I thought the acting was convincing enough to pull it off. I don’t know. Plus, the the guy who plays Luke, he has these deep brown eyes. I I I might I just might have lost to the enchanted. But it’s it’s, you know, it’s fairly unimportant regardless. Anyway, Matt comes running in and says, hey, there’s something wrong on the boat. So they run back out to the, beach and, Warren is like flagging them down from, from the yacht. And, Luke says, oh my gosh. The the tide is going out much more quickly than I expected. So they jump really quick in their dinghy and, they’re headed towards the boat, but they hit the reef. And and the dinghy starts to lose air and eventually completely deflates. But not before they get there. They get back and there’s kind of this, tense moment where all of a sudden now they’re in the shallows. And the reef, while it’s very beautiful, is also can be very destructive, for boats or even for people, you know, it’s sharp, you can cut yourself on it, whatever. But, they, they get out of trouble, and they get back on the water and they’re sailing and, you know, the the night passes and the morning comes and in the morning, Kate and Luke make up like, oh, sorry. It got so weird yesterday,

Todd: Todd here on out, everything’s great. Right. Right. They’re fine.

Craig: So Luke goes down below to start making breakfast. And then out of nowhere, there’s this huge, well, they hit something. I mean, that’s that’s what happens. Presumably, part of the reef, they hit. But it happens so quickly that as the viewer, you really have no idea what’s going on. Like, it just goes dark and all of a sudden, the boat is full of water and down is up and up is down. And eventually, Luke makes his way outside of the boat, and it has completely flipped over. And Kate, who was topside when this happened, she’s in the water, but everybody else was still inside, presumably, maybe even still asleep. And so Luke goes back in looking for them and and he gets them. You know, he he gets, Susie out first and then he finds Warren and gets him out. And then, Matt’s the last one he finds and, and Matt is kind of trapped behind a door that’s stuck, but they get him out. And so they’re, they’re all on the outside of the side of the boat and Warren says, let’s get out of the water. And, and you can tell that he’s very concerned. So they so they all climb up on top of the flipped boat, and they realize that it’s it’s damaged beyond repair. You know? There’s I don’t know what they would do anyway. Like, even if it wasn’t, like, how are they gonna flick

Todd: this huge Right. So Luke

Craig: is looking out at the rubble that’s floating around and he sees it drifting away. And so he draws the conclusion that they are on a current and that this current is pulling them farther out to sea, which, you know, if they weren’t capsized wouldn’t be a big deal, but because they are, he says It’s really easy not to get found out here. This boat’s gonna sink, and it’s gonna sink soon. There’s land over there, and that’s where I think we should be going. We know that this island that we were on is north. I get now see, here’s the other thing. This island that they were on was beautiful, but it wasn’t even the it was like maybe the size of a football field. And they are out in the middle of the ocean. Like, you can swim North all you want, but what Are you gonna are the Todd? Yeah. Right? Yeah. I guess what it boils down to is that he says they don’t really have any choice. You know, they’re out in the middle of the ocean. He says, Luke says the boat is sinking. It’s going to sink. So if we stay on it, we’re going to end up in the water. Anyway, we’re just going to be even farther away from land than we are now. Gosh. I don’t know. We gotta do.

Todd: You know, that’s what I was thinking. I was like, what would I do in this situation? I mean, I guess he’s right, But are you better off floating on a boat? Or are you better off floating in the water swimming in some direction that, you know, who knows? You know? I mean, he thinks it’s only gonna be 10 to 12 miles of swimming. I say, you’re swimming in a water with currents. How can you stay aimed properly?

Craig: And it’s only gonna be 10 to 12 miles. Like, when’s the last time you

Todd: used to walk 10 to 12 miles? Like, like,

Craig: no no way. Right. And, you know, so there’s there’s a it’s not really conflict because nobody’s forcing anybody to do anything, but Luke goes back under the boat to, you know, gather whatever supplies that he can gather. And and they do have an emergency beacon, but he explains that it’s an old one and, you know, really a plane has to be flying right over you if it’s gonna if they’re gonna hear it or whatever. So he does, he goes back under there. And this is actually a really good scene in the movie, I thought. You know, he’s under the boat and the the sound effects are great. You know, it’s very tense with the sound of the water and the sound of things banging around under there. And he hears, at some point, the people on top of the boat start banging, banging, banging on the boat, and he can hear them. And if you listen closely, what they’re saying is very muffled, obviously, but you can kind of hear them say come up, and you can hear the word shark. Mhmm. He sticks his head out, and again, this is just another one of those shots where he’s looking around, but it’s just open space. Right? Like, he he comes back up and they say, well, we we saw something break the water. He’s, well, what was it? I don’t know. And he says, okay. Well, I’ve gotta get these supplies so unless you actually see a shark, don’t call me back up. So he goes down and again, I I’m breezing by this because there’s not much to say about it, but it’s a really effective scene, under there where

Todd: And the cinematography again, the photography is really good down here. And, I mean, there’s a lot of care that went into this. The lighting is quite good. Not only is it good and visible, but it’s realistic, you know? And this is something you could really fudge. I think as a filmmaker, just, you know, shaky camera up and and show close ups here and there and and try to not spend too much time, you know, showing you details. But, I really felt like I was down there under the boat with him. I got a real clear sense of of the geography down there and what he was doing and what he had available and where he had to go to get out. And and I just say that because you don’t often find that in movies in difficult situations like this. Yeah. Hats off, seriously, to all of the all of the the cinematography in this film. It’s it’s it’s very good.

Craig: Yeah. And it it’s very, you know, it’s very claustrophobic. And, of course, you know, they’re in this kind of catastrophic situation and and that the tension plays. It reminded me, this is kind of a random, connection, but, did you ever see Dead Calm with, Nicole Kidman and Billy Zane and No.

Todd: I didn’t.

Craig: Well, you should. It’s really Todd. But

Todd: there’s a

Craig: there’s a similar scene, where one of the characters is under a capsize boat. Anyway

Todd: Really reminded me of sleepaway camp a few weeks ago. No. Sure.

Craig: Remember that jerk was like that?

Todd: The capsize boat, the capsize canoe singing to himself, and it looked like daylight under there. Almost the same thing.

Craig: Pretty much. Pretty much. Similar quality. Oh, Todd. Alright. So he gets his he gets supplies. He goes back up, and, they’re gonna go. He get he starts passing out wet suits, and he gives one to Susie and Warren gives Susie a look and Susie’s like, what? And he’s like, you look like a seal in that. Sharks love seals. Oh

Todd: my gosh. Okay. So this is stupid too. I’m sorry. I I don’t get I don’t buy this. I don’t buy this Warren thing. I think I mean, it’s thrown in there, and yeah. Okay. Warren’s afraid of the water, but Warren’s Warren’s character is that he is super familiar with the ocean. He says I fished in these waters so whatever I know what’s down there blah blah blah. He’s telling her that a person in a wet suit looks like a seal to a shark. None of this really rings true. As a diver, I’m telling I’ve swum with sharks, right? They’re no big deal. They really are no big deal, especially you’re out in the middle of the ocean and things like that. The chances that there’s gonna be that you’re gonna get attacked by a shark. I mean, there’s a reason that this freak accident, this thing that was was based on happened way back in 1983, you know, it just doesn’t happen. Like, jaws doesn’t really happen, you know. So this notion that he has this this knowledge and that this expert here is super afraid, it’s kind of like the complete opposite of what it should be. That bothered me a little bit. I mean, I get it for the dramatic purposes and that’s fine. I’ll give it a pass. But for for a movie that does such a good job, I think, of making things somewhat true and realistic, I I didn’t even like that ass. I think he could’ve just left that part out of his character. He could’ve had his own reason for wanting to stay or whatever or could’ve gone with him. It really wouldn’t have made a difference, except they’re just trying to up the the peril. Right? They’re trying to up the potential for for danger when they’re swimming. It’s it’s all for the movie.

Craig: See, and I guess that you’re speaking from experience that I don’t have, and I don’t know. So then I guess, is that just an urban legend? Like I had always heard that that’s why surfers were at risk because now granted there’s the whole addition of the surfboard, and I don’t know if that makes any difference, but I had heard that, you know, from below, surfers kind of are similar in shape and size to seals and so sharks were kind of attracted to that. No? That’s all just made up?

Todd: I I if it’s true, I’ve never heard of it before. Nobody in my whole dive course that I took ever said anything like you need to it was quite the opposite actually. It’s like, hope we can see some sharks, you know. You’re gonna love that. Don’t worry. They’re fine.

Craig: I guess, how Hollywood and I understand. What I know about sharks comes from horror movies. So I’m just gonna go ahead and be overly cautious. You’re you’re not you’re not gonna catch me in a shark cage. You’re not gonna catch me, you know, free diving with sharks. It’s not gonna I’m not gonna take my chances.

Todd: That’s if if somebody else

Craig: wants to do that, you know, more power to you, but I’m I I’m kind of attached to my limbs. Yeah.

Todd: So You wanna stay attached to your limbs.

Craig: You’re right. Get it.

Todd: To be fair, it’s a movie. I get it. It’s fine. We’ll move on. It’s not a big deal. It’s just one of those little things, you know, that kinda makes me roll my eyes a little bit. Yeah. It’s alright.

Craig: Okay. So they’re gonna go. Both women are reluctant, but Matt, Luke’s friend, says he’s gonna go. He says, you know, Luke knows as much about the ocean as anybody, you know, if I’m I’m gonna take his advice. So Matt’s gonna go. So, of course, his fiancee or whatever, Susie, she’s gonna go Todd. Kate takes more convincing. In fact, she says she’s not going to go. She says she’s gonna stay with Warren, and the rest of them, get in the water, and start taking off. But eventually, you know, Kate calls to them and says, hold on. I’m coming. And she tries to get Warren to go, but Warren’s not going, and and and he stays. And so they get in the water, and and they start swimming for it. Luke warns them not to splash too much. And and then this, you know, this is the rest of the movie. They’re they’re in the water and that enough is is terrifying to me. Like, I get that they’re scared to death of sharks, and I would be too. But I would be equally, if not more, scared of the idea that there’s just no way in hell that they’re gonna find land. Yeah. No way.

Todd: No way. It’s pretty miserable, and I think I’m trying to remember. I remember really loving Open Water, and that plays in the same territory like you said earlier, and I think it came out a couple years before this movie, if I’m not mistaken. They’re almost contemporaries. Right? Yeah. But, I think, if I remember correctly, one aspect of Open Water that was kind of interesting was that they started going a little crazy out there, like, they were seeing mirages or something. And I thought that would come into play here as well. In fact, you almost wonder again, you’re swimming forward and you’re freaking out. You’re worried about sharks. You’ve even seen some suspicious stuff. I mean, how could you not every second of, you know, every with every other kick, you’re thinking you see something in the waves out there, you know. It’d just be a nightmare situation for sure.

Craig: Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, so they’re swimming along and, they see, I gosh. I don’t know. You know, They’re at first, they’re kinda talking and laughing, and then something breaks the water, and that quiets them down really quick. And, Luke checks underwater. He doesn’t see anything, so they keep swimming. And then they see this giant they see something floating in the water. And, as they get a little bit closer, they think that it’s a turtle. And, Matt swims out to it and and kind of turns it around. Now I don’t know what they were expecting to see. This turtle has to be dead. They don’t float above water like that. But when he turns around this giant sea turtle, its head and its forelimbs, appear to have been mangled, you know, bitten off, which freaks them out and would freak me out too. And they have to get, away from that, so they swim away, but Susie’s totally freaked out. We cut briefly back to Warren on the boat, and he sees something circling the boat, and eventually we see that it’s big sharks, and then they cut it cuts back to the 4. And then that’s the last we ever see of Warren. We never see him again. Poor Warren. Yep. Hi, Warren. Thanks. It was fun. The 4 of them are back together. They’re they’re kind of panic well, Susie starts freaking out and and says there I see something. There’s something below the water. Something’s following us. And at first, nobody else sees anything, and Luke checks underwater. He doesn’t see anything. And then he kinda maybe glimpses something, but he’s not sure. And he says, keep going. And then he checks again. And then this is that shot where he’s just looking into the deep. And then it’s it’s it’s almost like something coming into focus in a blurry d screen, but the shark just is coming right towards them. And it’s a huge freaking great white shark.

Todd: It’s massive. It’s huge.

Craig: And it it also just makes you or it made me, anyway, realize the enormity of the ocean because, you know, here they are, these little insignificant, you know, nothings floating in the infinite space, and then here comes this enormous fish, but it’s it doesn’t you almost can’t even get the scale of it because there’s nothing else to compare it to. You know, like, it’s just, it’s, it’s like, it’s just floating in the void. It’s, it’s crazy. He comes up and he says, there’s a shark. And so they’re all freaking out and it’s circling them. And it’s really close. I would say that at some points, you know, it’s like within feet of them.

Todd: Well, isn’t this somewhere around here is the point where it just kinda brushes right up against them, right? It kinda comes out of the water and over a little bit?

Craig: It does. It pops up right next to them. Like, it it brushes up against Kate so much so that she loses her half of the paddle board. This is when I was wondering, you know, how much of this can really be real? You know, like, I I can believe actors if they were trained, you know, being in the water with sharks in relatively close proximity. Like you said, they’re probably gonna be okay. I I think even I know that for the most part, sharks are, you know, mostly inquisitive. But if if they, you know, sense any danger or whatever, they’ll, you know, kinda be on their way for the most part. But this shark comes up right on top of them.

Todd: Yeah. Literally. I I thought this that has to be. I mean, they said, from what I read, there was no CGI or anything. All the sharks were real. And I thought if any scene in this film had some compositing done or had a fake shark or something in it, it had to be that one. So, that was a pretty impressive little bit of little shot if if that was a real shark.

Craig: It’s really quick. It happens very fast. It looks very real. It’s very scary. And, you know, like I said, the it it knocks the flotation device away from Kate, and it so then now it’s, I don’t know, like, 20 feet away or something. And Matt, decides to swim for it, and and he goes for it, and he gets to it, but then the shark just hits him. Like, you see it coming up right behind him, and it hits him, and it it takes him down, and he pops back up, and there’s blood everywhere, and they start swimming to him. My

Todd: leg’s gone. You gotta oh, you gotta go. You gotta leave. No. You can’t. I can’t swim. No. It’s coming. I’m useless, please. You gotta go. He’s gonna. He’s gonna come back. Why are you so Okay. You’re just so

Craig: And that was one of the things that I read was actually based on the true story. The first one of the victims who was hit lost his leg from what I read, and it was very brief. It wasn’t a detailed description, but, it said that, you know, he kind of very bravely swam away from the other two people in the water to try to keep the shark away from them. And that’s not exactly what happens here. You know, they go to him and he says go away, go away, go away. And then he passes out like he’s gone. He could be unconscious. He could be dead. I mean, even though if he lost his leg and he’s losing that much blood, I mean, it wouldn’t take long. But they do. They swim away from him, and then the shark comes back and and finishes them off.

Todd: Yeah. That’s basically I mean, we’re about we’re almost an hour into the movie when when he dies. And I think that with the attack on him, and later on, I think about an an hour and 10 minutes later, Susie Susie gets taken. Both of these cases, it’s just what I really like about this movie, I think is just how sudden and quiet these deaths are. Uh-huh. They just feel very again, like, they feel like they’re a more realistic portrayal than somebody, like, flailing around screaming. It just boom, the shark’s got you. It bit his leg, it or yanks him under. You don’t hear anything, you barely see anything, and when he comes up he’s not in the state to scream or yell or do anything. He’s got minutes to go before he goes into shock or passes out And the same thing with Susie, when she goes, it’s the same sort of deal. She gets yanked under. If you’re not even looking in her direction, you might not even notice it, You know? Right. It’s just heart wrenching. I felt it was, like, super heart wrenching just how quick it was. Yeah. It just makes you think, like, and you watch enough of these horror movies and they really try to make the deaths, an ordeal. You know, there’s supposed to be a big scene. Right? It’s supposed to be some some battle or some real intensity, some build or whatever, and this is kind of how death is sometimes. It just happens, and the terror is in the suddenness of it. One minute they were there, the next minute they’re not there, and it’s tragic. You know, it’s absolutely tragic. There’s no fight to put up. There’s no nothing, And that’s I think that’s the emotion that I got out of this movie. I’ll I’ll be honest with you. I wasn’t crying through this movie. I wasn’t super you know, I didn’t feel like it was I didn’t even feel like it was super intense Todd be quite honest with you for most of it. But these scenes still had that impact on me because I think they were played out in this way.

Craig: Yeah. Well, and and this scene, you know, was a little bit heart wrenching too because, you know, Susie’s his girlfriend, so you expect her to be upset. And she she clearly is, but she keeps it to either she keeps it together a little bit more or she she’s so in shock that she just allows Luke to kind of drag her away. But I had kind of forgotten up until this moment that Matt is Kate’s brother.

Todd: Mhmm.

Craig: And she freaks out, you know, as you would. You know, she’s devastated, and she’s screaming and crying and begging him to stay, you know, as he’s probably already dead. And I thought the acting was Todd, you know. And and after after that, another night passes, and they they wake up the next morning. And the cool thing when they wake up the next morning is they see land. Now it’s not the island that they were looking for, but it’s this little, you know, outcropping of land on the reef, and it’s like right there, you know, a couple 100 yards away probably, but within sight, definitely within reach. And they start swimming for it, and there’s a tense moment where they think the shark is back, but and then they all laugh because it was really just a dolphin. But then just seconds later, Susie says, wait a second. Is that the dolphin? And like you said, just out of nowhere, boom, she’s gone. Like Mhmm. Like, the shark just it just hits her. You don’t see it coming. She’s she’s just gone. And she, you know, resurfaces for a second, but then she’s gone again. And Matt, or excuse me, Luke looks down, with his goggles under the water, and you just see this trail of blood. Like, clearly, the shark has taken her into the depths. And and, you know, like, so they’re so close to this this area of land and they’re on the reef. So there are these little places where they can kind of stop and get up out of the water. And you just think that, they’ve gotta make it. They’ve gotta make it. They’re so close. They’re right there. But Todd get there, you know, there are these areas of reef, but there are also these areas of deep water that they still have to go over. And the shark just keeps coming. It just keeps coming after them. And so, they swim and swim and swim. There’s a moment where they stop again on one of these little, you know, pieces of the reef, and Kate realizes that her foot is bleeding, which can’t be good when there’s a shark in the water. And, but they’re swimming, swimming. And, and the shark is like literally chasing them. Like it’s, it’s right behind them, and they get there. And the first time I saw this now I knew what happened the second and third time I saw it, but the first time I saw it, I’m like, Come on. Come on. Come on. Like, they’re right there. And, and sadly, it’s not like a beach where they can just walk out, you know, like it’s this big rock formation so it’s elevated and so it’s difficult for them to get out and, Luke pushes Kate up and she gets up there and then he’s like, pull me up. Pull me up. Pull me up. And she’s trying to pull him up, and you see the shark coming, and he doesn’t make it. Yep. The shark just grabs him and takes him down. And, you know, she’s screaming and Craig, please come back. Please come back. And he and he does it.

Todd: And that’s the end.

Craig: Yeah. That’s

Todd: it. And once again, it’s not like his body pops back up. It’s not like you see a big red spot in the water. Anything super dramatic is just like, boom, he’s gone. Stillness. Her screaming, end credits.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, they do give us a little epilogue script. It says that Kate was rescued, the next day by a fishing trawler, and it says that despite a massive search, no remains of Warren or the yacht were ever found. Gosh. I’m I’m kind of conflicted about the ending because it’s so gut wrenching. You know, they’re right there. You know, like, you’re literally home free and then it gets them anyway. And I was talking like, I, my partner asked me what movie we watched, and I was kinda telling him about it. And he’s like, okay. So who made it? Who died? And I was telling him. And I was telling him about this scene, and I was like and he pushes her up, and then she starts to pull him up, and the shark gets him. And I’m like, it’s totally her fault. Like,

Todd: could you try a little harder?

Craig: Like, come on. There’s a shark right behind me.

Todd: I don’t know, man. She didn’t have a chance. I was looking at this and thinking she was gonna get pulled back into the water because it Todd you know, for her to get up there in the first place was a miracle. And then it’s just such a smooth rock, slippery rock surface. I thought for sure in her attempts to pull him up, she’d end up getting pulled back down. You know, so

Craig: And that

Todd: could have happened. So I don’t know. You know, this this is a different kind of movie. It’s it’s one of these based on a true story. It’s more of a tragedy. I don’t know, than a horror within the standard horror movie that we see. You know? A lot of horror movies, they’ve got some moral center to them. You know? It’s like people tend to get what’s coming to them or there’s some, you know, people doing stupid things and they pay for it. In this sense, it’s just a bunch of friends who are go who are going out on a fun little trip somewhere. They’re all they’re not doing anything they’re not supposed to do. Nothing bad is supposed to happen to them, and something bad happens, and Yeah. Only one person survives.

Craig: Yeah. It’s just a wrong place, wrong time.

Todd: Yeah. And so in that sense, it’s like, oh, bit of a downer. For me, anyway, it just it is what it is. It’s I I can’t say I thought the movie was fantastic. I can’t even say that I felt like it was, dramatically interesting through most of it. I mean, there were moments. You know? There were the moments, but, I mean, it’s just it’s kinda like open water in a way. Like, it’s people out in the middle of the water. What what what more can they really do? You know? Right. There aren’t places to run to. There aren’t places to hide. You’re just waiting for them to get attacked. And then after they’re attacked, you’re waiting for the next person to get attacked. And there’s nothing clever somebody’s gonna come up with. There’s nothing, there’s no big reveal or something that’s gonna happen. It’s just gonna play out. And so Right. In that sense, it was, for me, not as exciting as, say, Jaws 3 d. Sure. Or whatever. But, but I appreciate it. It’s a fine bit of filmmaking and still had its emotional punches. And, again, when you hear that it’s based on a true story, you you know, your heart kinda goes out for the the victims and that. And so, you know, it’s it’s it’s great. It’s a nice little movie, but, for me, it it’s okay. I probably not gonna watch it again.

Craig: Yeah. I get it. Yeah. I I kind of hoped that you would like it more, but I I get where you’re coming from. The first time I saw it was a long time ago, and I just remembered it fondly. And then the second time I watch it, I told you I woke up in the middle of the night. I couldn’t sleep, so I just put it on, and I ended up watching the whole thing. And I thought, it’s not as good as I remember. And then I sat down to watch it, for for this. And, you know, I was watching it with more of a critical eye. And I think that I just appreciated it for its components. You know? The the acting is good. The cin the cinematography is great. And you’re right. It’s not a standard horror movie, but movies like this do get to me. I I don’t know necessarily scare me more, but they do get to me in a way that’s your typical horror movie doesn’t get to me in that this could happen. Like, it would be 1 in a 1,000,000,000 that it would happen to me but it could happen and that there’s just something really unsettling about that. It’s it’s not gonna keep me out of the ocean, but, I I I’m I’m not gonna be swimming with sharks. You’re I’m telling you, you’re not

Todd: gonna find me. You’re not gonna have the pleasure of doing that. Maybe this is some of my own little bias coming into. You know, I’ve hinted before that, but for me movies are pretty are escapism and if you start to get a little too real about it it just bothers me a little too much you know and and it kinda pisses me off sometimes. Like, I feel like my emotions have been toyed with. I don’t wanna be reminded sometimes that the world is a terrible place, and not everybody comes out okay or deserves what they get. And and one thing that’s kind of nice about horror movies in general is that they’re not usually so nihilistic as you would imagine they would be, you know. Right. Right. About all the horrible subjects they are. Generally, like I said, there’s kind of a moral center and people get what’s coming to them and the bad things happen to the quote unquote right people, you know, and the pure survive. Whereas movies like this, you know, I finished watching and I just kind of sometimes feel sick to my stomach like, this is just reminding me the world’s not that way, You know, bad. True. It’s happened to bad to people Todd good people for no good reason. And, and and then they live with that tragedy. And so I can I can’t say I enjoy it as much, you know? So maybe that’s a little bit of where I’m coming from as well deep down inside. Does that make sense?

Craig: Well, even for you who was not a huge, fan of this movie, but even more so for our other listeners out there, I would really recommend this director’s other, major feature film, which was Black Water.

Todd: I was interested reading about it, about a crocodile in the jungle. Right?

Craig: Yeah. It’s a very similar movie. You know? It’s it’s the same kind of thing, you know, kind of people in nature being stalked by this, deadly predator. And it’s also set in Australia, but it’s set more like you were talking about kind of in the rainforest, marshy areas. And these people, you know, just kind of go out on a day cruise or whatever, and, they are attacked by this crocodile. And, again, I I I watched it right after I watched this movie specifically because I enjoyed this movie, and I remember enjoying it too. It may be very similar. If you were to watch it, you might have the same feelings about it that you had about this movie, but, I would recommend it. I I liked it. We should maybe take a look at it sometime.

Todd: You gotta see a movie that’s different, you know, and this movie is definitely different. It’s not it’s not your ordinary shark movie. It’s it’s it’s good in that way, I think. And I actually, you know, as an Australian movie, we don’t review many Australian movies because they don’t get a fair shake, really. I mean, Hollywood is such a force that, a lot of other countries just have a hard time breaking away from that and and against that. But this movie I read had a very interesting marketing campaign in that they live streamed, and this was back in 2010. They live streamed to, like, up to I think it was, like, 10,000 people a day who could get online and watch the whole behind the scenes process of making this movie, and that’s pretty cool as well.

Craig: I agree. Yeah.

Todd: I I would recommend checking it out if this kind of movie appeals to you for sure.

Craig: Like you said, it may not be for everybody, but, I think that it’s very competently made. I I enjoyed it. It. Alright. Well, thank you for tuning in to another episode of 2 guys in a chainsaw. If you enjoyed this episode, we’ve got all kinds of back episodes. You can find us, at our website at 2 guys dot red forty net dot com. Is that right, Todd?

Todd: That’s the one.

Craig: Or you can find it. We’ve got a Facebook page. You can find us on iTunes, Google Play all over the place. We would love to hear any feedback that you’ve got for us, whether that be, your opinions on this movie or anything else you’d like to chat with us about. That wraps up our summer movie theme month. We’re gonna be moving on to some requests, and it’s funny Since, since we have been saying that we’re gonna be doing a request, we’ve gotten a lot

Todd: of them. Oh my gosh. We’ve got enough requests to last us the rest of the year.

Craig: I know. If if you have a movie you’d like us to watch, go ahead and throw your title, in the hat. Those of you out there who are throwing out requests, you’re throwing out some stuff, some good stuff, some stuff I’ve never heard of. So Yeah. I’m really looking forward to that. But until then, I’m Craig, and I’m with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

What did we learn here, folks? We learned that some of these 90’s mainstream “horror craze” films have not aged as well as you might remember.

Episode 134, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Today is the 4th in our series of summer fun horror films, and, it’s our first one to have the word summer in the title. Woo hoo. Woo hoo. So, you know, the first this one is 19 ninety seven’s I Know What You Did Last Summer, which is a movie written by Kevin Williamson, fresh off of Scream and directed by Jim Gillespie. It Todd, a whole bunch of people, Jennifer Lef Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Felipe, Freddie Prinze junior, and Hesch is in there. I mean, basically, any pretty boy or pretty girl during the nineties, is in this film. It feels like.

Craig: I know. It’s so funny. It’s such a nineties time capsule. Like, it really doesn’t get any more nineties than this. So true.

Todd: You know, this is also right at the beginning of what set off what we’ve talked about before with Final Destination, a lot of these other movies of this nineties hip horror. Although this one wasn’t as hip as I remembered it being, honestly, going back and watching again for the very first time, since I think I think I saw this movie in the theaters. But then I my my recollection is also that maybe I rented it with somebody and fell asleep in the middle of it. I’m not sure which one of those recollections is the true one. Maybe it’s somewhere in between. Yeah. Maybe I fell asleep in the movie theater or something. But the other thing about this movie Now, Kevin Williamson was so hot at this time, like, as a writer Oh my gosh. Scream was was out. He people were saying he was the most powerful man in Hollywood. He actually wrote this movie before scream and it’s based on a on a book, by Lois Duncan, also titled, I Know What You Did Last Summer. And she wrote a lot. In fact, she was probably the original more or less the original, like, young adult suspense thriller, spooky horror kind of writer. You know, like like, Christopher Pike kinda came after her in that vein, John Bel Air’s, but she was before all of them, and she wrote, I know what you did last summer, but apparently has very little to do with this movie except Very little. Right? The very crumb of an idea. In fact, I read that she hated this movie.

Craig: Yeah. She did. I guess they they basically take the basic premise of, you know, teenagers hitting somebody with their car and they took the same character names, and then kind of beyond that, it it it really just completely deviates, from the book. I don’t think I read the book, which really kinda surprises me because I was totally into those types of books when I was, I don’t know, not even a teenager, but, you know, like, middle school. But I was more of a Christopher Pike guy. So Mhmm. Me too. I guess I you know?

Todd: Well, my wife read, a few of her books, and I think I read, Killing Mister Griffin, which Kevin Williamson also rewrote into a movie called, was originally called Killing Missus Tingle, but then it, unfortunately, was about to be released at the same time that the Columbine massacres happened. Because the subject of the matter is about some kids holding their tester teacher hostage. They decided to change it the title of the book of the movie to Teaching Missus Tingle.

Craig: That is so funny because I completely forgotten about that movie, and that movie is awesome. Is it Helen Mirren in that movie? You’re right.

Todd: I forgot it. It’s

Craig: so good. It

Todd: it was a good I remember again, I haven’t seen it since it came out, but I remember being a pretty good movie. So it’s so weird.

Craig: If if nothing else than for Helen Mirren, maybe maybe we watched the wrong movie.

Todd: I think you’re right. Okay. So I’ve I’ve dumped my history about this movie in everybody’s face. What was your history with this movie, Craig?

Craig: Oh, gosh. You know, I was I remember being super stoked to see it because, of course, Scream was huge, and everybody well, everybody I knew, loved Scream, and I did too. And and, the other draw of this movie for me was Sarah Michelle Gellar who, quite frankly, I’m still in love with. Like, I I just think that she’s just one of the coolest chicks in the world, and she’s just she’s gorgeous in that way that you wish your best girlfriend from high school was gorgeous. You know, that girl that, you know, you’re best friends with, but you secretly hope that one day she’ll she’ll realize that you’re supposed to be together.

Todd: That’s a good way of putting it.

Craig: And she’s just oh, god. She’s such a badass. I love her so much. I think that was my draw, to the movie. I don’t remember. I think I probably saw it in the theater too because, you know, it came out after Scream and there was all this hype around it and, I remember liking it at the time and then, Todd, I haven’t seen it in years. I have no idea when the last time I saw this movie was and then watching it again this time, I’m a little bit more lukewarm on it. I just feel like it it just hasn’t aged particularly well for whatever reason, and, I don’t know. I I feel like I’m gonna kinda be a Debbie Downer. Yeah.

Todd: I think I am too, man. To be honest, it’s, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because so many other better movies came after this. I think this was trying to capitalize. Like I said, he wrote this before Scream. It was bought the script was bought by a studio, but then the script was just kinda put on a shelf and not actually produced. Once Scream came out and was a huge hit, this got drugged back out again. And, and Jim Gillespie, who didn’t do much of anything before this and really hasn’t done much of anything after this, directed the movie. And the movie tries to cop that same that’s that nineties style, like Yeah. The the cinematography is all these just, like, beautiful, gorgeous, perfectly lit, but swooping. Like, does the camera swoop through this movie? Yeah. Across the scenes in very clever ways, with clever transitions and things like that. And then, everybody in here has perfect hair,

Craig: like Oh, yeah. It’s they’re all very sexy at all times.

Todd: Right? It doesn’t matter. They get wet. They’re even sexier. You know? They get dirty. Like, oh Todd. Right? Like, every bit of makeup, every every follicle of hair is perfectly placed on everybody here and the perfect skin. And it’s just it’s just like Scream, but it’s not like Scream because it’s the movie that Scream is making fun of or calling out.

Craig: Yeah. You

Todd: know? Yeah. It’s like, to me, it’s almost like a step backwards coming after Scream, you know. Yeah.

Craig: It is. It doesn’t have that self aware humor, about it. It’s it’s really just more of a straightforward slasher, which there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s fine. I I wanna start off, I guess, not being entirely negative and and say that it’s really competently done. Like Oh, sure. It looks good. You know, it’s it’s very shiny and polished, and the cinematography is good. It’s got kind of a cool soundtrack. It’s got, like, this soundtrack all full of, like, these nineties alternative covers and Yeah. Every everybody’s very beautiful and, you know, like, they’re like it’s got a lot going for it. It’s just the the I don’t know. The plot’s a little hokey.

Todd: Yeah. It’s hokey, and it’s not even like, you know what? When a person says it’s a slasher movie and it bills itself as a slasher movie, there’s not a lot of slashing going on. Not

Craig: Not a ton.

Todd: Not until the tail end. It doesn’t have the grittiness that slasher movies tend to have. And, well, I mean, of course, the slasher movies of the nineties didn’t, like the lack of grittiness was part of their style, I guess. Yeah. But, from today’s perspective, it fits in very nicely with a lot of those nineties horror movies. It was just a little too slick, a little too clean, a little too beautiful to to be a horror, you know, to be taken seriously, like, to be scary as a horror movie as as far as I’m concerned.

Craig: I mean, it it certainly feels like a studio movie, you know, like a big a big budget studio movie, which again, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Todd: And they’re good ones, you know. Final Destination, we love Final Destination. It kinda fits in that vein.

Craig: Yeah. And it, you know, it’s got well, I mean, to say that it’s got a little bit of urban legend in it is an understatement, but, you know, it’s it’s that type of feel. And and the movies were those movies were very, very popular, at the time, and they made big money. So, you know, we can sit here, whatever, 20 oh, Todd. It is 20 years later. I graduated in 1997.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: So we can sit here 20 years later and poo poo on it, but, you know, it it was a huge hit. You know?

Todd: It was a blockbuster movie. Well and it wasn’t critically successful at the time either, but it the public loved it, and it made a ton of money. Well, I guess we’d better get in the plot.

Craig: Okay. Well, I’ll take it from here then.

Todd: I can read Wikipedia just as well.

Craig: Okay. So, you you know, it it opens with this big sweeping shot over the ocean. And I can’t believe that I’m waiting now that we’re actually recording to ask you this, but I was genuinely curious because you see these, shots all the time, of, you know, like, it’s just this huge sweeping shot over the ocean. How do they do that, Todd? It’s pretty awesome. I’m I’m legitimately asking, like, is that like a helicopter deal? Like, how

Todd: It used to be I mean, nowadays, they do drones and things, but, you know, back in the day, pretty much a helicopter. And and and this one’s impressive, isn’t it? Because it goes for so long, and then it like a lot of these that are impressive, it ends up in, like, perfectly timed into some small detail, you know, zooming right in on it. Uh-huh. Allowing just enough time for all the credits, coming back around, and then zooming into that guy sitting on the cliff edge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s it’s helicopter. Yeah. Pretty much.

Craig: Okay. Good. Thanks. Alright. So so we zoom in on this kid, this young guy sitting on a cliff, basically. And I don’t know. He’s got some kind of, like, necklace or something, but, like, it’s like a a a silver disc, that can like spin in this kind of cradle or something and he’s playing with it. I don’t know. It shows up several times throughout the movie. I don’t so it’s it’s really insignificant, but they make sure that we see it a 100 times throughout

Todd: the whole thing.

Craig: And he’s just sitting there, whatever, and then he starts to see some fireworks, which leads us to this small town. I’m not sure where it’s supposed to be other than that it’s coastal and,

Todd: you’re having something like that.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. One of the Carolinas it’s supposed to be. I read that they did most of the shooting in one of the Carolinas, but all this coastal stuff they actually shot in California because apparently the director or cinematographer, whomever, said that, whichever Carolina they shot Todd in was too flat, and they needed more depth and stuff, especially for this big car scene that’s coming up. But anyway, they’re having, I don’t know, some sort of 4th July festival. It’s the Croker Festival.

Todd: I don’t

Craig: I don’t know if this is like a frogging town. You know, I don’t have any

Todd: idea what I’m doing. Is a croaker a frog or is that isn’t that a kind of fish? I thought it was croaker was a kind of fish.

Craig: You’re probably I don’t know.

Todd: They were the giant fish floats that floated by on the parade that kind of, like, clued me into that, Craig. I

Craig: I just thought it was a funny name. I don’t know. Okay. And so we get introduced to all of our main characters very early on. Helen is played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, who I can’t say enough about. She’s I just love her. She’s a beauty queen. She’s she’s in the Croker Queen contest. And in the Croker queen contest, like, they ask her about her future or whatever.

Clip: At Summer’s End, I plan to move to New York City where I’ll pursue a career as a serious actress. It’s my goal to entertain the world through artistic expression. Through art, I shall serve my country.

Craig: And she wins. She’s the croaker queen. Oh my god. And, tells

Todd: you the standards this town has.

Craig: Yeah. I just, like they just keep introducing all these characters one after another and, like, in my notes, you know, I just going down the page, we meet Elsa. Elsa’s her sister played by Bridgette Wilson Sampras, I think. If I remember correctly, she was the blonde girl from the Mortal Kombat movies, but don’t quote me on that. I could be wrong. But she’s a bitch. That’s her whole character. And and then we meet Max played by Johnny Galecki, who, of course, now is a, like, a bazillionaire from his role on The Big Bang Theory, back then known for his role on, Roseanne. And he’s pathetic. He’s a pathetic loser who is in love with, or in love with. That’s not really fair. He’s fawning over Julie who is played by Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Todd: Yeah. She was my girl, actually.

Craig: Oh my gosh.

Todd: Yeah. Jennifer Love Hewitt as opposed to Sarah Michelle Gellar has a little bit more of that, Girl Next Door innocence about her.

Craig: She does. It’s so funny. I wasn’t gonna say this because it’s so mean. And Jennifer Love Hewitt is she’s such a beautiful girl, and, she, you know, a Todd actress in her own right, but I always called her Pinhead because I always thought she had a pointy head.

Todd: I wasn’t really looking at her head for most.

Craig: Oh, no. Oh, god. You know, if you’re listening to our podcast for the first time, you may not know much about us. And and I swear to Todd, I’m not a chauvinist. I’m really not, but she’s got great tits. Like, she’s kinda like and there’s there’s one point in the movie where they say something about Sarah Michelle Gellar’s boobs and how great they are and, like, they totally misplace that line. That’s all

Todd: we need to say about it. Yeah.

Craig: And then we meet Barry who is Sarah Michelle Gellar, Helen’s boyfriend played by Ryan Phillippe, and they went on to star in Cruel Intentions together.

Todd: Which was an interesting movie.

Craig: So they, you know, they had some stuff going on. And then there’s also, Ray who is played by Freddie Prinze junior, and he set up kinda be kinda like the nice every guy. Also stunningly handsome. Yeah. Yeah. A very handsome guy. He and Sarah Michelle Gellar met on this movie, went on to get married, and are still married, you know, all this time later. They seem to be very happy. I’m very happy for him, I guess. And, okay. So that so we’ve got the 4 friends, Julie, Helen, Barry, and Craig. And after Helen wins the the Croaker Queen, they decide to go to Dawson’s Beach. Wink. Wink.

Todd: When you’re the writer, you could do things like that.

Craig: Well, yeah. Great. Kevin Williamson wrote Dawson’s Craig, so, you know, little wink and a nudge there. And they go to the beach and they’re they’re sitting around a fire, you know, it’s all very typical, and they’re telling, you know, this urban legend

Todd: No.

Clip: It’s scratching because the guy’s been hung from a tree limb and his feet are scratching

Todd: on the

Clip: roof and body. He’s been decapitated Todd it’s the blood from his severed neck that’s dripping on the car that’s going drip. Drip. Okay. No. He was decapitated. He was gutted with a hook. That’s why I heard

Todd: it.

Clip: Look. You’re all wrong.

Craig: Now we’ve all heard this story, the urban legend of the guy with the hook, but of course every time you hear it it’s a little bit different. You know, that’s how urban legends work and and then they’re they’re they’re all drinking and banging and, like, you know, just a great summer of 97 and talking about what

Todd: they’re gonna do and they’re going off in their different directions. One’s going to college, you know, are we gonna stay, you know, with together when I’m gone and things like that.

Craig: Yeah. Yep. But then they have to go home and, Barry is out of his mind drunk, but they’re in his car. He drives like a beamer or something, and, he’s adamant that nobody else can drive his car but him. But, eventually, they convince him to let Ray drive. And they’re driving along, and Barry’s being a dick because that’s his only character. Triple trick. Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. And, he, like, he stands up in the sunroof with his big bottle of whiskey or whatever, and he drops the bottle of whiskey and it falls down on Ray, who is driving, which distracts him and they hit something. And, they Todd the car and you know, they’re all kind of freaking out, like, what happened? What did we hit? And at first they think it’s an animal, but then, Julie goes and investigates a little bit, and she finds a boot, a bloody boot. And and when they look just a little bit further, it out that they have hit a guy. And, it’s this guy like in a fisherman’s slicker and he’s so bloody in the face that they, you know, they can’t they don’t know who it is, they can’t recognize him, but they think he’s dead, and so they have to figure out what to do. And that, you know, that’s kind of the jumping off spot for the whole thing.

Todd: Yeah. You know, they’re arguing and, of course, Barry is like, we’re gonna get so much trouble. Let’s just dump them in the water. And the others are at various levels of how can we do that? That’s not right. Especially, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character, Julie, is really painted as the most moral of them.

Craig: Oh, god. She’s a goody goody. She’s, like, annoyingly goody goody. Yeah. Like, I’m not saying that it’s okay to, like, run over somebody and then dump them in the water, but, like, I wouldn’t be friends with her.

Todd: Out of the group. So so anyway, they end up dumping it, in the water, but not before a truck starts to come by. And so they quickly kinda toss the body over the edge and pretend like they’re puking. The car that pulls up is Max. Yeah. And so Max is like, hey, how’s it going? What’s going on? And he exchanges some mean words with them, and then he drives on. So they narrowly avoid Max seeing what’s going on, we suppose. Right. They take it down to the dock, and they have a little more argument about who’s gonna actually kick it in. And, Julie said she doesn’t wanna do it. Julie notices a tattoo on the guy’s arm, and then just as they’re leaning down to toss the guy in, the guy actually kind of like wakes up and grabs one of them, and it grabs the crown right off of Helen’s head. She’s still wearing her crown and pulls it down with him as he falls into the water. And so, Barry dives in the water and this guy is now floating in the water. This is this is really a dumb plant because they’re this dock is just in in this inlet, and they’re talking about how, oh, yeah, it’ll get swept out to sea because there’s this terrible undercurrent. There’s no undercurrent when he dives into this water. It’s just a bunch of seaweed and this body peacefully floating in this peaceful water.

Craig: Not even floating. Like, it’s on the bottom. Like, why is it just, like, hanging out on He’s just chilling.

Todd: I was thinking again of the freaking, and darn it. Of course, the cinematography is beautiful. Though it It is.

Craig: It looks

Todd: great. It looks fantastic. I was still thinking of the zombie shark fight scene from definitely, from zombie 2 because it’s it’s just like it. This guy is just upright and white and pale and almost dead already. Anyway, he ends up grabbing the crown from this guy, but his eyes open, and I think he lunges out at him and Barry freaks out, and he swims back up and goes to the top. It’s just so funny, like, at no point in this do these people go, oh, he’s not dead. Okay.

Craig: Let’s take him to the hospital.

Todd: Yeah. Like, maybe we should alter our plan a little bit, at least consider altering our plan a little bit. They’re content to basically just, finish the job, you know, without even talking about it. It’s kinda weird. Right.

Craig: Well, and and okay. So then Barry comes back up, and he gives Helen the crown or whatever, and and he has this whole big angry spiel.

Clip: Never, ever, under any circumstances known to Todd, speak about this again. Is that clear? It’s not merely a future therapy, Bill. Agreed? Billy. I’ll never mention it again. We make a pact. Right here and now we take the tsar grave. Agreed.

Todd: Julie?

Clip: Don’t you know her head you fucking say it. Yeah. Okay. We take this to our grave. Let me hear it. Let it go, Barry.

Craig: You know, I didn’t even really think about things like this being, overly dramatic at the time, but, like, at some point he grabs Julie by the neck and, like, throws her up against his car and is, like, strangling her and her boyfriend Just stands there. Already pretty is just standing there like, hey, knock it off. Like, what? Like, this guy is assaulting your girlfriend.

Clip: Yeah.

Craig: But but, you know, okay. So whatever. So they agree they’re never gonna speak of it again. And then they drive away and we see what I think was that spinny thing that the guy on the cliff was playing with on the ground. And and, you know, I’m thinking what the heck, But whatever. There it is. I’m still kinda thinking, what the heck? And then it jumps to 1 year later. And this is so funny to me because it’s so cliche. Like, it it jumps to 1 year later and Julie’s at college, but now, apparently, the the guilt has reduced her to, like, this gothy, gloomy Gus. Like like like, she has she has dreamy hair. Or glass. She only wears, like, gray. Like, it’s it’s so silly. And and that’s what it is. Like, we get to see how this is basically just kind of ruins them all. Like, okay. So she goes home for this summer. Her mom kind of talks about how disappointed she is in her. Like, her dad’s dead. And her mom at one point is like, your dad must be spinning in his grave at what you’ve become.

Todd: How horrible is that? That’s the one thing you gotta say about this movie, especially upon, you know, later reflection is it’s so dramatic. It is way

Craig: Oh, it’s melodramatic. That’s the thing, like, I was thinking this movie would never play now except for that’s not true. No. It unless, like, you see these movies on, like, Lifetime all the time. Yeah. I know I know that we have some international viewers out there, or listeners. Excuse me. But Lifetime is this cable network here in the states that just plays these totally melodramatic movies that are are geared towards women. But, they have titles like mother, may I sleep with danger? Like, the most, like, the most ridiculous things. And and this this movie would fit perfectly, on on that network now. They’re very melodramatic and silly. But anyway, okay. So she’s home and her mom berates her, and then she gets this note in the mail. It’s not postmarked. There’s no return address, And all it says is, I know what you did last summer. So she freaks out and she goes Apparently, Helen, Sarah Michelle Gellar, her family owns a store in Todd. And so Julie goes there to ask Helen’s sister, Elsa, can you tell me how to get in touch with Helen in New York? And she’s like, Helen’s not in New York. She’s right over there. She works here now. And and again, as you know, just like everybody’s lives have just collapsed because of this event. And now Hellesy well, not mousey, but, like, mousier than she was before. And she’s just like Yeah. The perfume girl at her family store, and I I don’t know. It’s lame.

Todd: This it is lame. It’s so lame because this whole sequence and I’m trying to put it in context of the time. But you would think that that 10 years have gone by, the way that these peoples have have completely changed, completely lost touch with each other, and talk to each other like So Ray grew up to be a fisherman, You know, like, no. It’s only been a freaking year. Yeah. I mean, you would imagine they would at least kind of have some touch, except except I was thinking about this just a little while ago. You know, this was right at the point where we didn’t have cell phones yet. Or Facebook.

Craig: Yeah. I mean,

Todd: it wasn’t that big of a dramatic change, but I pretty much did lose touch with most of my high school friends during my entire 1st year in college because I didn’t bother to pick up the phone and call them wherever the hell they were because I didn’t have their numbers and didn’t go home and wasn’t in constant contact with the with the people I wanted to be in contact with for whatever reason. And you just kinda dove into your new life wherever you were and made all those new friends. And so, yeah, I guess it’s to in that way, it does actually make sense, but they make it seem like it’s it’s just again, like the rest of the movie, it’s overly dramatic. You know. Mhmm. Like, this girl was apparently at New York and tried her hand and then came back, and now she’s working at the department store Mhmm. All within a year. Right. You know? Then they go, to see Barry, and Barry’s still an asshole.

Craig: Yep. That’s what I have in my notes. Barry’s still a dick.

Todd: And he’s just living in this really super fancy house on the coast, you know, with his, I guess he’s he just never went to school. He’s just living there.

Craig: Well, it’s his it’s his parents’ house. His parents are rich. Actually, I think that Barry’s kind of the only one who really went off and did what he was supposed to do. Like, he was gonna go off and

Todd: play be a rich asshole.

Craig: Yeah. Well and he was gonna go off and play college or play football in college and, that’s what he did. He’s back for the summer too and still a dick.

Todd: And you know this that’s the other thing about this. It’s kind of like Friends, you know, when you really think about it. It’s so dramatic. It makes these problems seem so horrible, except how can you engender too much sympathy for these people? I mean, this guy’s family is super rich. Right? Yeah. And this guy this woman, obviously, she’s fine. She’s going to college. She lives in a nice house. Her mother cares for her and whatever. The other woman still working her parents’ department store. You know, she’s got a fallback job. The only person is the 4th guy, Ray Mhmm. Who is, working on the docks. There’s something about his father who just who died or something, and he’s back being a fisherman. Nobody here is in this, like, really horrible position. It’s all kind of self centered issues.

Craig: Well, and I was also really questioning my character at this point because this sounds so callous because it is, but, like, I was watching it thinking, oh, they’d get over it. Like, I get it. It was tragic. It was horrible, but life goes on.

Todd: And life is going on pretty well for these people, you know, considering maybe their classmates. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. They didn’t even know this guy. Apparently, nobody even really misses him. Now we do find out that, Julie has done some research and and she’s found that this guy she thinks she knows who it is that they killed. His name is David Egan. He’s this guy who is just a little bit older than them. They had found his body in a fisherman’s net, and, he was presumed to committed suicide or or something, but, they think that’s the guy they killed. So they they feel bad about it or whatever, but, you know, the the plot just keeps going on and, like, they they, of course, remember that Max had showed up that night, so Barry immediately thinks that Max is messing with them. So they go and confront him. He also works down on the docs, and without explaining why, he just, you know, basically assaults Max and kind of

Todd: Very. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. And just kind of, you know, beats him up a little bit.

Todd: And then leaves. It tells the girls, yeah, I just took care of it. Yeah. I took care of it. And nobody else saw it. Then we get the hook. This is where the whole hook thing comes in.

Craig: Right. Right?

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. Max has a hook. He hangs the hook up. Max turns around to drop some crabs and some boiling water, and the hook is gone. And then, guy in a rain slicker comes out and kills Max. And I’m thinking at this point, why?

Craig: Exactly. Why? And I’ll tell you. Max, dude.

Todd: Okay. Because because when you’re watching this movie, and I’m sorry, even by the end of the film, I’m thinking, I mean, you you watch this movie, you know what’s going to happen. I mean, it’s all been set up. They got the note. Everyone who is involved in that is in danger. Max wasn’t involved in

Craig: that. Right? At all. No. He wasn’t at all. And that I swear I thought the exact same thing. I’m like, Max didn’t do anything. He just tried to flirt with the girls and, like, you know, like, he wasn’t very nice either. Like, except for Buffy and Pinhead and Buffy’s husband. You know, those 3 are nice, but everybody else in the movie is just jerks for no apparent reason. And and Max is kind of a jerk in his own right, so he’s got that going for him or whatever. But, seriously, he had nothing to do with this. Why would he get killed? Well, the reason is is because the execs decided that it was too slow. Like, kill somebody already. And you know what? So they did it in reshoots. You know, it was that it was after the movie was totally over. They killed off Max in reshoots because they decided there wasn’t enough killing.

Todd: And Max comes up later in the most improbable way, which is also quite silly. And I think that it shows because it was freaking slow, like, up until this point. I mean, it’s a ton

Craig: and ton of setup. Lots of talking. Yeah.

Todd: And it and, you know, and it feels like it’s maybe building and maybe building, and then it builds to this point where it’s like, what the hell? And are we totally off on what this movie is going to be? And then after that first killing, it’s not we don’t get any, but nobody else dies until the last, like, 15 minutes or something.

Craig: Yeah. Right?

Todd: I mean, it is I guess the body count, if you count it out as high, but it does not follow the Roger Corman model of, you know, some some brutal death every, you know, 10 minutes.

Craig: Yeah. In hindsight, I just think that it’s just a really poorly written script. Like, I it it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The next part that comes up. Okay. So they get Ryan Phillippe half naked, which I ain’t complaining about EA. But, they get him half naked in the gym, and then, like, he gets a, like, a pic like, a picture of his car or something with I know written on it, and then his jacket is stolen out of his locker. And so he goes out, and somebody’s stealing his car. The car is, like, speeding down the road backwards, and he’s chasing it, and then all of a sudden it turns on its high beams and starts chasing after him. And eventually, it it hits him. Like, it it hits him and throws him, like, through a wall and he’s injured. And then we see this. This is the first time we see, you know, the killer totally and, you know, it’s just this big scary guy in this big rain slicker and a big, you know, rain hat and you can’t really see who he is or whatever. But he stands there over him with the hook as, Barry is, you know, screaming for help, and then it just cuts to black and then it opens up in the hospital. Yeah. And he’s fine. And Barry’s like, well, he’s not gonna kill us because if he was gonna kill us, he could have. He could’ve just killed me just then. Yeah. Right? Like Yeah. Exactly.

Clip: What is What’s the point?

Craig: Doesn’t even make any sense.

Todd: I know, man. I know.

Craig: Like, if he’s gonna kill you, and obviously, that’s his intent and he spoiler alert, he does kill Barry later. Like, what are you waiting for?

Todd: I know.

Craig: Do it.

Todd: It’s just like they had more movie to fill, and I guess they needed Barry’s asshole in there to just kinda, like, balance out the team for a little while longer. Todd, it makes no sense. And and I think everybody’s scratching their head at this point. You know? And there’s no crazy twist, like, oh, the killer’s motive is not what we think it is. It’s exactly what we think it is from the very beginning. It just doesn’t make sense that he killed one guy who wasn’t involved and let this guy go for a little while longer, you know. Yeah. It’s it’s kind of annoying actually.

Craig: And then the other thing that really frustrates about me about this movie is that they throw in all these red herrings, and I I guess they do it, I don’t know, for mystery, for intrigue, to make the movie longer. I don’t know, but like, Barry refuses to go to the police because he’s still afraid that they’ll get in trouble or something. I don’t know. Todd doesn’t make any sense, but, Julie and Helen go into research Todd, and, like, I I don’t remember if they go to the library or just get on one of their old 97 computers or whatever, but

Todd: AOL or something. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. They they research this guy that they think they killed, David Egan, and they find out that his girlfriend had died in a car accident. Todd was driving and like they went into the ocean or whatever and David survived, but Susan didn’t. And they’re like, well, let’s go find David’s family. Because because they think it it’s him. I don’t even know. I don’t even remember what’s going on.

Todd: I don’t know why.

Craig: So they go out to this house, which okay, so I I read that actually the house that they go to is the same house that they used in The Conjuring. Kind of cool. Whatever. But they meet Missy Egan, played by Anne Heche, who I swear to Todd thought that she was in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or or or the people who were, you know, directing and styling her because she’s in this big house in the middle of nowhere. She’s wearing these old dingy clothes. She’s acting like she’s just out of her mind crazy.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: They see pictures of David, we see that he was the guy from the cliff in the beginning. She and he says something about

Clip: One guy, he he stopped by not too long after David’s death and and he came to pay his respects. Really? Oh, yeah. He was a really nice guy. He was cute and smart. Well, we were we were sweet on each other for about 2 minutes. But it didn’t it didn’t work out. You know, he he didn’t he never really said it, but I think it hurt him to be around me.

Craig: It’s just so convoluted and stupid. And then there’s, like, a stupid jump scare where Anne Heche, like, scares them like they’re sitting in the car and she pounds on their window. It’s just so many cliched stupid things thrown into 1. It just I I don’t know. I guess I guess maybe in 97 it worked, but it was not working for me this time.

Todd: No. Me neither. And just the fact they were interrogating her. I mean, doesn’t she wonder why there these these strangers who shut up at their at her house because their car broke down are asking her all these detailed questions about her brother? Mhmm. And then she’s, like, begging them to stay after as they decide they need to leave suddenly.

Craig: Yeah. Like, she needs friends.

Todd: The only new information Todd get out of that is this Billy Blue thing. Yeah. Later that night, we go to back to Helen. Right? Yeah. Yeah. She’s at her house and she comes in and there’s a bunch of stuff where you can see that there’s a there’s a shadow, following her into the house. Her dad’s downstairs, but he’s watching TV and stuff and nobody notices that this, clearly, this guy with a rain slicker is creeping into the house while she’s getting ready for bed and apparently ends up in the closet. And it’s a well actually, it’s a well filmed scene like everything else. You know, it’s it’s pretty suspenseful. What’s the payoff? In the morning, she wakes up, and her hair’s all chopped up.

Craig: He cut her hair.

Todd: Oh my god. The beauty queen’s hair has been cut

Craig: to shribbons. Really? Really?

Todd: Why? You know? And then is he still in the closet? How does he get out of the house? I was asking all of these kinds of questions as well. This guy’s got a lot of time, and he doesn’t have a very good plan, I think.

Craig: Yeah. Well and he, you know, he must have, like, a side job at, like, Vidal Sassoon or something because it still looks fabulous. It still looks fabulous. Like, it’s just a cup like, he just took a little bit off the tips.

Todd: He layered

Craig: Oh, god. It’s so funny. And then it’s that scene. Okay. So Helen calls Julie. Julie starts racing over and she hears something in the trunk, I guess. So she pulls over. It’s a scraping sound.

Todd: It’s supposed to sound like the scraping of the hook or something, you know, and I thought that was a clever.

Craig: Yeah. And she she opens up the trunk and Max, Johnny Galecki, is dead in there and he’s covered in all these crabs and like, it’s gross. It’s scary. Cool. Whatever. So she just runs the rest of the way to Helen’s house.

Todd: Which is like across the street.

Craig: Right. Oh, yes. That’s important. Like, it’s like right there. Berry’s there with her and so she brings them back. And this part still I remember it bothering me at the time, but to this day it bothers me because she brings them back and she throws open the trunk and not only is the body gone, but any evidence of there having been anything in the trunk is gone. Now like, I could understand if there was just a dead body in there, you know, maybe somebody could have driven up and I guess in the middle of the day somehow covertly pulled a dead body out of the car. But it was full of ice and live Craig.

Todd: Like Yeah. It’s not even bad.

Craig: Take it to the detailing shop real

Todd: quick before she got back? Did he swap hers out for a car just like hers that had a cleaner trunk? Like, no matter what he had to do to make this even possible, it was in the middle of a suburban neighborhood in the middle of the day where it just so happens that nobody happens to be standing around or walking outside at that precise moment. Oh, it’s so stupid. That’s really dumb.

Craig: Oh, god. Okay. And then there’s I I feel like the scene that they showed in the trailer, like, if if you ever see anything about this movie, this is the scene you see with Jennifer Love Hewitt standing in the middle of the road screaming, like,

Clip: Todd are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? Come get us, man.

Craig: And then Craig shows up and Barry punches him because they think that maybe he’s behind it or something. But then Craig says, no. It couldn’t have been me. I got a letter too. And there’s a really funny quote. Ryan Phillippe has one good line in the whole movie.

Clip: Oh, Oh, you got a letter. I got run over. Helen gets her hair chopped off. Julie gets a body in a trunk, and you get a letter? That’s

Todd: balanced. Oh, it’s funny. So then their plan and this is also so convoluted. At some point, Helen’s sister has come in and asked if she can go and help her at the store. And Helen says, no. I can’t today because, you know, I have to participate as the previous winner of the crown in this Croker parade

Craig: for the 4th floor. That can be done about it. Nothing can be

Todd: done at all. It’s so important.

Craig: I have to go. It’s the rules.

Todd: And so they decide that they’re going to use this parade. They’re like, the killer will be there. We’ll draw him out. This is how we trap him. What? How?

Craig: Yeah. He’ll probably be there because everybody in town’s gonna be there. Yeah. It’s it’s a fishing town. So odds are there’s gonna be somebody there in a fishermen slicker. Which they point out about Ray at

Todd: some point. Right? Everybody knows you have her slicker, Ray. But then then the lame red herrings just continue. So the she’s floating through the town in the on the top of this parade. In the meantime, Ryan Felipe’s character’s standing on the front, like, looking left and right, left and right as they pass by. Oh, no. There’s a guy in Craig slicker and a hat. There’s a guy in a rain slicker and a hat. There’s a guy in a rain slicker and a hat. The only people wearing hats in this entire outdoor middle of the day parade, far away from water are people in rain slickers with the same hat on that the killer has. Yeah. There’s no need to wear a hat. These are hats for when it’s raining. It’s not raining. Why are so many people with rain slickers and hats standing out in this crowd at this moment? Anyway, of course, he runs off and he jumps and he try tracks on the first guy he sees, and it’s an old man. And he runs and he looks at somebody else, and it’s not them.

Craig: Helen eventually actually sees the guy and the guy, like, flashes the hook at her, but, you know, it’s it’s also dumb. Nothing comes of it. Meanwhile, Julie goes back to Missy’s to do further investigation, and as it turns out, Missy says, my brother didn’t get hit by a car, he killed himself. And and she’s, like, what do you mean? Like, he even left a note, and so Missy shows her this note, and it’s one of those I know what you did notes. You know, it’s the same kind of note, that they got. And she’s like, this isn’t a suicide note, it’s a death threat, and then immediately she figures it all out. Now, of course, she doesn’t reveal it all to us right away. What she figures out is that okay. So

Todd: Help me with this because I’m still confused. Okay.

Craig: Alright. So the guy, David, this guy who they thought was the killer, remember he had been in that car accident with his girlfriend and the girlfriend had died. Well, the girlfriend’s dad is the fisherman and the fisherman killed David on the same night that they then hit him with the car.

Todd: They killed him after he killed David. Exactly. Or didn’t kill him as it turns out.

Craig: Right. Or didn’t kill him. Right. But Julie figures it all out, but, you know, she has to get back to town to tell everybody. Meanwhile, we go back to the the new Croaker Queen competition, which I thought was so funny because, like, apparently, the outgoing Croaker Queen sits on stage for the duration of the thing. Like like, this like, this girl’s up there doing her talent, and Sarah Michelle Gellar’s just sitting there on stage, like, rolling her eyes like, oh my god.

Todd: It’s so funny. Which you’ll notice actually in the initial Kroger Queen pageant, the outgoing one wasn’t sitting there.

Craig: Right. It’s it’s totally for convenience because while she’s sitting there, her ex boyfriend, they’ve kind of rekindled their romance at this point. He’s standing up in the balcony. She sees him get killed by the fisherman with the hook, and she’s screaming and trying to get to him and people are holding him back, and the the local cops, like, what’s going on? Why are you acting crazy? And, like, he just totally dismisses her, like, oh, you silly girl. Like The whole time. And, like, they go upstairs and, like, he looks around for, like, one second. Doesn’t even turn the lights on or anything. No. You you must just be crazy. But then this okay. I have I will give the movie credit for this because it leads to my favorite part. The cop is gonna give her a ride home, and he puts her in the back of the cop car and they hit like a detour, which, you know, should be a red flag, but, you know, they’ve got parades and stuff going on. So, you know, kind of makes sense. And so then they have to go through this alley. And in the alley, they see somebody who seemingly has car trouble and the cop gets out Todd, you know, see what’s going on. And of course, we know it’s the fisherman and soon, Helen realize it and she starts screaming and, the fisherman kills the cop, which starts out this scene that I actually think is a great scene. And maybe if I didn’t love Sarah Michelle Gellar so much, I wouldn’t be so enamored with this scene, but I love it. She she she totally flips her Buffy switch

Clip: and,

Craig: and and kicks out the the cop car window, which I kinda think is impossible because I think those are kinda, like, shatterproof or whatever. But anyway, she she gets out. She runs in her gown to her family store and the guy’s, you know, I don’t know, maybe 50 yards behind her, and she’s banging on the door because it’s locked and her bitchy sister is in there, and the sister’s just taking her time to get to the door. Meanwhile, we see the fisherman getting closer and closer, like he’s he’s catching up. But finally, the sister gets her in there and Helen’s like, somebody’s attacking me. You know, lock the doors. I I’m gonna call the police. And so the sister locks one door, but then when she goes to lock the other door, the fisherman’s already got in, and he kills the sister, which I was glad because she was mean anyway. Yeah. But but then, there’s this great, he chases Helen all through the store, and she’s being totally resourceful and, like, you know, pulling herself up the cargo elevator and, like, you know, climbing things and running all over and she’s always one step ahead of him. And eventually, she has to go out a window, but it’s on the second floor and the killer, like, comes to grab her through the window and she jumps down and she falls on her back in the alley, and she she gets up and she’s running through the alley and I just, I love this part so much. She’s running through the alley and she turns a corner and she sees the parade right in front of her and she starts running towards it. And when she’s maybe, I don’t know, 10 feet from immersing herself in these people, she stops and she turns around. There’s nobody behind her, but she turns back around and they kill her there’s, like, these piles of tires on either side of the alley. The killer jumps out from one of those, grabs her, and they start fighting. And Helen is the only one in the whole movie who puts up a fight, and she puts up a hell of a fight trying to fight this guy off, but eventually, she gets killed. But what I love about this is that this all happens within feet of this huge, you know, public event that’s going on, but I totally believe that this could happen.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Because, you know, it’s Todd, you know, the the parade is just going by, so anybody who is going by would really just only be catching glimpses of what was going on in this dark alley. And she fights and fights and fights, but eventually, he kills her, which makes me sad. But I love that scene. I think it’s so good.

Todd: It’s a pretty tense scene, and you’re wondering if she’s gonna make it. And she’s but, you know, everybody else has just been whacking your dead, but she at least, you know, has she’s the one who has this really nice long drawn out battle before we get to the, you know, the battle at the end. Right. But the town itself is either completely full of festivity and excitement and noise and fireworks or 100% desolate. Yeah. You know, depending on which street you turn down.

Craig: And and this pretty much leads up to the end. Julie, I feel like I don’t even know who she’s looking for, but, she ends up, finding Rey on the boat, on his boat. God bless Freddie Prinze junior. He’s a a cool guy. He’s a nice guy, but he’s really only got one character. Like

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: He’s just kind of this dopey, handsome, nice guy. But, like, she finds him and he’s like, oh, everything’s gonna be okay. Just come on the boat with me. And, like, he’s acting shady AF. And, so of course, you know, I don’t think that we as the audience are supposed to believe that he’s the killer because we’ve seen the killer doing other things. I don’t know. But she thinks he is, so she runs away, and he starts chasing her, which is the smart thing to do if somebody thinks you’re shady. And, he get he gets knocked out by this guy. And this guy is like, oh, I’ll help you. Just get on my boat. So she happily gets on his boat. And when she gets inside his cabin, she sees, you know, all these newspaper clippings, pictures of her and her friends, and so it’s obviously him. And he’s the killer. And then that it just it’s a it’s a good 5 minute cat and mouse scene with him chasing her around the boat, and, you know, I I I guess it’s tense. It’s a little drawn out for my liking, but Mhmm. And you know, and then it’s, you know, that thing where the bad guy is chasing the heroin, and the the boyfriend’s trying to help and, like, he’ll show up and he’ll fight the bad guy for a second, then the bad guy throws him off the boat, but, like, he gets caught in the net so he can crawl back in. And He ends up getting a motorboat. He’s off the boat at some point. He ends

Todd: up getting a yeah. It’s all at the end of the day, he use somehow tosses some rigging over this guy’s hand as he’s about to raise his, his hook Yeah. To to kill her finally. And, then he tosses it another direction or flips some switch or something, and the guy gets yanked up into the rafters or whatever you call it, up into the rigging. And then, it jerks his hand with the hook clean off Mhmm. Which then causes him to fall completely down into the water Mhmm. And away. So you get this, oh, gee. I wonder if there’s gonna be a sequel, you know. We

Craig: never see

Todd: this guy completely dead, but left there ominously as this hook with this hand still attached, and, you know, that’s just kind of a throwback to that urban legend they were talking about in the very beginning conveniently.

Craig: There’s a silly little scene with the 2 of them, the boyfriend and girlfriend, where they’re, like, oh, as it turns out, we didn’t really kill anybody. So now life can go back to normal. Like, okay. I mean, your 2 best friends just got brutally murdered, but it’s fine.

Todd: Clearly clearly, the guy the stranger that they murdered, and covered up is, is is is a lot more distressing to them than their 2 best friends.

Craig: And then we get 1 year later again, and Julie is at college, and she’s back to her old perky self. Thank goodness. And you know, she’s in a towel with her assets on full display and

Todd: Not full display, dude. I’m afraid. Just gotta point that out for everybody who’s rushing to download this movie. Yeah. That’s true.

Craig: It it it’s yeah. Very PG 13, but and she’s talking to Ray on the phone and they’re talking about how they’re gonna be getting together and then she gets a mysterious note and, she’s all scared and she opens it up and, it’s just an invitation to a pool party.

Todd: In the same handwriting.

Craig: And she she’s, you know, she goes back into the showers, which she’s left on, and so it’s all foggy in there. And she sees written on the shower door, I still know. And then we just get a quick flash of what looks like the fisherman jumping out and shattering the shower door jumping out at her, and that’s the end. And then I’m pretty sure in the sequel they just ignore that end cap because there was a sequel, a direct sequel for which, Sarah Michelle or not Sarah Michelle Gellar. Excuse me. Penhead. What’s her name? Jennifer Love Hewitt. She came back. I don’t remember if any of the rest of them came back. I don’t remember if Freddie Prinze Junior came back, but Brandy was in it and you know it it did pretty well too, I think. I saw it. I don’t remember anything about it, except for like they got invited to like some Island resort or something and then the mayhem started again, but and and then there was also there was there were 3 of them in total. I don’t I don’t think that the third one was a direct sequel. I think it followed all new characters, but I never saw it. So I can’t say with any certainty And I saw just when I searched on IMDB, there’s a new one in development and I don’t know if it’s a sequel or if it’s a remake of the original, but, there’s there’s something in development right now. So I don’t know, maybe the saga will continue. I don’t know, what are your final thoughts, sir?

Todd: Well, the, you know, the idea, the premise, this whole notion that started out in the book, you know, where these people have the secret because they did something bad and they tried to cover it up, and now it’s gonna come back to haunt them 1 year later is cool. Yeah. You know, it’s really cool. I just think this is a kind of a dumb dumb implementation of it. I don’t know. There’s so many ways it could go, and I didn’t feel like there was a lot of suspense because you’re going through most of the movie and people are not dying. They’re just, like, getting spooked. So you’re kinda wondering what are these motivations, and it kinda throws its hand it shows its hand a little bit in showing you that the killer is not clearly not one of them. Right. You know? There’s there’s never any reason to suspect them because we see so much of the killer’s physique and his hands and stuff, that, you know, it’s never a question that it’s somebody else doing it. And so all of these things that are a little more typical of these movies that kind of throw a lot of things in a doubt, kinda keep you wondering, keep you questioning, like Scream did, for example. Yeah. This movie has none of it, you know, and so I didn’t really feel a lot of suspense. I was kinda just waiting for it to be all over so I could hear what actually happened, who’s the the one that’s stalking them, and when is he gonna get it done already, You know? That was kinda my thing. And and, and like you said, like, it’s just it’s so paint by numbers that the characters are pretty unbelievable at times. And Heche’s character’s so comically Overdrawn. Comically out of place Yeah. In this movie, you know, that it just there’s so many it’s just kind of a mess, I guess. It’s kind of a mess and it unfolds as a mess as the movie goes along. And so it’s hard to really take it seriously or care about what’s going on, in my opinion.

Craig: Yeah. I think so Todd. For whatever reason, I really think that it worked in 1997. I don’t know, like horror was going through kind of a interesting the good news about it was that it was kind of coming into the main stream with with movies like Scream, and all, you know, a million movies that followed that,

Todd: like Urban Legend and

Craig: The Faculty and, like, all, you know, and, like, all, you know, is centered around these young people and I I, you know, I appreciate that for for what it did for the genre at the time. You know, people were getting kinda hyped up about horror movies and they were making a lot of money in the theater and, that’s good. I I just don’t think that it just hasn’t aged well, but the nineties were just kind of lame period. Like In so many ways. We I know we get like you and I especially and I’m sure that other generations will, you know, feel differently about different decades or whatever, but you and I are always so nostalgic about the eighties. I imagine that there will be generations who will be nostalgic about the nineties, but I just think the nineties were just kind of lame in general. Yeah. This this is so nineties. It’s so polished and pretty and vapid and dumb.

Todd: I think at that time, we were just excited to see, what had previously been a sort of gritty, extremely low budget, you know, thrown together movies that you would laugh at as much as you would, you know, be scared by.

Craig: Right.

Todd: Just be updated in a in a very solid, very style very deliberately stylistic way with big name actors and actresses. Everybody looking Todd, slick production. And and and this the plot of Scream was still is still so great. And Scream 2 is almost even better than the first one because it builds on it. But then, you know, the movies that follow in it are kind of a mixed bag plot wise even though they were able to kind of take that excitement and that that momentum that we got from, hey, this is this kinda cool new genre that we’re getting or updating of the genre we’re getting from Scream and kinda milk it a little bit. We I guess we just kinda ate it up because we were happy to see those kind of movies for a short time.

Craig: I think so. Yeah. I don’t know. I I don’t wanna be too hard on it because like you said, I mean, it’s it’s got a lot going for it. It is really slick, you know. It’s it’s there is clearly money behind it. Big I mean, these were some of the most famous, especially these young people, some of the most famous young people of the day contributing to this film into the genre and so I, you know, I I I can appreciate it for the time capsule that it is, but, you know, in hindsight watching it 20 years later, pass. Yeah.

Todd: Never gonna watch it again. Me neither. Can’t recommend it. Not excited to do the sequel. Well, thanks again for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. We have one more episode in our summer fun month. And then, beginning next month, we’re gonna be doing all requests. So we’ve amassed a nice little pile of requests, and they’re still coming in. If you wanna get your request in and we get enough of them, who knows? We might do 2 months. We’ll see. Yeah. Just go to our Facebook page. Look for 2 guys and a chainsaw, and, like us on there. Leave your comments. Leave your request. You can also find our website, 2 guys dot redfortynet.com, where we also post written movie written movie reviews, and we have a huge back catalog of previous episodes to get you all caught up. Until next week, I’m Todd, and Craig. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

We’re back in Roger Corman’s camp with this sci-fi / horror hybrid that crawled out of the lake and into our hearts. Check out the blatant sexism of Humanoids from the Deep!

Episode 133, 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 in week 3 right now of our summer fun month of July. This movie is Humanoids from the Deep, a 1980 Roger Corman film about humanoids who come from the deep. The deep. It you know, just from the title, you know, it’s a classy movie.

Craig: Right.

Todd: I saw this movie, I think, on cable at some point. It’s been a long time, but I have seen this movie. In fact, I think I had identified it early on as a movie that we should do at some point. Craig, how did you discover this movie?

Craig: Oh, same old way I always read about movies, you know, some list on some horror website. I’d heard of it, and I had seen the box art. I don’t remember actually seeing it in person when I was young, but, you know, online, I had seen it. With the title like Humanoids from the Deep, it’s been intriguing, but I had never, seen it. So this is my first time around.

Todd: Yeah. This is great summer movie, right?

Craig: Yeah. I’m just gonna go ahead and throw this out here. You know, it that it was on one of those lists, you know, like watch this in the summertime. It’s summertime movie or whatever. It’s funny because I think that it is supposed to be a summertime movie, but it’s so confusing because half the time the characters in the movie are running around in like shorty shorts and bikinis and the other half of the time they’re in like coats and stocking caps. So, like, it’s really hard to distinguish what season this movie is supposed to be set in. I think that it’s actually supposed to be set in the summer, but they filmed it in the winter, in California like November December time. So I guess their costumers were particularly concerned about continuity, but, you know, whatever. It’s a cheap b movie.

Todd: That’s what I was gonna say, you know, kinda just that’s what happens when you’re in a coastal Todd. You know, it’s summer time that cool ocean breeze blows in and gets chilly sometimes.

Craig: Thanks for that. You’re welcome, man. I can learn something new every day

Todd: this town Noyo get a town of Noyo is full of fishermen. It is a fishing town. It looks like they fish salmon most of the time, and they are in trouble because there is a cannery coming to town, and half of the people in town seem to be for the cannery, maybe 3 quarters. I don’t know. It’s kinda hard to say. And then the other half of the people in town are against the cannery. It’s going to do some unspecified bad thing to the Todd, whereas everybody else thinks it’s gonna do some unspecified good thing for the town. So that is the sort of thin threadbare base that we base all of our unnecessary drama on before we get to the necessary drama, which is when the humanoids start coming out from the deep. Right. We have an a series of people. You know, this is one of those, like, you can tell the scriptwriter is fresh or maybe there have been, like, 10 of them because I I I’m going down the list of names of characters in here, and we have Tommy, Johnny, Jim, Jackie, Hank, another guy named Hank, Dee. Yeah.

Craig: It really it really bothered me and confused me that there were 2 guys named Hank. Why in the world

Todd: would you do that? It is so insane. At least at least one of them, we barely see.

Craig: Maybe they were going for realism. You know?

Todd: I guess, have the same first name sometimes. There’s so many Hanks in these fishing towns. They had to get that aspect in there. You’re right. But it starts out with some really great underwater photography just kind of sweeping through. And it unfortunately, I think about midway through the movie, I realized that all of the good underwater photography was probably stock footage.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. It’s very colorful. It’s very pretty. It looks even better underwater than it did above water for most of the movie.

Craig: Oh, definitely. It was funny to me though because this movie started out almost exactly the same way as last week’s movie, Jaws 3. Oh, yeah. Underwater photography, like, it was almost identical. I was just waiting for, you know, a big fish to get its head chopped on. But

Todd: A giant fish head going towards us.

Craig: Right. But but anyway, unimportant. You’re right. No. The the, the underwater stuff looks good and and the above water stuff isn’t kind of mediocre at best and sometimes actually kind of poor quality. Yeah. But you know, overall the cinematography isn’t terrible. It just seems almost like it was poor, film stock or something.

Todd: It’s almost just like the movie has no style, you know. It’s it’s real paint in my numbers as far as I think the the directing and the the cinematography goes. It looks like a made for TV movie or or, you know, an episode of some TV show. It’s just, you know, there’s nothing really interesting about the way that it’s shot, about the angles that are used or anything like that. Even when it’s supposed to be intense and exciting, there’s, you know, it’s hardly anything there.

Craig: Well, you mentioned that this is a Roger Corman film. He was was he the executive producer on film?

Todd: Yeah. He was the sort of hidden executive producer on this for some reason. It was obviously put out by New World Pictures, his studio, but he’s actually not credited as executive producer, but he was ex extremely hands on, in, you know, having final say on how the movie was. Now Roger Corman, as we talked about before, he knew what he wanted. You know, he was making exploitation pictures. Many of them turned out to be pretty high quality. A lot of them had pretty what ended up being pretty high grade talent coming through his shop, and he really got a name for himself in Hollywood as a guy to work for because, you know, you could just jump in and work for Peanuts, but then, it seems like a lot of people that worked for him, both actors and behind the scenes, went on, you know, to be become big names in Hollywood. So, you know, a lot of respect for this guy, but his movies really ran run the gamut, you know. I mean, this is total drive and fair for example.

Craig: This is just Oh, yeah.

Todd: Blood and Sesame.

Craig: And and well, right. And and in that, you know, genre, it’s fun in that way. Like, you know, we okay. Again, I live in the Midwest in America and there are still a few drive ins around. There was one just a half an hour from the town that I live in for a long time, and we used to make you know, the half hour trek up there, and you know take some food, and, you know, just sit and have fun, you know, at the drive in or whatever. And so, I can see for that purpose how this movie would be fun. This would be something fun to watch. We’re sitting with your friends in the car and you’re goofing around or whatever that, you know, I get it. That’s cool. I just thought that kind of, the production history of the movie was kind of interesting, like, you know, Corman was behind it the whole time, but when they were casting the movie they casted it under the title beneath the darkness in the hope that they could get in some you know higher rate talent thinking maybe that they’re gonna be doing more kind of an artsy or heady kind of film, you know. So they they cast these people. I really didn’t recognize any of the people, but, if you look at their IMDB credits, all of them had worked and and can a lot of them continued to work, after this doing various things in film and television. And it’s directed by a woman which we don’t see see in horror that often, which I’m always happy to see Barbara Peelers or yeah. I think Peelers or Peters. She was one of the few female directors of the time, I guess, that really kind of embraced doing some of this exploitation type of stuff. You know, it was very much a male dominated, genre, but you know she did some of it too. This was her last feature film. She went on to continue to do TV stuff, but as as she filmed it, it wasn’t supposed to have nearly as much sexual content. Okay. So what happened was once it had all been filmed, Corman and this I don’t think was uncommon for him at all, decided that there wasn’t enough sex, in the movie. There there wasn’t enough TNA. So, he requested that there be reshoots to film more sexual content and the the female director said no. You know, she’s like, I don’t I don’t wanna do that. And so he fired her and hired on a, a second director, Jimmy Murakami to film some additional kind of sexual exploitation kind of stuff. And and some of that stuff made it into the movie. Apparently, not a whole lot of it. A lot of it actually ended up left on you know the cutting room floor, and Murakami isn’t even credited as a director. But when the actors specifically Anne Turkel found out that the title had changed, that they had inserted all of this new sexual content. They she and some others actually tried to have the film they tried to stop it from being released.

Todd: Or at least tried to get their names off of it. Right?

Craig: Right. Right. And but they couldn’t. So so it got released as we see it now, and, I don’t know. Well, let’s It’s weird.

Todd: You’re really, softening this a little bit. I mean, I mean, Roger Corman was pretty explicit from the beginning that he said that there are 2 important things in this movie. There’s the men getting killed and the women getting raped. Roger Corman is just like the sweetest, nicest guy, but he’s very he’s very matter of fact about all this.

Clip: She shot the killing of the men in the most gory fashion imaginable. It was so terrible on the screen. Then shot the raping of the women with shadows on the rocks, indicating that something was happening off screen. It was one of the few times I I really thought there’s a difference here in thinking this woman really shot the killing of the men, but she did not shoot the raping of the women, so we had to bring in a second unit director who shot that.

Todd: He thought this was strange that she would and I don’t know. You know, it’s kinda funny. I mean, we’re talking about it. This is a dub movie. Right? There’s no this is quite serious. So, you know, it is an interesting point, if you think about it, how willing we are to put up with violence, you know, in which people die. Mhmm. And blood and gore, and there’s there’s a head getting cut off in this movie. There’s limbs. There’s so much blood and gore in this film. But, when it comes to the the, you know, anything sexual, we get, oh, you know, we get a little little weirded out by it. Even so, the, you know, the rapes in this movie, which are monster on woman kind of stuff, they’re they’re not that explicit. It’s it’s all still pretty quick, but it’s there, you know.

Craig: Yeah. And, you know, I don’t know. You say, you know, we you you could be talking about me. Like, I can watch people get mutilated, you know, all day long, doesn’t bother me. Fun fact about me, I can’t watch blood being drawn out of my own arm. That makes me wanna pass out. But I can watch people being mutilated on screen, not You’ll figure. Right? Right. But, you know, sexual violence, that really does bother me, and I I don’t like it. You know, like, I can still like and appreciate a movie if it’s there, but it makes me very uncomfortable. And, this one, yes, the the the sexual assault is is certainly I mean it’s more than implied it’s explicit, but the the scenes really aren’t that explicit. You know, like, the monsters rip open the girls Todd so their boobs pop out and you know, they jump on top of them. That’s it. You know, you don’t see anything terribly explicit. It’s more implied. But, you know, I can see how even that would be upsetting to some people’s sensibility. So I’m not I’m not being critical of the original director or the female stars of the movie. I get where they’re coming from, but compared to some of the other things that we’ve seen pretty tame really.

Todd: Yeah, for sure. Well, let’s just get on into it then. There’s really not a lot to talk about because the plot is quite simple. It’s it’s all these people. And, I mean, who are they? It doesn’t really even matter. There’s a guy named Jim. I think his brother Johnny, or is it his son? I don’t know. It’s his brother. His brother, Johnny. There’s a boy named Jackie. There’s a guy named Hank. I think Jim is for the cannery in town, and Hank no. Hank is for the cannery in town. Jim is for the cannery in town. There’s a guy named Tommy, I think, who’s against the tam cannery in town.

Craig: No. It’s the the guy who’s okay. You’re terrible.

Todd: No. No. Johnny is the one against the cannery. Right? Because Johnny’s the guy with, he’s, like, Native American, which we sort of find out later. Right?

Craig: Well, I mean, if you can’t tell because he looks like a native American and his name is Johnny Eagle, like you would probably kind of get and the fact that the other some of the other white people, not all of them, specifically the guy, one of the Hanks, I’ll call him Slattery for clarification because that’s his last name. He is for the cannery and Johnny’s against it. So there’s also kind of this subplot of, like, racial intolerance, like, the native Americans want to preserve their land and they, you know, they wanna preserve their rights to fish the land, and so Johnny being the representative of all the Native Americans, we don’t even see any of the other ones. We hear their voices like Johnny has like Johnny has a meeting in his house, but we just witness it from outside and just hear the other Native Americans voices. So, like, there’s, like, kind of this cultural, divide which is totally Shoehorned. Inconsequence. Right. Like it doesn’t make any difference at all. The the point is some were for it, some were against it. It doesn’t really matter. Basically, what happens is these monsters start appearing. The first one we see, you know, some guys go out fishing and they think they’ve got a great catch in their net and they start trying to pull it in, but, like, it’s being more resistant than usual, and you know it’s a whole kind of mousetrap kind of thing where some gasoline gets spilled and the engine won’t start and, like, all like, the winch breaks because the net is so heavy or whatever. Meanwhile, we’re seeing, you know, kind of this zombie hand wrapped up in the, the netting, but, you know, it’s moving and stuff. So we know there’s some monster down there or something.

Todd: It’s like a a flipper. It’s like a hand. It’s like a webbed hand with flippers on

Craig: it, right? Yeah. I I mean, it just looks kinda like it’s kinda got like flappy skin. I don’t know. It just looks gross. But anyway, so the the there’s a kid on the boat, the kid falls in the water, gets knocked in the water, and then then all of a sudden all this blood comes up and then somebody, I don’t know, drops a cigar or something into the spill gasoline and the the ship blow the whole boat blows up. Yeah.

Todd: There are a lot of these explosions, you know, just just for everybody’s Todd calm everyone down. If you spill gasoline on the ground and you drop a fire into it It’s just gonna catch on fire. It’s nothing is going to explode, but you wouldn’t think that from this movie everything in this movie explodes when fire touches it.

Craig: Yeah Including this boat.

Todd: It’s so in the beginning, we’ve got a kid. The the kid is the first one to die, Jackie. This is the boy of Deac, I think, who’s the guy in the boat. And then, you know, everybody else in the boat dies as well. And then, we go into the house. I think of I think it’s Jim’s house.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Uh-huh. And, we see him chatting. They’re Todd chatting about the cannery with some friends, and their dog starts barking. And so they let the dog out, and the dog goes out and sniffs around in some trash and follows this trail into the woods and gets attacked. Then later, Jim’s wife, Jim and his wife come out in the morning because they they don’t know where the dog is, and they find the slime on the garbage, and they follow quite literally a trail of slime out into the woods like some Hansel and Gretel thing and, they find their dog kind of in pieces, I guess. You know, just a big pile of mass. So, right away, you’ve got a kid killed and a dog killed. So, this movie is really going for the gut right at the beginning. Well, yeah.

Craig: And then just 30 seconds later, we cut back into the town where all the It it almost feels stupid to talk about the plot because it’s Yeah. It it almost feels stupid to talk about the plot because it Yeah. Really doesn’t matter. You know, like, okay. So all the dogs get killed and, like, Slattery who’s the one who doesn’t like the Native American guy anyway. He’s, like, it’s weird that all of our dogs killed got killed except for Johnny Eagle’s dog. And then there’s like a big festival like they’re having salmon festival or something and so everybody in town is at this dance and the the representatives from Canco, like Canco. Great name. Great name, guys, for the cannery company, Canco.

Todd: There’s so much creativity to find this script.

Craig: Like, the representatives are there and, like, they’ve got some scientists there with them, doctor Susan Drake, which you’re, like, why do they have a scientist? This doesn’t make any sense.

Clip: But Doctor Susan Drake here, great little scientist, has been conducting research at our labs upstream for the last 7 years. And she says now that they’ve got the handle on how to make salmon grow bigger, faster, and twice as plentiful.

Craig: And then, Johnny Eagle comes in the hall or whatever carrying his dog who is also now dead, and it seems pretty obvious that Slattery killed his dog, because Slattery believes that Johnny Eagle is the one responsible for killing all of their dogs even though he’s not because it’s the humanoids from the deep.

Todd: Yes. Which we

Craig: know. Right.

Todd: And the think about this this whole scene. Alright. First of all, I think most of this is incredibly boring. Like, all of this drama isn’t even that interesting, quite frankly. The thing that’s hilarious about this scene is they have this party going on. It’s almost like a barn party. It’s like a dance. It’s kind of country. You know? Yeah. Yeah. But all of the adults in this are acting like teenagers. Like, this one guy arrives with with his girlfriend. I think her name is I can’t remember. We saw her earlier. She had a negligee on. She was walking through the house. It looked like she was being stalked, and then this guy surprises her. So she has a house, but they show up to this party and he whips out a flask out in the parking lot and is like, I brought this. And she’s like, oh, that’s crazy. And she sits on his lap, and they’re sipping from this flask before they go

Craig: in. I was like, really? Like, how old are you guys? I thought they were supposed to be teenagers. I think they were supposed to be teenagers because I think that girl ends up being the daughter of 1 of the fishermen in Slattery’s gang.

Todd: Are you kidding me? No. Kind of like, attention to all, like, teenagers. Oh, come on. She’s in

Craig: her house.

Todd: You know

Craig: I get what you’re say I yeah. I get what you’re saying. Yeah. She’s in her house in, like, in sexy sexy lingerie for, like, a negligee for, like, no reason. Like, she’s just, like, looking at herself in the mirror and stuff. Like, it’s dumb. That they’re making out in the

Todd: in the back of the of the pickup later.

Craig: Yeah. And, you know, it’s it’s I think it’s supposed to be suspenseful, like, you think they’re gonna get attacked, but then they don’t and it really just turns into Slattery’s gang, you know, like, beats up Johnny Eagle outside of the dance hall or whatever, and then Jim who’s the nice guy like, Jim’s also for the cannery, but he’s a nice guy so he doesn’t want people picking on the Native American or whatever. So, like, it’s, like, you know, it’s like the Sharks and the Jets, like, duke it out outside or it’s also boring. And as you said, it is very boring. But the good thing the good thing about the movie is that it it’s only an hour and 20 minutes and it moves pretty quick.

Todd: It does move quickly. It gets past us very quickly.

Craig: And that’s when we get to the good part, which is just, like, random people kind of running around and the humanoids kind of stalking and finally attacking and killing them and raping them. Don’t forget about the raping.

Todd: You can’t forget about the raping. It’s an important aspect of the story. So this same couple that I was talking about, the horny couple running along the beach over and over and over again, and he gets attacked in the water, gets his half of his face torn off. And, you know, the the makeup effects in this are pretty good.

Craig: Yeah. I think really good, actually.

Todd: And, he gets his face pulled off and the girls pulled away and she’s raped. There’s a woman and a ventriloquist in a tent and I feel like this is This is so so random, but I feel like This is my favorite part.

Craig: I know. That’s the best part of the movie.

Todd: This movie’s attempted humor, and I feel like like it’s the one attempted humor that this movie goes. And and this would be my second criticism of this movie is that it doesn’t have, like, the sense of humor that I feel like it should. Like, it’s almost fairly humorless in the way that everything is presented except for this scene. Yeah. And I think the movie would have been a lot more fun, you know, had it not been just so dead serious about itself. Yes, there’s there’s some funny dialogue, basically.

Craig: Hey, honey. Why don’t you take it off? Let’s see some skin. Nothing comes off till I see it. Okay. How’s this? Oh, come on. Show me more than the head. Well, the head’s the best part. Oh, come on. So you? Okay. It ends up the same way that everything ends up. You know, the guy gets killed right away, and then the girl who is completely nude running down the beach with her boobs flopping around gets attacked by one of the humanoids. At this point, we’ve seen the humanoids in their full glory, and they just look so ridiculous, but I mean if I I feel like they were going for the style of fifties sixties b movies, and if that’s what they were going for, they nailed it. You know, the it’s it’s clearly just guys, like, in rubber suits dressed in, like, seaweed and and slathered in Vaseline. I I wrote down that I thought that they kinda look like swamp thing meets pumpkin head. Yeah. I thought I don’t know. I think

Todd: they were better than than your I mean, I thought they

Craig: were Oh, they look so silly.

Todd: I did look silly, but I’ve I guess I’ve just seen so much sillier, you know? I mean, it it was clearly I think they only had, like, 1 or 2 of these costumes. So they had to do a lot of creative filming in order to, you know, make it seem like there were a lot of them. But I thought that the 1 or 2 costumes they had, yeah, they were clearly guys in rubber suits, but, they were slimy. They were detailed.

Craig: Yeah. They walked in That’s true.

Todd: Kind of a kind of a cool way. You know? Like, they were they were trying. The people inside the suits were were trying to make themselves seem a little un inhuman and that they were kinda crouching a little bit, and their arms were just a little longer than normal, and they were moving them around. It’s kind of some unnatural ways. But but, yeah, you’re right. I mean, what we eventually hear, and I maybe I’m jumping too far ahead, but what we eventually hear is these are basically mutated fish.

Craig: Yeah. Oh, it looks great. I love it so much. Hold on. Let me do it because it’s so funny to find the scientist. So, like, once a couple of people have disappeared or whatever, then they’re gonna go, you know, out looking for them to see what’s happened and the scientist wants to go, the lady scientist, and they keep saying, like, Jim and Eagle who go out with her keep talking about how it seems like you know more than what you’re letting on and she’s like, no I don’t. No I don’t. And and then they find all these humanoids and have like a big humanoid battle, like they kill, like, I I don’t know, 5 or 6 of them or whatever and then she confesses that she did know all along. She’s like, I warned them, I told them, and the story is that they were doing DNA testing where they somehow genetically modified these salmon embryos and then there was some big storm and one of the tanks was breached, so the salmon embryos escaped and then some prehistoric fish that hadn’t evolved in 1000000 of years ate the embryos and that made them start to evolve super fast to the point where they were like these humanoids and because they have these great big heads that means they have immense brain capacity. So they’re learning quickly and they’ve realized that man is their only natural competitor. So what they’re doing is that they’re trying to kill all the men and rape all the women so that they can continue their evolution towards dominance. Now, that is just genius. Jurassic Park owes everything to this movie.

Todd: This woman is genius too because she figures it all out, like, within 10 minutes of, you know, examining a body and talking about it. It’s it’s pretty good. Now granted, she was one of the people doing the testing, but this is another one of those movies where, you know, she could look at something and then start rattling off all the stuff that she’s discovered, you know, from this one little specimen that they found. I mean, it’s it’s great. It’s a great back story.

Craig: Well, that it was just and it’s funny because like while she’s explaining this, they’re showing all this footage that’s supposed to be, I guess, like microscope footage and I have no idea what it actually was. I mean, like, they’re trying to science it up. And the woman, I mean, like, they’re trying to science it up. And the woman who played the doctor, I’ve mentioned her before, Anne Turkel, when she was asked why she took the movie, why she took the role, it’s not like she was some big superstar, but she had worked. She said, I took it because it was an interesting story based in actual scientific data and with no sex in it. And I’m like, lady

Todd: What script did you read?

Clip: Don’t don’t

Craig: quit yeah. And don’t quit your day job because I wouldn’t necessarily call this actual scientific, you know, research. Oh, God. But it’s funny, you know, we skip some stuff. There’s more of the cultural stuff like the the white guys bomb Johnny Eagle’s house and that leads to another kind of, attack by the humanoids on Johnny and his white friends and, you know, there’s there’s some cool action stuff going on like 1 girl, the girl who was having dinner with Johnny and her boyfriend at Johnny’s house, like, she’s driving her truck and her truck gets attacked by the humanoids and, like, she runs one of them over, but then another one attacks her from behind through the glass, you know, he like the humanoid is in the truck bed and he attacks her through the glass, and then she drives the truck off a bridge and the car explodes. So you know, there’s some action going on. It’s not boring in in that regard, but it’s it’s just you know it’s just a string of things happening and you don’t expect any kind of intelligent commentary or you know, I’m not even looking here necessarily for any sort of intelligent plot like you know, have the fish people come out and attack people, like, that’s that’s what and they do, you know. They do. And and I another one of my favorite parts because it’s so melodramatic is, like, they have this big huge long conversation about the science because they’ve killed a bunch of these humanoids, like, they have their remains in the lab and they’re studying it or whatever and they figure out all this stuff about the genetic testing and then she’s like she’s like I have no idea how many of them there are, but they’re nocturnal hunters. And Jim, it’s like a close-up on his face, and he’s like, oh, my Todd. The salmon festival.

Todd: It just occurs to all of them that there happens to be a party going on down the street.

Craig: And then this is when again, it’s only an hour and minute long movie and this is when there’s like 20 minutes left in the movie and so it cuts to the salmon festival and that’s the party and, like, I feel like I’ve waited a whole hour to get here and then it’s pretty satisfying because it’s just a a huge, you know this huge group of people basically at a county fair and the the humanoids from the deep attack. You know, they come out in mass and it’s a huge attack and it’s fun. It’s fun to watch.

Todd: Yeah. They kind of attack like zombies. They’re like bursting through the floor of the of the dock, you know, coming up. They’re crawling over. They’re getting people just left and right. People are running. And like I said earlier, it’s it’s, you know, it’s pretty gory, you know, there’s quite a bit of blood being spilled. I’m almost a comical amount of blood in some cases where like a humanoid will slash a guy’s, you know, stomach or something. It’s just like this huge gushing geyser coming out or something. But I think my favorite thing was the DJ from k k f s h, K Fish.

Craig: K Fish. Yeah. Who kept

Todd: who kept calling it the Salmon Festival? This is madman Mike Michaels broadcasting live from the big salmon fest. We’re down here at the K Fish Craig, the big fish.

Craig: We keep singing salmon like And now

Todd: I’m sitting here with this year’s little local beauty, miss Salma. Sandy. How you doing, Sandy?

Craig: Was anybody gonna correct this guy? Poor actor. He reminded me of Rick Dee’s kids of the eighties. Oh, yeah. The he he he’s is super super funny and, like, he totally sexist, like, you know, the whole movie is entirely sexist, but, like, he’s he he comments on some girl that’s, like, going around that has k fish on her butt, and he’s, like, if you catch her, you get a free visor. And, like, he’s got, the salmon queen, you know, there with him, like, in the booth, but and and she’s like in a bikini or whatever, which eventually when the humanoids attack her, bikini just conveniently comes off. Pops off.

Todd: Oh, that happens whenever.

Craig: Fighting with her boobs out. She puts up a

Todd: better fight than anybody in this film.

Craig: She does. I think she makes it too. I think that she gets away, but then, also the other funny thing about them is like you see them eventually starting to get attacked, the the radio DJ and the Salmon Queen, but you also see other people listening to the radio and the DJ continues to narrate everything that’s happening somehow somehow. I don’t know. I mean, as they’re being attacked, there’s so many funny parts, like, you know, they they they try to make it all, you know, scientific there for a second and then after the oh my Todd the salmon festival, before the humanoids, like seconds before the humanoids attack, Jim and the doctor and Johnny Eagle show up and they just dump one of the humanoid bodies out on the floor, like, this is what we’re dealing with. And everybody’s, like, oh, no. And then in that exact instant, like, then they’re besieged by this whole army of the humanoids. And they’re they’re, you know, they’re they’re chasing people around and they’re slashing at the men and killing the men and, like, raping the women like right out there in plain sight. And I have to give credit where credit is due here because what you said was right. They they really only had one of the humanoid suits that they could do whatever they wanted with, Like it was a full suit, it had full motion, and then they had 2 other humanoid suits that they could use, but they weren’t entirely complete so they had to shoot them from, you know, specific angles to make sure that they didn’t look wrong. But I would have never known that because it they did a good job of however they did it through editing or whatever. It looks like there were a whole bunch of them, you know, like like, I don’t know, 20 or more of them chasing people around. So clearly some effort went into that and they pulled it off because I never would have thought there was only one good suit and something else that I thought was funny was originally the director had planned for the stuntmen for the movie to be the guys in the suits And then the stunt men saw the suits and they’re, like, no, those are too fucking stupid. We’re not doing it. And so they had to hire additional actors to play the guys in the humanoid suits. But That’s pretty bad.

Todd: If you’re the stunt man in a Roger Corman film and you look at something and go that it’s too stupid.

Craig: And look, you know, you said you say you know they’re not bad. They they do look kind of realistic, especially I guess it must have been maybe that one suit in close-up. You know the face it kind of looks kind of like a meld between a fish and a human face, but it is detailed and it is slimy and it looks you know kind of organic I guess. So it’s not terrible. I mean you mentioned that their arms are unnaturally long and they are and I could imagine you know that it was the guys in the suits were like you know holding sticks that extended the arms. And that’s that’s kinda what it looked like, but you know it it’s very much Creature from the Black Lagoon. You know in that vein and I know that going into this movie, so I’m not gonna be super critical of it and and you know, I would be scared if those fish guys were running around chasing me and Yeah. Rape raping people and stuff. So

Todd: They mean business. They mean business. And this movie does nothing else if not deliver the goods. I mean, you know what you came for and this movie gives it to you in spades. You know? I got it all. There’s no real hero, like, in this movie. They’re trying to portray Jim and the doctor Susan a little bit kind of as a hero, like, they immediately take off on their boat into the dock while everybody’s getting attacked and they feel they’re safest on the boat, I guess. And they never really get attacked which is weird, And he’s like spray this gas spray this gas out all over the water and so if they’re slowly cruising along while all this pandemonium and mayhem is happening on the on the shore, she’s like, squirt squirt squirt squirt squirt squirt

Craig: squirt squirt squirt squirt squirt squirt. And, like, I didn’t even understand what their objective was. Well, that’s like that all about that. Like, they get out on the water, and all of these humanoids are killing and attacking people on the shore, and they’re just squirting the gas in the water. And eventually, like, they ignite it and there’s fire and, like, there’s clearly, like, some sort of, like, air jets under the water. They’re, like, shooting up bubbles. I don’t even know what that was supposed to be, but the Wikipedia synopsis says that they are setting the water on fire so that the humanoids don’t have anywhere to retreat. Okay. Well, that’s great. I mean, just trap them on shore with all the people.

Todd: There were some shots, some sort of close-up shots of, like, fire in the foreground and humanoids right behind it kind of, like, writhing around, like, maybe they were getting burned or something.

Craig: Oh, yes. When you

Todd: look at it, even from this even from the shots, it looks so lame. There are 2 or 3 fires on the top of the water in the middle of this dock. It’s doing nothing. Mhmm. And then we get random shots back, to we’re trying to do a little bit more drama with, Jim’s I I figured out later it was Jim’s wife. Right?

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. Jim’s wife and and kid, who were back at their house, And there’s a humanoid stalking them at their house. There’s also this, sort of half baked idea that John Eagle saves Hank’s life.

Craig: Yeah. The mean guy, like, that, you know, these guys that have been adversaries the whole movie. And and, like, they try to redeem it. Hank is his name, but Slattery is what I’ve been calling him. Slattery. Yeah. He’s he’s just been a big douchebag throughout the whole movie, and they give him a moment where, like, this little kid runs up to him and he’s like, please come help my sister. And, like, there’s this little girl, like, hanging off of a collapsed dock and he goes and and he saves her. So the guy who’s been a jerk through the whole movie puts himself at risk to save this little girl, which okay, great redemption whatever. But then he starts getting attacked by the humanoids and then Johnny Eagle saves him. And it’s like this dramatic moment where Slattery is, like, deciding, am I gonna take help from this guy, my enemy? Like, come on. Todd die? Right. He’s so stupid. But he good. He does. He takes Johnny’s hand and Johnny saves them, and that’s, you know, the end of their story.

Todd: Suddenly, he sees him in a whole new light apparently.

Craig: Wow. And and and the cultures were at peace.

Todd: And then the the funny thing is the movie just kinda ends. Are are we worried they’re gonna be more?

Craig: Well, that’s the thing. Okay. So you you talked about Jim’s wife is kinda being attacked, and then so Jim’s, like, all, you know, after a lot of this stuff has gone down, then it’s like he remembers, like, wait a minute, where’s my wife? And somebody says, oh, I dropped her off at your house. Not my house. Yeah. Not my house. And so he goes racing home. Meanwhile, his wife’s at home and she gets attacked by 2 or 3 of the different humanoids, and she totally takes care of business all by herself.

Todd: She does.

Craig: By the time that Jim gets there, she’s already killed them all. So that was completely pointless drama.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: But then, yeah, you’re right. Like, I found that really surprising too. The movie really just ends, Like, then after that scene at their house, then it’s the next day and they, Jim and his wife, go back to the festival and it’s kind of the aftermath. Like, kind of the last thing that we had seen at the festival was that people had really started to fight back and it it appeared to be working, like as long as they kept their wits about them and you know kind of grouped up on the humanoids, they could take them out. It wasn’t really that big a deal, but they come back and they see all this aftermath and you know everything’s destroyed and burn up and people are injured and killed or whatever and Jim’s like, where’s the doctor? Where’s doctor Susan? Is she okay? Is she okay? And somebody’s like, yeah. She went back to her lab. Chill out.

Todd: Dude, she’s like right over here.

Craig: But no. She went back to her lab. So we cut back to the lab, and it’s her with the first girl, the teenage girl who was raped, and she’s like birth coaching her, like this girl is pregnant and and about to have a baby and then they totally rip off Alien and have the humanoid baby burst out of her pregnant abdomen and then that’s the end, which is fine but it leaves so many questions like, did they win? Are there more humanoids? Is the humanoid baby gonna be a problem? Like, but it’s a B movie. I had to keep reminding myself of that, like, this isn’t supposed to be some sort of, you know, realistic drama. It’s a B movie. They fight the monsters. They’re done fighting the monsters. It’s over, you know, like that’s just it and and leave it open for a sequel and and apparently there was a sequel planned in like 91, but it never happened. The movie was remade.

Todd: In the meantime, 11 years of fans waiting on pins and needles waiting for that part

Craig: 2. Right.

Todd: Yeah. There there was a remake. It was a made for TV movie, I think.

Craig: Yeah. I think it was for Showtime or something.

Todd: Yeah. With a decent cast,

Craig: on

Todd: it, but I haven’t seen it.

Craig: I haven’t seen it either. Robert Carradine, Clint Howard, some other folks, you know, pretty big name people. And I I don’t know anything about it. I went to the IMDB page for the remake and the only really interesting thing that I read was that they Todd down both the violence but and especially the sex and even though it was an R rated film, the only other thing well, I guess 2 other things that I read, the all of the like salmon festival stuff, they just reused the footage from the original movie. And then, I I read a review, just a fan review, that said that it was far and above way better than the original, but you know take that with a grain of salt. It was just some random fan on the Internet. Who knows? I don’t know.

Todd: Well, there’s some interesting stuff connection to this movie. James Horner does the score, and the score is not bad. He did this in, like, 14 days. And

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: He he did that

Craig: a lot. Huge. Right? Like, he’s done Oh, yeah. Huge movies.

Todd: He start he started out, you know, with Roger Corman. He was one of these guys who started out with Roger Corman, did a lot of scores for him and went on to be huge. And, Vic Morrow, you know, you mentioned, Hank, though the Hank we were talking about mostly Hank Slattery. The way I know him is he was in the Twilight Zone movie from the eighties. He was the guy that, was in the one segment that had the unfortunate accident where there was a helicopter crash during the

Craig: accident. Right. Mhmm. He got stabbed. Killed in that accent?

Todd: Oh, yeah. He and the 2, young, like, Vietnamese kids who were with them all got decapitated in that. It was pretty pretty horrible.

Craig: Right. Oh, yeah. It was horrible. Gosh. I I hadn’t made that connection, but now that you mentioned it, I can picture him. That’s that’s absolutely right. Wow. Oh oh,

Todd: and the other person. And I actually noticed this when I was watching the credits of a name stuck out to me, Gail Heard, one of the production assistants. And I was like, I wonder if that’s Gail Ann Heard. And sure enough, I went to IMDB, and it is Gail Ann Heard. And I I mean, I don’t know if you, are that familiar with the name, but she is a major major producer. Like, she produced Terminator. She produced most of James Cameron’s movies, especially early on. Right now, she’s the one of the 2 executive producers on The Walking Dead. She just went on to be become massive. In fact, she was married to, James Cameron for a little while.

Craig: Yeah. I feel like we’ve talked about her before at some point, because it sounds And this was

Todd: her very first, you know, anything, I think, on a movie, was the production assistant on this film. So whatever she learned here, she took it and bagged it up Yeah. And did something better with it, I guess.

Craig: Well, you know, that’s the thing. I mean, we joke or whatever, but you’ve gotta start somewhere and you know a lot of people got their starts with Corman. You know, we’ve talked about, Bill Paxton and James Cameron and you know all of these. Corman makes these cheesy movies, but he’s made like 5,000 of them. You know, like he he’s been a very successful guy in his field. He he’s certainly not for everybody, but he’s clearly doing something right.

Todd: Well, he knows the business and he knew exactly what he was doing and he claims to this day that he never lost money on any movie, and he’s made 1,000. It’s it’s that’s a that’s a massive Craig. But, again, it’s it’s the right film for the right market. It delivers exactly what they want. He knows what people want. He’s willing to fire a director and hire another one to get it. And then Mhmm. You know, he ends up getting what he wanted, which is a boatload of money from from this film. So Yeah. You know, at the end of the day, this is something that, you know, we all have to consider, especially the horror genre is that movies are a business. Like, 1st and foremost, honestly, they’re a business. And we we try to think of them as art. We try to think of them as, you know and and people jump into it and and talk about movies from an artistic sense. And and and it’s true. They are art. And we can have very good movies made and very artistic movies made, but either the best movies are gonna disappear forever or or ruin careers if they don’t sell. That’s the that’s the long and short of it. And So that’s kind of the great irony of this business is that some of the best movies are lost forever, and some of the worst movies we’re sitting here talking about 40 years later on the podcast.

Craig: Well, and and some of these movies you know, I I think a lot of the reason that we go to movies in general regardless of genre is just kind of for escapism, you know, to kind of lose ourselves in something for a while and, you know, sometimes you just wanna have fun. You don’t wanna have to think about it too hard, you know, you just wanna, you know, watch some fun stuff happening on screen for a while, you know, you go to the bathroom you don’t miss anything. There’s there’s no pressure, you know, and and I can appreciate that. I didn’t I didn’t love this movie but I didn’t hate it, you know. It was competent. I I was entertained. It’s only an hour and 20 minutes. I don’t know if I would necessarily watch it again, but I had a good time watching it. I would give it a enthusiastic one and a half thumbs up.

Todd: I’d be without heaping too much praise on this movie. Everything you said is true. It goes by quickly. It delivers the goods And, as you’ve often said, the the worst thing a movie can do is be boring, and this movie is definitely never boring. Well, not

Craig: for a short period

Todd: of time. That’s about it. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Well, thanks again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this one, please share it with a friend. We’ve We’ve got a couple more summer movies coming your way or the rest of this month. And then we’re gonna go on to a month of request. So if you haven’t yet requested a film, check out our Facebook page. Just look up 2 Guys in a Chainsaw on Facebook. Like us there. Let us know what you thought. Send us your requests our way, and, maybe we’ll do them. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

As a goofy time capsule of your typical 80’s film, it’s a fun ride through an improbably plot and even more improbable special effects. Still, some great actors generally make the best of the hilariously bad material they are given, making for an experience that could have been much more boring than it turned out to be.

Episode 132, 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 we’re continuing our month of summer movies. And when we thought about doing, this theme, I made up a list of movies that reminded me of summer, and, the movie that we’re doing today, jumped out at me, right away. And

Todd: I see what you did there.

Craig: I didn’t even mean to do that. I’m I’m on a roll already. And, you know, people ask us from time to time why we don’t do more classic horror movies, and it’s not that we don’t love those movies, we do. It’s just we kind of feel like what are we gonna say that somebody else hasn’t already said? And so, you know, probably if you ask people to think about summertime horror movies, one of the quintessential movies that they would probably list would be Jaws, and I love Jaws. Jaws is a great movie. Of course, a huge blockbuster. You know, really gave Steven Spielberg, his start, but I decided instead that we should talk about the much maligned and I will say unfairly so, Jaws 3d or Jaws or Jaws 3 if you’re just watching it on television from 1983. This, of course, is the second sequel, to Spielberg’s original film, and, I have really super super Todd, memories of this movie. I almost did it again. Did you hear that? I I have a I have a tendency to say movies of this memory, but I’m gonna try not to say that. I used to watch this again for the same reason that I have fond memories of a lot of these movies from the eighties. We had this movie on VHS, and I watched it over and over and over and over again. In fact, I think I’m almost certain that I saw Jaws 3 d well before I ever saw the original Jaws. And, it gets a terrible rap, you know, even though it did really well in theaters. It made a bunch of money, in fact, it held the record for the highest grossing, 3 d film for a really long time, all the way up until like Spy Kids 3 or something. So, it did really good, but it got terrible, terrible reviews, and nearly killed the franchise. There was, of course, another sequel, Jaws the Revenge, which got even worse reviews. I got to admit, I’m kind of a fan of that movie Todd, although I don’t enjoy it as much as this one. I I have fond memories of it, but I’m coming from that perspective of having grown up with it. I have no idea, Todd. What’s your history with this movie?

Todd: You’re really laying all your cards out on the table for this one, Craig.

Craig: Hey. Come on. I’m I’m gonna defend this movie.

Todd: Okay. Well, I have to say, I had I had seen this movie before. I know it used to come on cable every now and then, but I mean, I was young. I don’t I didn’t remember. There’s only one scene that I actually remembered, and also what I remembered were the awful compositing effects.

Craig: Like, I

Todd: distinctly remember even as a kid going, holy Craig, does all of this look fake? And what I mean is clearly the sequences where they used visual effects. And I and I read later that this was the very first film to do, to use video for compositing, to do optical effects. An optical effect is when they use when they print on the film. So, like, for example, the lightsabers in Star Wars are an optical effect. Right? They didn’t use light. They didn’t have any special lights. They just wove around big sticks. And later on, on top of that, on the film frame by frame, they more or less this is a simplified way of saying it, but painted on, you know, bright glowing orbs. And so anytime you see, like, a giant ant and a tiny person in front of it, that’s usually an optical effect where you’re printing the footage from one film on top of the footage from another. You Usually using the blue screen or the green screen or something like that. And so all of the optical effects in this movie were the this was the first movie apparently where that was all done with video instead of just film to film and the result is not too pretty, I think. I’m not even sure it was great for its day because, you know, I know I saw it just a few days a few few years later, then it came out in 1983. And, oh my god. It’s it’s it’s it’s so bad. It’s funny, actually. And that’s one of the charms of the movie, actually, I think. And all all in all, not just about the optical effects, but, you know, I think the plot, some of the characters, it’s enjoyable for that reason for me.

Craig: Yeah. Oh, I will agree with you a 100% that some of the effects are really bad. But again, like you said, almost so bad it’s good in a charming way. Yeah. The shark, for the most part, I mean, anytime they’re using a fake shark I mean, there are some shots of, you know, actual real sharks, but they’re few and far between. And any of the shots of the fake shark, are are very clearly fake. There’s, you know, when people talk about this movie, there’s one memorable sequence at the end that everybody kind of like that like anything, but realistic. You know Todd doesn’t look real at all, but as a kid I don’t think that that bothered me, and as an adult I can recognize it for its shortcomings, but like you said, I I almost feel like that adds something to the charm. The movie was originally conceived as a spoof, you know, the first two films both did very well, both starring Royce Schneider who didn’t even want to have anything to do with the second movie, let alone the third movie. He was contractually bound to do the second movie, and so he did it begrudgingly. But, he said there was absolutely no way in hell that he was doing a third one. In fact, he took another movie just so that he could not do this movie. And so it was originally it was originally conceived as a spoof and it was going to be Jaws 3 People 0. And it was, you know, gonna be a comedy, a comedic take on it, but Spielberg did not like that idea at all. He was adamantly opposed to it and said that he wouldn’t have anything to do with it and in fact, you know, he actively worked to make sure that that didn’t happen. So then there was a, they decided to go in the traditional route, you know, the more serious route and a script was written I don’t remember who wrote it, I didn’t write it Todd, but there was a script that was written about a great white shark, somehow accidentally swimming upstream and becoming trapped in a lake, and there are remnants of that idea left here in this movie, but apparently all kinds of script doctors came in, made all these changes. They wanted a tie to the original films, so they wanted Sheriff Brodie’s sons from the original movies. They wanted them to be key characters in the film, so they wrote them in and instead of the sharks swimming up a river and getting trapped in a lake, they decided to have the shark, end up getting trapped in SeaWorld which I just think is just genius. Like, just, like, on paper, a rogue great white shark loose in SeaWorld, like, sign me up. I am on board for this movie.

Todd: It’s literally SeaWorld. It’s not like Marine Land Park or whatever. It is truly and honestly. Was SeaWorld involved? I mean, clearly, they were involved in the production of the movie.

Craig: Oh, yeah. They had to be, but that’s another thing that blows my mind. Like, what were they thinking?

Todd: You know, like, it doesn’t make them look good. No. Or You never see this happen today.

Craig: Oh, no. Absolutely not. They would have to totally make it, you know, some SeaWorld knock off.

Todd: Because there’s no way. Because the guy that Lou Lou Gossett junior plays the the the head of the park. I know I’m getting ahead of it, but I just gotta get Todd that. Lou Gossett junior plays the head of the park and he is like the typical asshole, only cares about money, doesn’t care about the safety of anybody or anything, or even the well-being of the animals. Basically, in the sea world. He is the owner of the park. And so it’s you just can’t imagine that they greet looked at this and said, oh, yes. This is really good. This is gonna do wonders for our attendance.

Craig: You know? Yeah. No. I I mean, I guess maybe because the first two movies were such big hits, they thought that they would get some publicity out of or whatever, but you’re right. They come off looking bad. Now SeaWorld gets a bad rap these days anyway, you know, in the aftermath of Blackfish where people are, you know, kind of questioning whether or not these marine animals should be held in captivity at all and if they are, you know, how are they being treated? Is it, you know, humane and that kind of stuff? And I’m really conflicted about it, but that’s also another reason that I think that I’m nostalgic, for this movie because I went to SeaWorld when I was a kid and I absolutely loved it. You know, my parents took us to Orlando and, we we, you know, we did Disney, and we did SeaWorld and SeaWorld was by far and away my favorite of the things that we did. I mean, it was just so cool to be able to see these marine animals up close and personal. And of course, you know, you’ve got the whale shows and the dolphin shows and all of that, but the SeaWorld that’s portrayed in this movie is the SeaWorld that I went to when I was a kid. SeaWorld is very different now. I haven’t been there. I haven’t been there as an adult, so, you know, all I know is, you know, from their promotional videos, from things that I see on TV or online or whatever, but this SeaWorld, you know, has a great big lagoon where they do water ski shows and they’ve got, you know, like these little variety show things going on while the skiers are in the background, and of course, all the marine attractions, and the animals and stuff as well, but I don’t have them, but my parents have pictures that could have been taken during the filming of this movie. You know, like like, the the people in costume doing, like, little, like, hoedown shows and, like, a a lady in a, you know, a a a cartoon pig outfit, like, dancing around. Like, I was there, and so Todd see it all again and there’s a lot of just sporadically throughout and it’s not jarring. It doesn’t seem out of place. It seems very much in keeping with the rest of the movie, but you just get all these really cool shots of SeaWorld stuff. Yeah. The the killer whales doing their stuff and the dolphins doing their stuff and, again, you know not necessarily SeaWorld’s greatest moment, but there’s just some beautiful, videography of of all that stuff that was going down and, I think that’s another big part of why I liked it.

Todd: It’s a 100% nostalgia for you, isn’t it, Craig? It’s gotta be. Yeah. And for and honestly for me too. I I mean, this movie is very dated and in a charming way, it just transported me a little bit back to the eighties again. And I didn’t go to SeaWorld when I was a kid. I went to Disney World when I was a kid, and the way that this SeaWorld has changed is is very similar to the way Disney World has changed. You know, you can look back at the eighties, and I’m sure, you know, my parents can look back even further, but you can look back at the eighties and see a very distinctly different feel to the park and to the costumes and to the things that people found entertaining, you know, at that time. They just don’t you know, it doesn’t work Todd, but it’s charming to see as part of the movie and it’s such an integral part of the story. I mean, they cram all this crap in there, like, as much as they can. And that’s why I felt like this had to be like a at first, I really thought maybe SeaWorld commissioned this because it’s almost like a giant advertisement for their park except for the part of, you know, people getting eaten by runaway Right. Of marine animals.

Craig: Right. You know, the bodies floating through the attractions and things like that. Oh, man. Well, I can talk about how it opens. It opens underwater and, like, you know, it’s got all all of the credits are, you know, like that great 3 d, like, popping out at you with, like, you know, the imagery trailing behind it and stuff and

Todd: Oh, that that’s the other charming part about this movie is the extremely obvious cheap three d effects, you know, where they’re jamming things up in your face at the camera the whole time.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: You don’t you don’t need to be watching it with glasses to to recognize these things. It’s hilarious.

Craig: Well and and I don’t remember I don’t know if it was the director, somebody along the way. They didn’t wanna do that. That. They just wanted the 3 d, to work to give the movie depth. But then, of course, the studio execs came in and said if we’re paying for 3 d, poke something out at us.

Todd: You know? From the very beginning. Well and I’m and I’m watching this and I’m thinking because, you know, you and I are both huge fans of underwater photography and that’s another thing I really liked about this movie. I feel like the underwater photography in this movie is really good. It’s it’s really clear. It’s great when the peep the if I could say, like, the underwater acting or whatever, and the staging is also quite good. It’s just it’s just good. And, in the very beginning, we get all these, you know, scenes of fish swimming. It’s, you know, like, all this footage, it looks like it was shot on a reef, you know, it’s all underwater. And then there’s this big fish that swims by the camera and suddenly big blood sprays everywhere and this giant fish head just rotating.

Craig: Yeah. Towards the Floating out of the screen.

Todd: Oh, the minute that comes up you know what what kind of movie you’re in for. It’s

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Really hilarious. It it

Craig: is hilarious. And and then they they show that the show skiers, like, rehearsing and apparently this SeaWorld is just opening, like, I guess they’ve been open, like, for a week for, like, previews or whatever, but it’s their grand opening. And so, there’s all this press around and, like, they’re training people and we, see somebody presenting this model of this new attraction, which is the undersea kingdom, which they say is the brainchild of Calvin Bouchard who runs it, owns it. I don’t know. But like you said, it’s Louis Gossett junior. There are so many famous people in this movie.

Todd: Oh my gosh. It’s crazy.

Craig: It is crazy. And, you know, Louis Gossett junior has been in a million things, and this is certainly not his finest hour.

Todd: He he seems to be phoning it in, to be completely honest.

Craig: He and and he he he plays it kind of stereotypically, like, as a person of color and also just kind of as, you know, just kind of the dicky executive who doesn’t care, you know, like, it’s always just about the bottom line for him. That’s all he cares about is the bottom line. Anything else be damned.

Todd: There’s no depth to his character. There’s nothing behind the lines, to be honest.

Craig: No. No.

Todd: And that’s true of a lot of these characters actually in this movie, I think.

Craig: That’s certainly not atypical for movies of the eighties. You know, that was a very common, you know, that was a very common antagonist. You know, like, the just the jerky businessman. But these skiers, so they’re going along and we see that a shark starts following them and, supposedly, this SeaWorld, I don’t remember where it was actually located. I don’t remember if it was Orlando. I think it was Orlando, but it was somewhere where there it’s landlocked, but in the fictional them to the ocean. And so these skiers are skiing and they they ski, you know, through this channel or whatever, and we see this shark follow them in and the engineers start to close this great big steel gate behind them as they go in, but we know that the shark is also coming, and so the gate, like, slams, I guess, on the shark, and jams. And so that’s when we meet, Mike Brody, who is, the oldest son of sheriff Brody from the first movie. And in this movie, he’s played by Dennis Quaid. Dennis Quaid. Oh, thank you. And Dennis Quaid, you know, he’s he’s very young in this movie. He’s very handsome. I just read this morning as I was last minute kind of preparing for this that he claims that he was coked out of his mind for this whole movie. He says that every scene that he’s in in this movie, he is just totally tweaking out on coke. I I wouldn’t know it because I actually thought his performance was good. Like, that’s the thing about this movie too. Like, the acting isn’t that bad. I mean, what they’re given

Todd: Is bad.

Craig: Yeah. It’s not great, but I thought that the performances were kind of natural and, like, it it didn’t seem forced like I wanna hang out with Mike Brody. He seems like a fun guy.

Todd: If I were to figure out what doesn’t work for me about the movie is that I it’s gotta be the directing because you’re right. The actors are doing a fine job, with what they’re given. Mhmm. What they’re given is not Oscar winning material. No. But it’s also not at all uncommon for films from this era. Mhmm. Things that the people say, the way that they say them, the different characters, the stereotypical, you know, like you said, evil boss man who only cares about money, the really nice, hardworking guy, you know, who’s gonna save the day. He has a female sidekick, and they have a romantic thing. You know? And there’s a brother involved and a friend and all this stuff. Like, all of this is just pull completely plucked and pulled out of standard Hollywood boilerplate, especially for the eighties. And so it even though it it’s it’s cheesy, I think it’s cheesy, it should still work, you know, more or less. And I think the thing that keeps it from working has just has to be the direction, you know, the way that things were staged, the way that things were edited together. Sometimes, maybe particular line deliveries maybe weren’t the character you know, the the actor’s choices. And,

Craig: you

Todd: know, that’s the only thing I can think of. There he’s going, go for this, go for this, go for that, and they’re delivering, but, you know, it’s just not working as a cohesive whole.

Craig: Well, it was directed by by, Joe Alves, and this was the only movie that he ever directed. He was the production designer on Jaws 1 and he was, the 2nd unit director on Jaws 2. And and like I said, this is the only movie he ever directed, but, he was also the production designer on movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Escape from New York. So, you know, he’s talented in his own right. Maybe direction isn’t his forte. This came in the advent of a surge in popularity of 3 d movies around this time and it came out right around the same time as Amityville 3 d, and Friday 13th 3, which is in 3 d. And in comparison to those movies, I would argue that this movie is a step above, you know, in in terms of maybe cinematography except for some of the, you know, bad effects that we’ve talked about, but the acting is better, like Yeah. I mean, if if you compare it to other movies of the same time, you know, capitalizing on the same 3 d fit deal, you know, I I just I think it’s pretty good. Yeah.

Todd: I have to agree. I mean, you’ve gotta put it all relative. You’ve gotta make it relative. But yeah. I mean, I I I won’t argue with you there for sure.

Craig: So, anyway, Mike is apparently the head engineer at the park. Like, he’s designed and and led the building of all of this, and he is in a relationship with doctor k Morgan who’s played by Bess Armstrong. Again, very famous, still working. She plays the mom a lot these days, but she’s, young and pretty and and tough and smart in this movie and I really like her. And I have to mention, at this point 2 of the very important characters of the movie, Cindy and Sandy, the Dolphins, who play a

Todd: pivotal role. They do. A little too pivotal. Yeah. One of my favorite pieces

Craig: of trivia that I read and I don’t even know how this makes me feel but, Sandy the dolphin who who played a female dolphin in this movie, but is actually a male is still alive at at 50. What? Yes. Is still working at SeaWorld and one of those dolphins that you can pay a $100 to, like, swim with and ride and stuff. Crazy.

Todd: And sits down to watch this movie at least once a week. Yeah. Sandy’s probably getting a residual check. Revisiting the good old days. Yeah.

Craig: But, Kaye is the head biologist at the park. And then, we get introduced to this other character, Philip Fitzroyce, played by Simon McCorkendale, who’s like this big shot photographer who’s gonna come in and do all this photography for publicity and stuff. And then, they introduce all the characters right away, which I really appreciate because I can get it out of the way. And then, Mike’s brother, Sean, who is played by John Putsch, p u t c h, I don’t know, he’s the son of Jeannie, I think, Triplehorn. She was the mom on All in the Family. Oh. Yeah. He shows up, and I think that he’s just there, for a visit or something. The

Todd: There’s no question that ever at at any point that he’s his brother. I think they refer to him as brother or that he’s his brother in, like, every scene. It’s so funny. It’s like when he first sees him, but, oh, it’s my brother. Hey, brother. How are you doing? Hey, brother. And then later on, I may be your baby brother, but blah blah blah. I mean, boy, do they remind you of, of their relationship.

Craig: And it’s almost it’s a little over the top because when they’re together, they kinda act like they’re, like, 9. Like, they’re all the time, like, kinda, like, hitting each other and wrasslin and Wrasslin. That’s right. But it’s cute and, you know, none of them are terrible actors and, you know, I I honestly, this time when I was watching it, and it’s been a while since I had seen it, I was just kind of impressed by how natural the acting seemed. Like, it didn’t seem forced. Like, these people seem like they were having a good time. They seem like they had a familial or at least friendly relationship. I kinda liked it. Anyway, he shows up. The first kill, I guess, is the guy who is tasked to fix the gate. You know, that gate that got broken before. And it’s it’s pretty simple. You know, he jumps in the water late at night for some reason. I don’t know why he waited till it was dark.

Todd: I don’t either.

Craig: And, you know, he just jumps in there, and he’s fixing the gate or whatever, and then he gets eaten by a shark.

Todd: And his giant severed arm rotates

Craig: Floating. Floating

Todd: straight toward the the camera.

Craig: We see something like pounding up against the gate. I think the suggestion is that the shark is trying to get back out into the ocean, but it can’t. So we know that it’s stuck in there. And and then we just get, you know, some kind of fun stuff. They they all go to a bar. Apparently, there’s, like, a staff bar at SeaWorld or something and, Sean meets, his love interest of the movie who is Kelly played by Leah Thompson. Again, like, this was her first movie ever, but she went on. She went on to Howard the Duck and Back to the Future and still working, and and she’s young and cute, cute, cute in this movie. And they flirt and then, like, within 30 seconds, they’re a couple.

Todd: Yeah. Exactly. Again, total eighties movie. Really? The only thing they were missing was that moment where, like, they stop and see each other from across the room and some the sax music comes on, you know. That’s the only thing that didn’t movie. To its credit, did not happen.

Craig: Yeah. No. They play a fun flirty game in the bar and then there are a couple. And after that, Mike and Kaye go for a walk on the beach and Kelly wants to Kelly’s left alone with Sean. She wants to go swimming, but he tells her that he hates the ocean. She’s like, well, okay fine. You hate the ocean, so we’ll go to the lagoon. Then when we go back to Mike and Kaye on the beach, he reminds her. He says, don’t you remember I told you about that shark attack in Amity? So there can yeah. Here here’s the connection, you know, we’ve got this history with sharks or whatever.

Todd: And presumably with the first movie, I guess. Right?

Craig: Well, that would have actually been the second movie because it was the second movie. Again, a good movie, but remember, Sean in the second movie was a little tiny boy, and he went out with Mike’s friends on these sailboats, and they all got attacked. And so, like so he was a little tiny kid. So apparently, he’s traumatized, and so he hates the water now. Whatever. Right.

Todd: None of it matters really.

Craig: No. It doesn’t matter.

Todd: Doesn’t really add doesn’t even really come into play later in the movie, you know. There’s that’s that’s one of the things I think about this movie now that I consider it. There’s also no real major drama between the characters, like, that gets in the way or complicates the plot at all. Right. They raise these little things and, oh, I’m gonna have to go away and blah blah blah. But, I I I it doesn’t really factor in once the shark starts killing people. Everybody just bands together, and they do their thing. You know, there’s no Jurassic Park style sabotage or anything like that. Right. It’s a very pretty straightforward plot.

Craig: Yeah. Well, the whole relationship thing comes up again a couple of times and sometimes at the stupidest moments. Like, there will be urgent things going on, and she’ll just be, like, let’s talk about our relationship, like, right now. Let’s maybe wait until we take care of this killer shark problem. Yeah.

Todd: For sure. Can we rescue the people who are drowning in the water first?

Craig: Oh, man. Kelly gets Sean into the water and, you know, they’re making out or whatever. And they’re you know, I hate to these things aren’t really significant, but they’re so cute that I I hate to skip over them. Like like, Mike and Kaye pull this funny joke on them where, like, they pretend to be the police or whatever. It’s funny because the brother is, like, he’s standing there in his underwear in the water. He’s, like, I’m okay. My brother works here.

Clip: I’m Kelly Ann Bukowski from the ski team.

Craig: And then they wrestle on

Todd: the beach and That’s right. There’s lots of sand tossing and stuff. There are also some rafters who are, coming in. It’s still the dead of night and they’re they’re sneaking in. I thought, oh, they’re gonna sabotage SeaWorld or something. You No. They’re gonna steal some coral from the bottom. And correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s just a thing. Right? They just go in. They go in to steal some coral, and they get their comeuppance because the shark eats them both.

Craig: Yep. Mhmm.

Todd: And we don’t we don’t nobody’s ends up seeing their bodies later or anything like that. Nope. This is the other crazy thing about this movie. Okay? So the shark breaks into this, I guess, straight into this lagoon, right, at SeaWorld. Mhmm. And it’s causing all of this mayhem. By this point, he’s eating the 2 rafters, he’s eating the 1 guy, and, you know, their body parts and things floating around, but nobody sees anything. Like, none of this ever floats to the surface until they really, really go searching for the one guy, and then they only find the one guy.

Craig: Yeah. Mhmm.

Todd: Yeah. I don’t know. How big is this lagoon, you know, and how well monitored is it not?

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. It must be pretty big. Yeah. Like you said, they do eventually they don’t even find the 1 guy. Like, they go looking for him, they don’t find him, but he eventually pops up, but that I mean, that’s that’s the next thing that happens. The the guy who got killed, the the guy who was fixing the gate, his girlfriend is all mad, and she’s, like, gonna kick him out because she thinks he’s cheating or something.

Todd: Mhmm.

Craig: But Mike and Kaye know that maybe he’s in trouble. And I don’t know how they know that he dove by himself, but, Mike says something like, He broke one of the cardinal rules of diving. You’ve always got to have somebody watching your back or something. So they they know he may be in trouble, so they decide to go look for him, and they take this submersible into the Lagoon to look for him. And again, it’s terrible, like, whatever you called it, the graphic design or whatever.

Todd: Optical effects. Yeah.

Craig: The optical effects. They look awful.

Todd: They really do. They If

Craig: you’re, you know, 8 year old me, like, it’s it’s pretty cool. Like, they get to go in their own little personal submarine and, like, they’re gonna go explore, like, this undersea kingdom where there’s, like, a sunken pirate ship and, like, they they they drive right by the control room and the control room is underwater and it has this huge, you know, big glass aquarium, you know, thing and which looks like a a bad movie screen or something. Like, it doesn’t look real

Todd: at all.

Craig: It looks terrible. But they go down there and they look around, and I I have it in my notes here, bad graphics slash good music. So I wanna take just a second here to say I love the music in this movie. It is so good. It is such a good score that, like, if it is or if it were available, like, I would order it. Be because in the happy moments, it’s like kind of this big swelling, you know, orchestral score. I don’t know if it’s orchestral. It’s probably synthesizers, but and then in the scary moments, it’s, you know, kinda got some really cool tense stuff going on too. It does incorporate the traditional shark theme a little bit from the first two movies.

Todd: But not too much.

Craig: Not too much.

Todd: Very little, actually.

Craig: Yeah. Wow. I just love I’m sorry, guys. It’s I’m not gonna it’s a bad movie, but I’m gonna I love it, so I’m gonna talk about how much I love it.

Todd: It’s more it’s more fun listening to a guy who loves a bad movie than a guy who doesn’t love a bad movie. Well, good. I’m glad to hear you. Hearing hearing you gush over it is nice. I I I wouldn’t I don’t think this movie would get nearly as much gushing if it were just me talking.

Craig: Oh, no. No. I and I figured you’d totally be, like, arguing with me about, no, dude. It’s bad.

Todd: Shut up. So I I appreciate you at least indulging me. I’m not gonna steal your childhood away from you, man. You get to keep that.

Craig: They go down there, and they’re searching through the pirate ship and, like, the dolphins, Cindy and Sandy, are acting weird, and, like, at one point, like, the one of the dolphins literally, like, comes right up to them and starts shaking its head no, like, no. Don’t come out here. And then all of a sudden, this great white shark, like, attacks the side of the pirate ship that they’re in. And there’s a a, you know, kind of a little bit of a chase, but then the dolphins save them, like,

Todd: like, the dolphins swim up

Craig: to them and let them grab on to their fins, and they swim away with them.

Todd: It’s like a cartoon. I was like, this was really, really goofy. I I just couldn’t get behind 2 dolphins swooping in last minute. Hey, guys. Hitch a ride. We’re gonna get you out of here. The cube is grabbing their fins and pulling them away from the sharks. That was cornball as hell. I don’t know who wrote that, but, oh, come on, man.

Craig: I’m rolling my no. I’m I’m sitting here rolling my eyes. Like, that happens, Todd.

Todd: Like, dolphins save people. Dolphins save. God. Grab on. Don’t look back.

Craig: Yeah. And and one of my favorite parts is, like, at one point, she falls off and, like, the shark is, like, a centimeter away from her and then the dolphin, like, swoops in, like,

Todd: I gotcha. It made it very clear how difficult it really is to film this sort of thing. Yeah. You know, because it was very poorly filmed. There was no way to really do this realistically. And so what you end up with is just a bunch of close ups. It’s like, here’s Jaws coming after them, and then it’s like, oh, here’s them riding on some dolphins. And then, oh, here’s Jaws again. And, oh, here’s them riding on some dolphins. You know?

Craig: Well, I understand what you’re saying, but it reminds me of something that I actually thought was kind of neat about the movie. Like, I have no idea how much switching in and out they did, but so much of this movie takes place under water and it really it really seems like a lot of the time, the the actual actors are acting underwater. Like, I would just kind of have expected that they would have had stunt people or, you know, professional divers or whatever. But a good amount of the time, at least on my little computer screen, it looked to me like it was I know some of the time it was because you would see close-up reaction shots and stuff, but, I I didn’t anticipate that. And Dennis Quaid, you know, when I don’t think people ask him about it much anymore, but, in an interview once they were like, so you did Jaws 3 and he was like, I did Jaws what now? Like, these people don’t really want you know, it’s not their proudest moment, but, there’s some cool stuff going on. So Yeah. Whatever. And they get out and and so now they know that there’s this this shark, in here. So, obviously, it’s a problem, and the photographer the photographer guy is like, let’s kill it. He’s like, I’ll I’ll I’ll film it when we kill it, and it’ll, you know

Todd: Play big on TV.

Craig: But Kaye’s like

Clip: Well, I don’t know if it’s occurred to any of you all, but there isn’t a great white alive in captivity anywhere. Now, we’re unique here, Calvin. You know that. If any facility can maintain a white, it’s us. If if we could could dodge him, tranquilize him, we we could get him in a holding spot.

Craig: Oh, now hold it. Hold it. Now hold it. No. This is crazy. This is nuts. She convinces him. She’s like, you you kill it. You know, that happens once. You get some publicity for a minute. But if we capture it, then we can, you know, put out all this advertising. We’re the only people that have it, and so he can she convinces him. And said so they go on this mission to tranquilize and capture the shark.

Todd: And to me, this is one of the sillier, more melodramatic moments of the film. And maybe this is also looking at it from the lens of today as well. But just to see the one guy, his extreme solution to this is we’re just gonna kill it. And then the woman’s ideas, no. We’re gonna capture it and we’re gonna study it. And then to watch the owner of SeaWorld seriously pondering and considering and weighing the pros and cons of each approach, it’s just a little silly.

Craig: Oh, yeah.

Todd: And and and, again, just way over the top. I thought this scene was was hilarious, hilariously bad.

Craig: Yeah. It’s it’s funny.

Todd: And the fact that that kind of sets up the central premise for the film. And and that’s kind of the thing about the movie is the the shark doesn’t do a lot of killing. I guess whenever you got something in the water that can’t come out of the water, and it’s not like people are freely swimming and doing things in the water. Like, this is SeaWorld. Like, this is their lagoon. This is, like, corporate controlled environment. And so most of the time, they’re not even open to the public yet because they’re they’re preparing this undersea kingdom section. There’s very little danger, it seems. Like, at least, you know, they have lots of time to contemplate what they’re gonna do with the shark. They go on this hunt for the shark after they have this, conversation, but it’s not a hunt to kill it. It’s a hunt to tranquilize it. And so they dive in the water, and they’re just looking for it. Right?

Craig: Yeah. I didn’t really understand why she needed be down there.

Todd: It was yeah. I didn’t quite get that whole thing, but somehow she was down there, and she runs across a shark almost instantly. And, Dennis Quaid’s character, Mike ends up, shooting a giant harpoon type thing with a tranquilizer at at the shark from the surface after it surfaces, and they managed to tranquilize it and pull it in. And at this point, I was like, well, okay. Really? Because the next scenes of the movie are of them nursing the tranquilized shark back to health. Like, they’ve got it in the shallow lagoon where clearly it’s not gonna be much of a danger to anybody. They’re on either side of it pushing it around and, you know, it’s like it’s just a a lifeless, you know, thing, trying to nurse it to health. And then when it starts moving, like, they just, you know, leap out of the water like you’ll leap out of the shallow end of a pool. And I’m just look where are they going with this? Like, how the minute that you have, at least by this point in the movie, we think, our our main antagonist tranquilized completely under their control. It just loses all sense of suspense. Yeah. The fact that they could just capture the shark. Now later on, we learned that this isn’t the shark. Right?

Craig: That’s the thing. It’s set it’s setting it up for the big twist, but it Todd does you’re right. And and I was just gonna kinda, like, you did a good job. You, like, they nurse it back to health blah blah. Like, that’s all you need to know. But the the thing like, they’re in there with it. Like, this is a great white shark that’s been, like, stalking and, like, killing people, and, like, then there’s kinda, like, hanging out with it in the shower and, like and, like, what what really bothered me is they’re they’re aerating it. Apparent I didn’t know this, but I looked it up. Like, I knew that sharks had to keep moving because they constantly have to keep water go or excuse me. Yeah. Water going over their gills so that they can get oxygen in that way. But, apparently, they can also breathe through their mouths. And so they have this great big hose, and they’re putting it in the shark’s mouth, and they’re, like, sticking their arms, like, elbow deep in the shark’s mouth. Like Yeah. What if it wakes up?

Todd: Like Yeah. It’s it’s just like I I mean, this might be true and this might be accurate, you know, and might be real life. But if you’re making a scary movie about killer sharks, I don’t care if it’s not the shark, you know, maybe clearly there’s a bigger shark. But the fact that you’ve shown how easy it is to manage a shark that’s smaller, you’re sharing the pool with it, you’re shoving your arm into its mouth and stuff like that. It kind of neuters the whole concept.

Craig: I know what you mean. I I I I guess I feel like I guess I feel like I’m getting defensive, like, shut up. It’s fine. Because they’re because they’re setting it up for this big twist because okay. So yeah. They you know, like, they get the shark alive and that’s great or whatever. But she, the doctor k, says, we can’t stress it out. It’s a baby. It’s been through enough trauma. We’ve gotta just, you know, take it slow. But then as soon as Bouchard, the main guy the head guy finds out that it’s awake, he orders that it be put on display. And they put it on display in one of those tanks where, like, you can go

Todd: And pet things.

Craig: Yeah. Like, pet, like, the stingrays and stuff. Like, you can’t put a great white shark in there. Like, his arm is gonna get bit off.

Todd: It’s but it’s plus it’s, like, 3 feet of water. I’d I’m kinda surprised, like, they could even fit in there.

Craig: And and so she hears over the loudspeaker that it’s on display, and she runs over there and, like, she’s watching it swim around for, like, 5 seconds before it goes belly up. So she jumps in and and the her assistant she’s got these 2 assistants who are always around. And, she jumps in and they, like, they try to keep moving along or whatever, but, then it flips over and it’s dead. And so yeah. I mean, it seems kind of like, well, okay. Jaws is dead. So, like, what can happen for the next half hour?

Todd: It it my point is, like, this goes on for so long with no other indication that there is another shark out there or that there’s any other threat out there. We don’t even get, like, some other kill, and it’s like, wait a minute. What’s that? You know, that or there’s nothing. It just starts to look like a domestic dispute over how we’re gonna handle this animal, you know, that we’ve captured and how we’re gonna display it and stuff. And and I think it just pulls a lot of the energy out of the movie at this point.

Craig: Yeah. I I mean, I don’t know how long this takes. It does go on for a little while. One of the things that I kinda like about the movie is I really kinda felt like it kept moving. Now that may be because I’m so familiar with it that, like, I know what’s coming next. I don’t know.

Todd: But it’s gotta be you you it’s gotta be propelling you. You know? I feel like Yeah.

Craig: Sure. Sure.

Todd: Be pushing and and at this point, it’s pulling.

Craig: Yeah. But I I I okay. Again, I’m probably giving it too much credit, but I feel like they’re trying to like, I feel like that’s what they want you to think. Like, well, what now? Like, the shark’s dead? Like you said, we have no indication that there’s any other threat or whatever. I feel like they’re they’re waiting for the sucker punch, like, Like, we’re gonna you thought it was dead, but Meanwhile, while all of this going, the big undersea kingdom has opened, for the first time. And people are down there, you know, in these big underwater tunnels, and, like, they can see everything, and, like, you and we get more creepy 3 d effects with stupid stuff in the underwater kingdom or whatever.

Todd: This is my one of my favorite parts, though, is when the the the the tourists go in to the underwater kingdom for the first time and they walk in and the first part of it is, like, some weird undersea haunted house. Yeah. This is the point where it’s like they’re the, oh, this is Craig. It’s like there’s coral and stuff all around them, and suddenly, like, a moray eel puppet, like, jumps out at them and, like, a long tentacles swings out and, like, starts to wrap around somebody else, and they’re like, ah, ah, ah, ah, kitty. And there’s, like, smoke and black lights and things, and I’m thinking, oh my god. This is so silly. And that was the point at which I was like, really, SeaWorld? Did you really stamp your approval on this movie?

Craig: But, again, I think that that kind of I don’t remember anything like that when I was a kid at SeaWorld, but it does kind of highlight how things have changed because I remember SeaWorld as being an amusement park and, like, it’s it still is to some extent, but they’ve really shifted their focus to, you know, kind of let’s learn about sea life and, like, you know, we’re preservationists and we’re studying these animals. You know, there’s kind of been a shift whereas before it was like let’s watch dancing pigs on the beach or whatever. Anyway, so you know now the shark is dead, the undersea kingdom, is open, and everybody’s looking around and everything’s all cool, and they’re looking out these, you know, kinda like porthole windows seeing the fish or whatever. But then the body of that guy who was killed fixing the gate floats up and it’s pretty gross. And so they they they get it out and, Mike and Kay go to have a look at it and, Mike pulls the sheet down, and it’s pretty gross. The prosthetic effect or whatever they use, the dummy or whatever, it’s pretty gross and, like, they’ve got, like, snakes coming out of its mouth or eels or whatever they’re supposed to be. This movie is rated PG, which really kinda surprises me. Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s pretty dark for PG. I don’t remember when the PG 13 rating came into existence, so maybe it didn’t exist yet. I don’t know, but for PG, it’s pretty dark. Parents out there who are thinking about showing this to your kids, it’s it’s pretty rough. But, anyway, they find this body, and when Kaye looks at it, she freaks out because she realizes that there’s no way that the shark they captured could have done this much damage. And so they run to this underwater restaurant, like everything’s underwater, where, Bouchard is with the photographer and they have this conversation. Meanwhile, there’s this other stuff going on with how, like, one of the filtration tunnels is clogged and the filtration tunnels have been brought up of several times. Like, if you don’t see it as foreshadowing as I didn’t when I was 8, you know, unless you’re 8, you probably should, but one of them is clogged, and so Bouchard says, well, just turn it off and, you know, turn on another one. It’s not worth blowing out the motor or whatever. So Kay tells them and this is my absolute favorite part of the movie.

Clip: Still has all its teeth. Yep. That means it was a baby. Our shark couldn’t have killed Overman. Its mother did.

Craig: You talking about some of the damn sharks, mother?

Todd: No. I’m talking about Shaft.

Craig: And she’s like, the mother is in the park. Meanwhile, we’ve been seeing that as soon as they turn this filtration pump off, we see this huge tail, like, in the the tube, and then it, like, backs out of the tube. Sharks can’t swim backwards, folks, but they they can in this movie.

Todd: Big ones can. Apparently, Jaws can.

Craig: Yeah. And so the second they’re talking about it, it swims right up to the window of the restaurant.

Todd: I was like, you rang?

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. Right. And everybody starts freaking out. And this really sets into motion the whole I I guess I would call it the 3rd act, but it’s kind of like just this big climactic scene where everybody kind of runs off. Like, Mike runs off because he knows the ski show is going on, and so he’s trying to pull people in from the ski show and the shark is, like, chasing the skiers and at one point the skiers are, like, in this big tower or something and the dorsal fin of the shark is literally, like, 3 or 4 feet behind them. And I’m thinking, well, that must mean that there’s a good 10 feet of the shark in front of them. Like, how are they not seeing it? And, like, the skiers fall and it’s all very dramatic, but they all get away.

Todd: I love the sequence because it’s all of this stuff also interspersed with just the perils of them warning people. Like, at one point, Mike is on, like, a golf cart and he can’t even, like, drive his golf cart straight. He’s like, woah. It flips over as he’s trying to get yell at people, and and, it just creates all this extra little drama in these kind of absurd ways. There’s a I think he ramps he cuts off another golf cart, which then flips and it’s been carrying popcorn and Yeah. All this popcorn dumps off the back and, like, about 30 people rush for this floor popcorn. Like, it’s like it’s money bags or something like that. And I thought my wife and I watched this. We, we sat down. You know, this is PG, so it’s one of the few movies she could watch with me. So we, you know, we made up some tuna sandwiches and and sat down and watched this movie. And she says, don’t they have a PA system? Right. The owner is in this big mission control looking underwater room, you know, like, they’re gonna launch the space shuttle with all these 19 eighties fancy computers behind them. And, it doesn’t seem like he can get on and actually make an announcement, at least until later. He I think he does Yeah.

Craig: He does eventually. Yeah. Okay.

Todd: And the other thing that

Craig: I like about this is that it all happens in the course of, I don’t know, max 10 minutes or 5, 10 minutes. Every time somebody runs somewhere, the shark is there. And, and so, like, then, after it attacks attacks, it doesn’t actually get anybody. But after it scares the skiers, then, Kelly and Sean are on these bumper boats, and, it attacks the bumper boats.

Todd: That’s right.

Craig: And and Kelly falls in, and Kelly actually does get bit. She doesn’t get killed, but she gets bit. And then, she gets sent off in an ambulance, and Sean gets goes away with her. It’s also a good way to, like, kinda get rid of some of the extraneous characters like, bye, Sean and Kelly. We’ll never see you again.

Todd: That’s right.

Craig: Any and the shark breaks up a dock. There are all kinds of things going on.

Todd: I just like the idea that the SeaWorld of the past, everything was just happened in one big body of water. You know, whether they were water skiing, whether it was the Undersea Kingdom, whether it was the dolphin show, anything like that. Apparently, dolphins and sharks and fish and these attractions just all intermingle.

Craig: Right. Yeah. It’s kinda stupid, but okay. And so then the shark attacks the underwater kingdom and, like, everybody in there is freaking out and, like, it breaks one of the tunnels. So, like, the tunnel start filling up with water and the people are freaking out and the the airtight Todd shuts, so some of these people are, like, trapped down there. Now that all that commotion has settled down, you know, their big, prerogatives, they have to get these people out. So Mike’s working on that. Kaye takes a moment to talk to him about their relationship, which is totally stupid. And then Philip, the photographer, has this idea. He’s, like, well, it hidden the tunnel. Hidden those filtration pipes before. Let’s get it in there again. And they come up with some elaborate plot where he’s gonna be, like, this live bait or whatever. And that doesn’t that, you know, like, they get it in there, but that doesn’t go well because then something bad happens. And, anyway, he gets eaten.

Todd: The owner of the park decides he’s gonna go ahead and shut off the pump Yeah. And we couldn’t even figure out why. Why did he say that? Why did he instruct them to turn off the pump?

Craig: I don’t remember. I don’t remember if it was because it was clogged again or what and it, you know, it really doesn’t make any sense anyway. Like, I don’t even understand what difference it makes. Like, oh, I remember why. Because they’re, like, let’s suffocate it. Like like, if the if the water is not rushing through the park and it’s or through the pump and it’s trapped in there, it won’t be able to breathe. Well, the shark is having none of that, and it breaks out of there again backwards and, meanwhile, Mike is, like, welding the tunnel for the underwater kingdom and apparently he gets that done just in the nick of time, and then he and Kay are both down there, and then the shark, you know, comes and it almost gets them, but it doesn’t. And then everybody’s in the in the control room, and that’s when we get to this scene that is so often pointed to as being so bad. They’re all just standing there. They’re all standing there, and through this big glass window, they see the shark approaching them. Now, mind you, the shark isn’t moving. Like, it just looks like a cutout of a shark, like, that some kid has on, like, a popsicle stick that they’re just, like, moving forward. It looks terrible. It’s not moving at all.

Todd: It just gets bigger like you would zoom in on a picture.

Craig: It looks awful. And then as it approaches the window, like, it breaks into slow mo, and then it busts through the window and, you know, the glass explodes out at the audience because it’s 3 d or whatever. And then the shark is just, like, it’s got its head in there. This shark is it’s supposed to be, like, 35 feet long or something like that. I don’t there’s no sense of scale

Todd: at all. It’s different everywhere. Yeah.

Craig: Every time. And it’s hanging out the back and, like, again, like, it looks like a movie out of the sixties. I mean, it just the effects are terrible. But so they’re in there and, like, one of the guys in the control room gets eaten, a couple of them like Bouchard and gets one of the other ladies out. And so then it was just Mike and Kaye in there. They don’t know what to do, but Mike sees that Philip, the camera guy, is still lodged in the shark’s mouth, and he’s holding a grenade.

Todd: Yes.

Craig: And so Mike gets, like, some sort of, like, hook contraption and manages somehow, reaching into this 35 foot shark’s mouth to hook this tiny, tiny little ring, and he he he pulls it out of the the grenade, and he and Kate take cover, like, behind a desk or something, which also doesn’t make any sense. The shark explodes, and, again, we get these 3 d effects with everything shooting out at the screen and it it just the jaws of the shark and, you know, it’s all very exciting and then the shark has exploded or whatever. And then my second favorite part of the movie is at the very end where Mike Mike and Kaye come up in the lagoon and it’s morning now and it’s beautiful and, like, the sun has just risen and she’s all concerned about the dolphins and she’s, like, where are the dolphins? And, like, so she’s calling them and, like, slapping the water and one of them comes and they can’t find the other one and he’s like Mike’s like, I don’t think she made it. And then all of a sudden, this dolphin leaps into the air, and they celebrate because they’re so excited that the dolphins made it and the music swells and it’s so exciting and then the dolphins just do their little dolphin show all around them. That’s right. And then it and then it freezes with the dolphins, like, framing them in the frame.

Todd: It freezes on another horrible optical effect.

Craig: Yeah. It’s terrible. But it’s so exciting.

Todd: If if there had been a rainbow behind them, maybe that’d be that way.

Craig: Oh, man. Listen. I know it’s a bad movie. I I know it. I get it. But honest to Todd, I just still even watching it 30 years later or whatever, I still find it really entertaining, like, it’s fun to watch. It’s a fun movie to watch.

Todd: There’s no doubt it’s entertaining. It is total popcorn. Again, nostalgic. You don’t even have to watch the movie before to feel this you know, you just need to have lived through the eighties to sort of feel nostalgic for the time and those kind of movies and all that. No. I grant you all of that. I’m you know? It’s okay. My feelings will

Craig: only be hurt a little bit.

Todd: But it’s a bad movie.

Craig: I it is. I know. It’s a

Todd: it’s a bad movie in so many ways, and I think it could have been good. I mean, I feel like you probably could have taken the same script and the same concepts and things, tweaked it in very small ways, and maybe, like I said, improve the directing and get some good special effects in there.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: And and maybe, you know, maybe just they just got a little ambitious. You know? It’s the number 3. They’re trying to do the 3 d angle. They were really pushing for the 3 d, and a lot of that probably forced their hand to use a lot of these really cheap optical effects just to, you know, be able to ram those effects and those things into people’s faces. And, if it had just been a you know, held back just a little bit from that. And, yeah, Yeah. Basically, if they just redone the whole thing. But, you know, honestly, my wife loved it. She she thought it was great. And, Good. Like I said, it was it was fun to watch. I would even watch it again. It was one of those, again, I think so goofy that it’s fun to watch.

Craig: Yeah. And I know, you know, I can’t speak for all the actors, but I know that Dennis Quaid isn’t particularly proud of it. Well, he was going through, you know, drug battle time in his life, so that may have had something to do with it. But I just think that the acting is super competent. Like, I liked these characters. I liked them, and I I well, you know, except for Louis Gossett junior, who I wasn’t supposed to like, and, you know, he did a reasonable job of playing the stereotypical bad guy. I don’t know. I just think it’s charming. Folks, if you, wanna leave comments about how much you think this movie is terrible, again, my feelings will only be hurt a little bit. I understand. I totally get where people are coming from, when they criticize this movie.

Todd: This film sits in a special place in your heart that nobody can touch, Craig. I don’t think any of us need to worry about that.

Craig: Oh, man. Alright. Fine. I guess it’s time for me to stop gushing. Alright. Well, thank you for listening to another edition of 2 guys in the chainsaw. If you liked this episode, you can find all kinds of back episodes online. We are on Facebook. You can check out our, website at 2 guys dot red forty dot net. We’re also on Itunes and Google Play and Stitcher and all kinds of other places, I think, where you can find, your favorite podcast. We are gonna continue our month of summer movies next week. We’ve got a couple coming up that I’m really looking forward to. We subjected you to one bad shark movie. I have also requested that Todd and I do a good shark movie and I’m really looking forward to that one. So, stay tuned for the next couple weeks and beyond, and until next week, I’m Craig

Todd: And I’m Todd.

Craig: With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

It’s the middle of summer! Time for a month of summer-themed horror films from the 2 Guys Studios. Kicking it off this week is that staple of the rental store shelves, Sleepaway Camp. Most notorious for a “shocking” twist ending, this otherwise forgettable summer camp slasher is a sort of low-rent Friday the 13th. It’s worth discussing, though, as we both discovered during this week’s episode. Check it out!

Episode 131, 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: And welcome to July. It’s summertime. Craig. Craig has been off because he’s a teacher. Yep.   I’m a principal, but I’m in China. I’m never off. But it is sweltering hot here in Beijing. I’m sure it’s sweltering hot where you are, Craig. 

Craig:  It’s actually really nice right now. It has been super hot, but these last couple days, we’ve had a little bit of a break. So that’s been nice. 

Todd:  That’s good. That’s good. I’m glad to hear that. We, we haven’t been out swimming or doing anything fun like that. There are no beaches in Beijing. Everything’s man made. We have the old the old water cube, you know, where the Olympics were held, and, Michael Phelpsberg, all those records has been converted into a, water park. But it’s, like, super expensive, so we’ve never been there.   I’m dying to get out and swim and celebrate the summertime in these fun ways. So maybe the best substitute substitute we have, the best thing we can do is to go back to our old favorite horror movies that take place during the summer and do a bit of a a theme month. What do you think? 

Craig:  I think it sounds great. 

Todd:  Alright. So let’s get down to it. There are no shortages of horror movies that take place in summertime settings for some odd reason. Maybe the most notorious setting for a slasher film is, summer camp. And we’ve done a couple summer camp movies. We’ve done one of the Friday 13th movies at least. We did Yeah. The Burning. 

Craig:  Those are 

Todd:  the 2 that I thought about when we watched this week’s movie, which was Sleepaway Camp from 1983. I was in kindergarten in 1983. Sleepaway Camp is, it’s kinda one of the more notorious of these slasher films, and it’s box art. I just I just got to talk about the box art for a second. Yeah. It’s, Sleepaway Camp 1. I always got Todd confuse the Sleepaway Camp 2. Sleepaway Camp 2 has this really cheap ass looking box art.   It’s a Yeah. Girl with a backpack on looking toward a camera walking through the woods. Looks like it was shot on somebody’s Polaroid or something. And in the back, is a Jason hockey mask and a Freddy glove, like hanging out of the backpack, except they look like they were bought from a Halloween store, like they’re plastic. Not that it isn’t cheap, but the box art for the first one is really interesting. It’s got a bloody knife stabbed through a shoe as Todd like it gets like a kid’s sneaker that’s upside down hanging from the knife and for some reason the sneaker is dripping wet and I have really have no idea why I think when I see this I just it’s like a Salvador Dali painting to me you know it’s just a little surreal I don’t know why the sneaker is dripping wet there’s a hand the this knife is upright almost like it’s it’s holding it in triumph or something but I’m trying to figure out the situation in which this knife got stabbed upside down through the sneaker, and there’s not like a foot in it. And why is 

Craig:  the sneaker dirty wet, but 

Todd:  the hand isn’t. It’s just an odd Yeah. Image, but it’s iconic and it looks good. And then you got Sleepaway Camp down below it in a font, that looks like branches. And on the back, do you remember what the back looked like? No. The back is brilliant. There’s no pictures, there’s no photos, or stills, or anything for the movie. There’s just a tagline, the camp’s activity for Todd, murder.   And then and then there’s a it looks like a sheet of paper that, like, somebody’s writing a note home to their mom. And it says, dear mom and dad, you’ve got to get me out of here right away. There’s a crazed killer on the loose, and kids are being scared to death, and a girl was brutally stabbed while taking a shower, And nobody’s doing anything about it. Your peaceful your peaceful perfect place just to meet girls has become a slaughtering ground for a bloodthirsty murdering monster. Wait a minute. I think I hear someone coming up be and then the bee jacks out. There’s some blood drops on the paper. It’s just classic. 

Craig:  That’s hilarious. They got 

Todd:  the shower in there. That was nice. And I love these letters that end with, you know, wait a minute. That’s the person’s writing out. I think I think someone’s coming up behind me. It’s so good. If if you don’t wanna pick this movie up off the shelf based on the box box alone, it’s it’s too great. So yeah, I watched this way back in the day probably back in high school.   How about you, Craig? 

Craig:  You know, it’s so weird because this is one of those movies that comes up all the time in discussions about horror movies and, you know classic or iconic or cult movies and that’s where I saw it again this time around. You know, I just saw on one of the horror movie sites that I frequent, I saw a list of summertime horror movies and and this was on there along with like Friday 13th and The Burning and stuff. And I know a lot about this movie, like, I’ve read about it. I’ve seen images from it. It’s established its place, I think, largely because of a big twist and I knew going in what the big twist was. So I didn’t expect there to really be any surprises, but I had never seen it before And I don’t know how I have gone almost 40 years of my life, you know, loving these types of movies and and somehow had had never picked this one up, but I’ve seen it now. So now I guess I could now I guess I can join 

Todd:  in the conversation. That’s great. Welcome to the club, Craig. Yay. So just in case, you haven’t seen this movie and you want to before we start talking about it, you probably should because we’re gonna talk about the twist. And there is a twist at the end. It is notorious. And if you’ve been living under a rock and this hasn’t been spoiled for you yet, you better watch the movie, because I would be interested to hear, you know, obviously, the first time I saw it, I wasn’t old enough to really think about it too critically.   Now that I saw it the second time, I knew about the twist. Craig, you knew about the twist going into it. Yeah. It would be interesting to hear from somebody, an adult, who could see this movie now and give their honest opinion about it not knowing what the ending is. 

Craig:  Yeah. And well, and I’m sure that we’ll talk about this, but I don’t know that this movie would fly today because it’s it’s Oh, 

Todd:  yeah. Todd, no. 

Craig:  It You know, it touches on some topics that since the 1980s have become sensitive is not necessarily the right word, but I guess that we are just a little bit more sensitive to I don’t know. We’re a little bit more PC these days than we used to be. 

Todd:  We’re a little smarter. Yeah. We’re a little smarter. 

Craig:  Yeah. We’re definitely smarter. I don’t find this movie to be terribly offensive, at least not for the reasons that I can imagine that some people would. Anyway, we’ll get there. I mean, it’s a summer camp movie and it’s a summer camp slasher. I mean, that’s that’s what it boils down Todd, and for those purposes, it’s relatively formulaic. You know, you get a bunch of kids at summer camp and start picking them off. You know, that’s that’s how it goes and there’s the mystery who done it.   Even though I feel like this movie does kind of an interesting thing where they on the one hand, kind of make it super obvious who the killer is, but on the other hand, then they give you all these kind of red herrings, so you’re constantly questioning. And then you kind of doubt you kind of doubt your suspicions because it seems so unlikely. I don’t know. There are other things in this movie that I found to be more than the things that I think that some people would find objectionable, but we’ll get there. It’ll it opens up with, like, this lake view, you know, and it scans over this really pretty lake and there’s, some interesting music in the background. Mo a lot of the movie is scored and it’s an original score, and there are actually, I think, 2 or 3 original songs, that are used in the movie too. The camera scans around this camp and it ends on a sign, for Camp Arawak which is where you’ll be spending most of your time and there’s a for sale sign on it. And then we cut immediately to a flashback where you’ve got these 2 little kids, a young girl and a young boy and their dad out on the lake on a sailboat and Todd, you know, be little rascals playing a little trick on their dad.   The kids capsize the boat, and so they’re all in the water. Meanwhile, a speedboat that’s towing a skier and it’s got a young man and a young woman in it, and the young man is driving the boat and the young woman, who apparently is a camp counselor at this camp nearby, says that he she wants to drive the boat. He allows her to drive the boat and it’s it’s all really very kind of silly. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  She gets distracted by the skier and they’re not paying any attention and this speedboat runs them over. 

Todd:  You know, this scene right away, it doesn’t leave a very good impression. The content of the scene, sets up what we need to know, and it’s gonna be very important later. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  The execution of the scene is really amateurish. Yeah. Like you said, it the the whole situation’s rather silly. It’s not very convincing that they’re out on this lake with not many people around, but these people do not manage to see this boat overturned until it’s too late. And then when you look at the different shots, the spacing and where they are, it doesn’t even make sense. Like, one moment, this boat with them is out in the middle of the lake and then when they show the shot just as the, speedboat is coming towards them, they’re like right in front of the dock. Right. And as the speedboat runs over it, you get a close-up of him running over it, and then the speedboat is back out in the lake Craig.   Whereas the speedboat should be like on the land if it ran over this boat. Right. The way that it was approaching it, you, right away, you kinda know what you’re getting into. You know, there are a lot of movies like this. Right? We’ve talked about it, but, this movie in particular is the very first time effort from a director named Robert Hilsick. He wrote and directed this, and pretty much nothing else. He had a little bit to do, I think, with the other sleepaway camps. He was like a consultant or something like that on the sequels. 

Craig:  I think they just had to give him writing credit because they used so many flashbacks from the originals. I don’t think that he really had anything to do with them, and there were a bunch. There were, like, 4. No. I think there was Sleepaway Camp 2, Sleepaway Camp 3, and then they started to shoot, Sleepaway Camp 4, and they never finished it. And then 10 years later after they never finished it, they just went ahead and released it anyway even though they only had a half hour of original content, and they just they just filled the rest with flashbacks from the previous movies. Oh my god. And then eventually, there was Return to Sleepaway Camp, which again he came back, the original guy, Hiltzik came back and and wrote and directed and a lot well, not a lot, but some of, the original cast came back.   But I you know, I thought the same thing. I’m like, woah, this guy did like 5 Sleepaway Camp movies? I don’t think so. I don’t think he had anything to do with those unauthorized sequels except for that they had to give him a writing credit because they use so much of his stuff. 

Todd:  I think you’re right. And and he’s been trying to reboot the series or re remake the first one and and and it was announced back in, like, 2016 or something. I don’t think anything’s come of it since. There’s there’s really no information. I don’t know if people are really that interested in it, to be honest. And really, I mean, this guy, the whole reason he made the movie was he was looking for something he could sell, coming fresh out of film school. And he knew that horror was really, really easy to sell at the time. And so he came up with this thing, and apparently, he even shot it, at a camp that he attended when he was a kid.   Yeah. 

Craig:  Well, and it’s surprising that he didn’t really go on to do more because he shot this whole thing on a budget of $350,000. And in in the USA alone, it grossed 11,000,000. I mean, that’s like you know, that’s not blockbuster numbers, but based on how much they spent on it as opposed to how much it made, one would think that he could’ve done something else, but who knows? For whatever reason, he didn’t. 

Todd:  And it beat out big movies at the box office when it came out. I mean, it had a very limited theatrical release. It was a very short release. Yeah, so it it it looks cheap, and that’s really how the whole movie is kind of like this. The scenes are not really set up very well. The staging is very unconvincing. Some of it’s clearly like he told people, okay, just kind of mess around in the background while I film these people in the foreground doing something. So if you’re just kind of taking in the whole scene, the whole thing seems really stagey. 

Craig:  It Todd. And and I wanna address that, but after this little scene where it seems apparent that the dad has died because you see him floating seemingly dead in the water. Then it cuts to 8 years later and we have, what become really our 2 main characters, Angela, who was the little girl on the boat, and her cousin Ricky. And they’re, I don’t know, what would you say, maybe 13, 14 something like that. 

Todd:  Yeah, that’s probably about right. 

Craig:  And and they’re going to camp and the aunt who was mentioned before, she’s a doctor, apparently has raised Angela in the wake of this tragedy And we get this scene with her sending them off to camp and this woman is just psychotic, like, I don’t even know how to describe her, like, she’s very kind of mommy dearest. She kinda looks like a dude 

Todd:  in a 

Craig:  lot of makeup and I wrote down terrible acting, but I almost feel like that’s what they were going for. Like they wanted her to be crazy crazy over the top. And she says something weird. 

Clip:  Here they are all filled out and signed by yours truly. Wasn’t that nice of me? What are they? Why, they’re your physicals, of course. We can’t go to camp without our physicals now, can we? Just be careful not to tell anyone how you got them. Oh, no. No. I’m afraid that they wouldn’t approve of that at all, even though they know that I am a doctor. No 

Craig:  matter what they do, I’ll never 

Clip:  tell. Oh, you’re such a dear. 

Craig:  Okay. Whatever. And then they get off to camp. And what I was trying to get back to when you were talking about how it seems kinda cheap and it’s not all that well put together, One thing that this movie has going for it that most of these summer camp movies don’t, and I don’t even know if it’s necessarily a positive thing, but in most of these movies, you’ve got mid 20 somethings, sometimes even 30 somethings playing kids, playing the campers. And this movie is cast almost entirely with actual young people ranging anywhere in age from I would guess about 11, 12 to, you know, teenagers. Yeah. And and while that, you know, that gives it some authenticity, obviously you’re also working with people who are probably not terribly experienced and that shows in some places, and the other thing that you talked about how the scenes are not particularly well set up. This movie feels very much like it was made for television because it has it has built in commercial breaks. 

Todd:  Yes. Did you notice that? I did. It was so weird. And I had to go back and think, and I was even looking online. I was like, was this made for TV? TV shows, TV movies, especially in this era, there would be like a musical swell right at the end of a scene, and then it would fade to black, and then the commercial would start. It was just kind of like the standard way of putting in a commercial break. Yeah. Otherwise, movies never, you know, movies rarely fade to black.   Right. And this movie’s got it, like, at all the regular intervals you would expect, like, every 20 minutes or every half hour or whatever it is. It’s so weird, but but then I was like, well, there’s no way this was made for TV. There’s so much cursing and swearing in it. 

Craig:  Right. And the content is questionable too for television. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. There’s no way. 

Craig:  I’m sure it aired on television. I’m sure it was probably pretty heavily edited when it did, but, yeah. It’s it’s kind of it just in quality in the way that it was set up it really kind of felt like a made for TV movie. 

Todd:  It’s so strange. Do you think he was just aping that? Like he thought that’s what movies were supposed to do? Or do you think that he thought that maybe an edited version of this could could play on TV? 

Craig:  I have no idea, but that that certainly felt like how it was set up. Yeah. And and we’ve talked about this a bunch of times, you know, made for TV movies were, kind of a big thing. They’re not so much anymore unless you’re big in to Lifetime or Hallmark or those types of things. Who knows? Anyway, they show up at camp and we’re gonna talk about all these plot points, but the things that stood out to me was from the time they get to camp then throughout the rest of the movie, This movie makes summer camp seem like the most hellish nightmarish place that you could ever possibly go as a child. All of well, most of the adults are pretty awful, Like, the very first thing that happens is they’re all getting off the bus and the cook, Arty, is like 

Clip:  Look at all that young fresh chicken. Where I come from, we call them Baldies. Makes your mouth water down it.   Arty, they are too young to even understand what’s on your mind.   Then, good buddy. There ain’t no such thing as being too young. You’re just too old. 

Craig:  Gross. Like, that is so nasty. Well, that’s so gross. 

Todd:  And everyone else is just standing around kinda nodding and smiling and rolling their eyes like, oh, Arty. Todd old Arty being being a joke ster. 

Craig:  It, like, it closes up on his face as he’s staring at these young girls, and he’s, like, licking his lips. Like, it’s just barf. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And then all again, not all, there are a couple of nice kids, but literally like a couple of them. The rest of the kids are horrible, like they’re just nasty, horrible, awful people who seem to get no joy out of life other than just tormenting other kids and being even the nice kids sometimes like, Ricky, you know, Ricky is is the cousin, Angela’s cousin and he’s really a nice guy, but even he and his friends bully the fat kid in their cabin, like like, you know, it just Todd, if I guess what I’m saying is, if you have kids and you can’t afford to send them to summer camp, but they want to go, show them this movie and then they won’t wanna go. That’s right. You’ll save a buck. 

Todd:  It’s awful. And nobody cares. That’s the other thing. 

Craig:  No. Like, there’ll be huge fights, like, huge piles of guys, and literally, the camp counselors will just be standing off to the side watching. Like Yeah. Like like they’re bored. Like, here we go again. 

Todd:  It makes it unrealistic too. I mean, it takes it to that level where you just can’t, you know, none of the scenes ring true because of it. There are few good moments in here of some real, I don’t know, drama, if you could call it that. But most of this seems just like a bunch of silly little scenes that were put together. 

Craig:  Yeah. We get introduced to some of the other characters. We meet Paul. Paul is a friend of Ricky’s. I wrote down all these actors and actresses names, but none of them really went on to do much. The guy who played Paul, his name was Christopher Christopher Colette, and he was one of the few who actually went on to do some TV work and some other movie work. He’s got kind of a recognizable face. And then we meet, the girls in Angela’s, cabin, and there’s Judy, played by Karen Fields, and she’s just awful for no reason from the beginning.   Yeah. Because because over she used to go out with Ricky last summer, but over the summer, she got boobs. And with those boobs came just a horrible personality. And then, Meg is, the counselor in Angela’s cabin, and she’s awful also. So then we just kind of get to start to see how Angela I mean, it’s obvious that she’s traumatized from this event in her childhood, and that’s not unbelievable. You know, her dad and her brother were killed right in front of her and so she’s quiet, but kind of eerily quiet, like she really just sits there and stares. And the young lady who played Angela, her name is, Phyllisia Rose. She’s very pretty and and she looks her age, but she’s got these really dark kind of piercing eyes, and and I read that in the audition process, the audition for Angela was to just sit and stare intently and pretend you’re eating a candy bar.   Like that was the whole audition. And so she does so she does a lot of that just sitting and staring especially in the first part of the movie and and when she’s in the cabin, she’s staring at Judy and 

Clip:  What are you taking pictures? Quit it. You must be Angela. Remember Ronnie spoke to us about her. Looks like we got a real winner here. I ain’t kidding. 

Craig:  And then we get the first of several kind of gross moments where Angela’s in the, cafeteria and she’s not eating. And apparently, she hasn’t really eaten anything for, like, 3 days. One of the only nice counselors, he seems like I didn’t even write his name down, but he seems like kinda one of the head counselors guys, and he wears super shorty shorts. I love watching these movies from the eighties. Our fashion when the eighties, I tell you, it was something special. I don’t know what people were thinking. We were all over the map. Oh, man.   It was I mean, he looks like he’s wearing, like, a woman’s bathing suit, like, that’s, like, cut up to his waist. Anyway, that’s not important. He’s nice, and he takes her back to the kitchen and asks Gross Arty, the pervy cook, you know, she hasn’t eaten anything for a few days. Can you maybe find her some ice cream or something, get her to eat something? And then he gets called away, so Artie’s left alone with her. So he immediately takes her into the food pantry. 

Clip:  So, Angel,   see anything you like? Maybe I can help you decide. You sure are a sweet looking little cupcake, ain’t you? Like, I got something you’re gonna like real good.   Hey. What are you doing?   Keep your muscle. You mean? I didn’t say nothing. Got it. Nothing. 

Craig:  Ricky, who is constantly looking out for Angela, which is really kind of sweet in this kind of weird movie. He comes in and he sees what’s going on and he takes her away, but that’s kind of the impetus for the first kill, and then that’s kind of the pattern that it follows throughout. The people who end up getting killed in this movie are mean or bad or they they bully Angela or something. 

Todd:  Yeah. So this first death is interesting and you gotta give this movie credit for trying to keep things creative. It’s not just a killer walking around with a knife, you know, stabbing people, but they try to make the deaths different, and different they are. Yeah. This guy has the world’s tallest pot of water boiling on the stove. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s literally, like, 4 feet tall. 

Todd:  I don’t even know where they got up. This is the most impractical kitchen appliance Yeah. You can possibly imagine. Anyway, it’s so tall that he has to stand on a on a on a chair or a stool in order to reach it over the top of the stove, and he’s dumping corn in there. And we get a POV shot of a person sneaking up behind him, a kid’s hands. And this is what we see the whole time through are these these POV shots and we actually see the hands and they’re clearly a child’s hands, doing most of the work Mhmm. In these death scenes. It’s also very clumsily staged.   I guess they push him forward so that he’s bent over the pot, kind of. And he has to brace himself against against a shelf that’s over it. Yeah. And he’s like looking down going, oh, oh, that’s funny. What are you doing? Blah blah blah. This guy could get down at any point. It’s it’s not a thing. 

Craig:  Right. It kinda didn’t make any sense and I feel like the the director knew that and so he had to shoot everything in super tight close-up. Because if we were to see it from pulled back at all, we would know that he could just step aside or jump down 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Whatever. That it makes it seem like he’s, like, dangling over this huge pot of boiling water. 

Todd:  Yep. And so the the person pulls the stool out from under him and as he falls, he grabs the pot and pulls the boiling water down on him and he gets basically badly scalded. Mhmm. And we get a nice close-up scene of him. This only the only real makeup effects, I guess, we have in this movie, I think. There are, like, dummies and and, you know, severed heads and things like that. But I think this is the only real makeup effect we have on a person. 

Craig:  It was kinda neat. I don’t I don’t know if it necessarily looked real, but it was kinda cool. I mean, they clearly put some effort to it. You know, they had something. I I don’t know if they had latex over his skin or what, but they, you know, somehow made it appear as though blisters were rising and pulsating on his face. Pulsing. 

Todd:  It it it was gross. It’s not realistic, but it’s gross. Yeah. Yep. And so then the, Ben, the black cook comes running in and And just stands there in horror. Like, they all just stands there. Nobody’s nobody’s calling for help. Apparently, they did call for help because the next scene is, the police, coming in, you know, and then they come in and they interview, everybody in the kitchen.   And the thing so Mel is the guy who runs the camp. He’s a cigar shopping dude, and he’s the only person of note in this film. He’s a Tony award winning actor. He was all over television, and this was actually his last role. 

Craig:  Yeah. Mike Kellen. And, apparently, he was sick. The he had lung cancer the the whole time they were shooting this movie Terminal Lung Cancer, and he just hid it. Nobody knew, and he died 3 months before the movie came out, you know. It was his very very last thing. 

Todd:  You didn’t get to see his ultimate swan song. Maybe it was a good thing for him. Yeah. And and so there’s this this thing they’re trying to set up a little bit with Mel. Mel is a nice guy. Mel seems concerned, but Mel’s also the cover up dude. Right. And so he’s very concerned about getting the story straight.   And there’s this long kind of painful scene where he says goodbye to the police officer, and then he turns over to Ben, and he talks to Ben. 

Clip:  Guess that makes you the head man here now, doesn’t it?   I wasn’t thinking much about myself, mister Kostig. I just don’t see how something like that could happen.   Come on now, Ben. We still got a camp to feed here now, don’t we?   Yes, sir.   Besides, $50 more a week can’t be all that bad now, can it?   No, sir. I always thought he had a little devil in   Alright. $15 a week more for the rest of you?   That’s real generous of you, sir.   Well, no. Ben, there is one thing though. There’s really no reason for the campers to find out what happened. 

Todd:  You know 

Clip:  what I mean? 

Todd:  Ben’s kind of an embarrassing character too. Yeah. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yeah. Simple minded black person. 

Craig:  Yeah. Bad bad stereotype. Yeah. 

Todd:  It’s it’s just kind of, oh gosh. Okay. We get it. Alright. He’s trying to cover it up, but the scene goes on way too long and it’s just a little too on the nose. 

Craig:  Yeah. And I mean that’s the thing, like, there are several scenes in the movie that just seem unnecessary and a lot of them, you know, I would be watching a scene and like where is this going, you know. The the very next thing that we see is they play Ricky, again the nice kid plays this joke and I guess it’s a very campy joke, but it’s on the fat kid where they get him to sit up into one of the other campers butts, like, so his face is right in his butt. Very funny. And then we have a scene where there’s a ball game, and it’s like the the kind of little guys on one team and when I say little guys, I mean, like, middle school on one team against, like, the big guys, like, high school guys on the other team. And they, you know, they they bet on who’s gonna win or whatever and and eventually the little guys win, which yay, great, good job for the underdogs or whatever. But this it it was like I went to a ball game at a summer camp, like, why do I need to 

Todd:  see all this? That’s right. We’ve we’ve seen so many scenes like this, like in the burning or something like that. Maybe the ball gets hit into the woods and somebody has to chase after it and there’s kind of a tense moment, maybe somebody gets murdered, maybe somebody almost gets murdered. My Todd, at least just have some killer POV shots from the forest looking out at them or something. Give us some reason for this baseball game scene to be in this movie, and there’s no reason at all. It doesn’t even really set up the characters because all they do, which is basically all they do through the whole movie, is just curse and swear and yell insults at each other. 

Craig:  Right. Antagonize one another. And not only are they constantly doing that, but I feel like whoever was in charge of the sound, I don’t know, also felt found it necessary to fill any dead space with just that constant back and forth and bickering. 

Clip:  No problem. You know, this guy blows dead dogs. Just lay it in there. 

Todd:  Eat shit and die, Ricky. 

Clip:  Eat shit and live, Bill. 

Craig:  Yeah, Bill. He’s a little wet. Come on, Bill. God, these are these are the jerkiest kids ever. Then we’re in, like, I don’t know, the camp common building or whatever, the rec hall or whatever and the canteen. Yeah. And the older guys are planning on luring the girls out to the lake in the hope of getting them to go skinny dipping with them and a couple of them decide to approach Angela and she’s still not talking and it’s just I really don’t I don’t remember kids being like this. Now, there were jerks when we were kids.   There are always jerks, but like these 2 guys who are significantly older than her. I mean, we would be talking about, like, juniors, seniors in high school, like, hitting on the freshman 8th grade girl. And, like, these 2 guys both approach and, like, hey, Angela. We thought maybe you’d wanna go swimming with us. What? You’re not gonna talk, you stupid bitch? Like like no. 

Todd:  One of them looks at Angela, just said straight up, yo, Angela. How come you’re so fucked up? I mean, like, what’s your problem? Hey. 

Craig:  Did they leave her alone. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah? 

Craig:  What are you gonna do about it, asshole? They just jump immediately to hateful, like, Todd. This is not gonna get you far, boys, like, come on. You read about toxic masculinity. I’d be like, that’s what we’re seeing here, like, calm down. 

Todd:  And I’m not even sure what’s supposed to be. Are are we supposed to get the impression this canteen is so large that these sorts of things can happen and other people don’t notice? So the notion that all this is happening and going on and then only until a fight breaks out, you know, when Ricky starts fighting, what’s his name, whoever it is who who cares whoever it is who like Whoever it is. The mean guys. 

Craig:  But seriously, like, these Ricky starts fighting these 2 guys, and then within a second, it is literally a pile of, like, 10 guys, like, they’re in a pile on the ground. And the counselors are literally just standing there watching, 

Todd:  like That’s so true. 

Craig:  Like, no reaction whatsoever Oh my goodness. Okay. Whatever. But anyway, then Paul comes up to Angela and again Paul was Ricky’s friend and he’s nice. He’s nice to her. He is a nice guy, and so when he says good night to her, she says good night and, it’s the first thing that she said in the whole movie. I really kinda wondered if she was gonna be mute throughout the whole thing, 

Todd:  but 

Craig:  she’s not. She starts talking to Paul, and eventually, she starts talking to some of the other nice kids too when they’re nice to her. 

Todd:  But Judy doesn’t like this at all for some unknown reason. 

Craig:  Yeah. For no reason. 

Todd:  Judy’s portrayed as not having any trouble being able to get anybody. But she somehow, for some reason, just fixated on Angela and doesn’t want Angela to be happy or doesn’t want people talking to Angela or something. It’s never clear why No. At all. If Paul had previously had a relationship with Judy, then that would make at least a little more sense. But he hasn’t. Ricky was the one who previously had Right. Relationship with Judy.   So it’s not like there’s even some, you know, prior boyfriend girlfriend jealousy thing going on here. 

Craig:  No. It’s completely unmotivated. So okay. So the guys get the girls out there by the lake, but none of the girls are falling for it. Thank Todd. 

Todd:  But 

Craig:  Kenny, this one older guy does talk this one girl into going out for a canoe ride And he takes her out and then he’s just a big jerk and he lies and says that there are all kinds of snakes and stuff. Like, seriously, like, Todd, I don’t know. 

Todd:  What how is this seductive? 

Craig:  I know. I was never a typical teenage boy, so I don’t know what goes on in 8, you know? Like, maybe you say something nice. I I like, you’re not 8. You know? Like, maybe say something nice. I don’t but instead, he’s just a jerk, and he he flips over the boat, and everybody laughs, and all the guys are on the shore and they’re enormous tighty whities and, they’re all laughing, and they all go inside. And for whatever reason, Kenny is just hanging out underneath the flipped over boat singing a song, like, guess that’s what he’s gonna do with the rest of his night. Yeah. 

Todd:  It’s so dumb. It’s it’s so bad. Oh, my Todd. It’s just a reason to get him under this under turned boat. 

Craig:  I know. And you know, really, it’s not if you compare it Todd something like Friday 13th the original one, it’s not that much different. It’s not, but it is it’s worse like the characters are unlikable, the acting is just not that great. Anyway, he’s hanging out under the boat for no reason and it’s, you know, like, daylight under the boat even though it’s nighttime outside. And so we get to see that somebody come up somebody’s head from the back. We see it come up underneath the boat with him and he’s like, what are you doing here? And then, whoever this person is drowns him, and they find the Todd in the morning, and for some reason overnight from having been drowned, his body is decomposed and eaten up and disgusting. Again, the effects look pretty good. It doesn’t make any sense, but, it looks okay. 

Todd:  It’s only one of a few times where we really see a gross, you know, like a gross effect. You would almost imagine this was up until this point. I think it’s about 30 minutes into the movie, maybe more. It could be a TV movie without all, you know, if you took out the swearing. 

Craig:  Oh, sure. Sure. And and then, you know, we get kind of a lot of nothing, you know. Angela is talking to the nice people now, she’s, holding hands with Paul now like they’re kind of a little couple. He kisses her good night, which she’s not totally unreceptive to, but you know it’s it’s quick or whatever. But then like you said, Judy just because she’s a bitch just starts flirting with Paul for no good reason, Meg, the counselor continues to taunt Angela and like at one point grabs and shakes her, like, what are you doing? Like you’re supposed to be the counselor, like what is wrong with you? I I keep kind of mentioning some of these details without trying to be super obvious, but at this at one point, Judy taunts Angela by saying, 

Clip:  hey, Angela. How come you never take showers when the rest of us do? You queer or something? 

Todd:  Oh, I know babies. 

Clip:  You haven’t reached puberty yet. Is that it? I bet you don’t even have your period. That’s enough, Judy. Angela’s allowed to shower in the morning or any other time she wants to. Yeah. She takes showers when no one can see. She has no hair down below. Judy.   She’s a real carpenter’s dream. Volada’s a boarder needs a screw. That’s enough. That’s 

Todd:  the first time I’ve ever heard that particular quip. I thought it was, I I wrote that down. I’m gonna use it later. No. I’m just kidding. 

Craig:  Please. Please don’t. 

Todd:  Oh, Oh, Todd. So gross. Then there’s then there’s a water balloon fight going on, but it’s the guys were on the roof. 1 of the captain’s doing this? It’s so stupid. I I don’t understand this scene at all. They’ve got, like, a bucket full of water balloons and there are 5 of them all gathered together on the top of a roof throwing the water balloons at each other. Somebody needs to tell them what a water balloon fight is. 

Craig:  Well, right. And and then they throw one at Angela and you would have think that they punched her in the face because Yeah. Ricky, like, freaks out. Like, it’s I get that they’re jerks, but it’s a water balloon. Like, it’s really not that big a deal. They got her shirt wet. She’s fine. 

Todd:  Belle comes over, breaks it up. 

Craig:  Yeah. So but, you know, somebody was mean to Angela again, so time for another death. And this was one of my favorite parts. So all the guys are going out somewhere and this one guy, I hate that I wrote down hot guy in my notes because that’s speaking just on physical attributes alone. They’re all jerks, but, he’ll meet them, but first he has to take a wicked dump. Way. 

Todd:  His words, not yours. Todd are you guys up to? Yeah. We got a game against the counselors. You gonna play? Sure. I gotta take a wicked dump first. I’ll see you guys 

Clip:  down there. 

Craig:  Alright? So he goes to the bathroom and somehow, gets locked in there. Somebody locks him in there and then you we see somebody cutting the screen behind him while he’s taking his wicked dump and they drop like a hornet’s nest or a bee’s nest or something in there, and he gets killed. And again, there’s more gross effects there. Decent. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s not. I mean, it’s more the aftermath. We don’t get to really we see a lot of close ups of his legs flipping around Right. Close ups of the bee’s nest hanging over his head. And then eventually, he pitches forward or something onto the floor, and you get a close-up of what’s a dummy Yeah. With, bees all over its face. But it’s it’s well, you know, that part is nice.   Yeah. It’s nice. It’s a nice half eaten corpse. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s not poorly done. But again then you have Mel coming back in and he’s upset and now he’s convinced that there’s a killer on the loose and he’s all motivated about, you know, finding this killer or whatever. Paul and Angela have a little date at the lake where they make out for a while and he, even though he’s a nice guy, really very quickly gets pretty handsy with her and and she tells him to stop. I mean, he kinda does, but he’s still kinda messing around with her top and, like, I’m thinking, like, Paul, seriously, come on. You’re supposed be the nice guy, like, get your hands off her boobs. Like, you just started making out, like, giving them Yeah. But then there’s this weird flashback which I don’t even understand.   Like, it’s so out of left field. I don’t know. Like, I I just didn’t see it coming. Okay. So there’s a sheet while she’s being kind of fondled by this guy, she has this weird flashback. She and her brother are peeking in the door, apparently of a bedroom, in which her dad and the guy who had been standing on the shore talking to them in the first part of the movie, they’re in bed together. They’re in bed together and it, you know, it’s clearly an intimate thing, you know, like 

Todd:  Both their shirts are off. 

Craig:  They’re topless. It’s, you know, it’s an intimate moment. And then it cuts to a scene of Angela and her brother sitting on a bed and the brother’s just pointing at her and, like, either the bed is spinning or the camera is moving around them for like 30 seconds and I still don’t even really understand what was going on there or what was really the point of that scene. I guess maybe just to indicate that for whatever reason she was traumatized by that so she’s uncomfortable with intimacy. I don’t know. It was weird. 

Todd:  Yeah. I I couldn’t unpack it myself. Even in light of the ending, it still makes no sense. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  So yeah. No. I I don’t have any I don’t have any better explanation for it than you just came up with. 

Craig:  It it just totally took me by surprise especially since this was from the early eighties when people’s sensibilities about homosexuality were very different. 

Todd:  Mhmm. 

Craig:  Just even to see that on screen in the eighties, I think probably would have scared people. I mean, that like that’s I guess that’s why you find it in a horror movie. I kind 

Todd:  of wonder if that was just thrown in there just to be shocking. It was just totally some exploitative thing. But then, like, why why were the kids pointing at each other in the bed? Like, that part I didn’t get. Yeah. It’s not foreshadowing anything. 

Craig:  Not really. I mean, like you said, in light of the ending, I suppose you could make some connections, but I don’t know. Not really. Then we get to watch them play capture the flag for 5 minutes. 

Todd:  Oh my Todd. But they don’t play capture the flag. The guy tells them the rules for playing capture the flag and they’re starting a soccer field, And then a whole scene happens, while in the background, we see that their version of playing Capture the Flag is everybody’s in a big group in the middle of the soccer field, like like tag football. It’s so weird. You’re supposed to have a flag way across the campus somewhere Shoot. And flag way across the I I didn’t get it. It was so stupid because because the scene is is so like so in one minute, they’re with the group playing capture the flag and the next second, we have this faraway shot where they’re the the people are still, I don’t know, bouncing back and forth in the background. We’re far away from it.   Suddenly, 2 of the participants who are, guess who Ricky and Angela. Are talking. Ricky runs off, and then Judy pops in. Like, she just like like, she was waiting off screen to pop in. You know, it’s just so stagey. 

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, it’s all just a setup for Judy seduces Paul into making out with her really only for the purpose of hurting Angela’s feelings, and it it works because Ricky and and Angela both stumble upon them making out. 

Todd:  Yeah. In the woods. 

Craig:  And and that’s, you know, I mean that’s kinda it. Paul, a bit later, you know, comes and apologize Todd her, but now again Angela’s not talking to him. Judy keeps trash talking, then Judy and Meg, again, the camp counselor, pick Angela up, Meg throws her over her shoulder and then throws her in the water while Angela is, you know, screaming and pleading not to be thrown in. This is the most horrible summer camp ever. Yeah. It’s 

Todd:  terrible. Mel and while while this is happening, the owner of the camp is confronting Ricky and shaking him down. 

Clip:  Todd are you doing?   It was like all those other times. You get to the trouble, you run through a rescue and try to take care of everybody. How are you gonna do it this time? Another drowning or something worse?   What are you talking about? Let me go.   I saw you those times. The direct room at the water flight, you killed them. 

Todd:  He seems to imply that Ricky is present every single time. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  But I guess, I don’t know. 

Craig:  Yeah. I didn’t really get that either, but he jumps them. Super innocent, nothing big deal, you know. It’s not like it’s that big a deal at all. Then we find out there’s gonna be a big social tonight. And then Meg oh, okay. I’m sorry. No.   I know you were getting it. Yeah. 

Todd:  Then out of complete left field, Mel was hanging out and Meg starts coming on to him. Yeah. Bethel who is like a like 50 or 60 years old. Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  Easy. 

Todd:  And Meg who is in her twenties, and this doesn’t particularly bother Mel. 

Craig:  No. He’s like excited about it. Like Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s so weird. No. And then, like, she flirts with them and, like, she sets up a date with him at his house, and then she goes back to the cabin and she’s, like, 

Clip:  I’ve got a date tonight. 

Craig:  And Judy’s, like, with who? And she’s, like, it’s a secret. Like, gross. Like, with your grandpa. Like, congratulations. It’s gross. 

Todd:  And then we get the shower scene. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  She’s got a shower. This is the best part. It ends up being the cheapest shower killing scene ever filmed. You don’t see any TNA. It’s just kind of a middle shot up. And then suddenly, she backs up against the wall and start it’s act startled and starts screaming. Mhmm. And if you didn’t see what this was being intercut with, you would think that she saw a spider or something.   Right? And that’s it. But then what they’re cutting to is a knife, which is stabbed through the divider of the shower, the the wall of the shower basically, because these aren’t like proper showers. It’s like shower stalls. 

Clip:  Right. 

Todd:  Stabbed through the stall and is is basically pulling eviscerating her. It’s it’s cutting straight down through across her back. So blood is spraying out this slit that this is cutting in that wall. While on the other side, she’s just screaming up against the wall. 

Craig:  Right. And it must have been like the thinnest shower wall ever or the sharpest knife ever because, like, whoever the killer is, like, drags it down, like like they’re cutting through a tomato. Okay. So she’s dead. So then, we see Paul apologize to Angela again. Angela is coming out of the social and she tells him meet me at the waterfront after the social. So he thinks that he may have, a chance. 

Todd:  I love that line. 

Clip:  Meet me at the waterfront after the social. 

Craig:  Then another scene which like just felt like time filler, one of the camp counselors has Todd take some of the younger boys off to camp alongside the lake or whatever and he does, And they make a point of showing that somebody has a hatchet, and then a couple of the boys wake up in the night and beg the counselor to take them back. So he does, and he leaves the other boys there. Now, this doesn’t all happen in the same moment, like there are scenes in between, but when the counselor comes back, the rest of the boys that were left there have been slaughtered. And my first thought was, why? Like, why these little kids? And then the more I know and then the more I thought 

Clip:  about it, I was, like and and I and 

Craig:  I read it online too. They were the ones that threw sand at her on the beach, like, really? Like Oh, you’re kidding me. Yeah. That They they were the boys that drew sand at Angela at the beach. And now, apparently, that is a capital offense. Like, anyway, whatever. And and we don’t even see much. I mean, it just look we just see their sleeping bags all hacked up.   We don’t even see the kids at all. 

Todd:  Actually, I saw an interview with the director and he said that if there’s one thing he would change about this movie, he would take that part out. 

Craig:  I can I can understand why? 

Todd:  He thought that they went a little overboard. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. A little. These are little kids, like 8 year olds. Come on. 

Todd:  Oh, man. But but the next scene stays. Bill goes looking for Meg. He finds her. She bit falls out of the shower, and he sees the cut against his back, and he goes into this long soliloquy. Yes. He’s looking at the body. He’s just talking to her body for a good 5 minutes.   So then we have this next scene. Judy’s been making out with some dude, and she’s been interrupted. And so the dude fly you know, goes off. Mel was looking for 

Craig:  Right. Meg. 

Todd:  Meg. That’s why he’s the one who interrupted them. And so then we see that Julie is curling her hair. It’s it’s, I don’t know, 9 or 10 at night. Yeah. And she’s sitting in the dark alone in her bedroom, and she’s decided she needs to curl her hair. 

Craig:  As you do. 

Todd:  But they just they just needed to get a curling iron to the scene. Because one thing we said is they get real creative with these desks, and sure enough, a figure appears and comes towards her, throws her down, and, puts a pillow over her face, and then grabs the curling iron. And then what we just see in shadow is the curling iron being raised, and then it comes down. Judy screams and we see a close-up that she’s still got that pillow on her face, and then it cuts away. And I was like, wow. Is that Todd that really imply what I think it implies? 

Craig:  I’m glad you’re not the only one whose mind went there because, like, I was like, what did they do with that curly eyeliner? 

Todd:  Where did it go? Because later, when all hell breaks loose and the cops show up and they all, you know, they’re like, there’s a killer. Everybody split up, you know. The cop, they end up at that cabin and the cop goes inside and he comes back out. And it’s just a close-up of the stunned look on her fate on his face. Like, what he just saw in there was so disturbing that he can’t even talk about it. So, yeah, I think that’s what I think that’s what the 

Craig:  application was. I expected to read something about it online, and I didn’t find anything. I just saw that she was smothered and burned with the curling iron. Well, I don’t know. Even if what our minds are thinking about is true, like, that alone wouldn’t kill her. But anyway, whatever. It doesn’t matter. It’s gross and she’s dead.   And, then the only other thing that happens really before the big climax is that Nell eventually finds Ricky and beats him, I thought to death, like I really thought that Mel beat Ricky to death. It turns out we get just, like, a 2 second scene later where some counselors find Ricky, and he kinda coughs, and wakes up. That’s all we see. I almost wonder if it if if initially he was intended to be dead and then they change their mind and just threw that in. Then as soon as that happens, then Mel walks right onto the archery range and he sees somebody and he’s like, No, it can’t be. And then he gets shot with an arrow right through the neck. 

Todd:  Which was the best effect in the whole damn movie? 

Craig:  It was pretty good. I mean, you could tell the difference in skin color, in the appliance, but, it looked it looked 

Todd:  pretty good. There was no cutaway. There was no nothing. He’s standing there and, arrow just appears in his throat. I mean, it’s not even a jump cut. I mean, it is they did something to spring the arrow up or I don’t know what they did, but it was really impressive. 

Craig:  Yeah. It looked good. 

Todd:  I even saw an interview with, with a special effects guy, when he talked about, you know, being particularly proud of that arrow scene, and he wouldn’t even say how he did it. He just said that the, actor was really nervous about it. I don’t know if they actually, like, threw an arrow at him or something at some at some level. I don’t know. But it it looks like he just somebody freaking shot him through the neck with an arrow. It was amazing. Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. It is good. And then there’s chaos in the camp because they found these dead bodies. The cops are there, the counselors are all looking. They know who’s missing. They know Angela and Ricky are missing. They know Judy and, Meg are missing, and Ricky. I don’t know who all I’ve said, but they know who’s missing so they’re looking for these specific kids.   Then we see Paul wading down by the water because that’s where Angela told him to meet her and she shows up and, she says let’s go swimming and he says, but we don’t have our bathing suits. What do we do about our clothes? She says, take them off and he of course gets all excited and starts stripping off. Then we cut back to the counselors and they’re searching around, then we get that quick scene where we find out that Ricky is really not dead, which made me happy because I was sad that he was dead. And then the 2 nice counselors, the nice male counselor and the nice female counselor are walking through the dark and they hear what sounds like somebody singing and they approach the shoreline of the lake and they we see from the back, I mean, obviously we know it’s Angela, but she’s sitting there seemingly naked and we see just kind of again, we’re looking at her back, but we can kinda see that she’s got Paul’s head in her lap and she’s kind of stroking it. It looks you know, affectionate and then that leads up to the big twist which is she stands up and she’s fully nude and Paul’s head, which is actually severed falls to the ground and she’s got this crazy look on her face, and she’s making these weird noises that we’ve never heard throughout the rest of the movie, and the counselor, the male counselor points at her and says, and then we see a full body shot of the nude Angela with a wiener and then that’s it. Yeah. Like I knew I knew that that was the twist, like I knew the big twist was Angela is really a boy. Now, I did fail to mention that in that moment we also get a quick flashback where we see the crazy aunt from earlier in the movie talking to this young child whose head is wrapped as though it’s injured saying, oh, I’m so glad to have you, but I’ve already got a son so you’ll be my precious little girl or whatever.   So it’s obvious that she has just raised this boy. It was actually the girl who died in the accident, and she’s raised this boy as a girl, and now here is how it’s turned out. But I did not, you know, even though I knew that was the twist, I didn’t expect that to be the very end of the movie. I thought surely there would be something more after that. 

Todd:  Because it’s not enough. And and I think, okay, you know what? I think I just figured out the gay thing too. Let’s come back to that. Okay. Alright? But here’s what I think. First of all, it’s clear this movie is dated. This twist doesn’t work today. 

Craig:  No. It’s insensitive. It would be like, 

Todd:  wow, she’s a boy. Who cares? Because I think at the time, and I think this if I’m going back and, you know, revisiting my feelings when I was a kid watching this, first of all, I was very confused by the ending because of all the snarling and the weird look on her face. It’s creepy ass ending. I mean, without the male female thing, She looks insane and she’s making these Todd awful inhuman noises and the look is frozen on her 

Craig:  face. It’s because it was a mask and I was so impressed by that because I didn’t know that. They they did a cast of her face and made a mask. It looks just like her. I would have had no idea that it was a mask, and they put this mask on this poor young college kid who they paid to do this, and I read that he had to get drunk in order to build up the courage to do this. And, you know, it’s this skinny little kid. I mean he looks like an adolescent kid naked totally exposed. Yeah, it’s shocking. 

Todd:  So I think that I think there are a couple things going on here. First of all, he needed a twist. And so he thought this would be his great twist. 2nd of all, he wanted it to be shocking. And I think for the time, it’s shocking in 2 ways. 1 is, oh, this person you thought was a girl all along really is a boy. And 2 is the full frontal male nudity. Yeah.   Even though it’s it’s it’s it’s pretty dim. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think maybe, just dialing back a little bit, maybe the implication is a girl wouldn’t have been capable of doing all these murders. And so it all makes sense now that Angela’s not That Angela did it because she’s actually a boy. You know, she’d have the strength or the wherewithal or the Craig, you know, girls just don’t go crazy kinda thing. 

Craig:  Yeah. I think you’re right. And I think that it’s interesting because Phyllis Rose who played, Angela, her mom didn’t want her to be the killer in the movie, and so they kind of compromised in that every scene in which she’s, you know, do doing her murderous stuff. It wasn’t her, it was actually the kid who played Ricky, doing all that stuff And and you can tell in in places. I mean the hands look more masculine than Angela’s hands look, all the time. And in the one scene where he’s in silhouette when he’s getting ready to kill Judy, I mean it’s a masculine form. I mean it doesn’t look like her, which is also kind of confusing because it’s not like she’s, you know, it’s not like she’s changing shape or or anything like that. But, and again, I guess, you know, maybe it’s misdirection or whatever, but it would be offensive and I understand why it would be, you know.   We again we have different sensibilities, we’re smarter now and while I don’t feel like it’s necessarily making fun, there’s there’s certainly a suggestion that her gender identity goes hand in hand with psychosis, which you know just isn’t true. But it was a different time and and I think that the director probably got what he was going for, and I think that that’s probably the only reason that this movie is still notable. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  I think that if it hadn’t been for that twist and that shock that this would have fallen along the wayside because it’s really not a great movie. It’s not terrible. No. But it’s not Todd either. 

Todd:  It’s not the worst we’ve seen by any means. And we’ve talked about how it’s creative in in a sense of, you know, that that that it it it tries to do some different things, but it’s very inept. It’s ineptly made. It’s poorly written. The acting, it’s it’s commendable that they used younger kids, but then, like you said, the acting really suffers back to her father being gay is supposed to explain why she is still attracted to boys? 

Craig:  Well, yeah. I mean 

Todd:  She was raised a boy raised as a girl? I mean, it it it’s, you know, I just I’m thinking that maybe that was in his mind when he was putting that in there. Again, being a product of a different time. Right. Right. Trying to make that explanation. 

Craig:  Right. Trying to justify her confusion and therefore, you know, her behavior. Yeah. It’s a trouble. 

Todd:  It’s weird to talk about. 

Craig:  It is. It is weird to talk about just because it’s so, you know, this is not a study in gender identity. This is not a study in in sexuality. You know, it’s it’s a crappy movie. Yeah. But I you know, I I get what you’re saying. I feel like that was the intention. Misguided. 

Todd:  Oh, not Yeah. Misguided a 100%. But I think that’s probably what he was trying to do there. And, you know, it’s interesting because I think the ending is still really notable and really creepy, even if it turned out that there wasn’t a dong between her legs. Because just the image of it, and the snarling with her mouth wide open like that, it just the sound sounds like it’s coming from somewhere unreal. And she’s just frozen there and she’s got this stance with that knife in her hand and she’s just looking at them and I would wanna run the away from that scene Yeah. As fast as humanly possible. And that, honestly, this Especially the second time around is actually kinda stuck with me.   Put a chill up my spine even though I already knew what the twist was and that wasn’t terribly shocking to me. 

Craig:  Right. Oh, yeah. I felt the same way. 

Todd:  Do you know that they almost did the opposite? There was talk early on about having Angela play that and they were gonna mold a penis and put a strap on on her. Yeah. And they actually molded it. And I don’t think anybody actually believed it was gonna happen, but the mother obviously came in and said, there’s absolutely no way that I’m gonna allow that. 

Craig:  Oh, thank Todd. 

Todd:  Yeah. And I think they were all like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s kinda what we figured at the same time. 

Craig:  Yeah. I would be kind of interesting in seeing at least the first sequel. I know that the sequels went far campier and they played it more for the comedy. They had Felicia Rose come back and read, for Angela again for the sequel, but because they were going campier, I guess she just could she couldn’t or didn’t well, you know, whatever play the funny. So they recast it the role with Bruce Springsteen’s younger sister of all people. Yeah. And and and she she maintained the role up through those even that unfinished sequel. And then they did return to sleepaway camp and again, you know, spoiler alert, Angela shows back up again in that one, and she is again played by, Phyllis Rose, but I think that, you know, I think that’s the big shock of that movie.   I haven’t seen it. The second one sounds, I don’t know, kinda funny. After that they really just sound pretty stupid, but if I were desperate, I might check out the second one. 

Todd:  Well, it’s kind of a ridiculous premise anyway. It’s gotta be super campy. I mean, what she goes off for counseling, actually undeniably did all these murders and then ends up as a camp counselor after rehab or something. Like Yeah. Around children again. 

Craig:  And and gender reassignment surgery. It’s like they don’t have to worry about that anymore. Dumb. 

Todd:  We it’s not on our list, just to round out our, our July, theme of summer movies, but I do think we need to revisit it sometime in the future for sure. Sure. Sure. Overall thoughts, Craig? 

Craig:  Oh, gosh. You know, overall I I’m glad that I have seen it now. You know, I’ve read so much about it and, you know, it comes up a lot, so I’m glad I’ve seen it. It wasn’t great. It certainly wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It’s certainly problematic. I can’t believe that they’re even considering remaking it. Like, I just can’t imagine what audience they think that they would find for this movie, but, you know, it’s a product of a different time, and as problematic as it is today, if you can remove yourself from that and look at it as a product Todd a different time, It did at least make an attempt to be a little bit different.   It it, you know, it tried to be original in the kills It had a twist that nobody had ever done before, and so I give it props for that. It’s not a great movie. If you’re a horror enthusiast, yeah, go ahead and watch it. You know, if you’re just kind of a casual horror fan, you can skip it. It’s, you know, it’s it’s not great. 

Todd:  I enjoyed I even enjoyed watching it the second time around even though I it was exactly as I remembered it. I just think it’s another one of those so bad it’s good movies, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It’s super bad in in just these charmingly inept ways of a guy. I mean, and maybe I just got that soft spot in my heart too of the guy making his first movie. It’s Yeah. It shows, but it there’s you can tell that they had fun with it, you know, that they were really That’s true. 

Craig:  But I wish I wish it were funnier because so much of it is really mean spirited. Yeah. You know, like, the the the kid like, everybody’s just awful, like, and I guess you’re glad when they die or whatever, but I don’t know. Yeah. I get what you’re saying. And and for a first effort, you know, great. Good job. I certainly couldn’t accomplish that, so more power to you.   In some ways, it just kinda leaves a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth, you know. I I’m not offended. I didn’t hate it, I didn’t feel like, you know, we’ve watched some movies even recently where I felt like it was a total waste of my time and I was actually kind of irritated by the end that I’d sat through it. And I didn’t feel that way about this. It wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t painful to watch, but I don’t need to see it again. 

Todd:  Alright. Well, stay tuned. We’ve got plenty more summer movies, another 4 picked out for you because we have 5 Tuesdays in July. If you enjoy them, please share them with a friend, And also visit our website, 2 guys dot redfortyvet.com, where we post all of our episodes, occasionally put some, written movie reviews as well. Until next time. I’m Todd, 

Craig:  and I’m Craig 

Todd:  with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.