2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

Yes, yes, another found footage movie. You’d think we’d be sick of them by now, but this one came at us out of nowhere and gave us a good jolt in the process. For a good example of how filmmakers can do little with nothing, this low-key horror film seems to push all the right buttons to pull you in and keep ahold of you until the surprise ending. Give this week’s episode a listen for all the details, but we highly recommend you watch the movie first.

Episode 130, 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 once again, we kinda put off picking the movie Todd the last minute, and I suggested that we take a look at Hell House LLC from 2015. Now the reason that I went with this movie, well, there are a couple of reasons actually. I was recently on vacation with my mom and, we shared a hotel room, at night. She it was a working trip for her. It was a vacation for me, but it was a working trip for her. So she went to bed early every night. And so, you know, trying to be polite, I tried to be quiet, and so I was just watching movies, on my laptop. And I also, realized for the first time in, I don’t know, probably 5 years since my dad’s had Amazon Prime that I could access it. And so I was just, I did a quick Google search of, you know, what are some good horror movies available on Amazon Prime, and this movie was one that was recommended. And so I watched it and it wasn’t, you know, maybe a few days, a week after that that one of our loyal listeners and sometimes co host tagged both Todd and I in a post about this movie. People are talking about this movie saying that, it’s it’s maybe one of the scariest movies that some people have seen, one of the scariest movies on Amazon that’s available and people should check it out, and I enjoyed it, the first time that I watched it. Before I had googled, you know, what’s cool on Amazon, I had never heard of this movie before. Had you ever heard of it, Todd?

Todd: No. Not at all.

Craig: No. I I mean, it’s an independent film. It didn’t get a theatrical release. It did premiere at a couple of film festivals. I think that it debuted at the Telluride Horror Show, on October of 2015, and it played another festival where it won some award. I don’t know. Mostly it just debuted on VOD, and it’s available on several different, on demand platforms right now, and this is an independent film. It’s a found footage film, and I was thinking about it, you know, when I recommended it to Todd, I said, it is a found footage film. I know you’re not a huge fan, but give it a chance. And then I was thinking about it, and I was like, well, I feel kinda bad because Todd doesn’t really like fountain footage films. But it but it seems like most of the ones that we’ve reviewed, you’ve ended up enjoying.

Todd: It is the truth I’m gonna have to come clean, with, I’m afraid.

Craig: So was that the case here? I mean, I enjoyed it. What’d you think?

Todd: You know, I didn’t think this is a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. I thought it was okay. I can’t say I hated it. As a matter of fact, you know, one of my criticisms of found footage films is that a lot of them are kind of lackluster and don’t really do anything new. They rely too much sometimes on the just the novelty of the found footage as a way to make a cheap movie without really putting much attention into story and character and anything like that. And there are quite a few exceptions to that since the explosion of found footage films in the wake of Blair Witch, but, you know, I wasn’t even impressed with The Blair Witch Project when it came out. And I think I’ve said that before, that probably put a sour taste in my mouth for found footage films thereafter. But, no, this movie, I think, to be honest, I don’t think the characters were all that well developed. They they were all pretty flat, I thought, and that was maybe one of the beefs I had with it. But I’ll I will say that for a found footage movie, this one did a few interesting things. It’s not just here’s the footage we found from a camera all strung together. It’s actually almost, found footage within a documentary. And so it’s it’s more like a, a fake documentary movie, right, than it is a found footage film that then uses the footage that has been found as a part of their documentary, which comprises, I don’t know, 70% of the film. But the fact that, that it had this sort of documentary aspect to it kept the movie I don’t know. It just made it more interesting to me. I actually, was a little more engaged than I would have been had this just been, like, you know, 5 people ended up dying in a haunted house attraction in Pennsylvania, and only this camera footage was found. And then, boom, it just jumps into it, you know.

Craig: Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. I don’t really have a problem with found footage. I mean, just like with any other subgenre of horror, I think there are good ones and there are not good ones. You talk about Blair Witch. This one reminded me of Blair Witch, not in any way as far as the plot is concerned, but my experience with Blair Witch must have been different than yours because Blair Witch had this campaign where when it was initially released, they really went out of their way to make people believe that it was real. True. This was with that this was a true story and that this was actual real footage, like, they hid the actors away for over a year. You know, they they really made a point of making us believe that it was real, and I saw it very soon after it was released. I saw it in the theater with my partner, and we both believed that it was real.

Todd: Really?

Craig: And yeah. I guess it was that early before it had really kind of been exposed. And and I doubt that Blair Witch was the first ever found footage film, but it was kinda the first one that I remember being really mainstream And because I thought that it was real, it it scared me to death. Like, I thought it was so scary. But what reminds me of, what this movie reminds me of about that movie is that it’s a film that, in my opinion, can really create some very effective scares in very subtle and practically speaking, very simple ways. Like, you know, without, a great big huge budget, and without any crazy, special effects, it’s just got some really good scares in it and it it I was kind of effectively spooked out by it in places, and there were some really Todd, I hate to use the word jump scares because jump scares, it just sounds cheap to me, but there were several times throughout this movie where something would happen, where the camera would pan away from an image and then pan back to it, and something would have changed slightly or something was there that shouldn’t have been there, and it made me jump or it made me gasp, and and and it was it it it was spooky. I liked it.

Todd: I’m not gonna call you, naive or anything for believing in the Blair Witch thing. Even if you, kinda set aside, you know, the ultimate, in retrospect, ridiculousness that a company would put together a bunch of found footage and release it as entertainment, you know, something that terrible that happened to some people. Setting that aside, that first movie, you know, it really Arguably, it doesn’t really contain any supernatural elements. It’s all about the, the implied supernatural elements. These people are stumbling around in the woods. They get lost. They can’t find their way. There’s something kind of freaking them out but we’re not even sure what it is because, you know, we don’t really see anything. We see creepy imagery of like, you know, those those stick men figures kind of hanging in the trees that imply that there’s something, who knows, some cult, some whatever in in the woods that shouldn’t be there. And by the end of it okay, spoiler alert for anyone who hasn’t seen it, you know, like, the creepiest thing is they run through this house, and one of them is, like, staring into a corner.

Craig: Mhmm.

Todd: And and and then the one carrying the camera’s presumably knocked out or hit or whatever. And it’s just sort of like the relationship of that to the mythos of The Blair Witch that we heard at the very beginning of the movie makes the whole thing creepy. But you’re not seeing people with white spooky eyes, you know, jumping out at the camera. You’re not seeing things that were there that weren’t there anymore. If I’m not mistaken, I I mean, it’s my memory is pretty hazy on it, but am I right about

Craig: that? No. You’re right. And that’s, you know, I I guess that’s what I’m saying kind of about this movie too. Like, the the effects that are are used are are very practical. And, like, in Blair Witch, okay, so they’re they’re in a tent, you know, being out in the woods in a tent can be spooky because you hear spooky things. Well, they hear all these unnatural noises and then all of a sudden, you know, there are these you know, something happens to their tent where it looks like their tent is under siege. Well, you know, from a filmmaker’s perspective, all that is is just some guys outside the tent, you know Shaking. Banging their right, shaking the tent. Yeah. But if if you allow yourself to immerse yourself in the mythos or whatever, It’s pretty spooky and and this one does the same thing. It does a lot with moving props around and it does a lot with, you know, just very brief glimpses of things.

Todd: Well, I think I think it’s so funny that you say this Todd. I some sometimes I think we’re of the same mind in a lot of ways. As I was watching this, I found the movie rather inspiring because as a filmmaker, I was thinking, my Todd, maybe it’s about time I went out and made a found footage horror movie. Yeah. Because I was thinking exactly the same thing. I was, like, these guys are doing so much with nothing. Yeah. They filmed it in an existing haunt house attraction, probably pulled together all the same props that were there. And they’re they’re really Yeah. Like you said, it’s just very simple scares With the exception of one thing, which clearly wasn’t special effects anyway. Everything is just something super creepy has been manipulated, or they’re hearing a sound, or or there’s a guy standing there that shouldn’t be standing there, you know, that kind of thing. It’s super simple to do. And Yeah. I watched it the whole time I’m thinking, my goodness, they’re running around with cheap video cameras. These actors are probably improvising half of their lines. And, you know, half of it is just, you know, the wandering around the claustrophobia of the house, them wandering around and getting lost, and just having these arguments and whatnot. I thought, my goodness, this movie must have cost like, you know, $25 to make. Yeah. You know, but it’s effective.

Craig: It I think so Todd. You know, originally, this movie wasn’t conceived as a found footage film. They were the writer and director who, wrote this conceived it as a traditional, you know, narrative film, not found footage, but, eventually it got switched over. And in doing the switch over, some things, were lost a little bit. And I I’m really proud of myself because You’re always proud

Todd: of yourself. What’s the reason this time frame?

Craig: I’m really proud of myself because I’m always really proud of myself. But this time, it was because, you know, after the movie, you know, I had seen it 2 times. I had a couple of lingering questions, and you know, I looked at my regular sources IMDB, Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes, these types of things and there’s just because it’s an independent film, there’s just not a whole lot of information there. No. But I was able to find this, Reddit thread where somebody claiming to be the writer director, and based on his insight, I believe it to be true, addressed a lot of the questions that I had, and we’ll get into some of that. But he said that he had a difficult time selling this movie to producers as a found footage film, but the way that he tried to sell it was, like Blair Witch as a Dateline NBC episode. Right.

Todd: That makes a lot of sense.

Craig: But but you’re right. They did. They filmed it in an existing, you know, haunted attraction, the Waldorf Hotel in Pennsylvania. And the owner ended up getting the credit for the set design because so much of it was just what already existed. The writer director, whose name is Steven, Cognetti, said that the and I agree, the the set itself really plays a lot into it because it’s this big hotel, and it’s really kind of like a maze. And I didn’t get that so much from the movie, but, apparently, you know, he said that every time that he went in to visit at preproduction, he had to have the owner kind of lead him around because he would find himself getting lost. And he when they filmed the, cast, coming into the setting for the first time, he made sure that it was their first time seeing it so that he would kind of get some of their real reactions. And I guess it was kind of easy to get disoriented in there. And and, you know, that kind of adds, to, I don’t know the mystique of the whole place, but it’s just kind of a cool place. The movie starts out, there’s a Craig at the beginning that says, what you’re about to see is a documentary on the mysterious events surrounding the 2009 Halloween haunted house tour tragedy. And then you get some scenes of these interviewing various people about this tragedy that happened at the Abedon Hotel. The Abedon Hotel, is a location, apparently just maybe 20 minutes or so outside of New York City. And the premise is that this company or excuse me, Hell House LLC, had been running a haunted attraction in New York City for a long time, but they’ve decided to kind of change things up and take it out into a more rural area for whatever reason, for effect or whatever. It’s cheaper, whatever the reasons may be. And they find this Todd abandoned hotel and we hear that on October 8, 2009, at the opening of this attraction, there were multiple deaths, nobody really knows what happened.

Clip: The hardest part was probably the silence. Everything was very hush-hush. There were gag orders put on everyone involved with the case. Cops, lawyers, even the families of the victims were left pretty much completely in the dark.

Craig: One of the people who’s being interviewed says all we really have is this YouTube video that one of the people who was attending this attraction, uploaded after it happened. And it’s, you know, kinda the typical stuff when they actually get in there. You know, it’s spooky. There’s flashing lights. There’s strobe lights. There’s lasers. There’s really quite good decorations. I mean, it looks like a a really good haunted house, but just some kind of off things start happening. Like, a guy in a clown suit, runs past the visitors as though he’s running out and the the visitors kind of look like that’s Todd, and and we see the employees scrambling as the visitors are going through. And then, as the person who’s filming the video gets to the basement, which is supposed to be the end excuse me, the end of the attraction, people are screaming and are are are trying to get out. Like, the people who are trying to get down there can’t get down there because the other people are trying to get out. And then all of a sudden, there’s chaos and there’s screaming, and then we cut to news footage police footage, which shows Todd being brought out and we hear the tape of a 911 call, which is very distorted, but it’s a female voice says that says something like there’s something garble garble garble, into the wall. Yeah. Then the interviewers interview this photographer who went in there apparently several years later, to take pictures because he wanted answers for what was going on, and we see that there is blood on the walls. There’s blood on the floor. You know, like tracks of blood looking like people have been pulled around on the the floor. He says the basement door had been blown off of its hinges, and when this photographer went to the basement he said, in a very kind of melodramatic way, but it didn’t really bother

Clip: me.

Craig: It’s like, yeah, I’ve I’ve seen some scary shit, but I wasn’t about to go down in that basement. But we see the pictures of what he you know, like, from the stairwell, what he took pictures of. There’s bloody handprints. It it you know, obviously, something very violent and bad went down there. And that’s the backstory that we get before we are introduced to our main cast who is this company. I think 5 of them. There’s Sarah, who’s the girl, the only one. Paul, who is, kind of the videographer. Alex, who is the head of the company. He’s in charge. Mac, who seems to be like Alex’s kinda right hand guy, and Todd, who is their electrician. But they’re headed to this new attraction, and eventually, they get there.

Todd: Now, I’m really glad that you got all the characters’ names straight and their relationships to each other because, to be honest, I wasn’t taking notes during this and I wish I had because I’m I’m still kind of unclear on all of their names and who was who. Like I said earlier, don’t think a lot of that makes a a big difference in the end. You know? No. Not really. Because they’re not really finely drawn. Even even as the movie goes on, their reactions and things and everything is I think it’s pretty flat, pretty stock. But Sara is the exception. Because the way that we get introduced to this footage, that they shot is that the documentarians were able to find Sarah who they said disappeared for a while after

Craig: Yeah. Like, 5 years.

Todd: After this happened. And suddenly, they’ve tracked her down. They don’t say how, but they’ve tracked her down, and they, she agrees to do an interview. And so she’s sitting at a table in front of the camera, and she just looks super distressed. And she’s kind of openly talking about a little bit what happened, but not telling them exactly what it was. And then she reaches down beside her and picks up a bag a sack and sets it on the table.

Clip: What is that? It’s everything. Everything that went on in the house was taped, mostly by Paul and Todd, some tour goers. How did you get these and off the police? I got to them first. Well, why did why didn’t you give them to the police? You’ll see.

Todd: The idea is then this documentary crew is the first group of people to get this footage that this this is this girl has been holding on to, for 5 years. And so, one of the cameramen comes around Todd the front, picks it up, and goes into the other room immediately, to start watching the footage while the interview with Sarah continues. Pretty much most of the movie from this point out is ostensibly the splicing together of this footage.

Craig: I I, honest to God, don’t mean to pick nits and I wouldn’t have said anything about this had I not found this Reddit thread where the director talked about it. But, the documentarians actually didn’t find her. That she contacted them, and that’s seeming that’s seemingly insignificant, but

Todd: It’s very significant.

Craig: Yeah. Based on, what the documentarian or excuse me, the the movie the filmmaker said about his intentions, it it becomes, significant.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: But anyway, they they arrive at the hotel and it’s super spooky. They look around, you know, it’s it’s beaten down. It’s clearly abandoned. I mean, in in real life, this place would never have sat there, you know, unoccupied for this long, you know, and and everything still have been in there. You know? Like, at least somebody would have come in and cleared all the crap out. But for the purposes of the movie, you know, it’s it’s nice that it’s decrepit and rundown, and there are all these cool things in there. And and and that’s one of the things that they’re excited about because they say, we can save money on props and stuff because, you know, look around, it already looks spooky. And it does. But right away, you know, there’s just, you know, little seemingly insignificant things like there’s weird interference on their radios. And if you’re watching closely, and if you weren’t, Todd, I’m I won’t blame you because remember this is the second time I had seen this. So I was not only watching closely, but knowing that we were gonna be talking about it, like I was pausing all the time and rewinding and looking back at things because, you know, there’s just little tiny things, like, even in the very beginning, just as the camera is scanning around in one of these rooms where the light is coming from the windows because there’s no electricity, so it’s it’s semi dim light and everything’s kind of in shadow. But even very early on, if you watch closely and I feel like maybe even in this early part, maybe, the the camera actually like, it scanned past, and then it Todd, like, a freeze frame.

Todd: It did. Yeah.

Craig: You’re supposed to see something here.

Todd: Yeah. It was very obvious, Yeah. At that point.

Craig: Yeah. And there’s like there’s like a a creepy shadow, you know, in the vague shape of a person kind of hanging out in one corner. And they go down to the basement and like there’s numbers painted on the walls and there’s a pentagram painted on the basement wall. And part of me thought, get out.

Clip: Yeah. I know right.

Craig: Like this is not a good sign. But you know, in real life, if I were them, my first thought probably wouldn’t be yeah. It probably wouldn’t be, you know, this place is, you know, a hellmouth or something. It would be some kids came down here and spray painted a a pentagram on it.

Todd: Wall. Yep.

Craig: And they’re not particularly concerned about it. And there are creepy books, you know, laying around and Bibles laying around.

Todd: I like that Bible bit. That was kinda cool. Like, there’s pile of Bibles. I think it’s even at the foot of the pentagram or in front of one of the walls. And, like, one of the characters said it almost the instant I was thinking it. One character was like, oh, this is really creepy. Don’t you think this is creepy? And the other character said, it’s a frickin’ hotel. There’s a Bible in every room. Which is exactly what I was thinking.

Craig: Totally true. Totally true. When they first get there, it says, you know, it’s 46 days before the opening. And we know from the beginning that the opening is the the day of the big event. But once they get there, you know, they assess it and then it jumps to a week later where Tony, their electric guy, has gotten the electricity on, which I guess has been an issue. And they’ve got the place cleaned up a little bit and they’ve got, surveillance cameras set up, but dun dun dun, the surveillance cameras don’t work in the basement for some reason. Again, you know, it’s just little things. Here, the first part that I found especially spooky was Paul, the camera guy, turns on his camera like he’s going to do an in bed confessional. And he’s got the camera faced towards him and he’s facing away from the door and the door behind him is open just a little bit more than a crack, and the light coming in from the hallway is red light, like security light. And he’s talking to the camera not saying really anything of consequence, but then a woman we see a woman walking behind him And of course, because she’s backlit, we can’t there’s there are no distinctive features. She’s just a silhouette, But she walks in, and eventually he turns around and he sees her.

Todd: Sarah? What’s up, dude?

Clip: You cool?

Todd: Todd, you sleepwalking?

Craig: And she just turns around and walks out, and he just attributes it to sleepwalking. Again, if it were me, I probably would have jumped up out of bed to see what was going on.

Todd: Of course. Yeah.

Craig: Not totally unrealistic and seriously, I mean, it’s just one of these things. It’s so simple. It’s having somebody walk in backlit so they’re just a silhouette and they’re just standing there for a second and then they turn around and walk out. I thought it was so spooky.

Todd: Yeah. It was. And and I think it’s because it’s so simple and, you know, even some of the scariest parts in this movie, I think, happened in broad daylight which, you know, we’ve talked about before is really scary too. It reminded me a little bit of sinister A little bit. With a creepy figure that’s kind of in the background in different places. And all it is is doing is either standing there or like you said walking in and walking out. Very, very effective. Talking about found footage and talking about this movie and the kinds of things you find in found footage. One thing I’ve always said is there’s gotta be a reason for the found footage. And it’s gotta be a plausible one why they’re not putting the camera down, you know, when things get crazy. And the reason for this footage is that they’re trying to document the process of putting this house together. And I would say, to be honest, if I’m gonna nitpick just a little bit, I think it’s pretty implausible that they would document so freaking much, you know, like, him waking up and just recording his thoughts into the camera is just his personal thoughts.

Craig: Mhmm.

Todd: Just normal everyday discussions and dialogue and arguments and stuff that they’re having, you know, is recorded. Like, it’s important. I mean, I would think if you’re gonna if you’re tasked with recording the process of putting this house together, it’s kind of a business thing. Sure. They talk about putting it online, and you don’t wanna have to wade through 100 and 1000 of hours of footage, you know, at the end of the day when you edit it all together. You’re just gonna record the stuff of Yeah, You’re gonna record some of the initial walking around through the house. You’re gonna record some of the planning phase. You’re probably gonna record a lot of putting the things together. Right. Actually, there’s very little of that.

Craig: Yeah. That’s

Todd: true. It’s all this, you know. So, that was one thing that a little bit got to me, just because it’s always in the back of my mind. It didn’t pull me out of the movie but, you know, that’s one thing that kinda bothered me about about the movie just a little bit, the found footage aspect.

Craig: Well, the director said that that was something that he struggled with because he knows that that’s a critique that people have, like, why would they keep filming? Like, why wouldn’t they put the camera down? Now and generally, again, I feel like I’m just being a contrarian. I I I don’t wanna disagree with you just for the sake of disagreeing, and this is kind of off Todd, but I I honestly feel like and and you work with young people Todd, just kind of the culture of Todd. I feel like people are so obsessed with documenting every moment of their life.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And and I’m I’m just as guilty, you know. I was watching this movie when I was in DC and every day every day I would post hundreds of pictures of myself, you know, in DC. Nobody cares.

Clip: Yeah. I surely

Craig: didn’t. No. Scroll. Scroll. Scroll. Right. Right. Nobody cares, but, you know, like, I felt for whatever reason the necessity to document this. And so it Todd didn’t seem entirely unlikely to me, but

Todd: That’s a fair point.

Craig: I think that it’s well, and I think that your critique is a fair critique also. And again, you know, it’s a movie so Yeah.

Todd: There’s a fair amount of suspension of disbelief you have

Craig: to If they weren’t taping, we wouldn’t see anything and then it’d be super boring. The next thing that happens is that they hire actors And I guess that this is something that they do, you know, they hire local folks, you know, to be, their performers. And they hire, Joey, and he’s gonna play a clown down in the basement. And their whole reason for hiring him is because they want their main attraction to be a hot girl chained up to the wall in the basement. But especially since the surveillance isn’t working well in the basement, they want to have some muscle down there in case anybody gets gropey with her. So they hire this big guy, Joey, to be the clown And then there’s, this very, you know, she looks like a real person that you would meet on the street and hire Melissa, but she’s very beautiful and, she’s gonna be their hot girl. And another lady, Sam, who ends up kind of being the hostess of the event. And they arrive and then we cut back to the documentary and one of the interviewees says that the first cops on the scene said that the first body they found was a hell house staff member with a self inflicted, slit throat.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And and while all of this is playing, we see this, you know, found video footage of all of these guys, the the company and the actors, just being really chummy. And I I kind of liked that, you know. Yeah. That reminded me of the descent where, you know, amidst all the horror, they would sometimes, especially at the beginning and the end, show you pictures of them in their happy times.

Todd: Mhmm.

Craig: And and it kinda, you know, it builds sympathy for these characters. At one point, the camera zooms in on Joey, the actor, and it says that he survived. He was one of the only ones that survived. Now if you’re the first if you’re watching this for the first time, you probably wouldn’t put it together. I certainly didn’t, but in that YouTube footage, we saw a clown running out

Todd: Yep.

Craig: Very early on. Well, that was Joey. He ran out and they say that he survived, but that he refused to talk to the authorities and that 9 days later, he hung himself. So, again, just adding more to the mystery.

Todd: There’s a point in here where they’re talking with the actors and one of the one of the actors says, oh, something about the history of of the of the hotel. Yeah. And is it Who is the main

Craig: It’s Melissa.

Todd: What’s his name?

Craig: Oh, the main the main guy, Alex.

Todd: Alex, yeah. Alex says to her, you he’s kinda trying to change the subject and everybody’s like, what what are you talking about? What you didn’t tell us about this and then this story kind of comes out, that the person who ran the hotel, at some point, a girl and a woman disappeared, And he was maybe blamed for it, maybe not. But anyway, he ended up hanging himself, in the dining room. And then that’s what kind of closed the hotel. And that happened, like, back in the eighties sometimes. So it’s like 20 years ago that this hotel supposedly just been boarded up and nobody’s touched it.

Craig: Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that you’re right. He does totally try to get away, from that subject. And but she says, you know, there have been all these rumors, things kept happening to guests, but she also says, you know, I don’t really know. It’s Yeah. It’s just town talk, you know, whatever. But we get this exposition from some of the people being interviewed from the documentary that the owner of the hotel was this guy named Andrew Tully, and he built the hotel there specifically because in some versions of the Todd testament, the name of the town Abaddon is the name of the demon who guards the gateway to hell. And there are these rumors that he, Tully, was the head of some sort of cult. You know, it’s all very vague. We don’t really get a lot of information, but, eventually, amidst all these rumors of people, you know, he was cleared of the disappearance disappearance of the woman and her daughter because, he provided documentation that they had checked out. Well, that would be super easy to fake. Yeah. But anyway, eventually, he hung himself there, and we see a police photo of his, suicide. And then, it cuts to 16 days before the opening and now they’ve got things mostly set up and they’ve got these clowns set up in the basement.

Todd: By the way, I had no idea, like, from the very beginning they started talking about their concept for this this scene that they were putting together. I had no idea, like, how this was supposed to work, because it’s it’s it’s 3 clowns set up in the basement across from a woman chained to the wall in front of a of a pentagram. Yeah. It’s like, what? Just because clowns are scary and the woman is hot and that’s what you want. You know what I mean?

Clip: Yes. I had I

Todd: was really trying to wrap my mind around this the what their storyline was for this particular room.

Craig: No. I think that’s it. Just clowns are scary and there’s a hot girl chained up. Like but in in fairness, these clowns that they have set up and and, like, they literally just have these dummies sat down against a wall.

Todd: Yeah. It’s also kind of lame.

Craig: Yeah. It it’s sort of lame except for the clowns are really scary. Like, I I know you we’ve talked about this. We’ve done the movie Clown. We’ve done the movie It. We’ve talked about clowns before. I find them scary. You think it’s kinda silly, but I thought that these clowns were pretty freaking scary. And they even make a point of saying that. Like, one of them in particular has, like, blood coming out of its eyes. It’s bald. It’s big and beefy. And It’s a really great mask and I just don’t think we should waste it on Todd dummy. It doesn’t move. Paul, what do you think? You wanna slap on this mask, sit down here all night, stare at Melissa? And they make a major point of saying that they’re disappointed that the dummies heads can’t even turn. All they can do is is stare straight forward, which is obviously a setup but whatever it

Todd: I guess their clown, Joey, was just gonna sit amongst them, or were they gonna put the mask? Okay. Yeah.

Craig: No. He was just gonna sit amongst them, which again Todd doesn’t make a lot of sense. If the mask is really that good, put it on Joey. But whatever. Paul has another bed shot where he hears a strange noise, but not much comes of that. Then there’s, you know, just it’s all as is the case in found footage. It just kinda jumps around a lot. There’s a funny scene where they’re talking to the actors and Joey, shows them that he can do this trick where he can pop his eyeball out. And that was did did you read anything about it? That was real. Like, the

Todd: Skype could actually

Craig: do that. And then the trivia, it says, but he recommends that others not try.

Todd: That’s how you that’s how you know all the trivia on this was written by the director.

Craig: Right. But it’s gross. Like Yeah. Yeah. If I if I was making a scary movie and I had

Todd: an actor that could pop their eyeball out Do it for the camera.

Craig: But the, the place is all set up. And then Paul is going around and he’s looking around and he just kind of showing how it’s all set up now, and he comes across Mac and Mac is reading a book and he’s like, where’s Tony? He’s like, I don’t know, he’s around here somewhere. So Paul keeps going around looking around and he comes around the corner and that especially spooky clown from the basement is standing at the top of the basement stairs. And it it spooks him, but he thinks it’s Tony playing a trick. So, he pans the camera down the stairs and when he pans it back, the clown is now looking at him. And he jumps and he’s like, woah. He’s like, oh, man. You got me, bro. Because he still thinks it’s Tony. But he turns around and walks around back to where Mac was, and now Tony is there with Mac. So Paul turns back around and runs back to where the clown was, but now it’s gone. And again, this is one of those instances where this was so easy to do. Yeah. And yet, I found it so creepy. And, like, you know, even in reading about it, like that the mannequin that they had for this clown, it wouldn’t stand up properly. So what did they do? They put one of the actors who wasn’t in the scene in the clown suit and the actor just stood there. It was the guy that played Alex. He just stood there, and then he turned his head. And then, you know, when the guy walked away, he went up back down into the basement. Super easy to do, but, oh my Todd. I just thought it was so effective. Am I wrong here?

Todd: No. You’re not wrong at all. And I would say what ups the ante considerably is the same sort of thing as, like, having the spooky stuff happened in the day. It’s it’s the fact that everybody’s in there. This is a house full of people, you know. This isn’t one guy creeping around at night, nobody else is around, and he comes across a scary thing. You know, he kinda walks in there, he’s casually videotaping everything, he video tapes this, he kinda talks to it, he walks back, there are 2 guys just you know, the room next door basically and they come back. The fact that this creepiness can happen right here and right there even amidst all of these people and all this activity going on in the house. I I don’t know. For me, it just kinda kept me on edge a little bit, thinking that at any moment in this movie, something creepy like this could be happening. And then how imminent is that danger to them? You know, Todd doesn’t matter whether you’re alone or not. You’re in trouble.

Craig: Mhmm. Yeah. And I don’t know. I mean, it’s a scary clown chasing you is scary. But, like, just these things that are supposed to be inanimate then you know having moved, spooked me out.

Todd: Well and the other thing is the fact that he’s got it on camera.

Craig: Yes. And I

Todd: think this is the only time that this at least that they talk about it. But immediately after this, everybody reviews this footage. Right. On the camera. And and that would get because that was the first thing going through my mind too was, well, he’s got it on the camera. Please tell me. They go back and look at it. And sure enough, they do, and they just accuse him of pulling a prank. Right. Maybe that is supposed to kind of write off that’s, like, the handy explanation for why there isn’t much reviewing of the camera afterwards. Because a lot of other stuff that goes down, obviously, all of it on camera because we see it, and there’s no real good explanation why they’re just not getting more and more freaked out by him continuing to come to them and say look, this other thing happened, Check out this other thing. I felt like that might have been a bit of a weak point of the movie.

Craig: Oh, yeah. If I had any complaints about it, that would be it. Like, they the fact that all of these things keep happening and they just kind of keep writing them off. Now, I think that, ultimately, I’m trying to save it because there’s a part where they, like, comes up. Yeah. Especially Alex just keeps trying trying to brush everything off. Like, it’s nothing. It’s nothing. It’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it. Right. But but, seriously, if it were me, no. I’m out. Like Yeah. Have fun, guys, if you wanna stay here and get killed, but I’m out.

Todd: You’re right. I mean, at some point, the the movie does I mean, and that bothered me too. At some point, the movie does delve into that ridiculous territory of all of this incredibly creepy and almost undeniable stuff is happening, yet they’re still gonna go to sleep and live in this house and put this attraction. I mean Yeah.

Craig: Oh, yes. I agree. And then just scary things continue to happen. There’s a really cool part where, Tony is, testing the lighting and the effects and Paul is filming and there’s a strobe effect and, like, he’s just shooting down this hallway and there are 3 dummies at the end of the hallway. Scary dummies. If I were in a haunted house, I’d find them scary. But, like, as the strobe keeps happening, one of them keeps appearing and disappearing, and they keep moving just slightly.

Clip: Yeah.

Craig: And it’s it’s freaky as shit. But again, it’s another one of those moments, like, bye, like I’ve got this on camera, but it’s also another moment that I appreciate because that’s just good editing, you know, like it it you’re an editor. I’m not, but I can only imagine that it would be easy to edit frame by frame strobe shots and just, you know, edit in the shots where he is there and then edit the shots where he’s not there, but it’s it’s really scary.

Todd: It was true to the way a strobe would appear on a camera too. It’s you’re not gonna see because the cameras have what’s called a rolling shutter, you know. I mean, the screen draws from top to bottom. So, if there’s a quick enough flash of light, one frame is only maybe gonna be, like, the bottom half of it is gonna be lit. Or the top half of it’s gonna be lit. Because the flash was too fast for it to record across the whole, you know, frame. And so they really used that to their advantage, I think, in that you see this flash, and you see this character up there, and you’re waiting for the next flash, and that second flash comes, but it’s only the bottom half of the screen. Right? And then that next flash comes, and then it’s the top half of the screen again, and and he’s not there. And then it flashes again, and he’s not there. And then it flashes again, but you only see the bottom of the screen. And, I mean, it’s like it’s toying with you a little bit. You know, it’s kind of teasing you. Like, you know, it wouldn’t look that way in person. In person, you would see everything in front of you in front, you know, with every flash. But on the video, it’s really building that suspense by playing with that that aspect of technology. It was actually quite brilliant editing, I thought.

Craig: Well, in on video, it it makes you kinda question yourself, like, what am I seeing? Like like, is it changing? Like, you like, you you you feel like you saw something there before, but it’s so quick you’re not sure, but then they show they show it enough times that you’re like, yeah, something’s messed up. That in

Todd: and of itself is pretty ballsy, you know. The fact that they stay they linger in the scene for so long and have this happen multiple times. But it it’s effective because you want it. You know you’re looking for that confirmation yourself and they’re doing it and it could be something you know that’s that’s the sort of thing where you know, like, say, sinister. You know, you see the creepy character once, it scares you. You’re not gonna linger on it, you know. You’re not gonna show it again and show it again and show it again. You know, you’re gonna wait before you show it again, you know, several minutes. Whereas in this scene, they’re breaking that rule, yet it’s just scarier each and every time because it’s get you’re getting for more and more confirmation and you’re also like, why the hell is this guy still in the hallway?

Craig: But I kinda believed it because I believed that he was questioning what he was saying. Like, this can’t be right. Yeah. He’s even asked

Todd: in the midst of it. He’s like, how many dummies do we have at the end of the holiday? Yeah.

Craig: There’s another creepy part where they wake up in the middle of the night and Paul finds that creepy clown at the bottom of the skit the the stairs that lead up to their bedrooms and that’s scary. And then Mal, who is always very excuse me, Mac, who is always very skeptical, starts to move it back. But then they find Sarah just, like, standing in front of a wall chanting, or or at least I at first, I thought she was chanting. As they got closer to her and they could hear her better, I think that they were just playing the audio backwards, but it sounded pretty cool. But she freaks out when they wake them up, and then they turn around to go back upstairs and the clown is gone, and then one of the the prop clock chimes, which it shouldn’t, and there are candles lit that shouldn’t be and then the clown reappears somewhere and they freak out and they all run upstairs. The next day, we see Alex comforting Sarah briefly and then it says it’s just 3 days until the opening. And Paul is doing another one of his bedtime confessionals and he turns on the camera and immediately and this is something that I like. Oh gosh, it’s like it usually they make you wait for a scare, but it’s like this scene just begins and he just clicks on the camera and he’s looking right into it and he’s totally oblivious, but we can see that there is a creepy effing demon girl sitting right behind him in the room.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And and, like, he just sits there and does his confessional for a while until eventually he turns around and sees her and he freaks out as one would and then he hides under his blanket and then he peeks back under the blanket and she’s still there and now she’s looking right at him and she’s got,

Todd: like, these

Craig: these white demon y eyes. And so he goes back under the blanket and, like, this sounds so childish and stupid, but, oh my god, it was freaking me out. I was, like, just stay under the sheet.

Clip: I know. Just don’t look.

Todd: That’s what they get you is what you look.

Craig: And he does. He looks out 2 or 3 times, and every time he looks out, she’s a little bit closer. And, eventually, he looks out, and she’s right there. And the camera glitches and we hear him screaming. And the next thing we see is Tony finding the camera the next morning, but there’s no Paul. But Mac and Alex just think that Paul has flaked and taken off. They try to call him, but all they get is like some weird creepy feedback. But then in the middle of the night that night, they hear the piano playing and they think that it’s Paul playing a joke on them. So, Mal and or excuse me, Mac and Tony go down to investigate, and they can’t find Paul anywhere, but they’re still hearing things and they get down to the basement and the camera sees those 3 creepy clowns and then it pans away them for a second and then it pans back and they have all turned their heads and are looking right at them. And and and it it, like and it freaks Tony out. And eventually, they just get well, they first of all, they find Paul sitting seemingly catatonic against a wall and they they pull him out and put him Todd bed or whatever. And then Todd is done. This is the moment where I’m like, finally, somebody has some brains. Like, he’s like, no. I’m out. This is crazy. We cannot open to this public this to the public. We have to shut it Todd. And Alex and Mac are like, no, we can’t.’ But Tony’s like, ‘F you. I quit. I’m leaving.’ But Mac follows him out and says, just listen to what I have to say. And then we don’t hear what the explanation is. The next thing that we see is Tony, like, sitting in a field saying, I can’t leave. And then Mac comes into frame and he’s like, I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you sooner. Now, this was the thing that I had a major question about because I couldn’t figure out why he would stay.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And that’s that’s what the the question that led me to this Reddit thread was. Why did they stay? The filmmaker said originally it was much more fleshed out because it wasn’t found footage and there was a lot more way to explain it. He said there are hints. He says the fact that they had to leave the city, the fact that they are renting this broke down place, the fact that they can no longer afford animatronics and they have to just use stationary props. Apparently, Alex had somehow lost all their money and this was their last grasp hope. Okay. Right. Like, that they were in dire straits and this was it. If this didn’t work out, it was done. What the filmmaker went on to say is, in thinking about the development of the movie, he believes that everything is connected. The fact that Alex lost all the money was not a coincidence. It was somehow manipulated by whatever entity or force is going into this hotel to draw them there and then to draw more people there.

Todd: Interesting. Now that

Craig: yeah. That’s very conceptual and, you know, like Yeah. Had they tried to expand upon it further, I don’t know that it necessarily would have played out. But it did bother me because I I couldn’t imagine what Mac had said off camera that would have gotten Tony to stay. Because you couldn’t have said anything to me that would have got me to stay. No.

Todd: Yeah. I I couldn’t figure. I thought it’s for some reason had something to do with Sarah because there’s the whole boyfriend girlfriend thing and I I don’t know. I thought there was something weird going on there. But yeah, you’re right. I thought I missed something. I thought that maybe I was supposed to know or figure it out.

Craig: And I like the explanation. I mean, I think that’s really cool mythology, but nobody’s, you know, unless you, you know, dive into the rabbit hole of Reddit. You’re not gonna find it, but there it is, folks.

Todd: Well, thanks for digging it out for us, Craig. And and and bless you for digging and diving into the rabbit hole of Reddit. This is a place Sometimes we’re just better off not going down. That’s true.

Craig: Oh, man. Okay. So then this all leads up, to the big shebang. Everybody’s on edge. Paul is still catatonic sleeping, you know, they can’t do anything with him. The actors are kinda nervous. Everybody’s kinda nervous, and they’ve got a great big crowd and they tie Melissa up in the basement like she’s chained to the wall. Joey is is down there in the clown suit just in case things get out of hand, But then, all of a sudden, the walkie talkie start malfunctioning. And then, we start to see things from various video perspectives. Mac is wearing a headcam. We also start seeing clips from the original YouTube video, and I don’t know, there are a couple of other ways that they give us various

Todd: Conveniently recovered footage from a previous, haunted house goer, which which I thought, well, how did this somehow suddenly get put in there? Yeah.

Craig: I don’t know. Just roll with it.

Todd: He didn’t upload his to to YouTube as

Craig: well. And and we start seeing what we saw in the beginning. But then we start to see it, you know, with context and we start to see it from a different perspective. We see Sarah running through the house as we saw her before. We didn’t know who she was. And she says that she sought she thought that she saw Paul walking around the house. And the last time we had seen him, he had been in bed. Then we see Joey run out of the basement and run away. Then we hear Melissa screaming from the basement, get me out of here. This isn’t part of the show. And then we see chaos everywhere and then, again, you have to be watching closely, and and I don’t think that I noticed all of this the first time, but there are in just brief glimpses of these fast moving camera takes, there are robed figures, there are demonic figures, Melissa, who was once where she was supposed to be, all of a sudden is gone. There are people running around, doors slamming and locking. We see the same ghost girl that Paul encountered before. The basement door slams and then seemingly the last ones together are Mac and Sarah and they run upstairs and they see Alex hanging in the attic and he’s still alive. So Mac runs and tries to help him, but he’s attacked by one of these demons or roamed figures and it’s all so fast Like, you really don’t get to see much and the camera falls and you hear Sara scream and then it cuts back to the documentary where they are interviewing Sarah.

Clip: I came down, came down the stairs from the attic, and when I got to the front door, the police were arriving. Happy to be alive. They didn’t ask me any questions or anything. They just rushed me out. Nothing happened to you from the attic all the way to the front door. You just left. Yeah.

Todd: And then she basically, says that she wants to leave or she’s tired. She wants to go. Sarah suggests well, has also suggested why don’t they go to the house? Mhmm. Have you been there? And they’re like, well, no. It’s boarded up and, you know, we don’t we try to get permits, but they failed. She’s like, well, you should go. You should go and see for yourself. At this point, this is kind of found footage from the documentary we’re getting into because they set the camera down as Sarah leaves. And as Sarah leaves, she said, I’ll see you, I’m in room 2 c. And they’re okay. So they set the thing down and there’s an argument between the cameraman and the and the woman, and they ended up deciding to go. And as they go go to leave, they swing by the hotel that they’re staying in where they had presumably had the interview, and tell the different desk clerks, hey. Tell the woman in room 2 c, that we’ll be back soon. And the woman says, well, our our rooms don’t have letters. And she’s like, oh, well, just tell Sarah so and so or whatever. And she looks on the computer and is like, there is no Sarah so and so checking in here. And then, she says, oh, well, he he she must have just checked in under a different name. That’s okay. Goodbye. And of course, we’re going, oh, crap. You know, you can see where this is going, like, you know, a mile away. So I liked that foreshadowing. And they do. They go back to the house and, they go around through it and they see all these sites. And I have say, like, I thought this was neat too. I mean, you could really get in the spirit of things with them because you’re reminded that all of this stuff that you have just been watching actually happened at least 5 years ago. Right? Right. And so they’re going through the house with the same glee that the previous people were going through to see, you know, kind of everything intact from the old hotel. They’re seeing this crime scene Todd, you know, everything’s still intact. Oh, look. There’s the blood smear. Oh, there’s the wall. Oh, you know, here’s the stuff from the video footage we saw, and here’s the stuff from the YouTube video. And, yeah, oh, here’s where the strobe light would have been and all this stuff. And and they decide not to go into the basement, but instead they go up to the attic.

Craig: Right. But but wait but wait. Before we see them go there, we get another scroll on the or or text on the screen that says, after they left, the guy who was reviewing the video footage saw something that he couldn’t explain. That’s right. It’s important because what he sees after they leave is Sarah runs downstairs, but she doesn’t get it outside. She runs into Paul who grabs the camera from her and bludgeons her with it and then we see, you know, she’s on the floor bleeding and gasping and we hear ominous footsteps and we see some unknown entity drag her away, and then we see Paul cut his well, we don’t see it, but we see the aftermath of it. Cut his own throat and Paul Todd the ground. So, we know that something messed up is going on, and I liked the, you know, it’s just a little gag. When we then cut back to them in the hotel, they’re looking around, Diane, the lady, her phone rings and she looks at it and she’s like, oh, it’s just so and so. I’ll call him back. Like Yeah. Girl, you shoulda answered that call. Yeah. Then anyway, alright. Continue.

Todd: And so she goes up the stairs, and as soon as they open the door, they’re faced with door 2 c. Mhmm. And she says, wait a minute. She said she would meet us in room 2 c. And, of course, the cameraman’s flipping out. He’s like, we are not going in there. She says, well, this is what we came here to do. And she goes up and unlocks. So there’s, like, a latch from the outside here of this door. So nobody could have gone into that room and relatched it from the outside. So she opens up the latch and they enters the room, and there with her back to us sitting on the bed is Sarah. And she’s like, Sarah, what are you doing here? Sarah, what’s going on? And, Sarah turns around.

Craig: She’s bloody as we had seen her after she had been bludgeoned. She’s all bloody and they freak out. And finally, the girl’s like, let’s get the f out of here. Yeah. Even though the cameraman has said that, like, 3 times before this. So they turn around to go, but the door slams and it’s locked and they can’t get out. And the camera just very quickly turns back, and Sarah is standing there. And, again, it’s just these black robed figures standing next to her and then the camera glitches and drops to the ground, and then it comes back on and the room is empty, as though nothing had happened. And then we just hear the piano playing again. And, you know, that’s something else the director talked about. What what he said was that this house is some sort of entity. He and and he kept saying that that guy, whoever owned it, I don’t remember what his name was, Tully, had thought that he was opening a doorway to hell, but the the director kept saying whatever he opened down there was trying to draw people in and and when the lady on the 911 college said there’s something in the wall- there’s something dragging people into the walls, That’s that’s what was going on. And, when we, you know, Sarah had been killed. We saw that. We saw her get dragged away. When the documentary people came back in, they saw the trail of blood went into the wall. Like it didn’t continue going down, but it went into the wall. And people were asking, well, you know, what happened to the camera guy Paul? You know, why did he come back? You know, why what was up with Sarah? Why was she back? And he said the they came back, but they weren’t themselves. They were either some possessed version of themselves or they were just some form of this entity that was there to draw other people in. That is why Sarah contacted the documentarians. They didn’t find her. Yeah. They didn’t find her. She found them and she brought them in. Paul came back, aided the house in bringing more people in and bringing the rest of them in. There was another Easter egg that I didn’t see at all, when those last documentarians were in there for the last minute. Apparently, at one point, if you watch closely enough, and I wasn’t because I didn’t see it, the camera scans one way and you see one of the horror house dummies in the corner and then it scans back and apparently the dummy has been replaced by Alex who is there watching them.

Todd: Wow.

Craig: Yeah, and I I didn’t see that. But and you know, it’s little things like that. This movie I I wouldn’t say that it’s one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, but I really enjoyed it. And I would say that it’s definitely one of the better found footage movies that I’ve ever seen.

Todd: Yes.

Craig: It spooked me out. And I think, you know, the first time I watched it, I was I was in a hotel room with my mom. I was in a pretty safe space, but, you know, I was watching it in the dark. It was late at night and these The things that they did with their scares, I found really effective. I thought it was really effectively spooky and creepy and scary. I would recommend this movie to people, you know, anybody who’s looking for a good horror movie to watch. I would say check this out. It’s it’s a good one.

Todd: I I completely agree. And I was watching it. I don’t I I normally try to set the mood. So I know you’re always just in your computer in between classes, you know, grading papers while you watch these things. But, anyway, I, you know, try to dim the lights. Usually, there’s nobody in, and so, you know, I’m trying to get the full effect, and, you know, so often it’s just, you know, we’ve we’re so numb to this stuff now that, you know, we just have to kind of objectively look at these things when we talk about how scary they are. But I was I was literally sitting in my living room with this laptop in my lap, and my son running around playing, and my wife, bless her heart, was trying to distract him so I could finish the movie. And, I was still, like, getting freaking chills, and there were couple moments that just, like, really jolted me, and that rarely happens anymore.

Craig: Mhmm.

Todd: And and there was there was also a key moment where there was a jump scare, and he dropped one of his toys at the exact same moment. And I almost sprung off of the sofa. That was how into it. And that was toward the end of the movie. I mean, that’s how into it I was. You know, like I said, it’s not a perfect movie. I think you filling in the gaps here really deepened my appreciation for it, for sure. Without that, there were just some things that I just had major questions about. And, again, you know, we talked about how so much of it’s a lot of it’s kind of implausible, the fact that they even stay in there at all. But, but but the at the end of the day, there’s some really really effectively scary scenes in here that really take you by surprise, and that’s rare. You know, it’s rare for us to experience.

Craig: Yeah. And the supposedly, there’s a sequel in the works which I kinda think is a bad idea. Like, this is one of those it’s like, you know, just here well enough alone. But, you know, I could be surprised. So, more power to you whatever. Again, and and thanks to Jordan for pointing it out. Even though I’d already seen it, I still appreciate that. She tags us and stuff all the time and I appreciate

Clip: that. Yeah.

Craig: Check it out, folks. If you haven’t seen well, if you haven’t seen it, you pretty much seen it now. Yeah. We we kinda spoiled the

Todd: whole thing for you, I’m afraid. And then, if you like this movie or this movie sounds interesting to you and, you want a movie that we haven’t spoiled yet, check out The Innkeepers. Yeah. Because it is, it’s not

Craig: Have we not done that one yet?

Todd: No, we haven’t. No.

Craig: Oh, man.

Todd: I really, really dig that film. So, oh, maybe we should do it, yeah, soon. Because it it this this is in a similar vein, or a similar subject matter anyway. Slightly different take, but I thought just as effective as far as the subtlety, of the scares.

Craig: Yeah. Alright. Well, thank you for listening to another episode of 2 guys in the chainsaw. If you liked this episode, let us know. If you have any further insight that we missed, we would love to hear it. And if you would like to hear any of our previous episodes, you can find us everywhere, Stitcher, Google Play, iTunes. We will be back around probably next week with another movie, and until then, I am Craig And I’m Todd. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

A team of people follow an ancient secret path through the catacombs of Paris to find the mythical philosopher’s stone that turns base metals into gold. Filmed in the actual catacombs of Paris! So much promise, but what a letdown.

Episode 129, 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: This week, we chose the 2014 film As Above, So Below. This is a movie that has been on my list for a while and, Craig, actually, you chose it from our list of films. I’m curious what drove you to this particular one this week? I know we were kind of at a last minute dash to find something, quick, But this was on our list, and you picked it out. What what made you decide, this is the one for this week? I’m not accusing you. Let me put it that way. Because, on paper, by the way, this movie looks like it would be fantastic.

Craig: It does and okay, so that’s the thing like I remember that ad campaign when it came out and like the preview looks pretty good and yeah, like you said it was kind of a last minute Todd. We were trying to figure out, you know, what we’re gonna do and before Todd moved to China, he had me make a list of things that we might potentially wanna do and he kinda tried to load up a hard drive of movies for me, and the reason that I picked this one was because it started with an a.

Todd: Oh my god. And it was really early on the list. You just gave up. Right? You just pulled up the window. You’re like a guy taking a random stab at a Chinese menu hoping, like, he’s gonna get something good.

Craig: Pretty pretty much.

Todd: Wow. Success or failure, Craig?

Craig: Oh, man. Gosh. I have to tell you, seriously like the preview looks good and, I I can see how they could edit together pretty good preview from this movie because there are some interesting visuals. It’s certainly enough to fill a 1 minute trailer and that’s about

Todd: dude, I hated this movie. Oh, man.

Craig: Oh, I hated it. I thought it was we’ll get into the specifics, but

Todd: I just thought it was, like, one of the stupidest movies I’ve ever seen in my life. Now Oh, it was horrible. I don’t remember who put this on the list. I had this feeling when we started that it was me. Do you think it was you?

Craig: I think it was me. I don’t know. I you can have the credit for it.

Todd: I don’t. I’m not passing around blame. I’m certainly not gonna take credit. I’m pretty sure though, however, I at least okay. So you saw the trailers for it. I know that I must have at some point whether you put on the list and I looked it up afterwards or whether I put on the list because it looked intriguing to me. I remember being really intrigued by the write up of the premise to this movie that these this group of people descend into the catacombs of Paris to find the Philosopher’s Stone and follow this sort of Dan Brown esque series of clues, in order to get to it. And and to me, I mean, you know, that’s Indiana Jones. That’s Tomb Raider. It just seemed really, really cool. And so I kept remembering this movie again and again. Oh, we need to watch that. We need to watch that. We never did. And I was really excited to put it on this time. And then as soon as it came on, I realized this was gonna be a found footage movie. Mhmm. Yeah.

Craig: And I know you’re not a huge fan. Everybody Todd I know

Todd: that you’re not fan at all. But I’ve been but truly, in the act of doing this podcast, we have discovered some really good found footage movies, including

Craig: That’s true.

Todd: A movie by the director of this film. John Eric Dowdle, who wrote the screenplay and, directed this film along with his brother, Drew Dowdle, who wrote the screenplay. They did quarantine, and as I remember, we loved quarantine.

Craig: Wait. Did they do quarantine, or did they do wreck? Wasn’t quarantine a remake of wreck? Oh. I think you’re there.

Todd: Your your keyboard. That’s hilarious. So wait a second. We watched wreck, and we love Yeah.

Craig: Which is a great movie, and quarantine is just okay, which doesn’t surprise me that they that they did that movie too. That explains so much. Yeah. Okay. So the the thing about this is it should be super cool, because these apparently are the only folks who’ve ever been given permission by, I don’t know, the French government or the authorities, whomever it is, to actually film in these catacombs in Paris, which exist. They’re real, you know, they’re down there. Oh, yeah. And and it’s where, you know, I gosh. I I really don’t know the history. I’m sorry, folks. I didn’t do any research on this movie at all, but I guess, you know, these they had such a problem with disposing of their dead, I guess. Like, they didn’t have anywhere to put them, so they they built these huge catacombs underneath the city of Paris, and there are just, like, hundreds of thousands of bodies down there and and they’re there. And just like I I Bones. I imagine yeah. Just like, bones. You can tour

Todd: them and look at them and Yeah.

Craig: And and it they’re you know, it’s not like a a nice little American cemetery where everybody has, you know, their own plot or whatever. You know, like, it’s just piles, mounds of bones and bodies. As morbid as that is and, you know, they’re actual people down there, I don’t want to trivialize it or anything, but it’s

Todd: it’s cool. You know, it’s

Craig: a it’s a cool place. It’s a cool concept. It should have been a really cool movie, but, Todd. I just

Todd: Oh. I hate it. The other cool part about it though is the notion. Okay. So it’s a little stereotypical in that I shouldn’t say stereotypical. It’s a little derivative in the way that it kind of starts, and that is in one sense a knock on the movie, but it’s also what I was looking forward to. If you like this sort of thing like I do, the Indiana Jones, the Todd Raider, the Dan Brown type stuff, then you think you’re just gonna love this movie. It stars this woman named Scarlett Marlowe,

Craig: which the name

Todd: is a little silly, who is an

Craig: Is that her is that the actress’s name?

Todd: No. That’s the name of the character, Scarlett Barlow. Oh my god. Who would actually name their child Scarlett Barlow? No. The actress is Perdida Weeks, and, you know, she’s older than she looks, actually, in this movie. She’s in Ready Player 1. She was Kiera in Ready Player 1 that just came out. Oh. But she goes back to, like, Spice World. She was in Spice World. She’s done quite a bit of TV. Actually, I I I really liked her. One of the things I could say about this movie is I didn’t think that she was terrible in this. I didn’t think she was fantastic, but I wasn’t offended by her performance.

Craig: Fair enough, but, like, she’s supposed oh, gosh. She’s supposed to be, like, she’s got, like, 7 PhDs. Yeah.

Todd: Well, her character for sure.

Craig: Yeah. Ridiculous. It’s it’s ridiculous. I mean, you say she’s older than she looks. I don’t have any idea how old she is, but she looks like she’s about 24. And, you know, I don’t wanna be, you know, terribly critical. She’s lovely. She’s a a very pretty lady, but, like, no.

Todd: I don’t believe this for

Craig: a second that you are some genius 7 times PhD. False. Don’t buy it. Yeah. Just get down into the catacombs already.

Todd: She has a British accent. She is such a Lara Croft rip off. It’s kinda funny. And Todd down to the fact that, apparently, she’s super rich, and she has a father who was an academic who was searching his whole life apparently for this philosopher’s stone, ended up killing himself. You you hear all about this just kind of in the first few minutes of the movie because they’re interviewing her. Right? Right. Found footage thing. And she’s a scholar, and, like, one of her degrees is in symbology, which I don’t think exists, but, you know, that’s the same thing that the Dan Brown character supposedly has a you know, is a specialist in, and she studies alchemy or

Craig: Yeah. I mean, it’s a real thing. Like No. Of course, it’s not.

Todd: It’s, like, stupid. I mean, that might be something that, like, somebody specializes in if they’re a history major.

Craig: Yeah. It just I I’m sorry. Like, I’m so naive, but, like, they are looking for this Philosopher’s Stone that was invented by Nicholas Flamel. I legit thought that that was all just made up Harry Potter stuff.

Todd: I was like, is

Craig: this a Harry Potter movie? I didn’t know that these were actually real things and real people. Yeah. But, yeah, that’s what she’s looking for. And, apparently, like, the philosopher’s stone, it can turn base metals into Todd, and so it can grant you all these riches. And then I I guess it’s, like, the also the key to immortality or something. Yeah.

Todd: And and, like Well, the stupid thing about it is if you were truly a scholar and have all these PhDs of all these things, you would know this is bullshit. Like Yes. You might be interested in finding some stuff that Nicholas Lamel did or maybe some of his lost papers or something, but you wouldn’t actually believe that such a thing would exist.

Craig: Yeah. And I’m jumping around and I apologize, but, like, she she hooks up with this friend, you know, like, they obviously have some history which is alluded to early on and then, you know, kinda gets flushed out later. Like, they have some sort of, like, romantic history or whatever, this guy named George. And, she she gets George to help her because, apparently, these inscriptions that she’s found it starts out with her, like, she’s looking for something in Iran and, like, it’s a big idea a big deal that she’s there because it’s illegal for her to be there as a woman or something. But she she finds these inscriptions, but they have to be translated. I didn’t even understand what, like, they weren’t in Aramaic, but they had to be translated through Aramaic or something. And, like, Aramaic is the one language that she doesn’t speak, and so she gets her friend George to do it. And so they end up, like, you know, she gets him and, he’s reluctant, like, no. I’m not doing it. He’s like, okay. Fine, I guess, because you’re cute or whatever.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And what made me so mad, Todd, this this is the thing that infuriated me about this movie is that he translates this stuff out of Aramaic. Yeah. And it rhymes I don’t in English. I don’t It doesn’t even make any sense. I don’t. I had my head

Todd: in my hands at that point. I said, are you freaking kidding me? No. You’re absolutely right.

Clip: Winged vulture leads the way with, with brightest light in darkest day. Underneath the heaven’s Craig, what is lost shall be regained. Halfway ‘twixt the darkest gate, and this tablet laid atop a parid fate.

Todd: And but, you know, this kinda gets to the point of why this movie just doesn’t click is because this should not be a found footage film. This is where, you know, if you have very little money, but you have this awesome idea for this amazing globe trotting adventure that, you know, culminates in the Paris catacombs with all these riddles and these clues and things like that. That’s a big budget globe trotting movie. Right?

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: And if you don’t have any money and you think, let’s save some money by making this a found footage film, you’re leading yourself down the wrong path, and this movie is the perfect example why this doesn’t work. And, also, unfortunately, it kinda lays bare how stupid all of these movies kind of are if you really try to think through them logically and put them in reality. Mhmm. The way that this movie starts with her going in, it’s kind of exciting. She finds a thing or whatever. And then she’s having this dialogue with a cameraman about Mhmm. Like, the thoughts off the top of her head about how it’s in how it’s in Aramaic and whatever. And he’s like, do you speak Aramaic? And she’s like, no. But I do know someone who does.

Craig: George does. Yeah. And, you know,

Todd: at this point in any other movie, you know, like an Indiana Jones movie or whatever. I mean, this is so cliche. Right? Suddenly, you’d be, like, whisking away, like, halfway across the globe. Yeah. And you’d immediately be thrown into some there’s there’s somebody working on some crazy ass thing somewhere else, right? Some hyper genius, whatever, who’s who has his own thing. And then the protagonist, the story comes in, and it’s clear that they have this this history that goes back that’s just implied by their dialogue. Right? Mhmm. And so, they try to do that same thing here, but because it’s a guy shooting all this with a handy cam, it doesn’t come off. Mhmm. So they go to this church, which is apparently where this dude is working, and the dude’s name is George. George. And she breaks in the door, and the guy’s like, dude, you’re you’re breaking in the church. What are you doing? She’s like, whatever. I gotta go up and see him. She climbs the stairs up to the top where this guy is working on these church bells. You know, he comes out and he’s played by an actor named Ben Feldman. And I was like, I know this guy. I I know this guy. Like, I’ve seen this. He was a really good character in something. He was in Mad Men. Did you watch Mad Men?

Craig: No. Oh, fantastic. Handsome, though. Oh, yeah. He is

Todd: he he looks like he could be, Robert Downey Junior’s, like, son or something, I think. Yeah. Todd looking guy. Yeah. He played, one of my favorite characters in Mad Men, Michael Ginsberg. Anyway, I was like, oh, yeah. It’s that guy. I really liked him, and I was kind of surprised to find a guy I recognized in this movie Todd be completely honest. And you know, he comes out and he’s all dingy and dirty and he’s like been working on the bells.

Clip: Hi. How are you? Whatever it is, I want nothing to do with it. It’s Sydney. This is Sydney. No. Who’s this guy? Who are you? I’m Benjie. Oh. He’s making a documentary about my search for this stone. Of course. Do yourself a favor. Stay far away from this one. I just need to ask you one favor. Just one favor. Benjie, did she mention to you the last time we were together, I literally wound up in a Turkish prison. Oh, George. It was not a prison. It was more of a jail.

Todd: But all this is filmed by, like, again, a guy, like, he’s filming some 2 people talking at a party. Mhmm. And then finally, like, the bells start ringing, and he runs outside, and he looks down. Like, he looks up in joy at the bells ringing, and the camera zooms down at some people who seem shocked at down in the street looking up. And she makes some comment like, oh, wow. They look so surprised. He says, yeah. That’s the look of these people who haven’t heard their bells, you know, their church bells ring in 500 years or something. So like he’s this amazing mill mechanical genius who Mhmm. Fixed the bells for them. And once again, in any other movie, this would have been like oh, yeah. You know, this guy’s cool. You know, it’s kinda punches it. But again, you’re just it just it just doesn’t feel cinematic.

Craig: No. And it and it plays out to nothing. Yeah. Like the fact that he, you know, has all this mechanical skill or whatever never comes up again. These characters and I feel like they tried to give them depth, like that actually is central to the plot in the end that they have these backstories. But it’s just it just seems so forced and, like, they they are just they’re so flat. And, like, that guy, the the I think it’s the guy who’s making the documentary. About what? I don’t know. Like, he’s just following this girl around with a camera. Benji, like, one would hope that he would be an interesting character, but he’s not. He’s just the guy behind the camera who follows them around. Like

Todd: You don’t even see him until halfway through the movie. Yeah. Seems like

Craig: And and so so then they hook up with, like, they have to find, I don’t know, some, like, cool, hipster I mean, what do you even say? I mean, like, they have to, like, oh, we have to find, like, the like, they go down into, like, a tour of the catacombs, like, a a touristy tour that you or I would go on, but that’s not good enough. Like, they have to, you know, go into the forbidden areas, and so they have to find, like, this cool guy at a club who, like, knows the catacombs. Like, what? Like like this like this 20 something club kid who, like, is just happens to be an expert. Like, he just hangs out down there. So, like, he just goes down there. Any sense. Yeah. And, like like, it it’s, like, maybe suggested that he’s kind of, like, a graffiti artist or something, because he tags everything where he goes and but it’s it’s so derivative and and stupid and then they introduced far too many characters. I I couldn’t even

Todd: Couldn’t even remember.

Craig: Like, I did no. I and I didn’t even know, like like Who all

Todd: was in the group?

Craig: Hour into the movie. An hour into the movie, I didn’t even know who all was down there with me.

Todd: I’m like, I don’t need Me too. I swear to you, there’s at one point toward the end when the there were only 3 of them left, and one of them walks away. And I was like, who was that guy?

Craig: Exactly. You don’t even know, and you don’t care. Like, well,

Todd: Todd doesn’t make sense. These people are far too young to have all these skills and knowledge that they’re purported to have. It’s one of those films where they walk through, and they’re solving these riddles and these puzzles as they’re getting deeper and deeper into the catacombs, and they’re able to call up ancient texts and verses and things at the drop of a hat between the 2 of them. You know, like there are 2 people who are, you know, in the middle of studying for an archaeology exam or something like that and and reviewing and finishing each other’s sentences for them. Like, they’re so in sync. Like, maybe one of these people could be crazy ridiculous antisocial enough that that’s their whole life, but, like, for 2 of them to be that way. You know, he pulls out a map of the catacombs, and he sits down, and he’s like, well, such history says that such and such happened here, and then there was this cave in here, so it must be here. And then another person chimes in, well, it could be there because I know that this leads to there and this doesn’t lead to there. And then the dude who knows the tunnels is like, but there’s nothing there. It’s like, what? I could find a way and, you know, just Todd kind of all comes so cleanly together in the course of Yeah. 30 seconds.

Craig: That was the other that was right, that was the other thing that was so frustrating. Like, supposedly, you know, they get down there and they’re gonna find these secret passageways that nobody’s been in for, like, 600 years or whatever, but it takes them absolutely no effort whatsoever. Like, any at any point when they come across something, like, oh, this is mysterious. Oh, I just figured it out, like Yeah. Like like, in 3 seconds. Like, there’s no way that nobody else has been down there if it was that freaking easy to find. Right.

Todd: They’re walking. It’s so stupid. The worst part that they have to do is they have to crawl over some bones, which they make this huge deal about how they have to crawl over these bones. There are bones all around them. They’re in the catacombs. These people are students of history and supposedly super smart. How are they suddenly getting freaked out by this this knowledge that apparently that they just realized they’re gonna have to crawl over some bones? So it’s either go through this one tunnel, which has been sealed up, which they’d have to break through or crawl over some bones. The guy who knows the catacombs says, we need to crawl over the bones. The woman says, who suddenly knows the catacombs better than this guy who they needed to get down there Mhmm. Says, no, this is the much shorter way. And he says, we can’t go that way. Well, why not? Because it’s evil. It’s evil. It’s an it’s an evil corridor. The evil corridor. Right? He had a friend who went down there.

Clip: We had a friend named Latope. In English, Latope say, the mob. He lived down here for years. He knew every corridor of every system except this one. He knew there was something horrible down there. But eventually, he had to see what it was. He went inside and nobody has seen him since.

Craig: Right. Oh my god.

Clip: And and,

Craig: you know, here’s another thing where it it it really should have been a very cool premise. Now I again, I’m not very schooled in this area. I’ve I’ve never read Dante’s Inferno. Like, I know, you know, the general things about it, like the 9 circles of hell or whatever. But in okay. I lied. I said I didn’t do any research.

Todd: I did read You’re gonna bring this up, aren’t you?

Craig: I know. I did read the IMDB trivia briefly because it was long and I didn’t care. But, so, like, supposedly, you know, like, they’re supposed to be descending through the 9 levels of hell, and when you read about it in the IMDB trivia, it sounds interesting, but it doesn’t read in the movie at all. Like, I I didn’t get that at all. No. When they’re down there, they keep seeing weird things, but because it’s all, you know, handheld camera, it’s all found footage, like you just get these very very brief glimpses of like spooky things. For for, you know, a split second I saw a creepy kid in the corner or for a split second I saw some guy that we’ve never seen before sitting in a chair like, but in watching the movie, I had no idea what was going on. I, you know, I had no idea who that was supposed to be and it was so fast and it was so dark and

Todd: And it didn’t matter.

Craig: No. And and it didn’t and it didn’t really play out very much at all. I mean, eventually, what happens is, like, supposedly. And again even in reading about it, I’m like, oh, that’s what was going on? Like, I guess, all of these people in descending through these 9 layers of or levels of hell or whatever, they all have some sin that they’re concealing. They have to either acknowledge it or and repent for it or they die. And so some of them die and some of them don’t. And Yeah.

Todd: And and none of that is even remotely obvious or even No. Remotely necessary to start thinking about until the last 10 minutes of the movie. Right. So unless you go back and you read the trivia on the IMDB page about how all of these interesting connections to Dante’s Inferno, you would never know. And like you said, it doesn’t even matter. Mhmm. And that’s one of the problems with this movie. It’s I’m just thinking, like, okay. Take a damn broad. Take, like, angels and demons. Right? Mhmm. Part of the fun of that movie, there’s, like, this path of the Illuminati that they’re following. Right? And they’re going to all these different sculptures and places around Venice like that’s the point of the film right and you’re learning about it along with the characters and so you’re able to kind of solve these puzzles and and maybe try to get ahead of them or try to piece things together, at least, you know, there’s a satisfying aspect of going through the mystery with them. Sure. What’s the point of basing this on Dante’s 7 layers of hell or whatever if if you as the viewer can’t kind of go through this? You know, there’s no point in this movie where anyone says and and a good point would have been when they go through an area that says abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Clip: Mhmm.

Todd: You know, they even make mention. Is this the gateway to hell or whatever? And you’re kinda thinking that maybe that’s the direction this movie is going. These PhDs and 5 different things who seem to know everything about everything else could have started piecing together this aspect of the mystery of of what’s happening and maybe making mention of it. And I actually kinda would’ve gone along with it. You know what I mean? I would’ve I would’ve respected the movie more if that wasn’t some fun little writer’s thing that Mhmm. That they just kind of did and hid from the audience as opposed to it could have been an aspect of the plot that would have pulled me through it and kept me engaged and kept me interested and that there’s a it would have at least given me a reason for all this stuff that’s going on. But like you said, it just seems like a like a bunch of random crap. Yeah. And and

Craig: it’s derivative. You know?

Todd: It’s just Yeah.

Craig: And I don’t know if we were supposed to be, like, I believe Dante’s

Todd: Inferno enough to be able to

Craig: put that together. Right. Like, I I can’t even tell if we’re supposed to be in on it. I can’t tell if the characters are in on it. Like, I didn’t get the sense that they even really understood what was happening. To be fair, I guess there are some interesting visuals, but you can’t just throw together of, I mean, I guess you can. They did. You just throw together, you know, a few interesting visuals and then, like, try to tie that together and call it a plot because it’s just not, like

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And and because it’s so obscure and you’re really not sure what’s going on and and they try to explain things, but I feel like they explain things after the fact. Mhmm. They’re in these underground catacombs and part of them are underwater. So they have to, like, you know, swim around in these catacombs and stuff. Again, it sounds great on paper, but it’s just boring. When they’re underwater, like, you know, some spirit or something grabs somebody. And then we find out later that somebody’s George’s, I think, brother drowned, and that’s what he feels guilty about because he left him behind, not intentionally, like, he was going to get help or whatever, but he got lost. And so, like, that’s his sin, like, he abandoned his brother or whatever. And at at at some point, there’s, a car on fire and somebody burning up in the car, all of this down in the catacombs, which again, like, should like, they took a freaking car down into those catacombs and set it on fire. Like, that should have been super freaking cool, but it was just so random, like, what is happening? Yeah. I don’t even understand.

Todd: I felt like the supernatural stuff almost was more of a let down than the stuff that preceded it. You know, we we talk about the descent and how much we’d love the descent. Yeah. And I think at least I and I think both of us maintain that some of the scariest stuff that happens in the descent is before the monsters even come out.

Clip: Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It’s just

Craig: the atmosphere. It’s

Todd: the atmosphere, it’s the the claustrophobia, the the cave ins, this I mean, the fact they can’t get back and and they’re trying to get I mean, it’s just it’s just super messed up and you can totally relate to it. They’re in the catacombs under France and somehow they manage Todd make this seem boring like Mhmm. Like you’re just wandering around through a haunted house. And at at first, I was I was trying to get into it. I was thinking it was gonna be kind of like the descent in that the first half was gonna be these puzzles and these clues that they had to piece together. Second half would be supernatural, but I probably enjoy the first half the most, you know, like

Clip: Mhmm.

Todd: Like a computer adventure game, like these puzzles. But that just highlighted how lousy this whole first of all, I think the scale of it. If you’re gonna do a movie like this where you’re going in and there are these ancient people who’ve built all these these clever traps and these these puzzles and things to hide, you know, their treasure, It’s gotta be at a bigger scale.

Clip: Mhmm.

Todd: I think I’m convinced Todd that now. It just has to be there’s gotta be a point where you wander into a giant room that’s that’s 15 stories tall that’s hidden under the earth that nobody’s seen for 100 of years that with things you gotta swing across and crapple, you know, 1 eyed Willie ship or whatever. Mhmm. The the pit, the snake pit in Indiana Jones, like, you’ve gotta have big set pieces like that. And this movie doesn’t have anything like that. And so it’s quote unquote big set pieces when they’re going through. It’s just like another room.

Craig: Well, and that’s the thing. I mean, gosh. I I’m I’m not going to try to give this movie too much credit, but maybe that was some sort of, gosh, a limitation

Clip: Sure.

Craig: Based on what they had available because, you know, they really were down there. Maybe and, you know, as cool as it is that they were really down there, maybe it would have been wise of them to film what they could down there and then also have some big set pieces. Because ultimately, like, they’ll go into a room and then they’ll crawl over some bones or, like, swim, you know, through a flooded tunnel or something. And then it’s like, look, We’re back in the same room we were just in. Yeah. You are. And that’s not at all interesting. That is boring as hell. Yeah.

Todd: And then they’ll go into these rooms, and there’ll be some riddle. It’s like, it’s a dead end. No. There’s gotta be a way. Look around. And there’s a scarab, like, carved in the wall. Scarab.

Clip: Egyptians. Pyramids. Pharoahs. Pharoahs. Pharoahs. Pharoahs. Didn’t pharaohs have some kind of, like, a strange way of of hiding the tombs? Yes. Yes. Did Ptolemaic hinge? I have never I’ve never seen could this be, one second? Can you just explain what I’m talking about? What’s a Ptolemaic? Ptolemaic hinge. Basically, they form a kind of riddle. It’s a sort of, ancient Egyptian padlocks. You have to take the exact right stone from the exact right place or Or what? The ceiling will collapse on you and kill you, Jesus. What? Great. Are you kidding? You have to be

Todd: shitting me.

Clip: Okay. It’s fine. It’s okay. Underneath heaven’s reign. It’s not heaven’s reign. Celestial spheres. The celestial spheres. 8 planets. Right? Wait. Wait. Did the last 2 weren’t discovered yet? Okay. So 6 planets. 6 planets. 1234 Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Scarlett. Scarlett. Scarlett. Scarlett. What? Don’t touch anything. Was this about before or after Copernicus?

Craig: And, like, all of this happens in the course of 10 seconds. Yes. Like Yes. I know.

Todd: And that just for me, that just highlights how this doesn’t work. Uh-huh. First of all, the room is, like, half the size of my bedroom. Yeah. Yeah. And second of all, they blow through it. It’s like, you know that scene in Indiana Jones where he puts the staff in and the light shines through and it shows them where to, you know, dig or whatever. It’s like if that scene instead of him, you know, creeping down there, coming up there, measuring the staff out, finding the right hole, putting it in, that beam of light comes in, you know, the music swells up, we get these dramatic angles and as the sunlight show slowly comes across and it’s just a really dramatic scene. It’s like if you took that and instead it was like 420 somethings who run-in and they’re like, oh, this must be the room. Yeah. This is it. Do you have the staff? Yeah. I got the staff. Well, good. I’ve got this thing. Maybe we should put on the staff. Yeah. Let’s do it. Okay. Which hold we put it? It’s number 4. Oh, no. No. No. No. Wait. Remember the ancient poem? Oh, yeah. It’s not 4. 4 is 5. That’s right. Put it in whole 5. Okay. Here we go. BMO light comes in. There it is. Let’s go.

Craig: Yeah. Even if they were that smart to figure it out, one would think that they wouldn’t be so reckless, like, and and that’s just it’s just so unbelievable. Like, it’s just so unbelievable. I get it. She’s excited, you know, she’s gonna find this magic rock that is amazing or whatever. Great, you’re super excited, but seriously, if nobody’s been down there for 700 years, what is your freaking hurry? Yeah. Take a minute. Like, maybe double check your work in this case before you just start ripping out, oh, well, you know, it’s just this one stone and if I pull out the wrong one, we’re all dead, but I’m pretty sure it’s this one. Come on. And the other people who are down there with her are are just idiots and like they no. Don’t do it. Oh, I get it. It’s fine. Thank goodness that worked.

Todd: That’s right. And it all just seems so lame because it shot through somebody’s handy cam.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. And and and their head, you know, like, he puts head cameras on them and I am not I like I I don’t hate found footage and in fact, I’ve recently watched some found footage movies that I thought were, you know, pretty creative. And especially if you’re working on a small budget, you know, it saves a lot of money. And it can be effective, but you’re right. It just didn’t work here and if this movie had been good, which I think that it had the potential to be, it wouldn’t have been found footage. It would have been, you know, more, traditionally shot and and I think that that could have made it better. As it turns out, it doesn’t really matter, because it was so poorly written. Like, Todd, I just can’t get over it. Sorry, guys out there, like, that I’m being so negative about it. But honestly, you know, we watch, a lot of movies that we go in knowing they’re going to be bad and that’s okay and and can even be fun sometimes, but it’s kinda like this movie just didn’t have any excuse. Like, you you seem like you’ve got a decent budget. You were given permission to actually go down into this historical site.

Todd: Cool concepts.

Craig: Yeah. You just failed miserably. Congratulations.

Todd: And and I have to say while we’re on the subject of the of the 4 of the format not working, this has to be another one of those where if I had seen it on a big screen, I would be losing my lunch. I mean, the camera whips around so much. Uh-huh. But I was watching on a small computer screen. Thankfully, I didn’t plug it into my bigger TV or else, I think, yeah, I would have had to take a few pauses in this one. And Todd doesn’t normally bother me too much, but in this case, it was just so obvious that it did bother me a little bit.

Craig: Well and the jerking around doesn’t typically bother me all that much and like I you know, it didn’t bother me in a physical sense in this movie either, but, as the camera was jerking around so much like I said before every once in a while you’ll just catch a glimpse of something that’s supposed to be scary, like something that’s not supposed to be there. And that happens all the time especially in these town footage movies, but it wasn’t scary because I didn’t have any idea what I was seeing. Yeah. And, like, there was little to no explanation and maybe in fairness, you know, by the time I was an hour in, I just so didn’t care that like I don’t care who that spooky kid is that I just saw in a quick flash. There’s a guy burning up in a car. Okay. Yeah. Next room, please. It comes Todd a lot

Todd: of left field and it’s not forecast. You know, in literature and in films, there is foreshadowing, and it’s done for a reason. Yeah. And this movie had no foreshadowing of anything.

Craig: No. And I I’ve said it before, and so I I hate to be redundant, but it it seemed like they tried later to explain things, but, like, it’s too late. Like Mhmm. It already happened. I don’t care now. I don’t even know how many of them were down there. I I think that it was the 2 it was George and Scarlett, and then they had the camera guy, Benjie. And then I think there were 3 others, but I kept getting There was another woman. The other 2 guys, there was, like one of them’s name was Papillon, which I thought was hilarious. Isn’t that kinda like a little dog? Yeah. Papillon, Suksy, and Zed. Yes. But I couldn’t keep trap track of them, and I I kept confusing Papion and Zed. They may as well have been the same character because I couldn’t distinguish them at all. When they’re down there, you know, like I said before, like, supposedly, they’re going through the 9

Clip: levels of Dante’s Inferno of

Craig: hell or whatever, and I get violently killed on the 4th level, which is supposed to be Violence. Violence. I yeah. I don’t know. I whatever. And Zed gets killed at some point I think and, Benji, gets killed at some point. And if you read online about the events that surround their deaths, like there’s supposedly some explanation for each one, but it went it flew right over my head. I had no idea, and the other thing that gosh, I I can’t believe I’m saying this because I don’t wanna admit that I was actually moved to irritation by this movie, but I was. Like like, they’re supposed to be down there, Like, they’re in France, and they’re supposed to be down there in, you know, these French catacombs or whatever, and they’re translating Aramaic for a long time. But then the further the deeper down they go, like, did they dig to Egypt? Because then all of a sudden everything is Egyptian.

Clip: Like, what? Yeah.

Todd: There’s just so many things that stretch credulity and you’re willing to give, I mean, you know, it’s a movie. So, of course, you’re willing to okay Yeah. Philosopher’s stone. Okay. So she finds this philosopher’s stone. Somebody gets hurt, and she holds the stone against the person and it heals. I will say that this is a really risky thing to do with the found footage movie. The very nature of found footage is a kind of realism.

Clip: Mhmm.

Todd: And so when ghosts and things are different, you know, because it’s like a supernatural we’re kind of unsure about. But but when you’re talking like real magic, it’s really hard to I think it just doesn’t really fit with this medium really well. And it just feels a little off when she does this. But I was willing to give it a bit of a pass. Okay. Well, I guess it’s the stone. I mean, there’s no special effects or anything. There’s no real

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. You know, I don’t know how they I don’t know how they did that. I mean, because, like, the first she heals, I I feel like Sukxie, like, breaks her arm or something, and and she heals it with the stone and, like, you know, in in one moment, the arm is, like, broken and bloody and then she, like, passes the stone over it and it’s fine. And and, yeah, I don’t know how they did that. You know, it was relatively convincing.

Todd: But again, it’s like, well, this is a this was Shouse, and that’s like, okay. Let’s go. You know what I mean? It’s like Yeah. It it’s not a big moment. It’s just something that happens, and they go on. Later on in the movie, they discover that she doesn’t have the real philosopher’s stone.

Craig: Yeah. Just kidding that I I accidentally grabbed a fake one.

Todd: Like So why did it heal her at at first? So it only works once?

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. Apparently, it’s a fake one that just works once. Like It’s like a trick fake stone.

Todd: It’s like those it’s like those birthday candles that you blow out, but they come back on

Clip: and you

Todd: blow out. But really? I mean, it’s just so lame.

Craig: Yeah. And I’m only saying that because I read it, like, I I in the trivia online, I read that. Well, the first stone that she finds is a fake one that only works once. Well, how in God’s name would anybody know that? Like, you know, I don’t know and maybe maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention because seriously, by that point, I was pretty much tuned out. I’m like, oh my god. Just be over already. I’m done.

Todd: And what sense does that even make? Like, you create a stone that could heal people, and then you’ll create a stone that’ll heal people once. I’m like, really kind of amazing. Like, that seems like it would be even harder to make than the stone that heals people all the time.

Craig: Yeah. At some point at some point when there’s only the 3 of them left, when it’s just Papillon and Suksi and George left, George gets hurt, and she’s like, oh, I just realized this isn’t the real stone. It’s a fake one, so I’m gonna have to run back and get the other one. And, like, she runs back. They have spelunked through this huge shaft I know. Then she climbs up like she’s a freaking American Ninja Warrior or something. And of its stuff. Yeah. And and just, like, runs back and grabs it. Like, they like, they’ve been making their way through these catacombs for the whole movie and there’s, oh, hold on a second. I have to run back, and she just runs back really quick. And I I don’t know if it was supposed to be symbolism or or what, but, like, she gets there and like she’s looking for the real stone and she can’t find it, but she finds a mirror and she looks at herself in the mirror. And again, just from reading the trivia, I read that the the the philosopher’s stone is not an actual concrete object, it’s inside you. Like, okay. Well, then I guess

Todd: you just wasted a whole

Craig: lot of freaking time down in those catacombs.

Todd: She just needed to look into a mirror and believe in herself. I think exactly what it said in the trivia. So she goes down, and now she is the philosopher’s stone. She can heal by the touch of her hand. Okay. So there there are 2 things that, okay, I laughed out loud. First of all, I was like, you’re you’re kidding me that she’s really just gonna blast through all this. I thought for sure that she was just gonna get more and more lost. Couldn’t believe that that actually happened. But a couple scenes before this, they had gone through this harrowing experience where they were these faces coming out of the rocks. Mhmm. And the whole reason that he’s injured is this big rock monster thing. Like, it’s like a guy. It looks like a rock person, rock zombie, or something comes out and attacks his friend. And so, as she’s running back through all this, she blast by Satan in the Satan chair. She blast by all this, and then, like, the rock monsters in front of her, and it’s like she just punches it or something. It falls down, and she runs past it like it’s just nothing. And then she comes back from the thing, and again, rock monster comes in. She just punches it and runs by.

Craig: It all happened so fast that I don’t I didn’t even know that. I didn’t even know what was going on. Like, I was I was reading the stuff online and they’re like, oh, and then there was Satan in the Satan chair. I’m like, there was?

Todd: Like, I feel like I didn’t even remember.

Craig: Gosh. It’s it’s so silly.

Todd: The other thing that’s so stupid is when they and, you know, he tells a story about his friend Todd or whatever who who went down there and they never saw him. You know, he was down there 2 years ago. And after they crawl through the bone shaft and two things happen. There’s another person down there, and it’s this guy. Yeah. And he’s like, you? You’re here? I thought you were dead.

Craig: Nope. I’m not. Okay.

Todd: We’ll follow you. Like, really? What the hell?

Craig: I know. Todd, there were so many things like that. Like, even when they very first go down there, one of the first things that they encounter is, like, some group of people holding, like, a black mass. And the guy who’s leading them down there is, like

Clip: There is always some weird people down here. Like,

Craig: oh, yeah. Don’t mind them. They’re just having a black mass.

Todd: They do that. They do that. It’s weird people down here like my friend for the past 2 years who Yeah. Just been wandering.

Craig: Yeah. So, some of them die, some of them don’t. And then eventually, like, they they get to another shaft, which I’m sure is just the same shaft that they’ve gone down, like, 4 times already. And somehow they figure out the girl, because she can just figure out anything at the drop of a hat, she’s, like, oh, we have to jump in there, and they’re, like, you’re crazy. It’s a big huge shaft. And they’re, like, no. She’s, yeah, we have to we have to confess our sins and then jump in there. No. Okay. I don’t know. George confesses that he, again, inadvertently left his brother to die, like he was gonna go get help, but he got lost. He didn’t get back in time, so that was his big sin. And Pap, says that he has a kid, but he has denied that it’s his, and that’s his big sin. What was hers? I don’t even oh, she her, her dad tried Todd her dad yeah. Her dad committed suicide and She didn’t take his phone call. Yeah. He had tried to call her, which I guess maybe explains the phone that was ringing down there in the catacombs at some point.

Todd: Oh, good point. Thank you for putting that together for me. Because and I’m thinking, you’re in hell. You’re supposed to confess your sins. How do you know which of your sins you’re supposed to confess? Yeah. Is each of these the the worst thing that they’ve done?

Clip: Are they

Craig: only supposed Todd confess 1?

Todd: Are they do they need to go through a laundry? Shouldn’t you do at least 2 or 3 in case those are the ones that matter?

Craig: And if if those are the worst things that they’ve ever done, they’re pretty decent people.

Todd: They’re really great. They don’t deserve to be going through hell in the first place. I’ve I neglected to take a phone call.

Craig: Yeah. Oh, gosh. So they confess their sins and then they jump in this hole and like it’s 10 seconds of what looks like falling and then they I don’t even know they end up in like some room or something and like I think the hole closes up behind them. So they’re kind of freaked out about that, but they realize that there’s some sort of hole in the floor, but it’s covered with what ends up being a like a manhole cover, but they’re trying and trying to pull it up, but it won’t come up and then they realize if they push it, it will go down and, like, when they push it, they can see light coming up or whatever. And again, in theory, this is kind of a cool concept, like, what happens is and I guess this comes from the inferno, you know after you jump down this pit in hell or whatever, then gravity is reversed, and that’s what happens to them. Like they’re pushing down, but when they come out on the other side, they’re actually coming up out of the ground. And they come up out of the ground apparently in Paris, apparently everything’s, you know, normal. I I kind of expect I expected it to be a fake out like

Clip: Uh-huh.

Craig: I I expected them to like be, you know, really stuck in some sort of hell world or something. I don’t know. But apparently, it wasn’t. And so, they just stand there and look at each other for a second, and then Pap just turns around and walks away. And George and Scarlet hug. Yeah. Yeah. And then it cuts back to the interview footage from the very beginning of the movie which was of no consequence. Yeah. Like, it was just it was a lame ending to a lame movie,

Todd: and I was glad it was over. Well, there was no character journey. There was supposed to be, I guess, they all came to terms with their sin, except they did it in the last 2 minutes. Mhmm. And until then, none of this was really leading them to that. This is just something that she figured out last minute, and they were all like, okay. I guess we have nothing better to do, so let’s do it. Mhmm. And we, as the viewer, could never have figured this out going through this. And everything that every single thing that we have been saying about Dante’s Inferno comes from after Craig and I watched the movie scratching our heads and looking to make some sense of this, went online, and went to the IMDB trivia page

Clip: Right.

Todd: Where I am sure the director of the film himself put all this crap in. Yeah. You know, You’d have to have a degree, you know, in 4 different Yeah. 4 different degrees in order to piece this together that it has anything because the movie itself makes no mention of it.

Craig: Yeah. I I mean, I know that you’re not very smart, but I think of myself as being a relatively intelligent and fairly well educated person. For sure. And and, you know, I would never count myself an expert in that arena, but seriously like if if I was supposed to get it, I I totally missed it. Like, I I had no idea I would have never made that connection and

Todd: Well, even if you had made the connection, what difference would it have made? It’s fun trivia aside from the fact that, okay. I guess the whole movie was these people making a journey through hell. The details of it really didn’t end up mattering. It’s just some stuff they saw.

Craig: Yeah. But even then, like, if if that’s the case, like, if that’s what they were going for, like, they were going through these 9 levels of hell, like, it it didn’t seem that particularly hellish. It just looked like they were walking around in some tunnels. Yeah. And again, like, the the the catacombs, you know, that’s a a cool thing and, yeah, we actually got to see some of the bones and stuff sometimes, but most of the time it just kinda looked like they were walking around in the sewer, like Could

Todd: have been anything.

Craig: That’s not good enough. Yeah.

Todd: You didn’t even see a lot of bones and skeletons. I mean, I experienced a lot of stuff, and, you know, it’s just it was just rock walls. And a lot of it looked exactly the same. I mean, they were probably going through the same areas. In fact, they were marching. Sure they were. Yeah. So what a lot of potential completely wasted, you know.

Craig: I’m glad that you at least felt the same way that I did because I just when it was over, I was just Todd, that was bad, like, I just didn’t like it at all, and it’s and it it is too bad, you know, it did have a lot of potential. It, I’m not even I’m not even gonna do my normal thing

Clip: where I’m

Todd: like, well,

Craig: the act the acting wasn’t horrible. Like, I’m not even gonna bother with that. It was just bad. Listeners, if you haven’t watched it, I don’t recommend it. It was Yeah. It wasn’t fun. No. No.

Todd: It’s irritating actually. You’re confused most of the time. It’s it really asks you to make it has a lot of ridiculous things that happen all throughout. It really stretches credulity a lot, and then the found footage aspect of it just throws cold water on anything fun that could be in there. It’s just not cinematic or exciting or anything like that. You know, it just it just points out to me, like, you can’t just take a particular genre and say, hey, let’s do it in this way. And sometimes it’s never gonna work. Mhmm. Maybe it’ll work someday. Maybe somebody will figure out how to make this kind of movie, you know, shot on a handycam look thrilling and exciting. But I’m thoroughly convinced that this is why these kind of movies are more cinematic.

Craig: Mhmm. Oh, yeah. It’s interesting because the director I

Todd: was going back through his stuff aside from quarantine, which we never did see. He did a movie called Devil. Have you seen that one? That one takes place in an elevator.

Craig: Yeah. I saw it. It was alright.

Todd: I kinda liked that one. I mean, I it wasn’t the best movie I’d seen, but I came away from it thinking it was kinda clever.

Craig: And and and, you know, kinda unique, you know, was all done in, you know, that very claustrophobic space of the elevator, and that’s that’s different. I enjoyed it.

Todd: Yeah. I like that. So I mean, I hold out some hope for this for this team, the Dowdle brothers or whatever they call themselves. But this this is this is definitely not, gonna win them any Oscars for sure. No. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. We sure hope you enjoyed the episode more than we enjoyed this movie. You can find us online at Google Play, Stitcher, Itunes, wherever your favorite podcasts are. You can also find our website, 2 guys dot redfortynet.com, where we not only have past episodes of our podcast, but also a few written movie reviews for you to watch. Find us on Facebook as well. Give us some feedback. Let us know what you think.

Craig: Have a lot of fun watching those written reviews.

Todd: Definitely. I told you I told you he wasn’t smart, folks. You heard it from me. Until next time. I’m Todd,

Craig: and I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Probably the most tasteless and obscure film we have reviewed thus far. This laughable attempt at a film at least falls into the “so bad it’s good” category when it’s not offending your sensibilities. And to think Todd first thought this was a faith-based film touting the dangers of abortion…

Episode 128, 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: Craig, today’s film, I believe you proposed a while back. I think you read about it somewhere online. Am I right about this?

Craig: I guess. I don’t know. For some reason, I was thinking it was your idea. But now that you say that, yeah. I think I I read about it on some list. I don’t know.

Todd: It’s just one of those cases where neither of us are gonna wanna take the credit for it. I don’t know know if anybody else is gonna know this movie either. It’s a 1989 film called The Suckling. I had never heard of it before it showed up on whatever list it was that you dredged up for this film. Yep. And you need you had neither, had you?

Craig: No. No. Never.

Todd: But we did read a little bit about it. At first, when I read about it or maybe it was the, you know, the whatever you sent me, whatever synopsis or whatnot, somebody else was reviewing it. I don’t even remember. At first, I thought this would be like kind of an anti abortion film, like, maybe even a like an early faith based type film where somebody was trying to use the genre of horror to make some point about the evils of abortion, and that is absolutely not the case.

Craig: No. No. It’s just trash. Like Total trash, this movie. It’s just a trashy movie. It reminded me a little bit, though really not as bad, as it it remind me of that movie that, like, our lost episode, the the one that we never even posted because it was so terrible.

Todd: Oh, street

Craig: What was that movie that we watched?

Todd: Street trash with literally with trash in the title. Right. Yeah.

Craig: It reminded me a little bit of that in that it was just it seemed to really be making an effort to really push some boundaries. And and, frankly, I I have to believe that they were kind of going for, some really kind of trashy stuff. I was watching, like, the first 20 minutes and I texted you and I’m like, oh my gosh. This might be the most in poor taste movie we’ve ever watched because it really is in really poor taste in parts. Now in the middle it tames out a little bit and becomes more of just kind of your regular B monster movie, But they sure cap it off at the beginning and the end with some pretty trashy material.

Todd: They sure do. They oh my gosh. Did they ever now that being said, it’s I don’t think it’s the worst movie we’ve ever seen. No. In many respects, I sort of feel like our barometer, at least my barometer, goes, with Todd don’t go into the woods. I sort of feel like I I’m not sure I’ve seen a worse horror film that was legitimately released somewhere

Craig: Right.

Todd: Than that one as far as the acting goes, the production value, the music, the plot, the I mean, almost every little bit of that film, I think we were extremely dismissive of. We couldn’t even say anything good about it. Really, could we? I don’t remember saying a single good thing about it. This movie, I have I have some good things to say about, but you’re right. It’s it’s really trashy. The suckling by a guy, a writer director named Francis Terry, who doesn’t have any other IMDb credits to his name as a writer or director.

Craig: Right.

Todd: Was an actor in flesh eating mothers, which I believe at one point was released by trauma. And I was in watching this movie I thought, oh, it’s a little like a Troma movie or at least like a movie that Troma would release. Something they would release after the fact, and I was really surprised that their name wasn’t plastered all over this, but, now this one seems Todd have just slipped into complete obscurity even though according to the only bit of trivia I was able to find on IMDB about it, it took the writer director a year and a half to raise funding for it.

Craig: Yeah. Which is kind of funny because it it it feels pretty cheap.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Okay. So it’s a monster movie, essentially, and, the monster, in some regards, looks really good in theory so long as it doesn’t really have to move or do anything, like, believably natural. Like, if you just were looking at it as, like, a sculpture, it looks really Todd. Yeah. But it can’t do anything except kinda just move from side to side or, like, thrust out at you. It’s, it’s not so great.

Todd: Oh, we’re totally gonna talk about this. Oh, we’re totally gonna talk about this monster later. Just just apparently, my son wants Todd as well.

Craig: Yeah. Good. I I’m interested to see what he has to say.

Todd: Nothing good.

Craig: No. It gave me it also gave me vibes a little bit of, Basket Case because it has that same kind of gritty just kind of this gritty feel to it. You’re kind of, looking at the underbelly of, society a little bit. Oh, yeah. And, I don’t know. Again, it has some things going for it, like it it opens up with this big scroll and I’m gonna go ahead and read it because I wrote the whole thing down. On April 13th 1973, the most bizarre and macabre event in all of Brooklyn’s history occurred. Twelve people, inhabitants of a reputed house of prostitution, and an illegal abortion clinic were killed.

Craig: Only Todd she was believed to be insane. Authorities immediately placed her in an insane asylum. The most brilliant investigators spent years trying to solve this gruesome mystery, but to this day are still baffled. Could the rantings of a girl supposedly insane be true? The makers of this film believe so. And so they go ahead and, you know, spoil the ending for you. You know that, there’s only gonna be one survivor of this whole flick which kind of steals any, anticipation or even sympathy that you might have for some of these characters because you know they’re all going down.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: I I I will say it’s kind of an interesting premise. It’s original.

Todd: Well, you you’ve got that much going for it. It’s original in the and it’s probably never going to be done again. Probably not. Not after this film anyway. I it seems like it’s a requirement for bad movies like this to start out with some claim upon a real life incident because it’s like they need that to sort of prop themselves up a little bit.

Craig: Yeah. Legitimize it. Mhmm.

Todd: Well yeah. And also because this movie is is a pastiche of all kinds of horror film cliches as well and not really, nodding to it, but trying to, you know, throw in everything in the kitchen sink. Mhmm. And so that’s, you know, no different that it starts with this crawl that claims that this and there is absolutely no way, shape, or form that this was ever based on anything real. Oh, wow. That’s a total total invention.

Craig: Unless somebody was on some, like, major drugs, like Like, okay. Write that

Todd: down in the police report, but we all know this is bullshit. Well Right. And and also, I I like the premise that this is a combination bordello, and abortion clinic. Like Right. Like, you can get both things done at the same place. When I was growing up, we always used to laugh because it always seemed like Subway sandwich places and TCBYs must have some kind of agreement that they would always be, like, located next to each other in strip malls. Like, you know, you go into Subway, and, you eat this what you expect to be a healthy meal. And then you’re like, oh, I can I can go for dessert, but I still wanna be healthy? You know? So so you can’t

Craig: go for yogurts with ice cream. Quite the analogy. Yeah. A bordello slash abortion clinic. Like, you take care of 1 business, you take care of the other business. Well, that’s how that’s how it’s kind of

Todd: presented is that the prostitutes in this place are also getting abortions Mhmm. In this place as a matter of routine, but they’re also open to the public, you know. Oh my goodness. Where to begin? Oh, yeah. I know how we begin. We begin with a dream within a dream within a dream.

Craig: Oh, I’d even Oh, I’d forgotten about that. Yeah. The boobie nurse. I I had forgotten all about the boobie nurse.

Todd: Yeah. And I wondered if we were gonna see boobies in this movie. But they just get him out of the way at the beginning. Yeah. There’s a woman who’s sleeping, you know, it’s it’s lightning and thunder outside, and somebody comes into the house and is, like, walking up the stairs and there there’s just a lab coat, you know, that they’re dressed in and sinisterly, like, pulling out medications and needles and things as they approach the room. They get into the room, and and as best as I could tell from all the different close ups, this person injected the sleeping woman with some kind of sedative, openly placed this needle back in their pockets. Yeah.

Craig: The needle pointing up, like, that makes any sense at all.

Todd: World’s best doctor or nurse, takes them out of there. And then when this woman wakes up, she is being wheeled down a hallway, hostel style, right, looking left Yeah. And right into the rooms in this hospital, But the rooms in this hospital are are like, you know, gurneys and beds. There’s like blood splattered in places, and the nurses all are topless.

Craig: They have Mhmm.

Todd: Sexy nurse uniforms on.

Craig: Right. But it’s not sexy because they’re, like, covered in blood and, like Yeah. Carrying weapons and things. It’s No. I was I was very confused. I had no idea what was happening.

Todd: Well, as as is to be a testament to the rest of the movie, the acting being so great, one nurse struts out and and struts as in a director clearly told her, strut, strut harder, and put some real swing into your strut, because this girl looks like she is doing the best that she can to walk at high heels next to this, wheelchair with this other, you know, woman who’s kind of coming in and out, and, she’s casually swinging an ax. And the doctors exchange some words with her, and the next shot we get is of her on the operating table, apparently, with the doctor looking over her. And what happens? She just wakes up. Right? Or oh, no. The doctor cuts right into her stomach without any anesthetic. The woman screams, and boom, she wakes up. It was a dream sequence all along. So then after she wakes up from her dream, she goes to the bathroom, she’s getting some medication or something.

Todd: She swings the mirror closed, and boom, somebody behind her is like a staff member or something again at a hospital, and cuts her throat with a knife. And then she wakes up again, And this time, she’s in a hospital. At this point, I really wasn’t ready to believe anything I was going to see.

Craig: I wondered if the whole movie would be

Todd: a dream sequence by the time we were done with it. Okay. So we wake up, and we are in a another hospital. And I guess at this point, it’s a clinic or something, insane asylum, and, there’s some doctors walking in looking in, a super short guy and a tall older man, and they’re discussing this woman.

Clip: How long will she stay asleep before the next nightmare reoccurs?

Clip: At best approximately 2 hours.

Clip: How does somebody that young develop hyperremnervous?

Clip: Frank hasn’t told you about it?

Clip: No. No. I just arrived here.

Clip: Yeah. That’s right.

Clip: Oh, you heard about the massacre in that brothel about a week ago?

Clip: I haven’t read anything about it, but I heard it covered on the news. You know, being an intern keeps me rather busy.

Clip: Yeah. Well, this girl was the only one that lived through it.

Clip: Are you serious?

Clip: Yeah. What the hell happened

Todd: in there? I can only tell you what the police report said and what we could get out of it. Whether that’s the truth, I don’t know. Which cuts us into a flashback to 1973. Yeah. And thus begins our tale.

Craig: And I thought that it was going to be told in a series of flashbacks, but really what ends up happening is then the whole rest of the movie is the flashback and we don’t return into that mental, institution until the very end. Mhmm. But, and I wanted to say something about the score because at this point in the movie, the score I was like, oh, the score’s kinda good. It reminds me a little bit of John Carpenter. But then as the movie went on, it was like there was no consistency. Like, the score just changed all the time and was different from scene to scene and in some scenes it was okay and in some scenes it was just like a one finger plunk on the piano, and I don’t know. It was kind of a mess. But initially, I was, hopeful

Todd: Todd pan out, but it sounded almost like a a distant cousin to the Halloween theme song. Yeah. Yeah. And then Right. Then it’s it’s like somebody just who doesn’t actually play piano or who is particularly musically inclined plucking away at a piano. Right. Trying to make a score as best they can and especially by the time you get to the end. It, like, it’s so dissonant, and it’s it’s oh, my god.

Todd: It’s pretty awful. And the and so much of the movie is scored Todd. And it it it’s the score that this is another case of where the film is really relying on a score to try to add tension to scenes that would otherwise be extremely long and probably boring.

Craig: Yep. Well, and they kinda end up being that way anyway. What do you say? So how dare you? No. But, anyway, so there’s this young couple, and I don’t even know if they were ever given names. Like, even if you go to the IMDB page, most of the characters aren’t even named. You just see the actors’ names. But there’s

Todd: Why don’t we just give them names?

Craig: I was just gonna call them the girl and the well, because the the guy is kind of jockey, I guess. And I suppose there’s I suppose they’re supposed to be college students. They go to this abortion clinic, and when I say abortion clinic, I mean this old rundown house that looks like it was built specifically to be like a haunted house. Like, it that’s how rundown the outside of it is. And it’s in a bad part of town, town and why anybody would ever go there for any kind of medical procedures beyond me. But that’s what they’re there for, and she doesn’t wanna do it.

Clip: I don’t understand why you’re doing this. I told you. I won’t tell anyone that you will follow. Her. Besides, I’m going to put it up for adoption right away.

Clip: This would be so much easier,

Craig: just let her talk to

Clip: you and everything will be alright.

Clip: I’m gonna do what I wanna do. This is wrong. Anyway, this place isn’t legal.

Clip: We beat it to death already. Let’s just go in.

Craig: And, this handsome black guy who we find out his name later is Sherman, answers the door and they’re like, we’re here to see big mama. And he’s like, okay, let’s go around back. But as they’re heading back, there’s another guy that, shows up and he’s there for the hookers. And so he goes through the front Todd, and then we follow his encounter. It’s this dumb guy with this

Todd: Oh my god.

Craig: Weird with this weird hooker, and he’s wearing, like, a propeller beanie. And he opens this box and it’s filled with like dildos and whips and, he pulls out a dildo and he gifts it to the hooker and then he bends over and she starts doing her thing with his with his butt. And I I wrote down in my notes, I’m like anal question mark and like it was at this point that I was like okay. So it’s gonna be this kind

Todd: of movie. This kind of film. The best part about this scene is despite it being not sexy at all.

Craig: Oh, Todd. No. The first

Todd: part of this scene is the beanie, the propeller on his cap starts spinning when he’s excited apparently, in some cartoonish fashion. And and then when she’s, you know, kind of going full whole hog on him, the beanie spins so hard that the propeller flies off. This is all bits of comedy, I suppose, that we’re supposed to be cleaning from it, but it is executed so poorly

Craig: that it Well, and then another another hooker comes in and is and says to the the performing prostitute, like, somebody needs to see you or you’ve got a phone call or something. And so, like, she the the one who the guy is with, like, goes to leave the room, and the guy is like, well, what about me? And so the other hooker walks in and pulls the dildo out complete with, like, a, like, a popping sound when it comes out. And I was like, oh, man. And and really frankly, that’s kind of the only type of that humor that we get, but, it It sets a tone.

Todd: Yes. It certainly does. I think what the hooker says to this to the first hooker is, Mary, your grandma’s downstairs to drive you home. Yeah. And after she pulls out the dildo, she picks up a paddle with some spikes on it starts approaching the guy like, now it’s time for business. I’m thinking, is she gonna kill him? What kind of a place is this? Yeah. And you’re right. This is, we’re not gonna really go into an in-depth analysis of this film as though it were, like, great literature.

Todd: Oh, no. Subtext and con but it’s just so weird this that the scene is in this movie because it’s really the only attempt at this off the wall naked gun style humor. It doesn’t really flow with the rest of the film at all.

Craig: No. I mean, it’s just it’s kind of like apropos of nothing, like, you know, nothing comes of it or anything. It’s just this silly scene. And then it cuts to the abortion side of the house and we meet Big Mama, and I saw the woman who played Big Mama and I thought, wait a second. Is this a John Waters film? Because that’s what it felt like. It’s this, you know, this over the top woman with, like, major, like, makeup and eye shadow and kind of big hair and she’s just this really over the top, character and she lectures the teenage girl.

Clip: You’re young, so let me explain something to you. Having it when the time is right is the smart thing to do. I won’t kill it. Child, listen. You can speak all you want to after I’m finished. This thing you think you’re killing has no eyes, no ears, no fingers. It ain’t human. Not yet.

Clip: This is the easy way out. Real easy.

Craig: She gives her some what looked like kool aid I guess. And the girl’s like the girl’s like, no thank you. And big mom is like, honey, never turn down hospitality. So the girl drinks the Kool Aid and it immediately becomes apparent that she’s been drugged. And this is where, just the beginning, as though, you know, the anal play weren’t trashy enough, this is where it started to just feel really dirty to me because obviously this big mama has, without her consent, drugged this young girl and then she passes out and they perform the abortion on her against her will. I mean she had actively said she didn’t wanna do it and, you know, we we see the abortion. Now, thank goodness we are, you know, the camera is positioned from, you know, looking down over the girl’s shoulders, not from the other side cause that would have been even more terrible, but, it’s still pretty gross. I mean, the the big mama pulls out this fetus and it’s a pretty developed fetus and she even says this is the largest second trimester fetus I’ve ever seen.

Craig: It’s just gross. I mean, it’s just like, I mean it’s it’s it’s obviously fake, but it looks real enough to be uncomfortable and she hands it off to this girl, Bertha, and says get rid of it the way I told you to and Bertha takes it and flushes this huge fetus down the toilet and we see the fetus, like, moving through these huge totally not realistic sewer pipes, and it gets it gets dumped into this, you know, I don’t know, just this big open place in the sewer, and you hear just very briefly, thank goodness, but you hear very briefly a baby cry. Yeah. And so you so you know it’s not dead and that’s troubling in and of itself. And then, of course, right above the sewage grate in the yard of this brothel is a can of toxic waste.

Todd: Yeah. A big a big like like a oil drum with toxic waste written on the side casually tossed sideways and dripping. Yeah, right into the grate as these things do. Well, it’s how we get Ninja Turtles. So, well, this happened a lot in the late eighties apparently.

Craig: That’s true. We did have a toxic Todd waste problem in the late eighties.

Todd: Just casually discarded in the sewers of America. I’m this is why I was thinking so much of trauma, I think, is because this is more or less kind of how the toxic Avenger Yeah. Except they’re that’s a very self aware Todd in cheek film. And I I mean, I’m sure this was supposed to be a slight joke, but the the movie tries really hard to be taken seriously in so many ways that, it’s hard to to know what to write off. I mean, we did come after the fantastic naked gun hooker scene. So, you know, the the way that and I think what you’re getting at here is the tastelessness of the movie. A lot of it stems from just the casual almost glee and glibness that the whole abortion subject is tackled. And even in the beginning, the conversation between the girl and the boy is so Mhmm.

Todd: Dumb, so glib. It’s like they’re talking about whether or not they’re gonna buy a car together. It doesn’t even make sense. And at the at one point, you’re wondering, does she wanna do this? Does she not wanna do this? Why is she going into this house if she’s not interested in it? And then she talks to big mama, and she’s telling her she’s not gonna go through with it. She’s just doing it this because her boyfriend wants Todd. But then like, why did you get so far into this? What were you expecting to go into this room, into this appointment with this woman that you were just gonna say, well, we met and I decided not to and walk out? It was just so unclear to me. Like, even the dialogue didn’t make sense because at one point, doesn’t she say like, well, I need to do this because it makes him happy because I need to keep

Craig: Yeah. Something like that. I I think that what she’s saying is I only came here to make him happy, but I’m not going to do it. Oh. And I think that was what was so troubling to me was that she gosh. I mean, it’s a movie, and it’s a bad movie. And, like, you talk about the writing. The writing is horrible.

Craig: I mean, it’s just awful. The dialogue is so trite and stupid. I mean, I guess I understand why it doesn’t sit well with me, you know, that you’re performing abortions on people when they are unwilling and unconscious. Like, that’s that’s morally disgusting. And I I don’t know. I I guess I should just get over it and appreciate the fact that this is a b movie and it’s it’s silly, but it just didn’t sit well with me. It it made me very uncomfortable.

Todd: Well, it’s like of all the things you gotta put in your movie and everything you’re gonna base your film on, you get so many options and so many choices like, why? And then of course, you know, if we continue the big joke, as it goes along with, the, you know, the hooker that they’ve met in the her name is Candy, we find out later, that they met in the waiting room outside who’s, you know, sitting there chewing her gum, reading a magazine. Oh, was this your first time? Honey, it’s a third one for me. You know, you get used to it after a while. Hardy har har, who then follows her in there and big mama, as she’s talking with this woman, is casually yanking some junk off of the hook of a coat hanger.

Craig: It’s so gross.

Todd: And then the coat hanger back into shape to hang up her coat. Like, did somebody think this is funny?

Craig: No. I I mean, I guess they must have, but it’s not. It’s so disgusting. And not only is she, like, just casually cleaning it off, but, like, she doesn’t even get it clean, like, she leaves some of the tissue on there. And I I didn’t realize that she was hanging up clothes back on. I thought she was gonna use the same hanger on this next lady, which is even more gross. But I guess it’s, you know, it’s just par for the course.

Todd: It really is for for the 12 year old that wrote the script.

Craig: Yeah. Oh, god. It’s so bad. And then, you know, we see the toxic waste, you know, drips onto this fetus, and there, you know, some puppet effects, and it kinda starts to morph and, like, it it grows, like a claw. And then we cut back to upstairs where, I guess the boyfriend’s name is Phil. I guess he does have a name. I wrote it down. Phil, the boyfriend, is trying to comfort, his girlfriend and then, like, just the most random stuff happens.

Craig: Like, some John, like, insults 1 of the hookers or something, and so she shoots him.

Todd: And so then there’s just, like, this dead John in there.

Craig: And here’s a great example of how good, the writing is. The the the blonde hooker who is the one that was getting the abortion, and she’s kind of the older one.

Todd: I know exactly what you’re talking about.

Craig: So go on. Yeah. Tammy the hooker shoots this John, and, the other hooker says

Clip: Todd comes here to get his penis sucked, and he gets shot off instead.

Todd: Like,

Craig: like, out of context, that’s really funny. But, like, even just the fact that it just struck me as so funny that she said guy comes to get his penis sucked. Like

Todd: Yes.

Craig: Like, I would imagine that hookers would probably have more colorful language, but I I I don’t know a lot of hookers. So maybe maybe they have a limited vocabulary. I don’t know.

Todd: Maybe they’re real clinical in their descriptions to a point. You know, man comes to insert his penis in my vagina, and well, though she does actually follow it up later with a bit of, you know, there’s just like some home spot wisdom or something always coming from this woman. And I guess they’re talking about the tragedy of the death and what they have deal with it. And he she just looks at her and says

Clip: I don’t know. All these guys wanna do these days is shoot their load in your face. I guess everybody’s got their problems.

Craig: Oh, god. Yeah. Great. Just amazing writing. Yeah. I I mean, you know, I I think I was pretty clever at 13. I I could’ve I could’ve could’ve

Todd: missed. Yeah. I could’ve easily written us a 13. Let’s just put it that way.

Craig: Well, then then we get into what really becomes the major part of the plot. Bertha and Candy, the blonde hooker who talks about sucking penises, they’re, I don’t know, they’re just casually hanging out or whatever and they hear a weird noise from the toilet. And Candy’s like, just jiggle the flusher a little bit. So Bertha jiggles the flusher and they they keep hearing these noises. So she’s like, well, just go ahead and flush it. And so Bertha flushes it and they keep hearing the noises. The kid is like, well, jiggle the flusher again. And she does, but they still hear the noises.

Craig: So Bertha opens up the toilet and, like, sticks her head almost down inside it. Like, I don’t know if she was she was looking for. Right. But this umbilical cord shoots up out of it, goes all the way around her neck, and decapitates her. And the reaction on Candy’s face when this happens is really so funny because because, like, the director was, like, look shocked and horrified and she was like okay, like like it’s oh gosh, it’s the the lamest non reaction ever. And so then they start trying to get out. There’s this guy who lives there, I guess, named Axel, and he’s like the thug or or the muscle, I guess. I don’t know.

Craig: I don’t really know why he’s there. He’s just there to kind of be antagonistic, but he explains it well he exclaims, We can’t get the back door open. Something’s going on.

Todd: I I love how he goes into the room. Makes no mention or notice of the body without the head. Yeah. We presume is still there by the toilet, but, like, looks at the toilet, looks at the blood in the toilet, blood on the walls, like, runs his finger along it, like, sniffs it, like like he’s Sniffs it. Like he’s looking for drugs or cocaine or something like that.

Craig: And then big mama comes in and just says, girl, what happened? I gotta know. Just the funniest dialogue and the most terrible acting. Oh, it’s just awful.

Todd: And for apparently no reason. So, like, John and the girl are still there. And they tried the front door, but it was locked or something. And now, suddenly, they all come to this conclusion that that thing is probably what has us trapped in here. Like what? What Where did that notion even come from?

Craig: That thing is probably what’s got us trapped in here. It means to kill us all And and what it what it turns out being is like somehow, inexplicably, this fetus monster has encased the whole house or at least any exit to the house in like this organic material And it’s it it appears that it’s supposed to be, like, it’s a metaphor for a womb, like, they’re stuck in the womb. But, I mean, it’s just it’s just the it’s just goofy as shit. Like, it’s just so silly.

Todd: I like the, because Axel gets all Craig, and he’s like, no. I’ll I’ll get us out of here. And he starts he starts kicking at the door, the front Todd. Like, the door that swings inward, he’s trying

Craig: to kick open. He’s trying to kick it out. Oh my Todd. I couldn’t get over that. I’m, like, the hinges are on the inside. It doesn’t open that way.

Todd: And then he and then he grabs a chair and throws it against a window which makes makes the shades fall and shows us that the window is encased in what’s something that appears to be glowing or pulsing from the inside, which it really just looks like somebody put some brown paper over the window and there’s a light on the other side flashing. But then, it takes us to the outside of the building, unfortunately. And I guess they put some kind of they all decide that they can’t get out of there and whatever decapitated the 1 girl up at the toilet is what caused it. And there’s a nice bit of dialogue in the middle.

Clip: Where’d this thing come from?

Clip: We’re locked in. Check the windows.

Clip: I know about it already. Where’d this thing come from that killed Bertha?

Clip: The toilet, but does that matter now?

Clip: I’m thinking that kinda matters. I mean,

Clip: Something happened down there. I don’t know what but there must be some connection to all this a thing attacked her Something that can cause serious damage.

Todd: Yeah, I would say so. Yeah, I can pull your head off. It’s it’s capable of some serious damage and this movie is trying so hard for style like I I have to give this director some credit for trying for watching a lot of other much better horror films, pulling the cinematography ideas from those, and trying them to abysmal failure in his own movie. Yes. Like, there are some great shot setups that just that would work if a competent person was behind the halfway competent person was behind the camera. And there and and you can pluck I could I could list off to you all of the different movies that these are pulled from. There’s a cool, shot, and you’ve seen it like 10 different movies before, but nonetheless, a guy walks into the room earlier in the film, and there’s a shot from above the fan blades. Right? Mhmm.

Todd: So you see fan blades swooping in front, and there’s even a sound effect that goes with it, like whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, kind of an over exaggerated sound effect. And that’s a cool kinda shot, you know, and that was about the only one that he did that really worked. The rest of them, like when, Sherman tries the phone and big and and it’s he picks up the phone. There’s this close-up on him picking up the phone. And then there’s a shot of big mom, and she’s like, it’s dead, isn’t it? And then there’s this shot that starts out from further away and slowly dollies in on Sherman, and by the time it reaches him, which takes, like, 5 seconds, he says, yeah. The phone’s dead. And it’s supposed to be so dramatic, but it is so poorly done.

Craig: Yeah. At this point where they’re all stuck inside and they are, you know, kind of infighting and talking about what they’re going to do, it gave me shades of Night of the Living Dead. And even with, you know, like some of the close ups on the characters and, you know, they’re trying to build this tension, but the writing and the acting are so bad. Like you said, it’s like they were trying to emulate, certain styles or or tropes or whatever, but just failing miserably. I have to admit, you know, we’ve watched some bad movies and there have been some movies that we’ve talked about where, you know, it was just really kind of a chore to even rehash them. And it’s, you know, it’s not super fun to rehash this point by point, but in watching these movies, it was it really is straddling that line between terrible and so bad it’s kind of fun. Like, when when I was watching it and even after I was done, I thought, you know, this was an awful movie. I would definitely never watch it again, but I don’t necessarily feel like I wasted my time.

Craig: Like, it’s almost like it’s like kinda like a car wreck. Like, you have to watch. It’s so bad. You have to see how bad this is.

Todd: You have to see if it could possibly get any worse or if there’s any way this movie is gonna redeem itself, and it doesn’t. And it does actually get worse. So that’s part of the entertainment value. I I I definitely put it more in that so bad it’s good camp, but you’re right. It really straddles the line. There are times in this movie where it’s really testing your patience, and there are other times when you’re just, like, gleefully your jaw is just on the floor.

Craig: Right. So terrible. And one one of the people that’s trapped in there with them is one of the Johns. I don’t know if it was the dildo John or if it was just somebody else, but, like, he has all these ridiculous lines, like, open that door or I’ll take my business elsewhere and I demand to know what’s going on. And meanwhile, the fetus is still moving around. It’s it Todd doesn’t make any logical sense. Like sometimes it’s actually moving through the pipes like this umbilical cord that can kill people and sometimes it’s just in the walls. At some point, it bursts out of the wall and grabs 1 of the hookers and kills them and at this point, it’s huge.

Craig: Somebody comments. They’re like, it’s growing at a really rapid rate. Like, yes. Yes. It is. Thank you for pointing that out, Yeah.

Todd: Which also does not do your movie any favors. No. The rate at which this thing is growing, Well, first of all, even the tentacles probably couldn’t fit through the pipes of your house. Right. And they come out in all these places. The I think the hooker upstairs gets one of the hookers upstairs gets killed, and Axel and Sherman have it out and have this inane conversation downstairs. Apparently, they oh, Todd. I almost forgot this part.

Todd: Apparently, they only have 2 tools in the entire place Mhmm. A hammer and a screwdriver. And so they decide that they have to chisel their way out, and I’m thinking, oh, okay. So they’re gonna go to where they broke the window open, and they’re gonna find that membrane thing, and they’re gonna try to chisel through it. No. They hand the hammer and the screwdriver to the John who sits down at the front door under great protest Yeah. Starts to try to chisel away at the center of the of the wooden door.

Craig: And when Sherman when Sherman tells him he has to do it, he’s like, Me? I’m a businessman. I’m not a laborer. I’m not going to attempt to chisel through that wall. It’s absurd. You’ve been treated like this before. You’re a Bulgarian. You’re so awful. And yeah.

Craig: And so then he just kind of timidly starts tapping away at the door. It almost looks like they the direction was, okay. You’re chiseling away at the door, but don’t make any marks on it because we have to do reshoots. Right.

Todd: This is somebody’s door and we don’t wanna pay for it.

Craig: And he sits and he sits there for like what what appears to be like 15, 20 minutes and he’s like sweating and he’s like, I’m not getting anywhere. And, like, no. You’re not. Like, you haven’t even touched it.

Todd: And when he’s not chiseled away at the door, apparently, this man is super lecherous and cannot contain himself around women. Wow. This is the most stereotypical John you could possibly imagine, and he can’t even stand to sit on the edge of a sofa with these 2 prostitutes in the middle of this Craig without looking down the 1 girl skirt and like heavily breathing and starting to get hot and bothered.

Craig: Yeah. Oh, he’s like he’s like, I got a $100 in my pocket. And they literally laugh at him. Lap at him. And then he’s like, well, you’re just a bunch of cheap whores. I’m never coming back here again. Okay. Alright.

Craig: See you later.

Todd: Go back to chiseling the door.

Craig: Oh, man. Oh, gosh. And then, you know, like, really, this kind of is the part that’s really kind of tiresome because things are happening, but not really. I mean, Sherman and Axl fight some more, you know, there’s some, you know, Axel has a gun, Sherman gets it away for a while, but then the giant fetus jumps out of the wall and grabs, Sherman. Again, another hilarious part because this giant monster pops out of the wall, grabs this black guy, pulls him back into the wall, and Axel’s response is he has this gun. He just starts shooting it randomly all around the room. Like, what I didn’t even under like, I guess he thought it’s in the walls. I’ll try to but it was huge and it was just right there, like, how could it have gotten from there to the ceiling to the opposite wall in the split second since we last saw it.

Todd: This thing is bigger and thicker than a human and a wall is about 6 inches maybe space in there. 6 inches wide. This thing comes out of the wall. This was also on the side of the staircase. This wall, like, had stairs on the other side of it. So you know that that there was especially no room for it to go, and suddenly it pops out, grabs this thing, and disappears into the 6 inches. And is somehow maneuvering around the 6 inches of wall space throughout the room. The

Craig: the creature itself, I mean, it it thankfully, it doesn’t look anything like a human baby anymore. Like, it really just is a big monster. It reminded me a lot of the monsters from FEAST. Actually, I think there were like 3 FEAST movies. These huge huge pointy sharp teeth and, you know, just incredibly monstrous. So at least you kinda get away from feeling sympathetic about it being but the the the other thing that I was thinking the whole time, these I I guess, in theory, they don’t know. But I wondered if the movie was eventually going to go there, like, with it’s alive or whatever, where the couple was gonna realize, oh, but that’s our child. No.

Todd: I thought so too.

Craig: No. It’s just a giant monster. Yeah. I thought

Todd: it would, like, somehow, like, the the way that they would get away from it is that the mother would somehow have some connection to it. Like, once it approached the mother, that there would be something that happened. And there was, but it wasn’t didn’t certainly go the direction I expected to go. Okay. So they go to the basement. Oh, Axel. They’re trying to build this tension where Axel’s taking charge and he’s threatening everybody inside there with a gun, which makes no sense. It makes no sense why they would put up with it.

Todd: And the the gun he’s waving around is so obviously plastic.

Craig: He’s threatening them, but then he actually does shoot candy in the head. And I didn’t eat the for no reason. Like, out of nowhere, like, she looked at him wrong or something. I kinda liked Candy. She was trashy, but she was my favorite character. But you’re right. You know, like you said, they they head down to the basement because they’re like, okay. What is it like? It likes tight spaces, and it likes water.

Craig: And, Phil, the boyfriend’s like, the boiler room? And they’re like, yeah.

Todd: And I was like, this house has a boiler room? This is Nightmare on Elm Street or something. It’s just the basement is all it is, and they go downstairs, and the basement’s really just this long narrow corridor. And I’m thinking, how is this giant monster going to surprise them down there? But it does, of course. By the time they get to the end of the corridor, it, jumps out and gets another girl, one of the random prostitutes. Vanessa.

Craig: And then so Axel tries to shoot it shoot it, but he runs out of bullets. And then I did not understand this at all. Like, the the fetus monster kind of flees around a corner or something. And when Axel follows it, he finds it, and it’s being electrocuted by, like, the fuse box. Why? Like, did it do this on purpose? Did it just accidentally grab the fuse box? But it’s being electrocuted, and so Axel, genius that he is, picks up a huge metal pole, and I I’m thinking even if you just hit or stab this creature, like, it’s a freaking metal pole and it’s being electrocuted, you moron. But even better than that, he goes at it like he’s going to stab it, and the fetus at the last minute pulls away from the fuse box. And so Axel stabs the fuse box with the metal pole, and then so he gets electrocuted and he’s dead. And explodes.

Craig: His head explodes.

Todd: Yeah. Because that

Craig: that would happen. I mean, I

Todd: don’t know

Craig: if you know anything about electricity, but, you know, your head would explode if It’s only natural. I like that our program is educational. People people can take away fun facts. That’s right.

Todd: Don’t play around fuse boxes, kids. You could explode.

Craig: Explode. Okay. Alright.

Todd: It’s like this movie’s 1 giant ABC after school special about the dangers of abortion.

Craig: Yeah. It’s it it felt like a little bit at times. And then I really just felt like they had to be padding for time because the teen mother has a montage dream for no reason. It’s just a montage of everything that’s happened so far in the movie, and then she wakes up like,

Todd: ah. And then there’s this whole little interlude that I don’t understand because it’s just kinda stuck in there. And it’s big mama and one of the other prostitutes, and she’s telling her, now don’t you fret, girl. Big mom will get us out of this situation. What? How have you done anything? Nothing. Then the John joins them. And so the 3 of them are in there talking, and suddenly they hear some noises again, and they’re freaking out, and this girl has this gun. And I guess it’s supposed to be, like, will she have the courage to do what she has to do and shoot this gun at this monster? And they’re tensing up, and I feel like maybe they’re in the kitchen, and maybe this is like a closet door.

Todd: It’s really quite unclear.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: She shoots at this door 4 or 5 times, and who should come through it but Vanessa. And in case we didn’t catch it, the John says, oh my god. Vanessa wasn’t dead. Mhmm.

Craig: Or she is dead. And then big mama says, it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know. And then the hooker who shot Vanessa has a flashback of the scene that just happened.

Todd: That happened. Oh, that is so good. Was this for impact or something? We need to be reminded immediately of what just happened, the emotional toll it’s supposed to take on us? Oh my

Craig: god. Funny. And then

Todd: and then we’re back to the John sitting in the doorway criticizing the guys who made a battering ram. I don’t even know. Like, you can’t even can’t even mention all the stupid things that happened in this movie. But at at one point earlier, they had this this decision to make a battering ram to smash the door. Again, the door that swings inside, they’re gonna bash, down with the battering ram. And their idea was that Axel has all these weights in the basement. And so I guess they put them inside of a big trunk, and they got some big thick rope, and they used the tools that they don’t have, or maybe this is where the chisel came in, to cut away a part of the ceiling so they could expose the the beams of the second floor to hang this, trunk full of weights from. So then if they could pull it up the stairs and let it go, it’s supposed to hit the door and eventually bash the door in, except this thing just kind of bounces off the door.

Craig: It’s really a stupid idea. Yeah.

Todd: It’s really dumb. Very, very bad.

Craig: And it’s a major plot point. Like, we keep revisiting it several times. But eventually, they get it to work and it makes a a hole in the door.

Todd: It makes a a nice square clean hole in the door.

Craig: Right. That leads to what I can only imagine was supposed to be a birth canal. Is that the vibe that you were getting? That’s what it’s like it’s like it’s like this tunnel and there’s like supposed to be. We don’t know where it goes, but I can see the light at the end. That must be the outside light.

Todd: But it’s it’s more like somebody’s closet.

Craig: Or like or like a a Todd oddly lit, like, greenhouse or something because the material that’s hanging down just looks like, oh gosh, that kind of organic, like, sack cloth kind of, material.

Todd: Muslin, sackcloth, and netting all hanging down, but shot through a red filter. So I suppose it’s supposed to look gross and slimy, but there’s nothing gross or slimy about it. It looks like exactly what it is. Mhmm. And the John decides he’s gonna dive into it. I don’t know. Is this a thing? Like, the John, you know, he can’t keep out of the the vagina or something. He decides to dive on in, and so we get about 10 minutes of him just pushing cloth aside basically as he’s poking probing his way through.

Todd: And sure enough, he he gets, killed by the monster.

Craig: But but then there’s a shot of, like okay. So he gets killed by the monster and then there’s a shot of his hand his severed hand crawling around on the floor? I I don’t even I didn’t even know what was happening. Like, I’ve just got a big question mark in my notes. Whatever. And then the last the last hooker kills herself. I guess she just can’t take it anymore. And then, the fetus, which is now enormous, kills Big Mama.

Todd: Coming out of the washing machine.

Craig: Yeah. And then so the only 2 left are the couple, the original couple. And the college guy says, I know what to do. I’ll let it take me, and then I’ll shoot. That way, I can’t miss. I’ll kill it for sure. The giant fetus attacks and kills the college guy, and then it starts to approach the girl who somehow has fallen back and is now on her back. And, Todd, as terrible as this is, I just couldn’t help but laugh out loud at this part.

Craig: It was so funny and it looked awful. Like, it just looked terrible. Like, seriously, literally 13 year olds with a handheld camera, if they were innovative enough to do just even the most minor special effects and editing, could film could have filmed this in their garage. Like, it’s just so bad.

Todd: Yeah. This thing comes running towards her. As as it runs towards her, it’s cutting between her and this thing, and every time it cuts back to the thing, the thing is getting smaller and smaller and more normal fetus looking. And about 2 seconds into this, I realized to my horror that this thing was shrinking down and jumping back up inside her. Yeah. And the movie was actually gonna do that. Wow. So that’s where it ends at that point, and the next what we see is the next morning when the cops come in.

Todd: I guess they cut the cops have been called by somebody, maybe the neighbors, and, they’ve cut their way through whatever membrane was around the house, and it looks around, oh my Todd, you know, this place is a mess. And they shine their light down, and there’s the girl laying on the floor. And the next shot we get is, I believe, of the 2 doctors walking down the hall, and I was like, oh, yeah. I forgot about these guys. Mhmm. And they’re telling me about how silly the story is, And there’s a bunch of dumb bi play between them. And I thought it might be a director’s cameo or something. The guy sit the orderly sitting down in the hallway guiding them and says, oh, she’s been transferred back to ward b or whatever.

Todd: And then it’s a shot straight out of Psycho where there’s this girl in a straight jacket in the corner of a giant white room and slowly pulls out. Except Psycho’s a little too classy, so they had to make this a giant white room filled with a bunch of random crazy people doing crazy things.

Craig: Right. Totally stereotypical. Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. And I thought it was gonna end there. I thought, oh, okay. This woman, she’s in the insane ward, and then a crawl is gonna come back up. To this day, nobody still knows for sure what happened. But, no, 2 orderlies come in, and they walk up to her like a couple of thugs. They’re like, Yeah. This one won’t mind.

Todd: They pull her out, into the hallway, and one of them starts raping her.

Craig: Yeah. Just super casually, like, again, like I said, you know, the very the beginning and the end are so trashy and this was, you know, this is the trashy end cap where not that you necessarily care about this character, but she’s, you know, catatonic and he pulls her out in the hall and just, you know, right there in the hall in front of his buddy, in front of the other inmates who are watching, just very casually just starts raping her right there in the hallway and it’s not graphic, like there’s no nudity or anything, but it’s so gross, like, it’s just so uncomfortable to watch the thrusting and, so yuck and but I guess the fetus that’s inside her shoots out its umbilical cord and kills the orderly. And then it cuts to black and it starts to go to the credits. And I’m, like, oh, good. Thank Todd that’s over. But then there’s a whole extra scene in the credits that seemed like it came from a different movie. I didn’t even under I don’t even know what was happening. It’s like this adult guy and this kid watching somebody, like, melt in front of the whorehouse.

Craig: Like like, there’s their flesh all melts away and these 2 are just standing there watching in horror. And there’s no explanation for it. I have no idea who those people were. I have no idea what was happening. Did I miss something? Did you know what was going on?

Todd: I had no idea. I thought I thought we were gonna see I thought we were looking at outtakes or some some some special effect that wasn’t used or something, but absolutely no idea. It looks like it came from a completely different movie just like you said. Actually, it looks like it came from street trash. That’s what I was thinking of because they all melted in that movie. Remember? Yeah. Oh my god.

Craig: Oh, gosh. Well, this movie, you know, folks, if you’ve made it all the way through this with us, I commend you. None of the actors from this movie are recognizable. I, you know, I looked at some of their credits and and none some of them had done other schlockybee movies like this, but other than that, really nothing. So I don’t have anything to tell you about them, and I I really couldn’t find anything about the production or anything like that either, you know. The the only other interesting thing that I found was that it was also released under the title Sewage Baby, which I actually think is a more appropriate title. Way better. And would maybe give you a better indication of what you’re getting into, if you’re gonna watch this, movie.

Craig: It’s terrible. It’s a terrible movie. It’s it’s not well made. I mean, though I will agree with you that I do think that there were attempts at style. Just overall, it just seems very amateur, the acting is awful. The the worst thing in my opinion is the writing. The writing is so bad. Again, I would never ever watch it again, but if somebody asked me, you know, I’m looking to watch, you know, a really bad movie, something that I can just goof on with my friends.

Craig: I would say, well, you should check out Sewage Baby or The Suckling or whatever it’s called, because it is terrible. And if that’s what you’re looking for, this you found it.

Todd: You will get it in spades. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you entirely. It’s a clearly a movie that in many ways aspires to something great. Like, you could tell that the person who made it really thought that they were gonna make some bank with it, and then was maybe trying to throw in a bunch of edgy stuff to make sure that people watched it. And instead, I imagine it just turned so many people off.

Craig: I I

Todd: I don’t even know what kind of distribution this movie got. I don’t know what story. You can’t even find information about it online. Mhmm. I don’t even know how we found out anything about it to begin with.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: It’s just super obscure. It has it absolutely deserves to be. It’s tasteless in every respect and not even in a fun way. But the movie, like you said, it straddles that line. And to be honest, there’s quite a bit of it’s so fun. It’s so bad. It’s hilarious in it. Mhmm.

Todd: And we’ve seen so many movies that are not like that. Bad movies that are just bad movies that this one is definitely not the worst movie that we reviewed by far, but it’s

Craig: Todd, that’s sad, isn’t it? Yeah.

Todd: It really shows what we go through Yeah. For you guys. Well, thank you so much for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this one, please share it with a friend. Just don’t make them watch this film.

Craig: If you still want them to be your friend.

Todd: You could find us online everywhere you could find podcasts. You can also find our website 2 guys dot redfortynet.com where, we also occasionally post written reviews of films and grow our ever enlarging fan base from 2 to possibly 3 or 4, which might actually diminish after they hear this particular episode. Let’s see. Anyway, thank you again for listening. I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

This Spanish film about a Ouijia board experience gone wrong is all style, but lacks a certain something. Don’t get us wrong – we enjoyed it considerably. Listen to our discussion for the subtle nuances and a special tribute.

Episode 127, 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. And I’m Todd. This week, I think we were a little bit at a loss for what to do. We’ve been doing some theme months and, we’ve been doing some viewer requests, and it got very near to the end of the week. And, I texted Todd, what are we doing? And, he didn’t know.

Todd:  Welcome to this peek behind the curtain.

Craig:  So as it turns out, my dear sweet grandmother, died last week. And it would of course, that was a very sad situation, but the good that came out of it was that all my family got together, and I was, talking to one of my cousins, Grant, who is a singer and performer, out of Colorado, and he also very much enjoys horror movies, and he recommended a film on Netflix called Veronica from 2017. Now there are actually 2 films currently on Netflix from 2017 with the same title, but the one that we are doing was directed by Paco Plaza, who is the same guy who directed Rec, which is another movie that we’ve reviewed and I think that both of us, enjoyed pretty much. Yeah. We love that. And, yeah. So I said let’s give it a go and we did. I had never heard of this movie before.  Had you, Todd?

Todd:  No. This is the first I had heard of it and, and seen it obviously.

Craig:  Yeah. I I So I had never heard of it, but I thought what the heck we’ll give it a shot. This is a Spanish language film, again, like I said, from 2017, and it’s supposedly based on true events. Now, we’ve watched and reviewed enough horror movies to be skeptical when these movies say that they’re based on true events. So I I don’t know how much of this is accurate, but what I have read is that this is one of the only, if maybe the only, cases where a police report was filed in Spain, where paranormal activity was Todd in the police report. What I have read about the actual story is there was this teenage girl, and she and some of her friends, messed around with a Ouija board. In real life, they were trying to contact the recently deceased boyfriend of one of them. This boyfriend had died in a motorcycle accident, I think, or a car accident, and they were trying to contact him via a Ouija board.  And after that happened, all sorts of strange paranormal things started happening, with this young lady in her house, and it eventually led to her death. Apparently even after her death, all kinds of paranormal things kept going on, until the family eventually moved from where they were living and, then I guess the paranormal activity stopped. So, if you, you know, believe in that kind of thing, I don’t know if, you know, something happened with this girl or if it was just, you know, where they were living. I have no idea, but that’s what the movie is based on and that’s kind of the basic plot that the movie follows. Now, some things they changed, obviously, in this movie, this young lady, Veronica, played by a young woman, a newcomer named I think, oh gosh, Sandra? Was that her name? Sandra Escansena? She and her friends perform a seance at their Catholic school, during an eclipse, and then all hell breaks loose, basically. And that’s, the premise of the movie. You know, I’ve seen a lot of these movies, you know, these, possession movies, you know, Ouija board movies. I’ve seen a lot of them and, they vary in quality.  This movie has gotten a lot of Craig. It’s won awards, if you look for it online, you will see it being billed as one of the scariest movies of all time. Yeah. Supposedly audience members, in the theatrical release, like, fled the theater because it was so scary that they couldn’t finish it or whatever. I don’t know. I didn’t find it that scary. I didn’t have to I didn’t have to, like, take off my headphones and close my computer because I was so scared or anything. But overall, I thought it was pretty good.  What were your thoughts, Todd? You know,

Todd:  I I really have to take issue with that idea that people fled the theater or something. I mean, what is this like, the 19 thirties? Right. This is this is certainly not the scariest movie I’ve ever seen by far, but it was freaky, you know? And I think that Yeah. Honestly, it’s a pretty pedestrian, to be fair. I feel like at its core, plot wise, what happens, it’s a pretty pedestrian possession slash haunting movie with a Ouija board. I didn’t really see anything new, not not much really that was new as far as in fact, there was a lot of old tropes, you know, in it. Yeah. But it was very well filmed, and very well acted.  And I think that the the reason that people probably find it scarier than you or I do is because of the whole based on a true story thing. You know? Right. And it wasn’t actually I wasn’t really paying attention. I I didn’t read up about the movie before I saw it. And so the film opens. It it kind of bookends with the the police arriving at the apartment. Right. And it shows up on the screen exactly what you said, 1991, such and such and such.  These these incidents were reported by the detectives at the scene of of this incident, blah blah blah. And I immediately dismissed that, you know, because I figured, okay. Yeah. Right. We’ve seen that enough. Sure. Sure. And and even if it did actually happen, it probably didn’t happen exactly this way.  We’ve talked about this before with the Texas chainsaw, with Amityville, that kind of thing. Mhmm. So I just kinda put that out of my mind for the rest of the film. It wasn’t until the end of the film when the story came back to that that point, which was, you know, 3 days the story jumps back to 3 days prior, and then, of course, it finally gets us back to that night and back to the beginning of the movie again. And that’s the point where I thought, oh, I I forgot. Yeah. I guess it did say this was based on true story. I guess I’ll be interested to see, read up about it afterwards and see how much of this is actually purported to have happened.  And it was only at that point that I realized, I I guess, that this movie would have felt a lot scarier to me had I taken that more seriously at the beginning. Does that make sense? So Yeah. Fair enough. So, so I kind of I kind of have that mindset so I would definitely not recommend this to somebody is the scariest movie that you’ve ever seen I wouldn’t even put it in the top you know 30 of scariest movies I’ve ever seen sure but it’s solid you know it’s a nice solid spooky movie and yeah some really good moments it had some moments that I thought were inventive I’d had some great cinematography. But Yeah. To be honest, the first part of the movie kinda dragged on to me. It wasn’t until about an hour in when I felt like we started to kinda get to the good stuff.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. No. I I agree with I I you kinda took the words right out of my mouth. I you know, in terms of like a possession movie, you know, it it hits all the same notes that most of them hit. And, you know, I say possession, this girl doesn’t actually get possessed. I I I guess the premise is that, you know, they have this seance and then some sort of force kind of itself to this girl, and then kind of haunts her and her family. And it’s not all that different from anything else that you’ve seen, in that same vein.  But I I do think, that it was really well made and I and I think that, you know, it’s it not that it’s similar to, but it it kinda strikes some of the same chords as something like The Conjuring, which is also another movie that’s purportedly based on a true story. But, you know, when you really look into it, it’s kind of loosely based. But I I just thought that, they did a really good job with it. Paco Plaza, the guy who directed it, who also directed Rec, we enjoyed Rec. This is different. You know, of course, it’s not found footage. It’s not all handheld. I actually thought the cinematography was really, really good.  Like, there were there were some things that were going on, with shots and and scenes, that I was like, wow, that’s that’s that’s really good and really effective. The other thing that I thought was really endearing about the movie were the performances of some of the main actors. The girl who plays Veronica, like I said, she’s a newcomer. I don’t know that she had been in anything else, and she really has to carry the whole movie. Yeah. She’s in every single scene. It it centers around her, and she does a really really good job. You know, she seems like a real teenage girl.  She looks like a teenager. She doesn’t look like a 30 year old playing a teenager. You know, she’s she’s an attractive girl, but she looks like a normal teenager. You know, she’s got braces and Yeah. She’s got a single mother and her mother works a lot. I I didn’t really I I don’t know if her mother owns this restaurant that she works at or if she’s a manager, but she’s there all the time. And so Veronica is home with her significantly younger siblings, like she’s a teenager and her sibling she’s got 2 sisters and a little brother, and they’re all significantly younger than her. And those kids, especially the little boy, Antonio, They’re all cute, and the little boy who plays Antonio, the little brother, is just one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

Todd:  He’s got these glasses. Make a size big, and they’ll be both And

Craig:  he’s a little cross eyed. But they’re so cute. I don’t know, you know, what their process was, but it really seemed like these they felt like a family, they felt like brothers and sisters and you believed that, she was looking out for them and you believed that or I did, that, you know, they were that they trusted her and they were looking to her for guidance and protection, and it hit a lot of the right notes, in terms of character and relationships, and the filming was really good. It may not have been the most inventive or original story, but, it it had a lot of things going on for it. Because of that, by the end of it, I was like, yeah, I liked it. Like, I I get why my cousin, recommended it to me. It it it stand it’s a good movie.

Todd:  Yeah. It had quite a bit of setup, and some of the setup, you know, really worked well, and some of the setup just kind of went nowhere. That would be my first thing. Of course, the setup is also told a very pedestrian way. We get we jump right in. We meet all these characters. We get us you know, she runs around and wakes up all the kids and, goes off to her mom to her mom and and her mom’s at work and all that. And so so we get very quickly a sense of this family and their dynamic and that she’s basically raising these kids.  And then she’s getting on the phone, and she’s up at school, and she’s talking with her two friends, Rosa and Diana, and they’re talking about, okay, we’re gonna do this today. Right? We’re gonna do this today. And in the meantime, the rest of the kids at the school, including her younger siblings, are all supposed to get negatives from their, you know, for for, like, film negatives to to view the eclipse. So it Mhmm. Like, everybody at school is talking about the solar eclipse that’s supposed to be happening that day, and they’re supposed to view, which I didn’t I didn’t know if this works. I guess, you can view them through film negatives. I don’t know. But anyway, so so they’re doing that.  And, and then, of course, like, it’s so typical, but here we are at school, and it’s a it’s a Catholic school. What are the teachers doing? They’re teaching a lesson on the eclipse. And what are they saying? They’re saying all these mysterious intriguing things about the eclipse that are gonna have some bearing upon the movie soon enough. You know? Like, there was it was some cultures, like the ancient Mayans believed that, the eclipse was a time when the portals of the dead, you know, would would cross over to the living and blah blah blah. Mhmm. They even used it as the prime point for human sacrifice. And they’re zooming in on, pictures, slides, you know, that the nun is putting up on the screen. And, I mean, it’s just kinda funny, like, I’m thinking, now if I were in high school, and I was, when there was an eclipse going on, I don’t remember the teachers delving into this territory.

Craig:  I’m it’s a Catholic school time. I guess so. No.

Todd:  I didn’t go to Catholic school, so who knows? But, you know, like, it was usually pretty sciency about the eclipse.

Craig:  Yeah. No. I did go to Catholic school. This this would not have been out of the ordinary.

Todd:  Oh, thank you for verifying that. Okay. Well, I stay corrected in this. But the thing is, you don’t like it’s cool It sets up that idea that okay that there’s a there’s something about the Eclipse that is going to make this Ouija session that these girls are gonna gather to do while everybody else is up at the eclipse. They’re going to the basement of this school or whatever to do the seance. And the girls believe it’s gonna be more powerful seance at that time. And, of course, the teachers have told us it’s gonna be more powerful seance at that time. So, you know, in that respect, it’s kind of nice that it sets us up as not just another Ouija session, a real reason for why this this particular Ouija session had such an impact and and caused them so much trouble.  And and that that’s good. It was a good setup that way. And then it set up this notion of the human sacrifice. It’s zooming in on all these things that I think are gonna have some bearing later on, and I’m not sure they really do.

Craig:  Yeah. I I get what you’re saying. I mean, it it’s a good, you know, it’s a good scene, you know, they’re they’re using the Ouija board and, they’re using a glass as the planchette, and it’s cutting back and forth between them in the basement and the people up at, you know, on the roof watching the seance. And there’s there’s one creepy blind nun that we get lots of shots of, you know, which is super cliche, but whatever, you know, kinda scary.

Todd:  Does every Catholic school also have a creepy blind nun? I have to know that. See that some No.

Craig:  But they do no. But they do smoke in the basement and hit you. That that is true.

Todd:  Fair enough.

Craig:  Oh, man. But, you know, they’re they’re having this seance and, like, of course, the eclipse is going on and they’re they’re doing these cool, like, back and forth shots between the eclipse and what they’re doing with the seance. And again, like, just the filmmaking is it’s cool, and it it’s, it builds the tension. But while they’re having the seance, like, things start to go weird and, like, the the 2 other girls besides Veronica, like, take their hands off the planchette, and she’s the only one that has it on there. And, eventually, the glass, like, explodes and, it cuts Veronica’s hand, and she bleeds onto the board, which that can’t be good. Right? And then she passes out, and her friends are freaking out. And one of them, I think it’s Rosa, leans over her, and Veronica is whispering. And this was something that bothered me a little bit about the movie because I took Spanish in high school and college, but I am certainly not fluent.  But they subtitle, you know, everything. But then when Veronica is whispering, they didn’t subtitle it. And I’m, like, damn it. Like, what is she saying? But, of course, it comes out later. But the friend freaks out and then Veronica, like, you know, kinda sits up halfway and her mouth kind of it opens unnaturally wide and she screams and the lights, you know, like, intensify, like, the the light bulbs get brighter and stuff. All of that, you know, me saying it, all of that sounds like any scene out of any Mhmm. Supernatural movie. And it is.  You know, it’s it’s it’s not that inventive, but, it’s it it works. I mean, this this guy, he he shot it well, and it looks Todd, and it is it’s tense, and it’s I I wasn’t scared, like, I didn’t need to go hide or anything, but it was it was it was tense and frightening and, I thought they did a good job. And from from that point on, as you would expect, things just start to get weird.

Todd:  Yeah. And and this was the part of the movie that I I started losing a little bit of patience with. And I think it’s just because, you know, we’ve seen this before. I kinda wanna know what’s the point. Okay. What’s the deal here? Okay. So weird things are happening. It’s kind of like your haunted house movie where, okay, you know they’re coming to the house, you know creepy things are gonna happen, but what’s the point? Like, when are we gonna get to the spot where we under Todd to understand or we Todd to get these drops of clues as to why these creepy things are significant and what impact it’s gonna truly have on our characters aside from the fact that it’s just a creepy house.  You know, in this case, aside from the fact, it was a Ouija session. They clearly let some spirit out. They were trying to contact Veronica’s father. Right. And so they brought a photograph of her father there as a personal item or whatnot. And it’s just a line of just strange things. The board had torn in half, and she puts the board in a in a bag and puts it up on this above a cabinet in her room. And the minute she walks out of the room, she hears that it’s falling down.  She goes in to put it back 2 or 3 times, and it still falls down. It there’s a there’s a scene at the dinner table where Veronica’s having a really hard time eating meatballs. But, you know, like, it’s just it’s almost like you think she’s possessed or something, and everything’s kinda moving in slow motion for her. She sees some eerie marks on her shoulder, which I didn’t quite get if maybe it was supposed to be somebody grabbing her in her sleep, or maybe later we were supposed to believe she grabbed herself or something.

Craig:  Yeah. It looked like a hand print.

Todd:  Yeah. She’s giving the little kid Antonio a bath, and the water suddenly as she leaves the room, suddenly the water’s, like, boiling hot and she has to grab him out and, she almost ends up locked in the other room, you know, while while this is going on. And she sees weird reflections in the TV. There are shadows passing around inside the house. And, I mean, all this is happening, but to me, it’s like there’s no build. It’s like, okay. Here’s a creepy thing. Alright.  Here’s a creepy thing. And now, here’s a creepy thing. And aside from the fact they’re all happening in and around her vicinity, like, and I’m thinking, is this her father? Whatever. It just wasn’t engaging enough for me to because one didn’t beget the next, you know. I couldn’t see a common thread going through it all. And Todd didn’t feel like it was building building to something. It just felt like, okay, well, alright. I get it.  Yeah. Creepy stuff. Something’s loose. What’s the point? You know.

Craig:  I kinda can’t believe that I’m about to defend this, but I’m going to. I just feel like that is very commercial, and, you know, this is this is what audiences want right now. You know, like, if you’re gonna have a a popular horror film, they want they I guess I am included in that, you know, you want things to be happening. You know, you don’t want to be sitting there waiting for something to happening Sure. To happen. And and this, you know, this movie, as many of them do, again, James Wan, I think, is the guy that did The Conjuring, and he’s done lots of other really popular, horror films. But, you know, you gotta keep people involved, you gotta keep people intrigued, so you gotta have a creepy reflection in the TV, you know, every few seconds or something falling off a counter just to kinda, you know, keep the interest. And I get what you’re saying, like, where is it going, what does it all mean, But I don’t know that your, expectations are reasonable.

Todd:  No. Just a bit. I’m gonna I’m gonna battle you back on this for a second because, for example, the conjuring. Okay? Like, the whole conjuring is about bringing the other people in to investigate it. Right? So immediately, okay, so there are a few creepy things that happened, but then they bring in the husband and wife team, and now they’re trying to figure out how are they going to, you know, get the ghost. And so, yeah, more creepy things happen, but that’s within the context of the 2 of them trying to narrow down exactly what’s going on in the house and this will, you know, there are these kind of clues and things that I feel like give it some focus. The older haunted house movies, maybe they they They go there a little bit, but in a lot of the older films you the big mystery is what is this about, you know? What is the source of the power? What is the source of the ghost? Or, oh my Todd, it’s the creepy kids, you know, or something like that. Whereas in this case, we know where what it’s about.  It’s about some spirit in the Ouija board. So I I just I just wanted the the plot to go in a particular direction. I felt like I could have been watching this for 2 hours, you know, before it just intense Oh, you could have.

Craig:  I totally agree with you. I just think that and again, I have to put myself in this category. You know, as an audience, we we wanna be entertained and we want to keep things happening and we have short attention spans. And so you you’ve gotta scare me every 2 or 3 minutes, or you’ve gotta make me Yeah. Look at something every 2 or 3 minutes, or I might I would like to think that I wouldn’t, you know, so now, but but who knows? But yeah. And and and then, you know, there’s there’s a couple of, dream sequences, and this is you know, I was reading just a little bit about this online and I was reading some fan, reviews. One of them was like, oh, there’s these dream sequences and it’s totally obvious that it’s a dream. Well, okay.  Get over it. Like, it’s a dream sequence. Like, these things happen. Mhmm. But there’s there’s one, in the middle of the night, you know, Veronica. And there’s there’s there’s cool stuff with music and, like, she does this thing every night where she, like, shines her flashlight up on her ceiling.

Todd:  That is awesome.

Craig:  Yeah. Where there’s these, the glow in the dark stars that those of us who grew up in the eighties nineties, all of us had those at some point, either in our childhood rooms or our college dorms or something. And, you know, every night she shines watch it, it’s actually really cool, like It is. They do they do really it, it’s actually really cool, like It is. They do they do really cool stuff with the beam of the flashlight kinda matching up with, the crescent of the moon and, on the on the ceiling. It’s really neat. But anyway Well,

Todd:  that whole sequence like with her shining the beam on this on the ceiling, it just evokes it evokes the sun, it evokes the moon, it it kind of evokes the eclipse with that action. And then even it it starts to overlay her laying in the bed, and I don’t know about you, but I was instantly getting flashes back to like the sacrifice pictures that were from earlier I mean sure it really ties those themes together very well and he revisits those quite a bit and is very inventive about it. And to me, those are some of the creepiest moments of the movie because, again, I felt like this is going somewhere. You know, he’s really pulling me into this this theme, you know, this this, central idea of the film that had been set up from the beginning.

Craig:  Yeah. I I mean, that’s just the thing. I I I feel like I can’t really articulate it, but the whole movie is just it’s well crafted. It’s it’s like a really good short story or a a a good novel, like, things just tie together. And not everything, you know, I get it that you’re saying there’s all these kind of cliched kind of trope kind of things going on, and there are. But overall, I just thought it was I don’t know. I thought it worked. It worked for me.  And and she she has these dreams like in the middle of the night, she wakes up after that whole flashlight thing, and her closet door, swings open. You know, it’s kinda the creaky swing open, and she sees her sisters huddled in the closet and they’re scared, and she turns around and her dad, or at least the guy from the picture, is standing in the shadows in the corner of her room completely nude chanting her name quietly, like in a whisper.

Todd:  Oh, yeah. And and 5 points for full frontal male nudity. How often do we get to see that in a movie? I They’re

Craig:  they’re not afraid to

Todd:  show the weiner in Europe. That’s true. They love

Craig:  the weiner in Europe. They’re they’re not afraid to

Todd:  show the weiner in Europe. That’s true. They love the weiner in Europe.

Craig:  Thank God. And then, like, she backs up against her bed and like these creepy supernatural arms, like, come out of her bed and grab her and hold her down. And yes, we’ve seen this a 1000000 times. We’ve seen the, you know, the the disembodied arms, you know, pulling somebody down or holding somebody down. But but it it’s well done. I mean, like, they did a good job with it. It may be a trope, but if you’re gonna do it, do it well And they did, and it was scary. I mean, it like, I certainly don’t think this I wasn’t that scared.  It’s not like it’s I didn’t have to get up and leave my living room or anything, but it is a scary movie. It’s a scary movie. Maybe I I feel like I’m trying to oversell it, and I’m not trying to oversell it. It’s just I wanna give it credit where credit is due. No. Yes. Because we’ve seen so many movies that, you know, take advantage of these cliches and these tropes and it’s just cheap and they don’t even really put much effort into it. You know, these the people behind this, you know, it really seems like they wanted to do well, and I think that they did.

Todd:  Mhmm. No. I I agree with you. I totally agree with you. We’re, like, 40 minutes into the movie now. You know, like I said before, I I still feel like we’re we’ve seen all this before, like you said too, but you’re right. It it’s got a It has a lot of promise at this point because we’re really feeling the mood, the atmosphere, and it’s really well done. And it’s not totally cliched in its presentation.  So then she goes to the basement, and in a perfect example of where the movie does subvert some tropes, we find out that sister death actually is like a spunky, surly lady with Yes. Chase Yes. Much in the basement. It becomes it’s very it’s very difficult to watch her in this film because she’s got these milky white eyes, you know, and she’s so silent in the beginning. She’s just staring at things and staring knowingly, and it’s, of course, it’s that blind spooky nun thing. Right. All the from this point on, the whole time later, you just can’t get this vision out of your head of her just like, well, lady, I got some spirit attached to you. Yeah.  You know, smoking her cigarette. It it still visually, she’s spooky to look at, but at

Craig:  that point,

Todd:  I’m like, oh, okay. Alright. And and and, again, we’re we’re coming up to an hour into the movie, and all these creepy things have happened. But, normally, by this point or at least early on, our protagonist is just trying to figure out what do I do about it? You know? How do I fix this? And she has just met up with this nun, and the nun just basically tells her what she should already know, which is, yep. This thing has attached itself to you. Mhmm. I think what she says is someone answered your call and now walks with you. Mhmm.  Alright. You know, see you later. Goodbye. And then some more creepy stuff happens.

Craig:  Well, and and she says something along the lines of, like, you have to fix what you did wrong or something

Todd:  like that. Not yet. That’s a little while.

Craig:  Oh, not yet. Oh, sorry.

Todd:  That’s an important point because that’s what I was waiting for, you know. I was expecting by this point, for her to get some clue as to, okay, where did it come from? Is this truly my father? Is this some other evil force? And at this point, she does drop a little hint, like like, I think she asks if it if it’s her father, she says. Because because she says something about the nun being able to see the shadows. The nun can see the shadows. And, and she asks, is it her father? She says, well, it, you know, it’s something, which Mhmm. Which made me go, oh, yeah. Oh, I I guess that’s interesting because you kind of assume it’s her father, but then you kinda wonder why her father’s creeping her the hell out.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  And then, you know, you kind of have to be have it told to you it might not even be her father. But again, you’re thinking, does her father need help? You know, what does this mean? How is her father significant with this? And so, yeah, I just at this point, just a little too many unanswered questions for me, and certainly the main character, and so she’s still just kinda going about her business. Yeah. That’s why I kind of, at this point, started to really get impatient.

Craig:  Fair enough. I can see that. I I get it. And and I

Todd:  shut off the film and ran out of the room screaming, so I had to take a break.

Craig:  The nun tells her, at this point, you have siblings. Right? And she’s like, yeah. And she’s like, okay. Well, you’re gonna have to protect your siblings because they’re in trouble. Mhmm. And so Veronica looks at the cult excuse me, the occult encyclopedia that came with her Ouija board, which I thought was kind of hilarious. But That’s right. But but probably not unlikely.  Like and I like the way that it’s presented. Like, it’s the Ouija board and then, like, the occult encyclopedia. It’s all wrapped up in plastic set. She’s she probably just bought it at Target or whatever. It’s hilarious. But, you know, it

Todd:  totally looks like a book I I read. I mean, I probably had 3 or 4 of these kind of books. Oh, sure. The eighties that I had 1 on ghosts do just like this that I pour through. You know?

Craig:  I Oh, I looked at yeah. I looked at them at the library. I’m like

Todd:  You didn’t dare take them home, did you?

Craig:  No. Boys and girls, there used to be these big buildings called libraries where we had to go look at things. We couldn’t just get on the Internets. But, anyway, so she finds these, like, protection symbols, and, she draws them, and she, hangs them above the kids’ beds. A neighbor comes up to complain about excessive noise even though they haven’t been making excessive noise, and she also says that there are black stains appearing in her ceiling underneath Veronica’s room, which, you know, kind of comes up later because later on, Veronica lifts up her siblings beds and the mattresses have these black stains. Clearly just, you know, result of them being haunted or whatever. Gosh. And I don’t know.  I like, I’m looking through I took so many notes because that was one of the things, like, it seemed like things were constantly happening. Yeah. And, ultimately, it doesn’t they don’t really make that much difference. Oh. But but, you know, they’re, like, there there’s demonic shadows on the wall and then, the protection symbols that she hung up above the kids beds light on fire and burned and a ghostly hand throttles one of her sisters and, Veronica goes to, like, try to help and and then the girl is okay, but the girl is like, why were you strangling me? And I thought that this was actually a really interesting point in the movie because at this point I wondered Mhmm. Is there really something supernatural going on or is this chick just losing it? Yeah. Now obviously the movie is highly suggesting that something supernatural is at work here, but, it was an interesting, you know, suggestion that whether supernatural or not, maybe something’s going on and maybe Veronica is seeing it, but nobody else is. And maybe all of these things that are happening, maybe she’s doing it without knowing that she’s doing it.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And and I don’t I don’t know that ultimately that was what was going on. I really don’t think that that was I don’t think that was what was going on, but it was an interesting suggestion at least.

Todd:  Well, we’ll definitely come back to this, because there’s a later scene that I wanna talk about that, yeah, addresses what we’re talk what you’re talking about here. Before that scene, she finally after all this creepy stuff happens, she finally goes back to that sister again. And this time, I think she seeks her out. She goes to the basement, and the sister gives her the advice. She says, you have to you you have to close the door that you opened. Mhmm. She’s like, well, how do I do that? She says, you have to do right what you did wrong. The answer is in the book.  And it’s like, oh, okay. Cool. And I’m I’m sitting here thinking, what book? Is she talking about the Bible or you don’t

Craig:  whatever like that? No. No. No. No.

Todd:  No. She’s talking about that cheap, like, comic book thing that came with her her Ouija board The list of instructions is is kind of a letdown, but that’s funny. I thought anyway Yeah, so she goes and the of course the pages this book are burned up They were burned up in their seance, and I thought oh the pages are burned Well, she just goes to the store and buys another one and she comes back and she’s finally able to read it. So quite a bit of detective work. She had to do there and and she reads it and it basically says you have to say goodbye to the spirit at the end of the seance or the spirit won’t leave. So, okay. So then she runs to her friends, and this was an interesting bit because her friends are having some party over at one of their houses. And Veronica is getting I think this might be shortly after the stains under their beds.  For some reason, she’s feeling like this is the day. Like, if I don’t do something today, we’re in serious danger. And so she runs to this party at her friend, Rose’s house, and Rose’s, like, not even interested in hearing her out. And Veronica’s kinda going nuts, and she runs in and she pulls Diana out of the kitchen where she’s making out with some guy. And Diana doesn’t wanna have anything to do with her either. And, basically, all these people at the party are just like, who’s this crazy girl? And they all boot her out. And as they’re booting her out, Rosa says to her at the door, I think Veronica says something, like, why don’t you wanna listen to me? What’s going on? And Rosa says, don’t you remember what you whispered to me on the you said you were going to die Todd. And that creeped us out, and so we’re staying away from

Craig:  you or something like that. Right.

Todd:  And I’m like, okay. Well, you’re great friends. You know, first of all. Okay.

Craig:  Thanks, bestie.

Todd:  You got my back and everything. But then I was thinking, like, you’re going to die today. Does she mean on that very day that she was running to their party?

Craig:  Or did she mean Yeah. I think No. I think that’s what they meant.

Todd:  Okay. Well, that Yeah. Alright. So so that’s kinda what I thought it meant. And so I was thinking, jeez. Alright. This is getting interesting. So what’s gonna happen to her today? And then as things unfold and are going on, you know, you’re you’re presented with that question.  Is Veronica really gonna die here? And then why would she say that? How would she predicted her death? And then what you just said earlier about, well, maybe she’s doing all this and she’s kind of going psycho came into my head. And I thought, oh, okay. So, you know, she’s kind of planned all this out and all this maybe is kind of either going on in her head or she’s doing all this stuff, but it’s nothing supernatural at all. Maybe she’s traumatized by her father’s death. You know, that kind of thing. And I’m thinking back to how everything could possibly be explained. You know, except for the visions, which she’s only seeing. So yeah.  It it was an interesting point in the movie, I I felt, but really shitty friends. Yeah.

Craig:  Yeah. She she needs to get new

Todd:  friends. They were up there were up with her through the seance and all that, and they won’t even stick with her afterwards. Yeah. They saw some messed up stuff go down, and then they’re, like, I don’t even care anymore.

Craig:  Well, this is leading up to the end because when she leaves that party, some weird cinematography goes on where, like, she passes herself on the street and, like, then this it’s I don’t I have no idea. I am so not technical in this regard, but, like, the the film kind of slows down a little bit as she passes herself on the street and notices it. And then when she turns to look I mean, I I assume it’s her. It’s somebody who looks just like her in the same exact clothes. We don’t see the other person or girl’s face, but she she passes her and she stops and she turns around, and then the other people in the background are, like, walking backwards, like

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  Weird things are going on.

Todd:  That’s so good.

Craig:  And she goes yeah. It looks really good. It was really cool. And so she goes to her mom’s bar and begs her mom to close the bar and take them away. She’s like, you’ve just you’ve gotta get us out of here. If we just get out of here, it’ll be okay. But her mom, of course, is very busy and, you know, just kind of blows her off as one might their daughter comes to tell them that ghosts are chasing them or whatever. Mhmm.  But that leads up to the finale where okay. The whole reason that she went to that party was because the nun had told her you have to do right what you did wrong. So she wanted the other girls who had done the seance with her to do it again so they could say goodbye. But, of course, they refused and kicked her out. So instead She’s a she’s a teenager, so I will forgive her flaws and reasoning and logic, but she thinks that it will be a good idea to have her sisters fill in. And she she gives the the little magazine occult encyclopedia to Antonio, the cute little boy, and shows him the pictures of the protection symbols and says draw these on the wall. And he’s all excited because he gets to draw on the wall, But, oh, Todd, just little things that I liked about this movie, like, she gives him it and she shows him and she’s, like, draw this on the wall. And he’s, like, okay.  And then he goes and he’s drawing them all over the wall, but then he kind of gets bored drawing the same thing, so he flips through the pages until he comes to a new symbol, and it’s a symbol of invocation. And he draws that on the wall. Yeah. And as silly as that is and as silly as it sounds, you know, like, that’s totally what would happen. It’s like your little your little kid brother is totally gonna be bored and obviously has no idea what they’re doing, so you accidentally get a symbol of invocation on

Todd:  the wall. And and let’s let’s really doubt to hope that the universe cares at the artistic quality of these symbols. I mean, that he took some serious artistic liberties with these symbols in the book by the fact that he’s, you know, 4. Yeah.

Craig:  But he’s so cute. He’s so cute.

Todd:  You just think that, oh my god. What are you even thinking? This this woman has totally lost it. Like

Craig:  Yeah. But I I mean, even, you know, this is just it it it’s scary. You know, Anytime that you have children, especially endearing children that you really care about, not just annoying kids that you don’t care, but endearing children that you care about. You know, you put them in jeopardy. That’s that’s tense and scary, and so you’ve got these 3 girls sitting around, the Ouija board and it says you the the rules or whatever say you have to say goodbye and then you can sing some sort of chant or just, you know, some sort of quiet song, to usher them out or whatever, and they don’t know what to sing because they don’t know any chance. But the little boy’s like, you should sing this jingle. He had sang it earlier in the movie. It was actually really cute.  Like, he was singing it over over again, and it annoyed Veronica. And she was like, oh my god. Shut up. But they all know it. They all know it. They all know it. So, they sing this jingle for, like it’s like dishwashing detergent or something. Yeah.  I know. It’s so cute.

Todd:  It’s really it’s really cool, actually.

Craig:  It’s really cute. But then, of course, there’s all kinds of scary noises, and the doors are slamming and the candles blow out and the Ouija board splits opens again. And again, they’re using a drinking glass as the planchette and it flips over and it rolls towards the bedroom door. A hand grabs out through the mattress, and all of the lights go out, and that’s when Veronica finally calls the police, and and that brings us back to the beginning.

Todd:  Yeah. And at that point, I thought I thought, wow. That worked. You know, how how many times in a horror movie does somebody try to call the police and the phone’s dead or they don’t understand or, you know, something gets cut off or the police don’t believe them?

Craig:  I was like, wow. The I forgot. Yeah.

Todd:  The police actually did come.

Craig:  Yeah. The the cops come.

Todd:  And so now, we’re kind of back at the beginning and we’re wondering because the where it had left off, you know, where it had jumped Todd 3 days earlier, was the cops coming into this apartment and going down the hall and opening a door and seeing something horrifying. Just a horrified look on their faces. So we’re wondering what is what is it gonna be that they see that’s so horrifying? We know it’s gonna be something. And that’s kind of cool. Like, I thought it was exciting to know that we truly, the cops, were gonna come and they were gonna find something. Now you just wanna know what? So anyway, she goes and grabs the girls and, is looking for Antonio. He is it takes a little while to find him because this demon shadowy thing keeps lifting him up and pulling him into rooms. And finally, she finds him cowered up somewhere, picks him up and carries him through the house and shouts at the girls, come follow me.  And they go to the door, and she ushers the girls out the door, and the girls say, where’s Antonio? And she’s, like, looking down, and she’s holding him. But when she looks at a mirror at the end of the hall, there’s nobody in her arms. Mhmm. So she shuts the door and locks the girls out so they can’t come back in, and she goes back in to find him. She eventually all this stuff happens. She goes into, the bathroom and it’s like he’s in there, it’s like he’s in the tub, but he gets sucked in. But then the mirror breaks and and she she because she smashed her head into the mirror and a piece of the mirror falls down, and it’s like a knife. And again, that evoked, again, I was thinking, oh, okay.  This is that human sacrifice thing. Like where how is this coming together? You know, because she picks up this knife, and she’s squeezing it so hard the blood is dripping from her fingers, and she goes into, I think, her bedroom again. And the wardrobe is in there, and, sure enough, Antonio is curled up in the corner of the wardrobe with his fingers in his ears, chanting her name over and over and over again. And this is where we have our like Kaiser soze moment I would call it yeah like where suddenly we’re getting all these flashbacks and audio clips of earlier things in the movie that are all coming to her at once here. And I guess they’re supposed to piece together to to let us sit on a big twist or a big secret or something. At least, that is the impression that it gives. Right? Mhmm. And she’s looking in a mirror the whole time she’s doing this, and then the the mirror in the the image in the mirror is kind of doing its own thing.  You know, where she’s doing another thing. It’s like she’s facing the evil version of herself. And at some point she said, it’s me. It’s me. Mhmm. And I thought, oh my gosh. That’s it. Right? It has been her all along.  And I thought that is what all of this was supposed to be telling us, and maybe it still was, but she basically raises this knife blade mirror shard to her neck, and it looks like she is cut slitting her own throat as she falls backwards. But then it just zooms in on her face and and it just freezes there. You get kind of a point of view shot from her eyes, and this dark figure has come over her suddenly. And it’s it comes across, you know, the stars from blah blah, you know, from her ceiling. Again, like you said earlier, it’s just this really cool imagery the way this is all flowing together. And it’s got her suspended in the air as it’s throwing its it’s it’s pushing its hand down her throat for some reason. I’m thinking, oh, okay. I mean, this is cool and it’s creepy, but what is this now? You know? At this point, the cops burst into the room and what he sees with this horrified look on her face, which his face, which I thought for sure was gonna be her having slit her own throat on the ground is really and truly herself suspended in the middle of the air, you know, by some unseen force for a little while while she’s gagging until she finally falls to the ground.  Mhmm. And so at that point, I was just I don’t know, man. I was just kind of a little confused. Okay. Well, like, it was supernatural. Yeah. I mean, I guess it still could have been her. Was she possessed? Was she still kinda going crazy? Was this demon making her do these other things? But at the end of the day it wasn’t really her so right yeah I I can I kind of left my head scratching at that especially because that previous scene just seemed really intent on on revealing some kind of twist to me you know but it I don’t know? I I am I wrong about this diet, Twenties? No.

Craig:  No. No. I don’t think you’re wrong. I I I think that it was meant to be a little ambiguous. Mhmm. At least the way that I interpreted it, there certainly was something supernatural working against her, you know, some sort of evil destructive force. Now how much of that was it, you know, doing things or how much of it was it manipulating her into doing things, I’m not entirely sure. It it seemed to me that whatever whatever evil force or spirit or whatever this was, I I read it as though it were it was trying to convince her in the end that it had been her that was doing it, I don’t really think that it was.  But either way, I mean, I I kind of like the ambiguity because either way, ultimately, it doesn’t really matter, you know, like this thing, whatever it was, attached itself to her through, this seance that they did and it, you know, was in her life regardless of how it affected those things. But, yeah, I mean, ultimately, you know, it was just kind of sad, you know. I was sad to see poor Veronica die and they do, you know, some text at the end, right, kind of explaining that the police found her and they saw this and they put the supernatural stuff in their report and the family eventually had to move because things kept happening or whatever. I don’t know. I mean, I I’ve I’ve referenced The Conjuring several times, and and we’ve never even talked about that before in its entirety. But it’s a good movie too. We’ll talk about it someday, but it it falls into that category to me. You know, I think that there are and it makes sense that there’s there people are interested in these kind of unexplained or un explainable stories or or stories that appear to involve, the supernatural because that’s just something that we either, you know, a lot of people just discredit it outright and okay, you know, logical people, I get that, you know, and then there are people like me who are skeptical, but not entirely willing to write those things off because who knows? Stuff happens.  I don’t know. But, it’s it’s I think that it capitalizes on that fear that even though it’s probably pretty unlikely, it maybe it could happen, and that’s, you know, that’s a little bit frightening. And and I thought that this movie did a good job of capitalizing on it, it, and I I wanna say again because I I think that it’s significant. The young lady who played Veronica, I just think she did just such a good job. I mean, that’s you know, I I’ve talked before about, you know, I do community theater. But, you know, like, when you think about it from the perspective of an actor this girl had to carry this whole movie on her shoulders.

Todd:  Oh, yeah.

Craig:  And and she did and she did it well and she was endearing, she was believable, I felt for her and, I I liked it overall. It wasn’t amazing. It’s not like it’s one of my favorite movies I’ve ever seen, but I thought that it was a good movie, and it deserves, you know, it it’s it’s won some awards and stuff, and I think that it’s at least deserving of some discussion and some recognition. He he they did a good job. Yeah.

Todd:  I agree. It deserves a claim for being a well made film. It has a lot of really neat moments in it. I mean, things that are just visual that we haven’t even described. There’s, like, a thing with, like, a painting in there of these dogs that are, like, leaping in front of, like, an in a in a scene. And one of the more intense moments of the film as she walks by it like a couple of the dogs and they’re like barking and moving but it’s only like for a split second before the painting Mhmm. Falls off the wall. I mean, there’s so much going on.  It’s so subtle. And I would even say that for the CGI that there was in this film, it was Todd. Mhmm. To the point where I thought I think some things that I’m pretty sure were actually CGI still to me almost looked like practical effects. Mhmm. The the line was very blurred there, and that matters, you know, when you’ve seen enough horror movies that we have. And it helps keep the film not looking cheap, You know? Because nowadays, CGI makes a film look cheap. Yep.  And so, yeah, this it’s so well made. It’s so fresh. You’re right. The character is good. That actress, this is her only major film credit at all. She she really did carry the film. Did I care a lot about her? I guess just because it ends up being so tragic, it’s really quite sad. Because a lot of times with horror films, there’s a moral there’s a morality to them, like somebody’s messing with something they were supposed to know better or at the very least, you know, usually it’s some terrible person that these terrible things are happening to.  In this case, it’s just some girl like anybody playing around the Ouija board that she bought Right. Freaking Target. You know, so she really deserve to have any of this happen to her. And it as it sort of turns out, it didn’t even have any connection with her dead father or anything like that. Even though there’s a case to be made here, I think, that perhaps the movie is trying to draw some connection with maybe this is like when I was thinking about the fact that this could be her in in her head Maybe this is the way that she deals with the grief and then she just kind of goes crazy and maybe that at the at its core is what’s behind the true story. You know, a girl who’d kinda went psycho, because she lost a family member. And as it turns out, like, she didn’t lose her dad in the, you know, the actual event the actual case. In the actual case, yeah, this girl did kind of, like, start going a little nuts after her Ouija board, and she started getting sick.  And they, you know, took her to a mental a mental institution. They said physically, she was okay, but mentally, she was having some problems. And then eventually, she died. And then all of the supernatural stuff that went in the police report or whatever was everything that happened afterwards like you said like that apartment just seemed to be haunted afterwards And we just get a very small hint of that in this movie Because it does linger on the detective at the end a little bit he goes he’s kind of like agape at what he saw. And he’s wandering through the house a little bit afterwards, and he goes to pick up her photograph. And he drops it immediately because it’s, like, burns him. And he looks down at the photo, and the photo starts burning. It’s a photo Veronica.  The photo starts burning around her face, just on its own. And apparently, this is one of the incidents based on the probably the only thing in this movie that was, like, directly parallel or whatever to what actually happened. And that apparently, the the police did see a photograph that had been burned even though the frame itself was entirely intact. And they thought how in the world would a photograph burn inside of the frame like that. So, yeah. And that was an interesting image to leave on. And in fact, the film does leave on it because, then the next, I think, the the shot before the credits is that photograph, like, having been burned suddenly, like, deburring itself, like, reversing itself. I don’t know.  I don’t know what it means, but, I’ll I’ll stand with you that it’s a good movie. It’s not the best movie I’ve ever seen. Right. It’s certainly not the scariest, but I enjoyed watching it. Yeah. It was fun.

Craig:  Me too. Yeah. And I, you know, people who like scary movies, you know, I I I appreciate I feel like we’re very worldly and that we watch these foreign films. If if if you’re willing to, read the subtitles, and, you know, if if you’re into these kind of movies, I I would definitely recommend it. I think it’s really well made. And I I wanna thank my cousin Grant for recommending it. Now that he and I have reconnected, maybe we’ll start to have more dialogue and maybe do some more movies that he has talked about. I also wanna say I hate to break the illusion for any of you, listeners out there, but we do typically record these episodes a few weeks in advance

Todd:  before Boy, you’re really letting on all our secrets out Todd.

Craig:  All our secrets. I’m sorry. You’re the editor. Edit it out. I don’t I don’t but, today, as we’re sitting here recording this, would have been my grandmother’s 83rd birthday, and we lost her, last week. This movie has nothing to do with her. Reminds me nothing of her, But, yeah, it’s her birthday, and I miss her already. And, so I just wanted to give a shout out to my grandma Barb.  I love you, grandma Barb.

Todd:  This one’s dedicated to grandma Barb. Just, Craig, lay off the Ouija board. Yeah. Keep your memories of her intact.

Craig:  Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. She had a great long life, you know, 21 grandkids, 22 great grandkids. She left an amazing legacy. I don’t need to contact her on the Ouija board. I’m sure wherever she is, she is doing just fine. So, anyway, thank you again for listening.  If you enjoyed this episode, please check us out. You can find us all over the place. We’re on Stitcher. We’re on Google Play, iTunes. We’re on Facebook. Anywhere that you can find your favorite Todd cast, you’ll find us. Just, give us a Google search if nothing else. And until next week, I am Craig

Todd:  And I’m Todd.

Craig:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

In tribute to Margot Kidder, we review one of her more well-known horror flicks. We both remembered this as being fairly boring, and at least one of us hasn’t revised that assessment. Regardless, it was a huge hit and a widely influential haunted house movie.

Episode 126, 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:  This week, we decided we would pay tribute To another one of our recently departed, Margot Kidder, died a couple weeks ago. She is known for many films, Most specifically, I think, for the early Superman films with Christopher Reeve. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. She’s she’s the only Lois Lane that matters. She is Lois Lane to me. 

Todd:  She really is. Right? Oh my gosh. And she was in all of them, even the really crappy Superman 4. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  And she was also Black Christmas, you which would be, probably the movie we would have chosen to do had we not already done that film. 

Craig:  Definitely. Definitely. 

Todd:  So, instead, we went through what I think is I don’t know. She might have done another horror movie or two. I know she did an episode of Tales from the Crypt. Whatever other horror movie she’s done is is unknown to us. Right? We we know The Amityville Horror from 1979. That’s what we’re gonna do today. Yeah. And we’ve already done The Amityville Horror Part 2, which was a highly entertaining movie for all kinds 

Craig:  of reasons. 

Todd:  Yeah. And I think even when we did that show, we remarked about how dull and boring this movie was as we remembered it. But it had been, I think, for both of us, admittedly, quite a while since we’d seen it. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. A really long time. And I was Saying that, to my partner yesterday that that’s that’s what I remembered about this movie, that it was kind of boring. But I think that when I had seen it, I had been a kid. You know? I I I don’t remember. Like, maybe high school, maybe college. I don’t remember. That’s what I remember is thinking that it was kinda boring.   And I have to say that Going back and watching it again, I really think that I appreciated it more, this time around. It it really didn’t strike me, as boring this time. I actually kinda liked it. And, you know, we’ll get into all that, whatever. But, Margot Kidder, like you said, Lois Lane. I mean, that’s that’s what I know her from, and Right. I loved those, you know, those Superman movies when I was a kid. You know? Superhero movies are blockbuster movies.   You know? It seems like that’s Kind of all we get anymore. Like, we Or it’s like 

Todd:  they’re the only American movies we seem to get in China. 

Craig:  Yeah. And I and I’m not surprised. And, you know, I get it. I I’m not a huge fan of those movies, but I I get The draw of them because when I was a kid, those Christopher Reeves Superman movies, I loved those movies. I absolutely loved them. And, Margo Kidder, in those movies, I always just really, really liked her because She was a little bit atypical. You know? I I will say that in this movie, in the Amityville Horror, she’s beautiful. She’s a beautiful woman, But that’s that’s not how I thought of her as Lois Lane.   You know? When I when I thought of her as Lois Lane, Yeah. She’s she’s pretty, but that’s not what it was about with her. You know? She was, you know, kind of a a A tough broad in those movies. You know? A a very strong independent woman, and I just thought she was so cool, in those movies. And and a and a great companion for Christopher Reeve who was so all American and Handsome and nice and, you know, like, he he was just kind of the epitome of this all American guy, and then he had this romantic counterpart who kinda gave him hell sometimes, and, I don’t know. I just really liked her. And and so I’m I’m sad that she’s gone. I know that she struggled in her life.   She was bipolar, And and she went through some struggles with that. I think sometime in the nineties, she was really struggling with her mental health and at one point ended up, homeless. And, you know, of course, when the media found out about that, you know, they really sensationalized it, you know, kind of the fall of this, famous American actress, but she, you know, she dealt with her stuff and came back around, and, She continued working, you know, up up until now, up until, her death, and and I think that she’s still you know, she had filmed projects haven’t even come out yet. So we’ll still see a little bit more of her, and I I’m glad because she was a good actress. You mentioned Black Christmas. I really like Black Christmas, but I think the biggest part of why I like it is her. She was hilarious in that movie. Again, playing a tough no nonsense kinda gal.   I suggested that we do something to pay tribute to her, and and here we are. 

Todd:  You know, it’s funny when you talk about how she comes across. I always get her and, like, Karen Allen mixed with. You know? Because they both have a similar, Well, actually, they both look alike. I feel like they come sisters, but but they both kind of come across that way, or maybe I’m just such a fan of Raiders of the Lost Ark. You know, that like you said, pretty, but still tough, no nonsense broads, and also have that what do you call it? Like, a little bit of a smoker’s voice. Mhmm. Just a little gravelly, You know, down there, which is really can be pretty sexy. Yeah.   And I think that does her suits her well for this movie because she really comes across as a real person. You know? And I think that’s one thing that I can say this film has going for it. I think all of the people in this movie, at least as family, The the the stars are, of course, Margo Kidder plays the mother, Kathy Lutz, and George Lutz is played by James Brolin, who is Very night. Very nice looking man. 

Craig:  Oh my god. He’s so hot. And especially in this movie, he’s So hot. Like, 

Todd:  I have to I have to confess it was a little distracting. I don’t know. I think his, I think his son is even better looking personally. 

Craig:  Oh, you but they they look a lot alike. I mean, there’s it’s Yeah. Man, if if they did a remake of this movie, Josh Brolin could easily take over his dad’s role even though He’s probably older now than his dad was when he played, this role, but, oh, boy. Gosh. He he shouldn’t have got me started going On James Rowland because I swear I mean, he’s a good looking guy now. He’s married to well, I think they’re married. They’re a couple, Barbara Streisand. Yeah.   I mean, this is him in his prime, and he is just I’ll let it go, but he’s a very good looking man. 

Todd:  Even even buried under mountains of of seventies hair. Right. Seriously. And this is no joke. When I think of seventies, the look, this is it. Yes. This is the it’s the picture of him on the photograph on the cover of the VHS tape for this movie that I go back to every single time. Big bushy hair, huge beard, and mustache.   Just so great. So, anyway, this movie, I don’t know. I don’t think I feel as Warmly to it as you do, though, Craig, I I felt it was a bit boring. Not that stuff doesn’t happen. It’s just that Not enough happens in a short enough amount of time. 

Craig:  Yeah. I that that’s fair. I I I do think it’s a little bit too long. You know? It’s An hour and 57 minutes. I I think that they could have cut it down to an hour 30, and it probably would have been a little bit tighter, and that’s fine. I I guess that maybe I don’t know. The 1st time around that I watched it, I don’t think that I really knew anything about it. And this time around, Since we did Amityville 2, you know, back then when we did it, I did some research, light, you know, Wikipedia research into, the story and the idea that supposedly these movies, At least 1 and 2.   You know? There’s, like, I don’t know, 6 or 7 other sequels after this that, you know, just go wherever they wanna go. But, supposedly, these these first 2 movies were based on actual events. And, actually, part 2 is really a prequel to part 1 because it deals with the DeFeo murders that happened before the events of this movie in which the oldest DeFeo’s son, killed his parents and, I think, 3 or 4 of his siblings in this house, the Amityville house. And this movie takes place after that. The this is the family that moved in. I think it was 13 months. I think that the the house Was on the market for 13 months. Nobody wanted to touch it because of the terrible events that happened there.   But this new family, George Lutz and Kathy Lutz, who had, just recently married. She had 3 kids, from a previous marriage. They each had their own homes, but they wanted to, You know, live together as a family. So, they looked at this house, and it was Priced well because it hadn’t sold for over a year. What do you think? 

Clip:  I love it. Honey, $80,000? Might as well be $800,000. 

Craig:  And I’m like, are you kidding me? That house. 

Todd:  It’s on Long Island. It’s got a boat house there. There’s another little house attached. It’s right on the light. It’s gorgeous, and it’s huge. Oh, yeah. It’s huge. Colonial. 

Craig:  And I get it. You know? This is 1979. That was the year I was born. I understand that the housing market has changed, but I’m like For 

Todd:  My god. 

Craig:  I paid that much for my house, and I live 

Todd:  in this little tiny old house. I’d live in the murder house for $80. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. Totally. You know? And that’s kinda what they say too. 

Clip:  I just wish the All those people that have died here. I mean, dude, a   guy kills his whole family. Don’t they bother you? 

Craig:  Well, sure, but houses don’t have memories. 

Todd:  I really like the fact, actually, that they made a deal out of that. Like, You know, it’s it’s a little atypical. Well, of course, because this is based on a true story. Of course, they’re just following the story. But it’s a little atypical for a horror movie for the people who moved into the house know that they were buying a house the people were murdered in. You know? Right. That has a history. And that’s that’s a little refreshing.   And it’s cool that they call that out in the movie itself, or they don’t even try to manipulate, you know, the truth to to make it seem like, oh, the realtor hit it, you know, or, well, we’ll buy it anyway, anything like that. They go in there. They know The story behind it. You know, I think that the real story behind this is even more interesting than the movie itself. And Sure. You know, just to briefly cap it off, I think pretty much history has come to decide that all of this was a big hoax. Yeah. That the original owners of the house, the the real George and Kathy Lutz, were in financial trouble, and and that’s something actually that they deal with in the movie in a slightly different way.   But, anyway, that they were in financial trouble and probably had some motivation, to make a big deal out of the house. At first, they called some press conference, And, and this was at the behest, it seems to be, of the attorney for the for the DeFeo Kid. So if you kinda go through the whole thing, and you should check it out online. I’m not gonna rehash the whole thing here. But at the end of the day, it seems like the attorney who wasn’t Successful at getting to fail off for the murders, nonetheless, liked the publicity he was getting from it and maybe even wanted to be able to Reopen the case because his original argument was that, a claim of insanity, which the jury didn’t buy. I mean, they said, yeah. Maybe he was kind of insane, but but but he didn’t, know, that doesn’t absolve him of responsibility. But it seems like he and the Lutzes may have cooked up this story of of a haunting in the house since they bought it and hearing voices and things to just stir the pot a little bit and maybe be able to open things back up, to a retrial or something or maybe just for publicity.   Anyway, a book was written. The Lutz’ were really kind of cagey at first about what was true and what was not. Even over time, they kinda changed their stories, or they would they would be alternately really interested in talking about it and then kinda not talking about it. I think at one point, the Warrens apparently investigated this house too early on, and, you know, it’s kinda one of their deals. And we know that they were, known to stretch the truth considerably. The whole thing just is was a bit of a cash grab and a money thing. And even the lawyer later, I guess, Tried to sue the writer of this book claiming that, he was supposed to be more involved in the production of the movie or the production of the book than he was, And, therefore, he felt he was kinda cut out. And he kinda comes out then and says, but it was all a big hoax anyway.   He’s trying to throw cold water on it. So, anyway, you can enjoy the movie Even knowing all that as a as a work of fiction, as a haunted house movie, which is what it is. You know, knowing all that whether it’s true or not, doesn’t matter to me. Right? It’s a movie. 

Craig:  Sure. 

Todd:  And in fact, usually, I I look at all that crap with a grain of salt anyway, and and you and I have talked before about how so many of these based on a true story movies. Sometimes that’s just slapped on something completely fictional, you know, just to make it seem more interesting. In this case, it almost feels like they would have been more successful, in my opinion, Actually, going off the rails. You know? Because because the true story of what happens in this house to me isn’t all that interesting. Like, they’ve really got a stretch, from what these guys claimed. Because, ultimately, what what they claimed happened was just random things like the house Right. The walls would bleed. There was slime coming out of the keyholes, and And I heard voices Yeah.   Soft face in the window, and then everybody kinda leaves. You know? Right. So I feel like the movie is is caught in a bad spot here where they’re trying to stay somewhat true to the source material and not veer Too far from it, but still they’re trying to make it dramatically interesting. And in the end, I feel like maybe they stuck a little too close to the source material, because that’s all they really have to go with for, like, an hour and a half. Yeah. 

Craig:  I I know what you mean, because I was just reading, You know, I was reading about, like, the plot details of the novel itself, and and it it seems like the the movie really tried to hit as many of those plot points as they could even when things would happen, and then they would just kind of go unexplained. You know? And I guess that’s The the way, you know, if if houses were really haunted, you know, that would be the way that things go. Like, Something weird happens. We have no explanation for it. Move on. But but in a movie, you know, where you’re looking for kinda, like, Plot consistency. You know, just a series of random events does does not a plot make. Yeah. 

Todd:  And and and you’re kinda I mean and there’s no antagonist really. I mean, you could argue that the house is the antagonist, but there’s nothing Cohesive or coherent about like you said, there’s, like, no motive, ultimately for this evil. We don’t really get a strong, Clear explanation. It it ends up kind of being the closest thing we get is the old ancient Indian like, almost literally the old ancient Indian burial ground Right. You know, explanation, which which is fine, but even Exorcist 2 I mean, even Poltergeist 2 gave us a character. Yeah. You know? 

Craig:  Right. Well and and James Brolin and Margo Kidder met the Lutzes and and, you know, spoke with them. And, apparently, James Brolin Kind of became friends with, George Lutz, but both James Brolin and Margo saying that they think that the story is bullshit. 

Todd:  Like, they don’t believe it. 

Craig:  And in fact, you know, ironically, since we’re doing this as a tribute to Margo Kidder, she didn’t like this movie. Yep. Sorry, Margo. We only had so much to go with. 

Todd:  We already did Black Christmas. Really sorry. 

Craig:  But, but, yeah, I mean, it’s it’s it’s certainly questionable. But like you said, you know, it’s a movie, and I don’t know. I I thought that it had good things going for it. I I thought that, you know, it was It was well acted. I thought that both, Kidder and Brolin did a really good job in their roles. But Like you said, there’s really no, antagonist or motivation. And at one point in the movie, James Brolin as George Lutz Shouts, you know, to the house, what do you want from us? And it would have kind of been nice to get an answer to that question. You know? We don’t.   We don’t get an answer to it. Dig up 

Todd:  the bodies in the basement and bury us properly or something like that. You know? 

Craig:  But no. And, again, I mean, if if we were going with the fact that this were real, You know, why does a haunted house have to have motivation? You know? It’s just disgruntled spirits or whatever causing trouble for the sake of causing trouble. But When it comes to a movie plot, that potentially can get kinda tedious. And I understand why you may Have not so fond feelings. That’s fine. 

Todd:  It’s okay. I just I just thought 

Craig:  it was okay. And it was, You know, it’s very reminiscent of other movies of the time. It’s reminiscent of The Exorcist. It’s reminiscent of The Omen. You know, it fits categorically really well in with those other movies of the late seventies, early eighties. And and I don’t think that it’s it’s bad. I mean, I think that it’s competently made. I think that it’s well Acted.   Maybe the source material isn’t that great. I don’t know, but it’s not a bad movie. 

Todd:  It had everything it needed to fit in with all those movies. It has a a priest come in then, you know, that gets into whatever. It has, like, some slight possession aspect going. It has the, satanic elements that, you know, come and go and crosses upside down, and there’s a religious aspect. Like, there was just a fervor at this time, in, you know, at this this decade, you know, the seventies, Where not only was were these movies coming out like The Exorcist and this, but even in the news, there were accusations of witchcraft and Satanism going on at daycares, it all turned out to be you know, there were people were were hypnotizing kids trying to bring out memories, and they were coming up with fantastical stories of seeing babies eaten, you know, by by little miss Tillywigger, you know, their their their teacher or whatever. You know? It’s just and People really got the trouble for it. You know? I mean, people people it was it was kinda lousy, but I think it’s this atmosphere also that probably Encourage the source material. I mean, surely, this would be one of the reasons why they these guys would come out with an incredible story about their house.   Like, they could clearly cash in. It’s kinda going on all around, and people would seem to be buying buying it, you know, to a certain extent. So it’s like art imitating life, imitating art. Know? It’s it’s all very reflective of the time. 

Craig:  Well yeah. And, I mean, this was a time this was the time before you youngins out there won’t even understand this, but before, we all had a video camera in our pocket every hour of the day. You know? So a lot of the time, All we had to go on was testimony. And if if the testimony is vivid and and Believable enough. You know? Yeah. Okay. 

Todd:  And I mean, science wasn’t as sophisticated. I mean, it’s hard to believe that, you know, we grew up through that Time, but when you really if you really go back and think of all the sensors and things that we have now, and you go back and you look at what what we as kids were growing up reading about and fantasizing about, it’s like, Oh, how do you investigate whether there’s really a ghost in here? You know, tape a thread across the doorway. Right. You know? Like like, Put a temperature sensor in the room and see if the if it gets colder inexplicably. You know? Right. Hook up a a camera, Like, with a flash to the door so that when the door opens and nobody’s there, it can flash and maybe catch a ghost, you know, if you develop the film 2 weeks later. You know? That’s just even video cameras were were really primitive and early at this time, at least for consumers. You know? So Mhmm.   Yeah. It’s just it was a different time, and and I guess we were a lot more gullible. You know? We we we had to trust. We I don’t know. We all kinda felt like, oh, Maybe there is something to this, you know, we were a little more willing to believe. 

Craig:  Well and a a little more gullible, I think, is fair, but I think also We were a little bit less skeptical about everything. Oh, yeah. And now in the advent of having, You know, video evidence of everything and all of these, you know, technological advances, we are very, very skeptical. Video where it’s not real. You know? Like, show me or I don’t believe it. And we were a little bit less like that in the Seventies and and eighties. We took people at their word a little bit more freely. And and My nostalgia kicking in says, oh, man.   What a nicer time that was. You know? But but at the say At the same time, people were feeding us bullshit, and we were just eating it up. And that’s true. But, you know, it was kind of fun to indulge in some of that Silly stuff, but whatever. Just a different time. I Yeah. If if we don’t start talking about the plot of this movie at some point, we’re never gonna get to it. 

Todd:  I don’t think it’s gonna take us long. 

Craig:  I don’t either because it’s it’s very it it’s it’s so simple. It’s such A basic haunted house story. You know? These these people, this nice young family move into this house, 2 Young, attractive, newlyweds with their brood of in this movie, it’s 3 children, 2 boys, and a girl, Move into this nice house, and like you said, it’s it’s big. Of course, we we can’t not mention, you know, the big iconic windows that look like eyes that, you know, make the house kind of look like a face. And and the way that they light the windows, the windows are always, like, Amber or red, so they look like these kind of glowing eyes on his face. 

Todd:  And just like we said about the sequel, it Seems like every other shot or every scene is punctuated by an exterior shot of the house Yeah. On those windows. At one point, it’s like a negative. It’s like a reddish negative. Like Yeah. They’re really stretching to keep these shots different. 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, it was funny. And there’s also a point at the end of the movie where the windows bust out, and then subsequently in the movie, they continue to show the windows not busted out at 

Todd:  Oh, did you know that? That’s right. I noticed that. It’s so funny. It’s you know, I actually went for years Thinking that this was, like, one of these movie myths that the actual house didn’t look like this, but I found out it really did. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  And they Reading online, I found out that they for the exterior shots, the town of Amityville and the owners of the house would not allow them to shoot there. So they actually used a similar house somewhere else, but they had to create, like, a 2nd story facade 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  To to make the house Looked that way, and I thought that was interesting. Apparently, over the years, the owners of the at some point, the owners of the house got so sick and tired of people coming by to look at it that they changed those those top windows to be rectangular. Mhmm. 

Craig:  Which is a little you know, I get it. If people were constantly dropping by my house to, you know, peep or whatever, that would get in get on my nerves too. But apparently, the, you know, the this house where all this happens still stands, and people live there. You know? Like, I can’t imagine. I I I can’t imagine why somebody would buy that house unless you were down with it. You know? Like Yeah. Like, I would buy that and I would embrace, you know, like, come on over. Check out my cool windows. 

Todd:  Dude, I’d sell I’d sell tickets, man. Would you get me? I take so much money from that thing. Yeah. It it’s funny. I think it was the very next owners of the house after the Lutzs were so pissed off that the Lutzs were making all this money and, like, getting all this publicity that they came right out and said absolutely nothing weird happened that’s happened 

Craig:  to us 

Todd:  in this house, and they even sued them at some point for some reason. 

Craig:  It’s crazy. So, I mean, again, typical haunted house stuff, they move in and weird stuff starts happening, right away. The toilets Back up. The a window falls on a kid’s hand. They have trouble you know, sometimes the windows open easily. Sometimes they can’t get them open. Flies appear in, rooms in mass, when they shouldn’t be there, and there’s no explanation for it. Anybody who has any sort of significant religious affiliation who comes into the house is immediately Stricken.   Like 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  One of the first scenes is a priest comes in. Like, he’s been invited by, Kathy to come and bless the house, which we talked about in the last episode. Is that a normal thing to do? Well, yeah. I mean, some Catholics do that. It’s not like It’s a requirement. Like, you buy a house, and you’re required to have the priest come over, but some people might do it. He gets Trapped in, this room, and the flies swarm him. And he feels sick, and he hears a voice that tells him to get out, and And so he leaves.   At some point, Kathy’s aunt, who is a nun, comes over, and she’s immediately stricken with, like, illness and Has to get out of there right away. 

Todd:  It’s so convenient. We get these, like, overtly religious figures in the house from point to point. And it’s funny, you know, if you just think about it, the implication that nobody can be as religious as a priest or a nun. Right. You know? Like, I mean, Kathy’s hung a crucifix in the house. I mean, you’d think she’d feel a little ill for doing that. You know? She prays a few times. There’s a point in later in the movie where they all go through from room to room, and they try 

Craig:  to bless the house themselves. And I read that In real life, neither of the Lutz’s was devoutly religious. Like, he was an he was a nonpracticing methodist. She was a nonpracticing Catholic. It’s not like these were religiously devout people, but it makes it seem especially in the movie, it makes it seem like Kathy was, you know Yeah. Very, very intent on having this house blessed because she keeps trying to get in touch with this priest who they didn’t even know that he showed up. Like, they were playing outside and, like, on the boat when the priest showed up. She didn’t even know that he’d even been there.   And then, Again, like we said, I the movie’s too long. They could have cut cut out that entire subplot with the priest, and it would have made Absolutely no difference Yeah. To the whole movie. And I feel like if they had cut out that subplot, it would have cut it down by 20 minutes, and it would have been far more serviceable. 

Todd:  It would have improved the movie too because it was a little ridiculous. I mean, from the beginning, the priest who just barges into their empty house, decides he’s just gonna start blessing it. And then when he leaves, you know, he’s sick, and then he’s kind of out for a while. And she he tries to call her, but every time he tries to call, the phone is staticky, and it doesn’t It doesn’t work. It just keeps coming back to this priest every now and then over the course of the next 3 weeks, and you’re thinking and and the priest is freaking out. And at one point, he gets together with the other priests, and we have that obligatory scene. In all these movies from this era where the priest is trying to convince his superiors that he needs to go in and perform some kind of criticism. And they say that he’s crazy.   Father Nunzio and I have seen our share of phenomena, and never once Did any of them turn out to be Satanist? 

Craig:  We think you should take a vacation. 

Todd:  And, yeah, and that’s kind of the end of that, but he’s so keen on getting back to them, and she’s so keen on getting him there That they sure just let it go for an awful long while. 

Craig:  And then it never happens. Like, they It’s not dissimilar from the 2nd movie, which we’ve already reviewed, in which a priest gets involved. But in in that movie, You know, the priest actually kind of takes active measures, and and is, you know, kind of Prominent to the plot. But in this, no. Like, she keeps trying to call him. He keeps trying to call her, And he just the priest keeps deteriorating to the point where he ends up a blind invalid by the end, but he But he never gets in touch with Kathy, and he never he he doesn’t do anything. And you were talking about obligatory scenes. There was another obligatory scene with the priest where he’s in the church and he’s praying to Jesus and, Like, the the the statues start crumbling, and he’s freaking out.   And I’ve it it was so reminiscent To me of The Omen or Oh, yeah. The Exorcist or something like that. And it’s not even necessarily that these were bad scenes. You know? Like, they were fine On an individual level, it’s just they were really unnecessary. 

Todd:  Yeah. And, again, it well, not only just derivative, but then, Okay. If it’s if you’re gonna be derivative, have a point to it. And like you said, there is no point. And then furthermore, it’s it so muddies the waters. Like, okay. Well, Is this spirit in the house able to leave the house? It seems to be able to make his car crash when it’s on the way to the house. So apparently, the spirit will follows the overtly religious people around. 

Craig:  Mhmm. Other weird things that happen, the the daughter, Amy, the young daughter, gets a Invisible friend. An invisible friend named Jody. And, again, this is all pulled from the novel. This is the story the Lutz is told. You know, she gets this invisible friend. And, Of course, at first, the parents don’t think anything of it because, you know, kids. They they make stuff up.   They have imaginations, whatever. But, You know, eventually, it becomes more ominous. And, apparently, the Lutz’s in their testimony Said that this invisible friend was some sort of demon, and it looked like a pig. And there’s even one point, In the movie where James Brolin is outside, George, I should call him by his character name. He’s outside, and, he he’s looking in, And he sees in the window this kind of pig demon thing. And it’s a cool image, but if you don’t know the back Story. Like, if you haven’t read the book, which I hadn’t, it’s it’s just kind of confusing. Like Yeah.   What is this coming Right. Where’s this coming from? We’ve never seen this before, and and we we see it literally for a split second. And and that’s Kind of I guess my biggest criticism of the movie is that is just that at times, it gets a little confusing. And one of the other things that I felt was a little bit puzzling was that almost immediately, Like, not immediately, but almost immediately, George starts acting weird 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Like, from the from the time they get into the movie. Like, We’re we’re led to believe from the way that the characters are introduced that this is a great guy. You know? He’s this great, hardworking, independent, Good looking guy who Margo Kidder has recently married, and they’re so determined to make their marriage work. And, You know, she says to him at the one sexy time 

Clip:  I want us to work. I wanna be the best. I don’t want you to have any regret. 

Craig:  I love you, Cathy. And it really seems like he’s a good guy, and he’s good with her kids. He’s nice to her kids, and the kids love him. But then there’s From the time they get in the house, there’s almost an immediate shift where he starts getting irritable and and grouchy, and he can’t sleep, and he starts snapping at the kids, and eventually he starts snapping at her. And and I will say in fairness that They react to it in a realistic way. Like, they’re shocked and and surprised. Like, the little girl at one point says, George yelled at me. Like, She’s she’s really surprised.   And and it’s good acting on his part. He does a good job of showing his torment, But it happens so quickly for me that it was a little unsettling. And the other unsettling thing to me is that this movie takes place over, what, 2 weeks. Right? Uh-huh. And he never changes his clothes. That’s true. He wears he wears the same gross sweatshirt through the whole movie. That’s what I’m saying.   And it just keeps getting grosser and grosser. Like, I can only imagine that James Rowland showed up on set every day and put on that Same nasty sweatshirt that they never laundered, and I no wonder they were smelling funky things in the house. Look at that sweatshirt. 

Todd: 

That’s hilarious. I did I didn’t even notice that, but you were totally right. You’re totally right. There are there are couple things about this movie that just flat out puzzled me. There’s a scene earlier on. They’re they’re doing this thing where he keeps waking up. It seems to be 3: 15 AM when he wakes up, and that’s supposedly the time in which the murders happened 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Before, and so that’s significant. One of the first times that he wakes up, I think it’s after sexy time, he puts his pants on, And then he goes to a room. It’s I guess he just got this this sense that something was wrong. And I thought that he went to the girls’ room to check on her. Maybe it was one of the boys’ rooms, or was it an empty room? 

Craig:  I I think it was the girls’ room. 

Todd:  Yeah. I thought the 

Craig:  girls’ room was connected to their room by a bathroom. 

Todd:  Yes. So he goes in there, and isn’t the girl gone? Yeah. Okay. So he goes in there. The girl is gone, And the window is open. And there’s a thing about this window. Like, he specifically closed it and locked it when he put her to bed. Right.   So he goes in there, and the window’s open. And so he’s like, okay. She’s not here. That’s weird. And he looks outside, and he sees the boathouse. There’s like a a light on in the boathouse. There’s some light coming out. And so He puts on a jacket, goes and gets the dog to investigate.   He goes there, finds nothing, comes back inside, Sits down in a chair and lights a cigarette. And then we see the boathouse through the window, and it’s like, oh, we like, we’re staring at the wind. This is actually a well framed shot. We’re staring at the window waiting for something happened at the boathouse, and we get a cat scare. 

Craig:  Yeah. Which is really stupid. It’s hilarious. I was watch I I hope my boss isn’t listening, but I was watching this at school with my earbuds in, and that cat scare was, like, the loudest thing ever in the world. And it it it if they were going for a jump scare, they got it because I jumped because that cat Screamed in my ear. Yeah. 

Todd:  I know. But, like, when did he stop looking for his daughter? Right. I didn’t understand that at all. I thought maybe that was a mistake at editing. Like, something got cut out at some point. And then the second thing that was really kinda bizarre is where you think you’re getting some buildup. You think you’re getting some explanation. He has a coworker.   Do do we ever figure out what his job is? 

Clip:  Do you 

Todd:  know what his job is? 

Craig:  I think it said that he, because I I wondered because it I like, he had a job, but he never does it. Like, you never see him going to work or doing work or or or whatever. 

Todd:  He does a lot of woodcutting. 

Craig:  Yeah. He does a lot of chopping wood, angry wood chopping. Again, 

Todd:  hot, 

Craig:  but, You know, scary too. Okay. So who are those guys that go out and look through those, like, little telescopes and and, like, mark off the land? 

Todd:  Oh, surveyors? 

Craig:  That I think that’s what he is. Oh. I think it said that on his van. I kept trying because they had this big work van that they drive around. I’m I’m pretty I think they were surveyors. 

Todd:  I swear to you, every single time that Van came on the screen, I was looking to see what it said. It was like I could see George Oh. Yes. Like, nothing else. And it was so maddening. Like, in some scenes, it’s, like, half covered in shadow because it’s nighttime. And I’m like, Are they deliberately obscuring this to me? Is this a twist later? Am I supposed to not know what this guy does? But, anyway, he obviously co owns this business with somebody else. And this guy comes into play at some point.   He and his, I guess, wife or girlfriend, come up to the house, and her name is, Carolyn. And his name, I Thank you. 

Clip:  Jeff? 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Uh-huh. At first, I thought it was Art Garfunkel for a split second. I was like, oh, Art Garfunkel’s in this? Oh, so they come to the house, and immediately, Carolyn is stricken with this bad sense, you know, again, staring up at those 2 windows. George is, like, ominously sharpening the ax. And if if I had encountered I don’t care how good a friend he is. Acting like he was acting with this ax To me and in front of me, I would have split and called somebody. 

Craig:  Yeah. I’ll come back later. 

Todd:  I’m like, really? Anyway, he has this conversation with him. 

Clip:  Nobody’s seen you for days. You haven’t even been in to sign the payroll checks. I did a smoke favor and brought them along. Here. Some caterer has been screaming that you wrote him a personal check that bounced. 

Craig:  I should’ve covered that. 

Clip:  And some guy from the IRS has been calling. 

Craig:  Well, you having a good news? 

Todd:  I think it’s only been 2 weeks Since they’ve moved into the house. Like, really, their business is falling apart after, like, a week and a half vacation? Didn’t make a lot of sense. Anyway, he ends up coming back later because he decides to meet George at a bar. And this is later in the film when George is getting into his investigative mode. He he gets on his motorcycle, which we had never previously seen, right, an hour and a half into the movie when you’re thinking it’s almost done. And he goes to the library, and he steals a book. 

Craig:  Why? Why do people steal books from libraries? They let you take them. That’s the whole point of a Yeah. It’s free. 

Todd:  And you can return it. You don’t have to steal it. I didn’t get that either. Anyway, he steals his book on the occult or it’s like the history of the of the the town or something. And he ends up meeting him in this bar, and then He and Carolyn and Jeff are sitting in a backroom of this bar discussing this, and Carolyn is all I think this explains it. This was built on a site of previous witchcraft or something. It it’s, you know, satanic worship or something used to happen on that ground. And then, of course, Jeff is like, oh, that’s a bunch of crap.   I think there’s a rational explanation for this. And George is like, so what what do you think I should do? And he says, I think you need to go home and sleep and go out with your wife, and then we’ll talk about it rationally. I’m like, that’s kinda what you’re doing now, isn’t it? Anyway, they end up going back to the house, and Carolyn gets these again, Carolyn is this person who is getting all these clear visions and this is psychic Right. 

Craig:  Like, she’s some kind of clairvoyant or something. 

Todd:  Yeah. And she’s like, it’s in the basement. It’s in the basement. They were doing or they hid them in the basement or whatever. I I didn’t quite catch what the backstory was supposed to be here. 

Craig:  Apparently, it was some guy, John Ketchum, Was run out of Salem, for devil worship, and he built his house on this land and, supposedly, All kinds of sacrifice and devil worship and all that kind of stuff there while he was there. But when they go back to the house, As you had mentioned, they Jeff and Carolyn had been there before, and she wouldn’t even go in the house because it gave bad vibes. But now that she kind of knows the history, she’s in intrigued. And so she does go in there, and she’s drawn to the basement. She’s like, She has a feeling. Whatever it is, it’s the the energy is radiating from the basement. And so they go so they go down there, And the dog, which, god, ever anybody who listens to this, anybody who knows me knows I love dogs. This this this dog has been, like, Worrying at the basement for the whole movie. 

Todd:  The whole movie. Digging at a particular wall. Right. 

Craig:  And they go down there, and that poor dog is still worrying at this wall, like, whining and scratching. And, Jeff even like, he pulls the dog away, and the dog’s paws are all bloodied from having, you know, been scratching at this wall. And, Carolyn’s like, this is it. This is where it is. It’s behind this wall. And so she picks up like a pickaxe, you know, because Who doesn’t have a pickaxe in their basement? 

Todd:  Laying by the steps, of 

Craig:  course. And and she starts, like, hammering at the wall. And George comes down, and he’s like, what are you doing to my house? And she’s like, it’s behind the wall. And he’s like, oh, Yeah. 

Clip:  There 

Craig:  is something here. So he takes the pickaxe, and he starts, you know, hacking away. And they they pull the wall down, And I wanted this to be a really cool reveal. Like, I wanted it to be some like, I wanted there to be, like, Skeletons in there or, like Yeah. You know, like, a big pentagram with eternal candles that were burning or something. 

Todd:  Because it was glowing. Right. 

Craig:  It is glowing. But, again, you know, there this is based on testimony, and what the Lutz’s said was they found this room, and and really the only remarkable thing about this room was that it was painted all red. And that’s what you see when he finally gets in there. But he he looks in there with this look of horror on his face. 

Todd:  That lingers for A good 10 seconds on screen. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and then we get to see in there, and it’s just a red room, but then there’s, like, this apparition of a face, which I thought was just James Brolin because they have been they the several people have remarked Throughout the course of this movie that he looks just like the DeFeo kid who killed his family. And so I just thought, you know, like, they’re just showing James Brolin again or whatever. Apparently, they wanted somebody who looked a lot like him, so they glued a beard on his brother and used that as the apparition. I don’t know why. They coulda just used him. And I I also don’t understand. What is the suggestion there? If you move into this house, you’re gonna start to look just Like the killer who lived, like or or is it that if you look like him, you’re gonna be drawn to this? Like Yeah. 

Todd:  It doesn’t make any sense. 

Craig:  Now You’re right. It’s silly. 

Todd:  Well and what makes it even sillier then is then we get so everybody apparently sees this apparition. Yeah. Everybody sees it. They’re like, All 4 of them are lined up there, and then it closes in on the look of terror on Carolyn, our psychic woman’s face. 

Craig:  Is The passage to hell 

Todd:  to the gateway to hell. And then cut to a scene of the priest, and then cut back to him chopping wood again. 

Clip:  It’s like, what? Are you kidding me? 

Todd:  Right. 

Clip:  I thought that this was the thing. Yeah. Okay. You know? It’s you buried it on an ancient Indian burial ground. Damn you. You know? I mean, I I thought, okay. 

Todd:  They they could literally found the gateway to hell is at the basement of this house. I mean, it’s ridiculous, but I thought, okay. Well, that explains it. And now we’re gonna get the good stuff. And, no, it’s just one more thing that happens. 

Craig:  Well and and you throw out that ancient Indian burial ground Like, it’s oh, that trope. Well, I mean, they literally use that too. Like, not all not only Did this satanic guy come and build his house on this place? But, also, it was a place where the Indians Used to keep all of their insane people. And Yeah. Like, 

Todd:  At one point, Carol, this is 

Craig:  before they’ve even broken the wall. At one point, she’s like, people are buried here. Like and then and then after that, I feel like it’s both before and after. At some point, the wife, Kathy, is Like, let’s just get out of here. Let’s go. And the the James Brolin George is like, No. You wanted a house. This is our house.   Deal with it. 

Todd:  Which Which is so true to marriage if there ever 

Craig:  Well, they spent $80,000 on it. Like, I’m gonna continue to harp on that because it’s so funny to me now that I mean, that house would probably be $3,000,000 now. But not only that, but there was also a scene where, A random scene where her brother was getting married, and they were in the house, and, like, he was super, super concerned about Counting out the cash for the caterer. And he counts it all out, and then he puts it in his pocket. But then when he puts his jacket on, it’s gone, and it disappears. And George has to cover the cost. And then so they’re like, oh, you know, it must have fallen out. It’s gotta be around here somewhere.   And so when they come back, he George is looking for it, and he he can’t find it. And he flips out and, like, goes into a rage. Like, where is it? So, you know, they’ve got financial issues, and I’m making I’m making light of it. But it’s True. I mean, you can’t just buy a house and then just be like, oh, never mind. I don’t like it. 

Todd:  But you can leave For a while. 

Craig:  You can’t leave or you can put it back on the market for Pete’s sake. Some other Yeah. Schmuck will buy it for 80,000. Maybe give them a good deal. Let them deal with the ghosts and demons or whatever it is. You’re gonna 

Todd:  have to take us out here because at this point, I kinda stopped paying attention. I was like, alright. It I guess I guess he just kinda flips. Right? 

Craig:  Yeah. It all it it just you know, throughout the course of the movie, we’ve been given these time stamps that tell us how many days they’ve been there. And, of course, things just get Progressively worse as they’re there. She tries to go see the priest, and she, again, she can’t see him because he’s Det or blind and catatonic at this point. But so then she goes to the library, and she looks at microfiche. And she reads, you know, the story of the murders, and she sees a picture of the murderer, and it looks just like her husband, which freaks her out. She’s also had dreams. She and he, George and, Kathy, have both had dreams about him Killing everybody with an ax. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And and so she’s freaked out, and she goes back. And this part was a little confusing to me too because, obviously, he’s just lost it. Like, while she’s racing back, we see him again, you know, like, with his axe, And then he’s, like, nailing the window shut, like, obviously, with malicious intent. And she gets back, And then he comes in with the ax, and he’s looking for Amy, which I’m not sure why he’s so intent on killing the little girl first, but, And he’s got the ax. And the kids are hiding in the bathroom, and he’s, like, chopping down the bathroom door, but then she it’s She attacks him. Kathy attacks him from behind, and he throws her off. And he raises the ax to hit her. And, like, He sees her as, like, this super old woman, and the makeup effects are just okay.   Like, she doesn’t I mean, it just looks like makeup. But, but, you know, she says something to him that makes him realize that her. And then he drops the ax, and he’s like, oh, I’m sorry. I would never hurt you. Okay. Which you know, like, it was just an odd thing. Like, he’s seemingly possessed or mad in one moment, and then it doesn’t take much Just snap him out of it, and then he’s okay for the rest of the movie. 

Todd:  Yeah. What was the thing about her being an old woman? Who was he supposed to be seeing there? 

Craig:  That was just As I read something else that came from the book that at some point, For whatever reason, that’s how he saw her. I don’t know. It’s kinda stupid. Anyway, So they grab the kids. Of course, you know, it’s dark and storming, and they grab the kids and they run outs they try to run outside. The door slams. They can’t get the door open for a while, but eventually do. They run out to the van.   They get in the van. They can’t find the keys immediately, but eventually, they do find them. I don’t know where they found them. 

Todd:  Then he’s not gonna drive, And she cajoles him to drive. 

Craig:  Right. And and then the kid in the background was like, I want Harry, who’s the dog. And, again, I love dogs, but seriously, if you’re in a house that’s about to kill you, like, maybe maybe send somebody back For the 

Todd:  dog leader? Get that real estate agent to go back. 

Craig:  Yeah. So so he he drives the van, like, down the block, but then he gets out And he runs back, and, Kathy’s like, no. But he runs back, and he, you know, he he gets in the house, and he’s Calling for the dog, and the dog’s in the basement, of course. And 

Todd:  because the dog’s always in the basement. Right. I guess pawing at 

Clip:  the wall that’s not there anymore. Right. 

Todd:  Just barking at 

Craig:  the get the hell mouth. Meanwhile meanwhile, the the hell mouth opens. Like, I I think the hell mouth opened while they were still in there. Like, Nothing comes out of it, but I guess since it’s open, it’s very hell y. Hellish. And so he goes to try to walk into the basement, and he falls through the stairs, and he falls into, like, this pool of blood. And I thought that he would come out doused in this Blood all demonic or manic or something. But, no, he just comes out.   And, like, at first, the the dog kind of attacks him, but he talks nice to the dog, 

Todd:  and then the dog helps him out. It helps 

Craig:  pull him out of the pool blood. And then so he grabs the dog, and he wraps it up in a blanket, and he runs outside, and he runs back to the van, and they drive away. And and that’s the end. And then there’s a Scrawl, on on the screen that says, George and Kathy Lutz never reclaimed their home or their personal belongings. Today, they live in state. And that’s that’s the end. And I understand that they were basing this movie On a, quote, unquote, true story. So, sure, sticking with the events as they were reported, great.   But when we see these kinds of based on a true story movies today, I guess even more so today, they Take more liberty with them where at least you get a few kills or something. Like, everybody just makes it out of this unscathed, except for the priest who you don’t care 

Todd:  about anyway. And what has happened? Nothing. At least for the 1st hour and a half in the movie, it’s it’s I I I just wrote down a list. We went through most of it, but it’s, freaked out religious people, a bunch of flies, some gross water, Strange smells, people getting sick, and erectile dysfunction. Right? I mean, it’s the most benign it’s not even poltergeist level of scary. You know? Well these braces have come alive and tried to take their face off. You know, trees aren’t trying to rip. You know? Nobody’s really ever been in any peril Yeah.   At the very end here where, you know, this this quick and over very quickly possession, happens. 

Craig:  Well and and to be fair, that last scene, you know, the walls start bleeding. The ground is shaking. The hell mouth is opening. Like, there’s Stuff going on, but it’s not all that exciting. Nobody is nobody is in, you know, No. Like, mortal danger. At least it doesn’t appear so. But whatever.   You know, like, honest to god, watch I will say that the 1st time I watched it, I thought it was boring, and I really had no interest in watching it again. And really the only reason that I did watch it again was for this, for you know? Because Margo Kidder died, and that’s really sad, and I don’t wanna trivialize That I mean, she was a she seemed like a cool lady. She was a good actress. I really appreciated her and liked her, and so I do want to pay tribute to her. And even she didn’t particularly like this movie. I thought she was great in it. I thought that She was super cute. In fact, I thought that she was too cute.   I thought that they played her up as kind of this sexy girl. She didn’t look Like, she could have had 12 year old kids. You know? Like, she looked like she was, like, 21. I have no idea how old she was in this movie. But she looked great. The acting was good. James Brolin was hot. His acting was good.   The cinematography, you know, was was perfectly serviceable. 

Todd:  Times, the editing was pretty brilliant, especially at the beginning when the, real estate agent’s showing them the house, and then just suddenly cutting in, visions of the of the murders. That was kind of jolting and really put me a little bit on ease at the beginning of the movie before I started kind of veering off into boredom. 

Craig:  Yeah. I get it. I mean, I don’t know that I would ever need to watch it again, but I’m glad that I did watch it for the 2nd time because I appreciated it a little more. And this movie was hugely successful. Like, they I they didn’t anticipate. They didn’t think that it was gonna be all that successful. In fact, it was planned as a made for TV movie until some producer stepped in and said, no. We’ll, you know, we’ll throw some money at it.   We’ll release it in theaters. James Brolin his role at well below his normal fee, but it would it Stipulated that he would take in 10% of the gross. And so he ended up making, like, $17,000,000 on this movie, because it did so well. And so it, Obviously, it resonated with people. You know? Maybe the whole based on a true story thing drew people in. The novel was successful too. So, you know, maybe it was people who had read the novel and had talked about the novel who came to see it. It did really well, you know, for whatever reason, and it it spawned.   They’re still making Amityville movies. Like, they’re not even they’re not even really even connected to the original story anymore, But they’re still making them. I think 1 just came out last year, and they’re crap. I watched 1 recently. I watched Amityville. It’s about time, which is about, like, a haunted block. 

Todd:  Oh, no. I was gonna I thought you’re gonna tell me time travel was involved. 

Craig:  No. It was about a haunted clock that takes over. It was horrible. They’re they’re crap, but, I mean, obviously, you know, it it did well. It it’s it’s become a franchise. Who knows, why? But Kudos. You know? And and I I have no and even, you know, the the conjuring has tied it in, At least a little bit. At least setting up, the possibility that they might tackle it in their universe at some point.   So for whatever reason, it has established itself in pop pop culture, and, You know, it is what it is. It’s it I don’t love it. I don’t hate it. It’s a decent movie. Margo Kidder and James Brolin are really good in it, And they’re both very attractive people and fun to watch on screen. So if you haven’t seen it, I would say, you know, give it a shot. It I like it. 

Todd:  I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I loved it or liked it, but I I think I concur with you. It’s not a bad movie. It’s not a bad movie by a a long shot, but it’s just to me, there are just so many other group better haunted house movies out there Despite this being such a huge hit and so iconic with great acting in it and, and like we said, some real inspiration at times as far as cinematography goes, I just for me, I just fault the story that it it just goes nowhere. And, like I said early, you know, to kinda bookend my earlier statements, I feel like maybe they just stuck a little too closely to that source material. And you’re right. I don’t think we do that so much anymore today. You know? Probably because we’re more skeptical. Right? 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Todd:  We we don’t we don’t buy into that crap anymore, and so we we don’t expect to see something real on the screen. We’re more accepting of that, whereas probably, the audience of the day was, was a little more taken by it and probably had lots of Interesting conversations after the movie about what did you think about this? What did you think about that? Right. So, yeah. Maybe maybe looking back at it, it’s a it’s a worse movie than it would is than it was, you know, when it was released amidst the hype of the book and everything else. 

Clip:  Right. 

Todd:  Alright. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. You can find us on Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, anywhere Your favorite podcasts are. You can also find us on Facebook where we have a page. You can like us there, talk about this movie. You know, check out our earlier episodes as well. We have a huge backlog 2 guys dot red forty net.com or on Itunes.   And, we do review Amityville 2, which we enjoyed so much more than this movie. It was a it was a fun flick. Check out that episode as well if you’re interested in this franchise. Until next time. I’m Todd. 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Back to Asia, where my dad happens to be visiting us here in Beijing. He took his first guest turn on our show this week and appropriately chose a film from one of our neighbors to the east – available to you on Netflix at the time of publishing. Listen to Craig gush over this zombie movie so heavy it’s embarrassing.

Episode 125, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd:  Hello. Welcome to another episode of 2 guys the chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig:  And I’m Craig.

Todd:  And today we have a very special guest here. Joining us in China, is my dad Craig. Craig, say hi to everybody.

Craig K:  Well, hi everybody. Glad to be here.

Todd:  Now, as we’ve talked about before in this podcast, my dad isn’t a huge fan of horror movies, but he liked to indulge me as we were growing up And so he would rent horror movies for me and occasionally, he would rent one that he agreed with that he we could watch together. Right?

Craig K:  That’s correct.

Todd:  It just couldn’t it couldn’t be too gory, or or whatever. Right?

Craig K:  I’m not for slash and blood. Nope.

Todd:  That’s true. But you chose this film.

Craig K:  Yes. Well, I I think it’s a little bit different than the ordinary zombie film.

Todd:  It is. This movie that we’re talking about is called Train to Busan. It’s a 2016 South Korean zombie apocalypse action thriller, according to the Wikipedia page. And, it’s directed by Yun Song Ho, and we’re gonna screw up all the names in this, I think.

Craig:  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Todd:  But it’s a great it’s a great movie. I’ve enjoyed it. Now, this came, as your recommendation, dad. So please tell me, why did you decide this film for us to do together?

Craig K:  It was one of those late night shows. I was up and wanting to watch something do a little bit different. I’m not into real zombie shows, but I looked at the reading up on that, and I thought, well, you know, this might be a little bit different. It might be something I’d like to see. So I pulled it up and gave it a try.

Todd:  And it must have made an impression on you since you wanted to watch it again.

Craig K:  Yes, it did. I enjoyed it very much.

Todd:  So here we are. Craig, had you ever heard of this film before?

Craig:  You know, I I have. I I had heard the title, but that’s it. Like, for whatever reason, the title, struck a bell. You know? I I recognized it, but I didn’t know anything about it. And I know you’ve talked about your dad a lot very fondly on our podcast before, and so I was really surprised that this was what he picked. But but but after I watched it, I think I get why. You know, this I’m not a big fan of zombie movies either. I’ve said that, on the podcast several times.  But I really liked this one, and I think that the reason that I liked it was because it’s it’s so well made and, especially, the characters are so well written that you really care about them.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And so you really invest yourself, in the plight of these characters And, you know, it’s a zombie movie. Spoiler alert. People die. And I found myself getting emotional at several points, throughout the movie, and I will confess that I shed a few tears, which really which really surprised me. But ultimately, I really liked it. I just thought it was a really good movie.

Todd:  Yeah. I was looking over at my dad, and it felt like his eyes were watering up a little bit.

Craig K:  Oh, yeah. They were. Even the second time around, I knew what was happening.

Todd:  But you had even forgotten a couple major plot points.

Craig K:  Right? Yeah.

Todd:  So, you know, this movie while I was watching it, it’s funny you talk about emotional because here we are in China, and both China and when I was in Japan, it seems like the Koreans have the foothold on television dramas over here. All the Chinese folks, all my Chinese friends, everything that’s super popular over here is not the Chinese television shows. It’s the Korean soap operas and the Korean dramas that are popular here. And I think one of the reasons for that is they’re much better written, At least I’ve been told. But another reason is pretty obvious even without being able to understand what’s being said is the quality of the acting. Mhmm. I don’t mean to knock China, but I think anyone could kind of watch any Chinese made film for about 10 minutes, or a Chinese made television show especially for about 10 minutes and realize that the acting is not so great.

Craig K:  Well, I love Jackie Chan, but even Jackie Chan’s movies sometimes get hokey at places.

Todd:  Yeah. It’s a little over act I mean, it’s just like a different style of acting, you know.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Just different.

Todd:  It’s Yeah. It’s just different. It’s not so natural. But the Korean, dramas tend to be extremely dramatic.

Craig K:  And I have to say it. I picked this one because it was the Korean movie, and I watched it because it was Korean. Because recently, I have stumbled upon the Korean genre there. And even though it’s subtitled, and I’m not wild about subtitled movies, the acting and the quality of the film and everything, you really got hooked into it and, like you said, care about the characters and what’s happening. And so if it’s a Korean show when I’m looking at at different things to watch, I’ll kind of lean towards those of over other things just because of that.

Todd:  What we watched what? We you saw The Host too as well, didn’t you?

Craig K:  Oh, I love The Host. Yes.

Craig:  Yeah. Great movie.

Todd:  Yeah. So there just seems to be a thing.

Craig K:  Right? I know I mentioned to you before Tiger Mountain. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched Tiger Mountain.

Todd:  Oh, yeah.

Craig K:  It’s not a horror story, but it’s more of a war story. But it it’s a Korean one, and it’s more about the development of the Chinese government from the old feudal warlords into the People’s Republic of China. But it’s just a a whole story about this village and this Chinese national soldiers that come to kinda save him from the feudal warlords.

Todd:  Wow. It’s

Craig K:  really a good show.

Todd:  Well, so we all agree the Koreans are making great movies.

Craig K:  Yes.

Craig:  It’s it’s I mean, it seems like it based on my limited experience.

Todd:  This movie starts out, with a a man driving up a truck up through the mountainous region in Korea and he’s stopped by some folks who are spraying down the roads and he’s told that he’s entering a quarantine zone. That there’s been some minor leak from the nearby biomedical facility. How many movies start out that way. Right?

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  And, and he’s just bitching about it as he drives through and he he hits a deer, complains about that too. And as he drives along, the car goes by, but the camera lingers on the deer, and pretty soon the deer straightens itself up and stands up and turns to us with zombie eyes.

Craig:  Yep. Zombie deer.

Todd:  Which I thought was a great, actually a really great way to start the movie.

Craig:  Yeah. And and I I can’t believe that we’ve now reviewed 2 movies that have had zombie deer in them.

Todd:  No kidding. Right?

Craig:  How random is that?

Todd:  Somebody needs to take this and run with it, the zombie deer. I have a thing here. And then we get, we get to focus on our main character, which is I’m gonna mispronounce this probably, but it’s Siew k Wu. His name doesn’t get mentioned a whole heck of a lot anyway, but, he is a hedge fund manager and, he has a daughter named Soo Ahn. And as the movie starts out, we get to hear a little bit more about him and his family. So we see that his daughter, he’s obviously divorced and, he’s a single dad right now. His daughter is being taken care of by his mother at home and there’s clearly some tension in the family. He is, at work and he’s talking with his coworker and, we also happen to see that somehow they also have some interest in this biomedical facility.  It’s maybe one of the, maybe it’s a big, aspect of their fund portfolio. 1 of his subordinates comes in and asks what they’re supposed to do about some of the latest weird things that are happening. And and sort of like, Craig, what other movies have we watched where it’s a zombie movie and it starts out slowly and it the the film is slowly peacing out to you, kind of in the background or through news reports or things like that, that weird things are happening as kind of a build up?

Craig:  Oh, gosh. I don’t know. But it happens all the time. And it’s it’s it’s subtle and I really like it, you know. And I thought that this movie did it really well. What we learned about this guy, and I’m not even gonna I didn’t even write their names down because I knew that even if I wrote them down, I would mispronounce them because they don’t look anything like they sound in their native language. So I just call this guy business guy. Business guy’s daughter is unhappy because he doesn’t spend much time with her because he’s so involved in his work.  And she wants to go it’s her birthday, and she wants to go to, Busan where her mom lives for her birthday. And and she says that she’s willing to take the train by herself, but she’s very young. What would you say? She’s, like, 9? Something like that?

Craig K:  Yeah. I’d say that’s good. Yeah.

Craig:  Yeah. About about 9. And he tells her, you know, I’m way too busy and you can’t go by yourself. But his mother kind of lays a little guilt on him and the daughter lays guilt on him. And so he decides, that he will take her. And so they get up early the next morning. And like you said, you know, there are just all these small kind of signs. Like, you like, they’re driving along, and then all these fire trucks, go by them, you know, towards some emergency.  And And the little girl, puts her hand out the window and and the ash is falling like snow and she catches some in her hand. And the dad looks over to his, out of his window, and there’s a a building burning, like a skyscraper burning. But and then and then they get on the train, and it it’s kind of background. I mean, you know, we’re looking for it because we know this is gonna be a monster movie, or a zombie movie. But, it’s just kind of little things, like commotion right before the Craig right before the train takes off, this Todd looking and acting girl kind of bolts onto the train behind the train attendant so he doesn’t see. And, of course, we know what’s coming, but it’s played very subtly, and and I thought very well and very suspenseful. You know? Like, even though I knew what was coming, I was like, wow. You know? Like, I was getting excited.  Like, here, they’re gonna be on this Craig, and it’s gonna be chaos all around. And and what’s gonna happen? And how are they gonna deal with this? And, I I just thought it did a great job. And this is all very early in the movie, like, in the first 10 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. So it doesn’t take it doesn’t take a long time to get to the excitement, and I thought that was great.

Craig K:  I thought it was a real subtle touch Todd, as you mentioned, the buildup. As we’re on the Craig, and the train is pulling away, the little girl is looking out the door, and she sees the top head of a man running like he’s trying to catch the train. And and all of a sudden, you just see this blur, this flash. Somebody’s, like, somebody’s jumping on top of him, but it’s just so fast. You you know, something happened, but you don’t know exactly what.

Todd:  Yeah. Right. That was really cool. It’s like, what’s that? Right? And it’s done.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Yeah. There are all these nice little things and even on the train up above. Now, I’ve ridden the train to Busan, actually. It wasn’t nearly this dramatic. But, these high speed trains do have, like entertainment in there and they’ll have the TVs down. And you can see in the TVs, they they use that technique to show us news. And and this is also cool because later on, as things are going on in the rest of the world, the passengers, can see, the news on the televisions that are in the top of the in the carriages. And I thought that, oh, that was pretty handy for them to have that device.  Because if you’re if you’re setting this whole thing on a train and you’re wondering what’s going on with the passengers and how are they gonna deal with it, and you know stuff is happening in the outside world, you kind of are always asking yourself the question, as I was through this, what’s gonna happen once they get to Busan? Right? Right. Are they gonna be any better off than they are now? And that’s a device, along with their cell phones, that kind of allows them to gate us to gauge and and get that suspense and aspect of the story in as well.

Craig:  The like you said, there is TVs and stuff that are showing the news. But just as the passengers are not really paying attention, you know, we only kinda get bits and pieces. So we see that things are happening, but it’s not like we’re getting the full report because, you know, the people aren’t really paying attention at least until things really start to go down. But I also liked how when they got on the train, this could have felt very contrived, but I didn’t feel like it felt contrived. Really quickly, we are introduced to most of the main characters that we’re supposed to care about.

Todd:  Right.

Craig:  Like, there’s a a Craig attendant girl, that we see. And I thought that she was actually gonna be a larger part of the plot, so I wrote down her name, but she actually gets she’s one of the first to go. But then there’s a a teen boy who’s part of a baseball team, and a girl who has a crush on him. And and they’re gonna be fairly large characters. There are 2 older ladies who it turns out are sisters. And, eventually, we meet, a couple, this larger guy and his pregnant wife. And it just it felt very natural to me the way that, you know, the the camera would spend some, you know, just a few seconds with these people and then move on to somebody else. But it was enough for me to understand, okay, Here are the people that I’m gonna care about.  Here are the people that I need to watch. You know? And as it turned out, you know, all those people, not all of them had big character arcs or anything. No. But all of them were in some way I don’t know if relatable is the right word, but recognizable. Young teenage kids, you know, an older pair of sisters. You know? They’re they’re sympathetic characters, I guess, is what I’m getting at. I don’t know. I just I I got invested in them very right away.  And how however they managed to do that, it worked for me.

Todd:  Yeah. That’s definitely a function of the writing. And then, you also have the, conveniently, the COO of, such and such train company. I don’t think it, you know, it wasn’t Co Craig, which is the company the the railway that they’re on, but maybe he I don’t know. Somehow he had some connections, to the operation of the train line. I considered him kind of a stock character. I Yeah. This guy, you know immediately he’s gonna have some problems.  He’s gonna be causing issues for everybody. He’s thinking only of himself. And, if I had any knock on the movie, it was in a film where all of these other characters are pretty relatable and don’t seem that stock. This guy Todd be thrown in there is the big bad Meanie. It felt a little contrived.

Craig:  Okay. Alright. I will go with you on that, that it totally was contrived. But I liked the fact movie where the real threat is the zombies, of course, the true villain or villains, as it turns out, are human. And that’s what I thought was really cool about this movie. You know, I I I felt like it it had there was messaging, you know, going on here, like, even before they got on the train. The dad, you know, he’s super busy. He’s a business dad, and he missed his daughter’s recital.  And she was really upset about that, and she says to him at some point, you only care about yourself. That’s why mom left. And that really gives a starting place for him to really have a character arc.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Because, you know, throughout the course of the movie, you know, it’s not like it’s immediate. She says that, and then he’s like, oh, you’re right. I’m a changed man. But over the course of the movie, he, you know, evolves, and it it doesn’t just become about him. It becomes about, you know, looking out for your fellow man and and your friends and the people that you care about. And you just don’t see that very often. You know, you don’t see that kind of character development. You don’t see that kind of messaging, especially in a zombie movie, very often.  And I thought that this movie did a really good job of exploring, you know, what humanity means. You know, you’ve got these eventually, we’re gonna get there. These zombies are freaking cool zombies, some of the coolest zombies I’ve ever seen. Yeah. And they’re scary. And they’re scary. This is a scary movie. You know, we watch horror movies every single week, and I don’t usually get scared.  I was on the edge of my seat a lot of the times in this movie. But it really is, I think, a story about humanity and about what it means to, you know, be a person and and to care about your fellow man. And, gosh, you know, that’s that’s way deeper than most of the stuff that we talk about.

Todd:  Even if it was a little on the nose at times. But yeah, I agree with you. I I like the fact that that was, and and it came about fairly naturally. This guy, throughout the course of the movie, kind of learns that he needs to look out for other people because he quickly begins to see how essential it is to his own survival, you know. Right. And Todd his Yeah. And to his own daughter’s survival in a very natural way when he’s kinda put on the other side of the fence at times to where he needs the help of others.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  And again, like you said, it’s not like they Todd the film and go, you know, and he says, I’m a changed man. I now see, daughter, how important it is for me to look out for people and I promise I’ll do that from here on out. You just kinda see that start to happen in his actions as it goes along and that’s that’s really quite good.

Craig K:  And it doesn’t really come about on on his own. He has a lot of he gets hit over the head a couple times about it. The young couple with a pregnant wife, the man Mhmm. The husband calls him on it because the businessman father does something very selfish. Again, looking out for himself, trying to sneak himself and his daughter off or whatever. Of course, it doesn’t work out. And and he says the businessman confronts him and says, you’re a jerk.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah.

Craig K:  All you care about is yourself. He has to point it out to the guy, you know, hey. What are you doing? You know?

Todd:  Well, there’s even that conversation in front of his daughter.

Craig K:  Yes.

Todd:  Right? The the pregnant woman is in the bathroom and the daughter’s waiting for the bathroom, and that’s how she meets up with the pregnant woman’s husband, the big guy. Right? And Yeah. And they have a little chat and it’s like, this big guy kind of is like, yeah, I I can see your people like your dad from a mile away. I know exactly who they what they’re like, you know. And she just asked he just asked her some questions about him and says, oh, yeah. He’s a hedge fund manager. He’s used to leaving people behind. He’s used to screw people over and that kind of thing.  And is like Yeah. You see that in front of her daughter? And she’s like, oh, I know.

Craig:  Yeah. Because

Todd:  I’m one of those people. Right? So you’re right. It’s a nice it’s nice intricate little web there.

Craig:  It’s just really well written, I think. You know, the characters are very believable, as as real people. None of them are perfect. I don’t know. They they I I just believe that these people could have come together, on a train. And, you know, I like I said, you know, at one point, some weird girl, you know, jumps on the Craig, and as it turns out, this girl is infected. And then very quickly, she turns into a zombie. And the zombie metamorphoses, in this movie are super quick.  Like, if you get bitten, the the transformation happens almost instantaneously, like, within seconds or minutes depending on, you know, how much time they needed in the movie for you to have.

Todd:  Yeah. Depending on the dramatic needs at the time.

Craig:  Right. But the transformations are really cool. You know? Like, they’ll be dead on the ground, and then they will just, like, unnaturally bolt up off of the floor. And there’s always, like, these bone crunching sounds and they’re moving in very inhuman ways. And they’ve got, you know, the foggy eyes. I’ve seen tons of zombie movies, and I’m really you know, they’re okay. I’ll watch them, but it’s not my favorite genre. But these zombies, I don’t know.  Like, they were a combination of things. First of all, they’re fast zombies, like, from 28 Todd later or something like that. They’re not the lumbering slow zombies. They they’re a little bit Sam Craig esque, like Evil Dead esque, like, in the way that they move, in the way that they move so quickly.

Todd:  Sharply jerk around.

Craig:  Yeah. But they’re they’re really scary. And, like, this movie does a good job of building tension where, you know, I’m sitting here in my living room watching it on my computer and I’m I’m like, what are you doing? Get out of there. Like like I was really heavy, like, my heart was racing. The the suspense and and the adrenaline, they did a great job. I I have to I I’m just gonna kinda gush about this movie because I was so impressed.

Craig K:  Yeah. I thought it was interesting. The tension in it, like you say, they they convert so fast. You had a whole train Todd of of passengers in a car, and it just takes one little zon one zombie to walk in and bite. And within seconds, the whole car is infected and they’re en masse hidden out the door for for more blood.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. I

Craig:  I love that.

Todd:  How the zombie goes in, the first thing she does is, like, basically infect the entire baseball team.

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, it’s wild. Like, you know, it’s just that one that one zombie they got on the train. And as soon as she bursts into 1 car, car, she bites 1 guy, and he immediately turns. Then he attacks and bites. And like you said, you know, within the course of a minute, you know, the whole train car is infected, and then, you know, it’s just mass hysteria. It’s it’s chaos, and people are running. They’re trying to run away from the chaos, and, it’s very exciting.  It’s I understand why it’s billed as an action, thriller, horror because it it is very action heavy. It reminds me a little bit of, I think it was World War z. Was that the Brad Pitt zombie movie?

Todd:  Yes. Uh-huh.

Craig:  It reminded me a little bit of that with the nature of the zombies, but better. You know, that that movie was huge budget. I have no idea what the the budget for this movie was. It had to be fairly large because it was it was impressive. But, you know, that a Brad Pitt American Summer Blockbuster, and and it was good. I liked it, but I thought this was even better. Again, I’m just gonna continue

Todd:  to gush until you guys cut me off.

Craig:  So go for it.

Todd:  We’ve done, you know, we’ve done movies on trains Todd, and I think that the, what was it what was the David Copper the one that David Copperfield was in? Was it Terra Train?

Craig:  Terra Train. Yeah.

Todd:  So and, you know, we talked at that time too about the inherent issues of doing a movie like this on a train. It can go one way or it can go another way. I think in that movie, we had problems with the train almost being too constrictive of an environment. Be it became a little unbelievable. Like, how can these pea how can these things happen without other people knowing it? Or how can passengers be in one end of the train and make it to another end of the train without somebody else seeing them? You know, a train is inherently, I think, a challenging place to have it. And in this movie, I was kind of wondering, how are they gonna get out of this? Just from the very get go, once that woman comes in and infects this whole carload of people, you can either go one way or you can go the other way. Otherwise, you’re just stuck. And I thought, unlike Terror Train, which is more of a suspense movie of a killer who’s loose on the Craig, In this one, it just seemed bleak from the very get go.  You have no chance, if you’re anywhere on this train, of getting away from these people. The only thing that they can do is take advantage of, it sounds like, 2 of the zombies weaknesses. 1 is, they can’t see very well. So I guess if it’s dark, they find out later, then, the zombies are more confused and they kinda stop what they’re doing and start staring around. And the second thing is is the sound. They seem to be attracted to sound as well, especially if they can’t see. So as long as they can’t see you, they’re gonna stop coming after you. If they hear something, they’re gonna turn around and run-in that direction.  Sometimes it works, sometimes I was like, oh, really? You know, because a train’s kind of a noisy environment anyway, especially a train full of snarling zombies.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  Is a train full of snarling zombies who are headed in one direction gonna suddenly stop and turn the other way if they hear like a Coke can crunch, you know. Sure. But but I’ll give it a pass.

Craig:  I know what you’re saying, but at the same time and and with the sound, it was a a little bit I don’t know, a little bit more tenuous. But, I actually thought that it was really clever, you know, that they the humans realized fairly early on that they only the the zombies only go into their, you know, raving lunacy if they can see us. If they can obstruct the zombie’s view of them, then the zombies kind of calm down. Like, they, you know, they still stay active. They’re still, you know, like, awake and kind of lumbering around, but they’re not raving and and trying and trying actively to get at them. And so they can do simple things like at one the first time that they realize that is the case, some random I think it was a random woman. It may have been one of our characters. I don’t know.  But some woman just grabs a newspaper and slaps it up on the window of the door between the cars and sprays water on it and plasters the, newspaper up on the window, and the zombies can’t see them anymore and so the zombies kind of calm down. I don’t know. I thought that was clever and innovative. I’ve never seen that before. And later on that, you know, they do different things. Like, they use, fire extinguishers to cloud out the windows. And I I just thought it was, really clever. The thing with the sound, kind of comes up later because, at some point, they they start going through a series of tunnels, on the Craig.  And they realize that, when it’s dark, the zombies can’t see as well, but they will react to sound. And then there are all kinds of cool tricks that they do with misdirection, like, you know, using you know, sliding a cell phone down the car and and various things like that. Plausible? I don’t know because I’ve never been in a zombie apocalypse. But, original? Yeah. I mean, I’ve never seen that before. I and I thought it was, pretty clever, and it and it made for some really suspenseful moments. And, I don’t know. I I liked it.

Todd:  A lot of original stuff in here.

Craig K:  And several surprise elements, of course, along with the action. Some subtle, some more, obvious. But like at the beginning of the show, when the infected girl pops in and she hides in the bathroom. The conductor is told by one of the passengers, somebody strange has gone into the bathroom, been there a long time. And they go, and there’s a suspense that’s building as they approach the bathroom door. And the conductor opens it, and, of course, you expect to see this zombie jump out at him. But instead, there’s this old hobo looking guy huddled down on the floor in there. Now with all of a sudden, there’s introduction to this new character where you didn’t expect him to be.  Yeah.

Todd:  That was a good way to do it. Mhmm. It really was. And and also, like, the very first victim, I think, is the stewardess.

Craig K:  Yes. Exactly. Yeah.

Todd:  Stewardess, is that what you would say? Yeah. Yeah. Craig attendant or whatever?

Craig:  Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:  We we got so much of her, at the beginning that I thought she was gonna be a central character in this whole thing.

Craig:  I Todd too. I did too.

Todd:  And then she gets killed the first time. That’s pretty shocking. And that that kind of sets up that mentality, like, gosh, we really don’t know who’s gonna live and who dies. You know, it’s something like The Walking Dead does really well, is it kills off characters who you figure are just gonna live till the end. You know, I felt like this movie really set it up from the beginning that way when it when it hung out so much with that stewardess and then knocked her off right right first thing.

Craig:  Well, and I I thought that the movie did a good job of, delivering some real gut punches too. Like, you know, the the the zombies break out in the train. There’s immediate chaos. The it’s a huge action sequence very early on. And and it’s chaotic, and the zombies are attacking everybody, and all the people are running. And, like, this goes on for a little while, and I was like, wow. This is really early in the movie. Is, you know, is this gonna is this gonna carry out through the whole thing? They found ways, to take breaks in the action, which I appreciated, but the action scenes are really, really strong and exciting.  But then even in the quieter moments, there are these gut punches. Like, after the first big zombie outbreak on the train, once they finally get some security, the first thing that business guy, our main guy does is he calls his mom or she calls him maybe. And, she she’s on the phone, and and the business guy is trying to, you know, talk to her and see if she’s okay. And you can hear chaos going on behind her and you can hear something strange in her voice and you know that she’s turning and and she’s saying things like take care of Suwon. You know, make sure that she’s okay. I love her so much. But you can hear her turning and and and eventually she turns on the phone. And, you know, this this man is just listening to his mother die, I guess, essentially, or turn into a zombie over the phone.  And his little girl is standing right there looking at him saying, is grandma okay? And and, you know, it just it got me.

Todd:  The little girl gets you a lot in this movie, I think.

Craig:  She does. She does. But I also like how she’s a little bit bratty, I guess, a little bit in the beginning. I mean, you understand why because she feels neglected by her dad, and and they have this kind of tense relationship between them. She’s a little bit annoying, in the beginning. But then when they’re put in peril together Todd see them cling to one another, but at the same time Todd see her pointing out his flaws, as your dad mentioned before, they have to speed through the first stop. They say the first stop is not secure. We’re gonna have to speed through.  And when they when they get there, you know, the zombies are all there, and they’re trying to, like, attack the train and stuff. But then they say, alright. The the next stop we are gonna stop, it seems like it’s secure. And the dad apparently has some military connection, and he says, you know, he’s on the phone and the guy’s like, well, just get to the central square and we’ll get you there. So everybody else is going one way and the dad takes his daughter another way, and she says, where are we going? Why aren’t we going with everybody else? And he says, well, we have to go to this place cause it’ll be safe. And she says, well, I’m gonna go tell everybody else. And he says, no. In a in a situation like this, you just have to look out for yourself.  And she basically calls him out and just says, you know, this is why mom left you. You’re a jerk. You know? And just to, you know, to I think sometimes I don’t have kids, but I work with kids And I think that sometimes kids kinda slap you in the face with reality every once in a while and really teach you something about yourself, and and that dynamic. And then it progresses from there, and you see them, you know, in their peril, really coming together and clinging to one another. So that by the end, their bond is is so important Todd, you know, the way that we feel about what’s going on. It’s just it’s really well developed. It’s really well developed.

Todd:  Another interesting character relationship is the relationship between the the the businessman and the father of or the wife the husband of the pregnant woman. They’re they’re trying to get into the safe car after the first zombie outbreak and businessman ends up at the door of the the door between the the cars and he’s trying to close it and he’s almost not going to let this other guy in. And at the end of the day, he ends up letting him in and he shuts the door and after everything is calm, he turns around and says to him, so I expect an apology from you, you know. Yeah. Right. And he doesn’t doesn’t really apologize. He’s like, well, look, you want me to sacrifice the rest these guys or not? And that almost like literally comes into play later on because back there in the scene you’re talking about, it turns out that no place is safe and the zombies are attacking that train station. They have to get back to the Craig.  And there they are at some glass doors, and here’s this guy now on the other side of the door trying to get in. And, you know, it’s funny because they didn’t make like this a huge deal. You know, like, some movies will be like, The tables are turned. Now, let’s kind of play the same situation out, but with the roles reversed, you know. So that we can really hammer home the point that we’re making.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  But it turns it’s just more subtle than that, you know. And this guy ends up letting him through. And again, they don’t make a big deal out of it, but you can see the change in businessman as he kind of just just just naturally understands what’s going on here that he has to, you know, they need each other.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  I like that aspect. And then, I thought that whole sequence there in the train station was really cool. Wasn’t it, Dan?

Craig K:  It was. I mean, just as you mentioned before, the action of the zombies and that. I mean, they get off this Craig. They’re expecting the army to be there to protect them. They walk down the steps. They see as their their vision becomes clearer and clearer of who’s down below on the deck. You see the the legs of all these army personnel and stuff, and they’re thinking, oh, good. We’re saved.  Of course, as it get becomes more clear, they’re actually zombies, and boom. Mhmm. I mean, they’re hit right away. And even though they’re turning around and and running back up the steps, of course, they’re not all gonna make it up the steps.

Todd:  And they’re on an escalator that’s feeding them down into it.

Craig K:  And then the scene one scene where they’re being held back by some glass Todd. It’s like the movies where you see the aquarium break and the clay and the the water just gushes out. It’s it’s like a sea of zombies. Just glass breaks, and it’s just this pile of zombies. It’s just a giant mass bursting through the glass and tumbling on the floor all over each other and then getting up. And and as they’re climbing all over each other, heading down the hall towards the passengers.

Todd:  It’s like a sea. You’re right. It is. Like water. Mhmm. It’s crazy. And even when they’re down and they’re at the Craig, and it’s like they’ve, you know, they’ve kinda made it there and the train’s running. They’ve gotta run to get on.  And and then up above, where they they were previously were, the walls the the windows of the place, like, burst open and the zombies are falling down a story onto the Craig. And then onto the tracks and getting up and coming after them some more. Right?

Craig K:  That’s right.

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, oh, gosh. The action sequences are so good and so, suspenseful and tense. I I I was just on the edge of my seat, and that that scene was one of the the best ones. And and the way you guys described it is exactly right. You know, it’s like waves, like, they’re just crawling over one another. And, there are so many of them. So many of the zombies in in comparison to how many of the living people that we’re trying to follow.  And, you know, even even the characters that, you know, we’re not entirely invested in. You know, you’ve got this this, baseball team of teenage boys, and they are some of the ones the last ones trying to run to get on the Craig. And they’re just besieged by zombies and all but one of them, gets taken down. And even though, you know, I don’t particularly, you know, I don’t know these characters. I don’t know who they are. They’re kids and they fought so hard up into up until this point And to see them getting taken down, it just kinda gets you. It’s it’s good.

Todd:  And he seizes up there. And then you know, okay, this is gonna be his his problem to overcome, you know. He’s gonna seize up later and have to take the the the world. And this all this being said, I do have a bone to pick with one of the scenes in here.

Craig:  Okay.

Todd:  Dad, I think you know which one I’m gonna talk about. It’s after they’re back on the train, after this relentless horde. Now, keep in mind, these zombies seem to be able to run towards us with with whatever. They fall down multiple stories. They get back up. You know, they have limbs and arms broken in odd directions, but still they can come after you. Then we have a sequence where they’re back on the train, but because they’ve all had to get on this train very quickly and the train was moving at one point, they’re now split up. Yeah.  So we have the zombies in the middle of the train and on either ends, such and such cars are the survivors and they’re trying to get back to each other.

Craig:  And the most vulnerable ones are in the middle. The pregnant woman, the kid, the old lady, and somebody else are trapped in a bathroom in the middle.

Todd:  That’s right.

Craig:  The men, business guy, big guy with the pregnant wife, and baseball kid, they have to work their way from train number 9 up to train number 15 or something like that, and they have to pick up their loved ones along the way.

Todd:  Yes. So what do they choose to do? Just plow.

Craig K:  Yeah. They wrap a few bandages around their arms. And then they just attack the zombies working and fighting their way through.

Todd:  And as we’re watching this, I’m asking my dad. I’m like, okay, so they’re so they’re they’re beating their way through this trot par. So some guy swings a baseball bat Todd zombie, he falls into the seat. Some guy punches a zombie or pushes him away, he falls into a seat. I’m thinking, so what? Like we’ve seen these zombies fall like 2 Yeah. Stories. What why are they not coming back up behind them? Right. You know? And that whole sequence had me kinda, oh, are you kidding me?

Craig:  It’s it’s a little silly. And even though, you know, the what I was thinking was even though they wrap their hands up in, like, leather straps or something, I don’t know, you know, they’re punching these zombies, the zombies are coming at them, I was thinking, there’s just no way that you’re gonna get through there without, you know, you might get through. Maybe. Probably not. But okay. You know, suspension of disbelief. But there’s no way you’re gonna get through there without getting infected. You know? Like Yeah.  Eve even if they don’t actively bite you. I mean, if you’re punching them directly in the mouth, you know, like, you’re gonna get some of their blood on you in the cuts on your hands or whatever. So I I get I understand your complaint with that. Nonetheless, it was exciting and heroic. Very very

Craig K:  And I

Craig:  still liked it. Very very

Todd:  well, they go through a lot to get there. Some of these scenes are really cool. This is when we get these tunnels that must be really really long. Yeah. I like that bit. I don’t know. What was your favorite sequence in this one, dad, when they were going through the tunnels and they’re kinda making their way down?

Craig K:

Like you, I was just struck with the length of tunnels. You know, they they say, okay. Well, we got this tunnel coming up, and it’s in 2 miles. And if if that one doesn’t if we can’t get through that one, then we got another one coming up 10 miles after. But, yeah, these tunnels must be 10 miles long because it’s probably about 10: 10 minutes of fighting sequence in the dark that hook them through 1 tunnel.

Craig:  It’s true. It does allow them

Todd:  the time to do some cool things, again, for dramatic purposes. Right? I I like the bit where they were crawling around the luggage racks. I I don’t know. I don’t even know how I could even hoist myself up into a luggage rack. Let alone, you know, all 12 of them or or 6 of them or however many had to get up there. Wasn’t At some point, did they caught up with a pregnant lady? I think this was after they caught up with the kids.

Craig:  Yeah. It is.

Todd:  And they were trying to make their way back to the rest of the survivors at the one end. Right?

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Oh, I don’t know. It was cool though. It was a cool sequence.

Craig:  It it was cool. You you know, I I already mentioned the thing with the cell phone that they did at one point, and they do some other things with, you know, noise distraction. But that that crawling on I you know, they had shown the luggage rack several times, so I thought at some point somebody might get up there. And it’s dark and the zombies can’t see or whatever. And like you said, trains are kind of noisy anyway. So, you know, I could kinda believe that they could kinda scoot themselves up there. But I think that what made it tense for me is that they put the most vulnerable characters in this situation. There’s a whole car of people who are still okay at the front of the Craig, yet the people who are in peril, aside from these 3 guys who have shown that they’re badass asses and can, you know, beat their way through zombies or whatever, the rest of them are a pregnant lady, a kid, an old lady, and, was there another one?

Craig K:  The hobo.

Craig:  The hobo. The hobo. Right. And who seems to be either injured or somewhat disabled. Gosh. You know, you put a pregnant lady, a kid, and an old lady, you know, in

Todd:  the the poor’s left.

Craig:  Right. Right.

Todd:  We needed a puppy. We didn’t have a dog.

Craig:  Or like a blind girl or something. But, you know, yeah, it’s very tense, you know, because they’re in such close proximity. But they get through, you know, there’s some hullabaloo with, you know, the homeless guy kinda falls out and they hear him. And again, this is another moment where business guy, the dad, kind of shows that he’s evolving and he stays back to help this guy and they get through. But again, like I said before, what really struck me was kind of the human drama. Because at some point, the teenage boy, the baseball boy, calls it’s not his girlfriend, but it’s this girl that’s interested in him. He calls her and she’s in the safe car. And he’s like, we’ve got these folks.  We’ve rescued these folks. We’re on our way. We’ll be there soon. And she’s all excited, and she announces it to everybody else. And rich asshole guy is like, we can’t let them in here. They they might be infected. And so there’s, you know, they get through the the car, you know, crawling in the luggage rack or whatever, But then the zombies hear them and are on their tail, and they’re trying to get into this safe car and the people on the other side have barricaded the door. Like, not barricaded, but like they’ve, like, tied it off so that it can’t be open.  And I just found that to be so, I don’t know, unusual, I guess, in this type of movie. And it’s not entirely unusual. You know, Todd, you and I have done Night of the dead, and, there were the group of people who wanted to barricade themselves in the basement, and they said you can come with us or not. But one way or another, we’re locking ourselves down there. Don’t be trying to get in there later. Yeah. So it’s not like this is entirely unique, but, I just I felt like it was commentary on, yeah, zombies are bad, but humans are dicks. Like, it’s a dog eat dog world.  Like, you know, just look out for yourself, and and who cares if grandma and the kid and the pregnant lady and the hobo are on the other and the guys that have just rescued all these people are on the other side of the door. We’re not taking that risk. And I I just I thought that was, really effective.

Todd:  Yeah. It is. And, and in this, that’s but it’s kinda part and parcel of zombie movies, isn’t it? It it always turns into some Lord of the fly situation.

Craig:  I suppose. I suppose. I guess it’s not that original. I just thought they did a really good job with it.

Todd:  That’s why I stopped watching The Walking Dead. I got so sick and tired of these guys coming along, attacked by zombies, fight off the zombies, barricade themselves against the zombies, find some people who are gonna help them. At first, everything seems fine, and then they can’t get along, and they fight, and then they go back out into the zombie world. And it seemed like that had infinitum. But, yeah. I know I know what you mean and I think that at this point was where I kind of wondered where are they gonna go from here, you know. Okay. They’re all together in the back of the train.  Now, I guess, they they seem safe. All the drama is going to be what what happens when they get to Busan. But that again, the movie throws you that curve ball. Right? I said to I said to dad, what did I tell you once once the group of people decided, okay, you guys are gonna have to go to the front. I said, well, okay. That’s great. Doesn’t matter. Right? Who cares if they’re together, at least they’re in the adjoining Craig? And you said, they’re even safer.

Craig K:  Oh, yeah. They’re even safer. Yeah. Because now the the whole car full of people are between them and the zombies. Even Right. But lo and behold, another surprise. The one sister got left behind that was in the group that finally made it into the car, and she’s turned into a zombie. And the other sister on in the safe car sees her and is so upset about it.  She goes and she’s mad at the people for not letting them in that she goes and opens the door and lets the zombies in. Yeah.

Craig:  Yeah. I really I really liked it. You know, these 2 old ladies, who had gotten separated. Yeah. And cute. You know? I don’t know if that’s the word for it, but, like

Todd:  Oh, it was cute. That’s they were so sweet to each other.

Craig:  It was it it was it was sweet. And it was even sweet when you’re seeing them on opposite sides of the door, and you’ve got the one sister who’s still living and the other sister who’s a zombie now. She looks like a sweet old lady zombie. It it’s not like it’s not like she’s emoting, but she’s also kind of not raving like the other ones. And they it’s not like they lock eyes and share a moment or whatever, but the the fact that the the living one can has a clear view of her sister on the other side, I just felt like at this moment, she was just kinda like fuck it. And and she just opens up the door and lets them in. And I absolutely loved it because I wanted to see those jerk ass people get their comeuppance. They were so mean.  They were so mean. And I don’t again, I’ve never been in a zombie apocalypse, but I would really like to believe that I wouldn’t be like that. But who knows? You know, maybe when you’re in absolute peril where it’s life and death, maybe instinct takes over and and you do, you know, just put yourself first. But I just even, you know, the the the folks got in. They had to batter their way in, but they got in. And then even when they got in, the, other people in the car were, like, you might be infected. Get out of here. You have to get out.  Like, it was just so mean, but and not unbelievable. You know? Like, I believe that that could and might happen. But again, I just thought that it was the movie doing a good job of showing an ugly side of humanity and that we can be just as vicious and nasty as a zombie horde.

Craig K:  And then then comes another little twist and surprise in the movie too because just as you think, that whole car got their comeuppance. I mean, nobody could have survived that. You know?

Craig:  Right.

Craig K:  Finally, the bad guys are gone. Now what’s how now what are these heroes gonna do? You know? And lo and behold, all of a sudden, stuck inside one of the washrooms, that old a hole man and Yeah. And the, the attendant survived.

Todd:  Yeah. And and he just continues to prove himself to be a bigger asshole as he goes along. Right? Because he

Craig K:  Oh, yeah.

Todd:  He ends up pushing yeah.

Craig K:  Yeah. He pushes the attendant out the door so the zombies will go after him and he can get away.

Todd:  Yep. Yeah. And it turn it turns out they can’t get to Busan. They and, because, there’s a problem on the tracks at this one spot, and so the train actually has to stop and the conductor comes over and says that they all have to leave and transfer. So the conductor runs off the car, to find another train for them to get, and this starts a whole sequence of everybody coming off and, trying to work their way across this train yard to get to another train.

Craig:  And all the trains are full of zombies. I loved that. It was so creepy. Like, they’re just walking along and in every train, every car is, like, just teeming with zombies, like, beating on the windows, trying to get out. It was it was scary. But it seems to be pretty safe out there for the time being, but then things start to happen. The conductor runs and eventually finds another engine. It it’s just like the engine car of a Craig.  But he starts it’s going. Rich a hole guy gets off and starts running and looking around. Our friends are, you know, heroes get out, and they start looking around. Some zombie chasing and stuff that goes on, but then there’s this huge action sequence where this

Todd:  Flaming.

Craig:  Runaway the yeah. Flaming runaway engine is coming towards them, and it just, you know, rips through this train yard. And it ends up trapping the business guy and his daughter and the pregnant lady. We forgot to say that the pregnant lady’s husband got bitten and infected and died. Oh, that’s horrible. Sad. Yeah. It was so sad.  I can’t believe we skipped over it.

Todd:  Make me super sad.

Craig K:  Because it was so sad. Yeah.

Craig:  But it comes through, and it it ends up like the pregnant lady and the kid and the dad get trapped underneath this, train car that is, like, tipped over. With what?

Craig K:  With a hobo.

Craig:  Oh, the hobo too. I keep forgetting about him, and he’s a good guy. I’m glad you keep bringing him up because he’s a good guy. But they get trapped under there. At some point, the rich guy finds the train that is, you know, going with the conductor, and the conductor jumps off to try to help him. And, again, the rich a hole guy just throws the conductor to the zombies so that he can get on the train. And then we have this action sequence where the others are trying to get out from underneath this train. And it was just such a cool scene because, like, this train car is is tipped over almost entirely on top of them.  And there are it’s full of zombies. And so, like, they’re right there with just a a pane of glass between them. And, they’re struggling to get out and, eventually, the dad gets out, but then the train shifts and something falls in front of the opening. And so he’s trying to get that out. Meanwhile, the glass starts to break and zombies start to pour in in the underneath where everybody else is. And the hobo being the good guy that he is sacrifices his himself to hold them off until the dad can get the obstruction out of the way and he gets the girl and the pregnant girl out and they take off, but the poor hobo gets killed. The dad and the daughter and the pregnant lady see the engine and they run towards it, but there’s this huge horde of zombies chasing after them. And they’re these big aerial shots where you see them running and you see just hundreds of zombies right on their heels.  And they get to the engine and they jump on, but some of the zombies are able to grab on to the train and it just turns into this chain of zombies holding on to the back of this chain or train climbing over each other. And oh my gosh. I just thought it was so scary.

Todd:  I was on the edge of my seat. This pregnant lady is, like, the world’s fittest pregnant woman at this point. Right? She can run fast.

Craig:  Yeah. She could run. She could jump on

Todd:  a train. She’s good to go.

Craig K:  You mentioned the big huge aerial shots where the zombies are chasing them to the train, and I’m sitting there thinking, there’s no way. Looking at the distance between the the good guys and the train and the good guys and the zombies, the distance was a lot shorter between the zombies and the good guys than what you guys were to the train. There is no way they could possibly get to the train before the zombies overtake them. And No way. Another little play there. They had the zombies trip over each other, and all of a sudden, there’s there’s a big pile of zombies tumbling over. It gives them just enough time to make it to the train before the rest of the zombies get to them. Yeah.

Craig:  It was awesome. It was awesome. And and so there’s this big, like it’s just a couple of, like, I don’t know, 3 or 4 4 zombies hanging on and everybody else just glomming onto them. And then I would say it turns into, like, a massive, I don’t know, a 100 or more just dragging behind the train. And eventually, the the dad, he, like, stomps on the ones that are holding on. He stomps on their knuckles and eventually, you know, dislodges the whole thing. And it seems like they’re gonna be okay, but we know that that rich butthole guy is on there. And the dad goes into the engine room, and the rich butthole guy is there, and he’s infected, and he’s turning.  But it seems like he doesn’t know it. And he says something like, I’m scared. Take me home. My mom is waiting for me. And he he gives the address. And I was sitting here thinking, dang, movie. Kudos for you for making me feel sympathy for this jerk of a guy. Like, he is such a jerk, but in this moment, he exposed such vulnerability and, like, he’s he’s scared.  He just wants

Todd:  to go home to his mommy.

Craig:  And I I felt bad for him for just a second, but then I didn’t really care.

Craig K:  You know, I didn’t I’m I’m sorry. I didn’t feel the same sympathy as you I was just grinning from ear to ear the whole time because one thing we mentioned forgot to mention is right before he got to the Craig, Remember, baseball guy and his girlfriend

Craig:  Aw.

Craig K:  Had were also running from the zombies that had gotten out of the the train there after that accident, And they made it onto another train and closed the door, you know, we’re we’re trying to get out the other door because they knew the zombies were coming. And who shows up with zombies behind him is a hole man who then throws the girl in front of the zombies so he can get away. And, of course, she’s infected, and he gets away. And the boyfriend’s left there with the girl. Well, he managed to fight the zombies away from the girlfriend, but it was too late.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig K:  So here she is in his lap turning into a zombie. And

Todd:  He’s just despondent.

Craig K:  He’s just so despondent. He just lays there. And, of course, she turns and he attacks him, and they’re both gone.

Todd:  Yeah. It was really really

Craig:  quite sad. It was really sad. You’re right. I’m glad you brought that up because that guy, even though I felt a little bit of sympathy for him there at the end, he was a real jerk. And and that and that scene, that was it was it was super sad. It it was very kind of Romeo and Juliet.

Todd:  It was. I think it was the same thing.

Craig:  Something else that I liked this movie, and I think that this may be a cultural thing. I don’t know because I am not nearly as worldly as either of you. But in this movie, men Craig. And I was you you just don’t see that in American movies very much. Like, when, when when the teenage girl gets infected in the, again, it’s not her boyfriend, but they’ve bonded. When he realizes that she’s been infected, he weeps.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  You know, openly weeps back onto the engine where the butthole guy is now a zombie. He attacks the dad, and the dad fights him, and, like, it’s all very exciting. And, like, they’re hanging off the train. And at some point, the pregnant lady tries to help, and then the zombie guy goes after the pregnant lady. And so to try to, you know, protect her, business guy grabs the zombie from the back, and he puts his hand right over his mouth. And I was like, no. Don’t do that. And of course of course, he gets bit.

Todd:  I did not see that coming. I did not see that.

Craig:  I didn’t either and I didn’t want it to happen. And I thought,

Todd:  what’s he gonna do? He’s gonna chop his hand off? Is he gonna put a tourniquet around there? I mean, surely. Sure.

Craig:  No. No. Instead, he throws the butthole guy off, and he ushers the pregnant lady and the girl into the car. And the girl is, you know, just a mess. She’s screaming and sobbing and weeping, and he he tells them, you know, this must be the break. Once you’re safe, pull the break and and that’s what you’ll have to do. And then he goes and talks to the girl, and it’s so sad. I mean, she’s just weeping and she’s saying, please don’t go.  It’s my fault. Like, I assume that she’s thinking that, you know, they were only on the train because of her. And he says, you know, something very sweet, like, I’ll always be with you or whatever. And then he runs out of the room knowing that he’s gonna have jump off the train because he’s infected. And then he just sobs, like, he’s just sobbing, weeping. And, I just I I found that to be so refreshing and real to see in cinema a man responding with that kind of emotion. And you just don’t see it in American cinema ever.

Todd:  It’s true. You know,

Craig:  like, is is that is is that a cultural thing? Like, is it okay for guys to cry in Eastern culture?

Todd:  I I see it a lot in these in these dramas, the guys crying. They’re all extremely dramatic. Everybody cries.

Craig:  Well, whether or not it’s a cultural thing or whatever, it was real oh my god. I was crying too. I like, it was so sad. I felt so bad. This poor guy, you know, who’s had a rocky relationship with his daughter and through all of this trauma seems to have really established a bond with her and now, you know, it’s it’s just over. There’s there’s nothing that he can do. And in the fight and in the final moments when he’s turning and we get to see, you know, his physical transformation, But in those final moments, he just has a very bright brightly, lit white flashback, to his daughter’s birth. And he’s crying, but at the same time, you know, he has a big smile on his face.  And then I thought that it was just such a beautiful shot. Instead of showing it, we see the shadow, the silhouette, the shadow on on the the tracks on the ground of the train car and of him standing there, and he just falls off and he’s done. I didn’t see it coming either, but it broke my heart, I swear to God. I’m a big crier anyway, but I was definitely crying at that part.

Craig K:  Well, Todd mentioned in the beginning of the podcast here that I had seen this before and yet there were several places that I had couldn’t remember. And I have to admit, the ending was one I didn’t quite remember. I didn’t really remember if the dad was gonna make it or not Uh-huh. Until we got to that point. And I thought, oh, yeah. Now I remember. But it’s like I mentally wanted to

Todd:  block that part out of my mind because I didn’t want it to end

Craig K:  that way. You know? Yeah.

Craig:  But I know.

Craig K:  One one thing that did bother me about that last whole scenario with the a hole guy and with him, during the whole movie, from the very out break in the in the train car. As soon as somebody was bitten, man, instantaneously, they turned.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig K:  But here at the end, you had these two characters that turned, but it took forever. And they were so conscious of what was going on during the whole time where Todd else had that opportunity. That’s so true. Yeah.

Craig:  It is. It was a little inconsistent.

Todd:  Well and that flashback to his daughter’s birth Todd me. At first, I’m thinking, oh Todd. You’re gonna do this to us? Like, you’re just trying to rub some salt into the wound of the audience. But then, of course, I realized this is just they’re trying to put a happy spin on it, you know. Yeah.

Craig:  To

Todd:  get trying to give him a smile on his face before he goes down. So I don’t know how I feel about that. I thought it was a bit much, but okay. Whatever.

Craig:  I thought it was so sweet and I just cried and cried.

Todd:  It wasn’t it wasn’t as bleak, you know. I mean, for for a movie that should be pretty bleak, I guess they tried to make it less bleak, you know. I mean, we review a lot of bleak stuff, you know, where just horrible things happen to people and there’s no nothing Todd smiling at the end of it. So for them to kind of put that touch on to the end of this movie was, was actually pretty nice for us.

Craig K:  And that wasn’t quite the end. They they still have one more twist at the end.

Todd:  That’s true. That’s true.

Craig K:  They come up to the finally get finally get to Busan and what happens? They they come to a a blocked train track right in front of the tunnel right before Busan. So they get off the Craig, and they’re going through this dark tunnel. And what’s on the other side? The army waiting for other zombies to come through the tunnel so they can shoot them and kill them. You know? And you’re thinking, these people aren’t gonna make it. You know? Yeah. In fact, you know, they couldn’t tell in the dark if they were real or not or zombies, and the commanding officer gave him the order to go ahead and shoot him. So sniper is just getting ready to shoot him. And you think, well, nobody’s gonna make

Todd:  it. You

Craig K:  know? Right.

Todd:  I was really thinking that was gonna happen. I thought, surely not. A movie that just gave us this beautiful moment with his father and his daughter isn’t gonna kill the last two survivors. I was worried.

Craig K:  And what saves them? She sings the song that she did wouldn’t sing in school at the recital because her dad wasn’t there.

Todd:  Yeah. Oh. And that’s

Craig:  Oh, and it’s so sweet. And it’s I don’t know that song, but I it I always think of it as the hula song. Yeah. I love it when you sing, Todd.

Todd:  I try to put a little bit of singing into every episode because Craig loves it so much.

Craig:  But I don’t know, like, I, you know, I I that song is very familiar, but I didn’t know the translation. And, of course, we have the subtitles. Apparently, the lyrics of that song are, we’ll meet again when the flowers bloom, and the last words of the song are, until we meet again. And that was the thing that saved them from getting shot. And and then, you know, you see, like, the the soldiers, I feel like you see them racing in to get them, but that’s it. Then that’s the end. But I just thought that that was such a sweet ending that, you know, she had said to her dad, I couldn’t finish the song because I rehearsed it for you, and you weren’t there. I’m getting choked up talking about it.  And then she just lost her dad, and she sings that song out loud and proud and that’s what saves them and, oh, gosh. It was so sweet. I loved this movie. The I thought that this was a great movie. I I would certainly go as far to say as that this is my favorite, zombie movie that I’ve ever seen. And I would recommend this movie to just about anybody because even though it is a horror movie and there is gore and it is scary, I feel like it’s also a a very human drama, and it’s good storytelling and and you care about the characters. You’re invested in the characters. I was on the edge of my seat for most of it.  I just I was so surprised because I went into it thinking, okay. Another zombie movie, whatever. And I I it was done, and I turned it off. And I walked into the kitchen with my the tears running down my face, and I said to my partner,

Todd:  that was a really good movie.

Craig:  And he was like, you’re Craig?

Todd:  I was, like, yeah. It’s really good.

Craig:  He was, like, a zombie movie? I was, like, yeah.

Todd:  Oh, well well, this I think what makes this movie and this movie was a blockbuster hit when it came out all over Asia. It was the number one film in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, obviously. Made more than 90,000,000. Obviously, you can watch it now on Netflix if you want. There was talk of a sequel. I don’t know if that’s still going on. That was a couple years ago. But I think the thing that gives it that universal appeal is, kind of like you said, it doesn’t really dwell on the horror aspect.  Right? I mean, the zombies are the obstacle to overcome, and they’re relentless, and they’re ruthless, and some gross things happen, and they’re gross. But this isn’t a movie where you’re getting lots of close ups of people ripping flesh out, you know, severed arms and blood splattering everywhere. It’s really, I say, just as much an action, action thriller, you know, as, it doesn’t need the zombies. It could be, you know, it could be guys in black trench coats, you know, running around shooting people. Sure. It’s the drama. It’s that aspect that you care about the characters. It has these great action sequences that are really well shot and really tense, that makes this a movie, I think, that would appeal to so many different people.  Except my wife who wouldn’t wanna see anything with a drop of blood in it.

Craig:  Yeah. Fair enough. I I told Alan. I said, this would be one of those movies that if you had watched it with me, you would say, well, it was a lot better than most of the shit you make me watch. Oh, man.

Craig K:  What does it

Todd:  mean your final thoughts, dad?

Craig K:  When you asked me to what would I have for a suggestion for a movie, I had to sit for a few moments and think and think and think. But yet, this movie popped into my mind pretty quickly after a few moments, more so than any other movie that I could think of. And I didn’t know why. Todd didn’t know why at the time. I just remembered seeing it. It was that kind of a genre thing that I thought you guys would really get into. So I really thought it was a great movie.

Todd:  It it stuck with you, obviously.

Craig:  I’m so glad you recommended it because I don’t think that I would have watched it otherwise. And, I’m so glad I did, and I will probably watch it again. I thought that it would I just loved it. I thought it was fantastic.

Todd:  Well, thank you, dad, for, recommending it.

Craig K:  Oh, you’re welcome.

Todd:  And it’s been wonderful here, having you join us for this episode. Very special.

Craig:  Thank you so much. It’s been great.

Craig K:  Well, I’ve enjoyed listening to your podcast. I never expected to be on one myself, but I thank you for inviting me.

Todd:  Big surprise. Maybe this won’t be the last time. Anytime.

Craig:  Yeah. Anytime.

Todd:  Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. You can find us on Google Play, Stitcher, Itunes, anywhere you can find your favorite podcast. You can also also find us, on Facebook. We have a page there where you could like us, leave a comment, tell us what you thought about this movie, and, of course, recommend other movies in the future. We also have a website, 2 guys dot redfortynet.com, and you can go there and occasionally even find some written movie reviews that we put out usually about every Thursday. Until next time, I’m Todd.

Craig:  I’m Craig.

Craig K:  And I’m Craig.

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

This grindhouse classic played as a double-feature with The Last House on the Left.

Episode 124, 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:  Craig, we continue our month of don’t movies with a movie that I’ve been looking forward to doing just because it’s so notorious. And, I don’t know, I’ve seen the video. It it’s just one of these kind of exploitation grindhouse features called Don’t Look in the Basement from 1973. Had you ever seen this movie before?

Craig:  No. I’d never seen it and I, gosh, I don’t even really remember hearing about it, but yet somehow the title is familiar in my mind. In fact, last week when we did another don’t, when we did, what did we do last week? Don’t

Todd:  Let’s see. We did Don’t Look Now, we did Don’t Breathe.

Clip:  Then

Todd:  And then we did One other Don’t Look Into the Woods. Don’t Go Into the Woods. Oh, my goodness.

Clip:  Don’t go

Craig:  into the woods. Right. When we were planning on doing that, for some reason I had it in my head that we were doing Don’t Look in the Basement, and I almost watched it accidentally, instead of what we were supposed to be doing. And so I’m glad I didn’t. But anyway, I was intrigued by this one because I hadn’t heard of it, and it sounded interesting and, it is. It’s quite interesting.

Todd:  It’s certainly interesting. I would call it I think this movie is has real sleazy feel to it. I don’t know. It’s not like it’s offensive, but it just has that typical, what I would consider grind house or drive in feel. It’s shot in old film stock. It’s not shot particularly well. It’s, 16 millimeters, you know, almost square presentation. The acting is not the best.  Although, actually, it’s not too bad, in this movie. It just is there’s almost nothing remarkable about it. And, it tries pretty hard, but well, anyway, we’re gonna talk about it, aren’t we?

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, that’s the thing, like, I I didn’t feel like it was bad. No. It it kinda feel the quality of it, it almost feels like a, made for TV movie from, the seventies or eighties. And it’s, you know, it was it’s a low budget film. I think they shot it for around a $100,000 or something. They shot it over 12 days on a location in that in an actual building at, some college in Texas and but at the same time it’s it’s not terrible. And and you said something about the acting.  I thought the acting was really okay. I mean, we’re we’re talking about Yeah. People in a mental institution, and they play Craig, and they really dial up the crazy. And so it doesn’t play like realism, but at the same time, you know, the the characters are interesting and and the the actors and actresses really seem to be committed to their roles, and it Todd doesn’t seem like something that was slopped together. It seems like something that as you mentioned, you know, they they they gave it the good old college try and there’s something to be appreciated about that. I mean, we without question, seen far worse movies, far worse acting and and all of that.

Todd:  So Like like last week’s movie.

Craig:  I’m not gonna be too hard on it. You know, I I think I’ve said it. I may not have said it recently, but for me, the biggest crime in making movies, particularly horror movies, is if they’re boring. I don’t I wouldn’t say that this movie is boring, but it kinda takes a while to get anywhere. It’s only an hour and 20 minutes long or something like that, an hour and 25 maybe. When we were an hour in and there was still 25 minutes left, I’m like, okay. Oh my god. Are are we gonna get somewhere with this? Or

Todd:  Yeah. Exactly. That’s how I felt. I think I think I was probably about that point that I wrote in my notes, nothing is happening. Like, stuff happens, but it’s not, like, of consequence or it’s not that interesting. Right. I don’t know. Like, I I even hesitate to say not that interesting.  I guess, by its very nature, this movie is kind of interesting. But, you’re right. It’s like, where is the point? And and I think that is one of my biggest criticisms of it is that the plot is so almost not there. It’s so meandering. It’s

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  There’s no through line for it. I may be one of what I would consider subplot. Aside from that, it’s just a bunch of stuff going on and you’re waiting to see where it goes. And it kinda turns out none of it’s really going much of anywhere.

Craig:  It yeah. And and it it all kind of hinges on a plot twist towards the that that’s revealed towards the end, but if you give it really any thought at all, you can kind of figure out the plot twist pretty early on. Oh my god.

Todd:  I figured out the plot just within the first 10 minutes.

Craig:  It took me a little longer, like, I, you know, I had my suspicions, but, you know, there there came a point where I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. I see what they’re doing here.

Todd:  Well, there are a lot of characters in this film. You know, it it doesn’t even start out with a lot of shock. It it you know, usually movies like this start out with some big kill or some big spooky thing. In this case, the film starts out with Sam and Sarge, who are up in a window of a of a house looking out. And Sarge is the okay. So we’re in a a very small insane asylum, very small private insane asylum. And Sam is a bigger black guy. Sarge is a a seems like a Vietnam vet, looking out the window, and they’re kind of having some chatter back and forth.  And again, this is where you think this is gonna be kind of significant, but it’s not really. It’s just the beginning of a tour through this facility where we just get to meet all of these characters. And then a nurse comes in and she says, hello. How are you doing? And then she leaves. And just one thing after another, we see Harriet, who’s a woman who thinks that this baby doll was a baby and she’s extremely motherly and taking care of this baby as though it were real. A woman named Jennifer with really long hair, a young girl who just seems pretty mopey, kinda like a mopey teenager.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  And then, we see a guy named Judge. We see that there’s a doctor who’s egging him on. Now, this is really the first big problem that you have is giving an insane man the axe as part of his therapy. Right. But apparently, we learned later that this doctor’s idea was it’s basically explained that people have these obsessions, and if it did if you push their obsessions far enough then they’ll break free from them.

Craig:  Yeah, it’s it’s pretty stupid. I mean it it’s it basically, what he suggests is that you don’t try to, in any way eliminate or suppress these obsessions, but rather the way to deal with them is to indulge them, to the point where they can kind of act out their obsessions. And, eventually, if they are allowed to indulge in those obsessions, eventually, they’ll just cure themselves. I mean, it’s just it’s a really it’s a really stupid I I can’t imagine that there’s any scientific basis for this ridiculous theory. But it’s like, if you’re, you

Todd:  know, if you’re an alcoholic, just keep keep drinking. In fact, drink a whole lot.

Craig:  Yeah. Maybe a lot. Get better. So

Todd:  Janie, goes out and visits the the judge outside, and, while he’s he’s telling the judge, while the doctor, doctor gosh, we hear his name about a 1000000000 times. Thank you, Stevens, who owns this mental asylum, is encouraging the judge to axe this tree. And it’s like he looks up, and he’s like, oh, Janie, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And suddenly, an axe comes down into his back, which was extremely shocking. Yeah. I wasn’t expecting that. And then some people come out of the asylum, and another woman in a nurse, outfit. We later learned that her name is doctor Masters.  Mhmm. Is that right? Yep. She comes out and sees that the doc just assumes the doctor is dead. Nobody’s calling for an ambulance. Nobody’s trying to get help or anything. Right. They just assume he’s dead, and she is immediately concerned for Judge.

Clip:  Come on, Judge. Don’t look at doctor Stevens. I’m gonna help you. Come on, quietly. Quietly, calmly. That’s right, Into the house. From now on, I’m gonna take care of the family. I’m gonna take care of Cameron, Janie, and all the others.  Do you understand?

Todd:  And then they all go inside. Yeah. Leave leave leave poor doctor Stevens on the ground.

Craig:  Yeah. And and, you know, this woman, doctor Geraldine Masters, you know, she’s kind of typical in her appearance. She’s got kind of like this updo and she’s kind of I don’t know. She reminded me a little bit of missus Voorhees, but, you know, she’s she’s very put together and and she, you know, she says that, you know, from now on, I’m gonna take you know, I’ll be in charge and I’ll take care of the family. I think it’s worth noting that all of this happens before we get any credits and we’re still not done. Somebody we then see a shot of somebody, we just see their hands, takes Harriet, the girl with the baby doll. They take the baby doll and put it in nurse Jane’s room And so Harriet freaks out when she realizes that her baby is gone and runs into nurse Jane’s room and apparently kills her. Like, it it all happens very quickly and it happens in really really tight close-up shots, So it’s really kind of difficult to tell what’s going on.  It it looked like she was strangling her. When I was reading the plot synopsis on Wikipedia, it says that, Harriet slams her head in her in in the nurse’s luggage, slams nurse Jane’s head in her luggage and kills her. Oh, that’s all I was. Seeing that. No.

Todd:  It was from inside the luggage if it was anywhere.

Craig:  Then we see this new girl, this very pretty girl shows up at the front Todd, and that’s when we start getting, some credits. So it’s gone on for a while before we even get the credits, but we it it turns out that this new girl, her name is Charlotte, Charlotte Beal. And, again, just like last week, I didn’t write down any of the actors’ names because they were all virtual nobodies, you know, the all newcomers, and none of them I mean, I looked at their IMDB pages, and some of them did, you know, another movie or a couple of other very low budget movies that you’ve never heard of, but, you’re not or at least I didn’t recognize anybody in the movie.

Todd:  The woman who plays Charlotte apparently was a playboy model and I thought, oh, well, she’s like a playmate or something. No. She just appeared on the cover.

Craig:  She’s a very pretty lady, so it doesn’t surprise me. She shows up actually right before he had gotten killed. Doctor Stevens had said because nurse Jane was quitting because Harriet had threatened her. Harriet had said if you touch my baby, I’ll kill you and and that was enough for nurse Jane. She said, I’m I’m leaving. And doctor Stevens had said, oh, you know, you can’t leave. I’ve hired somebody else. We’re gonna have more help.  It’s gonna be fine. Well, then the whole thing went down where he got killed and, Charlotte shows up and she goes inside and she meets with, doctor Masters who doesn’t know anything about her. And, like, they even have kind of this discussion where doctor Masters is like, it doesn’t make any sense that he wouldn’t have told me about you, you know. If he was gonna hire somebody, if he was gonna make that big of a change, like adding to the staff, he would have told me, which in hindsight should have been a big clue as to kind of what’s going on here because, really, it would make sense that he wouldn’t have told her ultimately. Charlotte is adamant. She’s like, look. I had this good job, and I left it because I was guaranteed a job here, and I really, need this job. And, she’s like, just let me talk to doctor Stevens and we’ll clear it all up.  And doctor Masters is like, well, she he he there was a terrible accident and he died and I’m in charge now. But eventually, doctor Master says, okay. Well, since you’ve come all this way, I’ll let you stay on a temporary basis, and we’ll see how things go. And she says, your your room will be upstairs. It’s late now, so just go up there and I’ll brief you in the morning. And so Charlotte goes upstairs and she runs into this scary old lady, who we see in, close-up. And this it ends up being another one of the patients. Her name is missus, Callingham.  But she really just serves the role of the creepy old lady who gives very cryptic kind of warnings. She says to Charlotte, get out and never come back. And then she quotes a poem which was very familiar to me because it’s the same poem that the creepy guy outside of Willy Wonka’s factory quotes to Charlie in the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It’s

Clip:  Up the every mountain down the rushing little man.

Craig:  Just this little ominous stuff like, oh, scary. Get out of here.

Todd:  Which made a lot more sense in Willy Wonka than it did

Craig:  in this movie. Right?

Todd:  And she does it, like, 2 or 3 times. It’s so goofy. Like, the dialogue here is really dumb. I mean, like you said, you can at this point, if you’re not starting to piece together what’s going on, you’re and I think that it’s really funny that she’s saying, how could how could you how could you be of any help here? It’s like you have an insane asylum with, like, 9 or 10 people here and one doctor overseeing it all. How could how could a nurse not be of any? No.

Craig:  Well, and throughout the course of the movie, you know, this is just something it’s it’s it’s so nitpicky, I suppose, but, like, there’s really nothing as far as treatment going on the rest of the time. Like, they all just kind of live there and coexist there. And every once in a while, you’ll see, nurse Charlotte, like, doing inventory of the one tiny little medicine cabinet that they have. Like, that’s her only job is to, like, count the bottles in the medicine cabinet several times a day. And you see her doing that.

Todd:  And speak condescendingly a little bit to the, to the other, inmates. Like, oh, how cute. Or, oh, well, this is a little silly what you’re saying. I mean, it’s just she’s absolutely not equipped to be here even though apparently the doctor was impressed with her. And like you said, there’s nothing happening.

Craig:  Yeah. I don’t know. Well, and then yeah. This is where it gets difficult to really talk about the plot because honestly really nothing happens like it’s it’s just Charlotte kind of interacting with all of the other characters and, you know, Sam, who you mentioned before, he’s this, big black guy. He’s like this gentle giant, and the doctor, Masters, explains to Charlotte at some point that, Sam is one of their most long standing patients and the the doctor used to do surgical procedures, on on his patients and Sam was the last one. Like, I guess Sam was like a violent criminal, and so they lobotomized him. And in the process of lobotomizing him, it took away all of his violent tendencies, but it also reduced him to the mental capacity of an 8 year old. And so that’s how he acts.  He acts very childlike, but at the same time, you know, very gentle and and nonthreatening.

Todd:  And and I actually kinda dug Sam. The if you’re if you’re to say that there’s a central character in this film, it’s almost him. There’s a while here, and it’s probably about now when we we leave Charlotte entirely. Like, you feel like the movie is going to revolve around Charlotte. Oh, it’s this newcomer who comes to the insane asylum, almost like Suspiria, you know, the new new person comes in. That’s just the typical way things go. And and here, like, we just leave Charlotte for quite a while and all these other things are happening with all the other inmates with each other and around the around the place. It makes it seem like it’s a big place even though it’s absolutely not big at all.  It’s not like anything that goes down in this place couldn’t be heard, and it’s not like people would be able to run around without bumping into anybody else. Although the movie shoots it in a way that you would think that that was the case. Mhmm. You know? Again, another nitpicky thing. But it’s just funny because then the the film just doesn’t revolve around Charlotte. It just pops in with her toward the end. Like, some of these people pop in and seem to be main characters for a while and then they just disappear. But but the one constant throughout it all who keeps springing in just from scene after scene is Sam.  And I really liked his acting. I thought his acting was pretty good for what it was. I mean, it’s probably not hard to play that kind of character.

Craig:  Well, yeah. I mean, it’s he’s very reminiscent of, like, Lenny from of Mice and Men, you know, kind of just this gentle giant kind of character and and you do and he is. He’s childlike, like, he eats a lot he eats a lot of popsicles. And and it seems like of all of the inmates, he’s the one that everybody just kind of talks Todd, like he’s kinda the little brother, of the ward. But you’re but you’re right, like, we spend a lot of time just kind of getting to know some of these other characters and they all have distinctive character traits, but like you said it ultimately isn’t particularly significant. Like, one of the main ones is Allison and Allison’s story shit. Her story is kind of messed up, like, I guess I don’t know. Her her dad died.

Todd:  So not PC.

Craig:  I know. Her her dad died. She loved her dad, and then her dad died, and then her mom married some other guy, and she loved that guy Todd, but then he left. And then, she married some guy, and she devoted herself to him, but, like, he pimped her out and then eventually Like, literally. Yeah. Literally. And then, like, I guess, the doctor master says and then he found somebody younger and cuter, and so he kicked her out, and so she craves love. So, basically, she’s the nympho of the ward and she’s constantly throwing herself at every man except for Sam.  She doesn’t throw herself at Sam, thank goodness, but the rest of them you know And, like, when I say throwing herself at them, she’ll, like, go and, like, try to talk seductively to them for, like, 10 seconds before just ripping her clothes off.

Todd:  That’s right. She fulfills the the t and a quotient of the movie, which which isn’t even that much, but you’re right. It’s so funny. And it’s funny because you could you could see it coming a mile away. Like, at one point, she comes in and I could see that her dress had, like, a zipper all the way down the front. And I was like, well, we know what’s gonna happen later in this scene.

Craig:  Yeah. Well and and the thing I mean, I guess maybe this is a credit to the movie because it’s not sexy. Like, it’s it’s it’s desperate and sad. Like, it’s it’s kind of almost hard to feel sorry for her because she’s so aggressive and, like, as as soon as she’s rejected, she always, you know, kinda freaks out and she’s trying to throw herself at these guys. So I I don’t know. She’s not a particularly likable character, but it is desperate and sad. I I guess that’s what they were going for.

Todd:  This well, I don’t know. You know, maybe they were going for it, but I feel like that’s just how it comes across. I mean, this is why I think the movie just has a little bit of a sleazy feel is that you feel like they’re shoehorning her in there for that. Yeah. But it’s not done very well, and so it does just come across as desperate and sad. And and it’s funny because it’s like, it’s also clear that maybe either the director was shy about putting too much of the t and a on the screen, or maybe she was shy about having too much of it on there because it’s not like in your face. It’s like she’ll rip her top off and you’ll see it for about a couple seconds and then it’ll be gone. Or she’ll rip her top off and then she’ll run into a room and and fall down on the bed, you know, and stand up from the bed covering herself.  It’s like all of it just feels a little icky to me. No. Not in in in the way it’s shot, in the way it’s presented, not just her character.

Craig:  Yeah. No. I get it. Looking back, I kind of get what was going on. But in the moment, it just felt kind of random. Like, one of the next things that happens is, again, we see a pair of hands. We don’t know who it is, but it cuts some what look like electrical wires. And I’m and I was thinking in the moment, I’m like, I don’t even really understand what is happening.  But then the movie immediately explains itself by showing that Charlotte tries to make a phone call out of her room, and she can’t. So, obviously, somebody has cut the phone lines. It it seems so random. Like, Charlotte has a moment where she talks to missus, Callingham again when miss Callingham is in bed, and they had had a scene earlier where they had walked together in a field. And, miss Callingham’s like

Clip:  You liked our walk in the garden didn’t you? Yes. I did. Well, don’t be surprised if we never go again.

Todd:  It’s funny because the doctor bastards kind of pops in during that. And I guess she must have said too much because later on, maybe it’s as as after

Craig:  the scene. Morning.

Todd:  It’s the next morning. Suddenly, there’s screaming or no. It’s not even screaming. I think just the nurse goes in and says, hello, missus Callingham. How are you doing? And she looks down and there’s blood on the on the pillow. And missus Callingham is on the floor next to her and she’s got blood all over her and I’m like, what is going on? The nurse just flat out says that, oh my Todd, your tongue has been cut out.

Craig:  Yeah. And then doctor Masters comes in, and and I I guess they get missus Callingham, you know, to the infirmary’s I don’t know. They they get rid of her. And doctor Masters is talking to Charlotte, and she’s like, oh, don’t worry about it. You know, when people work them up selves up into psychotic states, they move beyond the threshold of pain. She probably didn’t even feel anything. And and then she’s like she’s like, she did this to herself. She’s just gonna have to learn to deal with it.

Todd:  This is a fantastic hospital to send your relatives to, by the way. There’s no treatment going on. And then the the phone repairman shows up. It’s so silly. There’s it’s just chewing time. You know, he comes in. He goes upstairs and meets Judge. And Judge says some ominous things to him.  He’s like, hey, look, I’m just the repairman, and then somebody else comes in.

Craig:  It’s missus he meets missus Callingham who, you know, like, I don’t know if you cut your tongue off at what the procedure, you know, like what the healing process would be there, but she’s apparently fine except for the fact that now she talks likes an old person who doesn’t have their dentures in and she’s like it’s really it it plays kind of funny. I mean, it’s it’s really kind of exploitive, but, like, she just mumbles.

Clip:  Poor lady, I hope that isn’t catching.

Todd:  Is this supposed to be funny? Anyway, then doctor, Master shows up, and she’s furious at him for coming in. How did you get in here? What did what is the meaning of it? And he’s just affable in the face of it all. Hey. Look. I’m just a telephone repairman. I’m I’m just here to fix your phone. We noticed that the voltage had dropped. And she’s like, why didn’t you tell me you were coming? He’s like, well, you didn’t have a phone.  I couldn’t call you. So, yeah. He goes downstairs and starts to repair things. Now, in the meantime, Allison comes in and starts seducing him.

Craig:  Pulls her boobs out.

Todd:  Pulls her boobs out, shuts the door, behind her in there, and then boom, we’re into another scene.

Craig:  Yeah. With Allison in it. Right? Like Yeah. And I I was like, what is happening? Because the door closes behind them. Like, this guy, he’s trying to ward off her advances. Like, at first, he kind of tries to play along a little bit because she’s being so aggressive, and she’s like, tell me you love me. Tell me you love me. And he’s like, okay.  I love you. Oh, I love you. Oh, I gotta go now. And then she gets all aggressive and, like, you know, jumps them, and the door shuts behind them. And like you said, it cuts to another scene, and she’s in it. And I’m like, what happened? Like, where did Ray the telephone guy go? I and I still really don’t understand. I mean, I I I think I ultimately understand what is implied happened, but in the moment, we have no idea. Like, we don’t have any idea if he’s still there, if he left, if and did something to him, and and there’s a lot of that going on.  Just these little things that are dropped, like, Sam keeps talking about doctor Stevens as though he’s still alive and, he keeps saying things like doctor Stevens told me all about Charlotte, and doctor Stevens told me this and told me that, and I’ve got a secret, and I won’t tell anybody but miss Charlotte. And, like, I didn’t know if he was just crazy or if there was something going on and Yeah. It feels like it’s trying to set up for a payoff, but then the the payoff is lame. It’s pointless. Basically it. It’s stupid.

Todd:  Well, it’s trying it’s trying to weave all this intrigue, like, you’re supposed to be but but things just get dropped left and right that you just forget about them. Yeah. This thing that happens, the the scene that Allison’s in is and this is where it really starts to go off the rails, I think, is that Charlotte’s in her room. Suddenly, the closet door swings open, and Jennifer attacks her with a knife.

Craig:  Yeah. For no apparent reason.

Todd:  For no good reason. Well, I think the doctor comes in at that moment and wrestles her off. And then and then she calls Allison, and that’s when Allison comes in to help. So Allison walks Jennifer out, and then the doctor turns right around to her and says, well, Jennifer’s alright. I really don’t know what happened.

Clip:  What? Yeah.

Craig:  It is

Todd:  Doris just got attacked by an inmate. And and so Charlotte doesn’t wanna stay. She’s like, oh, I don’t think I belong here. I don’t think I belong here. And now doctor Masters has got completely the opposite tact. Now she’s, of course, you’re gonna stay.

Craig:  Right. And there’s even a whole another character that we haven’t even talked about. There’s another character named Danny who is just this fro headed kid, who, I guess, plays pranks on people all the time and just laughs maniacally. Like, that’s his character Craig. Like, just maniacal laughing, and mischief making. You know, I say that like we haven’t mentioned him yet. He’s around all the time and he’s constantly causing trouble and pulling pranks on people, like, he’s the one that stole, Harriet’s baby. At one point, he puts the moves on Allison and then as soon as she gets into it, he just starts his maniacal laughing like it was a big joke.  Like, it just it just it feels kind of like a hodgepodge of scenes that don’t really seem to be going anywhere. Ultimately, like, ultimately you get to the end and you’re like, okay. Well, I guess we’re here, but we could have cut out the last hour and it wouldn’t really have made any difference. Like, it’s like it just let we need an hour Todd establish that these people are crazy. Okay. Well, I got that in the first five minutes, so let’s pick up the pace a little bit here, folks.

Todd:  Sam gives a watch to Charlotte, and it’s engraved on the back. And that’s supposed to mean something, but I guess it was the doctor’s initials, you know, doctor Stevens.

Craig:  And he and he tells her he wants to help you. Well and yeah. And then that doesn’t go anywhere. And and right before that okay. So I’m clearly more dense than you are because even though I had suggestions of what was going on, it really wasn’t until this scene where I was like, oh, okay. This is obvious. In fact, I think it just gets laid out. The doctor goes into whose room does she go into?

Todd:  Oh, sergeant.

Craig:  She goes into sergeant’s room and he has, like, a a big note card with her name on it. And I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so maybe you could see it, but it seemed like it was kind of intentionally fuzzy. I think so. Yeah. But, you know, she gets really mad when she sees it and she crumples it up and she sets it on fire and she makes him hold it in his hand while it’s burning as punishment, but it’s it becomes obvious in this moment that doctor Masters is also a patient here, like, she’s not a doctor or at least she’s not a practicing doctor. I think when we later find out, you know, when Charlotte eventually confronts her, it turns out that she had been in medical school or she had been training to be a doctor or something, but then there had been some sort of accident where she had been responsible for the death of a patient and that had derailed her medical career and I guess drove her crazy. And so just like with every other patient in the ward, the doctor had indulged her fantasy and had allowed her to pretend to be one of the doctors on the ward. So when he was gone, she just carried on playing that role.  But the truth of the matter is she’s really crazy too. Surprise. Woo hoo. There’s your big twist.

Todd:  The inmates are running the asylum. The next two scenes are 2 of my absolute favorite scenes in this movie. This is after Sam gives the watch to Charlotte. Now now we suddenly have another random scene where Charlotte is outside talking with Danny, and they’re in this field. And it for no good reason, it’s like a close-up on Charlotte’s legs. And then it like, it’s supposed to be sexy or something, and then it zooms out through their I don’t know, they’re standing in a field of daisies or something. It’s really tall flowers. And Danny’s sitting, and Charlotte’s trying to make conversation with him.  And even though she’s supposed to have gotten to know the back stories behind all these characters, she’s talking to him like some guy at college she’s just getting to know for the first time. So tell me about your family. And then Danny gives her a flower, picks a flower and hands it to her. And she holds the flower and she goes, oh, this is so sweet. Thank you. Okay. Time to go inside now. And she throws the flower down and walks off.  Yeah.

Craig:  Well, he also he also kisses her, like, just on the cheek. I mean, it’s relative it’s relatively innocent, Like, he kisses her on the cheek, but she just doesn’t really respond to it at all. Like, one would think that a professional would say to this crazy kid, you know, that’s really not appropriate. But, no, she just stands there. It’s like, oh, that’s nice.

Todd:  Yeah. It’s just it’s so it’s such a weird scene because it feels like it was again, like, what are they trying to do here? Are they trying to set up something here? Is she gonna is there something between her and Danny? No. It no. Absolutely nothing. In fact, it’s really ridiculous because then she tosses the flower down and runs away, which is a very insensitive thing for her to do. Danny picks up the flower and is he, like, wailing? Is he crying?

Craig:  No. I think he’s just, like, crazy laughing again. That’s all he does.

Todd:  I thought he was super upset. Anyway, that was it. Then again there’s that have no that scene had absolutely no point.

Craig:  Well, and then the next scene made no sense to me at all. Charlotte’s in bed asleep. Right? Yeah. And and then and then Judge is standing over her, like, with his axe raised over her while she sleeps, and then it’s almost as though Dani comes in and just kind of nudges Judge away and tries to get in bed with her. Right. And then she wakes up and she’s, like, what’s going on? And Judge has some creepy monologue.

Clip:  We can be sure there will be other times. Other times for other things. Unlike your friend, Danny, I I choose only perfect moments. Perfect moments to work out perfect destinies for so many lives.

Todd:  He leaves and she’s, like, clearly visibly distraught. She’s laying in bed. Now, first of all, I’d be leaping out of bed and leaving that place. And I thought, what, is she gonna go to sleep after this? And then it kicks to the very next scene, which is her taking inventory. Yeah. Like like that whole previous scene never happened.

Craig:  And as she’s taking inventory, she finds that some meds are missing and, you know, masters freaks out about that, but she immediately goes and searches Moody Jennifer’s room and she finds the drugs there and she takes them. Meanwhile, Sam looks into the closet where Allison had had her tryst with the telephone guy and we don’t see what he sees, but, he freaks out. And it was it it it was at this point that I was thinking, is there a basement in this movie? I know. I was like,

Todd:  where is the basement gonna come into play?

Craig:  It does eventually in the last few minutes, but I I was like, what’s in the basement? Like, they’re not supposed to look in there, but I don’t know. You know,

Todd:  I was really hoping that the beginning of the movie when the doctor was giving Charlotte a tour of the place, she would have said something about the basement. Now now don’t look in the basement. Right. You can go anywhere else on the grounds, but stay out of the basement. Yeah.

Craig:  Todd doesn’t come up until, like, the last 5 minutes.

Todd:  Well, to be fair, the movie was originally called The Forgotten. And you can tell that it’s an alt you can tell that it’s an alternate title because as soon as that title sequence begins, it’s it’s one of these title sequences where the titles are carefully placed over the action as the action is going along as she’s walking up there and everything. And then when it gets to the title part, suddenly the entire image is replaced by a big title screen that looks absolutely nothing tonally like the what you’ve been seeing before. Yeah. And it’s just a freeze frame called don’t look in the basement, and then it pulls away. So

Craig:  Oh, man. Well, Jennifer freaks out when she finds the drugs missing out of her room and so she tries to she goes in and she tries to steal more, but then again, we don’t see who it is, we just see hands. But as Jennifer is leaning over the desk, somebody grabs her head and thrusts her face down onto one of those dangerous office spikes that we have said nobody should have because they’re dangerous. And it goes right through the goes right through her eye. What are

Todd:  the chances that we would review? What it’s only been like a month. Right? Yeah. Maybe on the laptops, 2 films where somebody gets an eye an office spike in the eye.

Craig:  And then things move I’ll say things move pretty quickly from here. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re particularly exciting but because

Todd:  it’s not really coalescing into anything. No. All of the things that we’re talking about, they’re just random things that are happening. It’s not like there’s one killer doing all this or there’s some motivation behind it. That’s the big problem.

Craig:  Yes. Okay. So Sam Sam grabs Allison and and shows her what he found in the closet, which is the telephone guy dead. And so she freaks out. And as she’s freaking out, Charlotte is trying to calm her down. And, Allison’s this is where she she just lays it all out.

Clip:  Master. Master killed him because he loved me, Charlotte. She’s just like the rest of us here and she killed him. And you didn’t know that, did you? She’s a patient that I could see with she was schizophrenic just like me.

Craig:  My favorite part of the movie is that then Allison goes running around and To everybody. To everybody. And she she literally says, I’ve got to hear it from all of you. Why? Why do you need to hear it from everybody? Just take Allison at her word. You know? Like, come on.

Todd:  So bad. What’s so funny about this is this could have been explained at any time. There was no mystery here except to Charlotte what was going on. Just so the fact that Allison decides to reveal it all to her now is kinda like, oh, okay. Really? And then like you said, now we see her stumbling around the house aimlessly just like, you know, she can be threatened with a knife from the closet, and she can be threatened by a guy with an ax at her bed, and then go back to checking medications the next day. She doesn’t seem to know how to go to the front door and leave the house. She just wants to stumble around, talk to everybody, confirm her suspicions 5 you know, confirm what Allison said 5 or 6 times, and then, again, wander around aimlessly not knowing not knowing how to get out.

Craig:  Well, right. I mean, the way that they explain it is Todd doctor has locked all of the doors. I just never buy that. Like, come on. I there’s gotta be a way out of this stupid house. But, anyway, she’s she’s running all around. And and and it’s very much, you know, like, lots of slasher movies that we’ve seen when the final girl finally realizes what’s going on out of nowhere and then runs around and finds all this carnage. So she runs around and finds all the dead people.  And and also something else that I found odd was that at this point, it seems like everybody in the asylum who has been, you know, they’ve been fairly non threatening, up to this point, all of a sudden now they’re all incredibly menacing. And Yeah. The judge, you know, says to Charlotte, the verdict is in on you and you’re guilty and you’re, a patient. You’re not really a nurse. Which, you know, for a second, I was like, oh, that might kind of be an

Todd:  twist too. I was I was I was hoping for that, like, the double twist.

Craig:  Yeah. But no.

Todd:  Well, at this point I wrote on my notes, do we really still have 15 more minutes to go in

Craig:  this movie? And we may as well not have because, I mean, you could wrap it all up in 5 minutes. Basically, everybody just kinda goes crazy. At one point, Allison has blood on her hands and is washing them off. What was that all about? Did you know? Did Allison kill somebody?

Todd:  Well, she had a a tryst. She had a tussle with the doctor, and I and the doctor was trying to stab her with a needle or something, but it looked like she turned the table on her instead. The doctor was giving her something to sleep or whatnot. And she turned the tables on her, but it was just a needle stab. And when she was washing the blood off, I thought, oh, she must have done more, you know, to the doctor after that. But, no. No. It didn’t.  I don’t know why she was bloody. I don’t know why Charlotte tried to go to the phone again. And then, she runs into Sarge’s room. And we forgot about Sarge at this point because, again, he’s only in one place ever and is only in, like, 3 scenes. And she asked Sarge, is there an attic or an outside door?

Craig:  Why why would you be looking for an attic? Like, this is a 3 story house. What are you gonna do in the attic? It doesn’t even make any sense.

Todd:  I I wanted to know why she was asking for an outside door. I’m like, yeah. There’s the door you came in from.

Craig:  Front door. There’s a front door.

Todd:  There’s a back door. I mean, it wasn’t till later. It wasn’t until after that line that somebody explained that, you know, she had locked all of the Right. The doors from

Craig:  Well, and then finally, Charlotte goes to the basement and I I just feel like this was so they could have done so much more with it, like, we see like as she’s walking down the steps, we see some, like, bloody hands, like, reaching up towards her feet, but then she gets down there and whoever it is that’s down there scares her so she beats him to death and it’s doctor Stevens who apparently has been alive this whole time down in the basement, but there’s absolutely no payoff to it because as soon as she goes down there, she beats him to death. Like, he doesn’t even say anything.

Todd:  No. And suddenly, the doctor appears again. So I guess she wasn’t incapacitated after all

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  At the top of the steps, and she orders Sam down and Sam suddenly, nice congenial Sam, is stricken with anger over the fact that now he didn’t see this happen. He I think he just puts 2 and 2 together that she took his toy boat Mhmm. Which was on the steps and beat the doctor to death with it. And so now he’s angry, and he’s taking her upstairs. So now she’s got no friend in the world. And honestly, there’s still there’s no point. Like, okay. So he was alive in the basement the whole time.  What good does that do anyone?

Craig:  None there’s there’s absolutely no point to it. It doesn’t have anything to do with the plot, like, I don’t know. They so so Sam takes her upstairs and and she’s pleading with him and saying that the doctor is crazy and but he’s not really listening. It’s only when masters comes upstairs and says, you know, she’s she’s evil, you know, she killed doctor Steven, she’s not your friend, so we’re gonna have to cut the evil out of her just like we did with you. And, like, he has kind of this fuzzy flashback of doctor Stevens and doctor Master standing over him presumably when they lobotomized him. And I guess he has negative feelings about being lobotomized. So he doesn’t want Charlotte to be lobotomized. So he let he lets her go and throws doctor Masters over the bed and she kinda lands in the corner between the bed and the wall.  And then all of the other patients walk in like they’re right out of Night of the Living Dead and just surround her and throw her down on the bed and, like, rip her to pieces. I mean, I get okay. Fine. They’re crazy. Some of them have exhibited violent tendencies in the past, Allison you know, some of them have personal grudges against her because you know, like with Allison, she killed her boyfriend or whatever, Ray the telephone guy. So it’s not like it’s entirely unmotivated, but it comes so far out of left field that just all of a sudden they become like this zombie horde and literally just tear her apart. And then Sam takes Charlotte, like, out the back door, like like Yeah. Here it is.  Here’s that mysterious door you’ve been looking for for the last 20 minutes. And he he he pushes her out and he goes back in and he goes upstairs and kills everybody. It kills everybody else. And the film ends the film ends with her. Charlotte stands outside and listens to all the screaming going inside for a minute, and then she turns and runs away. And the last clip we get is of Sam sitting covered in blood, sitting and eating a popsicle and weeping. The end.

Todd:  So weird. It just feels like a movie written by 14 year old boys. And at this point, it it it really feels sleazy. You know, it’s got that icky grind house feel to it. And I think a lot of it has to do with the way the director shoots it. He just loves close ups. And it’s close ups maybe because they’re in a confined space. It’s close ups because, he’s really trying to get in their face or he thinks it’s artistic.  And it really gives a claustrophobic feeling to the movie. And I’d like to say that was intentional, but I really don’t think that this was competently made. And so I’m not gonna give him I’m sorry. I’m just not gonna give him a lot of credit for it. And then when it gets to that scene, where they’re in that small room and everybody’s hacking away at the doctor, and then he goes in and he’s hacking away at the rest of them, you know, there’s no there’s just blood squirting in places. There’s just blood on things. And it’s done with this handheld close-up quick cuts everywhere. It just feels gross.

Craig:  I I know what you mean. It does. It it does feel kind of sleazy and but I think to be fair, this movie is kind of the product of a bygone era. You know, I think that this was kind of a genre of films. You know, this played as a double feature with Wes Craven’s Last House on the left, which is just, like, terribly sleazy. You know, I love Wes Craven, and I love his movies. I even can appreciate Last House on the Left for what it is, but it’s hard to watch. I mean, it’s it’s it’s dirty and gross and violent and and really and exploitive and and it’s nasty.  A It was a genre film especially in the mid to late seventies, you know, that played well in drive in theaters when people were probably a little bit more And so, you know, that’s fine. I and so, you know, that’s fine. I I really I didn’t hate it. I I actually thought there were some things, you know, I’ve got some positive things to say about it. I thought that the actress who played Doctor. Masters, she did a pretty good job of

Clip:  of She did.

Craig:  You know showing a contrast in her character whereas in the beginning she plays fairly believably the professional, and then towards the end where things are getting revealed you get to see her far more unhinged, and and so there was, you know, some good performance there. I liked the guy who played Sam. As you said, maybe that type of character isn’t particularly challenging, But nonetheless, I thought that he did a good job and he was endearing and I liked him as a character. Some of the other characters were, you know, like Allison, I didn’t like her as a character, but I thought that the actress who played her did a pretty good job, Yeah.

Todd:  For what she had to do.

Craig:  Right. Right. And that, like, some of the characters were so silly like Judge and Sarge and Harriet. They were and and Danny, they were just so they were written so silly that it was difficult to take them seriously, but I didn’t think that anybody did a terrible job in terms of performance. It’s not something I would care to see again but you know it wasn’t wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen.

Todd:  Judge reminded me so much of Orville Ketchum from Sorority House Massacre 2.

Craig:  Oh, yeah.

Todd:  I mean, spitting image and just the way that he played him. Although, I have to say, I thought Judge was played pretty well. I mean, to to be that intense all the time, it could come across as extremely campy. And he’s written campy, but I I could believe that there was a psycho like this. Sure. You know? And it’s felt like there was an an internal struggle going on with this guy. Like, he had his in his little script where he would just start reciting. Mhmm.  I am judge whatever blah blah blah blah blah of the yada yada yada circuit court and yada yada. And it was like he would slip into that when he was uncomfortable or when he didn’t know what else to do, and there was a change that would come across his face. I I just thought, in a poorly written movie that’s really cheap, I thought that he actually did a pretty good job for playing the kind of character he had to play.

Craig:  I I loved Missus Callingham. I thought she was hilarious. I I think that maybe my biggest complaint, and and I don’t even know if it’s really a fair complaint, the movie looks cheap. Like, even though it’s shot on location, everything looks really sparse and it almost even kind of dirty, like, you know, it’s it’s shot in this big house and when you see these huge hallways and they’re completely empty, the bedrooms are, you know, it’s just an empty room with a bed and maybe a dresser, you know, like, there’s Yeah. Doctor Masters goes on and on and on all the time about, oh, we’re a family here. No. This doesn’t look like a family. This looks like a jail and, you know, like, there’s there’s nothing warm or inviting about it at all.  And and so and it’s, you know, like you said, it’s it’s shot on cheap film and and it looks like it. And so from a modern perspective, it doesn’t really look very good. It it looks cheaply made.

Todd:  No. You know, it you know, to date myself a little bit, it it had the distinct feel. You said made for TV movie. I was even thinking public school filmstrip, educational filmstrip.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Like, when they would actually set up a projector in our classroom and show you some movie about the importance of washing your hands or something like that. This this had that feel to it.

Craig:  Yeah. They it’s funny, you know, they, there was a a remake was announced I think in like 2,000 8 or something, but I don’t think that it ever at least what I read, I don’t think that it ever got off the ground. They did make a sequel, that I think came out in like maybe 2015 or something like

Clip:  that.

Todd:  Yeah. The director’s son did it.

Craig:  Gotcha. And I know nothing about it except for that they returned to the same location, I think, and and it was a direct continuation of the story, I think. I don’t know. I’m not gonna be racing out to see it anytime soon, but there must at least be enough of some sort of following if if I can’t imagine who was out there, like, we need

Todd:  a sequel to Don’t Look in the Basement.

Craig:  Apparently, somebody did.

Todd:  We need more basement. Well, the the writer of this, Tim Pope, interestingly enough, directed almost all of, The Cures Yeah. Music videos. And, there’s quite a few other music videos, like, for Wham and Queen and Hall and Oates and stuff. It’s it’s really pretty interesting. He even directed The Crow City of Angels, which I think was a sequel to The Crow. Mhmm. Is that right?

Craig:  Mhmm.

Todd:  Probably like a direct to video thing. Yeah. Still, that I think that’s the most remarkable thing anybody from this film has gone on to do. The the director, SF Brownrigg, which is a great name

Craig:  Mhmm.

Todd:  Only did, like, 3 or 4 other clearly exploitive movies like Don’t Hang Up

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Which is I think alternatively titled Don’t Open the Door. See, we could have, like, covered 2 titles.

Craig:  This guy. Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:  We really

Craig:  should’ve. No. It’s okay.

Todd:  Just come yeah. Probably not. I’m I’m not really rushing out to see the rest of his ouvoir, I’m afraid to say. But, yeah, it’s it’s an interesting artifact of a different time, and you’re absolutely right about that. And I like those kind of movies. I really do. I just don’t think that this is is the the more enjoyable of them.

Craig:  No. It’s it’s not great. I I I I can’t imagine who I would recommend it to except for except for you.

Todd:  Sometimes we just do this for ourselves, don’t we? Alright. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. Like us on Facebook. We have a page there where you can tell us what you thought of this movie if you happen to have seen it as well as any other films you’d like us to to watch. Also, you can catch our website where every Thursday, we post a written review of another film. Until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

The new gold standard against which all our “bad” horror movies are judged. You’ve been warned.

Episode 123, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: We are 3 into our month of don’ts. We previously did Don’t Breathe and Don’t Look Now. And, this one is the third one in the series, Don’t Go Into the Woods. This, I chose this one. I recognize the cover art from days gone by.  It is a 1981 film, and I do remember reading about it over time. Every now and then, whenever I get on the bowels of the Internet and I go down these rabbit holes and I read about old horror movies, and you run across what was called the the British Video Nasties thing, which was, a time in the history of the UK when they banned a whole bunch of movies, from being released in Britain, on VHS because they were deemed too mostly just too violent. Yeah. So a lot of these horror movies that we end up reviewing here got swept up in that. And the thing I I mean, I’m not from Britain. I’d obviously, we did live there at the time. So I don’t know a whole lot about this controversy, except for the fact that it seemed to frustrate a lot of people because, the you know, you know, why something would get banned. And it took quite a while.  It took decades for these movies to get off of that list and become available, in Great Britain again. And this is one of those films that’s often cited as one of the nastier of the video nasties. So we decided, we needed to do it, and it’s quite a movie.

Craig:  Wow. That’s that’s saying something.

Todd:  I I have to say Craig, I’m just gonna go out on a limb here, and say this could very well be the worst of the worst films that we have reviewed so far.

Craig:  It’s it’s pretty bad.

Todd:  I mean, I’m really racking my brain to find a worse movie. You know, you always people always say this, and I always laugh, actually, when people talk about, oh, it’s the worst movie I ever saw. It’s like, you guys have not seen the movies that I have seen. Right. You know, most of the time when people say that about, you know, films, it’s I can point to much, much worse films, but this one pretty well takes the cake. There have been few films I’ve seen that were worse than this one, that were, you know, not rated x. And even those even those had some entertainment value. This one I was really pushing to find.  So Craig, tell me your history with this fine film.

Craig:  Oh, gosh. I don’t I I didn’t know anything about it. Never heard of it, but you have brought it up from the very beginning when we I don’t remember who it was who recommended that we do this theme, but, from the very beginning you were like, oh, we gotta do Don’t Go in the Woods. And so I was expecting some, you know, cult classic kind of thing that I had just been unaware of, for some reason and I I get now why I had never heard of it. I I kinda wish I still hadn’t. Yeah. Like,

Todd:  I have a hard time even believing that this movie would be fun to see with a group of people.

Craig:  I don’t know, man. I like No. It’s really bad. Now there are some parts, like, it’s one of those it pushes the line of it straddles that fence of so bad, it’s good. Like, there are some moments that are so bad that they’re kinda funny. I mean, I legitimately laughed out loud

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  Sometimes. But this is one of those movies where I was I’m laughing at it. Like, I I don’t even know if the filmmakers I don’t even know what they were going for here. That’s the thing. Like, I feel like this movie doesn’t even really know what it wants to be. I I don’t get if it was supposed to be straight up horror or if it was supposed to be some sort of commentary. I can’t imagine what it would be commentary on. You know, I guess don’t go hiking.  I I don’t know. But it it it’s just really bad, and and they had to have known how bad it was, I guess. And there are some moments that are so winky and so tongue and cheeky that I feel like, okay. I I guess I get that they knew they were making a bad movie and so they’re, you know, kind of tipping their cap to us in some of these places, but ultimately, it it it’s just really bad. I mean, like, there’s really not much to be said for it. Now what I will say is the okay. So the first half hour I watched on my lunch break at work and, I watched it on YouTube And the video quality was so bad that it made it almost unwatchable, and I was not looking forward to finishing it, like I was dreading finishing it. But when I was at home, I used the link that you had sent me and it was a much better transfer.  The the picture was much better, and that made it a little bit less painful to watch, not a ton. You know, I have no idea. I I think it’s probably better that I don’t know where you find these things,

Clip:  But but

Craig:  where but wherever you found it, I can only imagine that this is some sort of restoration or or, some sort of upgrade from the original, because it’s so much cleaner, what what you sent me. Just oh my gosh. I mean, where to start? The acting is terrible. Oh my god. Some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen in my life, and that’s saying a lot because I do a lot of community theater. And and not only that, but the entire movie is dubbed. And I have no idea why. Like, again, I say this all the time, but it’s true.  You’re the technical guy. I mean, was is is that just cutting corners? I mean, is that, you know, a a budget thing? Is it is it cheaper to go back in and and dub the vocals later? Because the original actors dubbed their own voices except for 1. There was one guy who wasn’t available, and they ended up the director dubbed all his lines. But for for the rest of them, it was all the original actors. But why? Why do you do that?

Todd:  I honestly don’t believe that the filmmakers here were sophisticated enough or had enough money or resources to do on set sound. I mean, the movie was apparently shot it was designed to be done entirely outdoors so that they didn’t have to do any lighting. There’s no light crew on the set. I mean, they are out and filming outdoors in the bright daylight for almost the entire film. There are few scenes that happen at night, and they’re poorly lit, and really bad. So if they didn’t have a light crew, I’m sure they didn’t have a sound Craig, and they probably didn’t wanna mess with it because they’re running around, in these open spaces, they didn’t want to have to frame their shots to get a boom in there, and probably deal with the sounds of nature that were all around them, and you know, the sounds of trees and their own walking and the bubbling brooks and the birds and whatever planes might be flying overhead. I I imagine it was just a choice made. The principal photography for this was completed apparently in 10 days, and it shows.  It just looks like something some people threw together over a weekend. And if it had been shot even, like, 5 years later, or, I don’t know, maybe 10 years later, I would imagine the thing would have been shot on video. I mean, it looks like, a shot on video film that’s just shot on film. I mean, it’s just it’s one step away. That’s that’s the quality of the cinematography in this movie.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s it’s bad. And like you said, you know, the scenes at night, again, you know, the the transfer or whatever it was that you sent to me, it was better. But, you know, what I was watching on YouTube, it was kinda scratchy. I would imagine that it was probably pulled from a VHS copy, from the eighties, and and it so it hadn’t aged well. But, like, some of the night shots, I couldn’t even see what was going on. Like, I had no idea. In fact, there was one whole scene that I couldn’t see.  I think that the actor in that scene was black, and maybe that had something to do with it. Oh, yeah. Could very well be. Because all all I could see was, like, the whites of his eyes and the whites of his teeth. I don’t know what’s going on here. But anyway, I mean, we may as well get into it. Well, let’s, I mean Do we have to? Yeah. I mean, I what else are we gonna do? I mean, we can sit here and talk about how bad it is, but, okay.  So I’m just gonna say upfront that the whole time I was watching this, I was thinking, this is a poor man’s The Hills Have Eyes. It’s like somebody watched The Hills Have Eyes and thought, oh, that’s kind of a good movie. I’ll go out and do something like that in the woods. But but we’ll only have one. We could you know, we we’ve only got the facilities or the, you know, money or whatever for one scary wild man. So we’ll just have one scary wild man, and, we’ll just have him kill a bunch of people. So the the story is about Yeah. I guess, primarily, these 4, campers.  There’s Peter, Craig, Joni, and Ingrid. And, they’re all just kind of these rando people. I mean, I guess I I didn’t write down any of the actors’ names because I didn’t recognize any of them. You know, I I looked at their, you know, IMDB pages. You know, this is the movie they’re known for. Like, some of them were in a couple other movies. The the lady who played Ingrid, her name is Mary Gayle Arts, and I guess after this, she went on to become a huge casting director in Hollywood, and, like, she casted Carpenter’s Halloween 2, and, she casted Nightmare Before Christmas and the House of Wax remake, and she’s got a ton of credits. So she went on to do other stuff, but this is the only movie she was ever in.  So it’s these 4 hikers, and they go into the woods. Craig is, like, I don’t know, the their expert hiker or whatever. And so in the very beginning, he gives them all these rules.

Clip:  If you’re gonna survive in the wilderness, you gotta remember 3 things. First is don’t panic. If you’re lost and scared, you ain’t gonna make it. Get Todd on you. Figure on spending the night.  Anyhow, it’s Johnson’s will do just fine.

Todd:  Uh-huh.

Clip:  And you can forget all that boy scout nonsense about following rivers down stream. Get on top of something high. The undergrowth is too thick. You gotta be able to see. Go from ridge to ridge, not river to river.

Craig:  Then at one point, he’s like at one point, he’s like, oh, and be careful of rabies too. Like like, okay. I’ll be sure to be careful of rabies.

Todd:  This guy this guy is so fun to have around.

Clip:  All he does is spout these these bits of stupid whiz to

Todd:  bet at, and, I I just wanted to punch him in the face. Yeah. Oh, he’s super cute. After about 3 minutes.

Clip:  Never never go in the woods alone. Avoid any animal approaching you in the woods. The most feared animal in the woods is man.

Todd:  My favorite part is when they hike up to the top of the of the mountain, and he and somebody says, shouldn’t we be worried about bears or coyotes? And his bright brilliant advice is

Clip:  Ingrid, no animal at its right mind is going to bother us.

Todd:  Yeah. Like what?

Craig:  If you say so. This is the guy

Todd:  who was telling you to not to go into the woods alone, and now he’s telling you, nah, don’t worry about wild animals.

Craig:  Right. It’ll be fine.

Todd:  You cannot go much further though without commenting on how horrible the music is. Mhmm. As soon as the title sequence came on, I thought, is this a freaking joke?

Craig:  Oh, you knew it was gonna be bad because the title sequence is so bad, and it, like, the opening credits look like end credits. Like, in fact, the opening credits are longer.

Todd:  Which is a shame because that horrible title music has to extend all the way across it. Uh-huh. And it doesn’t get any better as it goes on. And And then but before we even see the hikers, it’s just random people in the woods getting killed.

Craig:  Well, and that’s It’s like a

Todd:  woman running.

Craig:  Oh, and that’s the other thing. It’s so funny about this movie is, like, this is not some, you know, deep backwoods area that we’re talking about. Like, this is apparently, like, the most popular tourist attraction in this area because it is just streaming with people. Like, people everywhere and, like, Midwestern couples in their tracksuits, you know, hikers in their, you know, little shorty shorts and headbands, a girl on roller skates at one point. Like, what? Why?

Todd:  Like, why? I know.

Craig:  Roller skates in the woods? I don’t understand.

Todd:  Roller skating on a trail down in the woods. Yeah. A bird watcher. Like, that couple that looks like they’re, like, visiting Las Vegas or something. Uh-huh.

Craig:  And and then towards the end, there’s a a big fat guy in a wheelchair who, like, it just cuts back to, like, 20 times trying to make his way up this hill and, like, he’s just grunting, like, all alone. There’s lots of grunting in this movie. That’s true. It’s weird. It it so it this this, I don’t know, state park, I guess, it, you know, just has tons of people in it and this crazy wild man who you don’t see for a while, like, they kinda try to make you wonder what’s, you know, who the killer is, what’s going on for a while, and, oh, I don’t know. I maybe it could be a bear. Who knows? Because, like, you know, the first slashings and things are you just you just kinda see the aftermath. You don’t really see what’s going on.  But eventually, it’s revealed to be, like, this wild man of the forest, and I don’t even know how to describe him. He’s got like this headpiece on that’s got like these beaded ropes that hang down in front of his face and

Todd:  Yeah. It’s like Hagrid went to a Renaissance festival. Yeah. Also mixed with the dude from the revenant. I mean

Craig:  Kind of.

Todd:  It’s just a stupid, stupid outfit.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s like you went to Walmart at Halloween time and bought a caveman costume and then rolled around in the dirt for a while,

Todd:  like Yeah.

Craig:  It does it’s I don’t know. It’s just dumb. These woods are right outside of a town and Yeah. This wild man lives in this cabin which apparently is not hard to find and as it turns out the police know it’s there, like, what? I don’t even it’s it’s so weird. And and so Yeah. So you’ve got the 4 campers, and and they’re, you know, kind of going along doing their own thing and nothing really happens with them for a while, but people are just literally getting slaughtered all around them, and and they don’t even notice. Like Yeah. Like, the like, the wild man will slaughter that Vegas middle aged guy and then throw him down onto the rocks where these kids are, like, playing around and splashing in the water.  It’s, like, 5 feet away from them and they are just completely oblivious to it. And that’s it. That’s the whole movie. The end.

Todd:  Basically thank you. That was kinda what I wanted it to end because, yeah, it’s it’s really bad. Then we get to a guy, sheriff driving or he’s a deputy, I guess, driving in the Todd. And may this must be Utah. I think a lot of it was filmed in Utah. It looks

Craig:  like Utah.

Todd:  Like, the woods that we’re talking about are, like, half woods, half fields, sort of, at the base of a mountain. Like you said, it’s not even that much cover. Right? But, you know, it’s a small town. He’s driving and, walks into the police office and there is just the most horrible dialogue.

Craig:  Oh, it’s all terrible. Yeah.

Clip:  The sheriff seen this report yet?  You know he’s busy and asked not to be disturbed.  Something’s wrong. There have been 4 reports in the same area.  Bears again.  Ever handcuff a grizzly?  If any of my bears come into town, then you can arrest them.  Otherwise, this county mannies will take care of him.  For the last time, the sheriff is busy. He does not wanna be disturbed.  Right. Todd messing in county business, Jesse. The sheriff will take care of everything outside the city limits. We’re city. He’s county.

Todd:  The sheriff, of course, is playing golf, hardy har har in his office, and he’s a big fat guy.

Craig:  Right? Like it’s I guess it’s supposed to be funny, but it just doesn’t play. Yeah.

Todd:  And he doesn’t even look at him, and this guy walks into the room. And as he’s putting, he just says, another missing person’s report? Yep. And so they just start talking about how there are a bunch of missing people and how they really need to get to the bottom of this. And so then the sheriff and his deputy go talk to a store owner, and he does I don’t know. He must be talking about one of the couples. It Todd doesn’t even matter. You don’t even care, and he doesn’t even care. It’s like he he just sort of brushes it off like, all these people missing, they’re probably big city slicker folks who don’t know what they’re doing, blah blah blah.  They’ll turn up later in Lake Tahoe or something. Then there’s a moment, and I feel like maybe they got a Todd of, somebody’s private plane for the day. So there’s a scene where the sheriff goes up in a plane with a guy for, like, 2 minutes to go out over the woods and look down. Now based on what we’ve seen, he should see all kinds of people down there, including a bunch of dead bodies and stuff. He looks down there for about 5 minutes and then just writes it all off and decides he’s gonna Yeah.

Craig:  Well, we may as well go back. We’re not gonna find anybody. Like, they’re they’re up there for 2 seconds. Like, yeah. Nah. Don’t say anything. Let’s go back.

Todd:  And then then it’s nighttime, and these people, they talk about how they’re, like, hiking to a cabin Mhmm. But they can’t quite find it, and so they decide they’re gonna camp for the day. But then as the movie goes on, it it seems like they camp, like, 2 or 3 times. Uh-huh. I guess, 2 or 3 days are supposed to be passing in all this time, and they really don’t even care about finding the cabin anymore.

Craig:  I guess.

Todd:  But, anyway, the first time they do, we get this campfire scene. This campfire scene is supposed to be one of those typical know it all Craig, I think Yeah. Is telling a spooky story to the others, but I don’t know if they lost the footage.

Craig:  They did.

Todd:  I mean, what happened? Oh, okay. Is that it? Yeah. Because there’s no shot of Craig whatsoever in this. It is it is so awkward. It’s entirely close-up on 2 of the other characters as they sit and listen and react to his story, which goes on for like almost, I don’t know, 5 or 6 minutes. And it’s not even just that but it seems like they had to blow up the film like they had to zoom in on these 2 because it’s extremely grainy and it just looks a little blown up it’s terrible. Mhmm. It’s terrible, and there’s no point to it.  You know, there’s no blah. Well, I guess there’s a point which could be all we’re freaked out or something, but it’s just like they’re trying to check these boxes Yes. Of what you find in a horror movie, and that’s one of the things they had to squeeze in. So by Todd by god, even though they don’t have half of the footage for it and it looks really terrible, they’re gonna squeeze it in anyway, so they do.

Craig:  Well, and the 4 campers, they’re just so blah and boring, like, you don’t even care. And listen, I hate to be superficial, but, you know, in these types of movies, at least usually you get to look at some pretty people. And, like, these people aren’t even pretty. I mean, like, Peter. Peter. Peter, one of the guys, like, the the kind of bad boy one, who gets mad all the time. I mean, he’s he’s pretty good looking, I guess, but the rest of them are just very average types people. And, folks, I’m a very average type person, so it’s not like I’m, you know, it’s not like I’m sitting at my ivory tower looking down on people.  But both of the girls have really super short hair, like, I at first I wasn’t even sure if they were men or women and Craig is ugly and I can say that because that’s my name. So Oh, that makes it alright. There’s my disparaging self disparaging moment for, the day. But my favorite parts, and that’s throwing that word around very loosely, are the scenes of just random people getting killed. And of those scenes, my favorite one is when they cut to this like, it’s like a great big VW van. And, you know, we see it from the outside and the lights are all on inside. And then we go inside and what we see is, like, a velvet painting of Farrah Farrah Fawcett on the on the ceiling. And then it pans down to these, like, late seventies porn star looking folks and they’re kind of

Todd:  No. That’s that’s too kind. Like, it’s bad. Bad porn. Could not get cast into porn for the life of them, I’m afraid.

Craig:  Oh, gosh. But anyway, they’re they’re, like, kinda making out, like, in the bed, like, in this van or whatever. And their names are Cherry and Dick. And and Cherry’s like

Clip:  Do you think it’s just not perfect?  Oh, baby. Baby. We’ll work it out. Come here, baby. Come here.  Cherry. Cherry, you’re the most beautiful thing that ever came into my life.

Craig:  Oh, dick. I don’t know dick. I just don’t know dick if this is gonna be the right time, dick. And, and he’s like and then she sees something outside and she’s like, dick, What is that dick? And, and so, he’s like, well, I don’t know, but I’m gonna protect you. And he like, pulls a gun out of a little safe or something and he walks out in the woods. And, you know, we see him walking out in the woods a little bit, but, you know, not for very long before he just gets attacked and killed. But then Cherry is just standing, like, in the door of the van and for at least 30 seconds. Dick.

Todd:  Dick? Dick. Dick. Dick, are you out there? Dick?

Craig:  All all night long last night.

Todd:  That’s as much dick as is in this movie. And there’s a lot of dick. Oh, man. There’s a lot of dick in this movie. There are no you know, I I haven’t cared about seeing any nudity in a movie since, you know, I was a teenager.

Craig:  I have Todd I have

Todd:  to say this movie, I just I wanted I wanted it so badly, Not because anybody was attractive, but because I thought, well, surely, they’re they’re checking that box too. Somebody’s gonna take their top off. And I was just wondering who it was gonna be. I was almost take placing bets with myself, you know, and not a single bit of nudity No. In this film.

Craig:  No. No. But so so then then somehow the the madman, who we still haven’t seen yet, but somehow he he rolls the van down a cliff. Like, how is that even possible? Like, this one guy just pushed the van over and, like, it rolls down the hill and, it and blows up at the bottom. And the whole time it’s rolling down the hill, you just get this constant vocal track of her screaming. Like like, she’s she’s not being jostled around or anything. It’s just, dick. Like as it’s rolling down the hill.  And then it blows up at the bottom. Oh,

Todd:  gosh. Good times. They’re just some really weird ones too. It’s like they really were stretching to find all kinds of different people to put in. Maybe I could give him this amount of credit is that, you know, when you watch, I don’t know, Friday 13th, some other movie where people get killed in the woods, it’s usually all just like camp counselors or campers or hikers or something. In this, they really try hard to get a variety of colorful characters out there like you already described. A random dude in a wheelchair, some roller skater, and then we get a painter. Mhmm.  Some plein air painter who I think is a woman Yeah.

Craig:  It was a woman. Who has set up

Todd:  a little camp out there and has a little girl bouncing around in a swing, in this tree who doesn’t talk and who’s, I don’t know, 5 or 6 years old?

Craig:  No, 2 maybe.

Todd:  2 or 3, yeah, you’re right. 2 or 3 is bouncing around in this thing and eating a bar of chocolate while this person is painting a building out in the woods. I

Craig:  didn’t need Todd Didn’t make

Todd:  a hell of a lot of sense.

Craig:  That’s funny.

Todd:  They were kinda trying hard not to show the painting, but they couldn’t help do it. And it’s like, that is a building. And what did she and she just likes to go out to the woods for inspiration, but she paints from memory or a photograph or something. And, this person gets killed against her thing, and then it you know, I think they’re trying to build this tension, like, what’s gonna happen to the girl? And the girl disappears. Mhmm. Shows to swing, and she’s gone. I only bring this up because there’s gonna be an amazing twist. Right?

Craig:  Oh, gosh. And then okay. So the 4 of the 4 campers and, like, you said, it’s all these random people that get killed in these random moments, and it’s true. It totally is. And I read that all of those scenes, they filmed on the weekends with either the crew or friends and family who they could con into doing this. And and they filmed all of these preproduction. And so I I have a feeling that they just filmed a bunch of kill scenes and they’re like, we’ll stick them in somewhere. Yeah.  It doesn’t matter.

Todd:  All these people who totally regret it years later, but it’s just it’s just filler. It’s really just filler for the movie and they’re not even suspenseful. No. I mean well, that’s the thing, you know, when you do this, I I I really kinda got to thinking about it. I was like why is this so boring? It’s because even in the most high body count slasher films, they try to do a little something to introduce you to the characters before they off them. You know? And in this, it’s just I see some random guy watching some birds, and, oh, he gets killed. And, oh, this random person’s painting, and then she gets killed. You don’t care.

Craig:  No. And they’re not killed in creative ways at all. Like, they just get hacked with a machete, and, like, they’ll just be doing their thing, and then all of a sudden, hack later. Oh, there’s a bunch of blood and they’re dead now. And and it is really bloody.

Todd:  It is bloody, but that’s all. It’s it’s not gore effects, you know. If if if it gets in close on something, they might have a torn up shirt with a bunch of blood all over, but you can tell they couldn’t afford to even throw, I don’t know, you know, some Craig intestines or

Craig:  No. It’s barbecue sauce, literally. Barbecue sauce and red food coloring is what I read they

Todd:  used. Jeez. A lot of it looks so fake especially when it got up close. It looks because maybe the thickness. It must have been the thickness. I don’t know. It looks like red paint to

Craig:  me. Yeah. I mean, it’s really it’s very red. I I whatever. I mean

Todd:  Well, it’s so bad that you just can’t imagine that anybody thought this movie would bother anyone. You know? Right. Really? You’re gonna ban this?

Craig:  Yeah. Exactly. Gosh. And every time you go back to the main four people, that’s super boring too. Like, they’re not doing anything. They’re just walking through the woods and at some point, Peter gets mad about something. I don’t even know what he gets mad about, and so he goes off alone to camp. And then there’s that scene where some couple gets killed.  It was so dark I couldn’t even see what was going on.

Todd:  They get pulled up in sleeping bags. Do they? Their sleeping bags get pulled up into a tree, but what’s crazy about this is you don’t even see them before they start getting killed. Like, it immediately cuts to the interior of a sleeping bag with this man screaming Yeah. And the interior of another sleeping bag with this woman screaming. It’s like, what’s going on? And then their sleeping bags get hoisted up into these trees, and they get whacked a bunch of times. That’s that’s what it is.

Craig:  I I saw none of that.

Todd:  Set up. Yeah. Well, it was, yeah, it was one of those few night scenes, and unless you had a good transfer, you absolutely wouldn’t see any of it. It wasn’t well filmed anyway.

Craig:  And and then there’s also a bunch of really lame ass jump scares. Like, there’ll be spooky, you know, music, if you wanna call it that. But, and then, you know, somebody will just step into Craig, like, ah. Ah. Like Oh, no. Scary. Okay. And so then Peter’s off by himself, and it’s daytime again.  And, like, I feel like he’s watching the rest of them, like, play in the river or something. And he sees this fisherman get killed. Like, I guess this wild man of the forest, like, sets traps or something and, like, this bear trap, like, swings out of a tree or something and and gets this guy’s face. And Peter sees it and he runs off. And that’s really when we get the first sight of this madman. And so now we know who the bad guy is. And so Peter gets chased and then Joanie plays some sort of prank on Craig. And so he’s mad at her and he wants to get her back.  So he strings her up in a sleeping bag, which that’s really not funny. Like,

Todd:  that’s not funny at all.

Craig:  It’s not a good break at all. And then he’s just, like, running around taunting her. And, she, like, rips a hole in the sleeping bag so she can kinda see out. And she’s like, Craig, I think there’s somebody else out there. And he’s just, like, running around taunting her.

Clip:  He’s going to get you. You can’t escape.

Craig:  So then he gets killed and, like, he gets sliced and then you just see his body on the ground, like, getting dragged and his arm is chopped off. Like, when did his arm get chopped off? That’s I missed that. And then it’s just a bunch of chasing. You know? Like

Clip:  Yeah.

Todd:  They run around a lot. They find the cabin.

Craig:  Yet Peter and and Ingrid somehow end up hooking back up together.

Todd:  Oh, and they find this cabin. And this this is my favorite line of the whole movie. Yeah.

Craig:  I know what you’re gonna say.

Todd:  You do. Right? They’re approaching the cabin.

Clip:  This place, he’s in there.  He would have already heard us. We need food if we’re gonna make it out of here. If it’s his food, I’ll still take it. Yeah.

Craig:  They’ve been without food for maybe, like, 8 hours, and they act like they’re starving to death. Like, you’re gonna be okay.

Todd:  It’s not like we’ve even seen them eat food. Right. You know? Food has not been a thing at all in this film and up to that point. It’s so dumb.

Craig:  And the wild man yells a lot, and, you know, every time he chases them, he’s like yelling and grunting and

Todd:  Oh, and there’s a random hiker who finds the dude’s walking stick, which I guess he just decided to leave in a tree.

Craig:  I think it was supposed to be a trap,

Todd:  which is

Craig:  so funny because this hiker just randomly finds okay. So this wild man carries this stick that’s covered in, like, keys and other jingly jangly things, which also makes no sense because it totally announces his presence anytime he’s around. Like, he wants people to know he’s coming. Okay. But this hiker finds it and he’s like, oh, this is weird. So I guess I’ll keep it. The hiker’s walking along with it and Peter and Ingrid are hiding. And Peter somewhere has found this enormous branch with like, a spear end on it.  And so when he hears the jingle jangle coming, he jumps up and he spears the the hiker right in the abdomen, like, totally kills him and then they get chased some more. Todd, I mean, it’s just it’s droll to even have to talk about it. Sorry. I’m sorry, listeners. Like, you you can turn it off. We we won’t be offended. There’s nothing to nothing to hear here.

Todd:  Nothing to see. Nothing to hear. That bad guy surfaces up, and he starts throwing branches of spears, but then we get you know, I don’t know. They run away from him. I love this part where Peter tries to wash the blood off of his spear in the stream, which wouldn’t even work, but, anyway, there’s supposed to be, I think, this poignant moment where Ingrid is hurt, and Peter is cuddled up to her, and it’s getting nighttime again, and this is my second favorite sequence in the whole film. And again, you’re checking the boxes. They’re supposed to have this tender moment where they’re talking about what they’re gonna do when they get back.

Clip:  There’s so much I wanna tell you when we get back.  Ingrid, just rest. We’ll be out of here soon. More food, more bed, and a doctor for your cut. We’re gonna make it. We’re gonna make it.

Craig:  We’re we’re gonna make

Todd:  it. It’s I love that. A doctor for your cut. Yeah. I wrote

Craig:  it down too. It was so funny. And and the acting is so bad. We I I forgot to mention that when they were in the cabin, like, there’s also, like, traps set up in the cabin, but all the traps do is, like, drop sawdust on them. Like, I don’t even really know what the purpose of these traps are. But, when they set off one of these traps, the body of Craig is, like, revealed. And the look of horror on Peter’s face was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Oh my god.  The acting is so, so bad. And then they okay. So not only are they being chased by this wild man and it’s nighttime now, so they are gonna camp out, but they make a fire and lay down next to it. Like, yeah. That’s real and conspicuous, folks. Like, he’ll never find

Todd:  you now.

Craig:  And then then they wake up in the morning under a ski lift and the town is about 200 yards away. We made it.

Todd:  We finally made it.

Clip:  We’re gonna be great. We’re gonna be alright.

Craig:  And then okay. So they run down to the town and and it’s, you know, then we get the fat sheriff again, and they’re in a hospital. And they’re talking to doctor Maggie who is also an amazing actress.

Clip:  Do you think you have enough men to run this maniac down?  Oh, yeah. Plenty. Could be a mass murder deal. I don’t wanna develop it into those circus.

Todd:  Sheriff?

Craig:  Doctor Maggie. Hello, Maggie.

Clip:  How are the 2 campers?  Well, the girl lost a lot of blood, but we’ve gotten her over the shock, and she should be on her feet fairly shortly. She’s not the problem.  The guy worries me too. He keeps talking about this Joanie, the one that left in the woods. He keeps going over and over that.  I know he’s really feeling guilty. There’s a lot of pressure under that kind of stress and he might he might become irrational.

Craig:  They’re literally right next to this town. Like, how did they not see the lights the night before?

Todd:  Yeah. Well and they’ve been surrounded like we’ve said before. They’ve been surrounded by other people. There are so many people in this in these woods getting off by this one guy running around with jangly stuff, you know.

Craig:  When they said we made it and they run down to the town and I now see that they’re in the hospital and stuff, I looked at the clock and said, there’s still 25 minutes of this movie left. Like You know, I didn’t look

Todd:  at the clock and I thought, oh, good. The movie’s wrapping up.

Craig:  No. There’s still 25 minutes left. And seriously, they should’ve just ended it. Oh, god. Peter’s all distraught because Joanie’s still out there and he left him there and the the the cop is talking about, like, planning a search and it seems anything but urgent. Yeah. And and doctor Maggie is worried that Peter is irrational and she doesn’t know what he’s gonna do. And then immediately, we see Peter running back into the woods.  Oh my god. It just doesn’t get any more stupid. Like, seriously? Just let the police do their jobs. Like, Joni. Nobody cares about her anyway. Just leave her out there. And so then I’m thinking, okay. So now Peter is gonna be the hero, and he’s gonna go out and he’s gonna find Joni, and he’s gonna save her and save the day and blah.  No. Joni runs around and, like, the next time we see her, she runs to this creek and, like, she she drinks some water and then she eats the very last bite of her baby Ruth and she’s just in desperation. And so she runs to she she she finds the cabin also. And this was the part where I’m like, seriously? Because, like, she starts digging through the garbage and she starts eating the garbage, like, this gross disgusting garbage. Like, you are not that hungry. You have been out there for one day. You are gonna be alright. Stop eating this disgusting garbage.

Todd:  And then she gets killed. Whoever wrote this and this is the only thing he wrote, by the way. He wrote one other thing before this, but, you know, there’s nothing you could possibly do after this. There’s no dramatic tension in this movie at all because between the random people getting killed that we don’t care about that pads out the movie, the primary actors in here who we don’t really give a rip about, who have no soul or no character, nothing of interest, then there’s supposedly this whole subplot where he’s distraught, and he’s going out to rescue Joanie. And what happens is Joanie just gets killed.

Craig:  Yeah. I feel like they try to add some dramatic tension. When she’s looking around the cabin, she finds this cardboard box and, like, she opens it up and we don’t see what’s in there, but she, like, has this horrified look on her face like, oh my Todd. But then the bad guy just comes in and, like, he he literally walks in right behind her looking like, oh, Jesus. I’m at work. Can we just get this over with? Like, he’s just standing there. Like, he’s not really menacing at all. And, like, she runs into this room, and she’s trying to break out of a window, but it’s chained.  And he just kind of saunters up behind her and starts hacking her up with a machete. And, it you know, it’s lots of blood, but like you said, it’s really just, you know, they went in and cut up her t shirt between takes and and then splash her with a bunch of barbecue sauce. And I thought we were gonna get to see her boobs, but we didn’t. Not that I was anticipating it as much as you were. But again

Todd:  I was just expecting it, you

Craig:  know. Right? Yeah. And and Yeah. So then so then she’s dead. And then they like, the police form a search party and the the hot deputy has his shirt unbuttoned to his navel. Like, what? You’re at work.

Todd:  What is happening?

Craig:  And the fat the fat sheriff the fat sheriff is like, I want you to tell all these guys to go look along these ridges. And the hot deputies like, what are you gonna do? And the fat sheriff’s like, I’m gonna go check out the cabin. Like, you know that cabin’s there? And and and then he does. The dep or the sheriff goes up to the cabin, and he’s looking around. And, again, this is very much where I was getting, like, the hills have eyes vibes because, like, you see all these, like, IDs, and wallets and things. Like, apparently, this has been going on for years, and the police just didn’t know about it even though they knew this cabin was there and even though this is a highly populated area where people are getting killed in mass on a daily basis. Like, so dumb. So dumb.  Yeah. And then and then doctor Maggie, in all of her medical wisdom, thinks it would be a good idea to bring Ingrid in back into the woods because she’s worried about Peter and maybe if they find Peter then Ingrid will be able to talk him into coming in or something. It’s just so it’s so badly written, like, there’s nothing about it makes any sense. Nothing about it is good. You get the whole wheelchair gag then here and and they play it as a gag. The music even gets like Like, it’s supposed to be funny, like and they keep cutting back to it and it’s just this fat guy trying to wheel his way up a path in the woods and there’s they cut back to it, like, I would say at least 3 or 4 times. At some point, he falls out of his wheelchair like, fat guy fell out of his wheelchair. But then he finally gets up to the top of the mountain and it’s like he’s looking over this beautiful view and his head gets sliced off with a machete.  That’s it. Like Mhmm. Like, we literally spent 5 or 6 minutes with this guy just so we could get a split second shot in the dark of his head getting sliced off in a totally unconvincing way. And then okay, Todd. And then so talk about the end.

Todd:  Alright. So, basically, oh, Ingrid disappeared. Big surprise there, and all the whole posse is looking blah blah blah. They’re pretty terrible at this. Peter’s running around in the woods. He has his spear back, I guess.

Craig:  Yeah. Or another one. Apparently, this forest is littered with spears.

Todd:  And he is wandering, like, through the field, not even the woods. It’s like this field area, and he stops to sand it down and immediately gets attacked by this fat guy again. And then Ingrid suddenly shows up, and she runs in. And so there’s a whole scene between them. Finally, I think the fat guy’s got Ingrid down. Peter ends up with a spear. He tosses it at the fat guy. He goes down, and they sort of think he’s dead.  And so then they embrace. They have this very stereotypical 12 feet away from the guy laying on the ground. They decide they wanna make out.

Craig:  Yeah. And they found an excuse for him to get his shirt off.

Todd:  Yeah. Oh, it’s terrible. It’s so bad. And then the camera pans down, and look. This guy’s gone.

Craig:  Surprise. And

Todd:  then he appears again, and then they stab him to death.

Clip:  And they and the way they

Todd:  stab him, he’s this guy oh, and it looks so fake too. This big guy is laying on the ground, and he must have, like, a metal plate under his shirt and a bunch of blood splatter all over him. Yeah. And the 2 of them, Peter and Ingrid, what? Peter has, like, a machete or a spear, and Ingrid has a spear or something, and they just stab repeatedly into this guy, but it doesn’t even look like they’re stabbing. It looks like they’re stabbing some plate underneath

Craig:  his shirt. It’s like he’s laying under a box. Like like, it’s like, his feet are sticking out of one dent of it, and the upper part of his torso is sticking out of the other. And you can see it. Like, it doesn’t even look human shaped, like it’s square. And when they’re stabbing him, it’s not there whatever they’re using, whatever the pencils they’re using, it’s not penetrating anything. Like, they’re obviously, like and you I don’t even know

Todd:  if they did this intentionally

Craig:  because everything was because everything was dubbed. It sounds like they’re hitting a box. Like, it doesn’t even it doesn’t even sound like they’re stabbing somebody. Like, you can hear you can hear the things hitting like wood. And the cops and stuff just stand there watching them while they stab this guy for a minute and the upper part of his torso and his feet are just, like, wiggling like, Todd stabbing. And, you know, I again, I don’t know, like, if they’re trying to be funny or what. Another thing, you know, all this we keep talking about these spears and things. Like, both the wild man and the hikers can just pick a stick up off the ground and lightly toss it and it immediately becomes a deadly weapon and will impale anyone.  These are expert spear throwers, apparently. Because Oh, I

Todd:  love that I love that seed, though, like, what you’re talking about with their the wild man’s up high and they’re tight tossing the spears down at them and the one gets Ingrid. Like, he tosses them, and they’re, like, flipping in the air. Yeah. They’re, like, so light, and they’re so poorly tossed. They’re just like the guy couldn’t even throw a football at a spear.

Craig:  Right. But but everyone that touches her causes like this horrible wound. Oh my Todd. It’s so silly. And so then the cops are in the search party just stand there and watch while they spear this guy to death and then Ingrid and Peter kind of walk off together. And the cop says something like, I feel like it was supposed to be poignant.

Clip:  Sometimes it makes you kind of wonder. Cute couple.

Craig:  And then they walk off. Peter and Ingrid just walk off together. And then here the big twist is that the wild man had that box that Joanie had seen and been shocked by. He’s brought it out into the woods for whatever reason and he sat it down before he gets killed. And we see that what was in the box was that baby. He had stolen that baby and, the baby is sitting there and it’s got like a little hatchet. It’s like hitting the ground with the hatchet. It’s just sitting there and Ingrid and Peter leave and the cops all leave, so I guess we’re left to just imagine that this baby is just left in the forest by itself.  Maybe it will become a wild baby of the forest, who knows. And then the only redeeming part of this movie, they they roll the credits and credits song is amazing. Oh my goodness. Is it ever?

Clip:  Don’t go out in the woods tonight. You probably will be thrilled. Don’t go out in the woods tonight, you probably will be killed. There’s a friendly beast who lurks about and likes the least you won’t get out without being killed and chopped up in little pieces.

Craig:  I don’t even know who wrote it, but whoever wrote it wrote it as a joke, about the movie. But the director liked it liked it so much that he used it over the end credits and it’s it’s it’s funny. If you’re interested in this movie, just go to YouTube and see if you can find this song and listen to it because that’s good enough. Like, it it talks about a wild man in the woods and how he might kill you. That’s all you need to know. Usually, I try to be optimistic and I try to be positive and I try to find something positive to say about these movies. Like, well, it was campy, but it had heart or, you know, they they really were ambitious and they tried. It just didn’t work out very well.  No. I don’t know what these people were thinking. Todd. I it it’s just bad. It’s awful. Don’t watch it. Don’t waste your time. It’s a terrible, terrible movie.

Todd:  Movies like this just depress me. You know? It’s like I feel like I’ve done so much better work, and somebody’s making money off of this.

Craig:  I can’t imagine. I mean, did it, like, why do we know about this movie? Did it did it do well? Like, does it have a cult following? Like, I didn’t

Todd:  I think just video. You know? You know, all these really crappy movies. Yeah. They were they were released on video. They went to the to the rental market, and they, you know, had us kind of like, oh, people ended up renting it because of the box cover art or maybe they made fun of it or something like that. But, I mean, we’re talking about it now. That is so depressing.

Craig:  It really is.

Todd:  Director of this film has done nothing that looks even remotely good. Most of what he’s done was porn or softcore porn. I mean, you go to his IMDB page, and you’re gonna find beach blanket Bango, sex aliens, Swedish erotica number 73, thanks for the mammaries. I mean, this guy

Craig:  maybe he found his calling because I guess so. I I I met I guess that people are less concerned about high quality filmmaking in porn, and that’s fine.

Todd:  But why

Craig:  Stay away stay away from the mainstream movies, sir. Mister James Bryan, thank you very much.

Todd:  I I was impressed to read that the the entire film stock for the film was purchased for $400. Somehow, they found that there was a film lab that was gonna recycle some old film stock, that was going out of date soon, and they picked up all of it for $400 and shot the whole movie with it, which that’s why I say they had to make something from this. I mean, if they made more than $400 and the peanuts that it must have cost them to film Mhmm. The rest of it. I mean, surely, they didn’t pay these actors anything.

Craig:  I can’t imagine.

Todd:  Actors. You know? Movies like this just depress me.

Craig:  Well, cheer up, Charlie. Yeah. No. And and that’s the thing. Like, part of the reason that I always, you know, try to put some positive spin on it is because who the hell am I? I’m some guy in the Midwest who, you know, teaches high school. I’m no filmmaker. I I certainly couldn’t do any better. But I I can only imagine that the people who made this movie you know, I I certainly hope they had a good time doing it, but I can’t imagine that there’s anything really to be proud of here.  You know, like, it’s it’s really bad. I mean and I guess, you know, there are I’m not one of them, you know, I’m not somebody who seeks out, you know, deliberately really bad movies. Yeah. But there are people out there who get a kick out of watching stuff like this, and if you’re one of those people, you know, more power to you. But unless you’re one of those people, I I really don’t think that you’re gonna get any enjoyment out of this. You know, I I kinda wish I could get this hour and 20 minutes or whatever it was back. And it at an hour and 22 minutes, it felt so long. Like, I thought it would never end.  Yes.

Todd:  I wanted it to end so badly. Oh, it wasn’t even fun. Don’t watch it. I was like, nice. Don’t even bother. You know, life is precious. Life is short. You you

Craig:  could get attacked by a wild man in the woods tomorrow. You do not need to waste an hour and 20 minutes on this movie. Go, you know, use your time more wisely. Go out into the woods, paint a building, enjoy yourself, but but don’t watch this movie.

Todd:  I think I could make a documentary called don’t watch, don’t go into the woods, and that should be the last film we do. We should do that, you know, next week Okay. For this this this month. Don’t watch, Don’t go into the woods. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy this podcast, please share it with a friend. Just don’t make them watch this movie. You can find us, everywhere that you can find podcasts online, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher.  Also, go to our Facebook page and go to our website at 2 guys dot red forty dot net where we have much better films that we’ve talked about and much more interesting conversations than we had today. Until next week, I’m Todd And I’m Craig. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

A group of friends break into a blind man’s house and end up with more than they bargained for. Produced by Sam Raimi, this wildly successful thriller combined suspense with some fairly brutal violence. Have a listen for our take on it.

Episode 122, 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 we continue this month with our series of films with the word don’t in the title. Today’s film is a more recent film. We haven’t really done a Todd film in a few episodes. This is 20 sixteen’s Don’t Breathe directed by do you say it Fede Alvarez?

Craig:  I think it’s Fede, but I’m not sure.

Todd:  He’s the director responsible, I think, for the Evil Dead remake. Is that right?

Clip:  Yep. Yep.

Todd:  And he wrote this film as well as directed it. It, was extremely successful. It made a ton of money. I think it was on the number one in the US box office for, like, 2 weeks, booted Suicide Squad off the off the list. Yeah. Successful film on the heels of the Evil Dead. And I read a little bit of an interview with the director that said he deliberately made this film as a response to some of the criticisms he got from Evil Dead. Being that he some a lot of people at Evil Dead was a little too bloody, a little too over the top.  And so he wanted to go with something so little more psychological and less gory than that. And, and we got this film. I enjoyed watching this movie. Craig, have you seen this one before?

Craig:  No. I hadn’t seen it, but I’d wanted to for a while. I had had several people tell me that I should see it. In fact, I think maybe 1 or more than one person, suggested that we do this for the podcast at some point. And so, yeah, I was, looking forward to it, and it was, yeah. It was a nice nice I don’t wanna say surprise. I wasn’t terribly surprised by it, although there were some kind of shocking turns of events that I didn’t see coming. But, overall, I, you know, I thought it was a good movie.

Todd:  Yeah. It was it was fine. I wouldn’t say it was superb. In fact, I think there’s some things that really bothered me about it, even from kind of a moral standpoint, but I think we can get into that as we talk about the the plot probably.

Craig:  Sure.

Todd:  So one thing I did appreciate about this movie, and we don’t see this a lot in films, is it was set in modern day Detroit, which, is a great setting for a horror film. Yeah. I I lived, I lived in the Detroit area way back in the eighties before it kinda went downhill. Detroit has a pretty sad history, you know, of, well, it’s always had a bit of a history of some violence. But then especially lately with, all the industry really closing down, the auto industry going into decline, it’s really been a city that’s kinda fallen apart and a lot of it’s gone into decay. And I think that the fact that the house so this is this is basically a home invasion story, but but more or less in reverse. It’s from the point of view of the people invading the home. The street that this house is located on is basically, it’s like the only occupied house on the street.  They’re all abandoned. Their whole neighborhood’s like this in Detroit right now. I’m sure they shot it on location in one of these places.

Craig:  They did.

Todd:  And so, it’s it’s sad. It’s an interesting setting though for a movie like this, and it does neatly neatly answer some of those questions about home invasion movies, like, the problems they normally have such as what are all the other neighbors doing while this noise is happening next door? Right. As somebody put it, I saw online, it instead of the, scariest house in the nicest neighborhood, it’s the nicest house in the scary neighborhood.

Craig:  Right. Yeah. And they did. All the exterior shots, are actual shots of a neighborhood in Detroit. I guess they they shot the interiors, like, in the Ukraine or, I don’t know, somewhere not in the states. But yeah. And I guess if you Google map, the address of this house, you can see it, and it pretty much looks the same way it does in the movie and is surrounded by kinda all these abandoned houses just as it is in the movie. So it it’s a stark setting, but, it’s it’s believable.  I mean, it’s it’s realistic.

Clip:  Yeah. That’s what it is.

Todd:  It makes it kind of bleak from the very beginning. And I think it serves as well to just without even saying it outright, show you the desperation involved in all of the characters in this film. You know?

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  This is a movie where I’d almost say, like, everybody’s a bad guy in this film. And that was one of the problems I had with it. I really had trouble, especially in the beginning, garnering sympathy from the characters I think we were supposed to have sympathy for. The characters in the beginning are Rocky, who is a young woman who does she have a kid or is this her younger sister?

Craig:  It’s her younger sister. The one of the things I have to say for it is that it’s shot really well. I mean, I think that, Alvarez is a good director. And, the you know, just from the very beginning, the very first shot is this big sweeping aerial shot that zooms down in on this street, and you kinda can’t it it looks very desolate because it is, and you can’t really tell what’s going on at first. But as the camera pans in, you see that it’s this man dragging a body, a woman’s body down the street by the hair. And that’s just kinda very shocking just because, you know, it we’re not real the setting really hasn’t been established yet. So just to see in broad daylight somebody dragging a woman by the hair down the street, I mean, that’s just kind of shocking in and of itself. And, of course, we come back to that later on.  I didn’t know. I didn’t know who the girl was. And then it’s a very limited cast. There are very few people in the movie, and I found myself wondering, you know, about 20 minutes into the movie if that girl was the main girl that we get, acquainted with, and and I just wasn’t sure for the longest time. Eventually, of course, you figure it out. But, yeah, it’s it’s these kids. Rocky is, the girl. She’s played by Jane Levy.  Jane Levy was also in Alvarez’s evil dead. She was the lead. She took over the Ash role, and people really liked her in that role. I thought that remake was okay. I much prefer the originals. It was well made. I just it didn’t really have the same tone as the originals. But, anyway, she was in that.  And then there’s, Alex, who was played by Dylan Minnette, who is kinda he must be kind of an up and coming kid because I just see him. I see him a lot. Like, his face is really familiar, and he just pops up and things. The most recent thing I saw him in was a movie on Netflix called The Open House, which, had a really good premise, but ultimately was kinda disappointing. But he I I think that he’s been around and is gonna be around for a while. And, then the 3rd guy in the group is his name is Money. I assume that’s not his real name, but that’s your James Altman. And he’s played by Daniel Zavato, another young actor who’s been in a few things.  And there are these 3 kids, and, the first time that we see them, they are robbing this fancy house. And they have, like, these rules, like, they can’t take in more than, what, like, $10,000 worth of, stuff, and it can’t be cash. They can’t steal cash. I guess Alex kind of knows the law enough to know how charges are filed and things. And as long as they don’t take a certain amount and as long as they’re not stealing cash, if they’re caught, the charges will be relatively minimal. So they’ve got these rules. But money is also just kind of a dick, and, like so as they’re ransacking this house, he’s, like, breaking things on purpose and peeing on the floor. And, like, obviously, they’re just establishing that he’s the big jerk of the, group.  And I and I get what you’re getting at, the it’s hard to sympathize with any of them. You know, they try to establish sympathy. We see Rocky at home, and, you know, she lives in this kinda Craig

Clip:  darling. Get your mother a large four cheese from Tony’s. Sir Trevor’s living here now? Don’t be a bitch, Roxanne. It’s just a few months till he can find a new job. You have no money in here. You pay for it then. I know you’re making money.

Craig:  And Rocky’s got this little sister who it appears like she wants to take care of. So they they try to establish sympathy, but it’s kinda hard to sympathize with them when really, you know, their whole plan for their future success is ripping people off. But whatever.

Todd:  Yeah. The idea is that it that, you know, you get through this some of their conversation is that Rocky wants a better life, I guess, for her sister, but I suppose also for her sister.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  And so as soon as they get enough money from robbing houses, then they’re gonna move to California. She’s gonna take her away secretly, I guess, to California.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  That’s her plan. And then Alex seems to be a little interested in Rocky

Clip:  Yeah.

Todd:  Even though apparently Rocky and Money have a relationship. Right. He calls her his bitch at some point.

Clip:  Right. Right.

Todd:  And so of all of them, Alex, I think is the one who you’re supposed to feel a little more sympathy for, except for the fact that their whole shtick is is basically thanks to Alex. Yeah. Alex’s family or dad runs a security company, and they install home burglary systems for people or home burglary prevention system

Craig:  for people.

Todd:  And so their MO is to use the spare keys that his dad keeps in his desk. I guess it’s a small operation. Use the spare keys that the dad keeps in his desk to get into the house, disarm the alarm system with the codes that they have. And then, once they steal everything, they leave the house and then rearm it and then break a big window. So it looks like just somebody broke in and set off the alarm, but got away before the they could be caught. Right. He’s the one with who, you know, who insists on all these rules and he seems to be a little more nervous and he seems to be carrying a little more for Rocky and as as money as the jerk, then I think, Alex is supposed to be the the nicer guy who who truly has deeper feelings for her and really could give her what she needs. Right.

Craig:  Exactly.

Todd:  And seems interested in leaving with her as well and the girls. So, you know, I mean, all that kinda comes and goes by my biggest problem with it from a moral standpoint, and this is why it was hard to get behind the characters for me is they had other they clearly have other alternatives. Yeah. Rob your mom. Okay? Like, who do you really have the problem with? Okay. I mean, there’s an early there’s a scene in there where she looks through her mom’s purse and she doesn’t have money to get the pizza. But surely, just take stuff from your mom, take stuff from your mom to lose her boyfriend, and then get out of there. You only need a few $100 to go to California and then, you know, you’d get a job as a waitress.  It’s really Yeah. Exactly.

Craig:  I mean, you know, not to play the race card or whatever, but especially Alex and Rocky are these young, able-bodied white kids. Like, you could probably find a way out. You know what I mean? Like, this this isn’t your only option. And it it becomes even murkier because then I don’t remember how they find out. I don’t remember if there’s newspaper clippings or if they’re looking through the dad’s files or what, but they find this mark.

Clip:  Story goes, some preppy girl a few years ago ran over this guy’s daughter. Jesus. Daughter dies, and this preppy, rich ass family pays him off. Gives him a big ass settlement. Settlement. Told me your honor. Alright? This guy is sitting on at least 300 k.

Craig:  He’s ex military. They deduce that this guy must be keeping all the cash in his house.

Clip:  I I

Craig:  don’t It’s kinda silly. Yeah. Kinda silly. I don’t really get why they think that that would be true. It turns out it is, but still. Yeah. And and Alex doesn’t wanna do it. First of all, because they’re gonna be stealing cash, which is one of their no no’s, and it’s, you know, a large sum of money much bigger.  So, you know, it would be if they were to be caught, it would be a big deal. You know, they could be facing prison for a long time. He doesn’t wanna do it, but because Rocky does and because Rocky basically says, well, we’re gonna do it whether you do or not, Alex kinda goes along with it. And so that’s what they do. Now here’s where I started okay. So they stake out this guy. They stake out his house, and they realize because money sets up, like, his cell phone or something and and tapes, surveillance for, like, you know, 24 hour period or something, and he realizes that nobody’s around. All the rest of these houses are abandoned, so that should make it easy.  And while they’re, staking the place out, this great big rottweiler dog jumps up on their car, and it turns out that that’s their Mark’s dog. And so they see the guy, and they see that he’s blind. And they’re like, oh, well, good. He’s blind. No big deal. They also, money says, well, he’s a a hermit. He doesn’t leave the house, so we’re gonna have to do it while he’s there. That’s what they decide to do.  So they go there at night, and then this is the problem. I may have already said that, but this is the problem really that I have with it. From the time they get there, they’re really just so stupid. It’s just the worst plan ever. They’re they’re trying to get in and everything’s locked up and the windows are all barred and, first they have to neutralize the dog which isn’t really that big a deal. They just tranquilize the dog and it goes to sleep. But then they’re just they’re walking up to the house with flashlights and, like, they’re jumping over the fence and they’re rattling the doors. I’m like, I get it that maybe there aren’t a lot of people around, but you might wanna play it a little bit more low key.  You know? Like, come on. Oh, yeah. And then, you know, like, they have trouble getting in. Like, yes, they have the key, but it turns out that this guy has multiple locks and dead bolts and all kinds of things. Like, obviously, he’s trying to keep people out. Rocky climbs through a little tiny window, and even that window is bugged to the security alarm, but Alex also has this remote control that, like, automatically neutralizes all these alarms. So once she gets in there, she uses the remote control to reset the alarm so it doesn’t go off. And then they all get in there and they all take off their shoes and leave them at the door, I guess, to be quiet, but then they’re not quiet at all.  Like, I get okay. So this guy’s Todd. Fine. Whatever. He’s blind. Okay. But even if I were not old and blind, I would have heard these people

Todd:  Yeah. Mildly.

Craig:  Walk yes. I mean, like, it’s not they’re not quiet at all. Like, it’s that was my problem with it. I just felt like they were really dumb. Like, they’re not good at what they

Todd:  do. No. They’re really not, especially as it gets on later. So when they first come into the house, there’s a really, really cool setup. This is one thing I loved about this movie is that there’s an extremely long one take shot that follows them. It’s almost like we’re breaking into the house with them and sneaking through the house with

Clip:  them. Mhmm.

Todd:  And it sweeps around them and around the room as they go into these different rooms and kinda poke around and look. And the camera deliberately, like, dollies into and backs away or switches up to or comes around to all of these little details in the house that will every single one of them are going to figure in the plot as it goes along. And As soon as I recognized it was doing this, I just started writing things down. I was like, oh, broken glass on the floor. Ham A camera wall in here. Yeah. Photos. There’s a weird bell on the ceiling.  There’s a a a closet, you know, shelf in there. There’s a door lock there. Then then it sweeps up even through the floor. So, it’s up to the 2nd floor and even takes us through apparently, there’s a space, you know, between the floors. And then that takes us through that. And we even see that later. Yeah.

Clip:  And all

Todd:  the way sweeps up into this guy’s room under his bed first, where there’s a gun strapped in, and then around to this guy. And I think that we’re supposed to believe that because this guy left the TV on, I guess he was playing home videos of his daughter. Yeah. Yeah. And and fell asleep. And so, I might give them that pass, except for the fact that we all know that when you’re blind, your senses are heightened. Right. And especially, your sense of hearing that obviously comes into play big time in, you know, in the rest the movie.  And so you would think even with all the noise they’re making, you know, it’s just it’s still still gonna be a problem.

Craig:  He’s got the home movies on, but it’s not like it’s blaring. It’s not like he’s got his Dolby surround sound. You know? It’s like Yeah. He he’s got it’s very quiet, you know, as he’s sleeping. Okay. So I guess willing suspension of disbelief, he doesn’t hear them. Alright. Whatever.  So money goes up to his, room. You know, I don’t know how they know how to do all this stuff, but apparently, they’re also amateur chemists because money has this water bottle contraption that, like, he pokes a hole in, and there’s some liquid in it. And he drops some sort of capsule in it, and it becomes like a chloroform bomb. But while he’s in there and and there I appreciated these shots, like, you know, he sees the guy sleeping on the bed, and then it cuts back to him, and then he starts the chloroform bomb, and then all of a sudden it cuts back wide, and you see that the guy has woken up and is sitting up in bed. And it’s jarring. And you get a lot of shots like that where this this guy, you know, just kinda pops up in frame out of nowhere unexpectedly, and, that’s it’s effective. It’s it’s scary, and, you know, it it’s Yeah. It’s certainly tense, and you don’t know what’s gonna happen.  And at first, this guy seems really feeble. And I and I didn’t know if that was an act from the beginning or if, you know, that’s just kind of his nature and it’s only when he becomes threatened that his kick ass ex military vibe kicks in. I don’t know. But the guy lays back down. He he does the chloroform bomb, and, then he goes downstairs, and he’s, like, stomping around and yelling. And they’re, like, shut up. And he’s, like, no, it’s okay. He’s out.  Like, okay. How do you know? Yeah.

Clip:  I know. I think so.

Todd:  Oh my god. Yeah. That bothered me. It was just a it’s just a movie trick. It’s just so that they don’t have to worry about it. You know? So the people can talk at normal tones so they can have them do all these actions and things and not and then they they find a door. You know, they’ve looked all around the house. They’re not sure where this money is, but there’s a door that has a padlock over it.  And it’s padlocked, I mean, and this is needs to be said, it’s padlocked from the the outside.

Craig:  Mhmm.

Todd:  Right? So if you’re if you want to go to the basement, the padlock is on this side for you to unlock and to go to the basement. And they can’t get into it, obviously, but they’re sure that obviously the money or something must be behind us. Maybe it’s a closet or whatnot. And money solution is to pull a gun Mhmm. Out, which he had snuck in, which is another one of their rules that, you know, they’re they’re supposed to against another one of their rules. And so everybody’s freaked out that Money has a gun and Money decides he’s going to shoot the lock off with the gun. Now this is stupid. I know in movies, people run and they shoot locks off of things.  It’s usually in like Die Hard or something like that. When somebody’s cornered up against a wall and they have no other choice and they happen to have a gun in their hand and so they blast a lock and it goes you know, I realize this is a movie thing, but this is different. This is you presumably have all the time in the world and you’re faced at a at a lock in a house where there’s a guy upstairs who you’ve gassed out and you’re robbing the place. Whose bright idea is it that you’re gonna try to shoot the lock off?

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  And especially when it’s on this side.

Craig:  Right. And like, don’t you have a screwdriver?

Todd:  Like, yes. Just get a screwdriver. There is a whole room full of tools, like like, 12 feet next to you.

Craig:  Right. But one of the things that I did like was because, as soon as, money pulls out the gun, Alex is like, I’m out.

Clip:  Do you have any idea what bringing a gun to a burglary means? Yeah. It gives me a better chance to defend myself, Alex. What do you mean? You just gave this guy the legal right to shoot us. Lucky, let you go. I know what you’re saying. We have to leave. This is not good.

Craig:  Now in most movies, he would just look at her with puppy dog eyes and be like, okay. But no. I liked in this movie, he’s like, nope. I’m out. See? Yeah. And and and he takes off. Money does shoot the lock and it pops off conveniently. But as soon as he does that, again, we get another one of those surprise shots with, hello.  The blind guy is standing right there. And he’s like, who’s there? And money’s like, you know, stay where you are. I’ve got a gun. And meanwhile, Rocky is standing off to the side just being very quiet. What goes down basically is money’s trying to play it all tough. The the guy the blind guy steps on the lock and reaches over and feels that the basement door is open and is obviously startled by that. And so he slowly starts to approach. And, of course, he seems very feeble.  He’s blind. He’s reaching out. But, again, all the time, you know, like, he’s he gets to the point where he’s about 6 inches away from money. And I’m like, god. You are so dumb. This guy’s ex military. Like

Clip:  Yeah. Come

Craig:  on. You know? And and so, of course, this guy, this feeble guy turns not feeble at all and grabs the gun and and gets money, pinned up against the wall and and turns the gun on him, at which point money starts pleading for his life. And the the guy is like, how many of you are there? And Money looks over at at, Rocky, and he just says, it’s just me. I’m alone. It’s just me. Please let me go. I’ll just go. But instead, he shoots him in the head.  He’s dead, which, you know, you see coming a mile away.

Clip:  A mile away. Yeah. Of course, that

Craig:  guy is gonna be dead. So Rocky quietly hides herself in a nearby closet, and Alex, having heard the shot and the commotion, comes back in. Meanwhile, the blind guy, whose name we never get, so I’m just gonna have to keep calling him the blind guy.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  He he starts going around fortifying the house, like putting up padlocks on the doors on the inside and, like, boarding up the windows and stuff. But, eventually, once he’s got that done and, you know, Alex and and Rocky are in close proximity, you know, just hiding and being very quiet while he’s doing these things. He goes into the closet where Rocky is and he uncovers this safe behind the wall and he punches in the code and she’s watching so she can see, you know, what he’s he’s punching in. He opens up the safe and, like, feels in there, apparently checking to make sure that whatever’s in there is still in there, and then he closes it up again. And the the passcode is just illuminated right up, you know, on the safe. And so then he goes down to the basement, and Alex joins Money in the closet because they’ve texted each other where they are. And he’s, like, come on. We’ve gotta get out of here.  And she’s, like, no. Hold on a second. And she opens the safe back up and starts pulling out these huge stacks of money. And, again, you know, like you said, it’s hard to like these people because even though Yeah. Even though I felt for Rocky’s plight, I really did. I wanted her to get out from under her trashy mom. I wanted her to, you know, get away and have a new life or whatever. But when it comes down to life and death, you know, just just go.  Like like Yeah. Cut your losses and go.

Todd:  Yeah. And and and this to this point, it is these jerks are breaking into this house of this feeble well, he’s not feeble, but a blind disabled army guy who’s had his daughter taken away from him in a horrible accident, and they’re gonna steal all his settlement money. Mhmm. That he kills their friend in self defense

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  More or less. I mean, what else is he gonna do? Sure. They’re gonna steal his money and then leave. You know? I was like, I don’t care what happens to these people. You know? That was how that was exactly how I felt at this point in the movie. I’m like, you go get them, guy. And I kinda wondered, are we really are are we really supposed to feel sympathy for them? You know, I was even going that route. I thought there would be an interesting twist where, you know, we’d be rooting for the guy, you know, at some point.  Because I kinda was at this I mean, I gotta be honest.

Craig:  I I

Todd:  didn’t like them. And I and I kinda tuned out. I mean, at this point, I kinda tuned out, honestly, in the movie. I, you know, I just detached emotionally from what was happening. And I, you know, just for me, it was just kind of, alright. Let’s see what goes on.

Craig:  Well, and at this point, you know, this is still relatively early in the movie. And I was thinking, where is this gonna go? Or, you know, are they just gonna be sneaking around this house for the next hour? Like, I I was I was I I didn’t know what was gonna happen. But, you know so they start to try to sneak out, but it when they’re out in the big open room where the body is, the blind guy comes back up and he’s, like, bagging up the body in, like, trash bags. I don’t know if he was just gonna hide it or bury it. Anyway, they’re sneaking you know, trying to sneak by, and Alex steps on a creaky board. And of course, the blind guy hears. They freeze, but he takes his gun and just kinda starts scanning it around the room. And it, you know, at some point, it it’s pointed at both of them, but, he doesn’t fire at that point.  I guess he’s satisfied that he was just hearing things. The blind guy leaves the room. They decide to go down into the basement because they think that the only door that’s not locked from the inside or or the only door that they saw that they could get out of potentially, was this cellar door. So they they head down to the cellar, which the door is right there, and they have to climb a ladder down in there. And then it looks just very much like a, ordinary seller and they’re kind of looking around. Meanwhile, upstairs, the blind guy is walking around and he ends up in the kitchen, and all of sudden, he Todd, and he starts sniffing the air. And immediately, I said, oh my god. The shoes.  Because they had taken off their shoes when they came in. I was like, he smells their feet. But when Alex had left, he put his shoes back on. So when the blind guy finds the shoes, he finds 2 pair. So and and he sniffs 1, and I guess by the smell of it, he can tell it’s a girl. So he knows, he thinks that there’s at least 1, girl still in there. And see so he kinda starts going around looking around. Meanwhile, down in the cellar, this is where the big twist came.  Now I have to say, I I guess it was when, I don’t know, when when he was looking in the Mhmm. We realized that the money was in the safe, I immediately thought, well, then what’s in the seller? Because he’s he’s obvious you know, that is so locked up and so secure, and he’s so worried about that. What’s down there? And I I thought it it can’t be good. And so while they’re down there, they eventually think that they’re nearing the door. But before they get to the door, there’s a jump scare and, it turns out that he has a woman chained up in the basement in this big padded kind of cell. And it’s it’s, it’s a really cool set piece. It’s it’s very unsettling. You know, I I read that Alvarez was inspired by lots of horror movies and kinda tried to give little nods to horror movies.  We had already kind of seen a a nod to Cujo when the dog jumped up at the car window, and, this gave me serious Silence of the Lambs vibes.

Todd:  Oh, yeah. It even looks kinda like the Silence of the Lambs set. Yeah. I mean, it’s almost even the same similar design. Right?

Craig:  Oh, yeah. And I I I’m certain that was intentional. But then, you know, at that point, that’s that’s a big twist. You know? Now Yeah. Now I’m back in it. Like, what’s going on? You know? Who is this guy? Why does he have some chick tied up in the basement? But very easy exposition, this girl who is she’s not gagged, but she’s got something over her mouth so she can’t talk. She’s pleading with them. And again, Alex, the voice of reason.

Clip:  She’s the one who killed his daughter. We have to get her out of here. No. No. No. Rocky, we don’t have time. Well, we’ll get out of here and we’ll call the cops and then they’ll come find her. Alright?

Craig:  Yeah. Like, yes. That is what you should do. But she’s like, no. I I can’t leave this girl down here.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  He’s exacting his revenge on on this girl. So they so they do. They they unchain her, and they get to the door. And meanwhile, you know, all this time, we’re hearing him kind of upstairs looking around, and it sounds like he’s coming down. And they’re like, he’s coming. He’s coming. He’s coming. They’re trying to go out the cellar door, and Alex eventually gets it open.  And, of course, the blind guy’s standing right there, and he just blindly fires down, into the cellar. But one of the bullets hits the prisoner girl in the neck. Right?

Todd:  Yeah. In the neck. Or the cheek or something. Yeah.

Craig:  Well She’s dead. Yeah. She’s she’s dead. They hide. The 2 living kids hide in the basement, and the and the blind guy comes down and he’s distraught. Like, he finds the body of this girl and he’s distraught. Like, he’s so upset about it. And I was watching this with my partner.  He hardly ever watches movies with me, but I was on a time crunch, and he was willing to watch this. I I was, like, why is why is this guy so upset about his right? And he’s, like, I don’t know. But there’s there’s more to this going on than we know. And and there was.

Todd:  Yeah. There’s a reveal later. The what I think is really clever about this point, and I I know this movie probably for you Todd was giving me serious, wait until dark vibes.

Craig:  I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that.

Todd:  It was a movie, but it was originally a play, and that’s about a bunch of thieves who break into a blind woman’s house. They kind of terrorize her as they’re coming in. It’s a terrifying movie, but of course, it’s terrifying because you’re you have a ton of sympathy for the blind woman. And, you know, up until this point, that’s how I felt about this movie. But then, kind of lightweight until dark as well, it it there’s this nice reversal moment where the, blind guy cuts the power. So they’re plunged into darkness in the basement. And so they’re experiencing blindness, right, where he obviously has the upper advantage. And I thought this is a really clever part of the movie, first of all, to do that reversal, but also set up some really chilling moments.  And I’m really happy that they filmed it in such a way that we could still see what was going on.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  It’s not like we just hear a bunch of stuff and it’s blackness for the next 10 minutes, but we get to see how close they are in proximity Todd each other while they’re while they’re going through. And the actor’s eyes are dilated. It’s it’s almost shot very faintly. It’s really hard to describe, I suppose, like the night vision on a on a camera or something.

Craig:  But without that annoying green green

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. Like a really light night vision. Right. Not not the stark stuff that you get. And it was really well done. And there’s a really chilling moment in there too where, you know, they’re kind of going after each other. And, he the guy has Todd, and he’s looking down one way.  And unbeknownst to him, Rocky is quietly pawing her way in the direction. You know, she’s just trying to get out, and we see that she’s about to reach right out for him unknowingly and touch him. And as soon as she gets that close, Alex yells out for Rocky, and the guy takes off in that direction. So this is a really good sequence, I thought. I did too. Really quite clever.

Craig:  The thing that I liked about it was, yes, it’s very obvious that he’s very much aware of his surroundings. Like, he uses his hands to orient himself. Like, he knows, you know, here is the, a ceiling rail. Here is the bell or yeah. Whatever. You know? So he he’s very, you know, he’s oriented to this space, and of course, they’re not. But the thing that I found most haunting about this was he realizes that they’re running around, and every once in a while, they’re calling each other’s name to try to hook up, you know, faintly, but it’s silent down there so he can hear them. And the part that I found most chilling was at one point, he, the blind guy, just stops in his tracks and just takes a couple of steps back into the darkness.  And, of of course, I mean, if that’s if you’re being smart, that’s what you would do. If these people are scared and are running around and trying to, you know, just wait, you know? Yeah. Eventually eventually they’re gonna cross your path or they’re gonna run right into you or or whatever, especially if there’s only one way out, which there is because he broke a key in the padlock, for the the outside door. And so the only way out is this ladder that goes up, and so if he can just wait them out, it was just it was a chilling image of him just stopping and standing, you know, silently for a second and then just kind of backing into the shadows. And I was

Clip:  like, oh. Yeah.

Todd:  Yeah. I agree. Now why he didn’t just back himself up to the only exit, wait for them to to, you know, work their way there, I’m not quite sure.

Clip:  I think he did. I think

Craig:  I think that’s what happens. I think that he was near the ladder and that she was approaching the ladder, but then when, Alex called her name, then he went towards Alex’s voice. So it was just a timing thing. But he finds Alex, actually. He reaches through a a a shelving unit and grabs Alex by the throat, and, you know, it’s a struggle. But eventually, Alex pushes the whole shelving unit over on him. And so Alex and Rocky end up back upstairs, and they think they’re okay. They they kinda jam a crowbar under the door, so they think that they’re in the clear.  But then, uh-oh, the dog’s awake.

Todd:  And Dog’s inside. Did you forget about me? Right.

Craig:  And, the the dog Alex sends Rocky. He gives he has got these keys that they found. He sends her to try to unlock the front door, but then the dog starts chasing them, and they end up getting chased upstairs.

Todd:  Yeah. They barricade themselves into the room. And in the meantime, the blind guy has gotten out and he goes straight to his bedroom, and gets the gun from under his bed. Right.

Clip:  Right.

Todd:  So, yeah. At this point, it starts getting a little weird and murky, I think. So the guy’s, you know, pounding on the door. He’s clearly gonna get through. They pushed a wardrobe up against it, but that’s not gonna hold. So Alex, tells her to climb into the vent. Mhmm. The old classic climb into the vent stick, and which is is really the space between the two floors.  Right. I’ll I’ll suspend my disbelief for that one Todd. Sure. There’s a space this wide between the floors that she can get into that has a vent over it. Anyway, so she does that. And then, of course, the guy breaks in and, backs Alex up against, a window, and Alex falls backwards. I don’t understand this. I thought that all of the windows and everything were barred and they had no hope of leaving that room.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  But suddenly, when the guy burst in, Alex is able to fall backwards out of the window.

Craig:  Out of the window that now apparently is unbarred and onto Yeah. And onto a skylight that we had never seen before.

Todd:  I mean Well, we had seen it. Had we? We had seen it. Yeah. It was one of those one of those clues that was panned upwards when

Craig:  it first

Todd:  came through the house. But blink it and you miss it, you know, kinda thing.

Craig:  It was and yeah. And I’m writing things down as we go. But, he falls on the skylight. And, I mean, kinda silly, but at the same time, you know, it’s tense. Like, he’s unconscious. He’s laying on the skylight. Now it doesn’t it didn’t make any sense to me why at that point the blind guy stopped pursuing him there. Instead, like like so he’s unconscious on this skylight, and then the blind guy goes downstairs.  Like and, like, he’s looking around downstairs, and he doesn’t, I mean, it wouldn’t he’s not looking around because he’s blind. So it wouldn’t make any sense for him to look up at the skylight, I guess, but he doesn’t even think about that. But then as Alex wakes up on the skylight that is slowly, you know, cracking, he he rolls over, and he looks up, and the blind guy is right above him in the window, and he shoots at him. But, of course, it doesn’t hit him, but it shatters the skylight, and so he falls back in, to the house. And at at at this point, you know, it’s there’s so much, it’s it’s really just, a big fight, you know, chase scene. If I get things out of order, I apologize. This was the point of the night where, it was late, and I had a couple of drinks.

Clip:  So things are

Craig:  things are getting a little muddy for me

Clip:  at this point.

Todd:  And maybe if you were like if you were like me, I was just okay. I I mean, even with the big reveal, I still didn’t feel a lot of sympathy with these characters, to be honest. I just thought they were all pretty terrible. So, yeah, if you were like me, I had just kinda disconnected from it. I was just watching things happen. The guy comes back down to meet him. I think the dog is chasing Rocky through the

Craig:  Through the fence, which okay.

Todd:  And and she comes to a point where there’s, like, a long shaft that leads down. I I that doesn’t make any real sense either. But anyway, she ends up I think plunging down into that and and hurts herself. Then, Alex and this guy have a big fight in the tool room. I think he has tucked away the body of money in the tool room.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Which kind of pops out at one point just so we can see it. And it’s a pretty brutal fight between them. Alex does grab the the hammer from the wall. And I think their whole fight still has that same problem that a lot of these things do, is that each of them are taking way more than the human body could possibly sustain. And not only stay alive, but also be able to then stand up and continue. You know?

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. But again, this was really shocking. And I don’t know, maybe it was satisfying for you because you didn’t like these characters, but the blind guy beats the shit out of him.

Todd:  Like Yeah. I like that, actually.

Craig:  It is just brutal. Like, he’s got him, you know, by his shirt, and he’s he’s just pounding on his face. And I’m like, dang. Like, it it it’s really brutal violence. And that’s when the movie was over, I was like, man, that movie was, you know, pretty brutally violent in some places.

Todd:  It’s true. And he A realistic kind of violence.

Craig:  Yeah. And and they’re in the tool room, so he grabs these huge shears. And now I don’t know if this was supposed to be misdirection or if I just wasn’t looking.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  But I I thought that he stabbed Alex with the shears.

Todd:  He plunges it straight down and we see a close-up of the shears entering a body.

Craig:  Right. But as it turns out, it was the dead body. It was Money’s body. But I thought that it was Alex and I was like, woah. I didn’t see that coming because

Todd:  Yeah. Me neither.

Craig:  Even though, you know, all of the characters are kind of unlikable, Dylan Minnette, the guy that plays Alex, just has a really kind of sweet innocent face. And, you know, I I thought he’s gonna be okay. He’s kind of the good one. He’s the only one that really has kind of a moral compass, so he’ll be alright. And then these shears just get plunged into what I thought was his body, and I was, super surprised. Turns out it wasn’t him, but, we’ll we’ll get into that here in just a brief moment. But that that the blind guy believes that he’s killed Alex, so, he goes then after Rocky.

Todd:  So he gets Rocky.

Craig:  And then he beats the shit out of her.

Todd:  Beats the shit out of her, and then she gets knocked out. Then he takes her

Craig:  Oh my god. Then she’s the she’s the new slave girl.

Todd:  Yeah. This part I saw coming, but this part, ugh, this is gross.

Craig:  It is gross, but at the like, gross in a way that I can be like, oh my god. I can’t believe you went there. But dang. So okay. So she’s the new slave girl. So, you know, it’s at least in my mind, it’s implied that she’s gonna be his sex slave or something. I don’t know. And, you know, when when the other girl when we found out that the other girl was chained up down there again, I was talking to my partner, and I was like, you know, it’s not okay, but I get it.  You know? He’s exacting his revenge. He’s got motive. This girl killed his daughter. So you can’t do that to people, obviously, but at least it makes sense. So now he’s got this new girl and he explains

Clip:  She should have gone to prison, but rich girls don’t go to jail. Cindy took my child away from me. I thought it only fair that she’d give me a new one. She was pregnant with my baby. You killed them both. Well, they would be alive if you hadn’t broken into my home.

Craig:  And he also says I never was going to hurt her, And I told her that as soon as she gave me what I wanted, I would let her go, and I would never bother her again. But you took that away from me, so now you’re gonna have to give it to me. And he starts he starts cranking her up in these, it’s not chains. It’s like canvas straps. He, like, he’s cranking her up so she’s in the air on her back. And he says, don’t worry. I’m not a rapist. I never touched her.  And then he pulls out

Todd:  Oh, jeez.

Craig:  A baster, a turkey baster, and dips it into

Todd:  a container. Of frozen stuff that he pulled out of the fridge or freezer and heated up again. And you get a nice, close-up interior shot of the baster as this juice is being sucked up and there’s a little hair

Craig:  in it.

Todd:  You are such It is so it is so disgusting.

Craig:  That freaked Allen out. He’s like, write that down. That’s so disgusting. There’s hair in it. But it’s it is. It’s so nasty. You’re you’re you’re so funny. You’re such a press.  It’s it’s not juice. It’s it’s it’s cum.

Clip:  It’s sebum. And and

Craig:  and it’s disgusting. And, like, he’s he’s walking towards her, and the camera is just close-up on this baster. And it’s dripping. It’s like Oh, god. So nasty. And I guess Alvarez somebody asked him what he used for that substance, and he said I I used the same thing that they use when they need fake stuff for the porn movies. I didn’t even know that was a thing. I I didn’t know they were using fake stuff in porn, but alright.  Whatever. And so it’s it’s so meanwhile, Alex wakes up upstairs, and and it’s revealed that he’s not dead. And so he’s kinda making his way downstairs, but, it’s a really tense scene where this guy, he takes a knife and he slits open her pants and, like, he’s, you know, taking the turkey baster towards her private area. And, Oh, you’re such a priss. Fine. What would you like to call it, Todd? Go go right ahead.

Todd:  No. That’s quite alright.

Clip:  I’ll go right ahead. So

Craig:  but anyway, luckily, Alex, right at the last second shows up and and hits him on the head from behind with what? Is it the big mallet? Is it I don’t know. Something. Blood sprays.

Todd:  Yeah. And he waxed her a few times. And, and then she he he’s down back, you know, he’s against the corner wall. I I think she Rocky takes a couple turns on him too, and then she grabs the turkey baster and just shoves it in his mouth.

Craig:  Oh my god. That I I literally almost threw up.

Todd:  I didn’t know. It’s like, how does that taste?

Clip:  Oh my god.

Craig:  Oh god. I I there are so many in poor taste jokes I could make right now that I’m not going to. I but I I I literally, literally almost threw up. Anyway

Todd:  But, again, this man takes way more than I mean, he should be dead by now. I mean Yeah. We’ve whacked him with a mallet or a hammer into oblivion.

Craig:  She wants to kill him, but Alex is like, we don’t have to. We can take the money. We can call the cops and or or not call the cops. We take the money. It’s like he needs us, to take the money because that way he’s got something on us. We’ve got something on him. We can’t turn him in. But I guess Alex is concerned that I I don’t know.  Anyway, they end up going upstairs, and they’re having this argument. And and I guess what we’re meant to believe is that they mercifully left him down there. And, of course, again, he’s acting like he’s enfeebled and all beat up and whatever. So they go upstairs. But as they’re preparing to leave, the guy pops up again and shoots Alex, and this time, Alex really is dead. Rocky somehow gets around him and runs out the door, and she runs, I don’t know, maybe half a block down the street. And she turns around, like, to taunt him, which, again, god, she’s dumb.

Todd:  She’s like, you’re worthless out here.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah.

Clip:  And and the dog.

Craig:  And then the dog. And so the dog comes out and starts, chasing her. And she runs, and she gets to her car, but the dog catches her right at the car and pulls her backpack off of her. And so, you know, the dog’s out there. Again, it’s a very Cujo moment. She needs to get the backpack. And, again, I’m sitting there like, you know what? There’s nobody else around. Start the car, pull right up to the backpack, open the door a hair, and pull it in.

Clip:  Like Yeah.

Craig:  But instead, she devises this genius plan where she pulls down the back seat so that that it’s open to the trunk. And then she gets a bungee Todd, and she pops the trunk from the inside. And she lures the dog in. And as soon as the dog is in, she pulls the bungee cord to slam the trunk and then pushes the seat back up. So the dog is trapped in the trunk. That actually was very smart. But this is a rottweiler, and it pretty easily pushes the front seat down. And they have you know, they they fight, and she punches the dog.  And, eventually, you know, with one of the bungee cords, gets him restrained so that, he’s kind of out of the picture. She gets out to get the backpack, but blind guy is out there having had plenty of time to find them, following the dog’s barking, and he knocks her out. And then we’re back to the opening scene. He is now dragging her down, the street in broad daylight by the hair, and, he gets her back in the house. It it seems like everything is lost, but she sees I don’t remember if if it’s on Alex or if it’s just in

Todd:  something Alex’s hand.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Dead hand. Yeah.

Craig:  He’s got the remote. And so she gets the remote, and she pushes the panic button, and all of the alarms start, going off. And the blind guy starts just blindly shooting at her, but, he eventually runs out of bullets, and she gives him a crowbar to the head. Again, this would definitely be a killing blow. I mean, there’s just just no question, about it. And and he, yeah, he falls into the basement.

Todd:  Yeah. And then we get a a final shot of him, you know, just staring straight up but not moving, and that closes. And then from there on, it’s it’s, her and her sister in the airport waiting to get on their plane for Chicago for California. And she happens to see a news report come on the screen and it turns out it’s about this blind guy. And we find out that, he indeed survived. Mhmm. And basically, the story is that he was his house was broken into. He managed to fend off and kill the intruders and miraculously he’s alive and he reported that nothing was taken from him.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  So it’s clearly setting us up for a sequel Sure. Or just that sort of shock ending that, that he got away. Yeah. And apparently, there is a sequel in the works.

Craig:  Oh, yeah. I saw that.

Todd:  And Sam Ramey said it’s only the best idea for a sequel he’s ever heard in his life. No kidding. So I’m really kind of interested to see what the premise will be for the sequel.

Craig:  Well, there had to be a sequel. It made, like, a $140,000,000. I mean, it was a huge, huge success, which is kinda surprising because it doesn’t really seem I mean, it seems I don’t wanna say it’s run of the mill because it’s really well made. But, and I remember the ad campaign, but it’s not a sequel. It’s not a superhero movie. You know? It’s not a remake. Yeah. And so those, you know, these types of genre films don’t typically do that well.  I I suppose I’m glad that it did. You know, maybe that paves the way for more bigger budget. I mean, I think that they shot it for, like, less than $1,000,000 or something like that. Right?

Todd:  But 10 less than 10 Less than 10. 29,000,000. Gotcha.

Craig:  Okay. So, you know, that’s that’s pretty big budget for for a horror film. But, you know, it it made its money back in spades. And, so, of course, of course, there will be a sequel. Yeah. I don’t know. It’ll be interesting to see if they I I mean, I I can only imagine that they’ll bring Stephen Lang back, you know, the guy who played the blind man, but whether whether they’ll continue the Jane Levy, plot or not, it’ll be interesting to see. I don’t know.  It it seems like you’re you’re a little bit lukewarm about this movie.

Todd:  I I am. And I think, like I said, I think it just morally, I felt like it was so problematic even with the twist in the middle of the guy. I mean, okay, so he’s a bad guy. Right? But that’s not why they went in there.

Clip:  Right.

Todd:  You know? They went in there to like rip off a disabled blind guy who lost his daughter and take all of the money that he got in the settlement. You know? And he lives in this terrible, you know, he’s the only house in this neighborhood. It just seems uber pathetic. And, you know, to me, the whole movie was setting up this classic EC Comics type scenario. You know, we’ve I’ve talked about this before. Yeah. You know, EC Comics used to be like like Tales from the Crypt and they, Well, they had a whole line of comics called Craig suspense stories and shock suspense stories, which were exactly like this. It would be some crime thing that had a twist at the end.  And usually it was, these criminals, they have this perfect crime in mind, but then somehow, somewhere there’s an accident or things aren’t what they seem or the person that they’re trying to rip off is stronger than they realize, or somehow gets the upper hand and there’s always this ironic twist at the end. And so, it felt like for most of the movie, up until we find out this guy’s no, you know, Angel either, that that was that was what we were getting. You know, and I think, honestly, I would have I don’t know. It’s not that I you can make whatever movie you want. You know? I don’t care. But I think I would have enjoyed that movie just a little bit better. I would have enjoyed seeing

Craig:  Get their comeuppance. Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:  Yeah. I get it. You know, them get their comeuppance and not not at the end be so like, oh, it’s such a happy story. They she got out with all the money that she stole and was able to give her daughter a better life.

Craig:  There was a little collateral damage. No big deal. Yeah.

Todd:  You know, it’s just this this this poor woman who is caught downstairs is killed. Her friends are killed. She has this dirty money.

Craig:  Yeah. I get it.

Todd:  Todd me, it’s it’s not enough that the guy, you know, did some terrible things too. It’s just not enough. Yeah.

Craig:  I get it. I mean, I I see where you’re coming from. I I I guess I I guess I was just willing to accept that they were all kind of horrible people. I I mean, frankly Yeah. I was rooting for Alex. Alex seemed like the nice guy. I wanted him to somehow save the day, or I wanted him to somehow redeem himself and Rocky in some way. And and you don’t get that.  Instead, he just dies. And and maybe that’s what they were going for. Maybe they were going a little dark, and and I’m fine with the it didn’t bother me. I I found the movie to be suspenseful. I didn’t think it was amazing. It’s not one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, but, there was some good suspense. I thought that the filmmaking itself was was top notch. You know? It was it was really good.  So I I would recommend this, and I think that this is a movie, and maybe, you know, the box office results, you know, are are evidence of this. But I think that this is a movie that’s accessible to a pretty wide audience. In fact, my my partner is a big fan of crime shows, and I’m really not. But I I watch them with him every once in a while, and and this reminded me a lot of something like Criminal Minds. Oh, yeah.

Todd:  For sure.

Craig:  You know, without all of the boring officers talking to each other. You know? Just just the psychos. You know? But it it reminded me a lot of that. And and those shows, of course, are hugely popular, so I could see why this would be appealing to a a pretty broad audience. Overall, I I thought it was it was pretty Todd. You know, a lot better than some of the stuff we watch, and, I would feel a lot more comfortable recommending this to someone rather than something like Tokyo Gore Police, which I would almost be embarrassed to even post on my Facebook

Todd:  page. You know, if if we’d had an alligator vagina in this movie, I might have liked this

Clip:  a little bit more.

Todd:  Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. You can also find us on Facebook, or you can like our page and share it with a friend, and let us know what you thought of this film as well. Also, head over to 2 guys dot redfortynet.com, where we have all of our cast episodes posted as well as the occasional written movie review each week. Until next time, I’m Todd.

Craig:  And I’m Craig.

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

We’re kicking off another theme month: Movies with the word “Don’t” in the title. We start with this classy, classic, stylish supernatural thriller starring Donald Sutherland. It may not be the most action-packed film we’ve reviewed, but there is a lot to unpack as a couple grieving for the loss of their daughter encounter a psychic with a warning for them from beyond the grave.

Episode 121, 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:  1 of our loyal listeners made a fantastic suggestion, for our next theme month, and that would be to do movies with don’t in the title. Sure. Why not? So we gathered together a few films that, have don’t in the title. There are more than a few, that, we wanted to do. And I’d say up at the very top of my list, the very first one I thought of was the one we’re going to kick it off with today, which is 1970 three’s Don’t Look Now. This is a British film starring, Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. Craig, had you ever seen this movie before? Nope. Never even heard of it.  Really? Okay. So, this will be a really interesting conversation, I think. This is a very well, well reviewed film. A lot of people like this. It’s on a lot of best movies of all time lists. I think Roger Ebert listed it as one of those films that you must see. It is a very much, I think, ominous sort of psychological thriller as opposed to the sort of horror movies we’ve been doing lately, the overt horror. And so I think it’s a it’s a good one for us to talk about a little bit off of what we’ve been doing lately.  I also found out while we were looking at the trivia for this film that, one of my favorite actors of all time, Tim Curry, this is his favorite horror film.

Craig:  Yeah. I read that too.

Todd:  So, what did you think, Craig, watching this movie for the first time? Just overall thoughts before we dig into it. Man,

Craig:  I was afraid you’re gonna ask me that. Alright. So so here’s the deal. So like you, I, you know, looked stuff up about this and I saw that it’s on all these lists, like, a 100 movies you have to see before you die and and all, you know, just lists everywhere, you know, this movie is on them. And, I get it. Okay. Here’s here’s the thing, I am not gonna criticize this movie by saying that it’s a badly made movie because it’s not. It’s excellently made.  It’s an excellently made movie. The the cinematography is great. The acting is great. The setting, you know, it’s set in Venice and, you know, really cool to look at because Venice is such a cool place and so there’s there’s lots to see. I thought it was boring as sin.

Todd:  Now, what what did I tell you before, before you settled down this movie, I think, a few days ago?

Craig:  You okay, dad. You did. You said, alright. Look. You this one’s gonna be a slow burn. You gotta be ready for it. It’s not gonna be action packed. Well, you were right.  And, like, what often happens when we talk about these movies is that as we’re talking about them, I come to appreciate them a lot more than I did on the initial viewing. So I hope I hope that that’s what happens here. And honest to Todd, I, you know, I I really have nothing bad to say about it from a production, point of view. I mean, it’s really good. It’s really well made. I just thought that it would Todd call it a horror movie just seems like a lie. It’s it’s really a it’s a drama. It’s a a psychological thriller.  It’s not scary in the least or at least I didn’t find it to be at all scary. Donald Sutherland is, you know, a force, he’s a great actor and Julie Christie, you know, these are the 2 leads, they play John Baxter and Laura Baxter, this married couple who are dealing with this tragedy And she is also, you know, well regarded, highly esteemed, and and I think deservedly so. She’s a beautiful woman. She’s a great actress, or at least with my limited experience with her, she seems to be very good. And so, you know, there’s there’s certainly very very positive things to be said about it. I don’t know. I just, I was looking at my watch. I’m like, oh my gosh, there’s still a half an hour left, like, come on, what’s happening? I’ve been looking forward to talking to you about it because I know that it’s a movie that you really like and so I wanna hear you talk about its virtues and I I really believe that by the end of this, you may have at least, changed my mind somehow.

Todd:  Wow, Craig. No pressure or anything.

Craig:  Well, I mean, I don’t care.

Todd:  This will be this will be an interesting exercise. And if Todd could turn me around,

Craig:  you can

Todd:  appreciate this movie I found extremely dull. Well, here here’s the thing. Okay? I think this movie, especially, rewards the viewer upon repeat viewings. I’ve I’ve seen it probably half a dozen times now, and I will admit fully that the first time I saw it, I was scratching my head a little bit because I, you know, I went into it knowing it was a quote unquote horror movie, or as you say, more of a a drama with some terrible elements to it. But, now upon watching it a few times, it is very much akin to Final Destination.

Craig:  Oh, come on. I mean, I can see, like, The Omen or something along those lines. Final Destination really I mean, I feel like I get what you’re getting at. Like, I noticed a couple of the, like, little subtle hinty things going on here and there. And probably, you’re gonna point out a lot more.

Todd:  But don’t spoil all of my gotta give me something to reveal.

Craig:  I get what you’re saying. I get what you’re saying. I caught a couple of things here and there, but ultimately, like, and, obviously, we’ll get there. But, like, the ending, I just didn’t really get it.

Todd:  Fair enough. I I do admit, the ending is is, is kind of abrupt and strange. This is based on a novel by, or story written by Daphne du Maurier. Am I pronouncing that right?

Craig:  I have no idea, but I I was excited. I saw that before we started and she wrote the source material for the birds. She wrote the novel Rebecca.

Todd:  Oh, yeah.

Craig:  You know, this is some great stuff. So I was like, oh, yay, really exciting. And I could see how maybe in literary form, I might have more appreciation for it. Anyway, I’m stealing your thunder. Yes. Great author. Todd source material.

Todd:  Alright. I think first and foremost, this this is a movie about grief. This is a movie about Yeah. Grief and dealing with grief, and it’s I think it’s done very well in that way. And then layered on top of that is a psychic aspect to this movie, a man who has premonitions. If he is paying attention, would have seen a long time ago the warning signs that something bad was going to happen to him. And, the whole movie is warning him about his ultimate doom as we go on and on through the film. And then by the end of it, sure enough, what we are afraid might come to pass does in fact come to pass.  Now, again, this is why I say this is really good upon repeat viewings because the second time around, once you kinda know this is what the movie is about and your expectations are tempered, I think, and again, like you said, you’re you’re not super tired, you’re really open to watching this kind of film, it becomes a really cool exercise in seeing what you can pick out, seeing the clever visuals that this film, that the director puts in here. And the director is Nicholas Roeg, and I boy, I don’t even know if I’m saying that right. It’s r o e g. You know, he directed The Witches in 1990. I thought that was interesting.

Craig:  I know. And I love that movie. And when I when I saw that he had directed that, I was really excited. And, again, I think it’s really well directed.  I I I mean, as far  as quality goes, I think it’s really good. So Okay.  Yeah. Let’s just dive into the meat

Todd:  of the film. And let’s Todd about it. You you know, you’re I’m I guess, I’m laying all these premonitions. You’re laying all these premonitions for me. This is becoming a very self referential, podcast before we even begin. The the key here is red. There’s a very highly symbolic, visual of red coming into this movie. And one of the very first scenes that we see, as soon as the credits start rolling, we see some imagery of water and some some rain sprinkling on some water.  We see some plastic curtains, in front of a very distinctive window that has round panes of glass in it. And then, we get the title of film over some of this and then boom, we have a girl. And this girl’s running through the countryside, and she has on a very bright red kind of rain Like a rain slicker? Yeah, Craig slicker. Right? It’s very bright red. It’s very stark. It’s basically the first strong image that you see in this film. And in this dreary day, in this dreary countryside, for her to be running around in this, it really jumps out at you. And this is a color that’s going to appear throughout the film And, it really is one of those premonitions that, again, if you watch it the second time through and you’re really looking for it, you see it prop up in some really cool ways.  At the same time, Donald Sutherland’s character, and his name is John, he’s like a an art historian slash restoration artist. So he is at his table looking over some some slides of a church that he’s going to be restoring soon or doing some research anyway for it, while his wife, is sitting in the same room in front of a fire, reading and looking up information. I think it’s some encyclopedias or something, about an interesting question that their daughter had about whether the Earth would be round. And it’s flashing back and forth between the scenes of them sitting in here, doing their work very quietly, and this girl running around out outside.

Craig:  Well, there’s 2 kids. There’s a boy and a girl. They’ve got a son and a daughter. The girl is the the primary focus, and I didn’t know exactly what to expect or what was going on here, but, you know, you’ve got these kids playing out there by themselves and the the the parents inside and there’s all this water and, like, they keep focusing in on these small bodies of water. You know, it’s not like they’re playing by the ocean or anything, but they’re, you know, there’s these small bodies of water that they’re playing around.

Todd:  Todd.

Craig:  I kinda predicted what was going to happen. What does happen is that the husband and wife are talking and he’s looking at a slide. In the slide, it the focus is on the window, but it’s in this church and the camera kind of directs our attention to what looks like the daughter because it’s somebody in a red rain slicker sitting in one of the pews. And, he I feel like he goes to hand his wife something or I don’t remember exactly what he does, but he tips over, a glass with water or some other kind of liquid in it, and it spills onto the slide for reasons that I don’t really understand, but but it doesn’t matter. It’s important for the imagery. The the slide starts to bleed, and the it it bleeds directly off of the red girl, into this I don’t wanna say a pattern or a symbol But it is.

Todd:  But the reason of that

Craig:  but it is because because it shows up later again. And all of a sudden, he gets this really troubled look on his face, and the wife’s, like, what’s the matter? And he’s like, oh, nothing. But he goes running outside. And as it turns out, as he’s running out, his son is running towards him crying for him. And it turns out that the young girl has fallen into one of these small bodies of water, and she’s drowned. And he he jumps in and finds her, and it seems like it takes him kind of inordinate amount of time to find her, and then he he pulls her out. You know, I get it. It’s very tragic, and and, like, the whole scene was very tragic.  And he is, you know, acting his heart out. You know, he’s devastated, and he’s pulling her up, you know, into the mud. The whole time, I was just, like, CPR. CPR. Like, come on. And I feel like eventually he, you know, makes a small attempt at CPR, but she’s gone. And and that’s the tragedy that kind of, you know, sparks the rest of the story.  That’s

Todd:  right. And within this very, I think, emotionally powerful, maybe you could say, I don’t know, maybe you think he’s overacting a little bit? Maybe you thought it was just trying Todd?

Craig:  No. I don’t really. I mean, I can’t imagine how I would act in that situation. He’s clearly devastated. It’s it’s very sad and effectively so, I would say.

Todd:  Well, in this sequence here are just a lot of things. It’s basically jamming in about 10 minutes of very strong imagery that is going to repeat itself. It’s going to repeat itself a lot during the rest of this movie, and other parts of the movie are gonna call back to this, and things that happened at this time are going to happen again later. Just very small things. For example, as the kid’s riding his bike around, he rides his bike over a pane of glass which shatters underneath it. The girl is is walking across a log, and the camera pans down so we see her reflection of, you know, again that bold red rain slicker reflecting in the water as she walks across this log, and that’s mostly what we’re focused on. As you mentioned, there’s that part of the image that bleeds over. And then a little bit later, it flashes over, and it’s like that image has has bled up, but circles back around in a kind of kind of a cloud like pattern.  Yeah. Like you said, it’s hard to know, but then there’s the spilling of the of the glass. And, all of this just happens, you know, one right after another, and it’s it’s a very missense scene. It’s it’s very much a very strong montage. I think very skillfully put together. Their their transitions there, their leaps in time, it can be very confusing. But like you said, at the end of it, he’s come out. He’s done this half hearted attempt at CPR for her, but most of that’s kind of in slow motion.  And the camera chooses to focus on odd moments in this as well. Like when he’s pulling her out of the water, we’ve got this slow motion scene of her of him just, you know, with her body and kind of thrashing around as he’s trying to stomp his way out of the lake, and the camera seems to zoom in a little bit on the way he’s holding her hand. Lots of little things here. I’m not gonna list them all off, but we’ll probably talk about them a little later. The way that this ends is it and this is another really scary I don’t know. You know, this is not because I have a son. You know, you don’t have to have a kid to be able to appreciate this. But I think there’s this a really interesting tension here in that we know that something horrible is happening outside, and he just had this premonition to be able to stumble out there into it.  But we also know the wife has yet to discover it. And it keeps kinda flashing back to her, and she’s in the kitchen, and she’s kind of walking through, absently making her way toward the back door to kind of see what’s going on. And it’s back and forth and back and forth, and then it goes back to her and shows her through the windows of the house. There’s there’s going to be a lot of imagery through windows and in mirrors here, And she turns around and looks, and we don’t even see what she sees. We know what she sees. Right. Instantly just screams. And this the scream is so piercing and so loud and so jarring, and I think so heartbreaking.  And then immediately jumps into a jackhammer. You know, that sound becomes a jackhammer and jump completely to what would be what did they say? How many years later? Just a couple Oh,

Craig:  I don’t know. If even that, I don’t know how long it’s been. Could be a year. Because she we come to find out that she is still very much struggling. Now I don’t know why he was looking at this slide. So presumably, this is a job that he was going to be going to anyway, and that’s what happens. They they go to Venice. We we find out later that their son is in boarding school in England and that’s why he’s not with them, but they’re in Venice together, and, he is working on renovating, this old church.  But one of the first things that we see that happens with them in Venice is they go to lunch, at a restaurant. And before we even get into that, I just have to say again, you know, Venice, I’ve never been there. I’m fascinated by it. The the fact that it’s just kind of this city on the water, like, it’s it’s so Todd, but it makes for such a cool setting for a movie because everywhere they go, they’re traveling via canal, you know, they’re on these gondolas, they’re running over bridges to get across the street. And at the same time that it looks so cool, they also do a really good job of making it kind of run down. You know? And I don’t know how much work they had to do to do this, but, like, it, you know, it looks it looks a little bit rundown and and scary, I guess. I mean, it’s just really Todd. And Yeah.  I read that filming in Venice was actually very difficult because the tides would come in and out and it would affect continuity and there was all kinds of stuff. The thing that I found kind of interesting was that apparently nobody lives in Venice because because all the time, these characters are running around the streets and there’s nobody else there. Like, where are all the people? Yeah. But I I think that that was intentional. I think it was to isolate them and, and and it was effective in that way. One of the very first scenes is they go to lunch at this very fancy restaurant, and the wife notices that these 2 old ladies are, like, staring at them. And eventually these 2 old ladies, get up to go out, but they have a little bit of difficulty. I I don’t even remember what happens.  They have a little bit of difficulty and the wife’s like, oh, I better get up and help them. I guess one of them has something in her eye or something. And so she, she helps them to the ladies’ room, And then that’s where we meet, these 2 women who will be an integral part of the story, and their names are Heather and Wendy. And, they’re they’re both elderly, and Heather has these, cloudy eyes because she’s blind. Then that’s really where this big psychic element comes into the story.  You’re so sad, and there’s no need to be. My sister’s psychic. She wants you to know. I’ve seen her. And she wants you to know that she’s happy. I’ve seen your little girl sitting between you and your husband, and and she was laughing. Yes. Oh, yes.  She is with you. She is with you, my dear. And she’s laughing.

Todd:  This whole scene is filmed in the this very small bathroom. And because it’s so small that it most of it’s filmed in the mirrors in the bathroom, and it’s not like there’s one big mirror. This mirror is segmented, and you can turn the different panels. Like, you know, you wanna look at different sides of your hair or something like that. And there’s also a a person sitting in there at the same time, a woman, older woman who’s just, like, sitting there, like, she’s the bathroom attendant or something like

Craig:  that. I couldn’t tell if she was just peeing. Like, I didn’t know what  she was doing.

Todd:  Yeah. But, again, just sort of like I said in the beginning, the camera does seem to linger on her just just a little bit Todd much to the point where you get a little uncomfortable, and you think, what’s going on, and why is why is this woman important? And this is another technique that you’ll see this director use throughout the movie is that there are insignificant characters in this film that are given a certain kind of significance by the camera, and you don’t really know why. It’s very unsettling, I think.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s sinister. It’s it’s, you know, it makes you yeah. Like you said, it makes you wonder why are they important and and they seem somewhat sinister. And really, I would say 98% of the time, there’s nothing to it. It’s just a method of kind of making you a little bit at unease, I think.

Todd:  Yeah. Well, it gives the impression, I think, you kind of hit the nail on the head there when you talk about Venice. I’m fortunate enough to have to have been to Venice, and I I loved it. It was a beautiful city, and it was just every bit as romantic as it seems in in other movies as they make it seem. I was actually quite shocked at how true truly romantic and fun that city was. And that is in stark contrast, as you pointed out, to how this movie portrays Venice. Venice is this cold, kind of sinister, seems to be a very scary place. And they’re they’re very much alone here.  And when they’re not alone, it it just seems like there are shady characters who are just staring at them a little too long, like they’re completely out of place. In a way, I would say almost like ghosts. Mhmm. That is the subconscious feeling you get when you watch this movie. And so, anyway, the psychic woman delivers this message. And, of course, this shocks the mother, but it shocks her in a in a way that, really comforts her. And as these these ladies leave, Laura runs back to the table very excited. And it’s not that she’s been moping around, you know, for the, I don’t know, 10 minutes that we see her after the death of their daughter, but as we, you know, as he mentions later, she just hasn’t been herself that affected her deeply.  And whereas it seems like he might have been able to move on from it a little bit, you know, and kind of get on with life, she’s was still had this bit of hang up. And that all goes away for her, it seems, in in her excitement and hearing this message, this comforting message from the psychic. And, again, you don’t really know how good or bad this is going to be, because these women end up being portrayed in a very sinister way in the film. Even though by the end of it, you go back and you think about it, this lady’s okay. She’s got some kind of psychic gift. Right? She obviously does, and she obviously gave this woman some comfort. And every time they come on the screen, they’re helpful or, you know, at the very most kind of confused to be swept up in the events. But otherwise, they don’t do anything bad.

Craig:  No. They’re just nice old ladies. They are,

Todd:  but the movie is not going to allow you to consider them to be nice old ladies.

Craig:  It’s just not. Right. Right. Right. Yes. There’s certainly an air of mystery, around them and and you question their motives. And I think that the movie does that intentionally because there are some points where, like, I feel like Laura is trying to explain to John, oh, you know, I talked to them and they’re psychics and they told me this and blah blah blah and he’s either he or somebody else is questioning and then the movie will just cut to the 2 sisters laughing maniacally. Mhmm.  So and then and then cut away from it. With no context, you have no idea what’s going on. So you wonder if they have some sort of sinister motives, and and I think that that’s intentional and it keeps you on your toes, but ultimately in the end, you find out, no. They they really don’t. And in fact, if anything, they just kind of got swept up in this, you know, like they don’t really have any motivation at all. Yeah. It just turns out that, you know, Heather is a psychic and she can see these things and she just kind of passes on information. There’s really no benefit to them in in any way, you know, aside from helping these people.

Todd:  That’s right. Yeah. They’re not trying to scam her.

Craig:  No. No. But but but you question. Maybe they are. You don’t know.  You have  no idea what’s going on.  Yep.  Well, and so she’s all excited, I guess. And I guess in her excitement, she faints. And so they take her to the hospital, but, she tells you know, after she’s examined, the doctor says she’s fine. Laura.  John. Laura. Listen.

Clip:  I’m perfectly alright. In fact, I haven’t got as good as this in months months. I feel really fine. I don’t need pills. I’m not going crazy. I feel really great. John, I wish you’d believe me. I really feel fine.  I really feel good at last. I  feel good. I believe you. Seeing is believing. I believe you.

Craig:  They leave the hospital and they are on a gondola and, they pass by a church and she says, I I wanna stop at this church. And so they do and she says that she she wants to light a candle and say a prayer, for her daughter, which she does. And there’s just again, I think that this is a credit to the film making. It’s a very natural scene where, you know, she’s kneeling there Craig and he walks up and he’s like, I don’t like this church. And and she’s like, well, I do. So and and and and I read that there was actually, you know, a big scripted scene for this. What happened was they were just they were rolling film, and what we see him saying, I don’t like this church and her responding, that was just the actors interacting with one another, but they felt that that was far more natural than what they had scripted, which the director ended up thinking by comparison was pretty heavy handed, so they just kept it. And I think that that’s, you know, that’s that’s good filmmaking when you can, you know, assess things in the moment, and it’s true.  You know, it did feel like a very natural moment between a husband and wife and and that’s what he was hoping to establish, especially moving into the scenes, that we’re getting into. Now they meet they meet with a bishop of a church that he is renovating, And I I thought that this guy was gonna be important, so I wrote down his name as Bishop Baragio or Barbara I don’t know.

Todd:  Something

Craig:  something Italian. And he’s restoring the church. But then we get this scene of the 2 of them, and it’s just kind of a domestic scene of

Todd:  the 2 of

Craig:  them in their hotel room. Okay. Okay.

Todd:  Alright, Craig. I’m gonna have to stop you.

Craig:  I was alright. I knew it. What am I missing? What am I missing with the Boraga Baragio guy? No. You’re definitely I

Todd:  mean, we’re we’re plowing very much through the plot as well we should. But one thing that

Craig:  I wanna get to the good sexy part.  Oh, yeah. We’re doing the sexy part.

Todd:  We’re doing the notorious sexy part for sure. But, but what but what I wanna get to is the the imagery and the visuals and the symbols that crop up during this time, that we’ve Okay. We’ve talked about. Let’s go back, for example, to her fainting. Alright? When she faints, she knocks over the table. It’s very slow motion. Again, it’s a slow motion with lots of water falling and things like that. That’s a bit evocative of him at pulling his daughter out of the the the lake.  And then it does close-up on the glass of, I think it’s oil and some water and stuff that tips over on the table and plops down. It even flashes back to, one of the very first visuals that we get of the movie of rain going on some water to make these obvious visual comparisons and flashbacks. But John is not as happy as Laura is. John is a little disturbed by this psychic thing or at least by what Laura is doing. But you can see this conflict in him where he’s happy that his wife is happy, and he kinda comes around to that idea that she is okay. She’s comforted by this, but he really wants to have no part in it. And he’s even just a little too unsettled by it. For example, in this scene when they’re in the hospital, and she is looking through the the window, it looks like, at a nursery, I think.  It’s some kids playing around it. Yeah.

Craig:  A kid. Well, not it’s not babies, but it’s it’s children.

Todd:  Younger children. Yeah. And we’re getting, again, through the glass, and this is this is hammered hammered home these visuals through the glass, through mirrors and things like that, reflections just like water, just like all the visuals of glass and reflections and water that we saw in the beginning of the movie. She’s watching these kids, and one of the boys is tossing a ball up in the air. And the ball that he has is a little ball, and it has a little red pattern on it. It’s not exactly the same pattern, but it’s the same color and same kind of ball that the girl had that she was tossing around and playing with. And we’re gonna see this ball show up again and again because it turns out at one point when they come back to the scene we’re going to get to in a minute, we even see that they they have this ball with them. It’s in their luggage.  You know, it’s something they’re kind of holding onto, but it’s not really very explained, but it pops up. Yeah. And, on their way to this church, as they’re going through the canals, they pass by, a hearse and a scene. There’s some police there. It’s it’s a little unclear what’s going on. They pass through. There’s some words exchanged in Italian. There’s a bit of a crowd, but not an excited Craig, just a looking crowd.  And there’s even a guy up on a banister, you know, up a few step stories up who stares at them as they go through. And this guy will pop up in odd and insignificant ways later on in the film as well. But you get this feeling. This is this is where you start to get this feeling that, again, like I said, if they’re isolation, maybe they’re being watched and these things kind of happening around them. And the first time through, you don’t really know what what this is, what’s going on. But as the movie plays out, you realize this is the first of a series of crime scenes

Craig:  Mhmm.

Todd:  That they are coming through. And there’s apparently a murderer, who is loose in Venice right now and killing people, and they happen upon the crime scenes every single time.

Craig:  That’s funny. I totally miss that. Yeah. It it wasn’t until much later in the movie where John witnesses a body being pulled out of the canal. That was the first time I even noticed Oh, yeah. The murder stuff. Oh, sure.

Todd:  And I think that’s either the second or third time it happens, but you’re right. It’s not obvious. And and this is one of these things that kinda gets revealed to you later. And why I say whether it’s a good thing or not, it it definitely rewards a second viewing once you kind of get an idea of what’s going on. But anyway, they pass by a hearse. There are all these guys looking at them weird. And when and when they go to this church that you mentioned, he does see the blind woman and her friend there at the church.

Craig:  Oh, he does? I didn’t notice that either.

Todd:  Oh, yeah. He sat he he sees them out of the corner of his eye, and he runs over and kneels down like he’s praying and has his hands over his face, but but then kind of looks up as because he doesn’t wanna be seen by them, but at the same time, he wants to see if if if if he’s seeing them. And sure enough, they walk by. They’re they’re touring through the church, and, so he sees them, but he doesn’t really say anything to her about it. When they meet up with a priest at this other church, the priest says something very telling to them. Now the the actor I read who played this is is Italian. He didn’t know any English. So he looked quite literally Mhmm.  Didn’t know what he was saying. He just learned his lines phonetically and said them. And as you said, he has kind of a sinister presence.

Craig:  He Mhmm.

Todd:  He really just I think the best way to describe it is seems fixated on John in a way that he’s seems like he’s a little disturbed or troubled by John, almost from the get go. Mhmm. And there’s some imagery, some close ups on his cross, and the 2 of them are noticing it. And at some point, he make he asked some comment if she’s Christian and and such and such and such, and then he makes a comment to John, this priest does.

Craig:  The churches belong to God, but he doesn’t seem to care about them. Does he have other priorities? We have stopped listening.

Todd:  We’ve stopped listening.

Craig:  Yeah. I guess, I might have to watch it again. Because they saw some of these little things, you know, like, she kisses his ring, you know, when they meet and then he asks if she’s Christian and then after he’s gone, the wife’s like, why would he ask if I’m Christian? And the husband’s like, well, you kissed his ring. What would compel you to do that? And, like, all these little things going on, I just I, you know, I I I think they must have kind of flown over my head a little bit. I I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t have the context. But now that you’re pointing them out, I mean, even like, I can’t believe that I didn’t see that he’s like, eventually, he sees these these these ladies everywhere. Like, they just pop up all over the place, but I totally miss them.  I didn’t see it there. Yes. Can we get to the sexy part yet?  Let’s do it. Where’s the sexy part? We’re already there.

Todd:  Take it away, Craig. Thanks.

Craig:  Okay. So, then they like, there’s just this domestic scene with them in their hotel room, and, like, they talk for a little while. And then, you know, they’re just getting I don’t know. They’re going to dinner, I guess. So they’re getting ready for dinner and they’re both just naked and, you know, getting ready in the bathroom, like, brushing their teeth or whatever, and she kind of teases them like he’s gained weight or whatever and so he goes and weighs. And, you know, it it’s it’s all just very natural, but it ultimately leads into this big sex scene. And, like, you know, I can take or leave sex scenes most of the time, whatever, especially in horror. They’re usually just super gratuitous and, like, laughable, really.  But this scene, I actually thought was just a a a really beautiful scene. Like, the way that it was shot, and it’s it’s it’s pretty darn steamy.

Todd:  It is. But at

Craig:  the same time, it didn’t feel porny.

Todd:  No.

Craig:  It was a, you know, a nice intimate scene between these 2 and for years years years, there was speculation that this scene was not simulated, that the actors were actually engaged in intercourse in this scene. And at age 83, Donald Sutherland, you know, address it on some panel somewhere and said, oh my god. It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. There was nothing sexy about it. Like, we were under these hot lights in this tiny room. Apparently, in the 19 seventies, the the the cameras were very Todd. And then so it was super Todd, and there were 2 the director and, I guess, the DP were in there both with cameras, filming and he was, like, they you know, it was 15 second shots between the director saying, okay, lick her nipples. Okay.  Get between put your head between her legs. But, ultimately, he also said that that’s one of the favorite his favorite scenes that he’s ever done in film because he felt like it was actually representative of making love, you know, not just boning, but, you know, making love. And it comes across that way. It’s good and I I feel like really I I appreciated the scene because it really invested me in their relationship. I believed them as a married, loving, intimate couple and that was helpful moving forward, because there it it raised the stakes, you know. They they really care about each other and they’re concerned about each other and, so good job sex scene.

Todd:  Well, part of the genius of it is what surrounds it too, you know. Like you said, it’s just this it’s this very casual kind of playful where they they’re they’re 2 married people and they they get naked. You know? They’re kind of dressing and they get distracted and so or get un undressing and they get distracted and she’s taken her bath, but she doesn’t run up immediately and throw a towel around herself and start dressing, you know.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  They’re hanging out there. At one point, the maid pops in and he’s a little, you know, oops. Yeah. Sitting there at his table naked. It’s just it’s just very real. Yeah. You know? And and then, the sex scene, all of this really sexy stuff that that we’re talking about is intercut with the scenes of the post sex operation, which is the putting on of the clothes and the dressing up to go out. So it really gets you with this mindset, like, they’re taking a break Yeah.  To do this thing that varied couples will do sometimes when the mood strikes them, And then they’re gonna get on with their day and go out and kind of have a nice dinner. So it literally intercuts between this and it does it in very good ways to where it’s not jarring, but once one visual kinda plays off another of, you know, him kind of rolling her over. And then it’s suddenly it’s him turning around a little bit and and then tossing his shirt on and then, you know, him close-up with his hands on her breast and then, a shot of her, like, putting on her her sweater or whatnot and starting to button. And, it’s just it’s so odd, but it just feels so right. And it grounds it, like you said, in this reality, in this beauty of sex as a natural act that you loving people do, and not this, you know, ape fest of just, you know, honking all over each other and

Craig:  roping and, you know, like Well, yeah.

Todd:  Even though there’s an awful lot of that happening.

Craig:  Yeah. And I like the point that you bring up that like it’s just, you know, that’s, you know, they do it and then they get dressed and they go out to dinner. And as they’re walking out of the hotel, you know, he’s got his arm around her and he’s holding her close and it’s just very it’s you’re right. It’s real. I mean, those of us who are grown ups and who have experienced love and intimacy, you know, that that happens. You know? Anyway, it’s nice. But let alright. We better move on.  Now this is a part that I I think that you’re gonna have to explain to me because they go out and they’re looking either they’re looking for the restaurant that they’re going to or they’re done and they’re trying to find their way back home. I don’t know, but one way or another, they kind of get lost a little bit and they end up in this dark alley and they’re they’re still having fun, you know, they’re still kind of teasing one another and and whatnot and, but they get kind of in this dark alley and he’s certain that he knows where he’s going, but then they get to the end of this alley and he’s, like, oh, wait. No, this isn’t right. And so she turns around and goes back the other way, but he lingers there for a moment and he like is touching the wall and he says, I know this place and then he hears someone cry for help and it looks like he sees this person crying for help, but he just ignores it and turns around and and rejoins her. And and when she’s like, did you hear that? I heard something. And he was like, oh, it was just a cat or something. What was that all about?

Todd:  Sure. Well, I’m glad you asked. It’s not clear. It’s it’s never gonna be a 100% clear, but he’s obviously getting that feeling of deja vu. And we’re getting the sense that, and it hasn’t been explicitly told to us yet, but we’re getting the sense that he is getting some premonitions here. But what he does witness is something very real, and, again, it’s only through after watching the movie that you realize what it is, and that is he has seen, the killer. There’s a window, like you said, it pans up. He’s standing at the at the end of this, alley, and there’s a canal ahead across them, and then there’s another building in front of them.  And, up the top, there’s a sound of a scream, but a a very domestic thing of, I think a woman just, you know, whips out her laundry, and then closes the shutters. And as the camera pans down, you see this small red figure with a slicker, just like his daughter, you know, wore, scurry across, a door not a doorway, but an opening in in the alleyway across the way. And I think Todd his mind, he wasn’t he didn’t really trust his senses here. He’s looking at this, and he sees somebody fly by in a red slicker, but he knows that his daughter’s on his mind. And so he’s not sure if he really saw anything at all. And again, just because everything in this movie is subtle, it could very well have been a cat scream. You know? He does it’s not like he looked up, there was a shadow of a of a dagger in the window, and then he heard a scream, and then he saw a person small snippet of the aftermath of a of a murder. I was across the street.  I heard something, didn’t really think of it, thought it was a cat, saw a person run by, wasn’t even sure if I saw a person run by, and that’s that. And they just, you know, walk away from it. And it’s not until later that he thinks in his head after he sees more of this that maybe there’s some connection

Craig:  there. Yeah. I I was lost. I didn’t know what was going on, but

Todd:  okay. Well and one other thing I wanna point out just because I’m gonna I’m not gonna point out every little detail because that would get annoying, but there’s another thing that I think is really interesting, and that is their whole relationship with the hotel that they’re staying in. I think it’s interesting that when they leave that hotel scene This is another one of these scenes that just seems to linger a little too long, and you’re really not sure why. They leave the hotel, and they exchange some words with the hotel guy, the owner or whatever. And there’s another person just sort of standing there. And he asked, are you guys gonna eat in? They’re like, no, we’re gonna go out and eat. And he’s like, okay, blah blah Todd, be safe, and and they go. But the camera doesn’t follow them out.  It stays in the hotel on this guy, and he just kinda watches him go. And he turns around. He says something to the staff, and he looks back, and then he just kinda goes back in about his business. And then the camera pans slightly left to the furniture in the hotel lobby, which is all covered with sheets. It all seems very strange, but then as the film goes on and we come back to them in this hotel, we realized the hotel was closing. They’re, like, basically the last guests in this hotel. Right. This is an interesting choice too, I think, because it again, it adds to that sense that they’re alone in this city.  It’s it’s like they’re here. They’re foreign. They don’t belong. People are staring at them everywhere they go, and even the hotel they’re staying in is closing up behind them.

Craig:  Well, to be fair, I mean, I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but aren’t they just closing for the season? Like, I feel like it’s like a  Yeah.  A seasonal deal. It could be. Because he goes back he goes back after they’re closed. And and we’re skipping over some stuff. I’ll come right back to it. But the he goes back and he’s and he talks to the manager, and he’s like, it is my vacation. Like, so I I think it’s just closed up for the season. But yeah.  I mean, it definitely adds to the atmosphere that all the it definitely adds to their isolation. They they run into these ladies again. Well, first of all, they’re they’re at the church that he’s renovating. And I know that you’re gonna wanna mention this because she sees these ladies again. She talks to them and she’s like, can you contact the dead? And at first, Heather, the psychic, is like, I don’t know. Not really. You know, it’s it’s not really my place. And and she’s like, no.  My intentions are good. Would you at least try? And she’s like, okay. So she wants to go, but John doesn’t wanna go. So he goes and waits for her, like, in a cafe while she goes and and meets with these ladies. Heather, the psychic, has like a moment where she, like, rubs her boobs and, like, moans for  a while.

Todd:  Yeah. It’s pretty odd.

Craig:  And and and we don’t really hear what she says, but then and and and John is worried about her and tries to find her in the flat, but can’t find her and everybody’s just kind of suspicious of him, like, snooping around. But when she comes back out and finds him

Clip:  Todd, when I was there, she she went into the most incredible trance really Concentrate. Now, John.

Craig:  Yes? She said

Clip:  that that your life is in danger while you’re in Venice. She get on and on and on saying it.

Craig:  But he’s angry, about this whole shenanigans. But he does agree. He says, I will talk to the bishop and see if I can get some time off and I’ll take some time off. Meanwhile, in the middle of the night, they get a call that their son John was in an accident at school in England. And so in the middle of the night, they make arrangements for Laura to go, to England. She gets a charter flight that she gets the last seat on this flight, but he stays. And so the next Todd, when he’s going to be telling the bishop that he needs to go, he’s checking out these mosaics, in the church, like, they’ve they’ve gotten new tiles to restore these mosaics and, he wants to check to see if they match. So he climbs up this scaffolding and gets on to this, like, window washer.  I don’t know what Todd call it. Elevator kind of thing. And he’s checking the mosaics. And now I noticed this. Did you notice, mister cluey man, that the stain on the wall was the same as the stain on the slide?  Oh, of course.  Yeah. Oh, of course.

Todd:  Mister cluey man.

Craig:  So anyway, the scaffold that he’s on or this hanging scaffold that he’s on collapses and he’s hanging on this rope, and he’s way up high. I mean, I would say a good 2 stories high. It’s a very tense scene and, you know, everybody’s freaking out and they’re trying to help him. Eventually, they get him down. Now I I had read that the stuntman for this scene refused to do it because they hadn’t cleared it through the insurance yet. And so Donald Sutherland just said, well, fine. I’ll do it myself, and he did and he was connected to a safety wire and and they filmed the scene and it was fine. You know, everything went okay and and there was no problem, but, later he was talking to the or a stunt coordinator, I don’t know, and the stunt coordinator said, you know, that that wire that you were hanging from was not designed to be twisted around because when he’s up there on the rope, he’s flailing about and like he’s kind of twisting around And he said, if you had let go, that wire probably would have snapped.  So it was a a dangerous scene, but it it’s, you know, it’s kind of a cool scene and then he’s like, oh, Craig, you know. He even talks to the bishop afterward and he’s like, my wife got this premonition from a psychic that said I was in trouble, and that I was gonna die. But he didn’t and he feels relieved about that.  And then they go ahead. Can can I interrupt? Just just real quick. I I

Todd:  I swear I’m not gonna go too too deep into this. But but they’re just they’re like you said, as mister cluey man,

Craig:  I have an obligation to pop in

Todd:  a few extra clues here. The way that the scaffolding starts to fall is there is a board up in the the rafters that just tips over. It’s not like a person knocks it or whatever. It just seems like it was bound to happen. And, it it tips over, and it whacks a pane of glass that was on some some equipment that was attached Yeah. To this thing that he’s standing on, and it shatters that pane of glass. It’s very reminiscent of the pane of glass just in the very beginning of the movie that the kid ran over with the bicycle. It’s

Craig:  it’s it’s

Todd:  a definite call to that. And in in this scene, you’re right, is absolutely tense, and it looks dangerous even for a stuntman to do. I’m pretty amazed with all the stuff falling and hitting him as he’s dangling and, you know, there that that that didn’t happen. But it’s really key, to point out that when she met with the psychics, one thing that she very specifically said to Laura was your husband has the gift. Yeah. Has the gift. And that’s the first point where it’s explicitly told to us that maybe all of this this weirdness that that he’s feeling is not totally in his head. Maybe he is having these premonitions.  And I think that is the point in which the viewer were clued in to start really looking for these things that have been there all along, And they deliver them. They really do, I think, deliver them in spades. But that point at which she comes to him and she’s so excited, this is also kind of a a breaking point for him.

Clip:  I really think we have to leave, Venice. It was a warning. It was Christine. She was trying to warn us. How can I oh, we must leave, John? John, do you hear what I say? It was Christine, our daughter.

Craig:  My daughter is dead, Laura. She does not come peeping with messages back from behind the ing grave. Christine is dead. She is dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.  Dead.

Todd:  That is the point at which he decides he’s gonna have to let her go back, but he’s he’s not gonna go just yet. He doesn’t I don’t think he really believes that he’s in danger. Or if he does, he just doesn’t know what to do. And I and I think this just sort of rings true to life. It’s like we don’t get these clear signals in life about the next step we’re supposed to take or the next decision we’re supposed to to make. Sometimes we just get a sense of what maybe we should do or maybe we don’t, but we don’t really come to a decision, so we really don’t for a while. Mhmm. And I feel like that’s the the area in which he’s living in right here.  He’s a little uncomfortable. He’s a little disturbed by what’s going on. Maybe he’s getting these premonitions, but he’s just not willing to just lay down and accept that. So he just the decision he makes is to kind of not really make a decision. He just is like, okay, then you go home if that’s what you wanna do, and maybe I’ll follow you soon. Right.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. I think that he was going to be yeah. Because he said he would take the time off. I’m glad that you brought that up because it’s certainly important that the psychic lady says your your husband has the gift Todd. That’s why your daughter was trying to contact him. She says, when I saw you in the restaurant, she was trying to talk to your husband. And you know that’s just an interesting conversation that we could have that would take another 55 minutes or whatever.  Yeah. I I think everybody’s a little bit psychic, you know. And I don’t mean that in the, you know, we all see things or have premonitions or whatever, but you have feelings. You know, you have good feelings about some things. You have bad feelings about some things, and I think for some people, that’s more heightened. And and you really kinda get the sense in this movie that if he was more in tune with that maybe somewhat  heightened ability that he  has, that that would help him. Signs, you know, like, go with your gut. But he Right. Doesn’t. He doesn’t. Yeah. Go with your gut. But he Right.  Doesn’t. He doesn’t.

Todd:  Yeah. And it’s not and it’s not final destination in that death leaves these signs that if you’re good, you can find them. But it’s exactly what you described. It’s it feels like a more real kind of when you feel uneasy about something, even if you can’t pinpoint why, your brain probably knows

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  Better than your consciousness does, and it’s a good idea to heed those those feelings for even if you can’t explain them away

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  With a little with a little supernatural element thrown in here. You know, it’s not explicitly supernatural, but I think we’re I I would go on record saying this movie is definitely paints him as having a psychic gift, just as these women legitimately have some psychic gift.

Craig:  Right. At this point okay. So he’s talking to the bishop after this whole accident, and they they see, a body getting pulled out of the canal. And that was really kind of the first time that I even noticed that there were these murders going on. But apparently, there’s a murderer on the loose. He has to like you said, he has to leave the hotel because they’re closing, so he’s leaving. Now I got the sense that he was headed like, he was gonna leave for England. Like, he was on the canal and he was gonna leave for England, but he sees Laura and the old lady sisters on a boat on the canal.  She’s supposed to be in England, so he’s Laura is and so he’s totally weirded out. And so he calls out to them, but they don’t respond. But he goes to the police because he’s worried about this murderer and the fact that his wife is supposed to be in England, but she’s not. And he tells the police that, you know, she’s not a well woman. I’m I’m concerned about her. And the police kinda blow him off, and again, this is another instance where the the the chief of police or whoever it is that he’s talking to comes across as being kind of sinister, like, you can’t really tell what’s going on in his mind. The police, you know, basically just kind of dismiss him, but they put a tail on him. And he goes and he’s been looking for the sisters building, but he hasn’t been able to find it.  But eventually, he does find it, but their room their hotel room is empty. And so, he’s he’s still very concerned, but then he calls his son’s school which I don’t know why he didn’t do this from the very beginning.  Yeah.  He he calls his son’s school and he’s like, is my kid okay? And they’re like, yeah. Do you wanna talk to your wife? And he’s all surprised, but she’s there and she’s been there and she’s fine and the kid is fine So he doesn’t really know what’s going on. Meanwhile, the police have arrested Heather and Wendy because he said that they may have something to do with his wife’s disappearance and and he finds that out and he goes to the the police station and Heather, the blind one is there, but Wendy has gone like like she goes to her embassy, I guess because they’ve been arrested and she wants help. The police let them go and so he walks, Heather home. By the end, Heather explains, you know, we switched hotels. There was nothing ominous going on there. And, he takes her there, and Wendy’s already there. And, like, they offer him a drink, but he just has some water and he stays and he’s apologetic and he feels really bad and but he leaves.  Meanwhile, Laura has gotten back to Venice and she was taken immediately to the police station because that’s where he was supposed to be, but he’s not there. So the police give her the address to Heather and Wendy’s flat and she heads that way, but she doesn’t get there before he leaves. They kind of cross paths in the night like he leaves and then she arrives immediately after. And Heather has this vision where, again, she has, like, a seizure.

Clip:  Please make him fight. Action. Action.

Craig:  And so Laura goes out looking for him, which, again, I thought this was just kind of a funny scene because she just runs around Venice like it’s like a like like it’s a block. Like like like if she just runs around the block a couple of times, eventually, surely, she’ll find him. He is out there and sporadically throughout the movie, he has thought that he has seen his daughter, I guess. I mean, it’s this small person in a red rain slicker and he sees this person again and he starts following her and Laura is chasing him around and eventually he finds her and he corners her in like a room or a corner or something and she’s standing there with her back to the wall and then she turns around and then I have no idea what’s happening.

Todd:  Well, this is this is the murderer. Okay? So so what what has happened here? And I’ll just flat out explain it. And, you know, it’s

Craig:  Please, because I have no idea.

Todd:  It’s convenient for the story. It’s one of those, you know, writers things where okay. Alright. These are just a series of coincidences that are just gonna propel the story along. But this killer has been wearing this red rain slicker the entire time, that she’s been seen be seen by him and out and about. And so, you know, it just so happens that his daughter, you know, wore that Red Reigns similar Red Reign slicker. So, you know, when he thinks he’s seeing her out and about, he’s probably he’s actually seeing the killer. And so when he chases this little person, this red rain slicker, down into this alley, and it turns around.  It’s it’s not his daughter. It’s this killer, and he is the he is the the next victim. So she just hacks him with a knife. And this point here, where he gets cut with a knife in the neck, and he falls down, just starts to bleed out to death. I’ll liken it to spoiler alert. If you’ve if you haven’t seen The Usual Suspect, cover your ears right now. But this is the this is the Kaiser Soze moment of The Usual Suspects in a way where it’s flashing back to a lot of these symbols that and and premonitions that were given to us in the movie. It’s it’s connecting things a little bit.  It’s showing, the him coming face to face with a statue that looks an awful lot like this kind of hag like woman that ends up being this murderer that he gets face to face with. It’s it’s bouncing back and forth with these visuals that I a lot of which I haven’t pointed out, but some I have, the breaking glass and then the one point where they had the breaking glass, and and and back and back and forth, and trying to visually tie some of that for us together because this may be the only time we see the movie. Right. So it’s it’s pointing out all of those things quite explicitly through a back and forth cut. So he dies. I mean, that’s it. He’s he’s dead. And the final finale is that, sure enough, they’re on a on a hearse floating through is this is his wife and the 2 ladies.  And what he had seen was a premonition of his own funeral. Right. That’s the basically, the image that it leaves us with more or less, as as the credits roll.

Craig:  I have to say that this convention, and it is a convention, you don’t see it all the time, but where there’s a killer and you know there’s there’s all this intrigue and mystery and then it turns out that the killer is somebody that you’ve never seen before and you have no idea who they are. That irritates me a little bit.  Yeah. I agree. Well

Todd:  and that’s the thing like this. That’s because the movie is totally unconcerned about the mystery of the killer. Like you said, we don’t even really get a clear understanding that there is a series of murders going around until, like, maybe the 3rd time. And then it’s like, oh, yeah. So that’s what they had been seeing the last few times. The movie isn’t really trying to set this up as a a murder mystery along with, you know, this couple’s grieving and and this psychic weirdness. It’s it’s purely just plot driven device.

Craig:  Yeah. And and I feel like it’s it’s more kind of a a character study, you know, of these characters, Todd on around, and if he had been or even if he had listened to the people who were trying to warn him, that he might have escaped this fate, and and I do think that that’s more important. But when this person turns around and she’s this little she’s, I don’t know, like, 4 foot something, and she’s just this little squat old lady and I’m like, what?  Where did this come from? Yeah.

Todd:  Well, am I supposed to because you’re me well, you’re thinking, am I supposed to know who this is? Right? Is this, like, a reveal or something? And it turns out not to be. And that, I think, is a weakness of the film. I honestly agree with you there. I think that this whole ending seems a little contrived. But, you know, there’s even, like, you know, some of these back and forth. One thing that we really haven’t talked about, because I’m not gonna go out and point it out, but when you watch this movie a second time, you need to look for the red. Just look for the red. It is everywhere.  Because most of Venice, like you said, and most of this movie is is fairly dreary

Craig:  looking Yeah.

Todd:  Fairly muddy looking. It takes a beautiful place and really makes it not as beautiful as it should be. But what really pops is the red. You’ll notice in every scene, almost, there is some red, and it comes back in some really unsettling ways. But I think the first time you see it through, at least what the director’s trying to do is make this very subconscious. But it sure seems very clever once you start watching this movie from the beginning again and looking for this red. And, I don’t know. I just I just as like you said, as a as a movie put together, it’s really well made.  I think that it’s it’s done like a painter paints. You know? The it’s very concerned about the visuals, puts a lot of time and thought and energy into these tiny little details that are in the scene that are all very significant, but are not immediately obvious to you while you’re watching the movie. I think they just all combine to give you an overall effect. And that is the bed that underpins the plot, which you like you said, it’s more a character study. It’s not it’s not as interested in the plot as it is with instilling us with this feeling of grief and loss that these people are going through, and the loneliness that, they that they experience because of it, and the tension that puts on their relationship. And then with that psychic element thrown in, how, you know, not really paying too much attention to those things and those signs leads to his ultimate, you know, demise.

Craig:  Yeah. I I would be really interested in reading the source material. The the author of the source material contacted. I don’t know if it was the director or one of the other filmmakers but contacted them after seeing it and said that she thought that they did a great job, that she thought that it was a great adaptation of her work and an excellent film, and it feels literary, you know, it feels like you you have to pay a little bit more attention than your especially your standard horror flick, and that’s not being critical of those because I love those Todd, but there’s there’s a lot going on here, and and I I believe you. You know, I think in watching it a second time, there would be some satisfaction in picking up on some of the things that I didn’t pick up the first time. So, you know, overall, again, as I’ve said from the beginning and I stand by it, I think it’s a really, really well made film. But I I think you’re right that, you know, to really appreciate it, you’re probably gonna have to see it more than once.

Todd:  Yep. For sure. And and, you know, is that is that a sign of a good film? I don’t know. You know, honestly. I

Craig:  don’t know.

Todd:  I don’t know. It I feel like you have an obligation as a as a producer of art to not try deliberate You’re supposed to be communicating something. If you’re deliberately masking, you know, things, too much, then you’re really working against what you’re trying to accomplish. In this sense, I don’t think they’re doing that, but is it too subtle? You know? Is there is all of this a little too clever for its own good? Should you really have to rewatch a movie to be able to pick up on all these things, and the first time around, you’re more confused by it than anything else? Yeah. I don’t know. We we can argue both sides of that, I think.

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, if it weren’t as well made as it is, I would say, yeah, that’s that’s crap. You know, don’t don’t just don’t just force me to watch it again for the sake of making me watch it again, but this is this is well made. I think it’s well crafted and well put together and well thought out. And, again, it’s it’s not my favorite movie. I still thought it was a little boring, but I can appreciate and understand why people give it such praise and and why it ends up on those must see lists. I get it.

Todd:  Well, it’s a good way to kick off our month of don’ts. Yeah.

Craig:  This is

Todd:  a but the I think that the distance between, don’t look now and say, don’t look in the basement is going to be significant, probably. Thanks again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher, wherever you find your favorite podcasts. You can also find our Facebook page. Like us there. Go to our home page at 2 guys dot redfortynet.com, where we occasionally post some written movie reviews to supplement our podcast. Until next time.  I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.