2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

You’ve no doubt heard of Puppet Master. But have you seen it? The original, and not one of the hundreds of sequels? We did. And we talked about it. And it was interesting. Take a listen.

Episode 80, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, we’ve been doing a slew of requests lately. Haven’t we, Craig? Yep. And today’s request comes to us from loyal listener, Andrew. Thank you, Andrew, for suggesting 1989’s Puppet Master. Puppet Master, this one was a popular one.   I mean, you saw it on the shelf. I think it was in the consciousness of about every horror fan around the late eighties, early nineties. And, I swear that I had seen it before, but after watching it today, I think what I had seen was one of the 1,000,000,000 sequels to it instead. And I think what I had seen was, Puppet Master 3, Toulon’s Revenge because this one didn’t ring any bells. Craig, had you seen this one before? 

Craig:  I had, but I’m kind of in the same boat as you. I know that I’ve seen this one. There are a lot of memorable scenes that I remembered, but I do think that I saw the sequels more often. And I think that that may be because while I do really appreciate this movie for what it is, I think that with the sequels, they went a lot more madcap. And I think that that suited the material well, and and maybe that’s why we remember those a little bit more. But like you said, there I don’t know how many sequels there have been. I think at least 6, and they’re still making them. So, yeah.   It it’s been on the radar for a long time. The funny thing is, when I looked this up and saw that it was 1989, I was really surprised. I had thought that it had come out much earlier than that. To to find tapes on the shelf, and that just seemed like such a part of my video store experience was, you know, the puppet master and and all of its sequels. I I really had thought that it was, an older film than that. 

Todd:  Well, I guess they started cranking them out pretty quickly. When we’re doing this podcast, they’re you know, I are pretty die hard horror fans, but there’s still a lot of things that we don’t know and we learn as we go along. I was really interested to find out that the man who produced this and really takes a lot of credit for the series, whether it’s deserved or not, is a man named Charles Band. He started a low budget film studio back in the mid eighties called Empire Pictures and was responsible for a lot of putting out a lot of the movies that some of them many of them we’ve reviewed. One of them, sorority babes and the slimeball bowl a rama, and, Ghoulies, and a lot of these pictures that we know and love that are pretty notorious even though Empire Pictures folded because he sounds like a pretty interesting guy and maybe a little nuts. He he got flushed with cash with Ghoulies in one other film, and so, he went and he bought a 12th century castle, like, over in Romania or something, and decided that that was going to be the studio, kind of their base of operations. I think it was in Spain, actually. And, then started, you know, filming a lot of low budget horror movies.   And the guy’s heart was in the right place. He really saw a need, especially in the direct to video market he was to later find Mhmm. For these low budget horror films. And then we talked about that when we talked about David deCoteau and how they couldn’t really fill the demand fast enough. Well, this guy was the one doing it. And when Empire Pictures folded because he owed a bunch of people money, he started a new one called Full Moon Pictures and really picked up where he left off. And this film, I think, was the one that put Full Moon on the map and is the reason why we have so many sequels to it is because he was able to fund a lot of his other movies just from the sequels to Puppet Master. You know, which is really interesting.   You mentioned that the later ones are really madcap. And they they almost have to be, you know. I wasn’t really thrilled with this movie and part of that, I think, comes from the fact that you’re dealing with some pretty silly subject matter at least Oh, sure. Especially in the the hands of low budget film. You really run the risk of pure awfulness, really, when you’ve got little puppets, and you’re trying to make it convincing that little puppets are running around killing people. And in this movie, when they try to get really serious, and hardcore about it, it doesn’t really come off, I think, as well as the later films do when it seemed like they were maybe having a little more fun with it. 

Craig:  Yes. Yeah. I agree. I don’t know a whole lot about the producer except that I read that the director of this movie, David Schmoller, was not invited back, for any of the sequels. And he believes that that’s because, the producer Charles Band or Brand or whatever his name is, really wanted, ownership of this this franchise. You know, he didn’t want anybody else to be more associated with it than him. And I heard, or read rather that he had always kind of had a fascination with, dolls or toys or, you know, small inanimate objects, being animated and coming to life. And in fact, he had done a movie previous to this one called Dolls, which I remember really fondly.   In fact, I, you know, I whip that one out and watch it every once in a while. And and like this one, it’s it’s goofy and completely nonrealistic, but, a good story nonetheless. And the same thing can be said of this one, you know, it is low budget, but and to be fair, I I guess one could argue that this really kind of ushered in, lots of other movies like it. You know? Like, there was demonic toys, which is pretty terrible, but also entertaining. And child’s play came before it, and, I think maybe Dolly Dearest or something maybe came before it too. So yeah. I don’t know. I mean, I guess it’s just part of a a particular subgenre of horror.   It’s a little silly, but obviously it works. You know, there’s there’s an audience for it. I don’t know. You know, you say you weren’t particularly thrilled with it. I have to say I I kind of agree, but I I felt like the movie had a lot of potential, and maybe it just didn’t quite live up to the potential, whether that be due to budgetary restraints or or whatever. But the idea, I think, is you well, I don’t know if unique’s the right word, but clever. The way that the movie opens up, well, you know, there’s the title sequence and you see some puppets and and some kind of creepy imagery of puppets and whatnot. And then it goes to a shot of this really cool looking, hotel right on the seaside somewhere.   And it’s the Bodega Bay Inn, and it says it’s 1939. And you see right away what you’re gonna be dealing with, which is living puppets. There is some sort of Asian or Mongolian puppet that you see immediately looking out the window of this hotel, and he’s animated. He moves on his own. There is this old guy painting puppets, and this guy turns out to be Andre Toulon, who is played by William Hickey, who is really super recognizable to me. And I looked at I looked at his, IMDB page and I really didn’t remember a lot of the things that he was from, but the things that I did remember him from were really, really memorable to me. He played the Todd, crotchety uncle, in Christmas Vacation. He was also in the Tales from the Dark Side movie.   The cat episode. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And and he’s this little old guy, and and he he has a distinctive look too, but it’s really his voice. He’s he’s got kind of this strange voice that he talks in. That was not at all a good impression, but but he’s got this really distinctive voice. And I was glad to see him and a little bit sad, I didn’t remember that, he’s only in the movie for about the first, I don’t know, 5 or 10 minutes.   But, he’s there and he’s with his puppets. And then kind of the next shot that you get is this, what I thought really, was this great puppet POV shot Yeah. Of what is clearly this puppet running around outside the hotel, making its way into the hotel. And it’s a pretty standard POV shot. You know, it’s low to the ground because it’s a puppet, and it’s a little bit jerky. But what I really liked about it were there are are these it’s not sound effects, but you can just hear the puppet kind of breathing as it’s running around and making little noises. I I thought it was actually really cute. Yeah.   And and this puppet, that it ends up, knocking on Toulon’s door, and and Toulon lets it in. And and and he says 

Clip:  Hello? They’re coming. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. I’ll take care 

Todd:  of you. 

Craig:  And we see these 2 black trench coat guys, and when they speak you hear that they have German accents. And they’re making their way to Toulon’s room, and he is assuring the puppets a he takes a gun out and kills himself. And and that’s kind of the setup for the movie. To be really honest with you, I’m not really sure what was going on there. I’m not who sure who those German guys were, you know, why Toulon felt threatened by them. I’ve read that there are a couple of the Puppet Master sequels that, bridge the gap between part 1 and part 3, and and one of them is called, like, Puppet Master Axis of Evil or something like that. So so I I think that maybe we further on down the line in the series, get a little bit of explanation of what was going on with Toulon, but I’m not really sure here. But that that sets up, the whole movie and then it goes on from there.   And I I understand, I think, why you said you’re not a huge fan of it because the plot is is is really thin. I mean, it’s it’s it’s just a matter of getting a bunch of people together so that these puppets can kill them, which is fine, but it’s it’s it’s not necessarily the strongest writing, I would say. 

Todd:  Well, you know, you mentioned some really nice things about this. And I’ll have to say that this beginning portion of the movie really did capture my interest because it was different. The first thing really is is sympathy for the puppets. You know Yeah. I mean, right off the bat, like you said, we’re getting this puppet, you know, running across the ground, which is fantastic cinematography, and it went on 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  So long actually that you’re wondering how nobody notices this puppet running along the floor in this busy hotel. But matter of fact, it’s it’s really Todd, and you’re hearing, like you said, his breathing and his struggling. Right? You know, which kind of humanizes them in a way. You know, when when you think of puppets being brought to life, you don’t actually imagine them also breathing, and being quite, you know, that human. Sure. And you don’t really see that in the other movies either. So, that’s one element. But then, he cares about these dolls.   He’s painting them. And when he takes that one puppet who I don’t know. It’s the white faced guy with the hook. I’m sure he has a particular 

Craig:  name. I think they call him Blade. I think they call him Blade in the in the later sequels. Yeah. 

Todd:  Okay. So Blade, when he picks him up, you know, Blade looks like a pretty scary little puppet, but he puts him in the cabinet very tenderly. And he says to him, you know, I’m sorry that we didn’t have more time together. It’s such a shame. And and the puppet whimpers, you know 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Before he puts it away. So that that was really pretty good, and different again, creating the sympathy for this puppet. It’s it’s an origin story for the evil puppet that’s really not about, a serial killer who died and then possessed this puppet or, you know, this horrible you don’t get the sense that Toulon is the bad guy. You get the sense that these guys are the bad guy. Toulon’s a victim, and he has this magical power that he’s able to imbue these puppets with life, really just by waving his hands over them, and saying a few words. We see that with the puppet a minute or 2, you know, before with a scrambling face. It’s whose face whips around, and then every time it kinda whips around, it has a different expression, which is really clever. I The design of these puppets is really neat.   So this Mhmm. Does have a lot of good things going for it, and I can tell, like you said, I think that it it’s enough material here to spawn a lot of sequels that are probably a lot better than this movie. But you’re right. The writing is terrible. I mean, even in the beginning I was kind of looking at my watch going, when are we gonna get to something? Because as soon as this happens, we we start hopping around the country. You know, we’re at Yale and this guy named Alex is having this dream. It’s a dream about a guy holding a gun to a girl’s head in this, kind of, white room. And then when he wake, you know, and then he wakes up and he looks down and there’s blood splotches coming out of his stomach, and he tears away his shirt.   And there are, like, leech like creatures on there. And then he wakes up again. He’s got this, like, dream within a dream within a dream thing Right. Which we see more than once. Yep. Yeah. And then boom, we’re at this gypsy fortune teller, like, the world’s worst cold reader, who is trying to tell these 2, people’s fortunes. Honestly, like, the writing is terrible.   Like, they’re asking these inane questions and her answers are so I mean, not only is she the world’s worst, cold reader, but they are the world’s most gullible people. And I and, obviously, this is played for comedy, but, you know, it’s hard to do comedy, and sometimes it doesn’t come across. And and in my case, this didn’t come across very well. 

Craig:  Yeah. And it is funny. And, I I had noticed, when the credits the opening credits were coming up on the screen that one of the last actor credits was, a special appearance by Barbara Barbara Crampton. She was the the female of the couple at this palm reading or or psychic reading or whatever it is. She’s very young. I mean, Barbara Crampton, we’ve watched several of the movies that she’s been in. I mean, she, has has been in the industry for a long time, has done lots of classic horror movies. The most recent one I think that we saw was, We’re Still Here, which is a a fairly modern movie, and and she’s older in that movie.   What are was was she in chopping mall? What else was she? 

Todd:  Was. That’s she’s kind of our lake. She’s our Kevin Bacon. Remember? 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, man. 

Todd:  And and chopping what was also produced by Empire Pictures. So, you know, there again. 

Craig:  That makes sense. And you’re right. I mean, this scene is just so silly and and your left, or at least I was, kind of wondering, like, what is going on? Why are we meeting all these people? And eventually, the you know, we find out and it’s not like it doesn’t make any sense at all. It does make sense, you know, the all these people that we’re meeting have some sort of psychic ability, and that’s and and they’ve been connected in their past, and and that’s, how they’re all connected. But it is funny. I mean, the lines are so goofy. 

Clip:  Do you think Buddy Here’s ever gonna get a real job?   I see retail sales.   What? Retail sales? No, ma’am. I’m sorry. You better look again because buddy here, he flunked out of the 10th grade. I don’t see how it can be in retail sales.   Well, you see here, I see construction. I see you working as a foreman of a construction company in a retail store, kinda like an enormous shopping mall. You are gonna be a rich man. You are gonna build a shopping mall. Wow. Yes, sir. You are gonna be a rich man.   Oh, maybe I will marry him then. I sit   next to a very rich man. 

Craig:  I’m a gold mine. And then she’s like, the only the only other thing that I see is your grandmother. Sadly, she’s not going to be with us for very long. And the girl’s like, My grandmothers are already dead. And, the lady whose name is Dana, we find out later says, Oh, that’s right. I meant it’s his grandmother. Like it’s just so ridiculous and they’re so gullible and they believe everything. But, you know, that’s kind of how I feel about these types of people in general.   You know, like they they’re they’re still you know, these people are still out there making money scamming people. You know, they pick people out of their audience who probably they have investigated in the past anyway, and they give them these really generic, you know, cues like, I’m seeing an M. They’re like, Yes, my mother’s name is Marsha. 

Todd:  It’s 

Craig:  just the most so so it’s not like this is totally 

Todd:  out of the realm 

Craig:  of believability, but they do play it, for comedy and it is silly. Well But at the end of the scene, she gets some sort of vision, and and her vision is of the blade puppet who we’ve already seen, murdering a woman. And I couldn’t tell, at the beginning because I think that the that her visions are in black and white, and I was watching it on a computer screen without my glasses, so I couldn’t see very well. But but as it turns out, I think her vision was of herself getting murdered by this thing. And then, like you said, it moves on, and we meet, some some other people who are also experiencing strange phenomenon. 

Todd:  Now we’re New York City and, it’s this place called PENSA Research that we’re coming into an office building and there are these 2 scientists, I guess, who are doing some kind of research into phenomena, but their whole shtick seems to continuously revolve around sex and sexual fantasies. Mhmm. Frank and Carissa, and there’s a subject laying down with some electrodes on her as she’s sleeping or or closing her eyes or whatever, and they’re hooked up to a machine. And, he asks her, please, imagine your wildest sexual fantasy. And then Frank and Chris are sitting there very seriously and Frank’s like, oh, yeah. She’s and he just starts describing the scene that this woman must be imagining and he’s like, I’m surprised you’re not making this up. And Chris is like, no. And I think what makes all this really tedious for me, I see what they’re trying to do.   They’re trying to build up this sort of suspense. It’s it’s kind of like calling the Avengers together. Right? Like, independently of each other, all of these psychics are having these visions, and so it’s supposed to be like, woah. What’s this? What’s this? What’s this? But, these scenes are so long and plodding and quite honestly not that interesting that it kind of has the opposite effect. Again, I was kinda looking at my watch going, okay. Let’s let’s get to the action. Let’s I mean, there you run a risk at some point of piling on so much mystery without anything satisfying behind it that you’re just kinda throwing out your hands up in the air, and all you’re doing is waiting for later. Yep.   For for that resolution because you know it’s coming, so just let’s get to it already. And and even with fortune teller, Dana is a cold reading. But throughout the film, she’s really portrayed as maybe the most, in tune and powerful of the psychics. Like, she’s the one who really seems to know what’s going on more than anybody else. She’s the one who seems to be able to intuit the most and seems to have her head together. So when you’re alternately presenting her as this great psychic with all these powers who can have these visions and and really on a whim, then why is she cold reading in a carnival and getting it wrong all the time? You know, why isn’t she, like, using her powers there? So, there’s a little bit of disconnect there too that just seems really sloppy. Again, I I I I say it’s just probably the writing. They were trying to make a comedic scene out of her thing, but it just didn’t really gel with her character as we later find out, and it just made the scene even more silly. 

Craig:  Oh oh, yeah. Oh, I I totally agree. You know, who cares? I mean, you know, we’re not looking for Shakespeare, you know, but you’re right. It’s just a little clunky because later on, she also kinda plays this hard ass, hard as nails, kind of Southern gypsy psychic or whatever later on and that doesn’t really mesh with the the scene that we’re introduced with her. I think what happens is, they all realize that they are having these visions or whatever they are because they’re being called to this particular place by another psychic that they had known named Neil Gallagher. They go there and and it it ends up being that Bodega Bay Inn that we saw at the beginning. Eventually, what we find out is that all of these people, including Neil, the guy who has apparently called them there, they have some sort of history. They have worked together in the past.   They have kind of tried to join their collective psychic abilities for a purpose, which, you know, we’ll get to. But, the suggestion is that they kind of all have different psychic abilities and that, like you said, calling the Avengers together, putting them all together makes them more powerful. And Dana’s is just that she is psychic, basically. You know, she has visions of the future. Alex’s is that he has prophetic dreams. Carissa’s is that, Oh gosh, she’s got the whole dead zone thing, like where, she can touch things and and know their history. I never really understood what Frank’s abilities were. 

Todd:  Yeah. Me neither. Frank’s kind of a wild card in all this. Yeah. 

Craig:  But, he and Chris are a team, so they work together, whatever. So they show up at this hotel, and they’re expecting to meet their associate. I wouldn’t call him a friend because none of them seem to have a very positive outlook, when it comes to him. But they get there and they’re greeted by Megan Gallagher, Neil’s wife, and Teresa, who I guess is just her maid housekeeper or something like that. And they all ask where Neil is, and as it turns out, they’re led into a room where his body is on display. They’ve been called here because he is, deceased. And Neil had told his wife, Megan, that he wanted everybody, all of these people, to congregate before he was interred. And so now they’re all there and she says, okay, well we can bury him tomorrow or whatever.   It basically is just the setup for, Alright, now we’re all here. Bring on the puppets. But you are also absolutely right in that it takes too long to get there. I started watching this yesterday and I was having connectivity problems with my internet and so it kept freezing and I would have to wait 30 seconds to a minute for it to come back. And I eventually just got frustrated and turned it off at the 44 minute mark, which is the halfway point. And up to that point, really not 

Clip:  a lot had happened. Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I mean, they finally they finally got all of these people together, so it’s not like the story wasn’t moving along, but the good stuff, none of the the movie was half over and none of the good stuff had really even started yet. And that would be one criticism of maybe a few that, I have of this film is that, you know, maybe and that could just be they had this idea for this story, the plot line was pretty thin, they had to flesh it out to feature length. And, so the beginning is is pretty slow. Once everybody gets there and gets settled in, then things start to pick up a little bit and it becomes a little bit more 

Todd:  interesting. It’s funny too. They all get there, and, there is immediately some questions. Like, they seem a little skeptical that Neil would have married anybody, especially this person. Mhmm. So they’re a little skeptical of her. And then, as Megan leaves and kind of ushers them all out to go to their rooms, a few of them, Frank and Carissa and, Dana, asked to stay behind. And so they closed the Todd, the the door on that room with the body, and they gather around.   And Dana wants to make sure that Neil is actually dead because she thinks something is shifty about this whole thing and she takes this long pin. Was it out of her hair or something? I don’t know. 

Craig:  I think it was a hair pin. I’m not sure. 

Todd:  Yeah. And she’s, pushes it very slowly through, Frank’s body and he or Neil’s Todd, sorry. He doesn’t flinch or move or anything. So, she’s like, well, yeah, he’s definitely dead. And then, you know, we get these scenes of everybody kind of going off on their own Todd their own rooms. Dana has this dead dog, a stuffed dog that she has a special suitcase for and talks to and even, like, feeds dog food too. She’s obviously, you know, portrayed as this a little off kilter woman. But again Yeah.   Maybe the most together and streets of art of all of them. So 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  It’s a weird dichotomy. But the maid, Teresa, peers through the keyhole and is kind of shocked by that. Alex, has, looking through the postcards from the bodega inn in his room, and he he has a picture of a dining room, or a ballroom, suddenly has a vision, similar to the one before of the big white room and the guy and the girl, but this time the guy’s wearing a white mask and he’s he’s dancing with her around the room. And the guy says something, at some point, takes off the mask and says, you can’t save her, Alex. Mhmm. And then, Carissa goes into the elevator and has an image in a vision in the elevator. And Carissa’s thing again just seems to be all about sex. Like, she’s like, oh, there was a terrible, terrible rape that happened in this elevator.   We get this sort of unnecessary black and white flashback. I’m not sure if that was at all related to anything. 

Craig:  I think it was just trying to establish that Neil was a bad guy because Neil was the rape yeah. Neil was the rapist and it it not that it would make any difference, you know, what difference does it make who you Craig, but it it wasn’t his wife. So I I think that it was just trying to further cement that this Neil guy was a bad guy. 

Todd:  That’s right. And and she’s in bed in in their room, her and Frank’s room. She’s like 

Clip:  This is a movie star bed.   Not now, Carissa.   No. Really. 2 famous movie stars had a wild night in this bed. Come feel it. 

Todd:  Stop it. 

Clip:  This is business. We’re focusing on Gallagher. Remember?   You know I can’t help it, Frankie. 

Todd:  Oh my god. 

Craig:  It’s it’s it’s so silly, but it I have to say that those parts really kind of amused me, like, because you’re right. You know, she’s it’s not like this is a new idea. Like I I mentioned the dead zone before, you know. I I guess that this is a psychic phenomenon. Whether it be real or not, I don’t know. I don’t know if I believe in that stuff, but, there are some psychics who purport to be able to, you know, touch an object and be able to tell its whole history. But every time, you know, for her, every time it’s something sexual. And her her portrayal of what she experiences when she, I don’t know, has this psychic connection.   It’s just so funny because like you said, she’s just writhing around and moaning. I was kinda sitting here thinking, you know, if I had to choose one of their powers. 

Todd:  You wouldn’t be doing Todd readings at a carnival, would you? 

Clip:  That might not be the worst one. I mean, she seemed to really be enjoying it, so I 

Craig:  I don’t know. But, yeah, it it’s it’s it’s funny. 

Todd:  Yeah. And then it zooms in on on Neil’s body in in the midst of all of this, montage and slowly pans in, and this puppet comes out from under his body and jumps out of the coffin and scurries away. And it’s one we haven’t really seen yet. It was a little pinheaded guy. He looks like a a big wrestler. His head is really tiny, his body’s big and he has these, like, almost normal sized adult hands. And I have to say that the stop motion in this film is fantastic. It really is good.   It really comes across as high quality. It’s smooth. It’s way more smooth and realistic than the stop motion in a lot of things. And and it’s well, definitely better than basket case. Let’s put it that way. Yeah. But, you know, it and it also is judiciously used. Special effects wise, you know, this is used in in a in a really fluid way, so that there are times when, obviously, you know, somebody’s pushing a puppet around, and other times where they’re using stop motion.   But at times, it’s it’s almost hard to tell which is which Mhmm. Because I I I really have to give the special effects in this movie a lot of credit. Even though there doesn’t 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. 

Todd:  Turn out to be a lot of blood or gore, not a lot of money was invested into that, at least, in making these puppets seem like they’re realistically moving around. It was pretty good. It was pretty good. 

Craig:  I I really enjoy the puppets. Now, the one that you’re talking about now, I think that in future, installments, he’s referred to as Pinhead. He, you know, they did some stop motion with him, but like you said, he’s got what seemed to be, you know, kind of normal sized man hands and almost, a normal sized upper torso. They did some stop motion, but also there was a little person, a woman, who did a lot of his stuff and and she would just kind of hunker her head down in between her shoulders, and then she had that little pinhead sticking out, of of the top of its sweater. And then she would just kind of be blindly doing things, with her hands. And as as corny as that sounds, it reads pretty well. I mean, I think that the, the cinematography works pretty well. And, you know, these puppets, like you said, a lot of it is stop motion, but somehow, I feel like they really do a good job of imbuing these puppets with character.   I mean, they feel like characters. They don’t feel like just a doll that somebody is pushing around even though in some cases that is true. They do seem to kind of have, character and I like that. And I think that that may be part of the reason that the franchise was able to continue on Because I think it you know, these puppets, the ones that are in this movie, we’ve mentioned a few of them. I feel like the only ones that we haven’t mentioned that come in pretty soon, there’s a woman puppet who, Comes 

Todd:  out of nowhere. 

Craig:  Yeah. Who comes out of nowhere, and her deal is that she vomits leeches. And and, you know, she’s pretty cool. And then there’s another one. I don’t know what his name is, but I call him drill sergeant because he’s like a military guy with a with a drill on the top of his head. And I know that those characters stick around, at least most of them throughout the series. And they also They were cool, they were interesting, they were different from one another, they weren’t all the same, they had vastly different looks. The one that’s called Blade is I don’t even know how to describe him.   His his face is all white. He’s very, very angular. He looks more kind of like a sculpture or a a mannequin or or or something, more than a person. But then you’ve got the pinhead who aside from having his really small head has more and a really pointed head has kind of more human qualities. And then the female one is more human looking I guess. Jack Wolfson 

Todd:  Yeah. Kind of like a porcelain doll. 

Craig:  Yeah. Porcelain doll. And she’s kinda got a sexuality. I mean, she’s kinda looks like a cross between a porcelain doll and a a blow up doll. I real I like the puppets. You know, I I think that is a strength of the movie, and it’s it’s handled well. In fact, I wish we had gotten to see more of them. You know, I I wish that we hadn’t had to wait really until the movie was more than half over to kinda get to the action of them. 

Todd:  Yeah. And then we get this big dinner scene, which is almost obligatory. You’ve got all these people at the hotel. It’s that kind of movie. Right? 

Craig:  Right. Time for some exposition. 

Todd:  That’s right. And so they they expose. Expose, and, and it it kind of revolves around a confrontation between Megan and Dana. And, Dana is basically explains everything about Neil and about why they were all together. And it’s just like you said, they were all working, it seems like, particularly on trying to figure out this ancient Egyptian spell or method of imbuing things with life, and that led them all together in various different ways down this Todd, and I think to, you know, find Andre Toulon. But whether they knew of him, or whether it was only Neil that discovered him, or whatnot, in any case, they all kind of came to a dead end and disbanded, but Neil kept on the case. And we find out that Neil married Megan, and they were surprised that Neil would marry anybody because they just keep talking about how he’s such a despicable character. But Megan’s family owns that bodega Bay Hotel.   Basically, Dana explains to Megan. 

Clip:  There’s a question that’s been burned inside of me. Did it ever pass through your sweet, innocent little mind? Did your husband possibly married you for your money? 

Todd:  Megan gets really upset. She runs away, leaving the dinner table, and Alex comes after her and they’re trying to play up this sort of interest that Alex has in Megan throughout this. Even though it never really goes anywhere, it’s just like, I don’t know, Alex is this awkward guy. He’s this awkward university professor and I could never really tell if he’s playing it awkward because his character is supposed to be awkward or if his acting is just that bad. Every scene that he’s in and every line that comes out of his mouth just seems to be so painful. 

Craig:  I’m sorry. 

Clip:  I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He usually isn’t like this.   I’m so confused.   Who are you people?   Well, some would call us magicians. 

Craig:  Yeah. He’s flat. He is an actor. He’s really flat. 

Todd:  And you know, he’s not unaccomplished. I mean, this guy Paul LeMett was an American Graffiti. He was in a lot of TV and stuff during the era. I’d like to go back and see some of his other stuff because he seems like, if you look at his resume, he It’s it’s fairly impressive, but his performance in this movie in 1989 is just awful. And not that he’s given a lot of great material to work with. 

Craig:  That’s why it’s it could be the writing. Yeah. 

Todd:  And the directing too, you know. I mean, you put a lot of trust in your director as an actor, and if he’s if he’s directing you poorly, you know, a lot of that might not be your fault. That’s, I think, when he explains all the different characters. And I think just as much to cover up his poor delivery as anything else, there’s this Craig, like, very slow motion shot that goes from character to character as they’re eating at the dinner table, you know, where he explains each of them and their particular roles to play and how they’re all related. A really interesting touch. I mean, there are moments in flourishes in this movie, that are really clever. You know, the POV shot was really good. This slow motion bit was really good.   The flashbacks are kind of interesting and how they all end up kind of tying together. Mhmm. You just as a whole, I think it fits together in kind of a clumsy way, like a like a kid putting a a Lego set together. The colors are a little off here, and this piece doesn’t quite work there, but it’s it’s still a nice little creative work of art. 

Craig:  Sure. Sure. Yeah. It’s not terrible. I mean, we’re being pretty harsh on it. It’s not awful. It’s it’s not terribly made. And and there are, as you said, you know, some highlights and some some interesting things going on, but it’s just a little clunky and and it just continues to be clunky.   Because really now after Alex has explained to Dana, you know, why they had known each other and whatnot, then it’s just okay. Now let’s have a series of scenes of the puppets killing people. 

Todd:  And that doesn’t really even happen right away. You know, that’s part of why it’s so annoying. I think it’s because these people have all assembled. We’ve got we finally gotten our exposition. It was all dumped on us in one scene. Alright. Good. Let’s let’s move the plot forward.   And, again, it’s like after this big long argument and we all know why they’re there and they all know why they’re there and there’s all this big mystery, Everybody just wanders off to their rooms to just puddle around for a while. Right. And that goes on like that except for one kill, maybe 2 kills. Alright? After this. We’re almost an hour in. There are only 30 minutes left on that movie, and it is so freaking slow. 

Craig:  Yeah. And then they all just happen in quick succession, which is fine, but you just kinda wish that maybe it had started earlier or that maybe they had spread them out in a more interesting way. The first kill is, Teresa the maid is, tidying up in some sort of lounge or something. I don’t know. And there had been something really clunky before where the psychic Dana had said, you’re in danger. Stay away from the fireplace. And, of course, so she’s, you know, in the fireplace, like 

Todd:  Poke this fire in this empty room for nobody in particular. I’m still not sure why she lit that fire in this giant hotel. 

Craig:  Row, but okay. Yep. And, she hears some of the keys plunk on the piano, and she goes over there and there’s nobody there. And she goes back to the fire and she hears it again, she goes over there and still there’s nobody there. And then finally, Pinhead comes up behind her and kills her, it hits her in the head with a fireplace poker, and then it just really quickly cuts away from that. And we, we and all of the other characters hear Megan screaming, and she has fainted, and they come in the room. And the reason that she screamed and fainted is because her dead husband is now sitting what appears to be very comfortably, in a chair, in the foyer or something, eyes wide open and and of course they don’t know what’s going on and the oh gosh. What is her name? Dana says, oh, he’s definitely dead.   I checked. He definitely is. And they’re like, we bet Teresa did it because we can’t find her. Yeah. Yeah. I’m sure the maid pulled him out of the coffin and and set him up somewhere. I guess that makes a whole lot of sense. And then we get a scene of Carissa again, nude, writhing in the tub, talking about some lesbian love affair that had taken place in the tub. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And and and Frank is kinda wandering around, and then he he stops answering her. So she’s looking for him, and you know you’re just waiting for a jump scare, which you get. He jumps out at her with pantyhose on his face, totally for no explained reason. I guess he just wanted to share. I know. And and then, like, the pantyhose on the face, I can almost buy. Like, okay, like, if you’re trying to scare somebody, that might be kinda funny. But then they start making out while he’s still got the pantyhose on his face. 

Todd:  Where are the pantyhose? 

Clip:  And I’m like, that’s just gross. 

Craig:  Hey. To 

Todd:  each his own, I guess. 

Craig:  I well, his own can have that one. And then there’s a quick scene with Dana and Alex, and Dana’s like, We’re all in danger. He means to kill us all. And then it cuts back to Carissa and Frank and they’re in bed, and Frank is like speaking into one of those, you know, handheld tape recorders, and he’s, like, sexual experiment 517 a. And he’s like, we will be using various unannounced sex toys and implements, and, please record with all clarity. And and then, like, he turns it off, then he turns it back on. He’s like, oh, also file this under personal experiments or something like that. Like, it’s it’s so goofy.   I feel like it’s trying to be funny, but Yeah. It’s funny in the way that you roll your eyes. Like, that’s not funny. Like, like, what you’re trying to do. But it totally fell flat. The 2 of them are it’s it’s so hard for me to use family appropriate language because that’s not what I would say at all. They’re making love loudly, and everybody can hear them. We see, you know, these point of view shots of puppets running all around in the hallways and people kind of hear them, but nobody sees them.   Again, it’s one of those things where, like, the puppets will be standing, like, right next to their legs. Like, how could somebody how could somebody not see that? Yeah. Exactly. But they don’t. And then, so Carissa and Frank are having sex, and the door of their room comes open, and Craig is like, the door’s open. I think somebody’s in the room. And she’s got Frank tied up and blindfolded, and she gets off of him, another really funny part because like she’s on top of him. She’s wearing this like, sheer lace negligee, and you can totally tell that she’s nude underneath it.   But when she jumps off of him, she jumps off of him and, like, throws the blankets over his junk. But if you, like, if you’re watching it all, you can totally see that he is not nude. Like, he he totally has something on. So it it’s it’s not even particularly good editing. And and it’s also stupid because she thinks somebody else is in the room and he keeps saying like, untie me, untie me. And she’s like, no. Shh. 

Clip:  Oh my god. It’s it’s so stupid. 

Craig:  But she, she looks under the bed and at first she doesn’t see anything there. And then she looks again and she sees drill sergeant and drill sergeant kills her. And then he’s laying there like, What’s going on? What’s going on? And nothing happens for a while and he’s scared. But then he starts feeling like kissies on his body and like somebody’s suckling at his nipple and he’s like, Oh, that’s sexy. And we see that it is this female puppet. And I don’t know what they did here. Did you get the sense maybe I’m wrong, I got the sense that in some of these scenes, when the camera would be pulled back a little bit, it almost looked like there was some maybe some green screen go stuff going on and that maybe that maybe this puppet was actually portrayed by an actress I you know In some of the shots? 

Todd:  I got that sense too, in just some of the shots because you’re right. There’s Todd distinct kind of green screen where you can kinda tell that the foreground, has a little bit of a different, grain to it than the than the background. You know, back in the day, it’s called optical printing. And so you would kind of shoot your foreground, you know, maybe it’s, maybe it’s, in this case, it’s like a really close-up on Frank’s head and his body. And then Right. You would, shoot the background which would be, through that, which would be like a puppet dancing around or something or this this puppet. And you do that because maybe you need something full size, but you need to make it look like it’s miniature. So you’re shooting this this bigger puppet, but but because it’s in the background of this giant Frank’s body in front of it, it looks tiny.   But because of that, you’re getting a second generation on that foreground copy, right? So, you’re shooting that twice, but you’re shooting the background only once. So that foreground copy is gonna have a little more grain to it. It’s gonna look a little more unnatural and, you know, it’s hard to describe, but you’ll you know exactly what I’m talking about because you’ve seen the look on films. And you’re right, that it had that look, And I wondered that Todd if she was portrayed at some scenes by, an act an actress. And there’s a couple must be a couple different versions of this puppet too because the version that’s kind of kissing around on him looks very solid. But then, she starts, and this totally surprised me. She starts puking, like, puking up these giant leeches out of her mouth and they don’t fit. So, you know, her mouth is really small and so when she’s puking this up, it’s like the top of her head is kind of rubbery and it stretches in a very unnatural, but honestly, I thought it was good.   I thought it was a cool Oh, yeah. Kind of way to accommodate this giant leech that that plops out onto Frank, and suckles on him. Another great example, I think, of some really good, effects for for a movie that you wouldn’t expect to have, so many good effects. It’s, like, the best thing this movie has going for it, really. 

Craig:  Yes. Yeah. I read about that effect, and I read that, her mouth, was made of, like, foam latex or foam rubber. And so it was pliable and and stretchy. And and the way that it worked, I mean, we see her vomiting up. She vomits up several large leech like creatures onto him, and apparently that kills him. I guess these leeches have the power to drain him of his blood. But it is pretty it’s gross, and it it looks, pretty good when she’s doing that.   What I read was the puppet or the the device was designed so that she never actually really expelled a leech. It was part of of the interior of her and they would expel it about 3 quarters of the way, and then they would just do a cutaway. And and so that it would appear that that she had vomited it up fully, when in fact she never actually had that that leech that she she vomited up was actually connected, to the whole puppet and could only come 3 quarters of the way out. But it looks good. Yeah. And and and she does it several, she does it a couple more times throughout, and it looks good. 

Todd:  Now let’s just stop for a moment to take a minute to appreciate the utter bizarre utterly bizarre creativity involved in this puppet. I mean, so far, we’ve seen blade guy who runs around with kind of a knife. Okay. We’ve seen the pinhead man, right, who who has these big hands, who’s kind of a wrestler who can kinda punch and pummel and hit people. We’ve seen the drill sergeant, you know, who has a drill on the top of his head. Okay. Drills. That’s pretty standard horror stuff. 

Craig:  Sure. And 

Todd:  then out of nowhere is this little puppet who has the most bizarre superpower ever, which is vomiting these little leech like creatures onto people. It comes out of left field, but it also is maybe the worst of all the superpowers because it really requires your victim to be tied down or somehow incapacitated when you do this to them. 

Craig:  It is. It is creative and weird, and and that it leads to another question that I have about the writing of this movie, which I don’t wanna get to just yet because because, it really didn’t occur to me, and it doesn’t come up until closer to the end. But I wanna come back to that. So if I don’t, don’t let me forget. Okay. I’m intrigued. This just continues on with, you know, people continuing, to get killed. The leech lady kills Frank, and then Dana runs into Alex and and tries to proposition him, but he’s not interested.   So she goes in her room. And again, there’s dead Neil kind of witchy stuff around him and and thinks that she’s protected. Some kind of witchy stuff around him and and thinks that she’s protected. But then Pinhead attacks her. And this was a funny scene because he attacks her 3 times. Yes. And, like, he’s, like, punching her in the face. And every time that that he attacks her, she does exactly what you should do if you’re being attacked by a tiny toy.   You should grab it and pick it up and throw it. Like, that’s, you know, that’s with all these toy movies, one of the questions I have, like, seriously, how is this little tiny toy supposed to overpower a person? It doesn’t make any sense. And and and and three times she does that. Like, he’ll attack her, he’ll get a couple punches in, and then she’ll just grab him and throw him away. Yeah. And and she does that three times before Blade finally shows up and and cuts her throat and kills her. And then there is a scene where, Megan shows up to Alex’s door, and she bangs on the door, and he’s asleep. 

Todd:  This is the inception. Yeah. That’s what I’m gonna call this. 

Craig:  Oh, god. And it’s so funny because it really seems like seriously, I really feel like they were just trying to stretch for time. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And it was actually it was kind of annoying. Megan shows up at the door and she’s she’s like, come on, hurry. I wanna show you something. And, she she take she has this whole spiel about. 

Clip:  Neil used to spend hours up here. I don’t know what he was doing exactly, but he never let me come up and thought it was strange. He didn’t really mind it. I I came up here earlier, and I found something in here. Would you hold that, please? 

Craig:  Then it ends up being that room that he has dreamed about several times. And, the dream plays out exactly as it had before. Megan and the masked guy dance for far too long, and it and it’s it’s it’s terrible dancing. Like, one would think if you were gonna have a 3 minute dance scene with it, it might be a little bit more intricate, but it’s awful. And then it plays out exactly the same way as it had before where the guy takes off his mask. It’s Neil, and he says, you can’t save her, and he points the gun at his head. And then he wakes up. And, again, dream within a dream, he wakes up once, then he throws the covers off of him.   And although this was kind of an out of the blue scene, this one I actually found pretty jarring. All three of the heads of the other dead psychics are, like, decapitated and under his blanket. And one of them, I think Frank says something to him, and it’s such a quick shot, but it’s really it looks really good. It did. And it was really pretty spooky and gross. 

Todd:  That was I I honestly, that was the only part in the movie where I felt, like, a genuine twinge of fear. Yeah. Came out of nowhere. 

Craig:  It was actually and it lasts about a second. Yeah. And and then he he wakes up again. Again, another dream within a dream. But then, Megan is knocking on his door again, and it’s exactly the same. And they play out the exact same scene. Not only do they play out the exact same scene, but I am convinced that they used the exact same footage. 

Clip:  Yeah. Like 

Todd:  Exactly. And, and it and what’s problematic about this too is that Alex I mean, Alex knows that his superpower is that he can see into the future and he’s had these visions before. So why in each subsequent scene, he’s just going along with it and standing and watching every time? I don’t understand why he’s not, like, at least taking some agency or freaking out or or trying to stop, you know, what’s happening. He’s just perfectly content to let all these play out every single time, you know, the way that they do. Except the last time when he kind of interrupts her and just, like, predicts basically what she’s going to say. She’s like, oh, 

Craig:  how did 

Todd:  you know what I was gonna say? Well, I told you I was a bit of a magician, didn’t I? 

Craig:  It it it it really feels like they’re stretching for time, which at that point in the movie is a little bit frustrating. Like, seriously, come on. Like, just just wrap it up. Yeah. But but when she when she leads him upstairs, it turns out to not be that room. It’s a a kind of a it it it ends up being the room that Toulon, committed suicide in. As if we couldn’t have figured this out a 1000000 years ago, you know, it it becomes completely apparent that Neil had just married her because he wanted to be able to explore this hotel. And eventually, when he found what he needed to find, then he wasn’t concerned with her at all, and he just did his own thing.   But she find she shows, Alex, Toulon’s diary. And in Toulon’s diary, it talks about how he says, you know, I’ve done it. I’ve been able to imbue my, creations with life. And he it like, it talks about how what fondness and affection he has for them. But it says, but I worry about what could happen if they fell into the wrong hands. And now this is getting back to what I just said I wanted to get back to. Okay. So if what I am led to believe is that these puppets are not inherently bad and that for Toulon, you know, they were companions.   They were his work. They were his art, but they were not inherently bad. It’s only because they fell into the hands of Neil that they have been doing these murderous things at his bidding. Okay, that makes sense to me, but then why does one of them have a knife and a hook? Why does one of them have a drill for a head? Why does one of them vomit leeches on people? Like, I think I’ll make a cute little puppet to be my friend who just also happens to have the ability to vomit leeches on people. Like That’s a very good point. Make any Todd doesn’t make any sense. 

Todd:  No. You’re absolutely right about that. It’s rather convenient that they also Alright. Have very easy ways of murdering people. And it’s really a shame friend. It’s really a shame for that one puppet whose, whose face just changes expression. Like, he has nothing to do. 

Craig:  Right. Right. Except reaction to Todd. 

Todd:  And Oh, it’s 

Craig:  funny. And then it just really kind of wraps up really not quickly enough. No. It should’ve wrapped up more quickly. But they go downstairs, and Alex has a vision of all the other psychics in the dining room. As they go to the dining room and all the other psychics are there, but they’re all dead and, like, kinda gross. And the puppets are sitting on the table and around the room, and Neil shows up. Let me explain. 

Clip:  Metaphysically speaking, I killed myself. And using the techniques of the old puppet master, 

Craig:  I brought myself back to life. Why? That’s easy. I wanna live forever. 

Clip:  All life eventually ends in death, but for me, there is no end now. You mean, no natural end. 

Craig:  Neil is like, well, my entire body would have to be destroyed, and I’m super powerful now, and you don’t have that kind of power. And I feel like Neil kinda starts to beat up Alex a little bit, and then Megan tries to intervene, and he punches Megan. And we see these looks on the puppet’s faces like, what are we doing? 

Todd:  Yeah. See, this is what 

Craig:  like, this guy’s a bad guy. 

Todd:  I mean, if you’re gonna buy into the idea that, okay, he’s the master of the puppets, the puppets are gonna do the bidding of whoever their master is, then why do they turn on him so quickly? Like, oh, that was one too many people to kill, and now he’s out of control. Right. You know? 

Craig:  Oh, gosh. Yeah. It’s it’s silly, but, what ends up happening is that the puppets do turn on him, not before he, you know, he kinda beats the crap out of Alex, but, the puppets do turn on him, and, Pinhead gets him locked in the elevator, and then, Pinhead fights him for a little bit, but Neil’s like, I’m your master now, and he, like, tears Pinhead’s head off and throws it aside. And then Blade shows up and helps out. And, they all end up all the puppets or at least the main ones that we’ve seen, end up in the elevator. 

Todd:  Everything leading up to this is also like the world’s worst fight scene. Like, everything between him and Alex, the I mean, oh my gosh. It’s so bad. It’s so clunky. And, by the time he ends up locked in the elevator, you you again have that puppet physics problem. We’re supposed to believe that all these puppets are now holding him down, in the elevator and while, you know, Blade cuts him and she vomits a leech in his mouth and whatnot, where all this guy needs 

Craig:  to do is stand up. 

Todd:  You know, they’re not a 100, you know, 200 pound puppets that are holding him down. So it’s it’s you know, you just kinda have to roll with it. But what I can’t really roll with is then while the puppets are doing this, suddenly Alex runs to the elevator, and it’s like, no. No. Like and he’s trying to get in, and it’s like he’s trying to save Neil. 

Craig:  Like Yeah. And, like, and and, like, Megan is, like, crying, like, crying and doing the slow slide down the wall. Like, what is happening? Like, why do you care? Wouldn’t you be glad that this would be? Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s weird. And then that’s just I mean, that’s pretty much it. I mean, they kill him. They all do their own thing.   All the puppets do their own thing and and kill him. And then it just cuts to Megan saying goodbye to Alex, sending him off. And he’s like, oh, if you’re ever in the northeast, come see me. And she’s like, okay. We’ll see you later. And Yeah. See you later. Like, like, did they just bury all the bodies in the backyard and call it a day? Like like and and I’m wondering, like, where are the puppets? Like, what happened to the puppets? There’s no explanation of that, whatever.   We failed to mention that at some point, Teresa, the maid, like, shows up like she’s undead, like she’s helping Neil out. And she’s there for all of 15 seconds, and then you never see her again. And there’s never any explanation of where she went or what happened to her. And, the last scene is Megan. She’s got Dana’s, like, stuffed dog. And when I say stuffed, it’s like a dead dog stuffed, not like a stuffed animal. She’s got this dog and like she’s carrying it around and petting it and she’s walking up the stairs and all of a sudden the dog is alive again. Like, I guess maybe Megan learns the ancient Egyptian bring things back to life deal, like and then that’s just it.   That’s the end of the movie. 

Todd:  Like, between, you know, this traumatic incident and the day or 2 that it took, Alex to pack up and go, I I I don’t really understand that. It’s just a way, obviously, to just end this movie on one of those, oh Right. Kind of ironic notes or maybe set it up for a sequel. 

Craig:  But You know, I would say that overall, as as tough as we’ve been on this movie, overall, I really didn’t hate it. You know, I I thought that there were some good things going on. Yeah. I I liked the puppets. Not only did I like the puppetry and and the cinematography with the puppetry, but I liked the puppets were my favorite characters. I I I wish that I had gotten more with them, and I think I I really honestly don’t remember because it’s been so long. But if memory serves me at all, I think there’s a lot more focus on the puppets in in the future installments, and and that’s good because that was my favorite part of the movie. The rest of the characters were blah and, you know, not particularly like, well, and you don’t really care.   The cinematography wasn’t bad. The writing was pretty bad. The acting was okay. But 

Todd:  That’s generous. 

Craig:  For yeah, yeah. You know, and honestly, if if this movie had if I had seen that this movie was made in 1982, I think I would have been a lot more forgiving. You know, I just this was almost 1990, and, you know, so many advancements had been made by that time that you would maybe expect this to be a little bit better. I feel like this was just kind of riding on the coattails of those Yeah. Low budget, kind of goofy eighties movies. And, you know, we talked about them a millionth time. We love those movies. There’s nothing wrong with that, but, I I feel like this one was just a little bit late to the party.   By all accounts, it should have been better than it was. 

Todd:  You know, in comparing it, you know, you say that you didn’t hate it. That’s very high praise, Craig. I mean, in comparing it to, you know, even some of the other pictures that this guy’s doing and, I mean, I’m thinking, like, immediately, Sorority Babes and the Slimeball Bowl O Rama. Yeah. It’s it’s a way more competent movie than that. It’s a way more ambitious movie than that. The puppetry’s way better. I mean, everything about it should be better on paper.   But honestly, what it was lacking was fun. And for me Yeah. 

Craig:  In 

Todd:  a way. The movie, I think, was taking itself way too seriously. And because of it, it just couldn’t hold up to those expectations. Like you said, later on, I know I know in the later installments, and I’ve seen at least 1 or 2 of them, that they do seem to loosen up and and kind of acknowledge, you know, the the goofiness and maybe have a little bit more fun with it. And and sure, this movie sets all that up and made all those other films possible. So it’s it’s not a complete waste of time, but I just did not have fun watching this movie. I really did not. And like you said, I would have loved to have seen more of the puppets.   I would love to have seen the action move a lot quicker. I would have loved to have seen some halfway competent acting, but I could have even forgiven that if it had just been a little more fun. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. I agree with you. It’s it’s not great. Yeah. Yeah. To to say that it’s good might be a stretch. But, like you said, you know, it it serves as the foundation for a series that has really found an audience and that really has been pretty popular. I haven’t seen the most recent entries, so I have no idea what they’re like.   I have no idea if they’re any Todd. But I do I mean, this is one of those movies from the eighties that although it wasn’t as popular as something like Nightmare on Elm Street or or Friday 13th or even Child’s Play, something like that, People know this movie. They’ve heard of it. They know about the franchise. 

Todd:  It’s no different. 

Craig:  So it is it’s it’s yeah. It’s it’s carved its own niche, and you gotta give it credit for that at least. 

Todd:  Well, there’s a reboot in the works. They’re filming it right now. 

Craig:  I heard that. 

Todd:  Yeah. But the producers of Transformers, it looks like they’re getting some pretty established people, involved in it. It’s gonna be called Puppet Master, the Little Reich. Uh-huh. Very interesting, but kind of following yeah. But it sounds interesting. It sounds a little meta because there’s, like, a recently divorced young man who discovers, like, a mint condition Blade doll and plans to sell it at a toy convention to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the infamous Toulon murders. And so, I mean, it sounds like maybe with today’s sensibilities and some bigger names and a bigger budget behind it, we could be in for some pretty interesting films, out of this franchise. 

Craig:  Yeah. It sounds kinda fun. 

Todd:  Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You could find us on iTunes, Google Play, and on Stitcher. You can also find us in the social media sphere on Facebook where you could like our page, share that with a friend, and continue the conversation. Tell us what you whether or not you like this movie, maybe we’re completely wrong about it, and we’d love to hear your opinions and your thoughts. We’d like to thank Andrew again for, giving us the suggestion in the first place. Great movie to review. Until next time.   I’m Todd 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

We’re both happy to discuss this Mario Bava giallo flick, which turned out to be the granddaddy of the slasher genre that came to prominence a decade later in the 80’s. Yes, the plot is convoluted. But at least there IS a plot. Listen as we attempt to unravel it.

Episode 79, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  Today’s film comes to us courtesy of a request from Ryan. Thank you, Ryan, loyal listener. You have chosen Bay of Blood, the Mario Bava film from 1971. Bay of Blood is a giallo picture, but it, it’s a goes a little further than most of the giallo pictures we’ve been doing so far. Actually, I would say, it is planted firmly in the slasher genre more so than the Oh, yeah. Mystery thriller genre. Yeah? 

Craig:  Oh, absolutely. 

Todd:  And that is what makes this movie a little more unique and notorious. Now Mario Bava is one of our sort of trio of giallo people who were making a lot of these pictures in the seventies. The other 2, we’ve done movies by them, both Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento. And Baba, until here, at this point anyway, really wasn’t focusing in on the blood and the gore, anything like this. This was a major departure for him, as well as, I think, a lot of the other films around this time. That’s not to say that there wasn’t there weren’t movies that were doing Blood and Gore. There were some American directors, HG Lewis, probably the most famous, who almost a decade before this got the idea for making Blood and Gore, a kind of exploitation film that could play at drive ins and and be sensational, and he made a lot of money from that. But what he did was, it was kinda cheesy, you know.   It it looks pretty amateurish. It looks kinda silly. This is pretty realistic, and I have to say as I was watching this movie, Friday 13th was all I could think of the whole time. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. Yep. 

Todd:  As I was reading about it, I noticed that it is pretty well acknowledged that this film was an inspiration for the Friday 13th series. I mean, right down to the setting, which is on this beautiful bay, in some unnamed place. And the whole setting revolves around this bay and the intrigue and stuff that’s that’s going on here. Craig, had you even heard of this movie before? I kinda seen it just because I’m into the giallo stuff, but I never actually sat down and watched it. 

Craig:  Yeah. I don’t know if I   had heard of it before. I mean, the the title Bay of Blood is kind of generic enough that I feel like I’ve heard that, but no. I I didn’t know the movie at all. And you’re absolutely right. I think that, this is could very well be considered kind of the grandfather of the slasher movie. And I was thinking the exact same thing that you were. I mean, it is kind of strikingly similar in style, to the Friday 13th films. So much so that, many people believe that, the makers of the Friday 13th films, at least the first two, were directly inspired, by this movie.   I guess there’s at least one kill in each of Friday 13th part 1 and part 2 that mimic almost exactly kills from this movie. And that doesn’t surprise me because it’s so reminiscent. What I kind of found interesting about this movie was that it almost kind of has a Scooby Doo kind of feel to it. There’s all of this, of course with much more violence and gore but lots of, intrigue and and unexpected plot twists. And, you know, you just about at some point expect somebody to pop up and say, I would’ve got away with it too if it weren’t for you rascally kids. But it does also stand apart from those movies because, to some degree I feel like they were the the makers of this movie were a little bit more concerned with intrigue and plot. Yeah. However, I, think it was Fulci who in an interview somewhere, I think it was Fulci, I hope I’m remembering this right.   I think you’re thinking of Fellini. Fellini. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. You’re right. You’re right. He, in an interview at one point, said that he was approached by a friend and fellow filmmaker who had all of these ideas for Great Kills and he wanted help with putting together a script, for it.   But eventually he ended up just saying, I don’t know. Just shoot the movie and figure out the story later. And, I kinda got a little bit of a sense that, maybe that’s kind of what happened because, I was curious and confused about what was going on in the first half of the movie. And then in the second half of the movie when things kind of started falling into place I was like, Wow. This is a Friday 13th movie or a, episode of Scooby Doo where everybody did it. 

Todd:  Yeah. No joke. Right? 

Craig:  Like, like, who’s, like, who’s the killer? Oh, it’s everybody.   And, and I, I think that the movie is aptly titled, even though, you know, I don’t know what the original Italian title was for it. And I know that they went through a whole string of titles for the American release, and it was actually released under a couple of different titles. One of the titles that they considered, I don’t know if it was, one of the ones that actually got released was, Last House on the Left 2, even though it has nothing to do with Last House on the Left. Yeah. I don’t know. I’m interested to see what you thought of the movie because, I was left, I think, a little bit flabbergasted at the end. I’m not sure how I feel about it, frankly. 

Todd:  Yeah. Well, one of the original Italian titles, translates as Chain Reaction, and I think, man, even though that’s not a very compelling movie title, it it sure is a apt description of how this movie goes. You’re right. It’s it’s just a spider web of a plot that starts to unfold. And I guess the thing about this is much like the Friday 13th movies, you don’t like anybody. I mean, there’s no not all of these people are nasty, self interested people with agendas and have no qualms or concerns about killing people. You know? And so Right. So you you really don’t care who dies in this.   It’s, again, much like a slasher film, much more interested in showing us how people die than, giving us a care. But unlike the Friday 13th movies, as you said, this is much more interested in actual plot, and there is definitely an actual plot. And that is what slides this into the genre. You know, there is a, like you said, kind of a Scooby Doo mystery behind it even though it’s way more convoluted yet. Don’t you think it still makes more sense than some of the Jello pictures we’ve seen previous to this? 

Craig:  I mean, it does. That’s the thing. Like, there are so you’re right. I mean, it is a spider web. It’s it’s it’s so intricate. And in that regard, the way that it’s so intricate, it’s not like it’s particularly believable. Again, because you’ve got all of these people who, as it turns out, have motives for murder, and like you said, have absolutely no qualms about that. So it’s it’s different in that way, but, like, that’s also I don’t know if it’s a criticism, but believability and again, you’re usually the one that gets all tangled up in believability.   I don’t care, you know, I don’t care about believability. And the dots do connect, I mean they really do, for the most part. And obviously, we’re gonna get there probably in about 40, 50 minutes. But, really, it was it was the very, very end of the movie that satisfied me. Yeah. Like like like, I was getting through it and I’m like, okay, okay, okay. And then the very, very end, I’m like, alright.   I can   I can get on board with this as ridiculous as it may be? But, yeah, like I said, I mean, it is an apt title because it is this bay that they’re on really is a bay of blood because pretty much everybody you meet in the movie is dead by the end of it. But that’s that’s alright. The premise of the movie is that there was, this countess. And, you know, I don’t know where this is supposed to be said. I assume somewhere in Italy, but I have no idea. And she lived on this, giant estate. And the movie starts out with these shots, you know, while the opening credits are coming up on the screen. It’s just these shots of, you know, kind of this beautiful location on what looks very much like a bay surrounded by a wooded area.   I read that, they the budget of the film was low enough that they really had to shoot on sets that they had access Todd. Whether it be, you know, one of the summer homes of the producer or just, a lodge that, the director was fond of or whatever. And these exterior shots where a lot of the movie takes place were actually filmed in an area that wasn’t wooded at all. And so he just had to do a lot of camera trickery with, propping up branches and leaves. And, I I have to say it was pretty effective. I would have never have guessed that. I mean, it looks very much like, you know, a wooded kind of bay. But 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. Yeah. 

Craig:  I guess during I guess during the filming, the actors thought that it looked so ridiculous that they, sometimes in scenes, would break because I I don’t know if it was props people or extras or whomever who were just kinda, like, carrying sticks around and holding them up in front of people, to make it look like it was a wooded area. But it worked. I mean, you know, and it just goes to show that a good filmmaker can make do with what they’ve got. I also read that, you know, any, kind of tracking shots that were done, Bava just, put a, camera on a child’s wagon and just pulled the wagon along. And and it doesn’t look like that. I mean, it it it’s very entrenched in the seventies. It looks like a movie from the seventies, but I wouldn’t have guessed that it was made on such a low budget, because it works pretty well. In the opening scene, we see this countess, she’s in a wheelchair, she’s kind of wheeling around her big estate and it looks like she lives in luxury and, you know, it’s a nice big place and at some point there’s a close-up of her face and she kind of gasps gasps like, like she, you know, she sees something frightening.   And then we see a noose, go over her head and her wheelchair gets kicked out from underneath her, and she ends up hanging, which I thought was actually really creative and inventive. I I don’t think I’ve ever seen that, you know? If if she’s paralyzed from the waist down, there would have been nothing that she could have done. I mean, she’s not actually hanging with her feet dangling, you know, she’s just kind of near the ground, but, she can’t get herself up. And she strangles to death, and at this point, I was very much, I didn’t know this was a, Giallo film. But at this point, I realized that it must be because we get that classic Giallo shot of the killer, you know, in nondescript, like a suit and black gloves. And I thought, oh, here we go. Here’s another one of those Giallo pics where, you know, we have to figure out who the killer is. And then it kind of subverted my expectations when it   panned all the way up   past the gloves and showed the guy, who killed her. And I was like, wow. Are we gonna know throughout the course of the movie who the killer is? But as it turns out, we do not because as the guy who killed the countess, who turns out to have been her husband, as he’s kind of setting the scene to make it look like a suicide, somebody shows up and stabs and and kills him. And it’s the very classic, you know, giallo kind of really, really red, like, you know, bright red, not even necessarily realistic looking red blood, that spatters all over the place. And though I had expected this to be somewhat typical or similar to the giallo films we’d seen, right from the beginning, it really kinda started to subvert that, and that had me intrigued. So I was interested to see where this was gonna go. 

Todd:  You’re right. And it was very deliberate because as the camera pans up and you see those black gloves, he he pauses for a moment, actually takes those gloves off before it comes up to his face. It’s like he’s it’s like the director is telling you right there. This is not gonna be your typical picture. But it was really good. So the man who was stabbed to death is Filippo Donati, and his Mhmm. Countess. I don’t know if I ever got her name.   So they’re both dead, and the next shot is a couple in bed. And that’s the thing, you really have to the nice thing about this movie is that everybody looks different enough, and their things are spaced out enough that you just are okay with keeping track of who’s who. I mean, I was taking notes anyway, but as the picture went on with a movie like this that ends up having a huge cast and a lot of people to keep track of, they kinda keep all the characters in these little niches and in their own environments enough so that you never really confuse who’s who. This is a guy named Frank, and, he’s in bed with Laura, who turns out to be his secretary. And they’re in this awesome, like, sixties era house, like, with the decor and the artwork. You can tell this guy’s got some money Todd, and he’s apparently an architect. And they’re chatting a little bit, and you realize that he’s chatting about the countess’s death and how he’s gonna go and have somebody sign something, and this is gonna make things a lot easier now. And he leaves and takes off.   And then immediately, we get another shot of a of close-up of this guy, like, chewing on, looks like a fish, but it turns out to be a squid and tossing it in the lake and pan back out of that. And it’s a guy named Simon, who is in a boat. And the camera then does this thing that the camera does a lot in this movie, and that is it likes to start in a close-up on something and oftentimes out of focus. And then it comes into focus slowly so we could see what we’re seeing. And then it slowly pans out so we get a better idea of what it is we’re seeing. And then the camera likes to move just like zoom out and pan through the environment slowly. And the effect that this has is I’m kinda looking. I don’t know.   I was kind of on the edge of my seat waiting for something significant, you know, to show up in frame. Mhmm. And and he does this a lot and at very suspenseful moments in the movie. This isn’t one of those suspenseful moments, but this has really set you up for this camera move, which happens a ton. And I’m sure that a lot of it is because of his budget. You know, if he’d if he didn’t have the money for a big expensive setup or he also didn’t have the money for big expensive sets, he had to get creative. And so a lot of this camera work comes out of that, but then it ends up giving the movie a real distinct feel. And I think started to effectively add to the tension when it’s when it was really used well.   It pans slowly through the woods and then goes up to, and we see like a close-up on some eyes that are looking through a tree. And it’s it’s a guy’s clearly watching the scene and then you see a point of view of this guy’s view and there’s another guy running and he’s running across the bay with a net towards Simon And they have a little exchange, this guy and Simon. This guy’s name is Paul Vasati, and he’s Mhmm. He’s hunting insects. That is his thing. He seems to be like an amateur scientist or maybe he’s a real scientist, but bugs are his thing. What is that called? Etymologist. 

Craig:  Oh, god. I was afraid you’re gonna ask that. Entomologist. Is that right? 

Todd:  Yeah. I think you’re right. Yeah. Entomologist. Alright. We’ll never use that word again in case it’s wrong. 

Craig:  He’s a bug scientist. 

Todd:  That’s right. He’s a bug catcher, and it’s a little goofy. He’s like, I see you’re still chasing that insect. Yeah. It’s the one that I, you know, caught, bagged, and tagged, and then released so that I could explore and see what he does. And I’m thinking, how on this huge bay in this forest are you gonna be able to track down a tiny little insect like this? 

Clip:  You’ve changed. You know? Why? Because Since the countess was murdered. It is suicide, mister Fassati. Suicide. The police said suicide.   Oh, of course. Of course. I’m sorry. Mhmm. I was asleep. 

Todd:  So, right away you wonder, does Paul know something? And then, Simon taking such immediate offense to it, you kinda wonder what’s going on there Todd. And then, it cuts from here to a great shot of these teenagers in a car, which is total classic slasher movie. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Four teenagers and the camerawork is really kinetic here. I mean, they’re they’re in a it’s a convertible. I don’t know what kind of car this is, but person who knows cars would probably know what this is, a very distinct car. And they’re running through and they’re excited, and we spend about the next 20 minutes with these 4 kids mostly. It turns out that they are just coming to the bay to hang out, and at first you think, oh, they’re friends or they’re here on vacation or maybe one of them has a cabin here.   But, no, it seems like   2 guys who who literally just picked up 2 women that they don’t really even know, and they’re just out to get laid and have fun. Mhmm. And so they disembark from the car and they start wandering around all these different locations and they kind of have this function of introducing us to all the locations in this movie. But, this is where you really start to get a sense that this bay, as beautiful as it is and as nice as this little mansion is on the on the edge of it, that it’s really filled with a lot of decrepit abandoned areas, like a resort that at one time, was booming and now is not. Or I think as we later find out, there was an attempt to make the bay kind of a resort, but that ended up falling a little flat because the countess who own and who owns the whole area really didn’t want that. So they go in, and and they’re bouncing around. I I love the music. I I actually like the music in this era.   And, you know, and it’s just really fun, jazzy, kind of, boppy, almost, Bossa Nova at times. Right? 

Craig:  It was also, you know, in in in a lot of places, it was almost symphonic. Like, somebody would get murdered brutally, and then there would be this beautiful sym symphonic music just like, oh, now we’ll look at the bay. Like, it was weird. And I have to say, you know, all this stuff that you’re describing, you have described it very well. I mean, the the series of events that happens, but I was getting so confused Yeah. Because they were introducing so many characters and they weren’t introducing them by name. Like in my notes, I’m like squid eating guy, bug guy. Like, you know, like, who are these people? And then there’s, you know, the like you said, there’s a man and a woman watching all of this going on and I didn’t know who they were.   And then it cuts to, these kids and we have no idea who these kids are and you know, we call them kids as is usually the case. Of course, the actors, looked much older than they were probably supposed to be. But, you know, it and and you’re right. It almost felt like a a hostile type situation where these 2 guys are traveling around together just trying to pick up chicks who are also traveling around together. And it it was just kind of bizarre. Like, I I I couldn’t figure out what was going on really. 

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s confusing because you’re getting so many characters thrown at you, and you’re you’re you’re waiting for the connection and you’re not seeing it yet. 

Craig:  Simon. Like, he was biting a squid and, like like, why? Like,   what are you doing?   Like, I didn’t even understand it. And I felt like he, kind of explained it to the bug guy. He was like, well, at least I eat the things I kill. And like I’m thinking, okay. Maybe that’s supposed to be significant. And, like, the bug guy, mister Fazade or whatever his name is, you know, he’s looking for this one particular bug and, like, it’s this bug that has eluded him or something. And then later on in the movie, like, he’s got all these bugs and, like, he has one that’s his pet. And I’m I like a like a cockroach that he carries around a little box that his pet is his pet.   Yeah. And, like, I felt like I should be understanding why this is relevant. Mhmm. But even in the end, I had no idea Yeah. Why why these things were relevant or if they were. And if they were, it totally went over my head. Well I guess maybe it was just supposed to be the quirks of the characters. I don’t know. 

Todd:  I I kinda felt like maybe they were deliberate red herrings, you know, things that were thrown in, and that that might be what they are. But you’re right. It’s like a you get a sense that it maybe everything is supposed to be significant. You’re just confused Right. As to how at this point. It really focuses you in on the movie though, doesn’t it? I mean, I don’t think it’s so confusing that you kinda throw your hands up in the air and lose interest or or was that what happened for you? 

Craig:  No. I didn’t lose interest, but that’s really kind of when I started to feel like, oh, it’s it’s really Scooby Doo. Yeah. Because, you know, in those in those old and I love Scooby Doo. That was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid. But it it was I think you’re right. Right, it was red herrings and I think that that’s what it was intended to be, and to be fair, it played out in a way that I didn’t expect. Now I don’t know if it’s entirely logical or feasible, but it was unexpected for me and and, I don’t know.   Maybe I’m giving myself too much credit, but I feel like generally I can kinda figure out what’s going on. And in this movie, I I did not. Yeah.   No. You’re I didn’t like you. What’s going on? 

Todd:  You’re not alone. I was the same way. And I was taking furious notes. I’ve got this huge piece of paper, and I’m like, this must be important. Who’s this guy’s name? And I went back and I’d fill people’s names in, you know, just so we could talk about 

Craig:  it. Me too. 

Todd:  But I think if you’re watching the movie and you’re not worried about talking about it for a podcast later. Yeah. You you won’t have any trouble keeping track of who’s who. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  So these youngsters are hanging out and they’re at this abandoned nightclub, but then there’s an eye. You know, there’s always this this eye shot that somebody is watching, but you don’t know if it’s a man. You don’t know if it’s a woman. And then, like you said, it immediately it jumps to a tarot reader, somebody who’s putting down tarot cards. And we get yet another character who’s this, like, this this middle aged woman, and, she’s finding something significant in the tarot cards. And she walks around through the house to call Paul and you realize, okay, Paul is her husband. And so you get this contrast. There’s this mystic woman here who’s, thinks there are ominous things happening in the bay, and then her very serious scientist husband who’s studying the bugs, and they clearly don’t really get along or even talk much. 

Clip:  You little hateful Ferdie.   It would be absurd to pretend that you are capable of loving something.   Me? I love many things, but you could never understand.   We can’t understand anything. Right, Ferdinando?   The clouds are swirling. There will be tears shed over the bay.   Really? Oh, good Lord. Just think of that, Ferdinando. Now what? 

Todd:  Last week, you said that everything was going to be wonderful and beautiful. This week, everything’s gonna be terrible and horrible. So, but then Paul makes some ominous words here too. He complains about Frank, the   Architect that we saw several scenes back. 

Clip:  You hate Ventura for the exact same reason, dear. You hated Frederica’s husband because he knows how to enjoy life. And you don’t.   Be careful. You spill the acid. And the only reason I hate him is because he wants to transform the bay into a sea of cement,   but I won’t let him even if I have to. 

Todd:  And then we’re back with the kids for pretty much, the next 15 or 20 minutes. And and I I this part is is so Friday 13th. Like, this was 

Craig:  Yes. Oh my god. 

Todd:  It’s a mini movie in and of itself. It’s these people who are these kids who are just running around. They’re breaking into houses. Right? 

Craig:  They’re Right. 

Todd:  The one girl, Broomhilda, wants to run off and swim. Nobody else wants to swim. They keep referring to her as the German girl. 1 guy says, you’re getting the kraut girl. Remember? I’m getting they they clearly don’t even know these girls’ names. It’s it’s so funny. 

Craig:  Oh, and they’re all in sweaters and coats, and she just goes and takes off all her clothes and jumps in the lake, which I thought was, pretty funny. 

Todd:  I was I was waiting for her to get killed. I thought, oh, woman goes off on her own, strips down, jumps 

Craig:  to 

Todd:  Mike, and, and so she does that while the rest of them are breaking into this house. And it turns out the house they’re breaking into at first, I thought, well, maybe this is another abandoned location, but it turns out it’s Frank’s house. And they’re drinking the alcohol, and they’re turning on the alcohol, and they’re turning on the music, and they’re dancing without a care 

Craig:  at all. And then the 2 

Clip:  guys are fighting over who’s 

Todd:  gonna get this girl, and that’s the point at which Mhmm. The French girl. Right? Yeah. In the meantime, that’s the point at which 

Craig:  The French girl. Right? 

Todd:  Yeah. In the meantime, we switch back to the, to Hilda who is swimming around in the lake naked, and I’m waiting for her to get it. But as she swims up to the dock, her foot hooks on like a rope. And Yeah. It’s kind of a neat scene where, unbeknownst to her, she’s pulling this this body that’s been tied down up toward the surface and the hand of it comes and brushes up against her, which scares her and and sends her running. She’s running, back to where she last left them, which is at the lodge, was it not abandoned nightclub or whatever? And I used to she’s naked. Did she ever throw clothes back on or she 

Craig:  she She did. She she threw her teeny, teeny, tiny little dress that didn’t fit her at all. She she threw it back on, but not her panties. And that’s so funny. I mean, these are the little details that I notice. You know, like when she goes and she gets undressed, she takes off her dress and she takes off off her panty. And then, of course, when she gets out of the water, she throws her dress back on. And she’s scared, so it makes sense.   But all the time, I’m thinking, she didn’t put on her panties, and that dress comes up to, like, her waist. Like like like it wasn’t covering the lower half of her body at all.   That’s funny.   And she’s she’s running, back to the house. And you know what it is? It’s classic Friday 13th. Like, she’s getting close, but you know somebody’s following her and she’s almost there. And then somebody gets her from behind with, like, a machete and and cuts her throat. And, the practical effects, in the movie are pretty typical of a Giallo film or at least the ones that we’ve watched because I haven’t seen nearly as many as you. Yeah. But they’re pretty darn good. You know, it’s all practical.   No CGI. So it’s all done with makeup and prosthetics and stuff. And it’s good. And and she just ends up laying there on the lawn and is dead. And then, the other folks, the other kids that are still inside, I think it was Duke and Denise, the French girl, they go off and start having sex. They go off and start having sex in a bedroom. And so Bobby, the other guy is alone, and I feel like maybe he hears something, so he goes to the door. And immediately, he gets, like, a meat cleaver or a machete to the face, and, like, you know, almost cuts his cuts his head almost perfectly in half.   And then immediately, I mean, like within seconds after that, we get one of the classic Friday 13th kills where Denise is on top of Duke and they’re having sex, of course, in a bed and they’re naked, and they get speared through both of them and it goes all the way through the bed and you see the spear coming down through the bed. And I feel like that was recreated almost exactly in one of the Friday 13th films. And then, I understand why. You know, it’s it’s gross and scary and and effective. The thing that I you know, looking back on it now, I enjoyed the part with the kids because it was reminiscent of the movies that I watched when I was a kid. I liked the Friday and I still do. I like the Friday 13th series. It’s not the smartest series, but creative and interesting kills.   And so I appreciated those elements. But I also, having watched it and then going to read about it, I almost felt like this part of the plot was just inserted 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  So that they could have more kills. I mean, it’s really there it’s it’s completely inessential. And when it comes right down to it, I didn’t realize it was Frank’s house. I was thinking that it was the countess’s estate that they broke into. But you’re right, it was Frank’s house. So, you know, it was fun to watch, but really Frank could have just showed up and said, get out of here.   Yeah. You know? Yeah. Exactly. There was really there was really no   reason to slaughter these kids, but it was fun to watch. 

Todd:  Well, you’re right. And and in that case, the slaughters themselves become kind of a red herring because you think, okay. Well, maybe we’re dealing with a serial killer who doesn’t have a motive, or maybe these kids are finding out what they shouldn’t or whatnot. But you’re right. It was totally unnecessary for these guys 

Clip:  to die. 

Todd:  Yeah. You could cut them out of the film completely, and the only thing that we wouldn’t have is bodies to discover later. That is it. Exactly. But, you know, the way that this was filmed was still really quite good. I thought that when Hilda is running back to the house, he really gets this effect that she’s being pursued by shadows. You know, instead of of showing us the legs of the killer, the arms of the killer, kind of behind her, you just every now and then in the foreground crossing like as say, maybe she’s in the background running, in the foreground, you see just like a shadow go across, you know, something, a tree or or a piece of furniture or something. It does a really good job, I thought, of creating this tension and this pursuit without ever showing you a little bit of the killer’s body, you know.   It was it was pretty well filmed, I thought. And especially so, considering apparently they weren’t really in a very wooded area, you really get the sense that she’s going through the woods from one location to this house, and then gets hacked right there in the yard, and then is left there in the yard almost to morning. Then, you know, nobody notices. It’s it’s it’s really, again, that really bleak kind of slasher movie feel to it. And something that might confuse people as they’re watching this is that there’s a lot of day for night shooting going 

Craig:  on here. A lot. I noticed that too. 

Todd:  Yeah. So there are times when you think maybe it’s it’s the sunrise or you maybe think that it’s morning again, but actually then the next shot you see is clearly night and so you realize that previous shot was just a day for night. So that it it honestly, it’s not that confusing once you get adjusted to it, but, but it is there. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and I would say, you know, like like we said, you know, this is kind of a predecessor of, the American slasher films that we got in the early eighties especially. It that chase scene in particular reminded me it did remind me of Last House on the Left. Mhmm. And it also reminded me of, I Spit on Your Grave. Okay. It it had a similar quality, and I’m sure that that has to do a lot with the time period and and and the film that they had available, but it was really reminiscent of those. Yeah.   And it and it was it was suspenseful. You know? It was it was good. You know? I didn’t know what was gonna happen. I I figured she was gonna get killed. I figured all these kids were gonna get killed. The second I saw them the second I saw them, I knew they were all dead meat. And and and that was, you know, that was fine. I and like you said earlier, there’s really nobody likable in the movie, so you’re kind of waiting for people, to get killed.   And and it pays off in spades. You do get some very bloody, very gory and violent kills. And then I feel like, so Mrs. Fazati, you know, is doing more tarot readings and it’s all very heavy handed that you’re seeing like the death card and whatnot. But then we cut to that couple who we saw watching, Simon and Apollo, and it turns out that they are Albert and Rene. And Rene, the woman, is the daughter of the miss of, of the countess’ missing husband. And they they they have kids. I mean, it’s just like, it’s kind of a throwaway thing.   Oh, oh, we’re we’re leaving the kids in the camper. And and you got to see the kids’ silhouette in the camper, and they go off. And they go to talk to who do they go to talk to? Do they go to talk to the Fazatis, mister and, like, Apollo and Anna? 

Clip:  Is that who 

Craig:  they go to talk to? They go to talk 

Todd:  to the Fazatis. Yes. 

Craig:  It turns out that, the countess’ husband, who was Rene’s dad, had planned Todd turn turn the bay and the countess’s estate into a resort, but she didn’t want to do that, and they think that maybe that’s why she ended up dead. And they, if I remember correctly, they kind of suggest, Renny says that she’s just there to find her missing dad because her dad has been missing since the countess, died. She says she’s there, but they kinda suggest that maybe she’s there to claim the inheritance of the estate. 

Clip:  Inheriting isn’t always so easy. Maybe Frederica’s will leaves everything to her illegitimate son. Her illegitimate son? Your stepmother did have her brighter moments. Didn’t you know that Simon is the offspring of her secret affair? Uh-huh.   But who is this son?   Oh, he’s a fellow who lives here in the shack on the bay. He’s part watchman, part fisherman, and even part petty thief. Anh, 

Craig:  who is the squid biter.   Simon’s squid biter. 

Todd:  That sounds like a great film. 

Craig:  So yeah.   That sounds like a good movie on its own. We should watch that one next. So Renny and Albert are gonna go see Simon. Well, when they go to see him, we see that Frank has been visiting Simon and is now leaving, and actually gets out of there before Renny and Albert realize he’s there. And as he’s leaving, he says to Simon something like, Well, we’ll settle tomorrow. So we know there’s something going on with Frank and Simon. We don’t know what. We know that Frank wants to get his hands on the estate, so there’s something going on there.   And so the so Renny and Albert are talking to Simon and they’re asking about the dad. They follow him out to the docks in the bay, and he’s like, nope. I don’t know anything. And then Renny just kinda looks off to her side and sees something moving under a tarp and she throws the tarp aside and underneath the tarp is her dad is her dead decaying dad with a squid on his face. And and she’s like, I thought you said you didn’t know what happened. And Simon’s like, oh, I found him in the sea. Like, oh, wait. Yeah.   I just I forgot to mention I found him. That it’s not suspicious at all. And that’s really no. Not suspicious at all. Then, Albert and Renny go to Frank’s cabin where Albert goes off somewhere. I don’t remember where he goes, but he leaves, Renny there. 

Todd:  I think it was another one of hey, you go get the car moments. 

Craig:  Yes. Yes. Yes. And Renny goes to the bathroom like she’s been sick or something, and she’s, like, washing her face and she sees in the reflection of the mirror behind her all those dead kids that we saw before. And then Frank tries to attack her with an axe. 

Todd:  Doctor. Yeah. 

Craig:  Doctor. And at this point, I was like, What? Like, Frank is the killer? What is happening? Like, 

Clip:  I 

Craig:  had no idea. And like, so he tries to attack her with an ax, and she’s like holding him off from the other side of a door. And she’s in the bathroom, and she sees these great big long scissors. And, like, she stabs him with the scissors. 

Todd:  Through the door. 

Craig:  Through the door. Yeah.   And it looked to me like he was dead. Like, I thought she had killed him. I’m like, wait a second. Does stabbing somebody in the leg kill them? Like, I I was really confused. And and really, I guess that kind of leads up. I I would say at this point, there’s maybe 20 minutes of the movie left, and, everything just all of the intrigue starts getting explained at this point. And it’s super, super convoluted. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  But it makes sense. Yeah. I mean, like, it’s not like it’s so convoluted that it doesn’t make sense. It’s just like, oh, okay. We’re dealing with all terrible people. There is there is no good guy in this movie.   Yeah.   So I I don’t know. Tell the folks how it all plays out. 

Todd:  Alright. So, Paul eventually oh, there was an earlier scene where Paul’s wife had been looking for Paul, and he was missing. I think this was shortly after the teenagers were murdered. And, when she looks into his office, his little beetle is stabbed with a with a pin. I thought that was 

Craig:  Oh, Todd.   I didn’t even notice that. 

Todd:  Oh, you that was a really I I you know, again, a little troubling, injury to animals thing because that wasn’t a mechanical beetle, you know, and I think Right. Mario I read that Mario Baba really regretted that moment. It seems like this is a common thing for these giallo pictures. Wasn’t there another one that we saw earlier where somebody had stabbed a a salamander or something to the ground with a pin as well? 

Craig:  Yes. Yes. You’re right. 

Todd:  Later regretted doing that. I mean so Paul pops in, and he finds Frank’s body. And again, Frank’s I think he’s laying there with his eyes open, seems completely dead, so he runs out. And then, the daughter now this is the point where we realize that, Renny is completely and utterly doesn’t care who dies, she she’s got this bloodlust. All she wants is the inheritance and the money. She tells Albert to hunt, Paul down and kill him because he’s he’s seen this. And, actually, the only guy who’s even somewhat good in this is Albert, who’s the only one who seems to have any qualms about killing anybody. 

Clip:  Hurry before he calls the police. Stop me before he ruins everything, Albert.   I can’t just how am I going to   Go on. Move. Go ahead. 

Todd:  And he runs off, and does kill him. Paul’s wife is prowling around, and she gets her head cut off, you know. Actually, it’s a pretty cool scene. And you don’t know initially who’s doing it, and you’re thinking wait a minute. That doesn’t make sense, like why did she die? And it is a close-up of her neck, like after the head is cut off spurting blood. And as it falls forward, there is a it’s basically like a breaking pot, and it’s a shot of the kids that we had left in the trailer. That just came out of nowhere. It was like this sudden reminder.   Oh, yeah. By the way, there are still kids in a trailer over here. And Mhmm. You know, they’re goofing off in the but it was a it was a really cool transition. This movie actually has quite a few really cool, transitions and that’s one of them. Then Albert comes back to meet Renny and she makes a comment to him and it turns out it’s it she must have killed the wife. Right. She’s killed the wife.   He’s killed the husband. So now they think that they’re fine. All they have to do now is get rid of Simon. So they go down to, the cabin Todd get rid of Simon. But at this moment then, it switches to a gas station, and Laura, who we haven’t seen since the very beginning of the movie, she’s Frank’s secretary, is getting gas pumped, and she’s making a phone call. And Frank, you know, obviously, nobody answers at Frank’s house because everybody at Frank’s house is dead. So she gets in the car and returns, comes into Frank’s house, and Frank starts crawling towards her. He’s not dead after all.   This is the only part of the movie that I was like, what? Of course this guy was dead. Like, 3 people have discovered this guy’s dead body. He he hasn’t been moving, you know. His his eyes are open. Does he sleep with his eyes open? Was he playing possum? I don’t know. But in any case, he decides to crawl towards her and, he tells her to go get Simon. So even as he’s dying and he needs help, all this guy cares about is the bae, and getting Simon so that he doesn’t get killed as well. I mean, he knows what’s gonna happen, and he still wants his man, his hands on this bay. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Anyway, so she goes down to the cabin, and finds Simon. And this is, again, this is the this is the big explanation moment. Yep. And we see the weapon in Simon’s hand. A lot of what has been doing many of these killings is this, like, sickle type machete. It’s like a machete, but it has kind of a a a a corner to it at the top. 

Craig:  Yep. 

Todd:  And, we get this we get the explanation from her and him also through some flashback, which is kinda nice. It breaks up a little bit of the action, and we see what’s happened previously. And in a nutshell, what had happened? What I don’t know. You explain it, man. Can you explain it? 

Craig:  Well, I don’t know. I hope so. Okay.   So so Simon says to her 

Clip:  You finally came back to the bay.   What do you mean?   You and Ventura convinced Donati to murder my mother.   Your mother? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know this.   Don’t you play innocent with me? No. You no good, filthy whore.   Listen, Simon.   You made the naughty killer. No. You wanted to marry him, you slut. You were even ready to screw Ventura.   No, Simon. You’ve got it all done. Shut up,   you bitch. You thought you could take my mother’s place, didn’t you? No. But I’m going to kill you like I did tonight. I have nothing to do with it. 

Craig:  And then we get these flashbacks where we see both Frank and Laura had met with the countess and had tried to negotiate with her, but she was unbudging. And then we get another flashback where you know, I think Donati would be in for it, but I don’t think I can convince him. He seemed, you know, we’ve been at parties with him. He seemed to, like, take a liking to you, so you need to seduce him. And she claims to Simon that she didn’t wanna do that, but she was kind of pressured into it by Frank. And so we get another flashback where we see Laura and the countess’s husband, Donati, and he’s like they’re in a car and he’s trying to, you know, make the move on her and she’s like, no. No. No.   Not unless you do this deal or whatever. So it turns out that she kinda did seduce him and tried to get him into this. And then there was something that I didn’t really understand. 

Todd:  About the diary? 

Craig:  Well, no. The diary I understood. Okay. So so I thought that because there was a suicide note. From the very beginning there was a suicide note from the countess. And we see in one of these flashbacks that, Laura sees this diary and she swipes it. Now what I thought that she was doing was that she was trying to get it so that she could mimic the handwriting. But as it turns out, there was an entry in the diary that said something like, life is just isn’t worth it anymore.   It’s all over it for me. You know, it wasn’t, it wasn’t a suicide note at all, but it sounded enough like a suicide note that it was dated February 13th. And he’s like, next February 13th, we’re gonna get her killed or whatever. And and that’s what they did, and that’s why the authorities thought that it was, a suicide. What I didn’t understand was somehow Frank, after the countess and her husband were killed, somehow Frank blackmailed Simon. Did you catch how that because what I remember seeing was that, like, Simon dumped a body in the bay 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Craig:  And then Frank said something like, oh, I can make this all go away. All you have to do is sign the papers, and he did. What do you do you know what that was? 

Todd:  No. I’m not quite sure. My thought was perhaps because Simon didn’t have anything to do with killing the stepfather, but as far as we could tell, but maybe they had him do the dirty work and then use that to blackmail because at the end of the day I don’t know. I think there’s a lot of implication here. And and it could be taken a couple different ways. It could be taken that Simon was really happy that all this happened and was more than willing to help get rid of the body, but, in exchange for, you know, for all that, he had to sign over the property. Or it could also be that Simon’s the illegitimate son of this woman, and he’s not living in the house with her. There’s something earlier on about how and and it’s also in her gaze upon his cabin.   He he’s living in this crummy little cabin on the edge of the lake and it’s kind of the family shame basically. And so there’s apparently a lot of guilt and stuff. So it could also be claimed that now that both of those people are out of the way and everything falls to Simon, that Simon can have all the money that he needs to leave the bay and leave this life behind. All he has to do is sign his inheritance over to Frank and then they will give him the money, basically, a huge chunk from it. And that’s what I think it was. He wanted to get out, he wanted to get away, but he didn’t have any money. And by signing over the inheritance, he got that, and was able to leave, leave and and start a new life. That that was my idea, but I don’t think again, that was my idea.   I don’t think it was ever completely spelled out. 

Craig:  And it doesn’t matter because just then everybody dies. Simon that’s right. You know, Laura and Simon are having this tense exchange, and and she takes a pot of boiling water off the stove and throws it in his face. And you think she’s gonna get away, but she doesn’t. He Simon attacks her and strangles her, and and she’s dead. But then Albert shows up, I guess. 

Todd:  Well, he kills Laura. 

Craig:  He kills her, and then and then Albert shows up and kills Simon with a spear Suddenly. As Renny watches. 

Todd:  Suddenly. I mean, it’s it’s like Simon, like, finishes killing Laura. He walks out the door, and he the door is barely closed behind him when suddenly the spear goes through him right right into the wall outside the cabin. Uh-huh. Right? It’s crazy. 

Craig:  Yes. And and and again, I I think I’m very reminiscent of Friday 13th. I think this may be the second kill that they almost copied identically because the imagery was so familiar to me. Yeah. It is Albert, right, as as Renny watches. And then Albert and Renny pull a body out from the bay. Again, I wasn’t really sure who that was. Do you know? No.   I I I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.   It could’ve,   but Todd doesn’t matter. Another teenager. Who knows? So Renny and Albert are alone in one of the houses, and all the lights go out. And Renny says, Albert looks out, and the lights, and the lights are out. And it’s Frank and Frank attacks attacks Albert and they struggle and the winner of the struggle gets up and you don’t know who it is. Renny’s standing there looking at them, but you’re not sure which one wins. And then it cuts to a scene in full daylight outside, and it’s Albert and Renny, and they are burning the documents. I guess the documents that Frank and Simon had signed, signing it over to Frank.   They’re burning the documents, they have won, everybody else is dead, they are Todd, you know, they’re like, oh, I do it all over again for our children. And then you just see the barrel of a shotgun pointed at them, and it goes off, and they both go down like they’re both dead from this shock shot. And I swear to Todd, this is my favorite part of the movie. If I had any qualms about the movie whatsoever, like, this just wipes them all away.   It it it it cuts to a   shot of these 2 kids in this camper pointing the gun at their parents who they’ve just shot. And one of them, it’s a boy and a girl, and one of them says, 

Clip:  geez, they’re good at playing dead, aren’t they? Hey. Let’s go down to the bay. 

Craig:  And then these 2 kids just frolic off to the bay. Boldly pretty simple. The music plays, and and that’s the end. 

Todd:  Oh, and I have to say, 

Craig:  I thought that ending was freaking hilarious. Like, it was so out of left field. It didn’t make any sense at all, but it was actually kind of nice to see these people who had been so ruthless kind of get their come up ends. Like, I was like,   yeah. Yeah.   But it’s it I mean, it’s utterly ridiculous. But I I felt like that was the perfect cap for the movie. Because really, in hindsight, the whole movie is ridiculous. And so then to end it with something that’s just kinda so over the top and Todd really was. Watching 

Todd:  It really was. Watching this movie is so much like watching a slasher because at the end of the day, the, enjoyment that, I guess, I could say that you’re getting out of the movie isn’t really figuring out the plot. It’s really just who’s gonna get it next and how are they gonna get it, you know, and and maybe who did it. But it’s not a a detective story like like we like we’ve explained. Everybody did it. Everybody was nasty. Everybody deserved what was coming to them. The only 2 incidents in this whole movie are the children. 

Craig:  Who didn’t blow their parents away at   the end of the movie. 

Todd:  Now Renny, beautiful woman, she is actually a former miss France from about, I don’t know, 5 almost almost, 12 years before this. And her name is Claudine Auger, and you might recognize her also as the Bond girl in thunderball. 

Clip:  She Ah. 

Todd:  Just just a few years before this, she was, she was in that movie. So, you know, it’s got it’s got a few names in it. 

Craig:  Christopher Lee, I was reading, 

Todd:  was a big fan of Baba’s. He had been in a movie of his of a few years before, this movie came out and was really excited to go see this film when it premiered at Cannes or something like that. And so he went to see the premiere, and he was utterly disgusted by it. He thought Mhmm. 

Craig:  He just walked out, didn’t he? 

Todd:  Yeah. And a lot of critics felt that way. A lot of critics, at the time were just like, all this this movie is about is watching people die and really dwelling on their gruesome deaths. Of course, later on, we get a whole genre based on that. So nobody’s Oh, yeah. Nobody’s terribly shocked by it, But I can you know, if you transport yourself back to the time and especially to see a movie like this come out of a of a well respected director who just kind of takes a huge left and does this kind of thing. You can imagine that it probably got some mixed reviews and and, you know, people didn’t really know what to think of it at the time. But, again, as we’ve been saying, the fingerprints of this film are all over the movies that have followed it.   I mean, all over. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. 

Todd:  So it’s pretty significant. I’m really glad we watched it. I’m really glad Ryan recommended it. 

Craig:  Me too. 

Todd:  It’s it’s not my favorite giallo movie, because it doesn’t have a lot of those elements that I really like about Giallo. But, it has enough of it. And again, it’s just it’s just a fun movie to watch and it’s really well made. I mean it again, very skilled director. This isn’t a hack job film. It’s a guy who’s clearly very skilled working within a budget and again, like I said before, he makes great use of his limitations and the cinematography is so interesting. It’s different and it’s stylish and it adds to the suspense. So many times when a person just like opens the door and bam, they’re killed.   It it shocks you and it doesn’t just shock you because of that, but it shocks you because of what came before it. Oftentimes, it’s this like slow pan of the camera through the house showing you what this guy is doing and then what this guy is doing and then what this guy is doing and what this guy is doing is going to the door and suddenly boom, he’s dead. Really cool or really really good. There’s a lot to like about this movie. 

Craig:  Yeah. I agree. I can’t say that I loved it, but as a fan of horror, I’m I’m really glad to have seen it because it feels like an artifact. Like, I I feel like, if you were to take a class on the history of horror, this would definitely be on the syllabus. Like, it it really seems like it paved the way for a lot of what we got in the eighties. And, you know, those are the movies that I grew up with, and those are the movies that I loved. And I think that they owe, a great debt of gratitude, to this movie. Who knows how things would have turned out of this or or something like it, hadn’t come around.   And, you know, it’s got a huge fan base. You know, people people love this movie. You know, they are huge fans of this movie. Would it be something that I would sit down and watch again? I don’t know. Maybe. You know, we’ve we’ve watched other movies that I’ve said, you know, I I don’t need to see this again. But this one had enough intrigue and and as I’m sure our listeners know at this point, there were a lot of things that I was still kinda left scratching my head about. Mhmm.   And I think that maybe upon a second or third viewing that some of those things might become a little bit clearer. So, overall, I I would say yeah. Again, thank you, Ryan, for for suggesting it because, as a fan of horror, I’m glad to have seen it. 

Todd:  Yeah. Me too. Me too. Well, thank you again listeners for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. You can, like us on Facebook. You can find our podcast on iTunes, on Stitcher, on Google Play. Please share it with anyone you think might be interested, and also reach out to us on social media and let us know if there are any movies you would like us to review in the future.   Until that time, I’m Todd. 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

We pay tribute to the late Erin Moran the only way we know how: By reviewing one of her b-horror film roles. This Roger Corman-produced Alien-ripoff also happened to send a young James Cameron on his way to film stardom. It’s hard to deny the strong resemblance between this film and Aliens, which he would later write and direct.

Thanks, Ryan, for the suggestion!

Episode 78, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast.

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

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  Today’s film, we go back to the extensive of Roger Corman’s 1981’s Galaxy of Terror. This was suggested by one of our loyal listeners, Ryan, as a tribute to a actress that we lost recently, Erin Moran. Erin Moran, probably better known to those of us who grew up in the eighties and and even earlier, as Joanie on Happy Days. And then in the spin off series, Joanie loves Chachi. Chachi was played by Scott Baio 

Craig:  Baio. But 

Todd:  who’s also been in the news recently. Yeah. He was in the news for making a comment about her, after she died, which was totally inaccurate. Not inaccurate about the fact that she had a drug problem, but that it actually led to her death, which, unfortunately, was caused by cancer, which was a bit of a surprise to everybody because she had been keeping it pretty quiet. And, also, I think it came on her pretty quickly. So, one of those unfortunate things. But we got a chance to look back at one of her film roles here directed by a guy named Bruce Clark, and, also an earlier film. Actually, I think it’s the second film, that James Cameron worked on, at least the second film that he worked on for Roger Corman Studios.   The first one of those being Battle Beyond the Stars, just a couple of years before this or maybe even 1 year before this, where he was a set director, did some art design for it, and then he ended up working on this film, graduated up a little bit to 2nd unit director. 2nd unit, for those of you who don’t know, is basically another director that directs the the less important scenes, oftentimes the scenes that just involve special effects or close ups, things like that that the primary director can’t be bothered with. The 2nd unit director does those things, and he designed a lot of the special effects in this film. He designed some of the art, did did some of the art design, really had a strong influence on the look of the movie, and apparently used some really interesting techniques to get some special effects in this film that impressed everyone so much that, he got more and more, popular in Hollywood. And, of course, we know him now as as a a god among men 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  In the film world. Right? 

Craig:  James Cameron, he directed aliens, didn’t he? 

Todd:  He did. He wrote and directed it. Yeah. 

Craig:  There there’s definitely a major aliens vibe, going on in this movie. I mean, you can see where, he probably took, I don’t know, some influence from from what he did on this movie, and carried it over to aliens because the plots really aren’t even all that dissimilar. No. And the look of it being in space, and kind of the claustrophobic spaceship kind of, look, definitely is reminiscent of Aliens. And and I like that because Aliens is one of my favorite movies ever. I love that movie. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. And and this movie, owes a lot to Alien, which just came out a few years before it. I mean, it’s totally an Alien rip off almost, this one. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  It it’s almost like cross Alien with Star Wars, but but definitely lead way more heavily in the Alien direction. And that’s what this movie is. And you’re right. Like, even the set design from this almost entirely rips off of Alien and then completely informs Aliens. And I’m thinking especially about the ship, the, the idea behind it. You know, like, Alien, when it came out, was pretty groundbreaking in that it showed us a different kind of space. Like, Star Wars even showed us a different kind of space as well. Right? It’s it’s this space that’s kinda worn.   It’s kinda it can be grimy at times. It’s like a lived in future, even though technically Todd Wars doesn’t take place in the future. Right? But it’s it’s like it like should a very lived in kind of quality about it. You know, you have these droids that break down and are kinda cobbled together by different parts. And, you know, everything, about the set design and the production design of Star Wars was kind of unique in that way. And then Alien also went in this direction of instead of space being this pristine, clean, really nice and fresh new thing, we we really followed a crew of it’s almost like an oil rig in space. Right? 

Craig:  Right. Industrial. Yeah. 

Todd:  Very industrial. And then instead of these Buck Rogers type characters, you swashbuckling heroes. You’re basically with the blue collar workers of space who are scouring for garbage and things like that. I don’t remember. Researchers? What what were the guys in the original aliens actually do in the original alien actually doing? 

Craig:  In aliens, you had, like, these marines, like, soldiers who were going in on this mission, this recovery mission. And that’s exactly what’s almost exactly what’s going on in this movie. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Well, first of all, over the when the credits are coming up, it’s just kind of this blue, dirty, alien landscape. We there’s not any action going on, but we just kind of get a sense of, outer space. And then it cuts to this old lady who I guess is some sort of like, I don’t know, prophet or something. She says her name is Mitra and she’s the interpreter of the signs, and she’s sitting there with this guy who is identified as the master. And, he looks like a man, but you can’t see his face because there’s, like, this red aura all around his head. They get news that this planet has been found and apparently this is something that they’ve been looking for for a long time because the master’s really pleased about it. And he says that he wants to send a crew, a rescue mission, because there had had been a crew sent to this place and they had never heard back and and they finally were able to locate where they were or something like that. And so he wants to send a new crew for a recovery mission and this prophet lady says 

Clip:  You would do that, such risk.   It has been too long. I’m tired of waiting.   Death will surround you.   It is the only way.   A terrible way.   But sure. Yes, master. Put together a class 3 ship with normal exploratory and defense equipment. You will command the rescue mission. I will personally select the crew. 

Craig:  I mean, really, it the the basic premise is almost identical to aliens. And then once they once they end up getting to this planet, then of course you still got the same premise where, you know, they’re confronted by this alien species or whatever. But it has a little bit different of a twist, as well. It reminded me also a little bit of event horizon. 

Todd:  Where 

Craig:  it’s in space and people are having to kind of confront their fears and their nightmares and things. But, you know, in this movie, it’s a cheap movie, it’s a B movie, it’s a Roger Corman movie and that’s what he really was known for. But I was really kind of impressed. I mean, you could tell some of the things, well you could tell a lot of it was cheap. For example I think the first time we’re actually in the spaceship and we see the captain or somebody kind of you know, hitting instruments on the wall, you you know, it it looks pretty obvious that this is like cardboard. Like like, the the whole the whole wall kind of moves anytime she touches a a button or something. And there are other places where if you’re paying close attention, you can tell, for example, I read that the interior of the spaceship, the walls, was made up of, McDonald’s takeout boxes. Like the old styrofoam burger boxes that the burgers used to come in.   They’re just opened up and glued on the wall and painted over. And if you’re looking, you can tell. I mean, it is obvious that that’s what those are, but it looks pretty good. And and yet even another connection to aliens, I read that Bill Paxton Todd of connections even though this one came first. And really as cheap as the movie was, it was made on a $700,000 budget according to Corman, as cheap as it was, it looks pretty good. It’s really not bad. Even when you can tell that these actors are probably standing in front of a matte painting or maybe even a green screen, it looks good. You know, it’s interesting visuals.   It’s it’s fun to look at. 

Todd:  Yeah. I agree with you. And I think if it feels cheap at all, it kinda feels cheap in the filming. Like, the cinematography feels a little cheap. But, and and some of the acting and writing. Well, yeah, you know, all the other stuff. Yeah. 

Craig:  That’s some of the acting, but some of the acting is actually quite good. Like 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  Well, you’ve got, you know, Aaron Moran, may she rest in peace. I I wasn’t, we like to do this. We like to do tributes to to the stars that we’ve lost. I I think, you know, they deserve a little bit of credit in their passing. Erin Moran, you know, she’s just one of those actresses who was such a part of such an iconic piece of television history that she’s 

Clip:  just in my consciousness. I know who she is. This movie came out while Happy Days was still running. 

Craig:  She looks fantastic. Is her acting superb? She looks fantastic. Is her acting superb? No. Probably not. You know, She worked with the writing that she was given which was not anything spectacular, but you know it’s definitely a passable performance and she’s nice to watch. You know, she’s pretty, she’s likable, and you appreciate her. There are lots of faces in this movie that you’re going to recognize. There’s a character named Kor played by Ray Walston, who I was trying so hard to recognize.   I knew I had seen him in a bunch of stuff. I guess he’s most famous for my favorite Martian. He was maybe the main guy on that show. What I recognized him from was he played candy in the John Malkovich version of of Mice and Men, and I teach that book and I’ve shown that movie a million times, but he he’s, quite a good actor. And then you’ve also got a very young Robert England, playing a character named Ranger, and I really like him. He’s not one of the largest characters, but it’s fun to watch him. Again, such an iconic guy and of course known mostly for his role as Freddy Kruger. But just to see him, you know, he’s young, he’s fresh, he’s good looking, but you definitely also see in certain places in the movie little scraps of the scary Freddy Craig vibe that will come later.   So while overall the acting and the writing is not great, there are some shining moments and some shining performances and and I thought that really kind of raised this above the level of your typical b movie. For a b movie, I would give this a high score. 

Todd:  Yeah. I completely agree with you. And, you know, while you’re rattling people off, another person, Grace Zabriskie, who ends up playing the cap the the captain in here is emblematic of, I think, what the actors have put it into. You’ve got good actors who are given some pretty goofy roles. And at least in her case, I thought it was the goofiest role, and she hammed it up like you wouldn’t believe. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. 

Todd:  The as the captain, she’s supposed to have come off of this earlier mission that’s just alluded to, the only survivor of the Hesperies massacre. So she’s just got this intensity and kind of ridiculous lines really that that start off the whole movie that are trying to paint her as this tough as nails, doesn’t take crap from anybody thing. But honestly, because of the writing, it it comes off really forced. 

Clip:  Oh, crew, this is Trentor. Lift off in 30 seconds and march. Captain, no one’s prepared. They’ve got 30 seconds to get prepared. 

Todd:  I mean, like, what no space captain would ever do of any ship. You presume because it’s kind of this rescue mission, they have all the time in the world to do this. It’s not like it’s not like but but she’s like, let’s push it. Let’s get it into hyper warp speed or whatever. That’s kind of dangerous. We’re just gonna do it anyway, and she just does it. Putting her crew in peril for absolutely no reason at all just to add some intensity, to these early scenes and to give her character, you know, this tough as nails attitude. So dumb 

Craig:  Yeah. Really. Yeah. And and yeah. And and she, again, is is another super she’s got such a distinctive face. I mean, if you’ve watched television or movies in the last 20 years, you’ve seen this lady. She was in The Grudge. She was in Twin Peaks.   She was, in Seinfeld. She’s been all over the place. And when I saw her, she’s one of the first crew members you see. And when I saw her, I was like, oh, I love her. She’s great. She’s really not given much to do. She’s anchored in the spaceship the whole time until she eventually somehow mysteriously gets fried. I don’t even really know what happens, but regardless, you know, it’s fun to see her face there.   And she, like you said, the writing is so silly, but she commits to it. 

Todd:  She’s like, what we’re going to do. 

Craig:  Yeah. Exactly. And again, like you said, while we’re kind of rattling people off, more members of the Craig, there’s the hot blonde, who is, Demia, who I really didn’t recognize, but when I looked at her IMDB profile, I saw that she was from New Year’s Evil. Yeah. And that’s another movie we’ve talked about. And I think I think don’t you think she was probably the blonde in the bar that the guy picked up? 

Todd:  I think so. Yeah. She’s the one. 

Craig:  Or the blonde’s friend. Anyway, yeah. 

Clip:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Craig:  Anyway, sexy blonde, big boobs, you know, had to have one of those in in an eighties movie. And then you’ve got a character called, Q Todd. I don’t know if that’s how you pronounce it, but he’s played by Sid Craig. And and Sid Haig is probably most famous for his work with Rob Zombie in, House of a 1000 Corpses and its sequel, which I can’t think of the name of right now. And he’s a scary, scary guy in those movies. And in this, it’s funny because this movie was made in 1981. He looks virtually the same as he does today. Mhmm.   This kind of ensemble of these really familiar faces for a fan of the genre and, you know, just of of TV and movies in general. It it’s nice to see all of these people at a different time in their career come together in this movie that I don’t know if I’ve ever even heard of this movie before. 

Todd:  Now, you know, one other person we have to mention on here again, this probably isn’t gonna mean anything to anybody who’s younger than us, but Zalman King plays Balan, one of the other guys. 

Craig:  Recognize him. Where was he from? 

Todd:  Well, you know, he’s not really recognizable as a face. He’s had a limited career as an actor, but I remember on cable TV, I think it was HBO or something, Zalman King’s The Red Shoe Diaries was, one of those, you know, like, sexy programs that as a as a, you know, as a young adolescent, you know, you try to catch when it came on. Right. And he did tons of this, like, softcore erotica, basically, for cable TV and is pretty famous for that. It’s funny to see him. I didn’t actually know that he had an acting career at all until I saw this movie and looked at, oh, yeah. He’s got, like, a dozen of the of these acting credits, but just went on to be a very notorious producer of of these just softcore sex movies for, for Cinemax. Right? Yeah.   Skinnymax. Yeah. Absolutely. Everybody’s got, like, these distinct personalities. And part of what makes this such a b film is that maybe the character’s a little too well drawn. Yeah. They’re a little too okay. You’ve got the toughest nails captain who’s got this past that is always haunting her.   Balan, who’s just he’s just skeptical of everything, doesn’t seem to like anybody, and just kinda wants to press ahead on his own. You have Kor, who’s the cook, who’s the mysterious guy who actually kinda seems to show up a little late and doesn’t have a lot to do even though at the end of it, he ends up playing a huge role in it. He just kinda sneaks in and then comes leaves out of nowhere. You have Demia who, like you said, the The sexy one. The sexy one, right, who you don’t really know why she’s there. She’s supposed to have some talent, but who knows? Illumah, I didn’t get what her role was. Oh, no. She was like the psychic.   She 

Craig:  right. She can sense things, and this was such a strange weird part of this movie. Like, I never really understood like, she’s supposed to have some sort of power, I guess, but or or psychic ability, but I could never really understand what it was that she was supposed to be able to sense. Like she just keeps saying throughout the whole movie, oh, I feel it, or oh, no, I don’t feel it. Like, like, 

Clip:  what? What do you feel? 

Craig:  I don’t, what’s happening? Well, like, I think that she could maybe, like, sense other life forces or something like that. 

Todd:  It’s kind of funny because, like, it appears that, like, she’s, like, running the whole operation there for a while. Like, their entire plan is just to walk around with her until she senses something, and then they go in that direction. I mean, you’re thinking, don’t don’t they have some devices or something that they can, like, scan around? And you realize they’re just going forward because she senses this or she doesn’t sense that. And at one point, she says 

Clip:  Absolutely nothing. If anything can be found, Cap, 

Todd:  then I’ll find it myself. 

Clip:  Balon, I’m size sensitive. The subtle energies do exist. They even pay me to sense them. Alright? 

Todd:  I think they’re trying Todd, again, very clumsily paint this notion of the future where there are this is a profession, you know, that there are people who have these. But it’s so clumsy, and it’s just kinda chucked in there, And it doesn’t really go anywhere except when it’s convenient for the plot at that particular time. And then Quahad is this, as you said, is is he’s like a mute through the whole movie. He’s another person who likes I thought he was gonna have a lot more to do, and he really didn’t. 

Craig:  Well, I I read that, initially in the script, he, you know, was just another crew member much like the rest of them, but Sid Haig thought that his dialogue was was super corny, which I’m sure is true because the rest of it all is. But so he asked the director if he could play it more like a mute, and, the director went along with it, and so he only has one line, in the whole movie. He’s this you know, we don’t know anything about any of them. We don’t know anything about their backstories except for the captain who was in some kind of failed mission or whatever. But, Kuhad’s thing is that he has these like crystal ninja stars, that he uses as weapons. And, his his only line, in the whole movie is at at some point, he uses his stars to, like, prevent a door from opening, and and they end up getting shattered. And somebody else, I think it’s, Balon, tries to give him a gun, and, Q Todd just says 

Clip:  I live and I die by the crystals. 

Todd:  That’s that’s 

Craig:  the only line, he has in the whole movie, but, 

Todd:  my gosh. He says it with all the gusto that you can muster for that line though. 

Craig:  Sure does. He sure does. He’s just got he’s got such a distinct look, about him. You know, he’s I I think he played is it Captain Howdy he played in House of 1000 Corpses in the other one? He’s just got this really gruff look about him, and and he’s fun to see in this. Then there’s also Cabrin, who ends up kind of being the hero of the movie, And he and Illumina, have some sort of romantic Todd, and he’s played by Edward Albert, who I guess did some work in in the Power Rangers franchise. I recognized him because he was in a movie called Butterflies Are Free with Goldie Hawn, which was based on a play that I was in once and I played the same role that he did. So, I recognized him from that. But, you know, it’s it’s actually almost kind of too big of an ensemble.   At least that’s what I was thinking in the beginning, especially since they all have these really weird names. It’s kind of hard to keep track of who is who. But what they do is they end up kind of setting up interesting ways to kill each of them off. And each of those was in fact quite interesting, and and I enjoyed watching all of them. So I’m I’m glad that, they they did have this kind of large group of people to play with. We better get to the plot. 

Todd:  Yeah. Otherwise, I run 

Craig:  out of time. They so like you said, they have to go to this planet. I think it’s like planet Organthus or something. And like you said, captain Tranter hyper speeds it there and everybody kinda, you know, things are shaking and falling off cabinets and, the, the people, the people are like shaking in their seats and things. And, but, but they get there and like, they literally get there in about 30 

Clip:  seconds. Right. 

Todd:  Which I 

Craig:  thought was so funny. Like, okay, we gotta go. We’re here. 

Todd:  My favorite part of the sequence is that, apparently, flying the ship involves just basically flipping a bunch of switches. Yeah. There’s no there’s no flying really going on. It’s just flip these switches, flip this switch, flip it. 

Craig:  Well, and everything is so low tech. You’ve got, like, a computer screen with just an image of the spaceship on it. And, like, the spaceship will, like, tilt to the right a little bit and then it’ll straight itself out and then tilt to the left a little bit. But they get there and, they go to investigate, I guess, this outpost where these other people were. We had seen, I guess I failed to mention, in the very, very beginning, there’s just this really short shot of an astronaut running away from something, and he’s, like, he’s carrying guns and he locks himself in a room. And we see something outside the window. It’s kind of amorphous, like you can’t really tell what it is. And then he just, like, gets thrown up against the wall and dies.   So we know there’s some sort of threat. And when they get there, immediately, they encounter a couple of Todd. And, like, for reasons I don’t really understand, they immediately incinerate the bodies instead of, like, investigating what might have happened. 

Todd:  That didn’t Todd any sense to me at all. Like, it it it seems to be a big priority there. It says, like, let’s burn these bodies as quick as possible. I don’t know if they’re worried about some kind of infection or something, but like you said, their whole purpose to be there is to figure out what happened to this crew. So the fact that they just incinerate them the minute they come across them, doesn’t make a lot of sense. 

Clip:  No. It doesn’t. But 

Craig:  but they find they find at least 2 that they incinerate right away, and then they’re all kinda walking around. And another thing that, I thought was hilarious about this movie was that immediately anytime they get somewhere, they split up. Which of course as you know in these types of movies is always a great idea. Kos, who I don’t think we’ve mentioned yet, we’ve said they’ve all have just kind of these silly character tags. Cas is the jumpy one. His only distinctive characteristic. He’s the jumpy one. Wildly.   So, he’s looking around and he’s by himself, and he sees, like, this kind of cockroach beetle kind of alien, and he runs away from it terrified and he’s so terrified that he can’t even speak and doesn’t even tell the other people. But they see that he’s terrified and so they all walk off and leave him behind. And, he’s then, attacked and killed by this insect like, alien. And then we jump back into the spaceship where everybody is regrouped. Aluma says something like, I sensed the life force around Koss, but then when he died, it was gone. Like, how did 

Clip:  you even know he died? Like, did somebody turn around and 

Craig:  go back? Oh, darn it. 

Todd:  They don’t seem very broken up at Ca. I was kinda happy that Caas went too. I mean, first of all, you knew he was gonna be the first guy. Second thing, he was so jumpy. It’s sweating all the time. It’s just super annoying. 

Craig:  It was pretty funny, I thought. Hilarious. And and when they’re when they’re back there, Trantor I mean, she she drops all these lines about how it was just like this on Hespus or Hespus or whatever. That’s that’s how it was on Hespus. First, you don’t see anything, then they’re everywhere. And, like, I so I kept thinking that there would be some connection, like, yeah, between this mission and the Hesperus mission, but really it doesn’t seem like there is no, she just keeps, she just keeps making connections that aren’t there. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  But then they get on their super high-tech computer and they do, like, this scan of the landscape and, when they get to area 4 19, I don’t know what that means, like, the camera goes off, like, there’s there’s too much energy there or something. And so they they know that that’s where they have to go check things out. And so most of them go. I think some of them stay behind. I don’t remember who stays behind. The captain stays behind and Ranger and Core stay behind, but I think the rest of them go. And they, go and they find this alien pyramid which again is probably one of these matte paintings or maybe it’s a set that they did with miniatures, I’m not sure. But it looks really cool. 

Clip:  It does. 

Craig:  When they find this pyramid. And then then of course they have to go, explore that. So split up, of course. Yeah. And go explore the pyramid. But it it’s fun. It was a cool set piece. 

Todd:  They’re really lucky because the minute they land on the planet, they do an analysis of the, atmosphere, and they’re like, well, it’s it’s pretty crappy out there, but at least you’ll be able to breathe. So they don’t have to wear, like, space suits or anything, which I’m sure saves a lot of money. But they do wear these, like, giant packs on their back. And as far as I could tell, the only function of these packs was to be, like, giant, heavy, cumbersome flashlights. There was Right. There was nothing else that was, like, in them or that they could do except they had these two lights kinda by either side of their head that shone forward, which, from a production perspective, is very convenient for lighting the scene and lighting the faces and actually has a really neat effect. And, again, I you can totally see that in the design for aliens going forward. The planet, as they’re out walking around, it looks very similar.   Even, like, coming across a big structure like this looks very similar. And, again, the design of their packs and things, except Todd alien, you know, they were more like space suits, and they had a little more function to them than they do here. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  But, yeah. And and I love when they’re climbing. So they end up, like, literally having to climb this pyramid to get in, find an entrance. And the whole time they’re climbing up, the second in command, 

Craig:  Commander Ilvar? Commander Ilvar. 

Todd:  Suddenly getting super emotional. 

Clip:  Like like, what? 

Todd:  You know what I mean? He stops. He’s like 

Clip:  I’m getting old. I’m tired. I’m tired of giving orders, and I must be for home. You’re not old, Commander. No. When I’m looking at you, I’m not. 

Craig:  I’m so old. Why am I here? 

Todd:  And then Oh, excuse me. They finally get to this opening, and they look over it. And he starts reciting poetry. 

Craig:  Like Yeah. Some weird thing about demons and, like, I I started to write it down, and then I’m like, no. This is too weird. I’ll just let Todd play the clip. 

Clip:  Doubt his brother demon to despair. Yeah. The demon’s tail dealt with his souls. Go to him, not to him. 

Todd:  Anyways, so they they drop him. He decides to go down in. He’s gonna be the first one to kind of rappel down into this opening, and they’re not even sure how big it is or how deep it is or what happens. So they lower him down in there, and, these tentacle things kinda come out from the wall. And it’s they they grab onto him. They’re almost like leechy, I guess, in Yeah. Ends to them. Like, they can stick to him, and it looks like they’re starting to suck something.   And at first, he kinda cuts them away, but in the end, they overtake him, and he’s dead. 

Craig:  Well, there’s there’s kind of an important I don’t know. It it feels almost like a throwaway line, in the moment, but Cabrin goes down to to see what happened. And of course, the the guy’s gone, but, Demia says, there was nothing but these wormholes. I hate worms. And then later, Luma mentions something about hating tight spaces. And that becomes an important plot point because what we come to find out later is that every all of these aliens and monsters that they face are just manifestations of their fears, which I think is actually a really interesting concept. Not that it’s not been done before, it’s been done a 1000000 times, but in this kind of space alien environment, I thought that that was interesting. 

Todd:  You do have to be paying attention to pick up on that, though, because I have to say, like, it wasn’t until I read a synopsis of the film that I realized that that was what was happening. 

Craig:  Towards the end, I think that it’s Ranger who figures it out. And, then, spoiler alert, not like we won’t get there anyway. But actually, it is kind of a spoiler because it really surprises me. Eventually, Illumah dies, and I didn’t think that that was gonna happen. I thought that she and I thought that she and Cabrin were gonna be the the sole survivors. Yeah. But but when Cabrin finds her, this it all kinda happens concurrently. You know, Ranger figures it out, and then he finds Cabrin, and Cabrin has just found Aluma.   Ranger says something like 

Clip:  It was my own fear that attacked me, rocked life somehow by by this place. I knew them when I saw Luma. 

Craig:  So they they do make mention of it. And I think he even says something like there are no nightmares here or no monsters here except for the ones we make 

Todd:  in our 

Clip:  minds or 

Craig:  something like that. 

Todd:  I remember that now. 

Craig:  And it’s not entirely clear because, you know, like, it seems like if they figure that out, then they are able to escape their fears Right. And their fears can’t harm them. But if they don’t figure it out, then they they truly are in danger because most of them most of them get killed, by the thing, that they fear. So I don’t know. It’s a little clunky, but as a concept, I thought that it was, I don’t know, clever. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s a cool concept, and it is clunky. And I think what I would have preferred was to realize this in advance. I think it would have helped my enjoyment of the film that if I knew this more in advance as opposed to it being kind of a reveal toward the end, I think I just would have enjoyed it more. Because as it plays out for so much of the film, it just seems like so many random crazy things are happening to these people that there’s not a coherence to it. You know? It’s we’re Right. And and it’s not like there needs be. I mean, it’s an alien planet.   There could be all kinds of life forms and all kinds of dangers here. But, again, you get this sense it’s being set up that there is a singular threat here. And so to see it manifest itself in all these different ways without much of an explanation, it, to me, just seemed like so much of b movie hodgepodge, you know, thrown together. Right. Like, this would be a cool monster to have. This would be a neat scene for them to have to deal with. And it wasn’t until afterwards that I realized, hey, this movie was actually a little more clever, you know, than it felt for most of them. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Does that make sense? 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. It does. And to be fair, I read a synopsis too before I watched it. So I kinda knew that was gonna be going on. I don’t know if I would have caught on to it, had I not read that. But having read the synopsis and knowing, that kinda helped me out. And, you know, like I said, it does manifest in interesting ways.   Like I told I said before about how Quahad’s when they’re going into the pyramid, Quahad’s crystals get broken because he tries to use them to stop a door from opening. It doesn’t work, and they get shattered. When they all split up to go looking around inside the pyramid, he goes back outside to where the crystals had shattered and all of a sudden they, repair themselves. And he’s all excited, and he goes to grab 1, and it kinda stands itself up on end and shoots itself into the flesh of his arm, like, stabs under the skin of the flesh of his arm. And he grabs it and tries to pull it out, but a shard of it breaks off in his arm and starts making its way up his arm. And so he takes the other part of the crystal and chops his arm off, and then the the severed arm picks up the other crystal and throws it at him and it, goes right into his heart, and he is dead. And then pretty much immediately after that, Jamea goes looking for him, and she goes out and she finds his body, and I feel like may she incinerates his body, but then she kinda like trips over the severed arm, and it’s covered in maggots. And I guess that and the maggots are kinda riding around on the arm.   Not that it’s important, but a little bit of trivia, I read that that was James Cameron’s, you know, effect, and the way that he got the maggots to ride was by, running an electric current through the prop. And everybody was really, really impressed, and that kind of was a feather in his cap and and led to him going on to do more things. But she sees these maggots, and she’s already said that she hates worms, and so she kinda runs off. And then we see one of these worms grow into this giant thing, like this giant mutant space maggot worm. And then I I I tried not to read too much about this going in because I didn’t want Todd, you know, I didn’t want it to be entirely spoiled, but I read that there was this infamous scene, and this is it. And I want you to describe it. 

Todd:  Oh boy. 

Craig:  Because I don’t I I just you you you talk about it, and then I’ll tell you what I think. 

Todd:  Well, you know, when you see the poster for this movie I love the poster. The poster for this movie is this classic, like, pulp dime store, sci fi novel or comic book cover, which has these, like, aliens. It’s like an alien landscape, and it’s got these evil looking aliens, and they have a woman, you know, whose whose shirt is half ripped, you know, her clothes are half ripped off kind of backed up against us, you know, a stone. It’s it’s super sexist. It’s super super not PC, and it’s absolutely every single one of those dime store novels, almost like, you know, Harlequin’s novel cover. 

Craig:  Right. You know, 

Todd:  they they were a dime a dozen. And this scene seems to kind of take that and literally recreate it. She backs up, and you can see this giant worm. And it’s pretty suspenseful because you could see it behind her, but she doesn’t see it. And so she backs up into it. And when she turns around, it starts going over her, and it looks like it’s about to consume her. It looks like it’s eating her, and at first, that’s what it looks like. She’s she’s kinda covered with slime, and she’s, like, screaming, and her back’s on the ground, and she’s writhing around.   But then it’s like ripping her clothes off, and you get these kind of nude parts in here. And it doesn’t take but about 15 seconds for you to realize that this worm isn’t eating her. It’s like raping her. 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  It’s shot in this way. It it’s like shots of her, and at first, she’s screaming and she’s yelling, and then you get the sense that there’s a little bit of the pleasure in her face. And then there are shots of the worm over her, and it’s got these awkward, like, tentacle, hand, arm things that are kinda moving back and forth. And then there’s this unmistakable bit towards the very end where there’s this very definite, like, a second and a half of, like, thrusting going on over the bare legs. And I was like, oh, man. I didn’t read about this before I went in, and I watched I saw this and I thought, this is unusual. This is not something you see outside of, like, a Japanese tentacle rape anime or something like that. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  I that came out of left field for me. Like, totally came out of left field, and it was a little uncomfortable. And I have to say, like, it was unique, and I actually expected something to come from this. I thought that it was like impregnating her or something. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  But no. I mean, that’s just kinda the way she goes, I guess. 

Craig:  Yeah. And okay. So I read that the way that it was scripted was she was just supposed to be attacked and killed like most of the other characters. And then at the last minute, the director said that he would like to try this other thing 

Todd:  where It was it was Roger Corman, the producer who had promised it? He had promised his his, you know, his partners and distributors that he would have some, nudity with her. 

Craig:  And Okay. 

Todd:  And, initially, you know, it was just gonna be like her clothes got pulled off or something in the scene when when the thing was eating her. But then he came up with this rape scene idea, and, the director and she were not really comfortable with that. So, actually, Roger Corman himself took over directing this scene. 

Clip:  Oh. 

Todd:  Yeah. So he actually directed this scene in the movie, and she was she ended up being pretty okay with it, but she wasn’t didn’t wanna do so much nudity. So they ended up using a body double for a bit of of the nudity in here, and yeah. 

Craig:  Gotcha. Okay. Well, that makes that makes sense. You know, and boobs, of course, and b movies, you know, that’s that’s, you know, part and parcel of of the genre, and that’s that’s fine. It the only reason it bothered me, and it’s not that it you know, you’re right. I think that the reason that it was off putting maybe is just because it it came so out of left field. Like, it just seems like like, tonally, it doesn’t fit in this movie. No.   You know? It doesn’t. Other than that, this feels more kinda like a lost in space kind of, not family friendly because there is, you know, violence and gore and stuff, but, it’s got I I I don’t know how to describe it. It’s got a lighter feel, a lighter Todd. And this is is graphic and violent and and silly too. I mean, you know, it’s a giant worm. And we talk about these, effects, you know. This is a classic b movie giant monster. But I felt like they did it really well.   The way that they shot it, it looked scary rather than looking silly. I mean, you didn’t ever see it in really in its entirety. You just saw it in pieces and Craig, and and it was and it was wet and juicy, and and it, you know, the movement seemed fairly organic. It was, it was it was good the way that they did it. But the whole the whole rape thing was just kind of weird. And I read that initially because of that scene and because of some additional gore that they ended up having to cut, the movie initially got an x Craig. And they had to cut out some of the the worm thrusting and some of her moans of pleasure, and like I said, they had to cut out some some gore shots too. But, yeah, I don’t know.   It’s just a weird scene. I get why it’s kind of notorious. Yeah. Because it’s weird and gross. But creative, at least, you know, at least we’re not seeing the same kills over and over again, and and I liked that about it. 

Todd:  True. Yeah. I mean, it’s fine. As far as I’m concerned, it is is fine. Totally off from the rest of the movie for sure. And and clearly, it wasn’t originally part of the script. You know? You can tell. 

Craig:  Right. And and eventually, they find her nude body and just incinerate it. 

Todd:  Incinerate it right now. Like 

Craig:  Darn it. Another Todd down. Incinerate it. 

Todd:  Well, and that’s And that’s another thing that’s a little off about this movie is that the again, the there’s almost no emotion. Well, to be fair, all of these people were just assembled. They really didn’t know each other before this, but there are times when it’s convenient for the plot for them to try to draw some emotional connections between the characters. But generally speaking, when it’s not convenient to the plot, they’re just fine, like, killing people off, and nobody really bats an eye, right, 

Clip:  Right. 

Todd:  As it goes along. And that’s one thing that kinda keeps this movie again from really rising up, I think, above its b movie status. You’ve got your cardboard cut out characters. You You got things happening to people, and everybody just throws their hands up in the air. Oh, well, I hope we can survive. And then I think the thing that that was troubling me as we went through this, so there’s a scene where Cook confronts the captain. The captain’s kind of going crazy, still back in her ship. Mhmm.   Almost irrationally, just she’s kind of going nuts. Just I just think this is just her trajectory. Like like like, this was just gonna happen to her eventually if you she sits alone by herself for a while. And Cook, again, comes in from out of nowhere. I’m not even sure we saw him much before this. And suddenly, he’s taking an interest in the mission, And he’s his name is Kor. I’m sorry. But, like, literally, he’s the cook. 

Craig:  Yeah. Right. 

Todd:  And and the captain runs out and just sort of dies in the airlock that was kind of clunky and kind of weird. Mhmm. Mhmm. You know? But, anyway, they all end up coming back from the pyramid again. It’s like they keep making these little expeditions out, and they keep coming here. 

Craig:  Right. For 5 minutes. Yeah. 

Todd:  I know. I hope somebody died. Let’s let’s 

Craig:  let’s go back to let’s go back to the ship to talk about things for 5 minutes. 

Clip:  We’ll come back. 

Todd:  Exactly. Cook asked to join again, and then what comes is one of my favorite lines. They go back in, and it I don’t know. Do they find a different entrance every time? Because it always looks just a little different, when they come in. Right? 

Craig:  I don’t think so. I I think it’s actually the same one because Cook comes out and and says it it appears to still be open. My So I don’t know. 

Todd:  My favorite light is, when Illumina turns to Cameron, and it looks like they’re trying to build this kind of relationship. He’s the dashing man, and she’s the 

Clip:  Right. 

Todd:  Whatever. The one who’s left. And, she says 

Clip:  Aren’t you afraid?   Too scared to be.   I almost thought that I misheard that. I thought 

Todd:  I had no idea. Myself. 

Craig:  I don’t get it. 

Clip:  It 

Craig:  is a good line, though. It’s funny. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s great. Well, they come when they go back out, they find these tubes that descend down further in there. And so naturally, they decide, well, I guess we need to go into these tubes. Even though Aluma is afraid of tight spaces, they just recklessly start throwing themselves down these tubes. Like the whole movie, the thing that this is what I’m getting Todd. The thing that bothered me the most about this movie is these guys really, like, they have no goal. Like, they’re just continually going into this pyramid to confront whatever, but we’re kind of long past this notion that they’re gonna find more crew members or if they’re ever gonna figure out what’s happened to this crew.   They’re just exploring this thing to their inevitable demise. You know? 

Craig:  And getting picked off 1 by 1, and it’s hilarious. There’s even at some point, I think it’s a Luma says something like, They’re acting like snipers picking us off 1 by 1. And I was like, Duh, you guys keep splitting off 

Clip:  from one another and going off by yourselves. Obviously, they’re gonna pick 

Craig:  you off 1 by 1. Oh, Todd. It it it’s humorous because it’s so silly. And, like, they so they get they go down these tubes and the tubes are hilarious cause they’re really just slides. Like, it reminded me of Goonies when they’re going down, like, the watershed. Exactly what 

Todd:  I was thinking. 

Craig:  And they end up, at the end of these slides at this really cool set piece that I don’t know how to explain it. It like, kinda like The Matrix or it reminded me of a movie called Cube, which is also a sci fi kind of horror movie. But they’re, like, kinda on this bridge grid. 

Todd:  Yeah. Over like an abyss. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. And, Cabrin keeps saying, everybody stay together. You know, we can’t separate. And Balon keeps hanging out in the back. Yeah. And Cameron even says to him, like several, like, at least twice, like, come on. It’s not good to get separated or whatever.   And he just keeps hanging in the back, and he eventually gets attacked by what I took my note as as like a wolf devil. Like, I I couldn’t I didn’t know It kinda looked like the devil. It kinda looked like a wolf. I don’t know. But, it attacks him and throws him off the bridge. 

Todd:  It it was a cool creature effect, but, again, like, I’m still not clear on what his fear was. You know? I mean, all it’s it’s a neat concept, but it’s not really played to its full health in in a lot of these cases. It’s just like a scary creature. Like, I would be afraid of a big scary creature like this, so this is what’s gonna kill 

Craig:  me. Sure. 

Todd:  And what was coming before this, what kind of separates him from the group, I didn’t quite understand either. There was this whole opening and closing the door kind of shtick that it that revolved around this big triangle on the ceiling. Did you get what Yeah. What was going on there? 

Craig:  No. No idea. Okay. 

Todd:  No idea. Weird. They’re like, if you open it, it comes, and if you close it, it goes. Open the door. Now close it. Yeah. I don’t know. It was strange. 

Craig:  I didn’t know either. The only thing that really kinda stood out about all of that was Core, the guy we keep calling Cook because he is the cook. He kind of suspiciously seems to be familiar 

Todd:  or or at 

Craig:  least kinda, like, have some insight into what is going on in here. And and, of course, as it turns out, he does. But, like, he kinda keeps going off by himself. It it’s him who discovers that whole door thing with it making this triangle appear and disappear. I have no idea what that was or why it was important. And Ranger, Robert England, is is suspicious of of Kor because at some point back in the ship, Cor had knocked him out for reasons that I don’t understand. 

Clip:  But, 

Craig:  so he’s kinda suspicious and and and it makes us suspicious. But and then, like, things just kinda kept happening that I didn’t understand. At one point, Ranger, Rob Bert England, just loses his shit on Cabrin for 

Clip:  That’s right. 

Craig:  Reason, like and I had no idea. Like, what is your problem? 

Todd:  I know. I was thinking the same thing. I was like, why is he suddenly going crazy on this guy? And it seems to imply, like, that he knows him, like, that they have some past together or something, but it doesn’t fit with what we’ve seen so far. 

Clip:  But you’re lording it over me like you were still the patron saint of the academy Cabrin. Believe me, those days are long passed. What?   I said quit playing the master with your friends, Cabrin, old Todd, because I’m done calling after you. Did you know that, buddy? I’m shredding myself with my own buddy fingernails. Did you know that? Do you even care? 

Craig:  It was strange. I liked the scene because Robert England really has this intensity in his acting that I really enjoyed, and I enjoyed seeing it, but it didn’t really make sense. No. I guess, you know, they just kinda calm him down. And then these triangles, these lit up triangles appear, and Aluma walks through 1, and it closes off behind her. And then Kabrin, it seems like he’s walking through the same one, but it 

Todd:  I think so. 

Craig:  He ends up somewhere else. 

Todd:  It’s put it’s like transporting them to different places, I think. 

Craig:  Yeah. And then they yeah. I think so too. And then once they’re all transported Todd these different places, they’re, like, kind of locked in there, and it’s almost kinda like a beehive kinda thing where they can, you know, there’s these there’s these panels, these, like, kinda transparent panels that they can see each other through, but they can’t hear each other through and they can’t get through them. 

Todd:  It’s like a fun house mirror maze kinda thing where some 

Craig:  of 

Todd:  some of it’s glass and some of it’s mirrors. You’re right. And like, they’re all just transported parts of it. 

Craig:  And then, Ranger, somebody grabs him from behind, and he turns around, and it’s him, Robert England, playing both of these parts. And and, like, there’s good ranger and bad ranger, and this is where I was like, oh, man. I can so see Freddy Krueger coming up out of here, because he’s got this just this really he’s so good at it. He is. I’m envious of his his talent because he’s so good at this menacing scary look. And, so good ranger and bad ranger fight for a while, and good ranger shoots bad ranger several times, and, like, bad ranger is actually, like, Terminator ranger. 

Clip:  Like, he’s, like, robot or something. 

Craig:  And and because of that because of that, Ranger figures out, like, oh, it’s our own fears. So I guess Ranger’s fear was 

Todd:  Himself. 

Craig:  Facing a Terminator version of himself. Yeah. Yeah. Weird. I don’t know. Aluma is off by herself. And, again, like I said, I I I did not expect her to die at all. I thought for sure that she would be the nice pretty girl who would make it through the whole thing.   But no, she crawls into some kind of tight space, and she ends up, like like wires or hoses or something shoot out of the walls and wrap her up and, like, totally crush and and and destroy her, and and she’s dead. I I kept thinking that Cabrin would show up and save her because he’s, like, right behind her, but he’s too late, and and she’s totally dead. And that totally threw me for a loop because I thought that that romantic pairing would be the last ones. 

Todd:  Yeah. And it and, also, this one was a little tonally off from the rest of them as well. I mean, it’s it’s it’s a gory kind of movie, but in general, the kills up until this point weren’t super explicit, and this one was really gross. I mean, these tentacle things are wrapped around her. And, actually, at first, I thought we were in for another tentacle rape scene. It was I was Todd. I I was getting Shades of the evil dead too where they were, you know, they were wrapping around her legs and stuff. But then it’s just they crush her, and it is absolutely explicit in the crushing of her face and the crushing of her arms and her legs.   It’s pretty gross. Again 

Craig:  And you can hear the bone snapping. It’s, yeah, it’s it’s gross. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. I mean, hats off to the special effects in this in this. But, again, I was not expecting that level of detail coming up. 

Craig:  Yeah. Me either. Even And I think that that’s another scene that they had to cut. And even with it being cut, it’s still pretty, graphic, especially Cabrin meet back up and they have this little conference about, oh, okay. Well, it’s just our fears. There’s nothing to fear but fear itself apparently. Mhmm. But then they’re in this huge room, which again reminded me of Alien or Prometheus or, like, where they find the engineer’s room, or whatever.   And it’s this huge room and, like, there’s this big it it looks like a staircase, but I don’t think that there are any stairs there. And, Core appears at the Todd. And, Cabrin says something like, you knew about this. You knew what would happen or something. And then Cabrin climbs a magical staircase 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  That appears stair by stair. And, like, I again, I didn’t get it. Like, were we supposed to believe that now that he knows that he can manifest things, he can manifest this staircase? Is that what we were supposed to think? 

Todd:  I I got the sense that Kaur was manifesting the staircase. But, again, I 

Clip:  It could be. 

Todd:  It could be. It could be anything because it’s not clear at all. 

Craig:  Right. And and so then he gets up there and he and, Caburn and Core have this conversation, and we find out what has really been going on all along and why Core has seemed kind of odd throughout. 

Todd:  It turns out that Core, I guess, is actually Xerxes, this planet master, whatever, with the red face that we had from the very beginning. And he explains that this alien pyramid is a kind of puzzle for children of an ancient alien race. Yeah. It’s kind of a an initiation of sorts to put them through the paces, I guess, make them confront their fears or something like that, to determine who’s gonna be the leader, who’s gonna be the king, or who’s gonna be whatever. And that he himself, went through this, and that was what made him the planet master Xerxes. I guess he’s looking for a successor. Is that what it is? 

Craig:  I guess it I guess so. I guess 

Todd:  Even in the explanation, his motivation is not entirely clear. 

Craig:  No. But, yeah, it’s it’s like an even more messed up Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Like, he brought all these people here to test them to see if they were worthy of seceding him. And the only one well and again, plot wise, it doesn’t make any sense because we never see Ranger again. Ranger doesn’t die. He doesn’t go anywhere, but cavern is established as the last survivor. 

Todd:  I I didn’t realize that. You’re absolutely right. 

Craig:  And and there’s there like, I guess atop this weird tower or whatever is where, Kora is gonna put Kavrin through his final test, and all of the dead people show up, and try to attack him. And of course, they’re all in various stages of gore and and grossness. Like, he doesn’t even really fight them back. Like, it’s all of them except it’s all of them except Aluma, and they kind of, like, all come around him and are, like, down like, he’s on the ground, and they’re leaning over him acting weird. And then they just disappear. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And he wakes up and Aluma is kneeling over him and and talking to him, and he he kinda stands up and she comes like she’s gonna kiss him, but then she grabs him and she starts throttling him, and he pushes her away, and he vaporizes her or whatever. And then all of the monsters that we’ve seen kill anybody else show up and he fights them off. 

Todd:  His main weapon is a series of backflips. It seems like he just back he backflips himself out of everything. That’s all he needed to do. And I wish he had told everybody else they could done the same thing because they would have all been able to defeat these monsters by actually away from them dramatically. 

Craig:  And then he he he finally he defeats all of them, I guess, and he ends up again just face to face with KORE and, and again, like there’s no explanation for these things. Like they’re just standing there, Cabrin and Core are just standing there. All of a sudden these white orbs of light come out of Cabrin’s abdomen, shoot into Core. Core’s red glowiness goes away, and then Kore is like, now you’re the master. And Kravin’s like, well, I’ll never do what you did. And Kore’s like, you already have because you’re the master now. And then Core dies, and then Kvaerin’s head glows red. It cuts to the exterior of the pyramid, and the credits roll. 

Clip:  Yeah. It’s like like, what? What just happened? Where is Ranger? Like, like, how are they gonna get home? 

Craig:  Like, oh, it’s so weird. But I didn’t even care. Like, the whole movie had been kinda weird, but also, surprisingly entertaining. And so when it was over, I was like, okay. 

Todd:  That was fun. I think it’s the kind of movie that when it’s done, you look back on and go, yeah. That was kind of fun. Because it it subverts your expectations in a bad way all the way through the movie. You know, sometimes when we say, oh, it’s subverted by expectations, it means that, oh, it took something I expected and put a cool twist on it. In this case, I was expecting it to go somewhere, and it never did. This is not a movie I think you wanna watch late at night when you’re tired. And I remember this happening to me too before.   The problem with it is there’s really no sense of urgency or motivation propelling these guys through. You get the sense that the film is trying to set up this mysterious mythology from the very beginning with Xerxes, this planet master, with this red face who is kind of set up in a Darth Vader y kind of vibe or something. You’re not quite sure because Yeah. You know, this commander comes across the screen. He’s calling him lord, and he’s the one who’s going to assemble this group. And, he seems a little sinister from the beginning, but he’s also meeting this psychic woman oracle or whatever in what looks like like an apartment. You know? And and so it doesn’t really quite click or gel if this how significant is this guy? They’re calling him this lord, but I’m not really getting it because it’s never set up properly. And so the sense of urgency to lead them through the tasks that they have to do was never quite clear on me.   And then the climax of the movie where he’s facing this lord and he’s going to be the next one, again, I I really didn’t know what that meant. I mean, what does that mean? Does he go back to the apartment with the oracle and Right. 

Clip:  For a 

Todd:  while? You know, like, I it it didn’t feel as significant to me as I suppose it was supposed to because nothing was developed before this. For me watching it, it gets kinda boring. I mean, it’s not boring in the sense that cool things don’t happen, but it’s kinda boring in the sense that I’m really not sure why they’re continuing to make the choices they make and why this mission is so important. Why at some point they’re just throwing their hands up in the air and turning around and walking away. 

Craig:  Right. I felt that way at some point too, but then there came a point where I was like, okay. They don’t care, so I don’t care. You know? Like, let’s let’s just let’s just go with it and see who gets killed next and how, and and I was okay with that. The way that it subverted my expectations was I expected it to be really bad. It’s got all of the necessary ingredients for a bad movie. You know, it it it in a way, it kinda reminds me you know how you go on a ride at, like, Universal Studios and it’s one of those rides where it’s mostly, like, actors are, like, okay, we’re on a mission, and now we have to do this, and come along with us. And then, like, you know, you you go on part of the ride, and then there’s more actor scenes and stuff.   It reminded me of that Todd some extent. But I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It was fun to watch and there were some really, the effects were Todd. They were fantastic. And even though, yeah, and even though it was made on the cheap, like, I really liked looking at this scenery. It was really neat to look at and I I wasn’t bored. I mean, I it’s a short movie. It’s only like an hour and 20 minutes.   And there were parts, especially I would say, you know, maybe towards the end of the first half hour where, it kinda started to drag just a tiny bit, but it got back into the action and I liked it. Doctor. Yeah. Doctor. I could see me watching this again. You know, if I flipped by it late night on on TV and it was on, I might sit and watch it again. It was 

Todd:  it was fun to watch. Yeah. I agree. The facts are great even though the story doesn’t make a lot of sense, even though it’s really kinda hard to follow. You go with it because it doesn’t feel like a cheap film in in many ways. 

Craig:  Right. It it’s ambitious, and I think for the type of movie it is and for the budget they had, it it it’s it’s a success in in many ways, much more so. You know, you and I have watched a couple of Corman movies, and I’ve seen a couple others, and I’ve seen others in that same vein. And you’re right, sometimes they look really cheap, and this one doesn’t. I liked it. It was fun. 

Todd:  Yeah. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this one, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, anywhere your favorite podcasts are sold. Also, you can find us on Facebook. Like us there. Leave a comment. Let us know what you thought of this film.   Thanks again, to Ryan who left us a comment there and point us towards this film as a tribute to Aaron Moran. 

Craig:  Thanks, Ryan. 

Todd:  Until next time. I’m Todd. 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

The name says it all.

Episode 77, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig; and I’m Craig.

Todd: Today’s film is the classic that everyone is sure to love. Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama. 1988 film from a very prolific director, David DeCoteau. 

Craig:  Yeah. I was just gonna say with a title like that, how can you go wrong? 

Todd:  That’s right. You know? Is that how you how’s your French, Craig? David de Couteau. Do you know this? Couteau is am I pronouncing this right? 

Craig:  I have no idea if you’re pronouncing it right or not, but it was funny. I I looked this guy up today to see if I recognized anything else that he had done, and, really, I didn’t, but you’re you’re right. He is really prolific. What I thought was really interesting about him, I was reading in his IMDB bio that his method of filmmaking is that he just wants to make popular movies. He wants to make movies that people are gonna wanna see. And so he, has done, like, really diverse stuff, and he’s directed under various aliases depending on what type of stuff he’s doing. I guess, at some point in his career, probably early, I would guess, he did some adult films under a different name, and he’s also done some, like, I don’t know if they were technically Hallmark Channel or Lifetime, but those types of movies, romances and, like, my mom turned into a dog and those kinds of family friendly fare. He’s also done he’s done and and those he does under, a woman’s name, Mary something.   And, he’s also done some, like, softcore gay erotica thrillers. So, like, he’s got Oh, really? 

Todd:  This re 

Craig:  yeah. And he’s done, you know, I think he’s got over 50 directing credits, so he’s really, and he’s still working. I mean, he’s he’s got movies in production and postproduction. So, this guy, he’s got a pretty established career. 

Todd:  I’m looking at his page right now, Craig. Don’t sell this man short. He’s got a 131 directing credits. 

Craig:  Really? Wow. 

Todd:  And he’s like, you’re right. He’s it’s it’s like 5 movies a year. It’s insane. Like, ever since the eighties. It’s it’s crazy. I did look up a little bit more about him because I do recognize him. I have seen other stuff that he’s done. He’s a name that keeps popping up, but I never knew to give him so much credit.   I mean, bless this guy’s heart. I think he’s Canadian, and you’re right, he just does what’s going to sell. And I looked up a quote, and I think it’s from an interview where he mentioned that in the eighties was kind of a golden era. He said that home video market was really booming and basically, you couldn’t fill it fast enough. So he said it was really easy to sell movies back then, and I think this would be one of those films that he just made for the home video market. And he keeps saying a lot of his movies, they do really really well, but you’re not gonna recognize most of them. 

Craig:  Right. Right. And it’s funny, like you said, I mean, he just cranks them out. Like, I read that as soon as this movie was over, he started his next movie, and he just used the same cast and crew. Like Yeah.   Like, they just kept making movies.   So I I interesting. 

Todd:  The other one that I really recognize I’ve never seen it yet, but I I always saw the cover was Creepazoids. Creepazoids. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  You remember that one? And there’s another one. 

Craig:  I don’t remember it, but I’ve heard of it. 

Todd:  Doctor Alien, and he did a couple of the puppet master, sequels, not the original, but a few of the sequels. So yeah. Well, hats off to this man. He’s still going, and, bless his heart. He’s still making movies, and people are watching them, or else he wouldn’t still be doing it. We’re watching this one. That’s right. Now I actually put this one on the list because I wanted to discuss this with you, not because it’s super profound, but just because I have lots of memories of this movie.   You and I have talked before in the past about our fondness for USA Up All Night, and that is where I saw this movie. Now I don’t know if it just made that deep of an impression on me that I remember it all this time or if they showed this movie several times. I don’t know if they repeated films on that on that series or not, but I definitely 

Craig:  sure they did. 

Todd:  I remember sitting up and watching this movie and thinking this is insane, but enjoying it nonetheless for what it was. And what it is is a very low budget I mean, almost so bad it’s good horror movie. I don’t know. It falls into that category for me. Like, this is the kind of movie I think you could sit down and watch with your friends and laugh out loud at it. And although it’s not at the same level as one of our other favorite directors in this category. What’s his name? Did the, Sorority House Massacre 2 and all those, my buddy. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. I don’t remember. You you told me. I don’t remember what his name is, but you’re right. I mean, it’s exactly that type of movie. It’s exactly the type of movie that you would have expected to see on USA Up All Night. And and and, you know, those movies often had titles, like this. And and, you know, this is one of those movies where if you look at this title and you look at the cover art, you know what you’re getting into.   Yeah. And so I I can’t imagine why anybody would go into this expecting anything of, you know, super high quality, super high caliber. I’m sure that it probably did stand out to you as a young boy and adolescent from the same reason that most of those movies, stuck out or stood out to us. Because there’s boobies and and you know, like it it seems very much targeted at an adolescent male audience. And, I think that adolescent males, could enjoy it. Now, maybe college age guys, our age guys, I would maybe advise drinking heavily 

Todd:  or 

Craig:  somehow altering your mind in some way. Cause I think, that it might be a little bit more of an enjoyable experience.   Than sitting down and watching it at noon on a Saturday afternoon by yourself, which is what I did today. 

Todd:  You poor, poor man. What you really need to do is, is sit down, you know, late at night. You’re right. As an adolescent boy with Rhonda Sheer popping in every now and then to do something Craig. Absolutely. Handle bowling balls or pins or something like that. Right. Well, this movie starts off, sure enough, with, 3 guys who are college age dudes sitting around, 3 very unlikely characters to be hanging out together, but, oh, well.   This is unique because it seems like we have 2 nerdy guys in the group, 2 guys who, for me, were so difficult to tell apart because they looked so similar, and we’re both wearing, like, the same pair of glasses. Am I wrong about this? Uh-huh. And then No. You’re right. You’re right. And then the fat guy. Right? The fat beer swilling guy. 

Craig:  Right. And the Well, and and I think that it’s it’s supposed to be that these are 3 nerdy guys. And it’s it’s funny because, you know, the the heavier one, I think his name was, Jimmy. You could see how he might not be the most popular, but the other two guys are these good looking eighties guys that they just slapped these big framed glasses on. Like, look. We’re nerds. 

Todd:  That’s right. You could tell they’re good looking under those glasses, but, we’re not supposed to know that. 

Craig:  Right. Exactly. And the other 2, one of them is Keith and, the other one is Calvin. And, the only one that I recognized of the guys was Calvin, and his name I think is Andres Jones. And the only thing that I recognized him from was he was in Nightmare on Elm Street 4. He played the main character’s brother, and he, like, fought Freddy   in a dojo like a ninja. Like, so   I remember that, I remember him from that, but, for the most part, there are definitely, most of these people were not recognizable to me. No. I’m most of these people were not recognizable to me. 

Todd:  No. These 3 guys are sitting. 1 is watching TV. Is it Calvin is the one who’s watching TV, or is it Keith? 

Craig:  Yeah. And he’s watching creepazoids. 

Todd:  That’s right. And, and and I guess Calvin’s supposed to be the guy who’s a little unsure about girls because Jimmy’s basically saying, hey, what are we gonna do tonight? Keith asks for a beer. 

Clip:  Oh, come   on. You gonna give me one of those brews or what? No way. Oh, come on. You gonna suck them all up by yourself? Sure. What after, man?   Oh, come   on. Let me have one.   What’s it worth to you?   Well,   I know where the Tri Delta sororities are having their initiation tonight. 

Todd:  Yeah? Delta Delta? 

Clip:  And you just might be able to watch.   I think that’s worth a brewskier Todd. 

Todd:  Yeah. Feltadelta. And so their idea is they’re gonna go watch this initiation because it’s gonna be sexy. 

Craig:  And it’s so cor I mean, the dialogue throughout, you know, I I almost have to think that they were they were playing it for the cheese because the it’s it’s just laid on so thick. And the delivery is is over the top and and silly. I mean, the acting, it’s hard to even be critical of the acting because you almost feel like, I get what they were going for. You know, this isn’t supposed to be high quality acting. It’s supposed to be goofy and cheesy and over the Todd. But the dialogue is just so silly. I mean, Keith, I think, is, talking about this, Feltadelta initiation, And he says something like Last year, there was a school with great boobs, and Babs makes her wear a bra full of worms and then do push ups, do deep push ups. Like like, how awesome would that be? Yeah.   God. It’s it’s it’s so silly. 

Todd:  That’s what gets me off. Definitely. 

Craig:  I can’t say that I’ve ever explored that particular fetish, but,   you know, to each their own. 

Todd:  I suppose. 

Craig:  Oh, man. And and and they’re just acting so goofy, and, like, they try to get Calvin to drink a beer, and apparently, he’s never drank before. And, like, so they kind of razz him about that and he finally takes it and he opens it with his teeth like like was that like a can of beer? A can of beer. He opens it with his teeth. Like was that a cool thing to do in the eighties? I don’t know. I wasn’t I wasn’t drinking beer in the eighties, so, maybe that was what the cool guys did. I don’t know. And then we jump from them over Todd Delta where we’ve got 3 sorority sisters.   The leader is Babs, and she’s played by Robin Still, who I think was kinda big in in the eighties. I well, not big, but Big. She was working. Yeah. And then there’s Rhonda, and then there’s another one. It was so hard to keep track of who these characters were because they’re so nondescript and it really doesn’t matter. I mean, those 3, they just are a trio, and they kinda do everything together. But they’re talking they’re they’re, like, getting ready.   They’re, like, putting robes on for this initiation, and they’re having these really vapid conversations about how the robes are gonna ruin their hair and blah blah. Oh my Todd. Eventually, it cuts out it cuts out to the living room where another thing that I thought was funny, apparently only 2 girls are rushing this sorority. And the 2 girls the 2 girls and they’re just sitting in the living room having a conversation and their names are Taffy and Lisa. And Lisa’s the tall one and Taffy’s the not tall one. Like that’s the only   sorority. Thanks for clearing that up. I mean, why are we putting up with this? You wanna get somewhere in this college, don’t you? This is the sorority to join. So what? You said humiliation is the only way to join a sorority. I think it’s supposed to build character and create a bond of sisterhood. I think it’s institutionalized, Sadie. Initiates were not given permission to speak. That infraction will require punishment.   And they they stand up, and and you realize that they’re in their panties and Crop tops. 

Todd:  Tops. Yeah. 

Craig:  The shortest the 

Todd:  shortest crop tops ever. That was hilarious. That was laugh out loud. 

Craig:  It it is hilarious.   It is. It’s because it doesn’t make any kind of sense. I mean, why I don’t know. I didn’t do the whole, Greek life thing so maybe that was a hazing thing. You know, I can see guys, you know, wanting to humiliate guys, but I don’t really know that I buy sorority girls forcing their pledges to run around in their panties. I don’t know what would be the appeal of that. But they they they so the sisters call them over like to this like table behind the couch and they make them bend over and they start spanking them with this paddle and they proceed to spank them for like the next 5 minutes. 

Todd:  It’s like non stop spanking for these poor girls. 

Craig:  And the girls are making these noises like, oh, ow, like, every time they get spanked.   And it goes on for so long because we see that the 3 guys have arrived at the house and, like, they arrive outside the front door of the house. We still hear the spanking going on. They walk around the house. We still see the spanking going on or hear the spanking going on. They look in the window. It’s still going on. And what I thought was the funniest one of the funniest parts of the movie was, they’re standing there. I mean, they literally have a direct they can’t be more than, I don’t know, 6, 7 feet away from these girls watching them get spanked.   And they’re like, hey, come on. Let’s find a better view. And, like, are you   kidding me? A better view? You’re like, you’re you’re basically in the same room.   Like on top of that. 

Todd:  These are front row seats right here. 

Craig:  I know. So silly. But, they they had to get them in the house, I guess, so they go in the house. 

Todd:  But my favorite part is that the house that they go to, clearly says alpha chi, omega on the front. And when the girls pull out, the girl pulls out the paddle to spank them with, the paddle is like is like beta pi theta. It’s it’s I it’s like they don’t know what sorority they’re really in. 

Clip:  Todd. That’s funny. I 

Craig:  didn’t even notice. 

Todd:  It’s hilarious because clearly, they’d actually shot this at a sorority house, and they actually got, like, an authentic paddle, but they couldn’t bothered to change the lettering on any of them. 

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, it it’s obvious that the the budget is super low. I I I think that all of their, filming was done on locations. I mean, most of the movie takes place in a mall, and they they just had to rent out this mall space, but, the budget was too low for them to shut down the mall and film during the day. So the mall would close at 9 o’clock, they would move in and start shooting until it opened again at 9 o’clock in the morning and they’d have to be out of there by then. That being said, as obvious as the low budget as it is and as cheese ball as the acting is, the movie doesn’t look bad. Not really. No.   From from a cinematography perspective, it looks alright. I mean, the script is stupid. There’s some cheap, corny effects, but the cinematography actually looks pretty good. It’s it’s really not it’s not grainy. It’s not it doesn’t seem pedestrian. It doesn’t seem like, you know, a made for TV movie. As far as, the the the camera work went, I I thought it was pretty impressive, actually. 

Todd:  Well, my only criticism of it is it seemed a little dark a lot of the times. There was cases where sometimes it was a little hard 

Clip:  to see, and you’re not sure if it was dark because of the transfer. 

Todd:  You know, sometimes just the transfer to video, things things, you know, get messed up, or if it’s because that’s the way they were going forward Todd try to create an atmosphere or because they were trying to hide a lot of stuff. It might be a combination 

Craig:  of all 3. I have a feeling that’s what it was was that they I I think they were trying to hide things, especially when you get into the second half of the movie and there’s some special effects and they’re, like, makeup effects and stuff, and they’re not very high-tech. I think they probably were trying to show, or hide rather some of that stuff. Yeah. But I mean, it it they just it just keeps laying the cheese on thick. Like, after they get spanked, they stand up and the other girls are like, oh, okay. Now it’s time for whipped cream delight, and they just pull out these aerosol whipped cream things and start shooting it all over their bodies. Again, now why would this be in a movie? I get it.   That would be something that a 13, 14 year old boy would appreciate seeing. But would this ever happen? Like it doesn’t it just doesn’t make any sense. And so then of course they have to send them upstairs to shower off where both girls go up into the bathroom together and are both completely nude. One of them is just standing in front of a mirror like fretting over her hair. The other one’s just like hosing herself down with one of those handheld shower wands. 

Todd:  She’s hosing herself down for 2 or 3 times as long as they were paddling. It’s probably a good 15 minutes. She’s getting really clean. 

Craig:  Yeah. Really clean. And like she’s all suds up and like she’ll she’ll spray herself down a little bit, and then it’ll cut away and you’ll come back, and she’s all sudsed up again. She’s she’s bathing really, really thoroughly. I guess her mom taught her well. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  But but eventually, the guys, you know, they show up outside the door, and that’s kinda what leads to the impetus for the the plot, if you wanna call 

Todd:  it that. It’s the classic 3 heads on top of each other in the doorways appearing in on these girls. But then, they one of the sisters, it must be oh, it’s probably Babs who comes upstairs behind them, pushes them from behind. They all fall into the room, so they’re caught. And so we realized pretty quickly that Babs, Rhonda, and Frankie must be the only 3 girls in the sorority at all because they’re the only 3 that we see, except for some hooded figures that it seems like earlier on, there’s some hooded figures that walk into the room and just, like, walk right through it and out. Yeah. But anyway, yep. So the 3 of them meet and have a powwow with the other 5.   So Jimmy, Keith, and Calvin are in there, Elise and Taffy are in there, and Babs decides, okay. Here’s where she comes up with their final task. It’s not only to get the sisters initiated, but it’s to punish the guys coming in the house. And the 5 of them are required to break into the local bowling alley and steal a bowling trophy and bring it back. And if they do this, then Lisa and Taffy will be initiated into the sorority, and I guess the guys will get their penance for breaking into the sorority house. Why 

Craig:  Right. Right? 

Todd:  It’s so silly. Like, why these guys feel like they would have to do anything these girls tell them to do makes no sense. But in any case, that’s where they go. And as they’re leaving, the sisters, the Babs, Rhonda, and Frankie, kind of turn to each other and have a little chatter, more inane chatter. 

Craig:  You’ve got more plan than you’re letting on, man. I can see it all over your face. Honey, did you forget? Daddy owns them all. 

Clip:  That’s right. 

Craig:  We get it so easily. We’ll watch our victims on the security cameras. Oh, yeah. And when they’re not ready for it, we’ll scare it’ll scare the shit out of them. Babs are absolutely evil.   I think they’re gonna be watching them and they’re gonna try to mess with them and and, like, try to keep them from getting the trophy or something, which never plays out. They never do anything. They just watch. And and it’s also really funny because she’s like, Don’t forget, my dad owns the mall. So apparently what that means is if her dad owns the mall, that she can just, she has a key, I guess, and she can just kind of go in and gallivant throughout the mall, throughout the night. I guess if your dad owns the mall, that’s what you get to do. And and you know the ins and outs of the security system, so you can get up into the control room and watch your friends mumble around the mall. Oh, it’s so goofy, but, you know, it’s not even I’m not even being critical because it’s clear that this this is what they were going for.   They were making a a goofy movie. So to try to make logical connections and and rationales for why these things are happening, there’s there’s no point. You just go with it. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. And and you know what? I kinda like it. Like, I love the movies that take place in malls. I just have a soft spot in my heart for that. Even if it’s dark and it’s it’s, you know, empty. I think it’s kind of a fun setting for this movie that the bowling alley, I guess, is part of this mall or is attached to this mall. And as I said, it was filmed in a real mall like the Plaza Camino or something in Los Angeles, and and that’s just kind of a fun setting. So they get to the mall, and they have no trouble at all breaking into this bowling alley because Calvin, who I guess we’re supposed to believe, is still drunk from the one beer that he had. 

Craig:  From that one beer. Right. 

Todd:  You know, as they’re all looking for the line to the security system because Keith suggests he can break in and he could cut the line to the burglar alarm, Calvin just leans on the door and falls backwards as he pulls the handle, and it just opens. And then they walk in the door to this bowling alley, and it’s dark, and they just kinda stand there and talk for a little while. And then we see that the girls haven’t the other girls have indeed gotten into the mall and gone to the security, area and are watching on a few screens. And then we get a great scene, and I thought this was maybe one of the best little running gags in the whole film was our janitor. At least you think he’s a janitor because he’s in the janitor’s closet. He’s he’s actually ends up being the guy who runs the bowling alley or at least has been the night watchman for forever. I don’t even know. I don’t Right.   Know if a bowling alley really needs a night watchman, but I just like to think maybe this guy owns the bowling alley. Anyway, that is our good buddy, George Buck Flowers. Yep. Again, really recognizable, especially from the fifties sixties, and not just horror films, but a lot of these low budget movies and films. Just kind of a charming guy who always basically plays the same dude. 

Craig:  He’s got a really distinctive voice, like this kinda raspy voice, and, just a really recognizable face. And, yeah, he does. He pops up in these low budget things all the time, but you see him pop up in big budget stuff too. I mean, he was in Back to the Future. He was in, oh gosh. We watched it. They Live. Is that the one? He had a pretty big part in They Live, I think. 

Todd:  He did. 

Craig:  But anyway, you’d recognize him. 

Todd:  We also saw him in that, train movie with David Copperfield. Isn’t that right? Wasn’t he like the one of the guys? 

Craig:  Yeah. TerraTrain? 

Todd:  Yeah. TerraTrain. 

Clip:  Maybe he was. 

Todd:  Maybe he was. Mhmm. And he’s coming out of the closet just at this time when the guys are coming through, the guys and the girls, and it’s this great shot down the hallway as you see him, you know, the closet door is somewhat ajarred. He’s coming out as they’re coming down the hallway, they’re backing up against the hall because it’s kinda small, and they end up closing the door on him as they’re talking, and he ends up locked in the in the closet. It’s funny because the movie keeps cutting back to him just to sort of remind us, oh, remember this guy’s still locked in the closet. This will be significant later. There there’s at least 1 or 2 more times when he tries to come out of the closet where, again, somebody not even noticing that he’s there ends up closing the door. I I thought that was hilarious. 

Craig:  It is it is funny, and part of it’s funny, and it it’s it’s so stupid. I mean, that’s what makes it funny, but they just they just give him these little one liners. 

Clip:  Fuck. It’s stuck tighter than the man’s cock. 

Craig:  Like, just just stupid. I I he just rolls them off throughout the movie. And then there’s also later on when he finally gets out of the closet and he starts interacting, I’m sure we’ll talk about it when we get to the scene, but there’s also a big gag about how he can’t hear well. So everything that they say to him, he misinterprets and things they say. He’s funny. I would say he’s probably my my favorite part of the movie. Yeah. That and the imp.   That and the imp that we’re getting to in a second. Because because what happens Well, I guess first we have to say Calvin is is looking around and he bumps into he he comes upon this girl who is apparently robbing the bowling alley and and this girl’s name is spider again another one of our favorites, played by lanai quigley who was really just kind of a a horror queen, in the eighties. Lots of low budget stuff. We’ve seen her in several movies and talked about her before. And, she’s funny. She’s really she she plays the antithesis of these other girls. She’s a tough street girl, who doesn’t take any bull, and, you know, she thinks that these, college kids are just kinda pathetic losers. But it’s funny because she, Spider, and Calvin kind of hit it off right from the beginning, and you can tell right from the beginning that he’s kind of smitten with her.   And it doesn’t take very long, even though they’re so different, you can tell it doesn’t take very long before she’s kind of smitten with him too. And they kind of become a duo throughout, the rest of the movie. 

Todd:  I like that she has a crowbar. And when we first see her, she’s using the crowbar to try to break into the cash register. And then a little later on, she uses the crowbar to open up the the chained gate where the bowling trophies are. And then later on, we see her, and she’s using a crowbar to try to break into, like, a pinball machine. I guess she wants to get quarters out of it. Like, this woman just runs around using a crowbar on everything. It’s hilarious. 

Craig:  It is funny. Okay. So I knew. I I read the synopsis of what this movie was gonna be. And so I knew that what was gonna happen, it was basically gonna kinda be a genie in a lamp kinda situation, mixed kind of with, the monkey’s paw kinda deal. So I had read that they were eventually gonna break this trophy, which they pretty much do as soon as they get it. And out of this trophy is going to pop this imp. And, the premise is this imp pops out, and he tells them that he will grant them all one wish, whatever they want.   So the plot moves forward from there and it’s funny and and what turns out, you know, Calvin and maybe somebody at maybe Spider 2 are reluctant. They’re like, you know, I think Calvin even says   Wait a minute, Jimmy. 

Todd:  What for? What have I got to lose? You don’t 

Craig:  know what you’re dealing with. I mean, maybe the wishes come true and then go bad on you. I don’t know. I hear that’s happened sometimes. 

Todd:  Like, oh, 

Craig:  yeah. That happens all the time. 

Todd:  Need to 

Craig:  be observant. But that is in fact what happens. But what was so funny to me was this imp pops out, and it’s just like a rubber hand puppet. Like, it’s just the cheapest looking thing. And and you only ever see like, it never moves. I mean, like, its mouth kinda moves when it talks and stuff, but it seems like they just framed it so that you can’t even really see the bottom of it. I imagine there was somebody just below frame with their hand up in this puppet. I mean, that’s what it looks like.   But I just started cracking up as soon as it started talking because it’s a freaking jive in. 

Todd:  Well, well, well. How do you do boys and girls? Oh, your little faces are just so full of surprise. 

Clip:  Well, I’m just as happy   to be here as you are. 

Craig:  That’s right. Like, it talks like like Shaft or like it it reminded me mostly of like Donkey from Shrek, is is how this thing talks. And and oh my Todd, it’s just so funny. And it I I guess I had read that in some of the early trailers, they had used a really high pitched voice for it. And I don’t know what changed. But by the time the movie came out, they had switched it to this, like, jive talking thing. And, oh my god, it is just hilarious. 

Todd:  I was, you know, I was thinking they were deliberately trying to channel the plant from the Little Shop of Horrors, the, 

Craig:  the Yeah. Yeah. That works too. 

Todd:  Must have come out around the same time. Right? It was 88 or 89 or 87 when that movie 

Clip:  came out. 

Craig:  Sounds about right. 

Todd:  But I love that I don’t know if you looked at the, at the credits for the imp. The imp is played by a man named Dookie Flyswatter, which is That’s great. Kuki flies water, which is, obviously, a name, for a guy named Michael Sonnier, who has been in a lot of these, goofy goofy horror movies like Surf Nazi Must Die in this one. I guess he decided that this film was too beneath him for him to give his actual name. I have no idea. I don’t 

Craig:  know, but it’s hilarious. And as soon as he pops out, he’s like, I’ll grant 

Todd:  you any wish you want. What you want? I’ll grant you anything you want. 

Craig:  And, so so, you know, Calvin warns them or whatever, but, Jimmy, the heavy guy, was like, whatever. I’m making a wish. And so he wishes for gold and this big pile of well, it’s not even a big pile. A little tiny pile of gold, appears behind him. And he see and it’s, like, you know, lit with this heavenly light, and there’s, like, smoke around it. It. He starts going back to it and he’s like, I mean these are throwaway lines. It’s not like these are significant lines.   But as he’s going back, he’s like all excited and he’s like, Oh, I’m going   to be rich. I’m gonna get my   nails done and my hair. What? This is this tubby guy with, like, a crew cut. He’s like, I’m a get my nails done and my hair. 

Todd:  I know. 

Clip:  And then 

Craig:  he then he starts talking about all the cars he’s gonna buy and whatnot, but I was like, what just happened? 

Todd:  I know. That was so weird. 

Craig:  And he 

Clip:  just Oh, man. 

Todd:  He just sits and just starts playing with the gold. It’s it’s pretty funny. Maybe we’re supposed to believe that he’s under a spell as well when he goes and sees 

Craig:  I guess. 

Todd:  Then the other girl, like, these are the these are the worst wishes. Well well, the one guy, I think it’s Calvin or Keith. It’s Keith. Keith, the amp says, what do you want? Keith’s like, oh, I don’t really know, and he pulls him forward. And he he says something really, really raunchy. He says, like 

Craig:  Raunchy. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Bet I bet you’d like to bang that bitch there in the sweater or whatever. And he’s like, yeah. Yeah. I really would. And so Lisa immediately springs into seductress mode and comes towards him and pulls him away. This is another really goofy and silly part of this movie. As soon as she pulls him away, she takes him into I guess it’s the locker room of the bowling alley. Right.   I didn’t know bowling alleys had locker rooms, but this must be a really, really serious bowling alley. Right. Right. These guys, man, they sweat when they bowl, and they can’t leave. They’ve gotta clean up and go back out and bowl some more. She, she gets on top of him and we get it basically keeps cutting back to the 2 of them. I guess the idea here is that she suddenly becomes too much for him to handle. This boy who’s nerdy, who’s never had a girl before.   Most guys, I think, in this situation would be pretty thrilled by this, but this this guy is all he does is sit there and say, wait a minute. Hold on there. We’ve got to talk. Just a minute. Stop. Wait. We’ve got to talk. While she’s while she’s straddling him and taking his clothes off and taking her clothes off.   And it keeps cutting back to the scene just whenever we need a break from the main action. 

Craig:  She’s in like, I don’t even know, like, panties and, like, a bustier and, like, a garter belt and stockings. Like, she’s all sexed out. Like, the Wish, like, made her this big sex pot. And this scene is really funny but it kinda goes on for a long time. Like you said it keeps cutting back and forth. He’s just on his back like the whole time And, he’s not being handsy with her or anything, but she is all over him. And I was and like eventually, she takes her top off and and she’s, of course, got these great big huge boobs and, like, she grabs his hands and puts them puts them on her boobs. It’s like he’s feeling her boobs and stuff.   Throughout all of this, I mean she is straddling. I mean she they are crotch to crotch and she’s writhing around and, eventually she goes to try to pull his pants off and, he’s kinda, what it seemed like to me was like she was between his legs and he was trying to keep his legs spread so that she couldn’t get the pants off. And, and you know, he’s objecting, it actually, the tone felt, I have a feeling in the eighties it wouldn’t have fazed anybody at all. But it, with our sensibilities today, it, it got a little bit uncomfortable because he was saying things like   No. I I think you’re doing this because of some sort of spell. Like, I don’t think you would be doing this under normal circumstances. Does that matter? I I yes. It does. It does. It matters. It matters to me.   And I think it would matter to you.   You know, really, he’s kind of trying to be the gentleman. But the whole time, I was thinking kudos to this actor because despite my own preferences, if there were a gorgeous naked woman writhing around all over me, That would be a And like at some point she’s got her hands on his crotch and she’s like licking and biting his thighs. I’m like, man, he he must have taken several cold showers either before or directly after the scene. 

Todd:  That is a very good point. And and this is this is Michelle Bauer, who is another person you’d recognize from a lot of low budget films, and she’s a very pretty woman. You know, you’re right. It is is almost a little rapey in a way, kind of different from the way we normally see, you know, guys taking advantage of girls. But but the thing is is he asked for this, and it’s clearly Yeah. You know, he asked for this. It’s clearly what he wanted, and it’s clearly the result of the imp’s spell. So I thought that that line where he says, I think you’re doing this because of some kind of spell.   I don’t think you’d be doing this under normal circumstances was, well, duh, but also why is this scene going on forever? Right. You 

Craig:  know? It was going for a really long time and kinda pointlessly because eventually, he gets away from her and he makes some lame excuse, like, he wants to go get water. And she’s like, wait a minute. Water? And he’s like, I mean ice. Have you ever done the ice trick?   And she’s like, no. What’s that?   And he goes off to get ice in my mind. I’m, like, trying to think, 

Todd:  what’s the ice drink? Doctor. 

Clip:  What’s the 

Todd:  ice drink? That sounds interesting. 

Craig:  Doctor. But eventually they just split split off and they both end up getting killed. And and that’s kind of what this the I read on Wikipedia, you know, the epitome of all online sources, I read that this was loosely based on the monkey’s paw. The only way that I can see this being based on the monkey’s paw is that in the monkey’s paw, people are offered wishes and they get their wishes, but it’s some sort of twisted version of it. You know, it’s not what they really wanted. It’s the same kind of premise as, like, the Wishmaster series. 

Todd:  Yeah. But this is a super lame version of the monkey’s paw where we didn’t even try to be clever because the first guy’s wish was Todd. This guy’s wish was the girl. And, the the other girl, Taffy, was it Taffy, her wish? 

Craig:  Yes. 

Todd:  Was, she leans in and he says, I’ll give you even 2 wishes. I’ll give you one now and one later. She’s like, really? Yeah. And her wish is, I always wanted to be the queen of the prom. 

Craig:  Wow. So so so he just he just, so I guess the imp, like, he he, like, I don’t know, apparates her, like, 8 feet back in the room so that she can be in the same spot like the gold was. And then she’s just in this cheap looking tacky prom dress, like, spinning around, like, oh, my greatest dream is true.   Like, wow, girl. You need to dream bigger. 

Todd:  I know. Did your prom happen in a dark bowling alley 

Craig:  too? Oh, gosh. And the plot just kinda rolls from here. The only other thing that I think is is worth specifically pointing out is that at first, the 3 sisters are watching all of this from the control room. And one of them says, Oh my gosh, they’re getting wishes. We’ve got to get down there. And then it cuts back to the imp, and the imp says something like, It’s naughty to watch, or something like that. And like all 3 girls get like struck with this illustrated lightning and, Babs gets blown back in her chair against the wall. And the other 2 get transformed into, they call them demons later.   The only I would call them maybe minions or something. One of them kinda looks like, ends up looking like the bride of Frankenstein. And I don’t even know what the other one’s supposed to look like. She’s just got kind of a messed up kinda like zombie face. 

Todd:  Was she the one who was obsessing about her looks earlier? Because there’s a quick little inserted scene, which I think is of that girl. She’s trying to put cream on her face. It’s so clunky. It it it doesn’t it hardly makes a lot of sense. 

Craig:  Well, I guess the gold turns into cardboard or wood or something, and the the prom dress gets all ratty, so they realize that, things are going bad. And then from here, it’s just kind of a really clunky series of events where the minions are chasing people around and killing people. Like, I think the first one they kill is they they get, Jimmy, the overweight guy. And I I think I couldn’t really tell what they were doing. I think they put his head in that machine that buffs the bowling balls. 

Todd:  Yeah. I think that’s what it was. Yeah. 

Craig:  And and so then his he comes out and his face is kind of messed up and, eventually they they they chop his head off and they bowl with it down the bowling lane and uncle Impey is like, you know, just making kind of offhanded comedy remarks throughout watching all of this happen. And and basically what it is is these 2 minions chasing down the rest of the people and and catching them in odd situations and killing them. Keith goes to find the ice for the ice trick. He’s like in a kitchen and one of the minions shows up and dumps his face in the Is it the fryer? 

Clip:  In the 

Craig:  fryer, like fryer. Right? 

Todd:  When they leave the snack bar at the bowling alley at night, they really should turn off the fryer. 

Craig:  Yeah. That would I I would advise it. Yeah. The other thing that was clunky was, like, things would happen to people, and I would think they were dead, and then they would come back. And I’d be like Yeah. Wait. What’s dead? Like, like, Babs, after the minions take off, she runs just to try to get out. And, like, Spider and Calvin see her, and they’re, like, following her because they wanna get out too.   And she gets to the front doors and she, like, touches the front doors and they electrocute her and she falls over and it looks like she’s dead. And I thought she was dead. I wrote it down. Okay. She’s dead. And then then later she’s back. And I feel like that happened more than once. I don’t know.   Maybe it was just because I was getting people mixed up and I wasn’t really certain who was who. It’s just, it’s a series then of these goofy scenes where people are, you know, oh, the tough one, Spider, you know, proves herself to be tough several times by fighting with these minions and kind of protecting Calvin and, like, so they’ll fight with them for a little while and then they’ll run off and then and they’ll run off and they’ll like find a place to sit and have a sweet little flirty conversation for 10 minutes. Yeah. And then another minion will show up, and they’ll fight, and then they’ll run off and hide and have a little flirty conversation for a little while. Like, it’s it’s it’s really goofy. 

Todd:  Luckily, they get a lot of rest. They’re the ones who need it the most because they seem to be seeing the most action. That’s where they’re developing the relationship. It’s so clunky because it’s exactly as you say. They fight some minions, and they go and they they sit down and they can chat for a while, and then they fight, and then they can sit down and chat for a while. My favorite scene, though is when they’re being attacked and they’re backed into a closet. And, Calvin is behind her, and she’s like, don’t don’t just stand there. Look for something.   And so he he looks around he looks around it on the shelving and he grabs a broom and he shoves it at her and she goes, what are we gonna do clean it to death? She throws it away, find something else. And he goes and he finds a gun on the shelf. And he adds it to her and she goes, 

Craig:  And she shoots it. 

Todd:  Oh, God. Yeah. I appreciate that acknowledgement. Like in any other movie, like, they may not even call attention to how ridiculous this is, but at least they did hear. 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, god. It   it’s it’s it’s so, I mean, it’s clearly set up as a gag and so many of the things are like the minions eventually both find taffy and the way   that the joke is so freaking stupid   that I almost missed it. But one of them gets up, they knock her down or something, and then one of them picks her up by under her arms, and the other one picks her up by her legs, And one of them says, Pull. And they start pulling on her, and that’s how they kill her. So they pulled Taffy. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  So freaking stupid, but hilarious at the same time. And that’s the point after she dies when Babs shows back up and she runs into the imp, who then proceeds to tell her his whole backstory.   Who are you? Why are you doing this? What did you do with Ronda and Frankie? 

Clip:  Please, so many questions. Let’s take them 1 at a time. I’m an heir, one of the minor elves to be sure, but not without certain powers and magical capabilities. As you have seen, Wanda and Frankie have been made over into demons of a sort. 

Craig:  Oh, man. 

Todd:  Everybody in this movie is kind of wandering around without a discernible plan. It’s like you said, they’re just kinda wandering around and somebody get bumps into one of these demons or whatever, and they have to have a fight and run away. But, there’s really no organization to it. It’s all just a jumble of scenes. But, eventually, they do run into our janitor guy. Does he even ever have a name? Yep. I’m not even 

Craig:  I don’t think so. 

Todd:  Mister Buck, who sits down and has that conversation with them that you were talking about earlier. 

Craig:  It was initiation. We had to help these 2 girls get into a sorority. To get in, they had to steal a bowling trophy. 

Clip:  A what? Steal a bowling trophy? 

Craig:  A bowling 

Clip:  trophy. What bowling trophy? 

Craig:  It was a large one opened up. 

Clip:  You didn’t open it up though, did you? 

Craig:  Well, I didn’t. No. But, yeah. Yeah. It it got opened. 

Clip:  My god. My god. My god. My god. You know what you done? 

Craig:  You done let the imp out.   God. And then you’re right. You know, just not even probably 5 minutes after we had the imp tell the story. Now we get the janitor telling the story Todd it. This is where there’s all those, oh, I can’t hear you gags, which I actually thought were pretty funny. I don’t know if I would’ve thought it was so funny being delivered by another actor, but this guy, he he he he is good delivery. 

Clip:  Everybody who’d ever ever made fun of or laughed at old Dave, I mean, even just a little bit, They started turning up dead, and I mean awful dead. All ripped apart. It was terrible things to see. 

Craig:  Enough, Todd. 

Clip:  Yeah. Yeah. You’re right. They did call the cops. And the cops figured Todd Dave done it and they took him away. Poor fella. He died that very year in the gas chamber just 2 days before Christmas. 

Craig:  Sounds like an awful mess. 

Clip:  No. No. He never did confess. No, sir. Right up till the very end, he said he’d never done it. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s it’s pretty juvenile kind of humor. Like, we’re not talking Adam Sandler juvenile humor. We’re talking about, like, 6th grader juvenile humor. 

Craig:  But Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  It kinda works coming out of his mouth and in this movie. At least it breaks up a little bit of the boring monotony of the horror horrible other lines that we get. But, again, that’s part of the charm of this film is it’s so much fun to make fun of. And you can tell, like the director said, you know, he just wants to make movies that people enjoy. And I I really feel like he kinda hit it with this one as well. 

Craig:  And there was a demand for these type of movies in the eighties. I mean, they were all over the place. Like you said, you could, you know, you could pick them up off the video store shelves. You could find them on late night TV, and and people watched it. So, you know, it’s not like this is some out there movie. I mean, it’s very typical of these types of of movies. And as far as these types of movies go, it’s really probably one of the better ones. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. I mean, Jim Winojovsky, he’s the guy. I was trying to remember his name earlier. You know? He makes these kinda movies too. I I feel like he’s at a different level, maybe a little higher caliber with it, but Mhmm. Shoot. I’ve said it before, like, sorority house massacre 2, one of my favorite movies, and this is why. You know, this is why it’s one of my favorite movies is because of this, because it’s so much fun to just sit down and and goof on.   Right. So Babs ends up going after Lisa, with a paddle. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Because because the, because the imp turned her into one of the minions too, and she’s like this sexy dominatrix minion. And that cracked me up. I mean, we don’t really get to see it, but, obviously, it’s a callback to the beginning where she had the paddle. But now she’s got this, like, giant paddle, and she starts chasing we just kinda see her chase Lisa with it, and that’s it. And then later, Calvin walks into one of the scenes where he and Spider just around. He’s like, oh, I found Lisa.   And she’s like, she did? He’s like, yep. 

Todd:  That’s so true. 

Craig:  Oh, man. 

Todd:  Babs shows up. What did she get into the alcohol or something? And I don’t even know where this idea came from, but it just kind of came in out of nowhere that they think that they can destroy him with molot the imp with molotov cocktails. Was the idea they can burn him or something? Just a new thought? 

Craig:  Yeah. I think so. 

Todd:  They make a couple of molotov cocktails, and that’s when Babs shows up. And there’s a bit of a fight between her and spider. And as spider breaks away, quickly Calvin gets the wherewithal to light one of these cocktails and toss it at Babs, and she burns up. And it’s another one of those flaming dancing people, shots. And then again, they sit down. Well, alright. Well, we took care of that one. And they chat for a little more. 

Craig:  It was hard to keep track of, but at this point, there’s only one minion left and it’s the bride of Frankenstein 1. And she kills the janitor. Again, we don’t see it. We just, I in fact, I think Calvin and Babs, like, opened the door to the janitor’s closet, and the minion is just standing there over the janitor who’s, like, sitting in a chair, just, like, frozen, and this this minion is just like holding this big knife up above his head. Like like they’ve been standing there waiting for people to walk in and see them before they played the seed out. 

Clip:  That’s right. 

Craig:  And and so bride of Frankenstein minion chases them out. 

Todd:  And she ends up getting an ax somewhere. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Spider axes her head off. 

Todd:  Now, you know, where did the music go at this point? Like, this is a movie where it’s, like, scored under absolutely everything. You feel like if it’s not scored, you don’t know what’s supposed to be scary and what’s not. But at this point, like, the music just completely cut out. And I thought that was an interesting choice. And I thought, well, did they just run out of money at this point? Yeah. But did did you notice that? 

Craig:  I didn’t. 

Todd:  And I think earlier somebody had suggested I think it was the janitor guy had said something about they they had they when they were having their meeting with him, Spider and Calvin were like, well, how are we gonna fight this guy? And Jaren is like, well, I don’t know, but I have heard something what something told one time about using magic against itself. When Calvin ends up chopping this last minion’s head off, it the the severed head flies through the air and hits the doors to the bowling alley, which spring open in kind of another one of those electrical spark type deals. And he says, oh, use magic against itself to explain that. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s so clunky. At this point, I was looking at my watch thinking, I know this movie’s almost over. Like, I really just felt like they were, like, they were like, okay. Let’s wrap it up. Let’s go wrap   it up. 

Todd:  Bring this to a close. Alright. Alright, guys. Bring it in. Bring it in. Yep. And so he runs out the door, and for some reason, Spider doesn’t. What keeps her back there? Is it the imp? I don’t I 

Craig:  I don’t remember. It’s weird because she just says go get the car. Like, why wouldn’t she just go with them? Like, why would she wait? You know? Like, it doesn’t make any sense. But I guess the reason is because I was wrong before. I said there was only 1 minion left. There’s still one more. He gets in the car and minion Rhonda jumps up from the back seat. And the imp is, like, outside the mall now just watching all this 

Todd:  Sitting at the doorway. 

Craig:  Even says something like, ah, demon in the backseat. Classic. Oh, gosh. 

Todd:  Yep. And so, spider comes up from behind him with some canister or something that she’s found, and she puts it over him. And we heard earlier something about how the imp, can be contained in a small space. And so she just very quickly and easily, this amp who’s kind of omnipresent and seems to be able to see everything from his single perch, you know, in front of the arcade machine, couldn’t see. Was so distracted by watching the car wreck, that, he didn’t notice her come up from behind and put the lid over him. So she puts it over him, so he’s incapacitated. At that point, I think the demon basically loses its power or dies. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  Not before we get the amazing stunt scene of the car flying through the air 

Craig:  The car flip. Right? 

Todd:  And flips and and lands. Now I felt like this car had to be going, like, miles down the highway by this point. But apparently, it was just in the parking lot or something because immediately, spider runs right out and, pulls him out of the car and then and then we get the music again. The music is finally there, and it’s this sweet kind of we’re wrapping it up music between between these 2. And then the next shot is it’s it’s it’s the break of dawn, and Spider is getting on her motorcycle. She takes the glasses off of our handsome hunk, Calvin. They get on the motorcycle and they drive off. And it’s funny because the dialogue here is like 

Craig:  It’s finally over. Come on Calvin, we gotta go. What? Someone must have heard this, and the cops will be on their way. Who cares? You wanna explain 8 mutilated bodies laying around? The imp did it. Yeah. Right. You wanna open the can and prove it? 

Todd:  He gets on the back and they take off, and they just leave the imp right there by the side 

Craig:  of the On the corner.   On the corner. It’s it’s so stupid. And, like, you can hear the imp talking inside. He’s like, hey. Hey.   Let me out. Let me out. And he’s like, hey. You in the front row, you want some wishes? Like,   it’s it’s corny, but, you know, I I I almost appreciate the fact that it ended on that really corny note because the whole thing is just such a, you know, it’s it’s it’s cheese out of a can. I mean, it 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  And it’s laid on thick. But it is exactly what you would expect it to be, With the title the way that it is, I would think that you wouldn’t rent this movie expecting it to be something else. And if you rented this movie with the expectations that I would think that you would have going in, I think that you’re gonna get exactly what you wanted. I mean, it’s low brow, it’s cheesy, it’s goofy, you get some boobs, you get some semi creative kills that are kinda funny like with the head being used as the bowling ball and stuff. And I don’t know, It’s certainly, you know, not my favorite type of movie. But every once in a while, you know, there’s there’s an occasion where this is the appropriate thing, where you just want to sit down and goof on something with your friends, get shit faced drunk. Don’t just have a beer for this one. Just go all the way for this one.   And, you don’t have to pay any attention to it. The plot doesn’t even really make any kind of logical sense. Like the sequencing doesn’t even really seem to match up very well, but it doesn’t matter. You check-in every few minutes, something goofy happens, you get a good one liner, you see some boobs and you move on. So, you know, for what it is for what it is, I I appreciate it. 

Todd:  I think you’re about right. This is kind of in the same league as Chopping Mall, sorority house massacre 2, those kind of films. They’d show up on cable. In fact, it almost feels like it was made for cable because it is not really gory. Even the stuff we’ve described of the heads getting chopped off and rolled around. There’s just really very little blood. There’s I don’t there’s really no blood spurting and the most of the violence happens in the dark, and even the aftermath is not convincingly, you know, gross. I almost feel like I don’t know if it was just the budget was too low for that kind of thing.   Maybe they poured all the money they had into that impuppet. You know? But, yeah, it feels like it was made for cable market. It’s it’s even light on all of that stuff as well. So, you know, it it could probably appeal to a wider audience and get a little more play that way. I’m with you, and I I can see that that’s probably why that this movie stuck with me for so long. It’s just it’s just kinda 

Craig:  fun. Sure. 

Todd:  Alright. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. You can also find us on Facebook where we have a page. Let us know what you thought there. Like us. Tell us what you think of this movie, and, of course, recommend any other films that you’d like us to do.   Until next time, I’m Todd. 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 guys and a Chainsaw.

Loyal listener Jordyn picked this week’s movie, so we invited her along to discuss with us the utterly disturbing 2012 film, Sinister, starring Ethan Hawke. We had a blast!

Episode 76, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Todd:  And I’m Todd. 

Craig:  And today, we have a special guest with us. Today, we have Jordan. Jordan is a former student of mine, actually, and, former student and current friend. Say hi, Jordan. 

Jordan:  Hi. 

Craig:  And, because, we had a guest Todd, we let her pick the movie. So, Jordan, why don’t you tell our listeners what movie we’re list are talking about today and why you picked it? 

Jordan:  I chose the 2012 movie sinister with Ethan Hawke and I chose it just because I love this movie. A lot of people just say they don’t like this movie, and I don’t understand why. Because when I watch scary movies, like, I’m easily startled as a person. I spook a lot. Like, I’m like a horse, basically. And, like, this, like, movie just really met my expectations because even though I startle easily, I’m not really scared or by a lot of horror movies. So this one, like, when I go into a movie, I’m looking to be disturbed, and, like, this one disturbed me. It really stuck with me, and that’s why I really like it.   So that’s why I chose it today. 

Todd:  Are you a disturbed individual? 

Jordan:  I don’t   know. I’m a psychiatrist. 

Craig:  Well, sinister is from 2,012, and, it was directed by Scott Derrickson. And I remember being really excited about this movie because they had a really good marketing campaign. I felt like the, trailers were really good and and intriguing and scary. And so I wanted to see it. And if I remember correctly, I think I saw it in the theater, and I wasn’t disappointed either. It’s a movie that does rely on jump scares, some of the time, but it’s kind of an intriguing story, as well. I mean, when it boils down to it, what we get is kind of, your demon story, demons meddling in the lives of of people. But I thought that it was a unique take, and some good performances in there.   Jordan, you mentioned, it stars Ethan Hawke. Ethan plays Ellison Oswald who is kind of a down on his luck true crime writer. He had written one book, Kentucky Blood, about a true crime that had done really, really well. And I think that was kind of his first big success. But after that success, he had written a couple more true crime novels that just hadn’t gone very well. In fact, it’s indicated that one of his books presented a theory that maybe got the actual killer off. And so, he’s not he’s not doing that great. And, what’s happening at the beginning of this movie is that he and his family, who consists of his wife, Tracy, played by Juliet Rylance, his daughter, Ashley, played by Claire Foley, and his son, Trevor, played by Michael Hall D’Addario, they are all moving to a new location so that he can write his, next book.   And the location that they’re moving to, unbeknownst to his wife and family, Ellison has bought this house where this murder has taken place. And and that’s how the movie opens. We see this 8 millimeter footage of, I think, if I remember correctly, 4 people being hung from a tree. And it turns out that this is the tree that’s in the backyard of this house that they’re moving into. The movie relies pretty heavily on this 8 millimeter footage, and I think that that’s one of the strengths of the movie. This 8 millimeter footage is is is really unsettling because I don’t know if it’s just the nature of the way that it looks on the 8 millimeter film, but it looks very real. You know, 8 millimeter came out, I think, sometime in the 19 sixties, and that was really the first time that amateur filmmakers had had an opportunity to shoot their own stuff. The movie kind of explores that.   There’s all these different snuff films throughout the movie, and we see the first one at the very beginning. And it’s troubling, this family, including children, being hung from a tree. And it’s difficult to watch, and we we see several more of those throughout. And that’s that’s kind of the the setup is that they are there in this place where these murders took place. And the twist is that in this murder, and we find out subsequently that in this series of murders that have all been captured on 8 millimeter film, an entire family is killed, but one child goes missing and is not found. What did you all think of, the the whole 8 millimeter thing? I thought it was really effective. 

Jordan:  I thought that was very effective to just start off the film like that, And it just gave it, like, a very disturbing theme. And, like, while starting off like that, I feel like it’s almost a little ballsy just because it’s like what if the rest of the movie doesn’t live up to this one, you know, 30 second snuff film at the beginning? But, I mean, I thought it set up a great theme throughout, and I thought it was effective. 

Craig:  Yeah. I agree with Jordan. I mean, that was one of the things that the, marketing campaign capitalized on was this 8 millimeter stuff. And I agree. I think that it was kind of ballsy to start it out with such intense imagery. Unless you’re gonna maintain that throughout, it could have fallen flat thereafter. But that same sort of tension and that same sort of unease that was created with that very first opening scene, I thought that, they did a good job. I mean, there was there was good payoff.   It wasn’t just the hit you once, and it’s over. And so I thought that was good too. 

Todd:  Yeah. I think the thing that’s creepiest about the 8 millimeter, especially to us today, is the silence. You’re seeing these videos and we’re we’re so used to seeing videos with sound, that we’re really able to transport ourselves there. Whereas and and I actually have I don’t know about you, Craig. Jordan, you probably don’t. But I have 8 milli I have 8 millimeter, video of me as a kid. I there’s actually some 8 millimeter of me shortly after I was born. So I can actually go back and look at some of these film strips.   But the thing about it is there’s no sound. They did make some sort of experimental 8 millimeter where they had a magnetic sound, track at the edge. It’s pretty rare. Most of these film strips when you watch them all you hear is that click click click click click click of the projector. And so you you get this simultaneous, you get this voyeuristic quality to it, where you’re looking in on this family. But frustratingly, I think just there’s some part of you that can’t hear what’s going on, and that, I just adds the unnatural it’s like it’s natural, but it’s unnatural, and it sets you a little unease. Does that make sense? 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  And, this first one, you know, is just creepy because we’re seeing these 4 people there and they’re Todd, they’re bound and they have 4, you know, hoods over them. I mean, you can’t really see them. It’s from a distance and then slowly a limb gets cut off on one end where the ropes are strung across and so as that limb falls the 4 of them slowly rise into the air and you see them kick. But, you know, what you don’t hear is the screaming, the noise that they would be making, any of that stuff. It just plays out silently in front of you and it just creates this distance that that even makes you feel like you’re watching it, I don’t know, through a distant window, unable to do anything about it. And every single one of these film strips that we see in the movie are like this. It just makes it even more unsettling. I thought it was really good. 

Craig:  Yeah. And not only is it the whole sound thing, but there’s just something about the video quality that, kinda makes you feel like you’re removed from it. I mean, it’s just a little bit I don’t know. It’s it’s a little bit jumpier than digital or or even more advanced film. And the thing you know, like, we see several of these throughout, and they take place in different time periods. And I I think that just the the quality of the film, like you said, kind of makes you feel removed. It’s almost dreamlike in a way, but night not just dreamlike, but nightmarish. Like, it’s it’s, you you feel like an observer of something that you should be intervening in. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  But you’re you’re you’re just that far removed from it. And and I thought that was really cool. 

Jordan:  I think the, like, super 8 films can also almost create a scarier effect for modern audiences too because, you know, just based off the film, we don’t know, you know, what the time period is. And so for, you know, a modern audience like me, I mean, I barely remember only having a landline. I barely remember, you know, not having a computer. So today, I feel like since we have all these connections to help and stuff like that, it is scarier to see something that could be back then where they wouldn’t have been able to call for help and stuff like that. And, I mean, we later find out that this murder is fairly recent, but, you know, the quality of the film gives it that aura that, like, we don’t really know when it was. And I remember seeing this in the theater. My dad took me and my sister, and I was probably 14. My sister was 16, and the the movie just starts off like this.   And I look over at my dad, and he’s like, oh, Todd. Like, what what   did I take my kids to? 

Craig:  That’s awesome. 

Todd:  You bring up an interesting point there actually about the medium. I mean the way that we get introduced to the the Super eight movies later on is that as Craig said, Ellison who is writing this story about this actual crime has taken place unbeknownst to his family, they are actually renting out the house that this family lived in. And part of the suspense in this movie is is is actually seeing how long it’s gonna take for him to reveal to his family, you know, they’re not gonna be happy about this. But, he goes up into the attic as he’s exploring, and he finds this box. It’s marked home movies. And when he opens it up, there’s the projector inside along with a stack of these films. And that’s the thing about Super 8 that is so different for modern audiences is that this wasn’t an immediate thing. You know, you can’t go out and shoot it and then immediately rewatch it.   This is something that takes time and care to preserve and to to develop. So you shoot something, right? And then you take it to a place, you get it developed, you bring it back and then you’ve got Todd store it and anytime you want to watch it, you have to haul out this projector, darken your living room, set up a sheet and and get it going. And so really anything that you record on Super 8, the fact that it exists at all means that, you know, a lot of care was taken, to preserve it and so there’s a preciousness I guess to these films that you just when he opens the box and you look at them, you know, okay, these are significant videos for some reason. And then when you see the content of these films, to think that somebody thought that this this was worth recording and developing and saving and labeling carefully and putting in a box and and going through the trouble of pulling on watching later, just is is way creepier. Right? It’s it’s that it’s that serial killer who really relishes in what he’s doing. 

Craig:  Well, and that’s part of the mystery. I mean, you know, the we kinda jumped over some of the setup. It Todd doesn’t really matter. You know, they’re here in this town. The law enforcement isn’t particularly happy that they’re there because they know what he does, and they know that he hasn’t really painted law enforcement well in his books in the past. 

Clip:  Well, you know what? I do have a couple extra copies of Kentucky Blood in my office. If If you want me to get one out and sign it for   you, I’ll do that. No. Thank you, sir.   Alright. Is it the writing?   More Todd content. You don’t seem to care much for our profession.   Not everybody in your profession gets it right.   I’ve read your books, neither do   you. Right.   Oh, you got it right in Kentucky. Blood. I’ll give you that. It’s fine piece of writing. But, cold Denver morning, you got it wrong. Blood diner?   Heck, that wasn’t my fault.   Right? Your bad theory, you have to kill or go free. You ruin people’s lives. Now this town doesn’t need that. It needs to heal. It needs to forget. I sure don’t want that circus that you bring with you.   Well, there’s a missing girl involved here. 

Craig:  The the wife is is not particularly happy because, you know, when he’s working on these books, it takes a toll on their family. You know? The the people in the towns where they live when he’s writing this book, it’s not easy for the kids in school, and the wife talks about how she gets dirty looks in the supermarket. And so there’s all this tension anyway. And then like you said, he he finds this box and he starts watching these films. They’re moving, of course, so he’s taking a box up to the attic, but he goes up to this attic and there’s just this lone cardboard box sitting up in the attic. And he’s, you know, immediately taken by it because why would it be there? And then he finds all these films, and he starts watching them, and it’s obvious from the beginning that these are snuff films. All of them well, not all of them. Most of them start out innocently.   You know? It just it looks like home movies. I mean, when he when he pops in the first one, it just looks like somebody’s, you know, old fashioned home movie, and that’s great. But then after a time, the film cuts, and it cuts to these really disturbing scenes of these families that we had seen before getting murdered. He sets up this room. He’s got kinda like a in his office, it’s almost like a war room. You know? It’s it’s the classic detective stuff where he’s got ISI. Exactly. He’s got crime scene photos and all maps and all kinds of stuff set up. 

Todd:  And he’s writing, like, really obvious questions everywhere, like, who murdered her? And who is this person? It’s 

Jordan:  kinda cheesy at some point. 

Craig:  It is a little cheesy because it’s obviously for us. You know, it’s obviously for, the audience because he writes down who made the film and and then 

Jordan:  I think that’s, like, so true to, like, Ethan Hawke’s character though in this film because I think he’s the perfect antagonist. 1, because he does everything wrong. His family just eventually meets their demise because of him. And 2, just his character, like, as a whole is so pretentious, and he just takes himself so seriously. Like, he always wears that card again. I don’t know. I can just go in on Ethan Hawke. He always wears that cardigan no matter, like, what it is outside.   Like, he’s always just in a cardigan and sweatpants, maybe jeans once. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Jordan:  And then his glasses make him look so pretentious, and his hair is always just, like, that perfectly, like, tousled, but, like, also decent looking. He’s like that guy in college who just, like, minors in poetry for, like, offense giggles, takes himself so seriously, like, who murdered her? Well, no kidding, Ethan. 

Todd:  That’s what we’re here to find out, buddy. Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. You’re absolutely right. And that’s the thing. You’re you’re right, Jordan. I mean, it’s difficult to feel sorry for them. Like you said, I mean, this doesn’t turn out well, and that’s actually one of the things that I like about the movie. You know, I like horror movies that, really go dark and and things don’t just wrap up nicely in the end. But you’re right.   You do get frustrated with him because he finds this box, and he’s watching all of these videos. And and, you know, there’s one of them where he sees it seems like it’s the seventies or the eighties, and he sees these people, like, having a picnic, but then he sees them, like, the whole family, like, chained up in a car. Yeah. And then the the car gets set on fire, and, of course, they all die. And then, one of them, the one that was, I think, maybe the most disturbing for me, was one that was labeled pool party 1966 or something like that. And you see all these people having fun in the pool, and then it cuts, and you see that they’re all, like, chained to these, lawn chairs. And the lawn chairs just get dragged into the pool, and they all, drown there. 

Jordan:  I thought the most disturbing one for me and especially for my father, who I was sitting next to for 2 hours during this movie, was the lawnmower 1.   Yeah. That Yeah. 

Craig:  That that one Todd. That one comes later in the movie. I feel like they saved that for later because it is. You know, like, you you see this family, and then all of a sudden, you’re just watching this nighttime kind of lit tracking shot of this lawnmower just going over the grass. And then out of nowhere into the frame comes this person laying on the ground, and the lawnmower just goes right over him. 

Jordan:  Yeah. And there’s 

Craig:  and there’s not yeah. Oh my gosh. And and Ethan Hawke jumps in the movie, and and I totally jumped. I guess these 8 millimeter films, the filmmakers filmed them all, and Ethan Hawke knew what was going on. You know? Like, he knew what the premise of the movie was, but he didn’t see, any of the films until they were actually shooting it. And so his reactions on film are actually his reactions to seeing these for the first time. And and it and it’s good. You know? He reacts much in the same way that we do.   You know? He looks away as soon as that person comes into frame on the lawnmower 1. But it it’s difficult to feel sympathy for the guy because the whole time, I’m thinking call the police. 

Jordan:  You know? Like, you 

Craig:  know, he finds the box. That’s super weird. And then he finds all these snuff films. That’s super weird. And I get it. You know, they established that he doesn’t have a good relationship with law enforcement. And and I understand that, you know, if he were to turn these tapes over to the police, and then that he would lose access to them. I get that.   But there’s even one point in the movie where he said I think he says out loud, maybe just talking to himself, that the killer brought this box back and left it here. Why would he do that? Well, if you think there’s some killer out there who’s planting things in your house, 

Jordan:  call the police. Get out of the house. 

Craig:  Exactly. You know, he’s he’s got this wife and 2 kids, you know, young kids, you would think. But, you know, of course, if he did, then the movie would be over and and that wouldn’t be very exciting. 

Todd:  But Another way that you don’t really feel terribly sympathetic for him, although this Todd me is a fault of the film, is this parallel, tension that we have between him and his family. Like like you said Jordan, he comes off as really douchey and obsessive about his work to the point where his whole family is kind of tired of it. Yet, it starts out I mean they know what they’re in for. I mean this is this guy’s living. He writes these true crime novels, and they keep, you know, having these conversations with him. 

Clip:  His first day at school, Ellison, and he’s already hearing the grisly details of your mystery. Wait.   Wait. What did he hear?   Exactly what he drew. That your book is about a family that was hung? Yeah. Christ, Ellison.   But that’s all he heard?   That’s not enough.   Look, I’m sorry he had to find out like this. Alright? I am. But come on. I mean, it was bound to happen.   Really? That’s your response? You think that makes it okay? No.   It doesn’t make it okay. Alright? Nothing about what happened to these people is okay. But bad things happen to good people, and they still need to have their story told. They deserve that much.   You’re a real man of the people.   Oh, come 

Todd:  For some reason, he’s supposed to keep from the kids, exactly what he’s writing about so that they don’t get disturbed, which is an almost impossible task, Which, you know, just doesn’t even seem very believable. But I feel like it takes great pains Todd the point where I was rolling my eyes, the first part of this movie, where we’re constantly being reminded how much his family doesn’t like what he’s doing or at least he’s walking on eggshells around them. I was just as annoyed at his family as I was at him. You know, I think you’re you’re supposed to feel that he is really putting them out and he’s really getting selfish. I felt like his family’s expectations were completely off the wall. 

Jordan:  Yeah. The mom’s only one, what is the mom’s name, first of all? Is it Tracy? 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s Tracy. 

Jordan:  I’m pretty sure they only say it, like, once. Did anyone else find it just very random that she was British? 

Craig:  Yeah. A little bit. 

Jordan:  Like, any every time I watch that, she’s always just, like, screaming, Ellison. And I just get so, like, tripped up by it. But her only purpose is just to yell at Allison and just say,   I don’t want to get sour looks from the neighbors anymore. I want to go to the store in peace. And if weird things are happening, we need to get out of here. That’s her   only purpose is just to yell at Allison. She’s so annoying about it, but then again, she’s the only voice of reason 

Craig:  Right. 

Jordan:  In this entire film. 

Craig:  Yeah. I, you know, I wasn’t really bothered by the family. I because the the the feeling that I got was that this was kind of a last ditch effort. Like, his career is is is bottoming out, and, he really needs to write something good if if they’re gonna be able to continue to live the way that they wanna live. And that’s the other thing too. You kind of don’t feel all that sorry for them because you know that he is just in this for the fortune and fame. In fact, you know, I feel like we’re kind of being critical of the movie. I really do like the movie.   I think it’s a good movie, But, it’s hard to feel for them because even though, like, you know, the wife at one point says, if this goes sour like the last time, I’m taking the kids and we’re going to our sisters. But yet she hangs in there. They’re still there. I mean, if he really is that douchey, just leave. Yeah. And and there’s one point there’s there’s one point where he sits down, and I think this says something about him as well that he sits down and watches his old interviews, from from when he from when he was famous. And not only that, you know, I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but he’s watching it on VHS, and the VHS tape is all kind of warped and stuff, which indicates to me that he’s watched this, like, hundreds of times. Like, he’s worn out the tape.   And, in in the interview, the guy is like, so why do you do this? Why do you do this? And he’s like, fortune and fame. Oh, no. Just kidding. Justice. And then the guy is like, well, at the end of the day, do you feel better about the fortune and fame, or do you feel better about the justice? And he, like, gets a real serious look on his face. Oh, the justice for sure. And you know that’s total bullshit. You know? Like, he really is in it for the fortune and fame, and that’s that’s why he’s there, and that’s why he’s doing all of this.   And that’s kind of why he allows his family to potentially be endangered because of of the potential reward. And, so it’s it’s difficult to sympathize with him as a character, especially when not only does he find all this, like, all these tapes, which are horrifying, but weird stuff is going on around the house from the very beginning. You know, he’s hearing bumps in the night. You know, he’s hearing bumps in the attic. And he goes up, and at one point, he finds a scorpion up in the attic, which has some relevance later on when he kind of figures out what’s going on. Same thing. He he he’ll wake up in the middle of the night, and the wife has made a big deal about the fact that his office door where he does all his work always needs to be locked, and it never is. That’s the 

Jordan:  other thing that’s really interesting. 

Craig:  Like, she makes this huge deal out of how it has to be locked all the time. The kids can’t get in there, and it’s never locked. He’ll wake up in the middle of the night, and these snuff films will be playing unexpectedly. You know? At at one point, the bumps in the night apparently turn out to be the daughter. Like, I feel like that’s their first night there, and she she says she can’t find the bathroom, and so he helps her find the bathroom and whatnot. Another time the 

Jordan:  son who just has those night terrors all the time. 

Craig:  Yeah. And that was another one of the images from the trailer. Like, Ethan Hawke is is, you know, skulking around his house in the dark, and he just sees this box, like, in a door Craig, and, like, the camera just kind of pans in on the box. And then his son just, like, flops backwards out of the box in a really unnatural and unsettling way. 

Jordan:  Yeah. Who, when they’re asleep, is, like, rising backwards out of a box? 

Craig:  How do you get into 

Jordan:  a box backwards? Like, you have to be crouched down. You can’t just, like, suddenly appear backwards out of it. 

Craig:  To be fair, it’s really effectively creepy. Like, I I 

Jordan:  don’t know. 

Craig:  That was one of the, that was one of the things from the trailer. I was like, oh, man. This movie is I wanna see this movie. And it is freaky, and they explain it away. You know, the kid had had night terrors when he was younger. He hasn’t had them for a while, but, you know, now that they’ve moved, maybe it’s the trauma of moving. Ellison finds, at some point, he hears all these big, huge bumps in the night from the attic, and they’re these big, loud bumps. I I really don’t even know how he explained that away because when he goes upstairs, it turns out that there’s a snake.   Apparently, this snake has been making all this noise, but he finds the snake underneath, like, a box lid, like, a cardboard box lid. And underneath there are all these childlike drawings of the various murder scenes that he’s seen, on these snuff films. And and still despite all this, he doesn’t say anything to his wife, you know, like it’s as though he just goes on with this. I I don’t even know how to justify it. Like, how he wouldn’t think that his that he or his family were in danger. 

Todd:  Well, I’ll tell you how I initially justified it. And that was that the movie does seem to make a big deal, at least initially, about his drinking. And, he you know, he’s downing whiskey as he’s watching this. His wife at one point makes a note, comment like you’re already through a bottle. You know, we’re not even we haven’t even been here a week. And I thought there’s this part of him. Okay. He’s kind of alcoholic and he knows that he is.   And so he’s struggling with himself, like, are these things that I’m looking for real or are they apart like an alcoholic who knows he’s an alcoholic and knows that he might be seeing things. And I You know, when I first saw this film, I actually thought that that was like, maybe we’re supposed to think this is real, but it’s actually happening in his head. How much of this is real? How much of this is, you know, his own personal breakdown, due to the alcohol and due to his mental problems that he’s imposing upon this. And so, you know, he’s not actually seeing these things. He’s not actually hearing these things. And maybe he’s even imagining himself wandering through the house because this guy can do about anything in this house. And it doesn’t wake the family up for anything. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  And the other thing this guy cannot do to save his life is turn on a damn light switch. Oh my Todd. Every single time he’s plotting around here in absolute darkness and it’s what makes this movie really creepy by the way. It’s very effectively done in the dark. But the problem with it is any given moment he’s about 2 steps away from a light switch and he chooses to just wander around in the dark. 

Jordan:  Why does he why does he even work at night? Because his kids are at school during the day. I don’t know what his wife does with her life because not enough attention is put into work. But he never works during the day. You very rarely see him work during the day. He’s just, like, under the cover of nightfall, burning the midnight oil. 

Craig:  Right. Well, and and to be it doesn’t, you know, of course, you know, darkness and shadow, all of that’s very creepy and stuff. But, I I have to say that there were several times throughout the movie where I was like, I have no idea what’s going on because I can’t see anything. Yeah. It was so dark. I had no idea, what was happening. But, you know, what it boils down to oh, and, Todd, what you said about the drinking, I mean, it’s not like that is, subtle. You know? At some point in the movie, he makes a friend with a deputy who this deputy is a fan of his, and, he has this, this moment where the deputy is like 

Clip:  You know there’s a page in your books where you’re always saying nice things about all the people that helped you out?   The acknowledgments? Yeah.   Well yeah. And and in each one, there’s always, like, a line that says, you know, I I couldn’t have done this without the tireless efforts of deputy so and so from the local police department. Right. Well, I, you know, I could be, like, you know, your deputy so and so. You know? I mean, if you don’t already have one. Yeah.   Yeah. Yeah. There are a few things you could do for me, actually.   Really? Yeah.   This could be perfect.   Do you   have a notepad?   Yes.   Alright. Do you need a pen? 

Craig:  Yes. And so he does start to help him out, and and and they become friendly. And at some point, the deputy comes over, and the deputy figures stuff out. There has been this series of murders, and nobody has put together that they are connected. But they are connected in that every family that has been murdered has at some point lived in the home of another one of these families that has been murdered. And nobody has put this together yet, and that’s what Ellison is putting together. And that’s why he knows that he’s onto something big. Like, if he could crack this, it really could.   At some point, he says, this could be my in cold blood. You know, he knows this is a big deal. But when the deputy gets involved and and Ellison starts having the deputy do some detective work for him, the deputy figures it out too. But at one point, the deputy comes over, and Ellison’s like, all this weird stuff has been happening. Have there been any reports about weird stuff happening in the house? Were there any weird stories about the family that lived here? And the deputy is like, no. But every time I’ve come over here, there’s been an empty bottle of whiskey in your office. Like like, dude, maybe lay off the whiskey a little bit. 

Todd:  Yeah. That deputy is smarter than he appears at first, isn’t he? Like Yeah. 

Craig:  He is. 

Todd:  He’s a little dumb, but then he sits down and has that conversation with them. You’re like, well, this guy is the smartest person in the 

Jordan:  movie. Yeah. 

Craig:  He’s he’s not stupid. It’s funny because, you know, he looks kinda I mean, he’s a good looking guy. He looks kinda dopey, and you expect him to be dopey. But at some point, he’s like, dude, I’ve got a degree in criminology. I know when murders are connected. Like, he really does. He knows what’s going on. And, you know, throughout all of this, everything that we’ve been talking about, you know, we talked about the kid in the box and how that was weird, but strange things have been going on.   The the daughter is allowed to, paint, on her walls, but eventually she paints something outside her walls, and she says that she didn’t do it. It was the little girl who used to live here, the the little girl who is missing, the one that didn’t appear in the murder tape. Also, the the more closely that Ellison looks at these videos, he starts to see this ghostly figure in the background. Okay. So it ends up that it’s this demon, named Ba’ul. But when you first see him, it’s just kind of this ghostly image in the background all the but with these dark, almost, like, painted on that triangular eyes kind of. It it’s so funny. You know, you read things about how films are made, and I’m just so surprised sometimes.   Like, they the the filmmakers wanted I guess the director, I presume, wanted a really creepy image for this guy, so he just did a Google search. Like, he just he just Google searched, like, creepy images, and he found one that he liked, and he contacted the person who owned the image, and he bought the rights to the image. Like, I would never think of of stuff like that. And, the the same thing for the soundtrack. He wanted a really weird, bizarre sounding soundtrack, so he just looked for stuff online and he found stuff online and he contacted the owners and he bought the rights. Like, it’s just so weird how these things come together. 

Jordan:  But Did y’all notice that, like, each of the Snuff films, they all have their own different soundtrack? 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Jordan:  I noticed that in, like, each time I can’t decide if I love or hate it because I mean, I really love it because I feel like each different soundtrack just matches kinda what’s going on and it does give, like, a creepier feel. But then at the same time, you know, the soundtrack always ends, like, when the snuff film shuts off.   And I’m like, well, I feel like this doesn’t give   a realistic feel because snuff films don’t have sound. 

Craig:  That’s right. Right. No. Yeah. No. I thought that the score in general was, was really good. It it’s it’s spooky. It’s it’s it’s unusual.   It’s and and it’s not just during the Snuff films either, but, even during the rest of the movie, it’s just kind of a really bizarre soundtrack, and and I thought that it was good and effective. 

Todd:  I think that the the movie wouldn’t have been as scary without the music Todd be quite honest. Yeah. Normally, that’s a criticism I have of a film that relies too heavily on the music to tell you when you’re supposed to be scared. But in this case, I somehow, it just really worked. And I don’t think it would have been as scary without that, you know, if we had just been watching these silently. It ratches this film does a really good job of ratcheting up tension, but really not giving you a release very often. You know, there there are a lot of moments where you’re expecting a jump scare. You’re expecting to see something in the background.   You’re expecting this this this this scene to go somewhere and you’re just right on the edge right on the edge waiting for it to happen, and it doesn’t. And the the music really contributes to that. And, again, normally, these are criticisms I would have of a film. But for some reason, it really works in this movie for me. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I I think so too. I mean, you know, all the things that we’re talking about, it it seems like we’re being kinda critical of things. But the truth of the matter is when everything comes together, it works. You know? It’s a spooky film. It’s a a suspenseful film. You know, I think I think we basically have to, at this point, get to the fact that it becomes a demon movie. Ellison, he is, hooked up by the deputy with this occult expert because Ellison sees some symbols in the painted on the walls in the in the snuff films.   And so the deputy hooks him up with this guy from the occult who is played by Vincent D’Onofrio, who is uncredited, I think. After a little bit of investigation, this guy tells him. 

Clip:  It’s a symbol, associated with the worship of a pagan deity. A deity? What kind of deity? A a very obscure one dating back to Babylonian times named Bughul, the eater of children. 

Todd:  Did you say eater? 

Clip:  Yes. Of of children. 

Craig:  I think, actually, literally, the name just translates to boogeyman. If I remember correctly, it’s something like through images, so paintings or or pictures or photographs or videos or whatever, the images are his gateway into our world. And he can come into our world and he can possess the vulnerable and children are very vulnerable. And then some sort of blood sacrifice is required for whatever ritual this is. That’s basically where it leads up to. We see that, the little girl, the the daughter, you know, she’s she’s drawn or somebody has drawn this image of Baghoul on her wall. And and and so we know everything is kind of coming together. And then we start seeing I I almost forgot about this.   At one point, Ellison is walking around. It’s another time. It’s the middle of the night. The film has come on, and he’s walking around the house. And all of a sudden, these ghost children or what appear to be ghost children appear, and they’re I don’t even know how to describe them. It’s it’s not gory, but they’re in this weird makeup where it looks like they’re 

Jordan:  ghoulish and, you know, fast ly. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  And at times, it does look a little low budget and cheap, to be honest. 

Jordan:  Yeah. I thought that scene could have been done better. Like, I thought there was, like, a better way possibly to convey that all of these, like, dead kids are around. I thought it was just odd though because it was, like, him walking around trying to avoid all of you know, unbeknowingly, like, avoiding all of these kids who just exist in this ghost dimension where apparently gravity doesn’t work well either. 

Craig:  Right. I I liked the cinematography. Like, it was kinda neat because it seemed like the kids were moving in a kind of ephemeral slow way. I liked that, but the the makeup, was a little odd. Like, I I couldn’t tell what they were going for. And and what I read was that they really, really, really were going for a PG 13 on this movie. So What? Yeah. They wanted PG 13 for this movie bad, and so there’s very little gore.   I mean, at the very end, there’s blood on the walls and stuff. But other than that, there’s very little gore. There’s no swearing. There’s no sex. They really wanted a PG 13, but they ended up getting an artist based on the contents alone. So I don’t know. Maybe, you know, maybe if they hadn’t been thinking about that, maybe the the kids would have been gory or or something. I don’t know.   But, you know, it 

Jordan:  of gore and the lack of things like sex and cursing and stuff like that that we perceive as bad does work very well, though. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. I agree entirely. 

Todd:  It’s it’s you didn’t notice it. Yeah. 

Jordan:  Yeah. I didn’t even think of that, but now that I think of it. Right. 

Craig:  Yeah. No. And it’s it’s totally effective, and it it’s still really scary. I mean and and there’s certainly a lot of implied violence. And and and those snuff films, they are disturbing. You know? I can understand why it got the r anyway because it is just it’s it’s really, uncomfortable to watch. But, you know, so he starts seeing these ghost children. Finally, eventually, after all this crazy stuff has gone down, I think what tips it off is he wakes up in the night and he goes and it sounds like the projector is running, but he goes to where the projector should be, and it’s not there.   And so he walks out into the hallway, and he sees the light from the projector coming down through the entrance to the attic. And he climbs up to the attic and just pokes his head up through the attic floor, and he sees for the first time these ghost children. And they’re sitting there watching a film strip, and it’s the demon, Baghoul, in the film strip. And then the the demon pops his face down right in front of his face like like he’s there in the attic. And it’s a jump scare, but it’s a good one. You know? 

Jordan:  I clap. 

Craig:  And that’s, he he takes the the film strips, and he takes them out in the backyard, and burns them, and the 

Jordan:  wife comes out. What the 

Todd:  hell are you doing? 

Jordan:  We have to leave here. What’s the matter? 

Clip:  What’s happened? 

Todd:  You were right. Right. I made a mistake. We should have never come to this house. We have to leave 

Jordan:  now. Oh, you’re freaking me out here. 

Todd:  Get the kids. Pack the car. We have to leave. 

Craig:  And I thought for sure there would be something that would prevent them from leaving, which which which seems to be the case in these types of, like, haunted house movies and stuff. I thought that they would end up having to go back to the house, but they didn’t. They they go back, I guess, to their old house that they hadn’t sold yet. I feel like this is the point of the movie where you’re supposed to think, oh, good. They got away. But, of course, you know, no. Of course, they don’t get away. And and that’s when that’s when the deputy calls him and says, I’ve made this connection.   Every person all these murders that are connected, they had all previously lived in the house of somebody else who had been murdered. So the implication is that you can try to run away from it, but once once it’s on you, you’re you’re done. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s kind of like it follows. 

Craig:  Right. Right. Right. So they’re in their new house, but Ellison goes I don’t know why, but he goes up to the attic in the new house or the old house, whatever. And the box of films is there despite the fact that he burned it and we saw him burned it. Burn it. It’s there. And not only is it there, but when he looks through it, he finds an envelope that says extended cuts, and he pulls out these little pieces of of filmstrip.   And we’d seen earlier because one of the times that he had been, looking at the film strips, he had paused it on a frame of Bagul, and the film had burned up. So he had looked up on the Internet how to splice the film. And so he splices these extended cut films in, and what is revealed is that the missing child from each of these unexplained murders is actually the one who perpetrated the murders. 

Todd:  And is filming it. Yep. 

Craig:  Right. Exactly. He’s watching it, and then we can tell that all of a sudden, he’s getting very drowsy. And that was something I I don’t remember who explained it. I think it was the deputy that explained it, that most of these murders, the people who had been killed had been drugged. And the reason that that was important was because that meant that the actual murder itself itself didn’t require that much physical strength, didn’t require that much exertion. And now that all makes sense because it’s kids who are doing it. So they don’t have the physical strength, so they have Todd, debilitate their their victims in some way.   And Ellison is, you know, acting all groggy. He picks up his drink, and there’s a note right by it that says, Todd night, daddy. And as he’s about to pop out or to pass out, excuse me, he sees his daughter standing there in the room with her, and she says, I’m glad you made the movies longer, daddy. They’re much better this way. And that leads up to that leads up to the conclusion, which, you know, it’s not like it’s entirely unpredictable. In fact, watching the movie again, I don’t remember how I felt about it the first time, but watching the movie again, I thought, oh, man, this is so predictable. I don’t think that the first time that I saw it, I necessarily felt that way. I think it’s just knowing what the the ultimate conclusion is.   I felt like this time around, it was predictable, but I don’t know if I felt that way the last time. But why don’t you all explain what happens at the end? 

Jordan:  Basically, Ethan Hawke wakes up and he his daughter has just set up this, like, elaborate, like, Dexter kill room in the living room with, like, all these plastic tarps. I don’t know where this, like, 7 year old is getting all of this plastic. But you see Ethan Hawke or it’s Ethan Hawke’s eyes opening, I’m pretty sure. And you see the mom and Trevor, you know, like, bound and gagged with, like, duct tape and stuff, asleep. I’m pretty sure. I don’t think they’re awake. And then Ethan Hawke wakes up, and he is also bound and gagged. And then it’s, like, storming out because, of course, it is.   And Ashley is standing over them with her, like, paint smock on and then with just an ax. And you don’t really see her do anything about you know, you don’t see her kill them or anything, but it’s pretty implied because afterwards, there’s just paintings all over the walls in blood, and I’m pretty sure she paints the demonic symbol of Bughuul on the wall too. And then, I you see Ashley, and then she sees all of the other, like, ghost children. And it’s the very, very ending is on the super 8 film. And so she sees the ghost children, and then they start looking all scared all of a sudden and then they run away and then you turn around you see Baghoul and Baghoul takes Ashley and then they disappear. 

Todd:  Yeah. I think the ending is pretty effective and it’s pretty haunting. And like you said, I do feel it’s predictable that something’s gonna happen to them because just the nature of these films. I mean, it’s broadcast from the very beginning. It’s always a family of 4 or 5 people. And, of course, he’s a family with 4 or 5 people. So you knew it was gonna end here somewhere, but I honestly how it was gonna get there I thought was entirely unpredictable I have to say that especially the first time I watched this movie, I was really wondering if how much of this was real and how much of this was just his own breakdown because it takes so long to get supernatural. I think the first moment he gets supernatural is at least halfway through the movie and that’s when we see he has a freeze frame of the ghoul in one of the he has recorded, with video, some some of these film clips so that he can analyze them a little better in his computer.   And we see a freeze frame of the ghoul and Moi’s talking to somebody on the phone. Behind him, unbeknownst to him, we see the ghoul’s face, like, turn and look towards him and then turn and look away before he, you know, turns his head back. That’s the first moment at which it it starts to feel supernatural. Even from that point on, I was kinda wondering, yeah, is that where this is going? Is this really gonna be a demon movie or is this really gonna be something else? Or is he even going to turn out to to, you know, kill his own family somehow? You know, I I felt like it might be going that direction as well. There were a number of different directions that could have gone. And, the movie kept it pretty open, I thought, until toward the end. Yeah.   So in   that in that way, I thought I thought it was a little less predictable. 

Jordan:  Looking back, I do agree that, you know, it is predictable. But I think the first time that I watched it, there were just so many different directions that it could have gone. And I also think it was almost a good plot twist to have Ashley be the killer and not Trevor. Because, I mean, that plot twist is revealed even before they move. I mean, it’s probably revealed halfway or 2 thirds of the way through the movie that she’s the one being contacted by these ghost children and he’s just kind of under Baghoul’s spell. But I thought it would have been more predictable almost to have Trevor do it, because Trevor’s got this, like, emo, like, my chemical romance phase going on where he just probably hates his family, and he’s in that phase. 

Craig:  No. I thought the end of the movie was really effective too. You know, I think that it’s, clever and brave when filmmakers decide to go with the bleak at the end of a horror movie, and, you don’t see that terribly often. Usually, the at least one of the good guys gets away, and you’ve got the potential for a sequel with your main cast and not the case here. There there was a sequel to this movie, and I’ve seen it. And I don’t really remember all that much about it other than that I thought it was just meh. Jordan, have you seen it? 

Jordan:  I have not, but I watched the trailer, and I read the plot online, and it does sound meh. It doesn’t sound as good. I feel like a horror sequel sequel, especially horror. Like, the sequel never really is as good. And so I feel like it definitely was one of those that they threw together to make some money off the franchise. 

Craig:  Yeah. I think so. And I think that part of the reason that the sequel didn’t work as well for me was because, there wasn’t any mystery. You know? Like we we knew who Ba’ Gul was. We knew what was going on, and so it just it it wasn’t that, effective. But, this movie in and of itself is a standalone film. As much as we, you know, were a little bit critical about some elements of it, I I think it’s good. I think it’s a good movie.   I think it’s suspenseful. I think there’s good mystery. I think that there are good jump scares. The demon himself, is pretty scary, and I think that part of the reason that he’s pretty scary is you don’t really see that much of him. You know, he’s kinda kept in shadow, or in these fuzzy images. I like it. I do too. Yeah. 

Jordan:  I’ve always liked this film. I came out of the theater. I’m like, that was awesome. And my dad’s like, that wasn’t good at all. I don’t like that. My sister had nightmares. And my dad doesn’t like this film. My entire family at my dad’s, they don’t really like this film.   But one time, we all just watched it, like, 5 times in one day. So I don’t no. My family were one that, like, we can’t just sit down and watch a movie the first time. So, like, I sat down and watched this movie. I was gonna watch it with my stepmom, but but then she was doing other things. She couldn’t pay attention so we, like, I finished it, then we immediately restarted it. I watched it with her, then my sister showed up home with her boyfriend. They wanted to watch it.   But my sister doesn’t like it. So we I watched it a third time, then my brother and his girlfriend showed up. They wanted to watch it, so we watched it again. And I’m pretty sure then later, my dad came home from work, and we watched it again. 

Craig:  That’s hilarious. I I don’t know if 

Jordan:  I could watch it 5 

Todd:  times no way. Yeah. 

Jordan:  I think I did have a nightmare that night just from, like, sheer overload. I’ll lose that movie. 

Craig:  Maybe your nightmare was that you had to watch it again. 

Jordan:  Probably. Alright. Well, thank you for joining us for another episode of, 2 Guys in a Chainsaw. Thank you 

Craig:  very much, Jordan, for, being our guest. You are an excellent guest. I can only imagine that we will have you back sometime in the future. 

Jordan:  I hope so. Thank you for 

Craig:  having me as much. No problem. If you enjoyed this episode, we have lots and lots of back episodes on iTunes and Stitcher. I think we’re on Google Play Play too. You can find us on Facebook. And if you do find us on Facebook, we would love to hear from you. We love hearing your feedback. We’d love when you join the discussion.   And if there are any movies that you would like for us to watch and talk about, we would love to hear about it. So until next time, I’m Craig. 

Todd:  And I’m Todd. 

Jordan:  And I’m Jordan.

Not many people outside the die-hard horror circles have even heard of George Romero’s vampire tale, Martin. Sometime between Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, he made a few movies that failed to connect with a large audience. This would be one of them.

However, that doesn’t mean it’s not great. In fact, it’s his favorite. We had a measured opinion of this one, and I think the result is one of our most interesting episodes yet. Have a listen!

Episode 75, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  Today’s horror film is the 1978 film Martin by George Romero. I think it’s a movie that not a lot of people remember, but it might be one of his best from a, from an artistic standpoint anyway. He he thinks it is, and a lot of people, a lot of critics might agree, even though it doesn’t have the excitement and blood soaked tendencies of his other zombie films. I had never seen this movie before. I had seen it on the video store shelves, had always been a little intrigued by it as a kid, but never intrigued enough to pick it up and watch it. And it’s only been later when, you know, you get to reading online about people and things about this little Phil Martin, and it just gets really good critical reviews. So Craig and I have had it on our list for a while to watch, and we decided to watch it this week. 

Craig:  If I’ve ever heard of this movie, I don’t remember hearing about it, and I had certainly never seen it. And so Todd, watching it for the first time was a whole new experience for me. And I literally, I found myself crunched for time and didn’t have time to look anything up about it or or anything. And so I was going in completely blind. I had no idea what it was about, so it was interesting. I don’t know. Yeah. I’ve heard, I guess, the same thing that you have heard that, Romero counts this as his personal favorite of his films that he’s made.   And like you said, it it got pretty good technical reviews. But, I don’t know. It’s it’s an interesting movie for sure. It’s a little odd. I’ll be interested to see what you thought of it because because   I don’t know. I mean, I just thought   I mean, I just thought that it was really kind of bizarre frankly, but I like stuff like like that. It’s unique and different. It’s a take on the vampire genre, I guess. And after I watched it, I read some things and something that I read was that, Romero does hear with vampires what he has done with zombies before, which is make a movie about realistic people in strange, situations. But he I mean, Romero kinda defined the genre, the zombie genre, really, and here was his take on the vampire genre, and it was very different and certainly interesting. 

Todd:  Well, I would say that this movie is, more it’s it’s a character study, really. It’s not an action packed thriller. It is very much a drama that takes place about, and it’s also ambiguous throughout. Is this guy actually a vampire? Right. So I think I really like in this movie tonally to another movie we’ve seen, and that was I believe it was called Christmas Evil, which was very similar to this in that it was simply a character study of a serial killer. We got to see a little bit of his origins, we saw that he was disturbed, and we follow him around as he does his killings, but it’s a little more complicated than that because he seems a little conflicted. We we get into the mind of this person so much that we start to empathize and sympathize with them. And in a way that that movie really and then that movie also came from around the same time period.   This movie was in 1978, I believe, when it was released. However, you can see it listed as 1977. I believe it had some screenings then. And in 1976, I believe, is when he shot it because, that’s actually the the date that appears in the credits at the end. And after his Night of the Living Dead debacle, he would never forget to put that copyright, 

Craig:  right, at 

Todd:  the end of of the movies, but I, you know, I think you have to be in the right mood to see this movie. You have to know what it is going in in order to enjoy it the most, and if you know that it’s a character study and you’re in for some drama, you might approach it without those certain expectations that you’re gonna see another George Romero film that’s more in line with everything else he’s done. But, I mean, I have to say I enjoyed this. I didn’t feel that it was that different from a lot of other films that I’ve seen in just in that it it’s subject matter. You know, it’s it’s slow. It’s definitely slow moving. 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  And, again, it’s way more interested in showing us the mind of this man named Martin. And I mean, he’s a man, he’s he’s really a young man, almost a boy, it seems like. They’re trying to portray him at times as an adolescent, or at least as a young man who hasn’t really fully developed. He’s going through that period of difficulty, the hormone sexual interest that he can’t do anything about. It opens with a woman getting on a Craig, and, there’s a guy, and this is Martin, staring after her. Immediately, you feel that something sinister is is going is going to be going on here. They’re on a sleeper Craig, it’s, you know, it’s going at night, and, the woman goes to her room to go to sleep, and meanwhile, Martin, we follow him around as he very deliberately goes through, his stuff. He goes into a bathroom, he pulls out what’s like a little toolbox of his that has a needle and some drugs and things in it, and is loading this needle up with something in the bathroom.   And and this is shot much like the rest of the movie is shot. It’s it’s very artsy. You get lots of close ups of the needle and of the the drugs. It’s really I’d say the whole movie feels a little claustrophobic in a way because Romero seems to favor close ups and medium shots way more than wide shots, and we skip a lot of establishing shots. You know, in most films, you have like a wide shot that starts off the scene or at least comes in at some point that just shows you where you are. Typically, then it moves into a medium shot to show you the characters and then into close ups when it’s important. Oftentimes in movies nowadays, the way the language works is we see close ups when when things are important. And in this movie, I’d say about 50% of the shots are close ups. 

Craig:  Right. Yeah. Which 

Todd:  gives it that art artsy feel, but, also, I think it’s quite frankly just Romero working with a budget. He didn’t have a lot of scenery to chew, and and so that’s that’s kind of I think working within those limitations has given us a more artistic looking film. But I’m I’m digressing here. He basically goes into her birth, by picking the lock in the door. He even has a set of lock picks. So you know this guy has done this before. He’s planned this out. Yep.   And it’s interesting, as he opens the door or appears to open the door, we get this black and white, what we later learn is flashback footage. It’s in his mind what he kind of sees is going to happen, at least that’s what it appears to be at first, that when he opens the door, there’s gonna be this beautiful woman who turns towards him and smiles and almost in a seductive way. But when he opens actually opens the door and comes in, it’s empty. He just sees a mess in there. And then we get a different angle, and we see the woman coming out of her little bathroom area. And she’s absolutely not dressed up as he imagined, but she has kind of, like a face mask on, her hair tied up, and is clearly just in a robe getting ready   for bed like normal.   But then what follows, I think, is a pretty long and in many ways uncomfortable brutal scene here. The fact that it all takes place in this very claustrophobic area, I think, just adds to the, I would say the shock value, but also just the ickiness of 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  The movie. It it sets a tone of ickiness for the movie, don’t you think? It 

Craig:  yeah. Yeah. It does. And, like, I I felt that way through much of this movie. I mean, it feels you kinda feel like a voyeur or watching, some of this movie, and what you’re saying, you know, again, I say it all the time, you’re the technical guy, you know about shots and all that kind of stuff. It reminded me kind of of Maniac, the original. I haven’t, I haven’t seen the remake so I don’t know but, you’re just kinda, you’re just following this guy going through these motions and it’s it’s strange. Like, yeah, he okay.   So he injects this woman with something. I have no idea what it, I mean, this is his, you know, this is his method. We find out. This is what he does. He injects her with something, and it’s supposed to knock her out. But whatever it is doesn’t take immediate effect. So he kind of has to subdue her while she is losing consciousness and that takes a while. And it is uncomfortable because she’s fighting back and she’s Tell me.   Damn it. Why won’t you 

Todd:  say something to me? What the hell do you want? Come on, buddy. Come on. There’s someone here. 

Craig:  It’s alright. I’m always very careful with the needles. It won’t 

Clip:  hurt you. 

Todd:  You’re being always very careful. 

Clip:  It won’t hurt you. 

Todd:  It’s in that shot. It’s just to help you sleep. What was in this shot? Why do you want me to sleep? Why don’t you just take what you want and go? Understand. That is important. You may have done this. 

Craig:  Eventually, she passes out and he rapes her. I I mean, it’s I don’t know. We’ve talked about this before. Sexual violence in any movie, horror or otherwise, just makes me very uncomfortable. It’s such an uncomfortable thing. And, we, you know, we don’t see anything Todd and and it almost looks as though he’s trying to create something that’s that’s intimate, that’s that’s soft and kind. Like, he’s touching her gently and he’s moving her limbs around to caress him and to hug him and stuff. But again, I mean just the the idea that he’s doing that is is uncomfortable.   And then he takes a razor blade and slits her wrists with it and drinks her blood. And then he he makes it look like a suicide basically is what he does, and he leaves her there. And so I didn’t really know what was going on. I didn’t know if this was just kind of some masochistic murderer or if this was a vampire thing going on. I mean, he very obviously drinks her blood. So, there’s something going on there. But, yeah, the whole thing and maybe it’s also just kind of the gritty nature of seventies film. I mean, you know, we’re watching this, and it’s not the clear, sharp focus that you see in film today.   It has kind of a grittiness to it. I mean it almost kind of feels like you’re watching an old porn or a slash film or something like that and it’s uncomfortable. Plus, this guy, who plays Martin, his name’s John Amplis, and he’s been in other things. I didn’t really recognize him from anything. But he seems so not threatening. I mean, he he kind of seems like this quiet, outcast type of guy. And and I actually found his his performance in the beginning of the movie almost endearing because he he just seems kinda like a lost soul, I guess. But as the movie goes on, you really come to find that either he really is a vampire or he’s just a really, really disturbed guy, and it it would it’s it’s unsettling.   His performance is unsettling. 

Todd:  It   it is. It’s very unsettling. And you’re right. The whole movie’s unsettling. And this particular scene, I think, is unsettling, and I think you nailed it right there Because even as Martin is trying to make something more out of this, something sensual, the filmmaker Romero is shooting this like a love scene. We get Mhmm. You know, like, in shadow, he’s leaning in to kiss her, and she’s kind of laid out there. It is it is absolutely how a sensual love scene would be shot except for the fact that she’s not moving, and Mhmm.   And her eyes are just stone cold open through it even, you know, with whatever sleep stuff he’s given her. It’s it’s it’s horrifying. And and you’re right. It it I think the seventies ish nature of the film has something to do with it. The the film stock is a little gritty. This was a very low budget film. You can tell that the lights and 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  The lighting isn’t the greatest. And, also, the style of the filmography, it it just goes all over the place. At times, it’s like a Todd cam, you know, very smoothly working at times. The the, you know, the camera’s on a Todd, and we’re just getting kind of a static shot. At other times, it’s an unsteady, like, point of view kind of shots, and then close ups, it it moves through all of these so so quickly and so fluidly. And actually, fluidly isn’t the right Todd. The fact that it doesn’t move through the all of these things so fluidly, there isn’t a common language, I think, for the cinematography for this movie, and it it’s jarring. It’s jarring the whole time through.   It almost makes it feel like an amateur movie, you know, something that   Mhmm.   You know, if you had a video camera in today’s age, people would run out and shoot, and this is the kind of film they would get. It it just goes all over the place. But it but I have to say, it doesn’t feel like an amateur a movie made by amateurs. I mean, the movie’s got a point. It’s it’s pretty well written. It’s pretty well acted, but it’s just gritty. It’s gritty, and it and it feels homemade in a way. And and I guess, like you said, it’s a little voyeuristic.   Maybe that adds to the feel. I wouldn’t go so far as saying it has a documentary feel, but this is the kind of cinematic language that you see in documentaries. You know, it just bounces between all of these. So 

Craig:  Well, and I had read that well, first of all, I guess, Romero was really successful with Night of the Living Dead, and then the next two movies that he did had totally flopped, and and had lost money. He was in a he was not in a good place 

Todd:  financially and he had to kind of, seek 

Craig:  out help to get this movie made. And this movie seek out help to get this movie made. And this movie really didn’t make any money either. It wasn’t until he did Dawn of the Dead that he he started making money again. And I guess he he was kind of in debt to some people, and someone had suggested that he declare bankruptcy to kind of get rid of his debts. And and he wouldn’t do that because he didn’t feel like that was the right thing to do, leave all these people who had been supportive of him hanging. And so he didn’t, and when night or excuse me, when dawn of the dead did well he paid those people back. Kind of a non sequitur.   What I was trying to get to was initially when he had planned this movie he had written the script about a vampire, an elderly, aged vampire who was trying to work and live in modern society. But I guess he saw this guy, John Amplis, on a on stage somewhere in a performance and he just was so taken by this guy that he rewrote the whole script to make it a younger vampire and, that’s what we end up with. He’s on this train, he’s going, I guess, we don’t even really get a lot of explanation for why, but he’s going to live with his cousin, an older guy named Cuda, Cuda, c u d a, I don’t know. He looks like Colonel Sanders. But he’s going to live with he’s going to live with this guy. And so when he gets off the train, this guy meets him and the guy’s kind of stoic, and he takes him back to his house. And as soon as they get in the house, the guy turns to him and says   Nosferatu. Vampire. 1st, I will save your soul. Then I will destroy you. I will show you your room. Like, it’s it’s just it’s so weird.   And he has these flashbacks throughout the course of the movie that you’ve already mentioned. These and they’re in black and white. And I actually I thought the flashbacks were beautiful. They were maybe my favorite part of the movie. But it flashes back and it seems like at some point, in his life, this guy has experienced an exorcism and even in modern day in Cutter’s house there are crosses hanging all over the walls, there’s garlic hung up on doors, But we see right away that none of these traditional things that usually deter vampires or affect vampires affect this guy. And I love the ambiguity of it. I mean, I was left at the end of the movie not knowing. I didn’t know if this guy really was a vampire or if he was just some crazy guy.   He can go out in the Craig. Todd to hurt his eyes, like when he’s craving blood and he gets the tingles, that’s what he calls it, sometimes the sunlight affects his eyes. But he’s not affected by crosses. He’s not affected by garlic. And when we see these flashbacks of him or his cousin or whomever it was, trying to perform an exorcism on him. He just keeps saying things like there is no magic. There’s no such thing of magic. He even says that to Cutter, and he grabs a hunk of garlic and takes a bite out of it, he touches the cross to his face and he says it isn’t magic.   So I don’t know. I mean, it’s a really interesting take on it. And frankly, I’m still left wondering. I don’t know. Okay. So Cutter, the uncle or cousin, excuse me, has a granddaughter who’s also living in the house, and her name is Christina, played by, Christine Forrest, who I believe was married to Romero either either at this time or at some point. The the cousin, Cutter, tells her this kid is a vampire. He was born in the old country in 18/92.   He there were 9 cursed people in our family. Only 3 of them are still alive, and he’s one of them. And then Christina doesn’t believe any of this, but even she talks to Martin and Martin, she says, how old are you? And he says, I’m 84. And they make reference to this, the family curse or, the family shame. You know, there’s there’s this groundwork laid out where, okay, potentially he could be a vampire and the flashbacks all look like olden times. You know, like I don’t know when but it doesn’t look like modern day. You know, people that are carrying around candelabras and, they’re dressed, in a different fashion than contemporary fashion. So I think that the suggestion is maybe he’s not a vampire in the traditional sense and he says this over and over throughout the movie too.   He says, It’s not like the movies. The movies get it all wrong. So maybe, you know, our modern day sensibility of what a vampire is, maybe he’s not that. But the impression that I got was that he is actually in some form, a vampire. I really like that ambiguity because even at the end, I was left wondering. I didn’t know. 

Todd:  Yeah. Me too. And you do also even kind of wonder if these flashbacks are true flashbacks or if they’re in his head. I don’t think that’s entirely clear either, but they do happen frequently enough and they parallel what’s happening, in modern times often enough that you get the sense that maybe they’re trying to say to us that, this is old hat, that he’s experienced this kind of thing multiple times, even though the flashbacks are really to to only a couple specific events that are just happening over and over again. Just the fact that they’re not multiple events, you know, that are happening in the past that we get these flashbacks to, they they don’t really deviate from, oh, what is it, kind of a woman in a castle or or mansion? Mhmm. A then, afterwards, he clearly has had sex with her, and then has bitten her, and then he’s being chased by a mob of people. And then what could or may not happen in sequence with this is an exorcism. It’s it’s like those 3 scenes that are shown over and over again.   Right. And I think because it was simply the same 3 shot scenes, I even wondered if maybe some of this wasn’t just in his head as well, part of his it was his personal fantasy. The granddaughter doesn’t believe this. She thinks it’s Right. It’s ridiculous. But Cuda is so obsessive about this that you could imagine that a person who maybe grew up in this family and and had this family lore and was obsessive about it as he is could plant that idea in your head and would make you crazy. And that was Sure. You know, a direction I thought maybe this could be interpreted as well, because Cuda is dead serious about this.   But Martin himself, it’s a little thread that they have early on in the movie, and then and then just sorta gets dropped. He’s kind of interested in magic. He has a a magic book, and I mean just like doing parlour tricks kinda magic. Right. He’s 

Craig:  got a slight of hand kinda stuff. Right? 

Todd:  Yeah. He’s got a magic book on the train that he’s reading. He brings it to the house. He’s reading it up at his room in the house, and even when he sits down for the first time to have breakfast or lunch or dinner with, with Kuda and, the granddaughter Christina, he does a little trick for them, and she’s kinda delighted by it. And that’s another one of those moments, as you said, where he emphasizes there is no real magic. There is no real magic. Mhmm. And so it can be interpreted as a way for him to come to terms with that.   He’s trying to understand his condition, his situation. He’s explored the possibility of real magic. And anyone who’s going to do that is going to first go to magicians, and then they’re going to learn the tricks, and they’re going to realize it is all a trick. I mean, it’s a really complex character. It’s it’s neat just the little details like that that Romero has written into this script that makes this a pretty deep film, I think. It makes him a very well rounded character and makes him interesting from the get go. I mean, everything we’ve described is really just the first 15 minutes of a pretty slow moving movie. 

Craig:  Mhmm. Mhmm. 

Todd:  We’re introduced to a cousin, Arthur, who comes and goes. He’s played by Tom Savini. You can recognize him immediately. Tom Savini is never really Yeah. The best actor, but, he does pop in every now and then to these movies where he’s done the, the effects work for, or, you know, is associated with Romero and has been for a while. We get lots of close ups of toys and things where Martin is playing with some Todd, and and again, there are just so many close ups in this movie. You you wanna imbue every little thing with significance. You wanna think that everything Romero is showing us, he’s showing us for a purpose.   I even saw these close ups of him playing with toys thinking that, you know, this kid is kind of a child at heart or at least is kind of regressing to that. Mhmm. And it which puts to me anyway, to me, even though he was played by what is clearly a guy at least in his twenties, I got the sense that Martin at heart was an adolescent. And part of that has to do with yeah. Right? And and and a lot of that also has to do with his lack of sexual development. His MO is to drug women and then have sex with them, and we start to get these narratives that come and go throughout the movie. And again, in a really clever way, it’s it’s really disjointing and confusing. You want he’s in the narratives, Martin is clearly talking to somebody, and you know initially who it is he’s talking to until later on, probably about midway through during the narratives.   You you see him on the phone and you real oh, because he asked for a phone in his room, and it’s to call a radio station. He’s so looking for somebody to talk to that the only one he could speak to is it’s not even Christina. It’s gotta be outside of his family. He’s got no friends. It’s one of these anonymous radio talk show hosts. And so we get the idea that throughout this movie, he has become a regular, on call in 

Craig:  sometimes I think they’re really gonna catch me and hurt me or even kill me. Yeah. I’ve seen that in the movies. People trying to stop your kind. I’m pretty careful about not getting caught now. I’ve learned a lot of things. They have good tools, and they have the needles. Needles? It was really hard before the needles.   What kind of needles? Count? 

Todd:  Doesn’t take him seriously, of course. Also feels like he’s speaking to a crazy person, but that is his sort of therapy. And it also serves as a nice little device to bring Martin’s point of view into the movie from time to time. We do kinda wanna know what Martin’s thinking, and it’s really skillful the way that Romero brings this in and brings it out. I had read that he actually had the whole movie narrated, but it turned out that the narrative was just strong enough, that he cut most of that out. But it was nice that he left a little bit of it in because it does provide us a little more insight into his character at the times when we need it the most. And the insight that I got throughout it was, this guy is is like an adolescent. He’s totally confused with the world.   He doesn’t know how to relate to women. He’s scared of them, but he has these sexual urges, but he doesn’t know how to deal with them. He goes to a sex shop early in the movie. Mhmm. You know, there are a couple moments of him walking through I mean, this is filmed in Pittsburgh. It really doesn’t have a place associated with it, but it looks like a rundown factory Todd, actually. And and again, the movie does a great job of showing a sense of place. It just Feels like he’s living in this gritty place, this really depressing sort of bombed out city like Detroit Todd, you know, just everything is decaying and falling apart and Romero’s giving us these shots of of cars being crushed in the junkyard, and we hear from from Arthur that he’s a mechanic, but he can’t find work at a factory.   And that almost immediately is cut with another shot of cars being crushed and hauled off to the junkyard. You know, it’s it’s it’s really great in the editing and the imagery that he’s able to give all this a sense of place in a very natural way. 

Craig:  Yeah. And I had read, that the original cut ran almost 3 hours, like 2 hours and 45 minutes. And thank Todd they cut it down because honestly I have to say that in the beginning of this movie I was I was really kind of endeared to the character not because he’s a likable character but just because he was so unique and interesting. And by the end I was thinking, oh my Todd is this over yet? Like it really felt like it was going on for a long time. And part of that is just because, you know, there’s as far as narrative is concerned, there’s not a whole lot of story. Like, I expected there to be more in terms of character development or action, but it it’s it’s really pretty simple. I mean, he, Cudda, owns like a general store. So Martin, does deliveries for him and stuff.   And so he starts to kind of get introduced to different characters and and he’s kind of drawn to, it seems like, housewives. And, there’s there’s one sequence where he is stalking this housewife, this married woman, whose husband travels for business apparently, and he’s been stalking her enough that he knows that. So there’s a scene where her husband goes out of Todd, and he is stalking her. He buys a garage door opener at, like, a hardware 

Todd:  store. That’s awesome. 

Craig:  And can open her garage door and gets in her house. You know, it’s a pretty action packed sequence where, again, it’s all intercut with these flashbacks backs that are also very reminiscent of the scene. You know, some girl, in the flashback leading him off to bed or something like that. So he’s imagining all that. When he busts in on this housewife, he finds that she’s not alone. She’s with a man. She’s having an affair. And so his plans are kind of thrown off.   It’s actually a fairly long sequence where the guy, he injects the guy, but like I said before, the injection doesn’t take immediate effect. It takes a while. And he plays this whole cat and mouse game with them in the house where he’s running around and and they’re chasing after him and trying to call the police and he’s interfering with that. I believe, if I remember correctly, he kills the guy and drinks his blood, but I don’t think that he kills the woman. No. I don’t remember exactly what happened with that. He gets involved with another housewife who clearly has interest in him, and she makes advances towards him, which initially he rejects. And he talks about that when he’s talking to this radio talk show host.   When I see people together, they don’t talk. Not really. They don’t say what they mean. Right. Then they they have the other. They have the sexy stuff whenever they want it. I’ve been much too shy to ever do the sexy stuff. I mean, do it with someone who is awake.   Someday maybe I’ll get to do it awake without the blood part. Just do it with somebody and then be together and talk all night.   Eventually, he starts an affair with this this woman. He actually does get, you know, personally intimate with this woman. But you know, it’s just that. I mean the whole middle of the movie is just, I don’t know. I I I don’t even wanna say character development because it doesn’t even really seem like character development. It’s almost just kind of getting into the mind of this guy. I kind of wish that it had gone somewhere more. Like I w I mean, I guess to be fair, yes he starts to be able to have an individual intimate relationship with somebody and that’s different, that’s new.   But beyond that it’s really just about him dealing with his impulses. And based on what we see in the movie, it just seems like he needs to feed every so often. And when he needs to do that, he stalks somebody for a while. He does his thing. He eats. Towards the end of the movie, he starts talking about how it’s getting more difficult for him. That he’s, having these urges, but he’s not satisfying them. And so he’s getting a little bit more sloppy.   And that kind of leads, I guess, to what you would call, you know, the climax. But I hate to be critical because I know that, you know, this is one of but, if anything, as opposed to what we got, which was fine, but I was kinda like I said, by the end, I was like, alright, let’s wrap it up. 

Todd:  Yeah. I would agree. There isn’t a let’s say the journey is a very short one, and it doesn’t, it’s kind of, like, ends up back where it started, really. I would argue that there is a bit of development here. I would say that the fact that he is able to have this relationship with this woman, he he steps out to her. You know, he is kind of running away from her advances for a little while. But then at some point, when he comes over, she says 

Craig:  How about a little painting tomorrow? Zoe’s out of town again and only left the game room half finished. You want me here for sex, don’t you? I never really did it before. I was always too shy. But I decided I’d really like to do it with you. 

Todd:  The next shot is of the 2 of them together, like, she’s on him, but they’re both like asleep or quiet, like, they both just sort of, like, did it, but he didn’t bother to get out of her. They’re not laying together next to each other on the bed. They just kind of flopped down right where they were. You know? It’s just brief. 

Craig:  I know what you mean. It is a weird shot, but I don’t think that they weren’t asleep. They weren’t inanimate. I mean, I think that she was kind of stroking his back, but it was a weird shot just because it lingered for so long and it appeared to be post climax, but they were both just kind of lingering there. And he’s almost I don’t even know how to describe it. He’s kind of hunched, over her, but they’re still in an embrace. And it was a weird shot. I know exactly what you’re talking about.   I thought it was weird too. 

Todd:  And then that’s immediately followed by her, you know, laying down the sofa. She’s crying. They have a little back and forth, and and he’s kind of getting dressed and and on his way out the door. And he seems a little bubblier, but he asked her, oh, you know, did I do something wrong? And, you know, what’s why are you crying? And she did a pretty good job with this, and I think this is well written. Again, it’s a little ambiguous, but then she he says, oh, I should have used one of those things, you know. Are you worried that we’re gonna have kids? And she said, no. I can’t have kids. And I think it’s meant to imply that that is part of her sadness.   Yeah. But it’s just really kinda sad. It’s like even when he gets this moment with a a live awake woman, that he doesn’t kill, you know, afterwards, it just seemed like an empty act, like, between 2 damaged people. And so he breaches out, and he does this. So there’s, like, a little character development there, but it’s like it doesn’t get him anywhere. You know what I mean? It doesn’t ultimately this relationship is not gonna fulfill the deepest desires of his heart. Right? It’s just another damaged person. 

Craig:  Yep. 

Todd:  I would say it’s like a guy who’s on a treadmill. Right? As a vampire would probably be on a treadmill, you know, living the same life just day to day to day and never being able to escape it, never getting any older. He’s constantly reaching out, and we see him reaching out, and he’s trying to move forward, but he just can’t. It just isn’t working for him, and so it he doesn’t end up going anywhere. But it’s I guess, I think seeing him reach out was the interesting part to me. Seeing some development happen, but then, he’s beaten down and tries to live in modern day society movies that I’ve seen. If you’re if you kind of imagine what this what this life is like, this has to be kind of what it’s probably like most of the time. Really sad, really depressing, you’re not going anywhere, any attempt you make at a relationship is gonna end one way or another, And the only people that you’re really gonna be able to get close to are also damaged goods.   And in a way that’s how people, I don’t know, as a man as an as a man who’s been through adolescence, I think we all kind of go through a phase like this where we feel this way. Whether we should feel this way or not, I think it’s just hormones and the process of growing up that we question everything. And, you know, we are exploring relationships and and everything’s kind of a big drama. But for this   guy, the   drama is real. Yeah. In a way, I felt like, it was a portrait of adolescence too, and that made it interesting. But did it make it a fast moving exciting movie? No. 

Craig:  No. And you know at the end he kind of talks about that more and he talks about on the radio of course which by the way I also thought was really kind of a strange. I can imagine something like that happening. I mean this guy is calling in to this radio show and he’s telling this radio host that he’s drugging women and raping them, and killing people. And I guess on some kind of sick level, it makes sense that the radio show would want to exploit that because, you know, they’re getting lots of calls, people are interested. At the same time, I kept thinking, God, you know, like wouldn’t anybody take this seriously? Wouldn’t anybody   be be   concerned that this guy was really doing this stuff? And and we never really get that. In fact, at the end, spoiler alert, he dies at the end. At the very end, over the credits, we hear all these people calling in.   Yeah. That’s him. I like him. Go ahead. I wonder where the count is. I know he’s out there somewhere. 

Todd:  To call. 

Craig:  Alright. The count. Yes. 

Todd:  The count. We all wanna know what happened to the count. What do you think? 

Craig:  I gotta go back home with the Bob Barry. Actually, I’ll show you out there. What happened to   Again, we said it over and over again. It it’s unsettling. It’s unsettling to think that I can imagine that happening even in 2017. Now of course in 2017, everybody’s wiretapped and you can trace anybody’s phone and all that stuff. And so that dynamic is not there, but it’s, it was a little bit disturbing. 

Todd:  And again, here is another person he’s reaching out to who’s not really going to be able to help him. He’s talking to himself, and this guy is as much laughing at him. He’s laughing at him, but not so so much as to turn him off so that he’ll stop calling. So just like a radio host would do. Right? Yeah. That that I agree with you. That is one of the holes in this, plot is that it’s pretty hard to believe that he’s actually going to be able to get away with these murders in the neighborhood, and be calling into this radio show and admitting to all of them at the same time. Another Yeah.   Really clunky part of the plot, I think, and it’s probably what was cut out of that 2 hour 45 minute version, is more of the development of Christina and her frustrations and Arthur. It just kind of shoehorns in this brief meeting between CUDA and Arthur at the bar, where Arthur’s talking about how he’s a mechanic, and his life here sucks, and this town is dead. And Kuda’s, you know, saying we need young people like you in the town, but if you don’t wanna be here, get out. You know, we we don’t need you. And and again, it’s it’s sad because it’s kind of throwing in what really didn’t need to be thrown in. We got this idea about the town and stuff, but, Arthur’s gonna leave, and then Christina confronts Cuda in the next scene, and says that she’s leaving too, and she’s leaving with Arthur, and they just take off. So they’re both frustrated and upset. Maybe she’s mad at the uncle too.   She thinks he’s a little loony, but I guess the general sense is that there’s nothing more in this town for them, and so they’re going. And so they just go, and everything’s pretty abrupt. Again, the movie has a very disjointed feel. It jumps so quickly through the time. It’s a little unclear sometimes what’s happening and why it’s happening. Is it happening because of the previous scene, because these two scenes are in sequence, or are we seeing something 2 weeks later, you know, that’s going on? Either part of that’s intentional, choice on Romero’s part to keep you on edge and keep you disoriented, or it might just be the fact that he had to cut his own movie so much. But, yeah, and and really the first truly violent death scene that we see, and I’m not saying that the other ones aren’t violent, but the first one where he’s not so cowardly about it, he’s got something in his hand and he’s beating somebody with it, is he just goes and beats on some bums, you know, with a big lead pipe. He’s, I guess, being pursued, or at least he feels like he’s being pursued.   He breaks into a store for a change of clothes and that, you know, sets off the alarms in the store. And so the cops show up and there’s this this chase scene where he gets chased to a gang, like a gang hideout, and the cops are there, and so the gang starts to shoot out with the cops, and this is all intercut with the mob scene from his flashbacks. So I guess this is the point where you realize, okay, the movie’s gonna wrap up soon because we’re getting some action, and we’re seeing the tail end of the prototypical vampire or monster story where the mob starts to come after them. But again, it’s just him being sloppy. Why did he have to break into the store to get a change of clothes? And this guy’s a pretty careful dude. I just felt like he was just coming unhinged at this point, and maybe that’s what what what he was trying to say. It’s even intercut with some slaughterhouse footage of a chicken getting cut up, which was weird. That didn’t seem to relate directly to what was happening, and, it just gets even more disjointed as the as the film goes on toward the climax. 

Craig:  Yeah. I, I found that whole scene odd as well. You know? You’re right. I think that the point is just that he’s becoming unhinged. And he even says that, you know, when he’s talking to the radio guy, he says   I guess I shouldn’t have friends. No. I was getting pretty mixed up. No. That’s right. You shouldn’t get involved. It’s it’s, it’s dangerous. Right? Right.   You you forget. You make mistakes. Live for yourself. Whatever it takes. Right? Get through the night. Right, Count? Are you making fun of me? I’m with you, Count. I mean, you’re absolutely right. You’re alright, my man. 

Todd:  Well, I’m Alright. 

Craig:  I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I really don’t.   And it just seems really strange. Like, that whole scene where he, breaks okay. So he kills those bums, like you said, which is out of character for him, and then he breaks into the store to change clothes. Now we’ve always seen him get cleaned up and change his clothes, but I felt the exact same way that you did. Why would he break the glass storefront of a store to get in there? Meanwhile, the alarm is going off and going off and going off and he’s just like sitting in there getting dressed, and the cops are coming and they come and they get there, and then like you said, he just conveniently happens upon this meeting of drug dealers or gangsters or something or whatever. The so the cops are diverted away from him because they’re having the shoot out with these drug dealers or whatever it is, it just seemed really bizarre. And I do think that it was just meant as a plot device to get us to the end because that leads right to the end. I also think that you’re right with the editing.   I had the strong feeling that we lost a lot of the relationship between Martin and Christina. 

Todd:  Mhmm. 

Craig:  I think that that was supposed to be more fleshed out. I think that they were it just I expected that that would be the human connection that he would find, that might change things or shape things from for for him. And and you see that a little bit, but you’re right. Then eventually she just leaves and she’s just gone. You know, he says, You’re going away. People go away to forget their past lives. You won’t remember me. And she says, No, that’s not true.   I promise. I’ll send you a letter telling you where I am. But he says in his radio narration, She never sent me a letter or I never got the letter. So we lose out kind of on that. And I think that from a story perspective, maybe we lost something there in the editing. I think maybe that relationship might have been more telling for the development of his character. But it’s just gone. I mean, she really ends up being a throwaway character.   Her and Arthur both, their roles just really end up kind of being insignificant, unfortunately, because I really liked the lady that played Christina, and then I had hoped to see more development of her and Martin’s relationship, but we just don’t get it. And what we do end up getting, so we had already mentioned that he had this relationship with this married woman. And they had had what seemed like a pretty real relationship. I mean, again, like you said, both of them damaged, but they’re spending time together, they’re talking to one another, they’re being intimate, and and you can tell through all of that that she is in some way I don’t wanna say disturbed because that makes it sound like crazy. She’s not crazy. I think that she’s just depressed. She’s in a bad marriage. She’s having an affair with the grocery boy.   Uh-huh. And, so we we don’t really get to see too much except for that he’s able to make a human connection. But eventually, he goes back to her house to meet with her, and he finds her dead in the bathtub. And that was a really kind of disturbing image too. I mean, she’s probably about 3 quarters submerged in the bathtub. She slit her wrist. There’s blood everywhere. It looks like maybe she’s drank or taken some pills or something, and her eyes are wide open, and and he sees her, and and, it’s it’s kind of a troubling image and that’s what eventually leads to what I thought was actually a really shocking ending.   Not to say that I didn’t necessarily see it coming, but it came so quickly and so abruptly that I was really taking them back. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s so abrupt particularly because the the next couple scenes is of him walking down the street in a parade, or there’s a parade going down the street. There’s a and and, you know, it’s just a band playing, and you hear him talking to the radio DJ and he’s even kind of saying, you know, things get better. I’m learning to deal with things a little bit more. And then the next shot, it’s a close-up on Arthur’s face, and he is asleep. And then it’s a close-up of his uncle, and so it looks like his uncle was talking to him while he’s asleep. Standing over there. Martin.   Sorry. Yeah. His uncle is talking to Martin while he’s over, while he’s asleep. And, he says to him 

Clip:  I warned you, Martin. Nobody in the town, I said. Nobody in the town. I heard about missus Santini. You think I believe she killed herself? Do you really think I believe this? Your soul is damned. Nosferatu. 

Todd:  Boom. He just nails a stake right into   his heart. 

Craig:  Stakes him? Yeah. I didn’t see it coming. I mean, it was it was really well shot, you know, kind of the cameras looking up at, the uncle, cousin, whatever he is, above. And I feel like maybe even at first we just hear his voice, like, in in blackness, and then we see him standing over. He’s got this huge wooden stake and, like, a great big mallet, and he just stakes him right through the heart. And blood gushes, and it splatters all over the room and it splatters all over Martin’s face, and Martin’s dead. 

Todd:  That’s it. 

Craig:  And, that’s that’s it. That’s the end of the movie. And again, you know, like I said, I felt that it maybe got a little bit long in this, you know, like the 3 quarter mark. I felt like it maybe got a little bit long. But that ending, I mean, that was, that was a shock. I, I, I didn’t see it coming. And when you’re seeing Martin laying there, eyes open and blood splattered across his face and dead, it really made me question, you know, I mean, he’s a bad guy. He rapes and kills people.   He’s a bad guy. But, you almost feel for him, like this this violent bloody end. It’s just so disturbing. It it took me aback. 

Todd:  Yeah. Me too. And as as Romero is won’t to do, at least in his early days, you know, he continues the story a little bit past the credits. And, the credit sequence is going, and we’re hearing the radio host speaking, saying, you know, I wonder what happened to Martin, or I wonder what happened to our our vampire account. The same time, the camera’s zooming into this patch in the yard, where clearly, CUDA has buried him, in the corner of the garden, and he’s seeding that part of the garden as the the credits roll and the finally, it goes out. It’s really a very, very abrupt ending, as you said, and I agree with you. I I felt for him at that moment. I I mean, it’s tragic in a way because he was a tragic character.   And Yes. Like you said, he was a bad guy, but he didn’t wanna be a bad guy. You felt like this was his life that he had no choice. And so, yeah, to to to go out like that in with no bang. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  It’s really pretty sad. And so, you know, the movie, again, like you said, his character doesn’t really go anywhere. It’s it’s definitely a character study of this guy, and then turns out he’s not even important. He’s gonna die, and he’s gonna get buried in a lawn, and grass will grow over him, and that’s it. He’s fertilizer is all. And it it is just a it’s a sad thing. It’s bleak. It’s a very bleak film, and   It is.   And that’s what Romero does really well. Right? The end of the original Night of the Dead is is terribly bleak, and it’s also pretty abrupt, quite frankly. I liked it, though. And and, like, you know, you brought up Maniac before. This totally is probably closer to Maniac than it is to Christmas evil, but they all have really interesting characters that you feel degrees of sympathy for, but are sort of forced to live out their terribly depressing lives until they come to their ultimate conclusion, which just really isn’t anything special. 

Craig:  Right. Yeah. I I don’t know. I mean, this one’s a tricky one for me because I don’t know that I can necessarily say that I liked it. I appreciated it. I especially appreciated it in the first half, because I felt like the actors did a good job of getting me invested in their characters and and it was different. You know? We’ve seen a 1000000 vampire movies, and I like vampire movies, but this was different. It was kind of a different spin on things and it really kind of tied vampirism in general to kind of adolescence, you know, being different, being awkward, you know, not being able to function in the way that you or society deems as normal or accepted.   And I appreciated that. In a sense, it reminded me a little bit, I guess, of, Ginger Snaps, which by the way we have to watch and soon. Oh, yeah. But you know, just kind of using vampirism more as a metaphor for social awkwardness or maybe even mental health struggles 

Todd:  Yeah.   I was just gonna   say that. 

Craig:  In a way that I hadn’t yeah. In a way that I hadn’t seen before, and I appreciate it on that level. I don’t know if I’d ever watch this movie again. I don’t know if it held my interest or in, you know, was entertaining enough for me to actually sit down and watch it again. But I’m glad to anybody who is a horror fan or especially if you’re a Romero fan, because he really, really got into the whole, zombie thing, and he’s good at it. But this is, it’s something different, and it’s interesting. 

Todd:  I think it it shows Romero at his best, quite honestly. He is a skilled filmmaker, and you wouldn’t know it from some of the movies. You know, some movies he he made because he had to, or on the cheap or he had interference or things. But this guy’s an artist, and this is the kind of movie you have to see to know that for sure. There’s a lot of care, a lot of time, a lot of thought that’s clearly gone into every shot and every edit in this movie. And the characters, except for the, you know, the the clunky parts that we really believe are just, you know, forced edits, you can tell that he he really cares about this Martin character. He’s made him very well rounded. He’s made him complex, and he’s managed to make him very sympathetic.   If he hadn’t done that, this would be just a dumb movie, quite honestly. Yep. And, and but he did. And I think you’re right. I think that you can see some commentary here here also on mental illness and on a society that is ill equipped to deal with and give that person what they need.   Mhmm. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but, Martin and Christina even have a conversation at one point where, she says, I you probably need help. First of all, she says several times throughout the course of the movie, I know that mental illness runs in our family, but she suggests that it’s actually the uncle, and those other religious fanatics that are the ones who are mentally ill and that perhaps they have damaged Martin, to the point where he is where he is now. So I I don’t think that that was unintentional. 

Todd:  Oh, it’s 

Craig:  nice. I do think that it was some commentary. 

Todd:  And it’s entirely possible that’s the case. I mean, we’ve talked about how ambiguous this is. You really don’t know, and that could be the fact, which makes him an even more tragic character because you get the sense that, you know, at the end of the day, even though everyone has to take responsibility for their actions, the way he is is not his fault. 

Craig:  Right. One way or another. 

Todd:  Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes and on Stitcher. You can also find us on our Facebook page. Please like us there. Share us there as well. Let us know your thoughts about this movie and any other films you’d like us to review in the future. Until that time, I’m Todd 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Our good friend (and self-professed Jeff Goldblum fanatic), Simone, joins us again – this time to discuss David Cronenberg’s only film to win an academy award (for makeup effects). You’d be surprised at how moving this horror flick can be, with some fantastic acting from Geena Davis and Goldblum.

Episode 74, 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:  I’m Craig. 

Todd:  And Todd, we have special guest back again, Simone. Hello, Simone. 

Simone:  Hey. So excited to be here. Thank you guys for having me back.

Todd:  Now, the the the movie that we chose today, we chose with Simone in mind. It’s called The Fly from 1986 because Simone is a self professed, Jeff Goldblum, would you say fan? Is that putting it mildly? 

Simone:  To put it mildly, yes. I have even gone as far as, having Jeff Goldblum’s face on a birthday cake. For my for my 25th birthday. So, yeah, you could you can say I like Jeff Goldblum a little bit. 

Todd:  The big question is where is the tattoo? 

Simone:  We gotta keep some secrets concealed. 

Todd:  Oh my gosh. This is gonna be a good time. So, the 1986 version of the fly, not to be confused with the 1958 version, I believe. Craig, I think you had seen this movie before, correct? 

Craig:  I had. I had seen it before. I I if I remember correctly, I’ve actually seen it multiple times. However, it’s been a long time and, watching it again, I forgot just how freaking good this movie is. It’s a really really good movie. 

Todd:  It is. Oh my gosh. It’s insane. Now Simone, you’ve of course seen this movie before. 

Simone:  Yes. And when you were so kind to give me a whole bunch of movies, to download onto my computer, this was one that I had specially requested. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Simone:  But before then, I I watched it in December and then just rewatched it again. But before that, it had been a long time since I’ve seen it. And and similar to you guys, I was when I watched it again in December, I was like, oh my god. I was just amazed by the puppetry, the special effects, and just the overall, like, grossness. This this movie fulfills your, like, grossness satisfaction. 

Todd:  It really does. It is Yeah. But it’s poignant. I don’t know. This movie just this movie gets to me in a bad way, and and I have to say if Simone hadn’t been here with me, I probably would have been bawling on the sofa. To be quite frank, yeah, this one bothers me a lot. I think there’s a lot going on here. It’s not your typical horror movie.   It’s directed by David Cronenberg, who brings us all kinds of great body horror films. He just is really fascinated by, this kind of disgusting body horror. And he’s all of his movies seem to reflect this. And I think this is his most commercially successful film Yeah. By far. Otherwise, he’s been pretty fringe, and, and although his movies are generally well regarded, they don’t make a ton of money. But this one, I think, was made on a what did we what did we find out? 

Simone:  It was like a $9,000,000 budget, but it grossed quite amount. I think it’s like 60 or something million in the box office. 

Todd:  And even won an Oscar for best special effects that year. 

Simone:  Yeah. The only Academy Award he’ll, he has received to this point. 

Todd:  You’re you’re really writing him off. You almost said He will. Yeah. 

Craig:  What really struck me about this movie and what I had forgotten is really how intimate and theatrical it is. I mean, I I had forgotten that there are really only 3 characters in this whole movie. You’ve got, your your your main character Seth Brundle played by Jeff Goldblum, of course, and then Veronica is, love interest played by Gina Davis. And Jeff Goldblum and Gina Davis were an item, at this point. I I guess that, David Cronenberg was interested in casting Jeff Goldblum, and the studio was worried about it because they felt like he wasn’t a well known enough star to be the leading man. But, Cronenberg was was intense that that Goldblum was gonna play it. And then they didn’t know who the leading lady was going to be, but Goldblum suggested his girlfriend, Geena Davis, and Cronenberg was nervous about that, but then she came in red and I guess she just blew him away. And some other pretty big name, people read for Veronica, too.   The only one I can remember off the top of my head is Jennifer Jason Lee, but a couple other big names too. But I guess Geena Davis just nailed her audition. And then you’ve got then kind of this side character, Aethas Borenze, played by John Getz, who, is Geena Davis’ boss. She’s like a journalist and and he’s not only her boss, but her ex boyfriend. But it’s just those three characters It really in the whole movie, like, there are some side characters, you know, some some bit parts, but it’s really just the 3 of them. And it’s really intimate, and I had just forgotten about that. And as I was watching it, especially as, you know, just even as it begins, the first line of the movie, I think, you know, I turned the movie on and the credits roll and the title comes up and that all looks great. And then it just, comes on to a, a close-up on Jeff Goldblum’s face and he delivers what I think is maybe one of the greatest opening lines in any movie ever. 

Clip:  What am I working on? I’m working on something that’ll change the world and human life as we know it. Change it a lot or just a bit? You’ll have to be more specific. Well, you want me to be specific here in this room with, half the scientific community of North America eavesdropping? Is there another way? You could come back to my lab. Listen. I’ll make a cappuccino. I have a Fiam of my very own. You know what that is? It’s not the dilettantes plastic kitchen model. It’s one of those, real restaurant espresso machines with a eagle on Todd.   Somehow I get the feeling you don’t get out much. You can tell that. 

Craig:  It just starts out, you know, like, so exciting and it it just moves boom boom boom from there. I was just blown away. 

Todd:  It it does. I was also surprised Todd because I hadn’t remembered just how it jumps right into the story right away. They’re what they’re at some kind of convention. 

Simone:  Yeah. Like a science convention, and Veronica has gone there and searched for a story. 

Todd:  Yeah. She’s a journalist, working for, Particle Magazine. 

Clip:  Was that it? 

Simone:  Uh-huh. Yeah. 

Todd:  And it’s a science magazine, obviously, kind of like Omni, which they also referenced that I told Simone I actually had a subscription to Omni back in the day. I was I was a pretty nerdy kid. And he immediately takes her to, his his place, and we were laughing about this because the whole dialogue between them. 

Simone:  He’s charismatic but, like, creepily charismatic, but I feel like because he’s Jeff Goldblum and kind of suave and nerdy scientist, he almost gets away with it. But some of his gestures and the weird things that he says, like, once they get back to his place, you know, she sees the telepods and stuff and she’s like, alright well I think I’m gonna go. He’s like, oh no, you you’ve already seen too much already so I’m gonna have to kill 

Todd:  you all. 

Simone:  It’s like if you didn’t if you couldn’t tell by what the title of the movie was, you’d think, like, he was a serial killer. Well, and it’s like he 

Todd:  drive him driving her to his place is like driving her to this big empty warehouse. 

Simone:  There’s like no other cars. 

Clip:  This is 

Todd:  the most trusting reporter ever. Yeah. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Todd:  It’s so almost sexually charged from the very beginning. There’s and I guess, you know, I didn’t know that they were an item, but it it’s clear, like, there’s something in both of their eyes when they’re talking to each other from the very beginning that you just get that she is somehow attracted to him. Mhmm. And he, despite his awkwardness, manages to pull her in somehow. But it’s so convincing, and only because it’s convincingly acted. It would seem if you were just reading this on the page, that it would happen way too fast and too easy, for the 2 of them to get together. But the way it plays out on screen, it’s it’s totally fascinating. 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  I think. 

Craig:  Yeah. And they’ve got really good chemistry. I mean, of course, they were sleeping together. So hopefully, they would have good chemistry. But, I mean, you you can see it. It translates. I mean, they’re just really, really comfortable with one another. And I think that both of these actors, both, Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis are really, really talented in their own right.   But there’s just from the beginning this ease between them. And I don’t really, Symone, get the whole Jeff Goldblum thing Because I don’t know, like he’s this awkward, tall, gawky, you know, not stereotypically attractive guy, but he does have this charisma. You know, he’s got this deep, kind of soothing voice and, I don’t know. Even though I don’t really get it, I could kind of see how you could maybe be seduced by that. And, I I you know, it’s not I I think from his point of view, he’s flirting throughout. From her perspective, she’s really just into it for the story, and she seems almost a little bit uneasy, even though they, have this kind of chemistry between them. And they get there and they’re just kind of talking and and he says, Well, I want to show you this. And he says, Do you have, like, a personal item, like a piece of jewelry or a piece of clothing or something? And, she’s like, Alright, well here we go.   And she takes she slips her shoe off, and I thought she was gonna take off her panties. I was like, oh, okay. Well, here we go. But no, she slips off her stocking and gives it to him, and he puts it in one of these pods and starts this computer running, and lights flash in the pods and, the stocking is teleported from 1 pod to the other. And and they go to the other pod and and she thinks it’s some kinda trick. She thinks it’s a hologram or something, but he picks it up and he hands it to her. And, he’s like, your stocking just teleported. And from that point, she’s she’s on board.   She’s into it. You know, she wants to get this story. She turns on her tape recorder, and she starts asking him questions. And it’s really funny because, you know, I I guess we had to have known from the beginning that this was a romantic pursuit from by him. The second that she starts asking questions and she’s excited about the story, he’s like, oh, wait. I would have never told this to a journalist. And she’s like, well, you just did. You know? What what did you think was gonna happen? It’s funny kind of the dynamic between them, but, the story just, moves, right along, which I was really impressed with. 

Todd:  Yeah. Did you get a kind of a David Copperfield vibe from him when he was showing off the pods? Oh my gosh. 

Craig:  I guess a little bit. 

Todd:  Maybe I’ve just seen too much of David Copperfield, but I’m telling you, like, I felt like he was copying his style completely when he was opening up and displaying and showing the pods. Yeah. And here it is over here. He’s got this big open armed, gestures and things. It’s kind of funny. 

Simone:  His feathered hair pushed back. 

Todd:  Yeah. He’s so Jeff Goldblum now. So Jeff Goldblum. But so she goes and brings this to her editor, and her editor says, well, the guy’s a magician. You know? 

Simone:  He’s like playing you. 

Todd:  Playing with you, and he’s kind of creepy and skeezy. He makes some comments to her, but you don’t really pick up on why until a little bit later. But anyway, he’s not interested in the story. And so, at that moment, Jeff Goldblum interrupts. Jeff Goldblum. 

Simone:  Was he 

Todd:  Seth Brundle. 

Simone:  You got him you got him on the brain. 

Todd:  I do. Brundle interrupts. Well, he’s even his charms are too strong for me. He he bangs on the door because he sought her out and, comes in and, ends up, like, well, you didn’t waste any time. And she says, well, he’s not interested in the story. And he’s like, well, why don’t we go out for some hamburgers, and let’s talk some more. 

Simone:  So from that point, they have this conversation, at at the restaurant, and she says, well, have you ever tried this on anything else that hasn’t been, you know, like my nylon stocking or something? And he said, well, other experiments that have been conducted, like, haven’t turned out so well. And when they go back to his apartment, he puts in this this test monkey, this test baboon. 

Todd:  Yeah. That’s a really expensive test subject Yeah. To try this out on. Yeah. But, yeah, he he can’t teleport live things. Right? 

Simone:  Right. Right. He flesh. Right. The we we learned that the telepod can’t, recognize skin. It can only kind of recognize, prosthetic material or synthetic materials, things like that. 

Todd:  And I think there’s a really interesting bit here, like a really interesting scene because she sets up the video camera. She’s gonna document this. 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  His proposal to her is well, forget the magazine article. Let’s write a book. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Todd:  And to document the whole procedure. So she she become he becomes kind of her project. And she sets up this camera to get his thoughts after the monkey teleportation, where the monkey is completely the baboon is completely turned inside out, which is one of the first of many disgusting effects that we see, and just flopping around on the bottom. And he’s really troubled. His performance is so good. Yeah. And you can see that he’s trying to say something, and he’s trying to talk, but at the other hand, like, his mind is somewhere else. 

Clip:  What else? Why didn’t it work? I think it, turned the baboon inside out. Why? Can’t deal with the flesh. It only seems to work with inanimate objects, nothing that’s living. Must be my fault. Why? Computers are dumb. They only know what you tell them. I must not know enough about the flesh myself. I’m gonna have to learn. 

Todd:  Which is kind of a deep line when you think about it. 

Simone:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  It really hones in on his personality as this geeky, kind of awkward guy. This is maybe the first physical relationship, you know, he ends up having with her that he’s ever had. Mhmm. That sense I get anyway. I don’t know about you, Craig. 

Craig:  So you see this baboon in the one telepod and then you see what it comes out as. And not only is it turned inside out, but it’s still alive and it’s still making noise of pain. And like, Oh Todd, it just, Todd, we’ve talked about this a 1000000 times, it kills me to see animals in peril like that. And like that just tugged at my heartstrings. And I feel like, I think that he was upset that the experiment didn’t work, but I think that he was also kind of moved by that, by the pain that he had inflicted, or at least that’s the sense that I got from from the, his reaction to it. And you’re right. The performance is so strong. The other thing, like, you guys said, pretty expensive, test subjects.   Yeah. Like, where is this guy getting baboons? Does he just go down to the local baboon store and pick up a couple baboons? I thought that was really interesting. And, so yeah, they talk about that after they have sex. I mean, it moves pretty quickly. And I couldn’t tell in the beginning if she was seducing him because she was genuinely interested in him or if she was just so invested in this story that she was gonna do whatever she needed to do to land this story. But regardless, they have this fling, and after poise coitus or whatever, he says, Todd on, I want to do an experiment. And she had brought over some steaks because he just goes out for cheeseburgers all the time. So she had brought over some steaks and had offered to cook them, but he takes this steak and he cuts it in half and he teleports one half and then he, cooks both halves up and he gives her the non teleported half first and she takes a bite of it and she’s like, It’s alright, whatever.   And then he gives her the other half and she’s like, Oh no, there’s something wrong with it, it tastes synthetic. And that’s where he goes into that whole deal about how Todd doesn’t understand the flesh, I’m gonna have to, you know, teach it. And apparently, he does. He goes over and bloop bloop bloop, you know, types some things in. And it it seems like there’s there’s almost no time before the next time they they try to transport a new baboon. It works. You know? He puts he puts the baboon in the thing, the the door opens and the baboon comes running out. I thought at first that it was like charging him, but no, it just jumps into his arms.   The only other, you know, outside of plot, I was thinking the whole time I’m watching this I’m thinking, I thought baboons were like the most dangerous primate ever. And, and I guess they are one of the most dangerous. And, and apparently, David Cronenberg was terrified of these baboons. Like, he was just scared to death of them. But I guess Jeff Goldblum was a big enough guy, like a tall enough guy, and he had been working out and beefing up for this role. So apparently, he was big enough that the baboons saw him as dominant. So as long as he was around and he was on set, they they behaved themselves. But I I guess the crew and everybody else was scared to death of these baboons.   But See. You know what I mean? 

Simone:  Are under the the seductive curse of of Jeff Goldblum. 

Todd:  You have a lot in common with baboons. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s absolutely right. But anyway, so this the second baboon works. So every you know, they’re both stoked, that this is is working. He’s stoked, of course, because, you know, his experiment is finally working. She’s stoked because she’s gonna get the story of the century and everything seems to be, going well. 

Todd:  But one thing that’s been going on also is this editor has been following her. 

Simone:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  And we’ve learned through an earlier scene that they actually had a thing and this guy is a total sleazeball. 

Simone:  It’s the worst because he kind of ends up being, I don’t wanna say hero, but he ends up, you know, kind of coming in handy at the end which I know we’ll get to. But like his regards for the word no is so, like, cringeworthy in every scene. Like, so when Geena Davis goes, I’m sorry, when Veronica goes back to her apartment, and he’s like in he has a spare key from when they were dating, and she he’s in the shower and she’s like 

Clip:  How did you get in? Yeah. I have a key, remember? You gave it to me. I know I should have changed the lock. I knew you wouldn’t. Yeah? Yeah. That’s because unconsciously, you still want me to come back, 

Craig:  move in again. 

Clip:  No. That’s because, very consciously, I’m lazy and disorganized. 

Simone:  She says at the end, like, give me the key. And he just goes, I’ll keep it. And I, like, doesn’t even say, like, no. And, you know, as a woman who’s dealt with creepy ex boyfriends, I’m like, what do you do? Call the cops and, like, change your 

Clip:  door, change your lock. 

Simone:  His lack of regard for the word no is but but anyways, yeah, it’s very apparent that he’s been following her, knew that she had stayed the night, and had slept or at least just kind of put the pieces together that she had slept with, with Seth, decided that he did want to stay on the story and that he was going to supervise the story. 

Todd:  With or without her, basically. Right. Exactly. 

Craig:  Yeah. Right. 

Todd:  So it kinda forces her hand, so they don’t end up going on their holiday that she wanted to go on. They end up staying, and in the meantime, Jeff, Seth, in the meantime, Seth is kinda drinking, and, while she’s gone visiting her editor, and he’s kinda getting jealous, and he’s kinda thinking, okay, she’s going to see him. What’s going on? What’s going on here? And he’s like, screw it. Forget about waiting for the test results to come back from this baboon to see that he’s fine. I’m just gonna go teleport myself, which is a really terrible idea. 

Simone:  Yeah. Making making bad decisions once again under the influence of alcohol. 

Craig:  Well and I I also thought that this scene was hilarious, but also super endearing. Like, so she, the the editor sends her a mock up cover of of, you know, what he’s gonna do for this story. So she has to go confront him and deal with that. And Seth is putting together, you know, 2 and 2 that they used to be together, and he’s drinking and he’s talking to the other baboon. The other 

Todd:  baboon. The 

Craig:  other baboon’s just like sitting in a chair listening to this guy pour his heart out. And you’re right, he’s drunk. But I also thought, and I don’t even know, it’s been so long since I’ve seen it, I don’t know if I noticed this before, but while he’s talking to the baboon, the baboon is like swatting away a fly. And I never noticed that, I don’t think. And so when he goes, to get into the telepod, we see this fly kind of buzzing around and then we see right before he teleports that the fly is actually in there with him. And so when he does teleport, you know, he’s got this, you know, sexy nude silhouette kind of thing going on, in in the pod. But then when he comes out, he comes out looking fine, but there’s also no more fly. And I felt like I could tell right away.   And again, I’m sure it’s directing and writing and all that too, but you gotta give Goldblum the the credit here. You know, as soon as he comes out, you can tell that there’s just something a little bit different about him. You know, he’s a little jumpier, he’s a little bit more manic, and these things, you know, progress, as we go along. But as soon as he comes out, you can kind of tell that there’s a little bit something different about him. Eventually, Gena Davis comes back and, actually, we keep referring to them by their actor names, Veronica comes back. He says, you know, I did this. And they, you know, kinda spend some time together, and and you can just tell, progressively as it moves forward that he has in fact changed. 

Todd:  It’s interesting because, you know, and and Cronenberg really intended this film, it’s it’s clear as day, as as a metaphor either illness or aging, or just the the honestly, just the way that relationships progress through time, I think, when something is thrown in that kinda gums up the works. And I think that’s what makes this movie so tragic. What’s different about this film from the 19 fifties version is that in the and and by the way, Craig, have you seen the 19 fifties version? 

Craig:  I haven’t. I’m kind of embarrassed to say. 

Todd:  You know, Simone, have you? 

Simone:  No. I haven’t either. 

Todd:  You know, a lot of these fifties horror film, sci fi horror films can be kinda cheesy and low budget and kinda cornball. This one is really sad. It is really tragic. And instead of this being a couple that, you know, met over this this experiment, it’s actually a husband and wife, and it’s the husband, is a tinkerer. He’s like one of these mad scientist tinkerer types, like, in the basement. So he’s got this this whole lab set up in the basement where he’s doing these experiments. And instead of this gradual transformation that we get in this movie, in that movie, he becomes a like a half fly almost immediately. And we see little snippets and, like, out of frame things that imply what happened, but what we don’t see is him much.   Because once we do see him toward the end of the movie, his whole head is like a fly’s head. You know, it’s a little corny. But by then, we have gotten what we basically see is this breakdown of their marriage, where he’s kind of disappeared, and she’s wondering what’s happened to him. She goes downstairs, and he’s, he’s locked the door of the basement. He won’t let her down there, but he won’t tell her why, and so she’s getting scared. And then he, you know, finally does kinda let her down there, but he won’t let her see his face, and she’s like, what’s going on? And it is it is the saddest, most tragic thing when you put yourself in her shoes. You know? And this movie, I think, takes that and just stretches it out longer and makes it sadder. Because he wakes up and he feels different and he’s stronger, and at first it’s like a good thing for him, but it separates them almost immediately.   You know? He’s the guy who’s found this newfound energy, this newfound strength. They were having this coffee shop conversation, and he’s so excited about it that he’s just dumping sugar into his coffee over and over and over again. And she’s, like, looking at it, and she’s, like, do you like some coffee with your sugar? And and he’s just babbling on and on about stuff you can hardly even understand what it is. 

Clip:  So I asked the computer if it had improved me and it said it didn’t know what I was talking about and that’s made me think very carefully about what I’ve been feeling and why. And I’m beginning to think that the sheer process of being taken apart atom by atom and put back together again. It’s like coffee being put through a filter. It’s somehow a purifying process. It’s purified me. It’s cleansed me. And I’ll tell you, I think it’s gonna allow me to realize the personal potential I’ve been neglecting all these years that I’ve been, obsessively pursuing goal after goal. Do you normally take coffee with your sugar? What? Oh, my god.   You know, I I just don’t think I’ve ever given me a chance to be me. But, of course, interestingly, at the exact same moment that I, achieved what’ll probably prove to be my life’s work, that’s the moment when I started being the real me finally. So, listen. And not to wax messianic, but, it may be true that the synchronicity of those two events might blur the resultant individual effect 

Todd:  of either individually. And immediately, there’s that wedge between them, where in a way, it’s almost kinda like a drug user Todd. You know, where this drug user’s found this insane awesome hide that the other person can’t or isn’t going along with, and he’s so excited about it, he just wants to bring her along. 

Simone:  Yeah. He’s trying to convince her to go into the telepod and and transport because he thinks that it will transform her. 

Todd:  Yeah. And they’ll be like 2 super people. 

Simone:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. And and I mean, he’s doing, like, all these acrobatics, in the in the in the room when she wakes up and kinda finds him wandering around, and he’s doing all these crazy flips and things like a circus performer. That was kind of a cool scene. 

Craig:  It could have been really corny, I think, because it’s almost like a Footloose moment, you know, where he’s doing, like, all these, like, aerial, acrobatic things. But it it it it’s good that it illustrates what’s going on with him. In addition to that, they’re having, like, marathon sex. Like, it almost made me a little uncomfortable. It almost made me a little uncomfortable when she was like, how could you do that? How do you still even have any fluid in your body? And I’m like, ew. 

Simone:  But after that scene is when we see his face again for the first time, and that’s when we start to see some discoloration in his face. We’re starting to see some deterioration, some spots here and there and it’s like, oh. 

Todd:  How does she not notice that? Yeah. She doesn’t really say anything about it. 

Craig:  Yeah. And he’s well, and he’s got, like, these weird thick hairs growing out of his back, and she’s kinda grossed out by that and tries to cut him off or whatever. But like you said, Todd, it is almost like a drug addict. In fact, he even says that specifically. He’s like, He says, It’s like a Craig, except it’s pure, it’s perfect, you’ve got to do it. And he almost tries to drag her into the telepod and she’s saying, no. You know, there I I think something went wrong. And and, he says, well, then if not you, I’ll find someone else.   I mean, he’s just, he’s manic, basically, 

Clip:  Craig. 

Craig:  And she, so she leaves, I guess, or he storms out and, he goes off to this bar where he like challenges this guy to arm wrestling and he just totally breaks this arm wrestler’s arm, and that’s a totally gross effect. And then he takes home this this girl, and they have sex. And then in the morning, he tries to get her to get into the telepod, and she won’t. Gina Davis luck because again, he it’s almost as though he’s gonna force her into it. But Veronica, shows up and she says 

Clip:  Be afraid. Be very afraid. 

Craig:  I had no idea that that line came from this movie. You know, you hear that all the time. I had no idea it came from this movie. But but she it you know, she can clearly see that there’s something wrong with them, and and she says, you’re changing, something’s wrong. And and he just accuses her of, being jealous. He says, you’re jealous. I, you know, I’ve become free. I’ve been released.   And he, like, demonstrates his power by, like, bashing down walls with his, fists. But, he tells her to leave, and and not to come back. But it’s then when he goes into the bathroom and looks in the mirror and he starts to realize and understand that he is in fact changing. And that scene is a total gross out scene. 

Todd:  Oh my god. 

Simone:  With the fingernails? 

Todd:  Ugh. My god. It it’s also kind of darkly comic though. He sees at first the hair, and he tries to shave it off, and it’s too thick, and the razor won’t work. So he throws in the tub, and it the the razor shatters just kind of in the background. And then when he finds that his fingernail can just pull off, he’s, like, almost fascinated by it. And he looks at the other fingernail and starts to pull it off, but pus is squirting out. And and he’s the whole time he’s 

Craig:  So gross. 

Todd:  It’s like he’s just looking at it and almost more fascinated by it than anything. Yeah. I don’t know. There was something a little darkly humorous about it, I thought. Although it was the scene, I think, that you remembered. 1 of the one of the more notorious scenes that you remembered. Right, Simone? 

Simone:  The fingernails and then the teeth. Because what really if there’s anything that has to do with teeth, I’m out. Like, I, 

Todd:  I 

Simone:  get I get really, really grossed out by teeth stuff. So when he’s leaning over the computer and, like, later on they they say some time has call has has passed on. At one point, he calls Veronica back and he said, in these past 4 weeks, you know, I’ve gotten worse. And she she goes to his apartment, and he’s now needs to walk with with canes. And and you can see his his body is really morphing and changing and, he reaches for a donut because kinda like flies they want something sugary, something sweet and so his apartment’s just littered with, like, hostesses or, you know, whatever. And he peaches for it and this, like, vomit acid falls out and then his ear falls off. And then Veronica goes in for a hug, and I’m like, no. That’s the last thing you wanna touch.   Like, girl, I know it’s Jeb Goldblum, but, like, even I am my limits. 

Craig:  Oh, Todd. I that you say, Todd, you say kind of darkly humorous. That was the part that I found, kind of funny was he, he picks up this donut and, like, almost unconsciously, he vomits on it. And then, like, when she reacts, he just looks at her. He’s like, oh, that’s disgusting. Like, he didn’t even realize what he was doing. Yeah. Yeah. 

Clip:  You 

Todd:  almost you almost expect the next words out of his mouth to be, but do you mind if I go ahead and eat this anyway? Yes. 

Simone:  But at that, it wasn’t until then when he admits to Veronica, like, I’m scared. But that was actually one of the only moments that we see him being scared because after that, then he kind of goes back into his science Todd, and he’s fascinated by this change. And and that’s when he learns and realizes, what Todd they call it, a fusion, with a fly at a molecular genetic level that that there was a fly in there, in the in the telepod and that it Todd didn’t just teleport with him. It teleported into him and his DNA is now fused with this fly. 

Todd:  And it’s that classic eighties computer thing where computers could just have Yes. 

Simone:  Conversations with you. You just type 

Todd:  it, what happened to me? 

Simone:  Yeah. If not grumble, what is it? 

Todd:  Like, if this computer is smart enough to be able to actually have a conversation with you, you probably figure you can use complete sentences with it Todd. You know? 

Simone:  Yeah. And when he he calls himself Brundlefly, he gives himself this new name. That’s when I really think he just accepts his fate. Like, I can’t stop this. I’m gonna turn into this fly. And Veronica, you can film me. Like, he wants to document this process. He’s holding on to his his body parts that have now fallen off.   He calls calls it the the natural the Brundle Natural History Museum or something. He still kind of has this, this wit and humor about it. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s like he vacillates between being able to laugh about it and be funny about it and to, you know, to being absolutely terrified. And again, I just think that’s so apt. That’s such a a real life experience of a person who’s ill or sick. You know, they’re not depressed all the time. They often try to find humor in their situation. But, you know, it’s tragedy is just around the corner, so it could be uncomfortable. It could be different.   And honestly, the minute she sees him come out with those 2 canes, I’m again, it’s just like an old person, right? He can’t really walk, he’s got the 2 canes. And the tears in her eyes, even though there’s that comedy in that scene with the ear falling off and the puke and stuff. I’m sorry, but that just bothered the heck out of me. I just pushed all of my tragedy buttons, you know. 

Craig:  Doctor. Oh gosh. Yeah. It’s really sad. It’s really sad to see her reaction to him. And I think we have to say, you know, from this point forward, he’s going through these stages of his metamorphosis and he’s just getting more and more, deformed and and he just looks disgusting. I mean, from the beginning, he looks gross and it just progresses and progresses where he’s getting more fly like. And the makeup, I mean Todd deserved the Academy Award.   I mean it’s just amazing. It’s so disgusting and it’s all practical and it looks, while it’s disgusting, it looks so Todd. As we move through these last parts of the movie, it just progresses and progresses and progresses until finally at the end he kinda goes, you know, full out giant fly monster. But Todd, I can’t say enough how amazing these effects are. And for this to be, you know, in the 1980s, all of this is practical effects, it just looks fantastic. I just can’t imagine it looking any 

Todd:  better. It’s the guy who did, the gremlins, who designed the gremlins, right? 

Craig:  Yeah. I think you’re right. 

Todd:  Then she goes to her boss again, and she’s just kind of reaching out to the only other per as skeezy and as slimeball as this guy really is, she’s really the only other person that we know of anyway that she could apparently reach out to. So she goes back to him, and he’s like, I don’t believe it, you know, essentially. And she’s like, well, let me show you. And I thought this moment, she was gonna try to bring him to the apartment, but she actually goes by herself. And again, I guess her her idea is just to videotape him. And so he’s already got the idea, in fact, I think, isn’t this when he’s walking across the ceiling, and across the walls, and things, 

Simone:  the brightening? Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  And and, so this this is actually my favorite humorous part of the movie. So he he’s like, we need to record this for posterity. He’s he’s back in full on science mode. And he’s again, he’s thinking maybe some good is gonna come out of this. And so, you know, she sits down with the video record. He sets up the video recorder of the Todd, she’s behind, he’s like, alright, get me in Craig. And he sits down in the kitchen behind a box of donuts. Okay. 

Clip:  How does Brundlefly eat? Well, he found out the hard and painful way that he’s very much the way a fly eats. His teeth are now useless because although he can chew up solid food, he can’t digest it. Solid food hurts. So like a fly, a brindle fly breaks down solids with a corrosive enzyme, playfully called Todd drop. He regurgitates on his Todd, it liquefies and then he sucks it back up. Ready for demonstration kids? 

Craig:  Oh, so nasty. 

Todd:  And of course, we don’t see it. The camera slowly pans away from the television while this is playing, and it it is a great little transition, but it it turns out that it’s again the the boss who’s watching this. And you just see his face go. Oh. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and meanwhile, Veronica comes into the apartment, and she, goes directly to the bathroom and and Stathis, the boss, follows her in there. And plot twist, she’s pregnant. And then we get a great scene, where, it seems like she’s she’s going immediately in for an abortion, but she she goes in and, it it and I think that actually David Cronenberg, the director, plays the gynecologist in this scene. She, like, it seems like she’s there for an abortion, but then all of a sudden, the the gynecologist is is like, You’re gonna have to help. You’re gonna have to push. And so she starts pushing, and then we just see her face and she starts screaming, And then it goes back to the gynecologist who’s holding this giant maggot. And you realize, of course, that it’s a dream, but it’s a really I remembered that it was a dream.   But I imagine people seeing it for the first time, it would be quite a shock. And you know, we talk about dark humor. Frankly, as I was sitting here watching it, I didn’t really, you know, there are a couple of moments where it was somewhat humorous, but it’s so dark, and so sad and so terrifying. Even in that moment where, you know, the the gynecologist delivers this big writhing maggot, You know, in hindsight talking about it, it’s funny, but in the moment, it’s it’s horrifying. I mean, it really is a nightmare and and you really get the sense that she is terrified at the prospect of what this baby could be. And I think that that says a lot about how well they balanced, you know, this dark humor with, the actual nightmarish feel to it. Because in the moment, I was really kind of feeling the shock and horror that I think her character was feeling. It is really effective. 

Todd:  And I think following that scene, she wakes up and she ends up going back to his apartment. She keeps going back to his apartment. Yeah. And she’s going to confront him about the baby, and it’s hard for her. And this, again, super poignant scene when he comes out, and he’s, again, kind of in good spirits, but she’s trying to speak with him, and she’s just breaking down into tears. And finally, he says what I think is one of the most sad lines in the whole movie. 

Clip:  I’m saying I’m an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over, and the insect is alive. No. Except I’m saying, I’ll hurt you this day. 

Todd:  Oh, my gosh, man. That that’s just so sad. 

Simone:  Yeah. He’s kind of putting in that he has these these kind of primal instincts now and and that less and less of human Brundle is there and it’s it’s more truly Brundlefly. And it is. It’s really heartbreaking. And that’s when Veronica goes out and back to her car, where Stathis had had driven her over there. And she says I I couldn’t do it, but I want and she kept on saying I want it out of me. I want it out of my body. And that is really gut wrenching to watch too because you can see her heartbreak in in seeing Seth deteriorate and turning from a man that maybe not necessarily that she loved, but obviously had started to grow very deep feelings for and a connection with and and to think, okay.   Maybe if I if I have this baby then there’s a part of him there but she’s still so terrified that it it could be this maggot creature 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Simone:  That’s inside of her, and I want it out of me. I want it out of my body. 

Craig:  We’ve already seen that the reason that he says that he’s dangerous is because he’s been messing around with the computer, and he’s been trying to figure out ways that he can minimize the amount of fly in him. And what he has figured out or what he’s decided to do is that, he can fuse more people or splice another human into him and so the, percentage, I guess, or ratio of human to fly will diminish. And that’s why, he tells her that he’s a danger to her. But he also overhears, he’s watching from the roof as he overhears, Veronica telling Stathis that she wants this thing out of her. And so when they go to the abortion clinic, I guess he follows them and and at one point Veronica’s alone in the abortion clinic and there’s this huge glass wall, and and here comes Seth, the fly. He just busts through the wall, and he takes her out. And he takes her back to his place, and he says, I I can’t believe you want to kill the baby. He says, The baby may be all that’s left of the real me.   And again, it’s another one of those kind of heart wrenching lines where he says, Please don’t kill me. Like, you know, if that’s all that may remain of what I was, you know, it’s just kind of heartbreaking to him that she might kill that, terminate it. She’s upset and and and kind of protesting, and he eventually says, We can now be the ultimate family. His plan is that he’ll he now has 3 telepods, 2 that will then go into 1. So he wants to put her in 1 and he’ll go in the other and he says, We’ll be the ultimate family. 3 in 1. He drags her and and puts her into one of the pods. As he’s doing that, she kind of swats at his face, and and his whole bottom jaw, falls off.   And it’s in this moment where we get the final transformation. I mean, his whole outer body that we’ve been accustomed to just kind of falls away to reveal this this fly monster. It doesn’t look exactly like a fly, and I guess that was intentional. Cronenberg didn’t want it to be just a big fly. He still wanted it to be some sort of combination of man and fly and that’s what we get. Gosh, the effects are just amazing. So he puts her in one and he goes, to get in, the other. And, that’s I mean, all of this really is is the climax of the film. 

Todd:  Statham had had come over as well, and he had been incapacitated in a pretty gross scene. Ugh. He got really 19 fifties sci fi, well, except for all the gore here. I even noticed that the score seemed to change. It seemed to be way more like, again, almost a nod to the original, that style of music. The score done by James, Howard Shore. Right? 

Simone:  Yeah. 

Todd:  I always get him and James Horner confused. But, yeah. And, and he had been incapacitated. But, in as Brundlefly is, setting all this up, he comes back too, and has a shotgun that he aims at the door of the Brundlefly’s teleporter. And he shoots the door open. And, he also shoots the with his other shot, the the cable that connected it with hers. So he’s able to go and unlock hers, and then you see the computer screen saying fusion of Brundlefly and transporter pod complete. 

Clip:  And I don’t know about you, but 

Todd:  I’m just like, okay, I cannot wait to see what this is. And, and sure enough, like, it’s just and this is, again, just so how you can find such touching moment in this absolutely horrifying special effects extravaganza. The machine opens, and Brundlefly has fused with this teleporter in all kinds of weird ways, and he’s just crawling across the floor towards her. And she stands up, and has her gun with her. It’s like she knows what she needs to do to put him out of his misery, but even then she can’t bring herself to do it. Even as he uses this Claw. To, like, raise it to his head, like, this is okay. This is what I want.   It takes her a while before she’s finally able to blow his head off. And then Cronenberg spares us no side. 

Simone:  No follow-up. 

Todd:  Yeah. I mean, we totally get to see his head fly open. Oh. Yeah. And then that’s it. You’re right. Fade to black and credits. 

Simone:  You know what I was almost kind of hoping for was, when you see kind of action shots like that, how they’ll do it from, like, 6 different angles and each angle gets, like, slower and slower. So like, like, chunks flying everywhere. I almost expected it to be to to to be like that. But, yeah, I mean, that the movie starts abruptly and ends abruptly. So we kind of get this sense of, like, well, what’s Veronica gonna do? What’s what’s 

Todd:  have the baby. 

Simone:  Yeah. Fly number 2. Fly number 2. 

Todd:  That’s right. And I guess they played around quite a bit with the ending. Mhmm. You know, test audiences saw this, they had a different end they had probably 3 or 4 different endings including another couple scenes in there that they ended up cutting. Craig Dad, have you seen any of those other endings or heard anything about? 

Craig:  I’ve read about them. I I I know that there were a couple of scenes, well, there was one scene that was shot that they had in the original cut, but it didn’t test well with audiences. There was a scene where, once he realized what had happened, that he had been fused with a a fly, He, I guess Todd an experiment where he took the remaining baboon and a cat and fused them together. And what came out, of course, was absolutely monstrous. And so he beat it to death, with like a lead pipe. And audiences just responded really badly to that scene. 

Clip:  I guess they were 

Craig:  like, you know, once you they’re lead even if it’s just, you know, this monster, you kind of lose all empathy, for the guy and and the movie’s kind of over at that point. So they cut that out. There was also a scene, that was meant to follow that that they never even filmed, where he killed, a homeless lady, I think, in the street who had kind of caught him doing something in a dumpster. And then the the the endings, I don’t know if I’m gonna remember them all correctly, there I know that there was one ending where she woke up with, Stathis, and it was implied that they were together. And in fact, Stathis even said, You don’t have to worry, we figured it out, the baby’s mine. So it wasn’t even his baby. Yeah. And and Jeff Gold Jeff Goldblum hated, hated that ending and was insulted that they even filmed that.   And then I guess there were was another ending where she I I don’t remember if it was another dream or if it was supposed to be the actual deal, but where she gave birth again, her baby was born and it had beautiful butterfly wings. 

Todd:  Yeah. It flew off into the sky. Right? 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  That would be very strange. 

Craig:  It would be very strange. I’m glad that they went with the ending because like Simone said, I mean, it begins abruptly and it ends abruptly and it is tragic. I mean, Gena Davis, oh man, her performance here where where he clearly wants her to shoot him, but she just struggles with it so much and she’s weeping, and saying that she doesn’t wanna do it, but eventually she does. And that’s that’s just where it ends. I think that it’s a great ending. They they did make a sequel. Have have you guys seen the Fly 2? 

Simone:  No. Oh, no. I didn’t know there was a Fly 2. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  Oh, my gosh, guys. You have to watch it. 

Simone:  Goble in it. I’m not interested. 

Craig:  Oh, he isn’t it. He isn’t it. Be there because they they, use footage of his interviews with Geena Davis from the first movie. Now I don’t know if it’s all repeat stuff or if they used additional footage that they filmed, I don’t remember, but he does cameo in it on video. It could just be because I have fond memories of watching it when I was a kid because I know that I saw The Fly at some point, but they used to play The Fly 2 on TV all the time, and I fell in love with it. I love that movie. I’m sure that it’s not as as high quality as the first one, but I think it’s fantastic. And it opens up with Veronica.   Geena Davis chose not to reprise her role because they kill her off in the first scene. She gives birth, to this baby, but she dies in birth. And then it follows, the life of this young kid. And it’s so good. You guys, I can’t believe you haven’t seen it. You have to watch it. I love that movie. 

Todd:  We should do that one. That that sounds interesting. No. I know that there was a sequel. I just imagined it was terrible. 

Craig:  Maybe it maybe it is. Maybe I’m looking at it through rose colored glasses, but I just remember really, really liking it. And it’s got good people in it. Gosh, I’m sitting here trying to think of his name. What’s the the the guy from the eighties, the redhead kid who was in Mask, the the lead kid in Mask, you know what I’m talking about? 

Todd:  Yeah. I don’t remember his name. I know what you’re talking about. 

Craig:  I can’t think of his he’s the lead. He’s the lead, and then, his love interest in the movie is the girl who was princess Vespa from, Spaceballs. 

Todd:  Spaceballs. Oh, yeah. That that 

Craig:  sounds really goofy, but it but it it it’s similar to this. It’s similar to the the first movie. I mean, it’s serious. It’s it’s not, goofy at all. Oh, yeah, guys. You gotta watch it. You you guys should watch it together, over there. 

Todd:  This movie’s great. It’s so well done. It it does have kind of a dreamlike feel, and that’s the one thing I do remember. I did remember it being an intimate movie. In fact, Craig, I actually remembered it as being a movie with only 2 characters in it. Like, in my mind, in my memory, I completely wrote off, the the boss character. I really did. I thought this was just the 2 of these people.   And it’s filmed in that, that orange and blue tone. I mean, most of the movie takes place at night, and it’s all this orange and blue. It looks so Yeah. Now it looks so tired, but it it Todd does add of a dreamlike look to it. Even his apartment at times seems smoky, and kind of dreamlike. 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  And that was an interesting choice. And I do also like the way that it plays a little bit with, like you kind of alluded Todd, Simone, earlier the trope of the dashing man, of coming in and saving the day. Yeah. He’s not very dashing. And he doesn’t No. Really save the day. Although, like you said, he does well, I mean, he does kind of save the day. I mean, she ultimately pulls the final trigger and puts an end to it, but he’s the one who saves her.   But at the end of the day, you don’t imagine they’re gonna end up together. You know? 

Simone:  Yeah. You don’t think that after 

Clip:  all of this ends, they’ll look at each other and be like, well, we went through this ordeal together. I guess we got his tape together. Yeah. He’s still 

Todd:  a snazeball, but 

Simone:  he kinda 

Todd:  did it. Plus, he doesn’t have a hand or a foot in any 

Craig:  way too. 

Simone:  So that’s Yeah. He’s got enzymes out. 

Todd:  Do you have any final thoughts, Simone? 

Simone:  No. But it was such a pleasure to to watch this again and, you know, again, I feel like in the last time we recorded talking about Final Destination, I’m I sound like such a heartthrob, like, teenage heartthrob young girl. Like, oh, Kevin Sock. Oh, Jeff Goldblum. Like, I don’t just like movies for, like, attractive lead male characters. 

Todd:  It just so happened. Well, we picked this one knowing that your with your Jeff Blue, Goldblum obsession. 

Craig:  My final thought, Todd, would be going back to what you said was, you know, about how intimate this was. The whole time I’m watching this, I’m thinking, Why isn’t this a play? You know, why, why hasn’t somebody put this on stage? Because it is so intimate. Of course you would have to have, you know, some great makeup artist or some trickery of, special effects or something, but, I just feel like it would work so well on stage. I guess at some point, somebody did turn it into an opera, and, David Cronenberg actually directed it, on stage. I have no idea, you know, I’ve not seen any of it, I have no idea what it was like, but, there has been at least one incarnation of it on set pieces, I just think that this is ripe for a stage, adaptation, and I would be first in line to 

Clip:  see it. 

Todd:  Interesting. Well, you know, it it has a great pedigree. If you haven’t seen the 19 fifties version, it is well worth a watch. It is not what you would think. It’s it’s, again, a very tragic story, and Vincent Price is in it. Hey. He doesn’t play the the scientist, but he plays a friend who comes in, and his job is really comforting the wife and trying to help figure out what’s going on with the friend. It’s just a well acted movie, and it really tugs at your emotional heartstrings in many way of the ways that this movie does, which is quite a feat for what looks on its face to be just a cheesy, you know, kind of weird, fifties sci fi movie.   It’s got some real heart and and message to it that this movie clearly picked up in spades and just ran with. 

Craig:  I just read yesterday that, the remake is in the works. Fox, the Todd, I think the studio who did this one, is, they’ve hired a director. They’re working on it. They’re working on a script, so we may see a remake here in the next few years. 

Todd:  Well, pretty soon, everything that we know and love is gonna have a second version for us. 

Simone:  That’s very true. 

Todd:  Yep. Well, thank you again for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes and on Google Play, on Stitcher, and as well as our home on Facebook. You can like us there, share us, and let us know what you thought of this episode, as well as any future movies you’d like to see us review. Until that time, I’m Todd. I’m Craig. 

Simone:  I’m Simone. 

Todd:  With 2 guys, a woman, and a Chainsaw.

Our tribute episode to the late, great Bill Paxton, who puts a chilling yet lovable turn on the classic vampire-biker-western genre.

Episode 73, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, Craig, we lost another hero last week. Bill Paxton, one of our, uh, favorite actors, died pretty suddenly. I think he was 61 years old. Not very old, but had some complications from, I believe it was a heart surgery. And, um, passed away.

Big, big surprise for all of us. 

Craig: Yeah, it was a shock, and a sad one too, because I think that he had a lot of life left in him. I know he was, you know, currently working on some TV projects, and he was just a great actor, and, yeah. You know, of course, we never know these people personally, but everything that I had seen of him, he seemed just like a really stand up guy.

Um, and it was a shock, and a sad one. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s funny how you get these connections to people who you don’t really know. But you kind of feel like you know them, right? Through their characters, you just see them all the time. It’s like an old friend, and so it always feels bad when you have somebody from, like, one of your favorite movies.

I know, you know, for me, Aliens was when I was probably first introduced to him. Yeah. And I just loved that movie, and I loved his character in that movie, or, or loved to hate his character in that movie, maybe is the better way of putting it. And so we decided, uh, that we would pay some tribute to Bill by doing one of his horror films, and this would be Near Dark.

Near Dark came out in 1987, and it actually has quite a bit of connection to that Aliens movie I was, I was mentioning earlier. He himself, of course, starred, uh, was one of the main stars in Aliens. He is one of the stars in this film, along with a couple others. Lance Hendrickson, uh, plays a character, Jesse, in this film.

He played Bishop, of course, in, in Aliens, the android. And, uh, Jeanette Goldstein, who, uh, Plays like a hispanic What’s her name? Yeah, what’s 

Craig: her name in aliens? I I don’t remember what her name is in aliens, but she’s she’s pretty badass She’s this really tough character. I want to say Marquez. Maybe 

Todd: yeah, it’s like something like 

Craig: that 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: and, and she’s fantastic.

Uh, she, uh, was in that. I, I also always remember her, um, from Titanic. She played, uh, a really touching character in Titanic. She was an Irish immigrant mother who ends up, um, kind of having to put her children to bed as, uh, the, the ship goes down. Yeah, all three of these folks from Aliens. I guess what had happened was James Cameron, the director of Aliens, knew, uh, Catherine Bigelow, who is the director of this film.

Um, and in fact, they were later married for a while. They’re not married anymore, I don’t believe. James 

Todd: Cameron doesn’t stay married for long. 

Craig: Right, right. Um, and I guess that they, that, um, Aliens had wrapped, and she was going to be doing this project. And Cameron said to her, you know, I’ve got this great cast assembled.

Why don’t you just, uh, make use of them? And so she did. They were also interested in casting Michael Bean, Michael Bein, I’m not sure what his name is, but, um, also from Aliens, but, uh, he wasn’t quite satisfied with the script. But we still got, um, Lance Henrickson, Bill Paxton, and Jeanette Goldstein, and all three of them, Uh, really great actors and and excellent range.

I mean, that’s one of the things that I like so much about Bill Paxton is that he had such versatility as an actor. You know, he could be funny. Um, he could be really charming and endearing. Um, and he could also be, you know, pretty scary and intimidating. And I think that he really kind of displays all of that.

You know, arguably he is One of the central villains of this movie, but at the same time he’s also really charismatic. I mean, there’s just something about him. That’s sexy and and And it works. He’s great in this movie. He’s in fact, I would say probably my favorite part of this movie 

Todd: Yeah, he can he could turn on the charm and be smiling and then he just gets those wild eyes that you’re like Oh my gosh, this man is unhinged And at the same time, he gets an opportunity in this movie to play, you know, the grease ball, which, uh, which he also does in a true lies to great effect.

I loved him in true lies. Yes. So hilarious. 

Craig: And I mean, I always, from my childhood, I’ll always remember him as Chet from Weird Science. That was my first. Introduction to him and then of course aliens soon after that, but heck of a good actor. It’s it’s too bad. He’s gone 

Todd: Yeah, it really is. Well, he did leave a nice little oeuvre behind him And of course this being near dark was one that probably not a lot of people have seen I would imagine I mean, I think if you were to start going around just about everybody on the street and have them list off Bill Paxton movies This isn’t gonna be at the top of their list Right do really well at the box office, although it did garner quite a bit of critical acclaim and does have a cult following, uh, as well.

And I think that’s well deserved. I really enjoy this movie. It’s, it’s, uh, it’s hard to categorize because it seems to bridge several genres. It is maybe at its heart, A vampire story, but there aren’t any fangs in this. And aside from the fact that vampires are out at night, they need blood and they need to kill for that, and they’re afraid of sunlight, we don’t really see a lot of the other typical things that you find in vampire films.

Craig: Right. Yeah, no like religious iconography, you know, bothering them or stakes or, or any of that kind of stuff. I mean, it is just the basic stuff. The, uh, the nature of these types of vampires, I think I read that they kind of left deliberately vague. Uh, of course, the word vampire is never uttered once, um, in the movie.

It’s really kind of treated more just as an infection. Um, and in fact, ultimately, uh, we find out an infection that can be, uh, treated and cured. And, and you’re right, the movie does blend genres. Catherine Bigelow, this was her first solo project, and, um, she was really interested in doing a western. But westerns know, they, they had kind of fallen out of the focus of, of pop culture.

They just weren’t being made very much. Um, and so it was suggested by the studio to her, um, that she tried to blend the Western genre with another genre that would potentially draw more viewers. And there was. Um, or had been kind of an increase in interest in the vampire genre. Uh, the lost boys came out right around this time, um, and a couple others.

And so they decided to, you know, try to blend those two, the Western, um, and the vampire film. Um, and there’s a little bit of a kind of biker road movie in there too. Um, and it makes for an interesting and, uh, unique. film. I had really forgotten. You know, the truth of the matter is, I’m not positive that I’ve seen this movie before today.

I thought that I had, I was just absolutely sure that I had, but watching it, I just didn’t remember the details. I don’t know if you’re right or not about a lot of people having not seen this. Uh, it seems like, I think maybe part of the reason that I thought that I had seen it is that over the years I’ve.

Read so much about it and read about specific parts and read about, uh, the different characters and whatnot that I think that I just had a familiarity, um, with it because of that. Uh, and so watching it again or watching it maybe for the first time today, um, I was really kind of coming at it fresh and, uh, I thought.

If nothing else, uh, it’s, it’s unique while there of course are similarities to other vampire movies, it’s quite different too. And I appreciate that. And Catherine Bigelow, you know, this was her first, uh, solo directorial, um, debut, but she went on to do big stuff. I mean, She won an Oscar for Best Director for The Hurt Locker, and I think that she shows a lot of that potential here in this movie.

It’s, it’s, it’s well made, it’s well shot, it’s well acted, it’s well put together, and you’re right, the critics responded, uh, really well. And the production company was struggling at the time that it was released, so it didn’t have, in fact, it shut down, uh, after it released this movie. So it didn’t have, um, it didn’t get a lot of, Uh, I don’t know, media, a lot of, uh, advertising, um, and so that may have something to do with its poor box office, uh, returns.

But, um, I do think that it definitely has established a cult following and, uh, I think people have a lot of respect, uh, for this movie on, on many levels. 

Todd: And also the, the, the way that it’s shot is so good. It’s actually kind of typical of some movies of this time. It does remind you quite a bit of The Lost Boys, and I don’t know if that is more, uh, just the fact that we have, uh, a really 80s type soundtrack that goes behind it.

Not a cheesy 80s, but a ethereal, kind of new agey 80s, because Tangerine Dream did, like, the soundtrack for Legend, uh, The Keep, I don’t know if you remember that one, Um, I don’t fire starter a lot of these. In fact, I could have sworn that they did the soundtrack also for never ending story, but they didn’t.

But you hear it and immediately, you know, the sound. It’s this very ethereal new agey. A little heavy on synth, but not in the kind of synth, but more of the swooping sounds. Sure. And you don’t hear that kind of music so much anymore. It’s really firmly planted, I think, in this era. And it’s not. I feel like the whole film is scored, but when that comes in, it really reminds you.

I, at least for me, it really reminds me, yeah, this is a movie from the 80s. And then also the way that it’s shot, obviously necessarily because so much of it happens at night, almost the whole movie happens at night, you necessarily have a lot of very poorly lit scenes. And I don’t mean poorly lit in that they didn’t know what they were doing.

I just mean that they really make use of dark and shadow. And also the contrasts there too. You hardly have a scene in the outside at night without some, some lights, artificial lights coming from somewhere. And often they cast a, like a, like a, what we call backlight against the back of the character so their hair kind of lights up and their shoulders kind of light up.

And it all makes for an interesting effect and also adds for a lot of that, what I call, like high noon type feeling. feel to some of the cinematography where you get these iconic scenes that you recognize from westerns where there’s a character riding, you know, even on a horse in this case, over the hill and instead of the sunlight behind him, he has some kind of artificial light from what may be, An oil refinery behind them, or a truck stop behind them, or whatever, or even headlights.

I think it lends a particular feel and look 

Craig: to this 

Todd: movie. 

Craig: That, that shot that you’re just talking about with, with, with the main characters coming up over a hill and being backlit, I remember that scene, um, so vividly. I think that any time, uh, you see An article like this or about this movie posted on the internet.

That’s typically the image that they put with it. I think that it was on the, uh, box art, maybe, uh, perhaps and pretty iconic. Um, and, and the music, when I saw it, when I was watching it today and, um, I saw that it was Tangerine Dream, I was really excited because I love their scores. You’re right. They are, um, very eighties, but of course I don’t have any problem with that.

Um, The one thing that I will say is I had no other choice but to watch this today in a completely fully lit room with, with windows with no blinds or shades or anything. Um, and so there was a lot of light in the room and that sometimes made it kind of difficult to see, um, some of the, the more darkly lit scenes.

Um, I’m sure that if I had been able to see it in a dark room or in a theater that it would have been fine. But listeners, if you’ve not seen the movie and you plan to sit down and watch it, turn the lights off, uh, cause I think you’ll get a much better experience. 

Todd: Yeah, and definitely go for like a restored edition or something.

I don’t really know what’s out there. I’m not sure what version we got. But I can imagine if you’re watching this on an old VHS tape or maybe a copy that hasn’t been so lovingly digitally transferred that it is hard to see stuff in some of these scenes. Yeah, all those things make a difference. It starts out, the very first image I think is interesting where there’s, it’s just a close up on a mosquito on someone’s skin and a guy slaps it and A little blood splatters out, which is an interesting way to start what is kind of a vampire movie, but kind of not, because as you said, this is about an infection, and mosquitoes spread infection, mosquitoes suck blood.

In many ways, these guys in this film aren’t so much vampires as they are mosquitoes, maybe. Anyway. Uh, the guy who, uh, who, uh, belongs to that arm. His name is Caleb and he is, he is a redneck through and through clearly like a cowboy imagery that we get right off the bat. He’s chilling in this truck and he has a cowboy hat on and we are in Oklahoma.

I believe it is. And he drives his truck to a spot and gets out. Just outside of a bar, and a couple guys approach him, and at first you think maybe they’re starting trouble, but it turns out they’re just friends. And they slap his hat off, and they have some talk, and as he turns around and looks over the back of his, uh, pickup, he sees off just down the block a beautiful girl coming out of a store.

Of course, it’s nighttime, and she’s just outside of what appears to be a convenience store, and she’s eating an ice cream cone. And this girl’s name is Mae. Just so southern. Such southern names we have. Caleb and Mae. And they both have these southern accents. He goes up and he strikes a conversation with her.

And right away the conversation is laden with, um, Overtones of VA vampires. . I would buy it. 

Clip: Buy 

Todd: It’s Dying for a cone. 

Clip: Dying around Here are you? Nope. You got nine. It’s me. That’s a nice name. It’s pretty.

From Babe, you ever heard of Sweetwater? It’s down near Snyder, isn’t it? Texas. Who you out here with? Friends, 

Todd: boyfriend, 

Clip: friends. 

Todd: Again, this is all very eighties too, where a guy sees a girl from afar and suddenly he’s smitten with her, and the whole movie seems to revolve around this kind of romance that unrealistically just develops from, from sight.

Craig: I thought that was funny too, but, um, I did appreciate one of the things that I appreciate about this movie is that it really is a pretty simple story. Um, and, and it moves pretty quickly. Uh, it’s only just a hair over an hour and a half long, but yeah, I mean, it is pretty unrealistic. I mean, these two hit it off right away and it’s, it’s nighttime and uh, uh, they just go for a drive together and.

They park somewhere, I don’t remember where, and they get out of the truck, um, and you’re right, I mean, she’s saying all this stuff that makes it evident to us as the viewers that she’s a vampire. I sure haven’t met many girls like you. 

Clip: No, you haven’t met any girls like me.

Stoners. See that one? First one I laid my eyes on. You know, the light that’s leaving that star right now, take a It’s been a billion years to get down here. I wonder why you’ve never met a girl like me before. Why? Because I’ll still be here when the light from that star gets down here to Earth. It’s been a billion years.

That sounds like fun. It is. I’d like to be there, too. Maybe. How? Who knows? 

Craig: I mean, if I were hearing this from somebody that I had just met, I would be, you know, reconsidering my choice to be alone with them somewhere. But he, uh, he tells her he wants, uh, to show her something and he takes her to meet his horse and the horse doesn’t like her.

Like it freaks out and panics and rears up and all that stuff. So all of these. It’s not at all subtle, uh, in indications that she’s a vampire, which lead us, he, uh, they get back in the truck. She says she needs to go home. We can tell that it’s becoming dawn. You know, the sun’s not up, but the light is, is getting, uh, brighter.

She says, you got to get me home. Hurry. He does something that I think in today’s society would not go over very well. Um, he, he stops the truck and says, uh, I might take you home, but you’re going to have to kiss me first. A little, little pushy for, for just having met this girl maybe an hour ago. 

Todd: I have to say Caleb come, he comes across as a bit of a predator in this movie.

The way that he, he’s pretty slick and talking with her. He’s pretty insistent on getting her into his truck. And then, you know, aside from the fact that he’s not leaping on her right away, Uh, the fact that, you know, he’s constantly going at her head as though he wants a kiss. He’s got his hands all over her.

And on her part, it’s not like she’s pushing him away. She’s certainly not doing that. But she just has this distracted and uneasy air about her the whole time. And a guy Again, like you say, that’s also warning signs, and we’re looking at this from the lens of, of men should be a little smarter nowadays because we’ve called so much attention to this, uh, kind of behavior in our society.

But, you really don’t garner a lot of sympathy, at least I didn’t at first, for what’s happening to Caleb. My thought was, yeah, I’m sure he’s kind of a great guy, but he was not raised to treat women properly. 

Craig: Right. Which is kind of odd because he has this little sister that he’s protective of later. So I don’t know.

I really do think that it just had to do with the time period. Um, and, and maybe that would have, you know, been just considered, you know, boys will be boys, uh, in those days. But if they were to remake the movie, I think they might, uh, handle that a little bit differently. She, she kisses him, I think, but she also bites him on the neck.

Um, and he’s bleeding and then she runs off. Of course, when he tries to restart the truck, it’s dead, and so he has to walk home. And there’s this cool shot where he’s walking across this field. We realize towards his house because we see his dad, uh, named Loy, who is played by Tim Thomaston. Uh, I remember him as, Uh, the villain from this totally obscure movie, Cherry 2000, which I think you and I have talked about before.

Uh, Melanie Griffith movie. Totally obscure, but he was really, he was the bad guy in that movie. He was really funny. And we see him and Sarah and they see him coming and realize there’s something wrong because The sun is coming up and he is smoking, like not smoking a cigarette, like there’s smoke pouring out of his coat and his pants, um, as though he’s, uh, on fire.

And, and apparently that is what’s going on. Um, the shot in itself, I mean, it’s just kind of a long shot of him walking across this flat field. Uh, and it looks really cool. I read that the way that they did this effect was they had this like complex series of tubes all throughout his clothes and they were all connected to five.

lit cigars underneath his clothes, which sounds terribly dangerous. I don’t know if it was a stunt man. I mean, cause you can’t really see him. He’s got that big, uh, hat on and he’s, he’s kind of hunched under his jacket. Like he’s trying to shield himself from the sun. So maybe it was a stunt man, but either way, it looks cool.

Um, you think he’s going to get home. Um, but just as he’s about to get there. there. This big camper comes flying down the road, the dirt road toward him, leaving dust, you know, flying behind it. The dad, Loy and the sister, Sarah, see him, um, Caleb basically get abducted. He gets pulled into this camper and then it takes off.

that we see is kind of from Caleb’s perspective. He opens his eyes and leaning over him is Bill Paxton, who is playing a character named Severin. Howdy. I’m gonna separate your head from your shoulders. 

Clip: Hope you don’t mind 

Craig: none. Uh, and uh, then we meet this, this whole crew, which ends up basically being this, tribe, I guess, uh, of nomadic vampires.

We’ve got Jesse, who’s the leader, played by Lance Hendrickson. Um, Diamondback, uh, Jeanette Goldstein, who we’d already mentioned. And then there’s also, uh, Homer, who is a child vampire, like an adolescent, a teenager. And he’s played, um, by the very, Joshua Miller, who you may, as a child of the 80s, also remember as the, the annoying brother from, uh, Teen Witch.

And May is there too, of course. And I don’t know what May has told them at this point, but it’s, it seems like Homer and, and Severin want to just dispatch Caleb right away. Um, but May kind of pleads with Jesse and, and Jesse says, all right, well, we’ll give him a week to see if we can call him, um, one of us.

And so it lit. It’s like he’s going to be on this trial period with them. And, uh, then really all we see is, uh, they, they ditch the camper that they’re in and, uh, they burn it up. And Severin says something to Jesse about, Hey, remember that fire? We started in Chicago, which I think is meant to suggest to us.

Uh, if they’re talking about the great fire of Chicago in the 1800s, I think the suggestion is that these guys have been around for a really long time, um, and probably, uh, plan to be around, uh, for a really long time. They steal another car, like a station wagon or something, and they pull into this town and Caleb is, is sick.

He’s, he’s feeling sick. Now, of course we know that he’s changing, um, but he wants to go home. He, uh, heads to the bus stop. Um, he’s a little bit short on cash. Uh, alone or, uh, I guess a gift from, um, this, uh, plainclothes, uh, policeman. There, there’s a scene where he, like, tries to eat a candy bar, but it makes him sick and wretch and so he can’t eat it.

And he actually gets on the bus to go home, um, but he’s so sick that, uh, he, he makes the bus stop and he gets off and he makes his way back to Mae. Um, and he is at this point so sick that he can barely even stay on his feet. Mae bites her own wrist and feeds. Her blood, um, which again, kind of goes against vampire more to some extent, I think, um, but, uh, it, it makes him better.

Todd: And I thought that that scene was pretty interesting. It’s very, it’s played up very sexually, like she’s also kind of getting off on him. On him sucking her blood and then once he has his energy back, you know, they start making out and so their whole relationship Is still a little It’s still a little weird.

I mean, you know, they don’t really know each other She is just the person who’s the one Who’s tasked with protecting him now, she has some affection for him, for reasons that we don’t quite understand. Maybe she just likes him, likes his looks, or what not. He’s also totally dependent on her now, and so the roles are kind of reversed here from what he, I think, would be doing.

Most comfortable with, or most familiar with. She’s kind of initiating him, I guess, into this vampirism. She’s saying, look at the night. Now do you hear it? Um, the night is so bright it’ll blind you. It’s, it’s all very poetic. And, I have to say, just from a perspective of this movie, Watching this movie just felt like a dream to me.

You know, it felt very dream like. Uh, none of it seemed quite real. And so, I can forgive things that don’t seem real. Feel like they quite click people acting in ways that I wonder in real life. Would they really act that way? But if you think of yourself at that state where you’re waking up in the morning and everything’s still kind of a daze I feel like not only did that movie just evoke that feeling in general and and But that’s probably partly because of the fact that it happens at night and at dusk.

But also it feels like the people in this movie, in some cases, especially Caleb and this girl, are also just like that. They’re in this kind of daze where they’re a little confused and, you know, Don’t really know what to do and don’t really know what’s going on and they latch on to each other when it’s convenient and they seem to have this relationship.

But you also get the sense that it’s not going to be really tenable and it can go away at any time. 

Craig: I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of that. And I don’t know that I would have said it in that way, but you’re right. There is kind of a dreamlike feel to it. Um, and part of that just comes from some plausibility issues for me, um, you know, after he feeds off her and, and he’s feeling better, he says, what do we do now?

And she says, anything we want until the end of time, but you’re going to have to learn to kill. And then we get kind of this, it’s not really a montage, it’s not like it’s set to music or anything, but we just get these short snippets of scenes where we see how these vampires are, are feeding in this small town.

And Homer, The young one or the young looking one. He’s not young. Um, he just is frozen in that body. He, uh, pretends to have been hit by a car on his bike and somebody comes to help him and he attacks and Severin hitchhikes and picks up a couple girls and we don’t even see necessarily these people get killed.

Diamondback and Jesse, I think that they pick up some hitchhikers too, who then kind of try to card Jack them. But of course, uh, Jesse and Diamondback are playing it so cool. Cause they know that they’ve really got the upper hand. And what I was thinking when I was watching this is how can they get away with this?

You know, if they’re in. The Midwest, and they’re going through these towns, leaving this incredible trail of, of death and destruction. Um, because like every new town they go to, they steal a new car and they burn up their old ones. You know, they’re leaving all that behind. They’re, I assume, leaving these bodies behind.

Um, It’s a clear pattern. Right, right. I mean, I, I didn’t, I didn’t worry about it. You know, you’re typically the one that worries more about realism and plausibility than I do, but it definitely came to mind. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah, no, I, I’m with you 100 percent on that. I felt the same way and, and then you get to this scene where he’s in the truck cab with May.

Craig: Yeah, like they’ve hitchhiked with uh, yeah, with a semi guy, yeah. 

Todd: Yeah, and I guess the other thing too is it doesn’t, the movie doesn’t show you all of the steps that lead to this, right? Uh, he doesn’t show them by hailing a truck. It doesn’t show her convincing. It, there’s none of this like, Prepping him, like, okay, now it’s time for you to kill, let’s find a target, uh, here’s how we find a, you know, whatever, it’s just boom, and then as part of this montage, they are in a truck cab.

And we get this really likable, really nice, uh, truck driver, who seems to just be happy for the company. 

Clip: You kids, y’all run from home. Sir. Hey, that’s my car. Sometimes home is bad. Me, I got a truck for a home. Nice stuff you got here. How do you fly it? Hey! You drive a truck before? No, a semi. A semi, that’s five.

Five gears, brother. This got 13. You got two to the rear and the rest go forward. 

Todd: At this point I was also thinking about this movie, man, this film is so steeped in the southern and midwest imagery and feel. This could not feel more like the town, you know, Craig, that you grew up in and the surrounding areas, right?

I mean, you have truck drivers, you have horses, you have lots of nature, you have the big open fields, campers, you know, coming around, and a lot of this, I I think, you know, for people who’ve grown up in New York or people grown up even in Chicago at some of these places, you know, this, this is all stuff that they don’t see every day, whereas this is the kind of stuff that we see every day.

Like, we know truck drivers, you know, we have, in my neighborhood we had semis parked down the street. You know, a guy would come home after a long haul and he’s parking at night down there to go again. And so, all this was very familiar to me and it really brought back that sense. And I thought she did a really good job of this.

This was a good scene, because I felt like, if Caleb could relate to anybody, he could probably relate to this truck driver. Even though he’s an African American, he’s kind of a good old boy, he’s kind of a nice guy, just like Caleb is. Caleb himself says that he used to, you know, he drove a semi, he knows his way around this.

So, you can tell that he’s not going to be able to go through with this, it’s very difficult for him. And finally, he decides not to do it, and so, he asks him to pull over the truck, and he wretches. Stumbles out against the ground and the truck driver comes out and he’s a little concerned But he’s also kind of jokey and May comes up behind the driver and bites him and instead of feeding off of the driver again Caleb can’t bring himself to do this.

He feeds off of May instead and we get another scene That’s highly sexual and if it’s not sexually charged enough It’s in the middle of like an oil field where they’re pumping oil out of the ground. I felt like it was so heavy handed that this is like, again, it adds to the dreamlike quality of the movie, but it also makes it like an art film.

Craig: The other vampire. I mean, I keep calling them vampires. They never say vampire, but it’s the easiest term. The other vampires are mad. Um, and, and they, they demand, um, that Caleb kill somebody and soon, uh, if, if he’s going to be able to stay with them. And that’s where we get that cool, uh, silhouette shot that we talked about earlier.

Then it moves to a scene that, I know that I’ve read about this scene. I, I guess it’s kind of a, it’s not really the climax because it’s kind of smack in the middle of the movie. Um, but it’s our big action piece, um, where they all go to this bar, this, this dive hick bar where, you know, guys are smoking and playing pool and, uh, drinking and all that stuff.

And, uh, Severin kind of takes the lead in here and he just comes in and he’s just a dude. like, it seems like he’s intentionally trying to tick people off. Like he goes up to the bar and he spills some guy’s drink and. He’s just openly insulting these people. 

Clip: Give me a couple shots of whatever donkey piss you’re shoving down these c suckers throats.

Hey! Hey! You spilled my drink. Well, why don’t you lick it up off the bar, meatball? Why don’t you lick it up yourself? Hey, ever tell you the one about Buffalo Bill? 

Craig: He wants this guy who’s drinky spilled to want to fight. But when the guy goes to fight, um, Severin puts Caleb in between them. So it’s actually Caleb that ends up taking the punch.

And then, um, Severin says, give him a couple more. I’m trying to teach him something. And this guy does. He hits Um, Caleb a couple more times and then Caleb hits him back and the guy like goes flying and he’s knocked out. He goes flying across the room, lands on the pool table. Um, so I guess what Severin wanted to show Caleb was that he’s got this super strength now.

Then we just get this long scene where they just. Kill pretty much everybody in the bar. Diamond, uh, cuts a waitress’s throat. Um, Severin kills, uh, the bartender, uh, with his, he like cuts, he jumps up on the bar and like cuts the guy’s throat with his spurs. I mean, again, you know, all of these Western ideas to Homer, the, the kid one shoots a guy.

Um, and, and so it’s this bloody thing until there’s only one guy left. Um, and they all look to Caleb, Caleb doesn’t make a move. So may go. And there’s a slow song playing on the jukebox. And so she asked the guy to dance and they dance for a little while. Um, of course this guy’s terrified. Uh, she says he’s for you, Caleb.

Um, but the guy runs and jumps out the window and takes off running. Caleb chases him while the other vamps, uh, torch the bar and Caleb catches the guy, but then he lets him go. Like he still can’t do it. And when Jesse finds out. The leader, he’s pissed because he says it’s only five minutes to sun up.

We’ve got no place to stay. Um, that kid is going to immediately go to the cops and they’re going to be looking for us, um, which is exactly what happens. They go sleep in a motel and, uh, sometime in the morning. The kids, or excuse me, the police show up with the kid from the bar in the backseat and you’ve got this standoff in what’s really a pretty cool action sequence.

Todd: It is. It’s like gunfight at the OK Corral. They’re, they’re in there. They’re there inside their, their bungalow. It is morning time now. Again, it’s, it’s morning. It’s not middle of the day and the cops are outside and they’re trying to get them out. And these guys are starting to get their weapons loaded and they’re putting on like, not sunglasses, but kind of aviator glasses with Maybe even their welding glasses, I don’t know, but in any case, they’re suiting up and stuff like they’re ready to hit the sunlight as well.

And that’s one interesting thing about these vampires is they have necessarily developed these tools and techniques, and they’re primitive and crude, but these tools and techniques for Staying out of the sun, because, again, another plausibility issue is how can these guys just go from town to town to town all night long and not be exposed to sunlight in one way, shape, or form?

I felt like the movie made it so that the sunlight didn’t affect them when it was convenient. And that’s one criticism I have, and, and I wouldn’t criticize it so much, except that they make such a big deal out of the smallest bits of sunlight when it is cool or intricate to the plot. 

Craig: Yeah, I mean, cause, yeah, they, they have this big shootout, I mean, they shoot first, and then of course the cops start shooting.

start shooting. So it’s, it’s visually really cool because they’re all, they’ve got the room all blacked out with curtains and, and everything. Um, but as the bullets start to fly, of course, um, holes are appearing in the walls and windows. And so there’s all these streams of light coming in. Um, and you’re right, you know, they make such a big deal out of staying out of the sunlight and yet they’re kind of running around through this room where there’s, I mean, it’s still dark in there, but there’s beams of light coming in and it’s not as though they don’t.

appear affected at all. I mean, their skin is kind of charring and they are smoking. Um, and they’re 

Todd: very pointed moments where somebody’s arm will pop into a beam and it’ll catch fire. I mean, they make a big deal out of out of it in some shots. And then, like you said, in other shots, it seems like they were able to run around through them and and there’s nothing.

I mean, it could have been this really, it starts out as this really cool scene where it seems like, you know, it’s like, It’s like the scene from the, the alarm, you know, in, in a heist movie or something where they’re laser shooting everywhere and they have to avoid them. And so they’re, they’re in this tense situation and that’s what it starts out as, but then, like you say, as it goes on, it seems like they’re able to run freely in here and as long as they pass through the beams fast enough, it doesn’t do anything.

So it’s a cool scene and it looks cool and it’s initially set up cool, but then I was a little let down by the end of it to see how loose they were going to play with the sunlight, you know, at the end of the day. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And, and I mean, what, what ends up happening is, you know, they’ve got to get out of there.

And so Caleb volunteers to drape himself in a blanket and run out to retrieve their van that they have. Um, and he does, and he’s smoking and his, his skin is, is burning. Um, he’s also getting pelted with gunfire. And again, you know, we’ve, we’ve already seen, he’s been shot once before in the bar. We’ve seen that, Like other vampires, they’re not harmed by conventional things, or at least, um, not that badly, and they can heal and regenerate and those types of things.

But he gets there to the van, and he gets in the van, and he drives literally into the motel room when they get in, uh, and they make their getaway. I think somehow they, I don’t know if they shoot the gas tank of the police car or what, but it blows up and, and, uh, they get away. Um, and they end up going to this, this, uh, Yeah, a lot of explosions and fires.

Yeah. And so they go to this, uh, new hotel or motel, excuse me. And now everybody’s cool with Caleb because he has, uh, saved them. And, and so they’re kind of all being chummy and buddy, buddy and severing even gives him his spurs and may and Caleb go off together, like on a little romantic evening walk or something.

And then this is where something happened that I didn’t see coming. I don’t know. It surprised me. Um, they’re, they’re kind of buddy, buddy. Caleb and may are off doing their own thing. The rest of them are sitting in the room playing cards and, um, Homer, uh, ducks out of the card game and goes for a walk outside and who should he stumble upon?

But Sarah, Caleb’s little sister. Now we’ve kind of neglected to say that we’ve been getting these little, um, scenes here and there, where we’ve seen that lawn and Sarah have been looking, they’ve been out looking for Caleb. Um, and, and maybe it’s a coincidence. Um, I mean, I don’t know. Maybe it’s too much of a coincidence that they all ended up at the same motel.

Um, but when I saw her and Homer saw her, it inspired this feeling of dread in me. I’m like, Oh no, what’s going to happen to this little girl? And, uh, Homer approaches her and he approaches her in a very friendly way. And she’s spunky, you know, she’s. I like this little actress. She’s cute. She holds her own.

And, um, he asks if she wants to come back and watch TV. And I thought that this was a really interesting character development for Homer. He’s just been kind of acerbic and, um, grouchy all this time. And now it seems like, He feels a kinship with this child, because even though he’s, I don’t know, maybe hundreds of years old, he in some ways is still a kid, too, um, and it’s, I got the feeling that what he wanted was a companion, um, and that that was the plan.

So he takes her back to the room and again, it’s just, I think that it’s a credit to these, you know, it’s the writing, it’s the characters, but also the performances. Diamondback is very friendly and almost maternal in talking to Sarah and we’ve just seen her be really kinda tough, uh, Up to this point, um, but she’s really sweet and talking to the little girl and, and she gets out of Sarah that, um, she’s there with her dad.

So we see Severin kind of, um, sneak out, uh, and I, assuming to go fetch the dad. And then Caleb and May come back, um, Caleb sees that his sister is there and they embrace, um, and then Severin comes back in the room with, uh, Lon, the dad. And there’s the, oh man, I just left the tension in this scene. All of these characters are in this one little motel room and I was, there was so much suspense.

I didn’t know what was going to happen because, you know, Caleb’s in a position where he still wants to protect his family, but these vampires are, are, you know, they’re dangerous and they’re indiscriminate in who, uh, they kill. We’ve 

Clip: been out a lot, driving in the truck, trying to track you down. Dead. Son.

Son!

Round and round and round she goes. And when she stops, nobody knows. It’s about time for that big ol wheel to stop rotating.

You work with people. I’m with them now. Just you let them go. It’s my family. 

Craig: I, oh, I just thought this was a really tense scene. 

Todd: Yeah, they don’t care about anybody’s feelings at all, and the bar scene really shows that. These aren’t the vampires that are burdened with their need to kill, but They have long passed that, and now they seem to, it seems to be the only joy that they can find in life is to terrorize people.

They’re in total danger. Loy is kind of a tough guy, uh, and he’s a pretty no nonsense dude, and he doesn’t seem to mind, uh, being in this, this place with these biker type guys, because he’s focused on Caleb and his daughter. Um, but then, when the stakes start getting high, and They’re threatening. He really stands his ground and he really puts apparently some trust in Caleb that at least Caleb’s not going to try to kill him and we know that that is that is not true.

I mean, Caleb’s probably not going to try to kill him, but we don’t know that Caleb is really going to be able to protect him from these people. Caleb is just falling into their graces. And so there’s that aspect to it as well. And I’ll say before we finish out this scene that I got a slightly different vibe from Homer approaching the girl.

One point in a much earlier scene, I think it was in the first scene, when they had picked Caleb up in the Winnebago and they’re introducing each other to Caleb, Homer makes a comment about, you know how hard it is being a man stuck in this boy’s body. When he was approaching her and he seemed really excited by her, I kind of got a creepy sexual predator vibe.

Like, This guy’s interested in girls because he is himself a boy at heart, so there’s that physical aspect to it. But knowing that deep down inside he is a man, this is the kind of person he’s smitten with. It was all level of uncomfortable for me when he was bringing her back. And, and, uh, And I felt like because these people were so brutal, like, her days were number two, like, he might bring her back to watch TV as kind of a ruse, and he may watch a little bit of TV with her, but I just got the sense in the back of my mind that he might also have a bit of his way with her and either convert her, want to convert her to, or just You know kill her off like they’ve done other so many other people so even from that point on I thought the scene was was Getting pretty intense and I actually didn’t even recognize at first that this was Caleb’s sister I thought it was another girl that just happened to be there That’s how how little we really see of Loy and his sister, you know in these quick scenes in the middle where they’re Right.

You’re supposed to be searching for him. But yeah, I think, uh, there’s a bit of a standoff, and Dad is to the point where he shoots Jesse, and Jesse looks up at him and spits the bullet out into his hand, which is, which is kind of a cool deal. But of course, the Dad’s pretty terrified by that. And they end up getting out!

I mean, pretty quickly, I think Caleb just runs for the door with them. Isn’t that how it happens? 

Craig: Sarah breaks away from Homer, and she opens the door, and it’s morning again. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s morning again and this is the sunlight streams and to me it was actually kind of a little anticlimactic. I was a little disappointed a little bit that that happened.

But in any case, it’s morning and so they can’t run out there though easily. So that gives them the cover, 

Craig: you know, I guess he had kind of resigned himself. In fact, Loy says to him at one point, you know, are you coming with us? And he says, No, I’m with them now. But when they turn on when the vampires kind of turn on him, and it’s it’s pretty apparent that they’re not going to take his Desires into consideration, you know, he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to his family and they don’t care I think it’s at that point that he realizes that he doesn’t want to be any part of this Um, and so he runs out with them and of course he’s you know Charring and smoking and all that stuff, but they get in the car.

He says, um something like uh, i’m not a person anymore I’m sick. Take me home Uh, and he shows them what happens when he puts his hand in the fire um And the dad says We’re gonna get you to the hospital right away. 

Clip: No! Goddamn, you want me killed? I ain’t going to goddamn hospital! Hospital’s fixed this!

Fuck, daddy! Let me home! Daddy

You’re a transfused person. 

Craig: Now we had seen the very first time we saw Loy, that he is a veterinarian. Uh, so he has, you know, obviously people and animals are different, but the principles, like, guess are the same. Um, and so they, they, they go home and this is a part of the plot that I just really kind of don’t get.

Obviously they can’t transfuse him with animal blood. That’s not going to work. So Loy gives him a transfusion of his own blood. Not the, maybe I don’t understand. understand transfusions. But if that were to happen, I would think that there would be some mixing of the blood, which I would think would just have the effect that they would then both be infected.

Um, but in fact, that’s not what happened. 

Todd: I think Loy is bleeding himself out into a bottle and then he sets up that bottle and puts the blood into Yeah, you’re right, because that’s what I thought at first. I thought that he was like, direct lining into him. But actually, uh, I think what’s happening is, because you see some scenes of these blood bottles kind of hanging, uh, and, uh, and after Loy taps himself, uh, you see a little bit later on that he is, uh, for the first time, you know, tapping the vein of, um, So yeah, I think he’s draining himself, and then he’s put, putting that blood into Caleb, and they’re not, you know, it’s not a direct line to line transfer.

But, again, what are the chances that he’s gonna be the same blood type? I mean, that’s not something that, you know, You know, gets passed down from parent to kid reliably. And then, I guess maybe we’re supposed to believe there’s a long passage of time, but there’s no way that, that in a short period of time, he can have enough blood produced to be able to, I guess, replace?

Caleb’s blood, is, is that how this works? That his blood, he drains some of it and then replaces it with the other? Or, it still seems 

Craig: like there’s some mixing. It doesn’t really make sense. Yeah, right? It’s all pretty clear. It doesn’t really make sense. But it is, it’s, it’s an interesting plot twist because I’ve never seen that before.

Yeah. Um, in any vampire movie. And, um, so it, it kind of distinguishes this from others and it’s interesting. Well, anyway, Yeah. Regardless of how realistic it may be, it works. Um, and in the morning, um, Sarah, I think, or somebody, opens up the barn door where Caleb is laying and the sunlight hits him and he’s fine.

And then, you know, it appears like they’re just gonna go on with their lives, like, oh, okay, everything’s fine now. And, again, this was another thing that I thought was a little probably implausible. I can’t imagine that Caleb would have thought, knowing these people and having been with these people for several days, that they were just going to let this go.

And so, as they’re all sitting at dinner, you know, they’re sitting and, and Loy has his back to the window. I’m thinking, oh man, somebody’s going to come through the window and grab him. Um, they don’t. Sarah goes up to bed by herself. And Caleb goes outside. She runs in there. He, excuse me, runs into May and he’s happy to see her, which again, I thought was kind of implausible because he would have to know that the other ones were around, you know, that would be as soon if I were him, as soon as I saw her, I would be hightailing it back into the house.

my dad and my sister. Um, but they just kind of have this little, you know, they, they, they kiss. Um, and, and she says, Oh my gosh, you’re warm. What’s happened? And he says, I belong here. May. This is my family. Um, and so she just runs off. He goes back in the house. And, uh, he walks upstairs, I don’t know if he’s going to his bedroom or what, but he sees that Sarah’s window is open, and she’s gone.

He runs outside, now I don’t even remember, is the, did they just leave the dad there? I mean, do we even know what’s going on with Lloyd? Yeah, that’s a good 

Todd: point, I think the dad just totally gets left off the, uh, The plot, I mean, yeah, he’s, he’s not there, he’s not looking for him, he doesn’t run out. The next shot is Caleb going and getting his horse because all the tires have been slashed on all the cars and taking off for, for town.

I guess he assumes that’s where they, they took her. And so yeah, that’s not anywhere in the picture from here on out. Which is 

Craig: interesting. I don’t even think I realized that until just now, but yeah, I don’t think we see him again at all. 

Todd: Yeah, you’d think he’d need the help, you know, they might saddle up together and take, take off, uh, it is his daughter after all, you know, it’s kind of funny, maybe he just didn’t want to wake him.

Craig: Yeah, or I mean, I guess you could say maybe he didn’t want to put him in any other danger either, like he wanted to, you know, take care of it himself, but it’s not very smart, I don’t think, um, his dad seems quite a bit tougher than him, I would have been getting my dad. But yeah, he saddles up and, you know, there’s this great scene of, you know, the lonesome cowboy just riding his, uh, horse.

down the middle of the street at night, um, and eventually the horse rears up and, and neighs and, and bucks him off and he’s on the street, the horse takes off, um, and there again is Severin standing over him, um, and Severin kind of toys them a little bit. 

Clip: Hey Caleb! 

Craig: I hate to be an Indian 

Clip: giver, I really do, but you disappointed me, now you’re gonna have to pay.

First you’re gonna give me back my spur, then I’m gonna knock your tonsils at your asshole. What do you think of them apples, huh? 

Craig: So, so Caleb turns around and takes off running down the street and there’s a semi coming down the street. Um, he jumps up on the foot rail of the semi and, and he’s telling this trucker, um, we gotta go, we gotta go.

And the, the trucker is, you know, just saying, get off my truck while Severin shoots the truck driver right in the head. So Caleb gets in the truck behind the wheel and he just heads down the road right at Severin and hits him. And I guess he thinks that’s good enough, but of course we know, uh, that that’s not going to be good enough.

And so Severin climbs up on the top of the, the hood of the semi and he just looks, I mean, he’s like half of his face is just like hamburger meat. I mean, yeah, I mean, he looks terrible, but he’s, he’s kind of laughing and smiling and taunting Caleb. And he’s like the Terminator, like he rips open the, he rips, of the car and starts yanking the insides out.

And so Caleb, when he had been in the truck with the other truck driver earlier, the truck driver had explained that there are two sets of brakes on a big rig. One for the truck itself and one for, um, the hall and you have to do them both. Otherwise they’ll jackknife. Well, so Caleb intentionally does that.

He jacked. It’s a fuel truck, he jumps out right at the last minute, and it blows up, and that’s the last we’ve seen of Severin, so, um, we assume that works. 

Todd: We even see his spur, uh, fly away from the explosion, fall on the street, and Caleb goes and picks it up, and, so he’s got the other spur now, too. It’s very poetic.

Right. This is our, uh, this is our, like, uh, high noon standoff, basically, for this movie. Yes, 

Craig: exactly. So once severance out of the picture, then, um, I believe a car pulls up and, um, Homer has Sarah in the back seat and Jesse may and diamond back are all standing out in front of the car and he approaches them or maybe diamond back is not yet.

Um, I think as Kayla approaches, she comes up behind him and she’s getting ready to throw a knife at him, but may warns him at the last second. Instead, the knife goes right into Jesse’s mouth, like into his throat and he pulls it out and he’s fine. Of course. Um, but again, Sarah breaks away from Homer, who I believe is trying to bite her in the backseat, but she’s struggling with her, er, with him, and, um, she gets out and she runs to Caleb and he grabs her and they start running, um, the vamps follow them in the car, at one point, Caleb falls down, and again, And not a very good choice.

He tells Sarah, keep going, go on without me, um, which is pretty foolish because the car just passes him and they get, um, Sarah again. Sarah’s in the back seat, I think, and Homer is trying to bite her, and Caleb is running, and May looks back and sees Caleb chasing. And so May Well, she grabs a hold of Sarah, I guess, kind of throws a blanket over her head and then dives out of the car.

They run to, towards Caleb, and Homer gets out of the car and starts chasing after him, and he just starts burning up. Um, and eventually he does, I mean, he just, he, he bursts into flames, um, and eventually explodes. 

Todd: Exploding vampires. 

Craig: Yeah. We’ve seen that before. I think one of them exploded in The Lost Boys.

Um, so Jesse and Diamond are the last ones and, and they’ve been kind of presented as a couple throughout this and there’s, you know, a good dynamic between these actors. Um, and they kind of pull, I guess, just what is kind of a Thelma and Louise, you know, they kind of just hold hands. Um, and start driving towards Caleb and Sarah and May, but the light is coming into the car and they catch fire and eventually the car just kind of veers off into the field and then the whole car explode.

And then next thing we see is May, and again, not very plausible. Here she’s out in the sun. She’s just covered by a blanket. I don’t know. I guess it’s just a blackout curtain that she’s happened to have with her. It seems to work very well. Um, the next thing we see is may laying on the same table that Caleb was laying on when he got his transfusion again, the door opens, the light streams in, she is unfazed and Caleb comes and sits by her and she says, I’m scared.

And he says, there’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just the sun. Um, and they kind of embrace. And that’s the end. Um, so I guess we’re left to believe that all of the bad vamps are gone, or at least the ones that we know. And, um, Mae and Caleb can now live happily ever after. 

Todd: Yeah, the bad vamps self destruct a little too quickly, I think.

They, they give up to, these guys, they were brutal and they’ve been living for a long time. Surely they’ve seen worse than this. One of them said he fought for the South. And the fact that they just, like, Kind of commit suicide, essentially, over this one guy and his daughter. Just, I don’t know, that’s the part that bothers me, I think, the most of this movie, is that they are just presented as such brutal, brutal, take no prisoners kind of villains.

At the end of the day, they end up just turning in, you know? 

Craig: Right, yeah, it bothered me too. You know, we’re meant to believe that they have been around for all this time, and they’ve gotten by all this time, and then here at the end, they fall victim to this teenager? Like Yeah. It seems a little improbable.

And as bad as they were, like, as bad as they were, were, there was something and as brutal as they were, there was almost something endearing about them. You know, like you thought of them as a family. Um, and you thought of them as, as you know, protecting one another and having each other’s backs. Yes, they’re evil, terrible murderers, but you kind of almost bond with them as characters and then to see them all go out like that.

It’s not sad necessarily. They’re the bad guys and the bad guys lose. But, um, I think that it says a lot about, um, the writing and the acting that I was really kind of disappointed to see him go, you know, I don’t think that I would, I don’t think that I would have been, um, unhappy if they had just gone off and gone away.

And, you know, we. Thought maybe they would go on to see another day, but overall, um, I like this movie. It’s different Westerns are certainly not my genre of choice. I’ve not even really seen very many Either the old ones or any modern ones, but this definitely has a Western feel it blends really well Into the vampire genre.

I mean we kind of it wasn’t necessarily a Western per se but we What was the name of that movie that we watched? Um, was it ravenous that, uh, was set in like pioneer America? 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: it’s, it’s, it’s got shades of that. They’re not alike really, but there’s kind of shades, uh, there of, of that movie. And I liked that movie too.

Um, overall, you know, I walked away from it. 

Todd: Yeah, and I would even say this lands even further into the biker, you know, movie territory. I mean, it’s got a lot of western aspect to it. It was definitely written to be kind of a blend of western. But it turns out that this is like a gang of marauders in modern day America going around, and just kind of like the biker movie, and like you said, Once you spend some time with them and you get in their world, you do start to sympathize with them, as I won’t say the misunderstood bad guys, but you can at least understand where they’re coming from, even though ultimately you feel like they’ve turned into terrible people.

You do get that sympathy for them, you know, and in that, in that regard. It is a bit like a biker movie. There’s so much, um, going on in this film. There’s a lot of fire. There’s tons of fire. There’s a, again, great portrayal, I think, of the American Midwest and South. You know, I lived in Texas, uh, for, uh, six or seven years.

Even just the shots of him stumbling out across the field, kicking out smoke behind him, it’s not an unusual sight, to see somebody walking across the field, or running across the field, and there being a cloud of dust behind them, because it’s just so darn dusty that you kick it up everywhere you go. And so even in that regard, it’s a great blend, and a great picture.

Uh, throw to those icons of what you’re surrounded by when you were living in Texas and you’re living in the South. And so it really has a great sense of place. And then again, that dreamlike feel to it allows me to forgive a little bit of the implausibility of it. It all Maybe just ends up feeling kind of ethereal and at the end of the day you can argue they wake up from their dream You know, that’s how it’s ending He kind of had this crazy adventure and not not a lot of it made a lot of sense But at the end of the day he gets the girl and there you go I have to say I don’t even think it was terribly satisfying.

I wanted to see something a little more real happen but Again, it also seems to strike a bit of a chord for its time. In the 80s, there seemed to be this sense of everything’s alright at the end, the guy gets the girl, and we didn’t get a lot of the more depressing things that we ended up with in the 90s.

Craig: Yeah, and I read a criticism, I was looking at Rotten Tomatoes or something, and one critic’s review said something about it being kind of the quintessential teenage, um, Vampire love story, um, which I can see in 2006. Um, they announced a remake of this movie. Um, and it was in pre production. Um, but then in 2000, I think that it was delayed because twilight was also in production and they felt like I’ve never seen Twilight.

I’ve intentionally avoided it, but I read that they were concerned that there were too many similarities with like the teenage vampire love story. And so it ended up getting shelved and I, I don’t think anything’s going on with it right now. And I don’t think it’s necessary. I mean, I think that this is the kind of movie where if it’s done really, really well, if you get a good director, if you get a really strong cast, it could potentially Be a good movie, but it’s just unnecessary.

Like this movie is fine the way it is. It, you know, it’s not something where, um, a a lot of technical advancements are gonna make a big difference. You know, I, I, I think that it, it’s perfectly fine as is. Um, and if we never get a remake, I’m perfectly okay with that. 

Todd: Yeah, I agree. This, this movie has a grittiness too, and some of it has to do with the characters.

Some of it has to do just with the way it was shot, that that would be hard to replicate. I think. 

Craig: Yeah. I agree. 

Todd: Well, thank you for listening to another episode. If you like this, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes and on Stitcher and on Google Play. You can also find us on our Facebook page where you can like us, share us there, and also let us know what you thought of this episode.

We also love to hear your suggestions for future episodes, so please share those with us as well. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

So it’s a bit goofy and dated, but where else can you see The Greatest American Hero as a popular novelist and PTSD-afflicted Vietnam War vet wresting his son back from his aunt’s evil house? Nowhere else, my friends. Nowhere else.

Episode 72, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Todd:  And I’m Todd. 

Craig:  And this week’s selection, Todd and I actually realized late in the week that we had not picked anything to do this week. And so as kind of a last minute choice, I chose 19 eighty five’s House, directed by Steve Miner, and starring Roger Cobb. This is from 1985, and, this is another one of those movies that I have a lot of strong memories of from my childhood. I don’t remember exactly when or how I saw it, but, I do remember that I was pretty young. It came out in 85, so I would have been 6. I don’t know if that’s when I saw it. I probably saw it when it repeated, on television, on HBO, or something, but, it was one that I thought would be kinda fun to take a look back at. Todd, did you seen this before? 

Todd:  You know, I hadn’t actually seen this before. I had seen House 2, the sequel, which was pretty funny, and I had imagined that the first one was more of a straight horror story, and in many ways, it it is. I had, of course, seen the poster everywhere. It seemed like Right. Every video store, I think, in America was required to have a a house poster hanging up in their horror section. And, then, of course, you know, that video cover taunted me a lot, but I never actually sat down and watched it until now. So, I can see why you probably have some very fond memories of this as a kid because it really does follow, the format of some of the more interesting horror films from that era. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s, I I’m not gonna I’ll start out by saying I’m not gonna say that this is a masterpiece piece by any stretch of the imagination, and looking at it in 2017, it’s definitely dated, and and maybe hasn’t really aged all that well. But I do think that it’s just kind of a a fun haunted house story, and and it’s a a fun movie. Basically, the premise is, we start out seeing the spooky old house with this spooky score, while the opening credits, roll up. And then the first scene is, this young kid, this, grocery delivery boy comes to this house and knocks on the door, and he’s looking for, missus Hooper who lives there. He’s delivering her groceries. The door just kind of mysteriously opens when he knocks on it and he goes in and he hears some things upstairs, but, she’s not responding. So he kinda goes poking around, and eventually, he finds her dead and hanging in her bedroom.   Then we cut to who is going to be our, main character. His name is Roger Cobb. He’s a horror writer. He’s played by William Catt, who I remember as the star of greatest American hero. I loved that, show when I was a kid. And he’s a horror writer, and he’s doing a book signing for his book Blooddance. And there’s a whole host of interesting characters there to get their books signed. A couple of familiar character actors there.   I don’t have any names written down Todd definitely a few familiar faces. And he’s talking to his agent after the signing, and the agent is pushing him to get something new out. And what he’s trying to write is a personal memoir, of his experiences in Vietnam. 

Clip:  Now come on, Roger. You’ve already lost your rifle. Are you gonna throw your career down the toilet too? It’s not that you have to get back to your life. Frank.   Come on.   And listen, while we’re on the subject of the book, imagine nobody nobody wants to read about the goddamn because not more anymore. They wanna read a good horror story. Frank, would you listen to me for a second. Alright? I know this book has been giving me a problem, but it’s something I have to do. I’ve got to write this book. 

Craig:  And apparently, he is kind of haunted by his experiences in the war. And and this is interesting because I read today that this was one of several movies that came out in the mid eighties dealing with characters who were coming to terms with their experiences in Vietnam. I guess around 1980 was when PTSD, became recognized as a diagnosis, and so a lot of people in in film were kind of exploring the effects of that. And it’s kind of a interesting component to what’s going on in this story because although it seems like this house, this spooky old house is in fact haunted, there are also moments where you’re wondering if maybe Roger isn’t hallucinating as a result of his PTSD. What did you think, Todd? Did you did that cross your mind, or did you just think, no, it’s straight up haunted right from the beginning? 

Todd:  Oh, absolutely, it crossed my mind because, you know, a lot of the movie is, the movie is peppered with scenes of him sitting down to write his his book. I guess it’s his memoir. And it seems like every time he sits down to do this, we get a flashback scene of his experience in the war, and it clearly troubles him immediately afterwards. And so it’s like it’s like his thoughts that we’re seeing, and he’ll stand up, and that’s usually when whatever is creepy is going to happen in the house happens. He hears a noise, and he starts exploring, and then, boom, that happens. So I immediate, yeah, I absolutely actually thought for quite a while that maybe everything that was happening in the house was nothing more than just a not a not a real manifestation, but a, a manifestation in his mind of, the results of his Todd, and him trying to come to terms with it. You know, in that way, I as the movie was going on, I thought, man, this could end up being a really smart film, you know. And, I’m not saying it’s a dumb film.   It’s certainly not dumb. It it’s kind of in the middle, but it doesn’t really go that far. It’s not a a Jacob’s ladder type scenario where this is all happening in his head or 

Craig:  Yeah. Right. And as it turns out, this house belonged to Roger’s aunt, and he actually grew up there after his mother passed away. He he was raised by his aunt, and his aunt had always said and believed that the house was haunted. And she was an artist and and painted all of these really odd and kind of grotesque paintings that, are decorating the house all over the house. And we don’t really see too much of the paintings. They’re kind of in the background all the time. I actually wish that we got to see them a little bit more because they were really interesting.   They’re very kind of, Dali esque, surreal, but all really dark. And as it turns out, they are all kind of a reflection of things, that are going on in the house. But in addition to being haunted by his experiences in Vietnam, Roger is also haunted because he has sometime in the recent past lost his son. He’s married to they’re separated, but he’s married to an actress. Her name is Sandy played by Kaye Lentz. I read somewhere that, Glenn Close and Sigourney Weaver were actually considered for this role. I can’t imagine either of them really taking a role in this movie. It seems a little bit, below their caliber, but they were married and they were living in, the aunt’s house apparently with their young son.   I I’m guessing he’s probably like 7 or 8, Jimmy. And one day, while Roger was doing some work in the yard, he was like trimming some trees. Jimmy was, sitting down on the ground playing with his cars, right there. And, he’s there one second and then Roger looks away for a second and he looks back, and Jimmy’s gone. And he runs around the house looking for him, and he can’t find him. He calls Sandy out. Sandy comes out, and they both start running around. And Roger runs around to the backyard where there’s a pool, and he sees Jimmy, splashing around in the pool like he’s drowning.   So he runs over to dive in to rescue son, but as soon as he dives in, Jimmy’s gone. And and he swims around, and he’s looking for him, but he can’t find him, and then he’s just gone. You know, they they call the police, and the police come, and Roger tells the story as it happened. But, of course, they think that he must be crazy, because the kid’s not in the pool, and and they don’t find him. You know, we I don’t really know how long ago this was. I I get that it was or I assume that it was in the fairly recent past, but since that time, Sandy and Roger have broken up. But now Roger is going back to live in the house again to do his writing. When he goes back to the house, I think he’s there with a realtor who was going to be selling the house, but he tells the realtor that he’s gonna actually, be living there for a while.   And they go out into the shed, and in the shed is a painting that the realtor says that the aunt must have been working on before she passed away. And the painting is of his aunt’s bedroom, which is where she was found, and this closet door in there, a bunch of clocks kind of, floating around the room. And I don’t know if you noticed this. I kind of remembered that there was something going on here, but, in the top left hand corner of the painting, there’s like a Craig, hanging over the painting, so we can’t see what’s there. And that becomes important later. Strange things pretty much start happening right away. One of the first nights that he’s there, he’s he’s kinda looking around at some of the decor. There’s all kinds of weird decor.   His uncle had been a championship fisherman, and there’s this big, swordfish on the wall, and there’s also just like a big, maybe a shark’s jaw or something. And he reaches up to touch the tooth of the shark, and he cuts himself and there’s blood. And immediately after that, there’s noise upstairs. Things are just gone going bump in the night. He calls out, and somebody else, he hears a woman’s voice call, hello. And so he it leads him to his aunt’s bedroom where he sees a vision of her, seemingly alive. 

Clip:  It won, Roger. It tricked me. I didn’t think it could, but it did. What? I’m going to trick you too, Roger. This house knows everything about you. Leave while you can. No. Now one 

Craig:  of the things that I thought was really funny about this movie, and and there is humor. I I don’t think that I would necessarily funny is that as soon as all of Todd supernatural stuff starts happening, is that as soon as all of this supernatural stuff starts happening, he really pretty much kinda just takes it in stride. 

Todd:  I think that, I think that I 

Craig:  would have been a little bit more freaked out by some of these things that were going on. Did you feel that same way or was I kind of overreacting? 

Todd:  No. No. No. No. I absolutely felt the same way. I thought, man, something really really creepy will happen, and then he’ll go back to some domestic scene, like, he’s still in the house. He doesn’t run out the door at all. I think one of the funniest parts, when that unintentionally funny, I think, funniest parts of that happens is, comes later towards the end, and I I think we’ll try to point it out.   But then again, they do almost call a little bit of attention to it or maybe try to explain it away. I like the part where he’s snooping around. It’s after he’s seen the aunt’s vision. I think it might be after our first Vietnam flashback. He has kind of a vision of his son, which appears, and he gets up and he walks around, and he’s drawn back to that room again. And he goes into the ants room, and he’s creeping towards the closet, and the music is building and pumping, and he’s reaching for the door, and it’s just that classic scene. And then he stops, and he says, I must be going crazy. And he stops.   He turns around. He walks right out of the room, and goes downstairs, and like, washes his face. It was a it was a funny moment, I think, in a movie where they they build you up to this point, like they do in all these horror films, all these haunted house movies. And then, I must be going Craig. He turns around, he walks out without ever opening the, the door, but then he goes back in like like moments later. He goes back up 

Craig:  to the 

Todd:  closet, and, he opens it. And sure enough, this monster reaches out and grabs him. And it was that whole episode, that whole scene, that unusual bit of business that made me wonder for the first time, okay, is he just seeing this stuff? You know, he’s calling attention to himself, maybe going crazy. At least he’s got some of that realization. He leaves, he comes back, and when he comes back, that this big monster comes out. We don’t even get a very good clear picture of it, but it looks like there are faces in there, and I thought, oh, yeah, you know, this is a little bit like like Little Shop of Horrors, you know, the plant from Seymour with the faces that kind of appear at the end. Uh-huh. You know, that maybe these are the visions of the past that are haunting him, and people from the past, and people from his war experience.   I was kind of freezing the frame trying to see real quick if I could if I could recognize anything in there. I thought, okay, maybe he is going Craig. And especially the next scene then is, him setting up cameras to record this, and it’s really funny. He’s got, like, every 19 eighties era recording, camera recording device you could possibly get, and a big truck pulls up to the house and opens up. And in the back, you know, they’re unloading it, and the first thing you see is Betamax. Betamax video recorder. It’s really great. He’s up in that room, and, and he set it up like a almost like at the trenches from a war scene.   He’s got, what these just camera after camera on a Todd. And a lot of it doesn’t even make sense because it’s not like these flash still cameras are on a timer or anything. I don’t know. I don’t know what how he’s planning on doing this. 

Craig:  I know. I thought the same thing. It’s hilarious. It’s like he’s winding the cameras and things. Is this just gonna automatically go off when the monster pops out? I I didn’t really understand his plan there either, but it is a really funny scene, because not only is he setting all this stuff up, but he’s also all decked out in his Vietnam combat uniform. And it’s like he’s setting up a tactical maneuver. And he even practices it. Like, he’s got this rope tied to the closet door and he he doesn’t pull it, but like he he pantomimes that he’s gonna pull it, and then he runs down the stairs and he’s like doing army roles and like jumping down the stairs, and, he ends up downstairs, and outside in the front, and he kind of skids on his knees on the intentionally, on the sidewalk out front like, yes, I made it.   And out there is his neighbor who just says, hey, what you doing? And this neighbor, Harold is played by George Wendt, who everybody knows as Norm from Cheers. And he doesn’t get a whole lot to do in the movie, but he’s just kind of a funny guy in general. And I think, you know, with the casting of him and with some of the other elements, particularly some of the creature effects, I think that they knew what they were doing in in going for a little bit of comedy. So I guess I don’t know. Maybe you could classify it as a horror comedy. It’s just the comedy is is sprinkled, as opposed to, slapping you in the face all the time. Yeah. Yeah.   You said that, that whole closet thing, takes place after the the first Vietnam flashback, which is true. And and these Vietnam flashbacks, not a whole lot happens except for that, we meet an important character, and that is a guy named Ben, Big Ben, who was, one of the guys in his platoon in Vietnam. And Ben is played by Richard Mole who, was most famous for playing bull, in night court. Funny guy, great big tall guy, but his character is established as as kind of this, trigger happy, do his own thing tough guy. And you can tell right from the beginning that there’s, you know, some tension between Roger and Ben, just because Ben is such kind of a loose cannon, and that comes into play later. But those, all of those scenes, those flashbacks, I think they’re shot well, and they do a good job of establishing his mindset. And you can see every time that it comes back from one of the flashbacks and we see him sitting in front of his computer, writing, that he’s usually, like, sweating and panting. Obviously, these experiences had a major impact on him, and he probably is suffering from PTSD.   And I think that that can explain in part maybe why he doesn’t react more to these things that he’s seeing. Maybe he’s questioning his own sanity. In fact, Harold shows up one night as he’s preparing to to try the closet again, and he they eat some Chinese food or something in in the dining room, and, Roger is kind of telling the story about how his aunt thought that the house was haunted and Harold’s like, Yeah, well she’s crazy. And Roger says, Well, what about me? Do you think I’m Looney Tunes? Like the way that he asks the way that he asks it it, he totally looks like he is crazy. So from an outsider’s perspective, it could, very easily, appear that he is crazy. But after Harold leaves, Roger is walking by this big grandfather clock, and it strikes 12. And that reminds him the clock had just struck 12 the first time the monster had come out. And so he goes and checks it again, and and sure enough, it’s there.   But things just, you know, strange things just continue to happen. At one point, he’s sitting and writing, and this little toy car, rolls in, and he calls for Jimmy, but, he doesn’t hear anything. And then he goes back to his desk, which is sitting right in front of that giant swordfish on the wall, and he thinks that he sees the fish’s eye move, but he gets closer and examines it, and nothing happens. And then he turns his back and we see the fish’s eye move, and he turns back around and all of a sudden the fish comes alive, and is thrashing and and fighting and trying to get off the wall. And he’s, like, beating it with stuff. And it it it’s it’s pretty comical. It reminds me, a lot of the scene from Evil Dead when, the, deer head and and all the other stuff in in the room, come alive and are taunting Bruce Campbell. He runs outside to try to get a gun or something to, to to, shoot the fish with out of the shed, and then all of the tools in the shed animate themselves and start chasing him around.   And it’s just, crazy stuff like this happening. He he gets the, tools all locked in a room upstairs, and he runs downstairs, and all of a sudden, there’s Sandy. The neighbor, Harold, had called Sandy saying that he was worried about Roger because he’d been acting weird. And now here Sandy appears at the door. And this scene is, I think, the scene that I remember the most from when I was a kid. And I’ll be interested to see what you think of it because, like I said, from a 2 1017 perspective, this does seem a little dated, but I still think it’s really fun. What did what did you think of the scene coming up? 

Todd:  Yeah. It was a very interesting scene because it really throws things off considerably as far as, the predictability of the movie and what you think is going on. Sandy Sandy comes in, and you know that their relationship is, well, Norm has already called her, right, to let her know that, something is up with Roger, and to let her know that, he believes she’s he’s undergoing some PTSD. And so we’ve seen the scene of Sandy, saying, okay. I’ll I’ll it seems like maybe she’s going to try to come. And so, we’re not surprised when she shows up. Although, she does show up right then and there, and you do you do wonder, at least I did for a split second, if this was really her or if this is another one of his visions because it’s just coming on the tail end of what just happened. But there she is at the door, and he sees her, and she says 

Clip:  Hi. Sandy. I tried to call, but there was no answer. I was worried about you, Roger. What are you doing here? I wanted to see you. What are you doing with that gun? Nothing. 

Craig:  Sandy. 

Todd:  Sandy ends up transforming into a giant monster. Big, fat 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Gross looking. The basically the anti Sandy. 

Craig:  Right. And it’s funny because it’s clearly somebody in a suit, like, and these creature effects and like these demons or monsters or whatever they’re supposed to be, they don’t look real. I mean, they’re clearly something in a suit, but they’re good suits. They look good. She’s like this fat, blobby, gray, gross woman, demonic looking. She’s got frizzy gray hair. But she it’s funny because she’s still in the sexy purple dress, that Sandy was wearing before. And so it’s just funny to see this this monster, version of this beautiful woman because the woman who plays Sandy is is very beautiful.   What did you think? Did you think that the because you already talked about the first monster too. I actually thought the first monster was, pretty scary. Again, you could tell that it was just something like on a track that they pushed out of the closet. But it looked pretty cool and scary. And then we get to this monster, which is clearly a suit. What did you think of all the effects? 

Todd:  I thought a lot of the effects in this movie actually were really good for their time. This monster was probably not one of them. It was just bad in that you take something that’s supposed to look supernatural. There’s a problem with maybe overly personifying it because it looked Todd, it looked okay up until the point where it started walking around. When it comes on the screen and it’s rubbery looking and but it’s got the big fangs and it’s dripping and stuff like that, I’m behind it, you know. But then, when it’s like like walking after him with the gun, it it looks like a man in a suit struggling to walk in a huge outfit. 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  That takes it away a little bit. If they had if they had eliminated, like, the the full body shots of them or had limited those, it would have come across a lot better. But, you know, my mind was really just occupied with this. Is the house playing tricks on him, or is this another vision that he’s seeing? And then when he shoots it and it turns out that to be Sandy, at least when he goes outside he sees her body and she’s dead. I thought, oh my gosh, this movie is really going to some dark places. Right? Uh-huh. Because this is Yeah. This is the PTSD thing, you know, as how dangerous and unhinged people can be and unmistakably do things.   And I thought, oh my gosh, he’s actually shot her. The neighbor hears the commotion and he looks out the window, and his view from the window, he can’t see the whole porch. All he can see is Roger standing there looking down, but not what he’s looking down at. We know that he’s looking down at right what looks like the body of Sandy, and so the neighbor calls the police and says, you know, firearms been discharged, and he classifies it as a attempted suicide. So Roger, meanwhile, bends down, picks up Sandy, turns around and walks into the house, and finds a place to hide her, which is under the stairs. And very very shortly, 2 cops come up straight to the house. I felt like this scene that comes afterwards was one of the more awkward scenes of the movie. I know what they were going for, I know that they were going for some tension here.   The cops at first are quizzing him, and he’s acting like he’s out in the front cleaning his gun, but they’re saying, well, you know, why would you clean a loaded gun? This whole, it’s like this probably looked really good on paper, but the dialogue, and maybe it’s the acting too, there’s all this kind of drama built up as they’re going back and forth, and the cops are quizzing him, and it seems like he’s gonna get out of it. And then one of the other cops says, I I want to ask you a very important question. He says, oh, yes. Sure. He says, can I use your bathroom? He’s like, okay. Sure. I can come right in. And and so the cop comes in.   As they walk down the hall, he runs to the, you know, the the foot of the stairs, the the under the stairway hiding place. I call it Harry Potter’s bedroom, you know Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. Where where he’s stashed 

Todd:  stashed, the the girl, and it’s it’s slightly ajar. So he runs there, and he quickly shuts it as he’s talking to the cop and is trying to do it in not so suspicious way. And he asked if they need anything. And then they’re like, oh, yeah. I could use some coffee. At that time, the neighbor also pops in, and so he finds himself at the kitchen making coffee for these cops, and his hands are shaking and things, and they’re talking. But it’s just the whole scene is kind of clunky. They’re going for this scene that we see in a lot of films where, you know, the it’s a telltale heart kind of situation, you know.   You know that there’s a body around the corner. The the guy is there, and he’s just trying to get the cops away. But it’s kinda dumb, the excuses that they use. Like, when he was running with the gun inside and loading it, he had dropped a couple shells on the floor, And as he’s loading the, loading as he’s loading the coffee into the cups for the for the cups, and he’s taking it to them. He sees with his horror a couple shells on the floor under the table. Now, I mean, the guy’s a gun owner, and he just had his gun out. The fact that there are a couple shells under the table isn’t this smoking gun that something unusual is going on, but it’s it’s played like it’s this big thing that he’s got to try to hide, but then Norm reaches down to pick something up that he dropped, and he sees the 2 shells, and he holds up the shells, and the cop takes the shells, and the cop says, why would you be cleaning a loaded gun or something? And he’s like, why didn’t know it was loaded? Like like, how are these shells evidence that his gun was loaded? Like, these could have just been shells that he unloaded from the I mean, all of it’s just a little clunky and weird. They’re going for this tense scene, but I think it’s just poorly written. 

Craig:  I think you’re right, and I thought this scene was clunky Todd. And there are a couple of scenes, like, in here that just seemed really kind of, I don’t know, ridiculous. I mean, not that the whole thing, a haunted house isn’t kind of ridiculous, but this is one of them. And I kinda, I really like the premise of this movie, and, I I like the story. I like the idea of him potentially potentially having PTSD and and so maybe questioning his own sanity, and we are too, but then there’s also all these really weird supernatural things going on. I really like the story, and and I like the the mystery of the missing son, and where is he, and are we gonna find him, and all of that works really well. But it’s I it feels to me almost like it’s a little bit too long. Like this would have worked better as a short film, maybe an entry in anthology.   And maybe the reason, behind that is because that was what it was originally intended to be, I believe. The the filmmakers, had seen The Twilight Zone, the movie, and had wanted to do an anthology film of their own, but they couldn’t get it up off the ground. And this was one of the ideas that they had, for part of the anthology. And so I think that it may have worked better in shorter format, but there are enough fun scenes that, I still enjoy, the movie as a whole. But you’re right. That scene, it it it just seem it almost seems like filler. Nothing really happens. So there it’s really not significant to the plot in any way.   Anyway, eventually, he gets the cops out of the house without incident. I mean, that’s the thing too. There’s really no payoff. All all that happens is when they leave, he realizes that his shotgun is missing. So he gets them out, and then again, he hears something, you know, bumping around upstairs. And so he goes up to his aunt’s room, and he walks in, and he starts walking towards the closet. But we can see that the Sandy monster is behind him over his shoulder with the gun. And when he opens the closet door and there’s nothing in there, she hits him with, the back of the gun and knocks him onto the ground. 

Clip:  Where’s your son, Roger? You’ll never find him. He’s dead. He’s not dead. There’s some place in this house. Say your prayers. 

Craig:  The Sandy Monster puts the barrel of the shotgun right up to his head and pulls the trigger, but because he’s already fired it at her, it’s no longer loaded. And so he runs out, of the room and and she’s following him, and he leads her to a door and he opens the door, and those tools that he had, locked in there are just at the ready, and they come shooting out and, chop her head off, which is actually a pretty funny, visual. And so and then it breaks into a 

Todd:  a music montage. It wouldn’t be an 80, 

Craig:  which is hilarious. 

Todd:  It is. It it’s you’re no good. I mean, my eyes were rolling at that point, but, whatever. The whole thing is kind of ridiculous, quite honestly, and I think it knows it’s ridiculous. But, you know, he’s bagged up the the head separately from the body, and he’s pulled both of them downstairs, and he’s taken them out to the yard. And as we’ve seen earlier, this yard is pretty exposed to the neighborhood. I mean, there’s Yeah. Why he’s digging in the middle of the day, a place to bury these bodies in the yard, is a little unclear.   What what you know. And and, of course, the bit he brings it out. 1 of the neighbors comes through, well, she ends up leaving through the gate, but one of the neighbors is playing around in the pool in the back. It’s a woman. We don’t know she’s a neighbor, and at the moment I’m thinking, what is going on here? Why is there a woman in the pool? And I thought, well, this is another trick from the house or something. And she comes out and she is drop dead gorgeous, walks towards him, almost seductively has this conversation with him saying, oh, well, you know, your aunt would let me swim around in the pool in the back, so I hope you don’t mind that I do this. Do you look like a man who likes to play? Do you like to play? Like, okay. Coming on to him, but in the meantime, there’s a funny bit of business where the body in the bag, the arms reaching out and trying to grab his leg, and he notices this.   But, of course, she is busy looking at him and doesn’t, and so while they’re talking, he’s trying to, like, step on it and push it back in, and it’s reaching for her leg, but he steps on it there and and basically suggests that she go. And so she leaves and says something about maybe you can play later, walks out the gate and he whacks his Todd, like, 4 or 5 more times with the shovel. And the next thing we see is that he has bear he obviously chopped it up into a 1000000 pieces because there are about 15 holes all over the yard that have been 

Craig:  filled in. 

Todd:  It’s really funny. But again, it’s also so goofy because, well, it just there’s so many questions. Right? Like, if you know the thing is still alive, what you maybe this isn’t gonna work. And you what did you do? Did you chop this body up in full view of the rest of the yard, leaving the gate open too so that maybe the neighbor would come over? Little bits like this, you know, it just kinda kinda take me out of it a little bit. But anyway, later on, the dog, digs up 1 of the a dog next door or whatever digs up a hand, and then there’s a bit of funniness too where he’s, chasing the hand around. 

Craig:  This is another one of those scenes that is, like, really? Yes. Yes. Because because, Todd, the hot neighbor, shows up at the door, and of course she’s all decked out and she looks all beautiful, and we can see her like from the chest up. And she said, I came over to see if you wanted to play. And he like kind of smiles like, okay. And then she goes, I brought my son Robert. He loves to play. And there’s this little tiny kid with her, and she she’s got him by the hand and she brings him in.   And, Roger sees that the hand, the demon hand is on this kid’s back. So the kid goes running around the house and he goes chasing after him, And, he ends up with the kid in the bathroom, and he’s trying to get this hand off, and the hand won’t let go, and the kid is crying. Finally, he bites the hand and gets it off and flushes it down the toilet, which there’s no way that great big hand would have gone down the toilet. But, Todd don’t think I ever thought about this when I was a kid, and maybe that’s Todd, that my mind didn’t go there when I was a kid. But this time around I was watching it thinking, this he he chases this kid around, and then the next time the mom sees the kid, he’s coming out of the bathroom with him crying. I’m like, that’s kinda shady. But apparently she doesn’t think so because the whole reason that she’s come over is because she needs a babysitter so she can go out. And so she just hands over the kid to Roger.   It’s like, oh, here’s his things, and he’s kind of like, oh, no, but but wait, I, and but she just piles all this stuff up, and then she leaves. Like And so, like, he’s he’s babysitting the kid in this house. Like, that doesn’t make any sense at all. 

Todd:  First of all, he wouldn’t let this happen. Right? It it’s it’s, again, one of those moments. It’s what I was talking about earlier where it’s suddenly after all of this crazy supernatural stuff, he’s fine with just hanging out in the house some more, but now he’s got the responsibility of some other kid. But it’s just like he’s babysitting. Right? And the other thing, like, no parent would ever just dump their kid on someone they just met, next door. You know? Nobody it’s so stupid. Oh, here you go. I mean, again, it’s supposed to be funny, right, that she comes over.   Oh, play. Yeah. Okay. He could play. And then that she’s piling all this stuff on him and giving him all these instructions as she as she runs out the door. But come on. The whole thing is absurd. 

Craig:  It is. And and this whole scene, the babysitting scene, again, it feels almost like that cop scene, like they needed filler. And it’s kind of fun. I mean, the kid is crying while he’s writing, so he sits down with the kid on the couch Todd watch TV for a little bit and his wife’s show is on on the TV, and it’s just kind of in the background, but the dialogue of this show is just terrible. 

Clip:  My sister is an only child and you abused her. I can never forgive you for that. I can’t hide the fact that I’ve been a male prostitute my entire life, Jane. Your sister paid me 2,000 dollars to spend the night 

Todd:  with. Don’t you think it’s 

Clip:  time you woke up and smelled the coffee? I’ll smell whatever I damn well, please without your help. 

Craig:  They just have this ridiculous dialogue, but it’s really funny. And and then so the kid goes to sleep, and he just leaves the kid laying there on the couch while he goes back and, does more writing. 

Todd:  Yes. 

Craig:  And while he’s riding, again, we go back to Vietnam, and he and Ben have been assigned to be, like, the the point guys, on this mission. But, Ben is leading them out far away from the rest of the platoon and and Roger’s, nervous and, Ben is is being, risky and and not taking precautions. And eventually, Ben does get shot, and and that’s the last thing we see in that flashback. But when he comes back to reality, Robert is gone. And so he goes running around the house looking for Robert, and he runs up to where his aunt’s bedroom is, and there are these 2 demon things that have Robert. And and they’re again, it’s clearly small people in some kind of suit, and and like the masks, I feel like, of these ones don’t even really move. I mean, it’s not the greatest effect. It it’s campy.   And frankly, I really don’t mind camp. You know, this is kind of a time capsule from the eighties and as silly and goofy as it is, there’s also something kind of charming about it. You know, like these people clearly making do with what they could. I I mean, I have no idea what the budget on this was. It doesn’t look very big. And and they saved their budget, I think, for some other effects that really are are not bad at all. But these costumes are just kinda goofy, and it’s just a goofy scene where he he runs into the room and these, these demons have got the kid in the chimney and they’re trying to pull him up the chimney. And Roger gets in there and grabs his feet, and, like, they’re pulling they’re pulling so hard that they’re pulling Roger up there too.   And so like the the the monsters have the kids, arms and the Roger has his feet. And this is probably like a 3 year old kid maybe. And the whole time I’m thinking, they would just rip this kid apart. Like, if this were really happening, this kid’s arms and legs would just come right off. Right. He’s hanging with the 

Todd:  kid at some point. Right? He’s got the full weight of his body. Like, he would be pop at least popping arms out of sockets. It would be terrible. 

Craig:  And and every time they show the kid’s face, the kid’s just like, Todd do. Yeah. He’s, like, kinda even seem like he’s scared. 

Todd:  Yeah. And you know what? That confused me too because I actually thought because they showed the kid’s face so much and because the kid was so obviously unconcerned, this is where I was still thinking like, 

Clip:  wait 

Todd:  a minute, maybe this is all in his head too, you know, because this can’t actually really be happening to this kid. But it turns out, you know, it is, and he saves him from the monsters. And it was at kind of at this point that I realized, yeah, this movie is not is not smart enough, to go the places where I suspected it might be going and making this this grand statement about PTSD because they really in taking another kid into the house where he lost a kid, right, right, it just leaves open so many dramatic possibilities that they just chuck away for this dumb little scene of of chasing him around and him getting pulled away by rubber demons, you know. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  You know, I thought maybe I thought maybe he would lose this kid Todd. You know, I I I just had all these thoughts kinda going around in my mind about what might be going on, whether maybe this kid was was somehow kind of a personification of his own kid, and there was gonna be some episode, you know, that would reveal a little bit more about his own fate. And, yeah, none of that ever happened. 

Craig:  Right. No. No. He just gets the kid back, gives him a bath and passes him off to his mom. And that’s like a bath. That’s it. Like, in the house, 

Todd:  the house is just taking this kid away, and the next scene we see is of them playing in the bathtub. Like, what the hell, man? 

Craig:  I know. I’d take the kid out for a happy meal or something. Get out of that house. Jeez. But he doesn’t. But it’s fine because the mom comes back, and he and then that’s the it. That’s the end of it. We never see the mom again.   We never see the kid again. It’s like they were just there so they could have this this scene. It’s it’s goofy. But but that leads it up to, pretty much, where the climax comes in, or at least begins, the final act. He invites Harold you keep calling him Norm, by the way, which I think is hilarious. He’s always 

Todd:  gonna be norm to me. 

Craig:  He he invites Harold over at midnight under the guise of we’re gonna watch a movie or whatever. But, he says, we’re not really gonna watch a movie. I need you to come upstairs with me and do something for me. He says, 

Clip:  Do you remember the other night when I told you I saw something? Mhmm. Well, I guess I must have been a little hysterical because it wasn’t a ghost. It was a raccoon. Really? A a big raccoon. About the size of a Saint Bernard. Who’d you all the raccoon? I got him trapped right now. They’re in the closet. You’re not afraid of raccoon, are you? Me? No.   What would you like me to do? I’ll, I’ll help. 

Craig:  He says at exactly 12 for timing purposes, at exactly the stroke of midnight, I’m gonna open the, the, the closet and I need you to shoot the, I need you to shoot the raccoon right between the eyes with this harpoon gun. And he he hands him this harpoon gun, and he’s like, I have a rope tied to the harpoon so that if it doesn’t Todd, you can hang on to it. It won’t get away. Obviously, we know that he thinks the monster is gonna come out, and eventually when he opens the door at the strike of midnight, that great big scary monster that we saw in the beginning comes out. And he’s Roger’s kinda grappling with it, and Harold is so horrified by what he sees that he’s not doing anything, like he’s frozen. And finally, Roger yells at him and gets his attention, and Harold shoots the thing, with the harpoon, But then I think he, like, drops the harpoon, and and and the rope, from the harpoon gets tangled around his foot, and he gets pulled into, the closet, which then turns into the jungle of Vietnam. 

Todd:  Mhmm. 

Craig:  And he’s walking around in there, and he finds Ben who has just been shot. So it it’s kind of like one of his flashbacks, but it’s happening in real time, like the the the the house is doing this, I guess. And Ben has been shot several times, and he says to Roger, Finish me off. I’m gonna die. Finish me off. And Roger acts like he’s going to, like he’s gonna cut his throat, but he says at the end, he says, I can’t. I can’t do it. And he can’t.   He says, I’m gonna go get help. And he runs off. And as soon as he’s off scene, he turns around and looks back, and all of these, Vietnamese soldiers are, dragging, the guy, dragging Ben back into the jungle. And Ben says something like, I’ll get you for this. Roger just goes running, and he ends up back in his house coming through the closet. And Harold is still there, and he has, like, drunk himself. 

Todd:  Yeah. Harold is still there, and you earlier said that Harold doesn’t really have a lot to do in this movie. To me, I feel like Harold is the glue that holds this movie together. His character is so well, first of all, the acting is is pretty top notch. I mean and it would have to be to be able to pull this guy off because he’s on the one hand, he’s very concerned about Roger. He’s also a big fan, by the way. I think earlier on in the movie when he met him, I mean, we get the sense over and over again that he is a very famous novelist. Yeah.   But he’s he’s super concerned about him. He’s doing what he can, but he’s also kinda trying to give Roger the benefit of the doubt, I think. I mean, he’s trying to be as much of a friend as he knows he can try to be, coming over to watch the game, you know, bringing over a 6 pack of beer, calling when he’s concerned there might have been a suicide threat, popping over when the cops are there too. He gives him a kind of a look as he leaves the house during that earlier episode too that I just thought kind of spoke volumes. It was like the look of, like, I feel like maybe you’re a little crazy, but I also empathize with you. And in this whole scene, like, it’s hilarious the way that Roger preps him up, to go in there, but also the way that Harold kind of goes along with it. It’s Mhmm. It’s a very complex bit of acting that he pulls off beautifully.   It’s like he’s the good natured friend who’s going to do it, but he’s also a little weirded out by it. But there’s also maybe a little bit of a sense that maybe there’s something about it. Before you know it, Harold’s kinda geared up to do it, but also kind of because he you feel like he’s playing along with Roger, and he’s doing it in the sense that he wants to help him out. You know, almost like by playing along with it, he’s helping him through an episode. And so when the door opens and the monster does come out and Harold just totally flips, you know. It’s like his attitude completely changes that this is a real monster. He’s really going after Roger to try to save him. It’s so cool and so sweet in the more in at the end of it that there he is by the closet like he’s never going to lead hit leave his side.   He’s drunk through all the beers that he’s done, but he hasn’t left the room. Now Yeah. Again, that’s a little silly because, I mean, if you were him, wouldn’t you, like, call the cops? I mean, you’d probably do something more than just sit by the closet and wait. But in that sense though, like I love that Harold character. He makes the movie for me. 

Craig:  Well, that’s interesting. I I don’t know. I I mean, I I I see that and now that you say it, I I definitely see I I don’t know. I think I’m just thinking of Norm. That’s all that’s all I could think of when I see that guy. But you’re right. I mean, he does you get the sense that he does maybe think that, Roger is crazy, but he’s he he’s genuinely concerned. It’s not just, oh, the he’s the crazy neighbor.   Like, he he really is looking out for him, and and wants him to be okay. He seemed a little shady, at one point in the movie because he stole Roger’s, personal phone book, like, contact book. And I didn’t know what was going on there, but it it was really just because he wanted to get, Sandy’s number because he was concerned. Yeah. So, yeah, I I see what you’re saying. He’s he’s a good guy. 

Todd:  But then again, here’s another point in this movie where I figured, okay. Well, he’s gonna enlist Harold’s help, and the 2 of them are gonna go after the house together. But it’s like, no. Okay. See you later, Harold. And he says goodbye, and Roger kind of faces the end of it alone. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and I think that I prefer it that way because I think that this really you know, even though the house really is haunted, it comes down to Roger defeating his own personal demons. Somehow, Roger figures out that these paintings in the house maybe hold some kind of clues as to what is going on in the house. And for whatever reason, he goes out back to the shed where we had seen that painting before of the closet door and the clocks, and there was that rag hanging over the upper left hand corner. And he he takes the rag off, and he sees that in that top corner is the medicine cabinet, which we’ve seen him at the medicine cabinet many times throughout the movie. Nothing bizarre has been going on there. But the kid, Jimmy, is in the reflection of the mirror in the medicine cabinet, like screaming, like he’s trapped in there. So Roger goes up to, the medicine cabinet.   He opens the door. Nothing’s in there. But then he picks up a stool, and throws it through the mirror, and there’s just this blackness, just like an abyss out there. And he throws something out to see if he can hear it land, and he doesn’t hear anything. Eventually, he’s kinda leaning up through there. He calls out Jimmy’s name, and then this tentacle grabs him, and then these demon arms grab him, and he’s, like, struggling with them, and he gets a straight razor, and he slashes at the arms and things, and so they go away. And he goes and gets some rope, and being, having been in the army, I guess he knows how to do this kind of stuff. He rigs himself up so he can so he can lower himself down into this abyss, whatever it is, because he thinks that that’s where Jimmy is.   And as he’s lowering himself down, there’s a total evil dead moment where there’s like this flying, skeleton type demon, that is is pestering him. And then it’s it’s funny. It reminded me so much of, Evil Dead when the demon grabs the gun from him and shoots at him and and doesn’t hit him, but hits the rope. So he goes falling, falling down, and he ends up back, in Vietnam in the jungle. And he finds Jimmy. Jimmy is in a cage, and Jimmy says, we have to go. He’ll be back soon. And so he he grabs Jimmy, and they run out, and they get back out.   Right? 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s again, this is a point at which, you know, you’re asking yourself, well, what happened to Ben, his army buddy? And it again, it feels like he’s reliving another flashback because he’s in Vietnam. Of course, everything’s melding together and I thought, oh, well, you know, Ben probably the reason Ben was, you know, dragged away and maybe Ben didn’t end up dying. Maybe Ben was kept as a POW. And so when you see 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  The kid in the cage, I thought, oh, this is like he’s projecting. Like, he couldn’t save Ben. He also couldn’t save his son. So the 2 are kind of getting mixed together in this vision of his, and so he’s found him in this cage in the jungle, you know, like like a POW, and he pulls his son out and says, well, if he couldn’t save Ben, at least he could save his son. When soldiers come out and start shooting at him, or maybe they’re demon soldiers or something come out and start shooting at him, he dives into the water with the kid because he had fallen into the water, so he dives out back into the water with the kid. When he comes out, he is in the pool in the back of the house, and there is a son with him. And at that point, my jaw just kinda hit the floor a little bit. I thought, oh, okay.   So his son really was trapped in the house this whole time. That’s what the movie is where the movie is going. And, again, like I said, I mean, it’s fine. It’s a nice little thing, but I lost a little bit of respect, you know, for the themes and the thematic buildup that we were getting with. Oh, it’s just a supernatural story about how this kid was taken by the house, and this guy got it back. But then what does he do? He takes the freaking kid back into the house. He’s in the backyard. Right? He doesn’t Sure.   Bypass the house, but he takes a vacuum. 

Craig:  Run away and never look back. Right? 

Todd:  My gosh. 

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s goofy. But, I see what you’re saying about, you know, you kinda wanted this payoff. I kinda feel like we do get, a kind of payoff because when they get back in the house, they are confronted by Ben who is now kind of like evil, dead, zombie, demon, Ben. Yeah. He looks great. Good good makeup. The only I mean, if you watch closely when he talks, you can clearly see the actor’s mouth moving underneath the mask.   But big deal, who cares? The kid is just standing there, like, holding his hand, and he’s like, just get out of the house. And the kid just takes off. I’m like, that’s kind of the last we see of him. 

Todd:  He sends 

Craig:  him on his own. And it ends up. Yeah. On his own. And so it ends up being this showdown between, Ben and Roger. And it’s it’s as though, Ben wants his revenge for Roger not finishing him off and instead leaving him as a POW or to be tortured or or whatever, may have happened to him. And it’s basically just kind of a slow chase through the house. Roger ends up on the roof at some point, but then he ends up back in the house.   And and, zombie Ben is is chasing him around. And he opens these big Roger opens these big double doors, and they open out onto this giant cliff, which we had never seen before and and is clearly natural because they don’t live by the sea. But, he, like, he falls out, but he’s able to catch himself, so he’s just hanging by his fingers. And Ben comes, and is stepping on his fingers and saying, You lose. But Roger takes off his belt and makes a loop of it and kind of lassos, Ben’s hand and, pulls him, and it’s Ben that goes falling down. Roger pulls himself back up, and we kinda think that this is the end of things, but then he turns a corner or or I think he hears Jimmy. And, he goes looking for him and he turns a corner, and there’s Ben again. And and he’s holding Jimmy up in the air with a knife to his throat.   A 

Clip:  few years ago, you had a chance to kill me. Now I’m gonna kill your little boy unless you kill yourself. 

Craig:  Look. Hey. 

Clip:  Daddy. It’s fine, Neil, for Roger. You’ve got no chance. 

Craig:  He’s making all of these threats. And again, this is one of those kind of things, like with Nightmare on Elm Street 1 where Nancy just kind of comes to this realization out of nowhere. Don’t really know what made her think this or what made Roger think this, but he just says to Ben, I’m not afraid of you anymore. You can’t hurt me anymore. And even though it kinda comes out of the blue, I appreciate it because it’s like he has been he’s clearly been haunted by this. You know? He he felt guilty for leaving this guy behind, and that has really, you know, stuck with him and has haunted him, and it’s kinda like he’s he’s putting it to bed. You know, I I I’m over it. I am not gonna be afraid of you anymore.   You can’t hurt me or my son. And, so he kinda just takes Jimmy from him and pulls a grenade off of Ben’s belt and shoves it up into his body cavity and, and and shuts the door behind him, and then explodes. And the house is is on fire. The whole second how story of the house is on fire. And, of course, the wife, Sandy pulls up in a cab and, Harold, the neighbor comes out and they’re looking at this house burning. And then, Roger and Jimmy come out the front door. Roger’s holding Jimmy, and Jimmy sees his mom, and he says, Mom, and he gets down and runs to the mom and they have their reunion. And it just kind of ends on a shot, a frozen shot of Roger standing in front of the house just kind of smiling.   And, you know, it’s not the most exciting, ending, but yeah. And it’s not the most exciting. And, you know, it it leaves some questions unanswered like, is he gonna be okay now? Are they gonna be a family again? Whatever. But I I do kind of like the idea that he is now free of these demons that had been haunting him. And hopefully now that he he can move forward and and regain the success that he clearly had in the beginning. What did you think overall? Did you enjoy the movie? 

Todd:  I I enjoyed it. I really did. I enjoyed watching it. It’s certainly not a bad film at all. It’s not a great film, like you said, and it’s it’s again, like I said, it’s a little disappointing. It actually reminded me tonally, in a sense of Poltergeist, in that, you know, normally with a haunted house story, there’s a ghost there with an agenda, and, it’s all about finding out that agenda and appeasing the ghost in order to, exercise it. But this movie was more like this house just for for reasons we never know, has some kind of spirit, about it that is going to, I guess, terrorize the people who are living there, in the best way that it can. But it’s not just doing it, you know, supernaturally, but it’s actually taking.   Like, in this case, it actually took a kid, and in a way, it’s a little bit like poltergeist in that it that this house, you know, is just imbued with these qualities and has that ability to do that and to get under its inhabitant skin, and then actually do physical things, like take children away, right, into, like, supernatural realm kind of thing that they dive in and out of. So in that regard, I I I, yeah, I kind of enjoyed it in the in that way. It’s pretty goofy, but then again Yeah. Fred Dekker was involved in this movie. He came up with the story. It’s it’s got his stamp all over it even though he wasn’t the screenwriter or anything. But, you know, it it very much feels like Monster Squad in a way. It feels like Night of the Creeps, tonally as far as the humor mixed in there, some of the awkwardness mixed in there.   It even seems like the budget, you know, and the effects are very similar across the films. It it almost feels like the same movie made by the same similar movie made by the same filmmakers even though it’s not. And it was also produced by Sean Cunningham of, Friday 13th Friday 

Craig:  13th. 

Todd:  About the time he was really getting a lot of success with those movies, and it almost feels like this was his attempt to kinda do a a slight crossover movie. I don’t think that was really his goal, but that’s kind of what it feels like as a little bit of a crossover movie. The fact that we get who some people in here who are some fairly big name actors at the time, shows me that there were enough people interested in this movie that they were willing to give it a go. And I feel like in looking back on it, looking back on some of these scenes and the effects and just how it all plays out on screen, that I’ll bet this movie looked so much better on paper as a script. It probably looked a little deeper. It probably looked a little bit more like it had something to say. But in actuality, maybe just the filmmakers were not up to the task for whatever reason of of elevating it. You know? You know, you read enough scripts and of of good movies, and you read scripts that you’re like, jeez.   Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is 1 you know, to go off on a little bit of a tangent. I I read the script for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and, that movie was fantastic. It’s a fantastic movie. But if you read the script, you would never imagine a great movie could be made from this, you know. It’s all completely the tone and the way it’s shot, the way it’s directed, the way it’s acted, and all the subtleties that are required to make that movie great. This, I feel like maybe the script was really good or at least read really good, but it just couldn’t quite get pulled off. I I just feel like there’s a really good movie buried under here somewhere, but it kinda falls short of it. Does that make sense? 

Craig:  It does. Yeah. It does. It’s not a great movie, but I still really like it for whatever reason, and it may just be because I remember it from when I was a kid and and that always helps. But, I think another reason that I like it is just because it’s it’s fun. It’s light. You know, you don’t have to think too much, and it’s firmly entrenched in the eighties. And I’m just so nostalgic for the eighties.   It was just such a simpler time. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Todd:  It was simpler because we were kids, and we didn’t have to worry about anything. 

Craig:  Right. Right. Exactly. And like you said, it does have Fred Dekker all over it. If you were a parent whose younger kid was interested in horror or liked horror, I think that this is light enough that a kid who likes horror would not be traumatized by this movie. I remember watching it and liking it when I was a kid. And so maybe that’s, part of what I like about it too. There was you mentioned, there was a sequel.   I freaking love that sequel. It is so goofy. 

Todd:  It is great. 

Craig:  It’s way goofier than this one, but I love it. And then, there’s a 3 and 4 too, but I’m pretty sure that 3 and 4 were just independent movies that they slapped the house name on for name recognition. I don’t think, that any of the original people, were involved. The the same guy who wrote House this one wrote House 2. And the stories are very similar. But but it goes it goes bigger and and there it’s even more fun. So, if you’re a fan of House and haven’t seen House 2, I highly recommend it. 

Todd:  Well and I think that pulls up something that maybe bothers me so much about this movie, and that is, you know, house 2 really goes for the comedy. And I feel like now it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, and I think we’re gonna have to do it. But as I remember, it really works. Yeah. And it’s just Todd, and it’s funny, and I remember renting that with my dad, and we both just really liked it. But this movie, maybe it’s because it doesn’t go full out goofy. It’s dealing with a very serious subject, PTSD here, and to be fair, to be completely honest, it’s treating it kind of lightly. Mhmm.   At least lighter than a filmmaker would now, you know, tackle that subject. The fact that it pops in and out when it’s convenient to the plot, his Todd. Otherwise, he’s a normal person, and the fact that we’re we’re not terribly there’s not a concern laid out for us in the film that this this guy suffering from PTSD who’s running around with guns and thinks that the house is haunted is a danger to himself and to others, and is coming unhinged. That thread should exist in this movie, and it really doesn’t. There’s a concerned neighbor, so they’re going in that direction, but again, they fall short of really treating the subject with the seriousness that it would just naturally warrant. That may be where this movie is a little off for me, totally. And, you know, it really does reflect Todd our feelings about p Todd when it first kinda came on the scene in the eighties. It was first posited that if you have PTSD, the best way to work through it is to try to go back through and relive those circumstances so you can somehow, I guess, come to terms with it better or realize that even though it happened in the past, you you you’re not experiencing it now, and so you could kind of make that distinction.   I don’t know, but it’s since turned out that that is absolutely the worst thing you can do. Right. 

Craig:  For a 

Todd:  person who suffered any kind of trauma is to make them try to live through it and remember what happened. Their best trying their best to forget what happened, and that is the best for your health. This movie seems to be making this this kind of overarching statement that the way that he’s able to deal with his trauma is by working through it. So in that way Todd, it’s a it’s a little outdated as well. 

Craig:  Yeah. I agree. And and it’s it’s it’s clearly dated in many other ways Todd. But 

Todd:  before Hey. We neglected to mention, and we can’t leave this without mentioning it, the v neck sweater with no shirt. That he wears through a good deal in this movie. I don’t even remember that big fashion at the time. Do you? 

Craig:  No. But it sure was sexy. 

Todd:  My gosh. 

Craig:  Alright, folks. Thanks for hanging in there with us. If you enjoyed this episode, you can find lots of our back episodes on Itunes and Stitcher. We’re on Facebook. We love to hear from you on Facebook. We love to hear, movies that you would like for us to talk about. So leave us a comment during the conversation. Until next time, I’m Craig 

Todd:  And I’m Todd. 

Craig:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Rusty Cundieff’s unique and arguably “blah” anthology is less horror film and more of a star-studded political lecture on the issues facing the African American community. Although we are clearly not the target audience for this film, we did find some redeeming qualities in this otherwise missable flick.

Episode 71, 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:  I’m Craig. 

Todd:  Today’s movie was a bit of a departure from what we do, Tales From the Hood from 1995. Tales from the Todd, based, obviously, off of Tales from the Crypt. It’s a playoff with that, but with an urban, black, basically slanted towards black audiences. Craig, had you heard of this movie before? 

Craig:  I was aware it existed. I had never seen it. Today was the first time I’d actually sat down to watch it, but, no, I I hadn’t seen it before. What about you? 

Todd:  I had seen it before actually. This is one that I had seen on the shelves in the video store, and, eventually, I rented it one day. I thought it was gonna be a really, a bad movie, but I don’t know. I was pleasantly surprised by it. And I was also surprised to learn that the director is the director of one of my all time favorite movies called Fear of a Black Hat. Have Have you ever seen that movie or heard of it either? 

Craig:  No. No. I’ve never even heard of it. 

Todd:  Oh my gosh. I cannot say enough good things about this movie. It is the it is rap and hip hop’s answer to This Is Spinal Tap. It is clever, and it is funny, and it is a perfect, pastiche of the landscape of rap and hip hop and new jack swing and all of the genres that, you know, kind of came off of that in the nineties, which is about when the movie came out mid to late nineties. Follows a fictitious rap group, and the director also stars in it as, one of the rappers in the group. It is it is hilarious. And if you’re at all a fan or even just familiar with the landscape of this music at that time, you will find a lot to laugh about in that movie. And, this movie was directed and written by him as well.   Rusty Cundiff is his name. And he hasn’t really done a whole lot of of directing, of films. He he Todd he has a bit part in this movie as well. Quite frankly, I think his performance is one of the weaker ones, but, at least, he put this together. And and it’s produced by, Spike Lee, which I think becomes pretty obvious the more you start to watch it.   Right.   But, yeah, I I I really kind of enjoyed this movie. How about you, Craig? Now 

Craig:  You know what? I gotta say, I didn’t love it. But I also have to just fully acknowledge right from the beginning that I really don’t think that I was the target audience for this movie. Sure. And and and so that being said, I I I’m I’m reluctant to be too critical of it because I don’t wanna come across as culturally or racially insensitive. It’s it’s not about that. It’s just, I I thought that it was just okay. Now what I will say for it is that I thought that the acting, generally speaking, was just fine. I mean, I I don’t think there were any, Oscar worthy performances here or anything.   But as far as the acting goes, especially in the horror genre, I thought the acting was perfectly fine. The directing and the cinematography to me just seemed a little bit meh. Like, nothing wrong with it necessarily, but I just wasn’t feeling it that much. And I found okay. So it’s an anthology film, of course. And I found all of the, entries interesting, but I also found them all to be really predictable, and not really all that original. I mean, they they in fact, several of them I felt like I had seen something very similar in other places before. Now what I will say for it is that I think that it’s attempting to address some really serious issues, that are issues specifically for the black community in America, but that, of course, affect all of us as a culture.   And on that front, I think by bringing attention to these issues, I think that that’s admirable, and I appreciate that. I just as as as a movie goes, as far as entertainment goes, I wasn’t feeling it that much. I didn’t hate it. I just I just didn’t love it either. 

Todd:  Now let’s let’s let’s put a point of reference here though because you told me you were you were not looking forward to this movie. You thought it was going to be stupid. How do you feel about it now? Do you still feel like it’s stupid? Do you have the same impression of it that you did before we went to watch it? 

Craig:  Well, I mean, just on the in the areas I’ve already said. I mean, as far as originality goes, and, freshness, I I just don’t think that it’s that great. Mhmm. I don’t, however, think it’s stupid. I don’t think that it comes from a a place of of ignorance or or anything like that. I I I think that, like I said, the the issues that are addressed, and and each each entry addresses a very serious issue, and I think that bringing those issues to light and and presenting them as points of discussion is a valiant effort. And so I have some admiration for it on that front. And so, no, I don’t think it’s stupid.   I just wasn’t particularly entertained. I wasn’t bored per se because, fortunately, each of the entries was short enough that you really don’t have time to get bored with it. But I I just didn’t think, I I don’t know, it just didn’t do a whole lot for me as from an entertainment perspective. 

Todd:  Well, you know, these horror anthologies, they do follow a pattern, and it does I think after you do see enough of them, it’s hard to not find one that’s predictable. We’re we’re talking about tradition that stretches back to radio, when they would have, radio shows such as Lights Out. And, that was probably the most popular one, Lights Out. And there’d be these horror tales kind of in an O. Henry type fashion where they seem to follow 1 of 2 patterns, either there is, some kind of spooky ghost type thing, there, a person, comes across something supernatural and has to deal with it, but then there’s like a weird twist at the end. Or we’re following the point of view of a person who’s terrible, and we basically see them get what’s coming to them. So, we see a criminal do something bad, and it looks like they’re gonna get away with it. But then through some supernatural or ironic means, they get what’s coming to them, and that’s very satisfying at the end.   And then that carried through to the, the horror comics, which were inspired, by the radio shows. William Gaines, who, was the editor at EC at the time, who then went on to create MAD and and become wildly successful with that, was very successful with these horror comics, the Tales From the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, and then these crime suspense stories and shock suspense stories, which all of them told these tales. And so then these anthology Right. Movies are basically inspired by those in many ways. I mean, there is a literary tradition here, obviously, that I’m ignoring as well, but, that’s that’s just the gist of it. And so if you read enough of these and you watch enough of these, you know that there’s a twist coming and they all follow kind of a similar path. Right. It’s really hard not to be predictable, right, when when it comes to this.   I’m not I’m not trying to super defend the movie because I’m like you. I think the movie is just, but I am I’m gonna say that, oh, I I kinda give it a bit of a pass for slightly predictable stories as long as it puts an interesting twist on it. And I thought that the twist here of it be taking place in sort of this urban setting and having a political agenda behind it, was interesting enough to keep my attention. 

Craig:  Sure. And it is, yeah, and it is unique in that way, and I appreciate that. And and I like these types of movies, you know. I like Tales from the Dark Side. I like the series Tales from the Crypt. Gosh. Creepshow, you know, the first and second one I I really enjoyed. So it’s not that I am not a fan of the genre, and it does adhere to the formula of the genre.   I think maybe I’m just so culturally removed from it that maybe I wasn’t picking up on some of the humor, and while these issues are important to me because, you know, I am socially progressive, and I am all for, racial equality and and and fighting for that, and and that it’s still a problem. I mean, this this movie came out in 1995, and and here today in 2017, it’s it’s maybe been, you know, almost 30 years since we’ve faced the kind of cultural and and racial tension that we’re facing in America right now. I know that this is important. You know, these are important things to talk about. So I I I just can’t say enough that I appreciate that part of it. It’s just I don’t know. I I just didn’t think that the stories were all that interesting. 

Todd:  Sure. I I 

Craig:  mean, it follows the really traditional formula where you’ve got a frame story, and then within that frame story, you’ve got little episodes. And the frame story here is these, 3 drug dealers, Bulldog, Stack, and Ball, are coming to this funeral home, Sims Funeral Home, because apparently the director of the funeral home has found some drug cartel, and they want to buy that from him. 

Clip:  I want y’all back and shit. It’s so funny going out. Hey, man.   You got your gut, man?   Yeah. I got my shit.   Well, if a damn mother come with you, you kill his ass. You understand me?   Yo. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on, buddha. I’m supposed to kill someone that’s already dead, man. What? Yeah. I’m supposed to kill someone that’s already dead. It’s like killing some shit twice, man.   Yeah. Like some refried beans   and some shit. Man, I never understood that, man.   Why the you gonna refry some beans, man?   Why not just fry that shit right the first 

Craig:  time and get up? The, director is played by Clarence Williams the third who has been in, like, everything. I mean, you’ve seen this guy everywhere. He was in, the Todd Squad, the original series. He played, the big bad drug dealer in Half Baked. I remember her remember him specifically from, Purple Rain. He was the dad in Purple Rain. Man, did he give a powerful performance in that movie. And and so they go into this kind of bizarre, I mean, it’s not super bizarre, but kind of an old fashioned funeral parlor.   And, they start talking to this guy, and all they’re interested in is getting their drugs, but he kind of stalls them and, he opens up a casket where we see, a young black man in the coffin, and he starts telling this story of how this guy died. And that’s the setup. Each story is centered around one of the people here in the funeral home who has died, and each one tells the story. Pretty traditional, I mean not exactly we don’t have I mean he’s kinda playing the role of the crypt keeper, the vault keeper, or whatever. And and so actually when when it started, I was kind of excited because I really do like this type of thing. Tales from the Craig was like my favorite show when I was a kid. That was one of the ones that I would stay up late, you know, to catch on Saturday nights, and and was always really excited about it. And and it’s not that the stories were bad.   They weren’t bad. I just thought that they were a little predictable. 

Todd:  Yeah. They weren’t great. Right? Right. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Right. Clarence’s story is about police brutality. What what we basically have here is each story kinda revolves around a different political theme. There’s police brutality. There’s domestic violence. There’s, like, racism in politics, and then it ends with a statement on black on black Craig, and then, of course, the wraparound story. And this one’s about police brutality. So it opens up, and there’s some cops who’ve got a guy up against a car.   They’ve pulled him over. In the meantime, there’s a new guy on the beat. His name is Clarence, and, he’s basically getting initiated by his, white partner. They’re just talking about, oh, you know, what to expect and what’s going on. They drive up Todd, basically, I think, provide backup for these cops that have this guy up against the car, and it turns out very quickly that this man is what they call a political agitator. He is sounds like an attorney, maybe a district attorney or something, and he his name is Martin Morehouse. And the police are saying, you like, giving cops a bad name, does this man has ratted out and prosecuted bad cops, and so they are clearly harassing him for that. Clarence comes across this.   He’s a little disturbed by what they’re doing. He doesn’t immediately recognize the guy, but they tell him, hey. Go back to the car and run his plates. So when he goes back and runs the plates, he sees that not only is this Martin Morehouse, but in the system, in the police system, he is labeled as a political agitator. And, of course, his perspective on this man is totally different. He sees him as a hero for their community, as calling out crooked cops. And so, right there, we get a very literal statement where the system is clearly against him. And so he comes out and he says, wait wait.   What are you guys doing? In the meantime, these guys have been beating this man, basically, within an inch of his life. This guy gets scared and he says, you guys can’t do that. And his partner there says,   shit, man. You got a green dick. Those 2 guys have been risking their asses on the street for years. She the went for strong skin. Bullshit. Oh, no. Maybe those 2 guys went too far tonight, maybe. It was all a mistake.   But next time, it could be you. So you know, you don’t ever roll over and you never rat out a fellow officer, and you never, never break the code.   In the meantime, these guys take, Martin Morehouse out to the dock in his car and basically set up what’s supposed to look like some kind of death, where they inject some drugs into him, they throw some drugs into his back seat, they get him in the front seat of this car. The guy whispers to him and says, you know, you said that police are dealing the drugs, and you’re right. And, then pushes him into the water, and the next thing that we see is Clarence tossing and turning, waking up. He doesn’t seem like a very put together man at this point, and after a short bit of time, we realized that this is a year later, that some time has passed. He’s haunted by this quite literally, and he’s hearing voices, and he stumbles around the neighborhood, he’s drinking a bottle, and he turns and he looks, and he sees a very large piece of graffiti of this Martin Morehouse character that is up on the wall, and he thinks that this is talking to him, and it says bring them to me. So again, you know where this is going. He is sitting on a grave in a graveyard at the end of the night. He’s called the cops to him.   These same cops are, like, hey, we haven’t seen you in a while, how are you doing? And he starts bringing this up, And they say, why did you call us out here? And he says, I called you out here to pay your our respects to this man who you guys, you know, killed a year ago. His former partner says, no. Wait a minute. If we just go out to the grave and pay our respects like you want us to, will this be over? And he says, yes. That’ll be it. He’s like, alright, guys. Let’s just go do it. And as they go off to leave, one of the cops turns and says to the other cop, yeah.   He’s not coming back. So you know that these guys intend to off him too, as they go back. Not sure quite honestly why, at this point. Again, it’s it’s an over it’s a very simplistic story. Yeah. I mean, this man’s obviously been laying low for the last year. He’s not a direct threat to them. Why would they go through the effort of doing this? This is just an effort to really paint the criminals as absolutely terrible, horrible, caricatured people.   And that might be The cops. The cops. Yeah. Yeah. And that might be a big flaw of this of this movie in general, actually, is that this some of these people are overly caricatured. And, you can you can get it to a certain point, but when you start to press that envelope, it it falls into the realm of of silliness and ridiculousness. And I feel like this movie does that in more than one occasion. You feel like maybe you should be able to get away with it in a movie like this, but then when you’re trying to make a political statement on top of it, there’s a certain amount of credibility you need to lend to that in order to make your argument effective.   And I think that the caricature of the police officers in this is just a little too strong, in order to be effective in that manner. But anyway, we can talk about that in a minute. I’ll I’ll get through the rest of the story. They get to the grave. 

Craig:  I I yeah. I’ve got stuff to say about that too, but I yeah. Go ahead and finish up the story. 

Todd:  They get to the grave, and not only are the officers, like, okay. Well, we’re here and blah blah blah. 1 of the officers decides to piss on this guy’s Craig. Pushes another one of the officers to do it too. He’s like, no, man. I don’t think I’m going to, but he ends up doing it Todd. And while he’s doing that, a hand shoots up from the grave, grabs him, and pulls him straight down into it in a very supernatural manner, and this guy totally disappears. They’re all freaking out.   And then basically, what happens is, what you’d expect, this Martin Moore house has come back from the grave as this, not just a zombie, but a very supernatural type zombie, looks real freaky, and he chases them. So there’s a real long chase scene where he takes out all these officers 1 by 1. And the last one, he meets in the Todd, they’re in an alley. I think what’s interesting about this scene is that there are people here on the street out and about, bums, folks who are just hanging out, folks who are drinking, folks who are maybe homeless or whatnot, and they pay none of this any mind what’s going on. This last officer is the former partner of Clarence. The zombie Martin is at the end of the alley, and he makes all of these drug needles kind of levitate and shoot towards this man, and it pins him, to the same graffitied wall Clarence had seen earlier. And it pins him inside kind of a Christ like pose, and then he melts into the graffiti so that he becomes a new part of this graffiti art. Then there’s a there’s a tiny little tag here at the end.   Clarence is face to face with this zombie Martin guy. 

Clip:  Are you satisfied now, brother?   Where were you when I needed you, brother? 

Craig:  At that point, he takes the fall for all the cop the other cops’ murders. 

Todd:  That’s right. I thought that was kinda clever, actually. And, he they show him in a, straight jacket, in a insane asylum where he’s probably gonna be for the rest of his life. And then, of course, he presumably dies because we’ve seen his coffin, and we’re back to the wraparound story. 

Craig:  And and that’s just it. I mean, it’s so easy to recap because as far as plot is concerned, it is really thin, and it’s really, typical of this kind of revenge tale. There’s really nothing new going on there, but I will say that I kinda disagree with you on the, stereotyping of the cops. I would kind of equate this with satire where, you’re exaggerating for effect. You know, you’re really trying to punch your point home. Are all cops like that? Certainly not. Are there bad cops? Certainly. Are there bad cops that are that bad? You you know, you hate to think so, but with some of the things that you see in the news, it’s it’s kinda hard to deny that there are some really nasty folks out there.   Police brutality and the especially against the black community where it really seems to be black people are overrepresented when it comes to, having police brutality committed against them. In 1995, that was such you know, that was a big deal, you know? I don’t remember exactly when the whole Rodney King thing happened. It was before that, certainly, but it was still very fresh in people’s minds. And I think that we all had hoped that by the time we got to here, to 2017, that that wouldn’t be an issue anymore. And and we were, you know, I I think we thought we were on the road to progress, where that wasn’t gonna be an issue. And for whatever horrible reason, it’s still a very real issue. And so even though this movie was made over 20 years ago, it still has a lot of social and political relevance. And so even though I think that the from an inter from a horror movie perspective, from an entertainment movie perspective purely, it wasn’t really all that entertaining, not all that exciting.   I still think that, it’s relevant. And, it’s sad that that’s the case, but but it is. I I gotta give it credit for that. 

Todd:  Well and I’m not saying it’s irrelevant, and I’m not saying I agree with you on all those points, But then how do you paint the characters? Are you gonna go in a subtle way and paint them a little more realistically? Not not that people don’t do police brutality. I absolutely that aspect of it is a 100% on the target. But then, openly bragging about it, running around and laughing, and I sort of feel like and maybe I’m naive, but I sort of feel like in the real world, these cops would be a little more subtle about their actions. They would be a little more careful, and they wouldn’t act happy go lucky, out in the open, no taking no care or concern really to cover their tracks kind of people. But you’re right. They’re exaggerating for effect. Right? Of course, they’re doing that. I just felt like the exaggeration went so far that you kinda look at it and you go, okay, I know the cops do this, and I know that they do these exact things, but the manner in which they’re they’re making them so gleeful and happy about it, and everybody’s along for the ride, and they’re unconcerned, that they’re going to ever be caught by it, that they’re taking no caution whatsoever in what they’re doing, was a little far fetched.   And I just I just feel that that hurts the message, you know. 

Craig:  I don’t Yeah. 

Todd:  If you’re trying to say something about, you know, somebody, if you paint them too much like like a like a gleeful demon, and not try to contextualize their evil within the world, then, you you run the risk of delegitimatizing what you’re saying because, that guy’s crazy. No cops are actually quite like that, and then people wanna dismiss it entirely. You know what I mean? 

Craig:  Right. And I don’t I I don’t disagree with that. I mean, it’s certainly over the Todd, and I I I guess all I’m saying is, you know, when Jonathan Swift wrote A Modest Proposal, people were not really eating Irish immigrant babies. But he was trying to make a point, you know, through exaggeration. And I think that maybe it has something to do with audience too. Yes. The portrayal of these white male cops behaving in such an obscene fashion is going to turn off certain audiences. But I think that for the target audience for this movie, that they’re gonna get it.   They’re gonna get that it’s an exaggeration, and they’re gonna get the message. Now maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know. But, I don’t wanna debate about it with you anymore because I wanna get to the next story, which is, I think my I think my favorite story from the anthology. The second one is called, Boys Do Get Bruises. And the, funeral director introduces it by saying it’s a classic case of what is and what isn’t real. It’s the difference between reality and, perception. And this story focuses on this little boy, little black boy named Walter, and we see him first sitting in his bed at night, and he hears a monster in his closet, and we hear it too.   And and there’s kind of some animal noises, and the doorknob is rattling. And and then it cuts to the next day, which is Walter’s first day of school at this it looks like, you know, some sort of private school. They’re all in uniforms. He gets beat up on his 1st day, and when the nurse is examining him, she notices that he has a black eye, but that it’s a black eye that is not fresh. She didn’t just get it. It’s at least a couple days old. And so both she and this kid’s teacher, are concerned. And so the teacher talks to the kid. 

Clip:  Was it someone at home? Maybe your mother? Your father did he do this? 

Todd:  Uh-uh. He’s dead. 

Clip:  I’m sorry. Walter, if you tell me and nurse Parchman, it’ll just be our little secret. Okay? 

Todd:  The monster. 

Clip:  The monster. 

Todd:  It came after my dad died. 

Craig:  Now for me, right here from the from the get go, I knew exactly what was coming here. 

Todd:  I mean, it 

Craig:  was it was really predictable that this was gonna be about domestic abuse. You know, when you say, he’s a monster. He came right after my dad died. I’m thinking, obviously, this mom’s new boyfriend has beaten this kid up. And that is, it ends up being. And and the kid even says, you know, when the guy when the teacher is like, Well, you know, monsters aren’t real, or something along those lines. The kid says, He said no one would believe me. And and that is just so standard, when it comes to abuse, you know, intimidation and telling peep telling the victim that nobody would believe them and and all that stuff.   So the next we we or either that night, I think, we see the monster at the door again, and and and we see a claw come around the the door. So the suggestion is that it’s an actual monster. And the next day, he goes to school, and he’s got a new bruise, on his arm where it looks like he’s been grabbed and and and roughed up. At school that day, Walter draws some pictures of the monster, and he says that he was talking to the girl that sits behind him. And she told him that if, he drew pictures of the monsters and then tore them up or burned them, that would make the monsters go away. And the teacher says, well, that’s probably not the best way to deal with things. If we need to deal with things, there are other ways we can do it. But Walter has also drawn a picture of the bully who had beaten him up, Tyrone.   And after the teacher leaves, he the teacher knocks the picture of Tyrone onto the floor, and Walter picks it up and crumples it up. And when the teacher goes downstairs and outside to the playground, Tyrone is getting, loaded into an ambulance, and somebody tells the teacher that he fell down the stairs, but it’s a big mystery because he, like, broke like, every bone in his body. The teacher that night visits Walter’s mom, and I didn’t really particularly like the way that she was portrayed. She was portrayed as being kind of slutty and aggressive, and I that’s not really a great stereotype, I don’t think. But, she gets angry at the mention of the monster when the teacher says it, and she she brings the kid in and says, you gotta stop telling these crazy stories. And sometime in there, they hear a car honk and the mom says, I gotta take care of this. Just be quiet. Don’t say anything.   She’s saying this to the teacher. And her, what we can presume is her new boyfriend comes in, and it’s there’s obviously tension there. You know, he’s clearly domineering. His name is Carl, and he’s played by David Allen Grier in a really uncharacteristic role for him. David Allen Grier is a great comedian, made a real name for himself on In Living Color, but has done tons and tons of stuff. And as it turns out, the teacher speaks to him briefly, but then Carl dismisses him, And Carl immediately, goes after Walter and starts, you know, Walter’s kind of huddled in his bedroom. We see the regular monster noises that we’ve seen. When when the monster opens the door, we see the shadow of the monster, but when he walks into frame, it’s Carl.   And Carl starts beating up Walter, and then it escalates, and he starts beating up the mom. Luckily, the teacher hasn’t left yet. He’s still sitting out in his car. He hears all this commotion, so he goes up to the door. He comes in. He tries to intervene. Carl beats the crap out of him, kicks his teeth out, and it looks like they all may be getting killed here. But Walter takes the picture that he drew of the monster and he starts folding it.   And everywhere he folds it, Carl’s limbs start breaking. And eventually, he crumbles up the paper and Carl totally gets crumbled up, though he’s still conscious and talking. He says something like, this shit ain’t over yet, bitch, while he’s in this crumbled up state. But the teacher says, Walter, you know what to do, and he hands him the crumbled up piece of paper, and Walter burns it up on the stove. And, Carl gets all burnt up. And then we see the reveal when it cuts back to the funeral home that, that’s the mangled burnt body in that coffin. And I liked this one because even though it was predictable, I really liked the message of this one that there are real life monsters, and that maybe sometimes for kids, that’s the only way that they can conceptualize it. Especially if it’s somebody that’s in their home who, in more ideal circumstances, they should trust and be able to lead on, but who revealed this nasty side of themselves.   And as far as far, again, as far as entertainment goes, it’s it’s a little obvious. It’s totally predictable. But from a social commentary perspective, I really enjoyed this one. 

Todd:  Yeah. I think it’s about at this point in the film that you’re realizing that maybe they’re not as concerned with making a horror movie as much as they are social commentary. This is the one that when I remembered the movie, but before I watched it again, this is the one that came to my mind because the imagery was pretty powerful. This guy literally gets twisted up. It’s it’s it’s comical actually in in many ways because there’s no blood involved or anything, but it’s it’s still Right. It’s still kind of weird. So everything that he does to the paper quite literally happens to this man, and you get to see the result. And and and I like that aspect of it.   And that’s really, you know, what these anthology stories have to do. That’s what separates them, really, because they all generally follow the same 5 or 6 plots. It’s how do you make it a little more interesting? How do you put some kind of interesting twist on it? But this is just another, you know, kind of revenge story. You mentioned, the portrayal of the mom, and I feel that this story I’m gonna have the same criticism about it that I did about the the previous one in the portrayal of the mom, and that I think that he falls just a little short of of trying to really of really being able to hit the message home by portraying the mom as a total slut who clearly doesn’t care about her child one bit. What the nice thing about this this thing is that they don’t set this in what would stereotypically be, say, a projects type scenario. You know, this isn’t in Right. The hood. This is a very upper class black family.   The kid’s going to a private school. He clearly has a very nice house. And even the monster, he he’s not some gang banger running out, you know, dealing drugs. He is a very prof he’s clearly a professional who just comes home from work, you know, and he’s in his suit. So in that respect, I think it it helps to make a really good statement. But then by the mom just totally coming on to whoever answers the door, I mean, the minute she answers the door before she even sees who it is, she’s she’s got her leg out, you know, in a in a seductive way, and she’s making eyes at this teacher, like, that minute. Again, I’m not saying there aren’t people like this, and and I’m not saying that this isn’t mom’s inherent problem, which is why she can cope and put up with having a guy come in who will beat her and beat this guy. But, again, it’s just not that simple in real life.   It detaches you, I think, from being able to totally get the message behind it. And again, we we’re I’m I’m talking about it as a political movie, not horror movie because that’s kinda how I feel it is, as a horror movie.   Right. Right. You know? Right?   It’s it’s hard to talk about this movie because it’s I don’t I don’t think it’s really a horror movie at its core. It’s just a convenient framing device for what they really Yeah. Want to try to say. And maybe that’s a fault of the movie is that it’s trying so hard to say these messages that the horror part of it, the entertaining the entertainment value of it suffers. 

Craig:  Right. Yeah. I I totally get what you’re saying. And and having heard you say that, I’ll be really interested to hear what you think about this next one, the KKK comeuppance, because if we’re talking about exaggerated stereotypes, though they may be based in some reality, we definitely got exaggerated stereotypes all over the place in this next one. So what do you think of the third one? 

Todd:  You know, the third one actually was my favorite as a horror film. We basically open up on a guy. He’s clearly a politician, but he’s a politician very much in the old style southern politician. And his name is Duke Metzger, which, you know, from the minute you hear the name Duke, the the first thing I ever think of is David Duke, and and so immediately, you know, that this is gonna be that guy. He’s a former Klansman turned politician who’s running for office, and he’s in a plantation house in the south. And he’s talking with his adviser, who is black, about basically how he’s perceived in the media and how he’s gonna overcome that. And meanwhile, outside of this plantation home, there are protests going on about him in general. They’re saying how could this guy even run for office, he’s so on his face racist, and we’re not gonna stand for it.   In the midst of this, one of the protesters, who is dressed interestingly, I have to say, he’s got overalls on, he has kind of, almost like a straw hat on. He’s another, by the way, very recognizable actor.   They’re gonna take care of it. They’re gonna make him pay for being here. Who will make him pay, sir? The souls. The souls are gonna make him pay. They’re gonna make him pay for being a miscount who’s the keeper of the souls. And now there’s no peace. They want peace, but there’s no peace in the dollhouse now. The dollhouse? The dollhouse.   They’re gonna make him pay the dollhouse. Just an old myth around these parts. Ain’t no myth. It ain’t no myth. It ain’t no myth.   And between the recounting of, the history of the plantation house from Duke to his assistant, we basically get this story that when this house was a plantation house, the owner of the house didn’t want to free his slaves, at the emancipation, and so instead, he slaughtered them all. And as a response to this, an old woman crafted all these dolls, a different doll to represent every slave, and somehow magically imbued the souls of the each of these slaves in these dolls. And so it’s so well known that there’s a mural of these women and these dolls on the wall. They’re inside the plantation house, but nobody’s ever found the dolls. And Duke says to his, his, advisor there, he says, yeah, when I got here, I searched the place high and low because I thought I could make some money off of these things, off of the stupid legend, but I never could find a doll. And then, we get a pretty neat camera shot, I think, where it it comes down almost through the floor. And you can see under the floorboards, there’s a there’s a doll sitting there. Basically, the rest of it is 

Craig:  It’s racially charged puppet master. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s it’s exactly what it is. Right?   You don’t have a lot of respect for this, adviser to him who is black, but he’s also clearly the villain here in that he’s telling him, how to overcome all of these clearly and obviously legitimate criticisms. And so they have this kind of weird scene where the adviser is filming Duke with a camera, and they’re up on the loft, and he’s backing away, and he’s playing the part of a reporter, and he’s asking him, how would you respond? And he’s backing up, and they’re walking as they’re talking. They’re walking I mean, you can see this coming from a mile away too. They’re walking along this loft, and he says, no, this isn’t the way you should respond. Here, you take the camera and, and interview me. So not only does he hand him the camera, but then they switch positions so that he’s they’re continuing to walk backwards along the same path. Duke is interviewing him and he’s giving really slick answers to these these difficult questions, but they get a little too close to the stairway and he trips backwards and falls down the stairs. And if you’re perceptive enough, you can notice a quick shot of the doll as well as being one of the things that tripped him up right by the the edge of the stairs. 

Craig:  They all go to the funeral, and then the doll ends up in the car, and he throws it out. And then he’s back in his house, and he hears a knock on the door. And he opens the door, and we hear the pitter paddle of little feet. And then again, like I said, it basically just becomes racially charged puppet master where this guy is fighting, these dolls. And there’s there’s there’s interesting imagery because, like, the dolls apparently are coming out of this painting. There’s this painting of the old voodoo woman with all of these small dolls around her, and and, we see that the one that we’ve been seeing running around is is out. You know? It’s it’s just white, you know, where he was. And that one chases him around, and there’s some interesting I I feel like they were trying to be symbolic.   Like, the politician, Duke, at one point picks up an American flag and hits the painting, hits the old voodoo woman in the face with it, and, and and she starts bleeding and stuff. And and eventually, what happens is all of the dolls end up coming out. And this plays out over probably 5 minutes. I mean, it’s it’s it’s not a a really short sequence, but basically, eventually, all the dolls come out and, then they kill him while the old old voodoo woman kind of apparates into the room and and watches. And that’s the end. And and and I thought that it was pretty heavy handed with the imagery. Not only does he beat her with the flag post of the American flag, but then when all of the dolls, start approaching, him in the final moments, he picks up the American flag and almost kinds of tries to cover himself and shield himself with it. Some pretty heavy handed imagery going on there, but I think that that’s par for the course for this movie.   I I don’t think that their subtlety is not what they’re going for here. 

Todd:  This one, I think, is more, apropos for today than ever, because 

Craig:  Oh my gosh. Be careful. Big Brother is watching. I don’t know this guy, folks. Whatever he says has no affiliation with me, whatever. 

Todd:  You know, it’s just so weird. I’m watching this, and I’m going, you know, back in 95, I probably thought this was a caricature, and now, Todd doesn’t even seem like a caricature anymore, this guy. I’m just being when people can can nowadays be very openly and brazenly racist and you know you know, for a long time. You know, you go back to the speeches of Hitler, go back to the speeches of Muslim. You know, go back to any of these speeches, and we have a written record of people saying some pretty terrible things, pretty ignorant things about people on the record. And while we think in the modern times that we’ve overcome this, we really haven’t. But, you know, what’s interesting about this is there is a subtlety here that’s kind of lost in the other ones, and that is that his adviser is black. And that raises all kinds of really interesting questions.   And and I think that adding that element into it and making him a villain that gets his as well, really reflects on the statements that this movie is trying to make. You know, going back to the Clarence Smith story, what you said about us not really being the target audience for this, I thought I was thinking about that a little bit more as we’ve been talking. And you’re right. The story in the Clarence Smith one is definitely about police brutality, but the statement they’re not really saying at the end of the day isn’t that police police brutality is horrible and that’s it. It’s that police brutality happens, but how do we respond to it? And the story is really about the black partner on his first day on the job who doesn’t respond appropriately to it, And he’s ultimately the one who gets the worst comeuppance at the end. Right? 

Craig:  Right. Right. Because he’s complicit in it, I think, is the is the message there. 

Todd:  So he’s complicit in it. And and then, of course, again, the Walter story. It’s it’s it’s all within the black community here. It’s saying that the problem is here inside. And so I’m not saying that this story goes quite that far, but it adds that element in there with this this adviser who it could be argued we don’t know the full backstory, but it could be argued maybe he’s the one who helped this guy rise to power. Now he’s not the one who gets he’s the first one to die. He’s obviously not the one that the story, you know, focuses as heavily on as he does as it does in the other two movies, but in the other two stories. But again, it’s there, and so there is also that element here as well.   Otherwise, this movie is just fun to see this nasty guy, totally get what’s coming to him. But the things that he says, there will be no reparations. You will get no reparations. Right. It’s so thick, you know, that I feel like it gets a little ridiculous at times. But, again, you know, to to integrate that element in there is interesting. I think you could also argue that the the guy who must be a gardener, is that who he was? The the caretaker of the plantation who’s the protester. 

Craig:  Right? I wasn’t really sure. 

Todd:  Who says we will get reparations? He he was dressed a lot to look like a hint of slave. You know what I mean? 

Craig:  Uh-huh. Uh-huh. 

Todd:  Very differently from everybody else. So there was kind of that that was, again, pretty bold in your face exaggeration type stuff as well. I actually as a horror movie, I thought this one was the best of of the of the 4 stories, you know, if you include the wraparound. Because, and again, it’s just it’s just like these anthology movies tend to go, they’re not always necessarily scary. It’s just fun to see how the person gets their comeuppance. In this case, it was certainly not scary about the dolls, but if you had insert it and that’s the only reason it’s not scary, I think, is because we don’t care about this guy. We wanna see him get it. If it had been some a character that we cared about, the way that this is structured, how the dolls, 1 by 1, seem to be coming off of this mural, and the next time he looks at the mural, there are more dolls missing.   I think it really does a good job of of building a kind of tension in there. And I think that the dolls are, you know, it’s another creepy doll story, the dolls are good, there’s some stop motion animation in here that I think is very effective, and the dolls look scary, and that scene, of course, at the end of them all approaching him at once, there’s even a bit of gore as they’re attacking him and tearing him apart. I think as a horror story, maybe this is the most effective of the 4, even though, again, because he’s the villain, it’s not super scary. 

Craig:  I think Puppet Master did it better. I think Dolls did it better, but it was alright, and it was very reminiscent of those movies, and those movies were a lot of fun in the eighties. I really always liked those. So, you know, it was it was alright. I thought my favorite, I well, I already said what my favorite was. But from a technical and visual perspective, my favorite was the 4th story, which is called Hardcore Convert. This one the wraparound story comes back in in every one, and what makes this one different than the others is these got when, the undertaker or the funeral director opens up the coffin, the the 3 guys, the drug dealers from the beginning, they react. They clearly know this guy.   And this story follows, a guy, I don’t remember what his name his name’s Jerome, and he’s got these these killer sideburns. And he’s he’s a bad, bad guy. Bad guy. He sees somebody driving along who he knows and apparently he’s got beef with, and he stops and he guns that guy down. And then some some other black guys come out of the house that the cars are parked in front of, and they gun him down. And then the cops show up, and it turns on to this this full out shootout. Jerome, when he had initially been gunned down, the 3 guys that had gunned him down kinda stand over him, and he’s kind of he’s lost a lot of blood, so he’s fuzzy, and their voices are kind of muffled, and they’re looking down at him, and they’re just kind of in silhouette. And, eventually, then the cops show up, and and those guys run away and get shot Todd.   And, he is irritated that he’s been saved by the effing cops. You know? And so then we cut to I don’t know how much longer it is later, but he has survived and he’s in prison, and this woman, I I guess a doctor maybe, she’s played by Rosalind Cash, who again, you know, a a lot of these black actors and actresses are are really familiar. This woman is really familiar. She’s an older lady. She’s got long dreadlocks. I I remember seeing her on TV in the eighties a lot. She was in on The Cosby Show. She was on A Different World.   She was in tons of stuff. So you’re definitely gonna recognize this lady. She comes to him and says, How would you like to get out of prison? He’s like, Yeah, right. That’s never gonna happen. And she says, No. If you will consent to behavioral modification, then they’ll let you out. And from there, it kinda turns into the last act of A Clockwork Orange. They, take him to this big scary mansion on a hill.   There’s all kinds of weird imagery. Like when he walks in, he sees what appears to be bodies and body bags hanging up, like on a rack that’s being rolled around. And he at first gets thrown into this cage, and in the cage next to him is a white supremacist. And the white supremacist delivers this really interesting monologue about how it’s his mission in life to cleanse the world of the black Craig. But that there will be a few select black people who will join him in that fight and help eradicate all the rest of the black people, and then those people will be permitted to remain alive and live out their lives as slaves. 

Todd:  Do you wanna be spared? Come join my army. Hey, nigga. Those guys you killed, what color were they? 

Craig:  And that’s the big political statement here. This is about black on black violence. When they go to do the behavior modification, again, from a visual standpoint, this is really interesting, really interesting set pieces where they’re taking him kind of down into this dungeon type place with these big machines. And they set him up on kind of this rack, and they strap him in, and they, like, put tubes in his nose, and there’s contraptions all over him. And this, rack that he’s laying on starts spinning, and they start bombarding him with all of this graphic imagery of both white on black violence and black on black violence. And a lot of this is actual, footage and, actual photographs from, you know, pre civil war, civil war area. Really, really disturbing stuff. A lot of it I had seen before, because I teach a lot of literature from that that period.   But it’s really, really disturbing imagery. And after that, they take him and they put him in what they call a sensory deprivation chamber. Didn’t look like a sensory deprivation chamber to me, but they strap him to this Craig. And, he can’t move, and they, you know, black everything out. And he starts having visions of all of these black people that he had killed. And all of these people are saying, why did you do that to me? And like the first couple, he’s like, well, you know, you never you were always coming up short. I couldn’t just let you cheat me. And then the next group, they’re like, but we weren’t even really the guys you were going after.   And he says, well, yeah, but you had gone after other of my friends. Then there’s a really poignant moment where there’s a little girl, a small child. 

Todd:  I didn’t do anything. I was playing in my room, and the bullet from the gun came through the wall. A bullet ain’t got no name on it. You you you was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Craig:  Eventually, the doctor appears there too, and she’s trying to say, look at the nightmare that you are responsible for in all these people’s lives. And he says, well, who’s responsible for the nightmare that was my life? And she’s like, you’re right. Who is? Is it your mom? Is it your dad? Is it the community at large? Is it your teachers? Is it the people who didn’t support you? And he’s like, yeah. It’s all their fault. And she says, no. You have to take responsibility for the things you’ve done. The Craig from the Bible was the first murderer, and he murdered his brother. How many brothers have you killed? And so then she starts, he he says, get me out of here.   Get me out of here. And she says, there’s nothing holding you here. And he realizes that he’s not restrained, and he stands up, and he grabs one of these apparitions and is threatening to kill her if they don’t let him out. And this woman, the doctor, is saying, you have a choice. You have a chance. I’m giving you a chance. And he just keeps saying, I don’t give a f. I I I don’t and he keeps screaming it and screaming it.   And finally, he wakes up back on the street, and as it turns out, this has all either been a dream in his final moments before dying, or it was some sort of supernatural giving him an opportunity to change 

Todd:  his life around, but he made the wrong 

Craig:  choice, and so he ends up getting killed by those 3 guys who were standing over him, which then leads us into the last, part of the wraparound story and reveals kind of the twist of that. 

Todd:  Right. Those 3 guys, they turn to the funeral director and say, why did you tell us this story? You know full well that that was us, basically. And, the this whole time actually, I love this part of the movie where there’s they keep saying, we need the shit. Where’s the shit? Where’s the shit? He’s the director like,   Don’t worry. You’ll get the shit. You’ll be knee deep in the shit.   So he takes finally takes him downstairs. You want the shit. I keep the shit downstairs. So he takes him to the basement, and, he says I keep it in these coffins here. And he leads them to, this this room, and there are these coffins. And they’re like, the the shit’s in here. He’s like, oh, yeah. The shit’s in there.   And so he leads them to these coffins and each of them were standing next to 1, and they’ve got guns trained on him in the meantime. And they, open up coffins and what they see are themselves in those coffins. And it turns out that those guys got shot Todd. And where are they? They’re in hell, and he is the devil. And immediately, flames come up and he transforms into a devil like figure, and they’re burning up and that’s it. It’s really ripped off of, the original Tales from the Craig movie from the seventies, which we’re gonna have to do one of these days, where people find themselves, in a situation. It turns out that they that they’re dead, and they’ve been in hell the whole time, but not before they get to hear all these stories that they have some connection with. I liked the last the last one Todd, but, again, this is where it becomes a 100% political.   I mean, it’s horrible just in the imagery, but it definitely pulls modern day horror. It’s like you said, they’re real life monsters. Yeah. They’re real life horrors, and it’s just assaulting you in the face with it. It’s really disturbing to see what you know and recognize as actual photos. And in some cases, video and film footage of lynchings and people doing terrible things with them. But again, they’re juxtaposing it with, shots of gangbangers shooting each other to make that correlation that it’s it’s happening, but now you’re doing it, instead of the white people doing it. 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  I guess it kinda predates Saw in a way too in a lot of this very mechanical, industrial machinery that he’s strapped to and and within and without. That was something that, you know, was an aesthetic that, sort of a 9 inch nails type aesthetic that, was Yep. Yep. Coming popular in the nineties, but we really weren’t starting to see in horror films, up until then. So it’s it’s a little bit like Jacob’s Ladder. Again, it’s very typical type of story, in these Insolgy movies or in many horror movies in general, where it turns out that, there’s the person has a chance to redeem themselves, and they’re going through these these these trials and ordeals as kind of a test. And at the end, we see whether or not that they fail. And in the horror movies, they usually fail. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Right.   Or they just die because they were going to always die. 

Craig:  Yeah. And I just think that from a technical perspective, from a cinematography perspective, this one was the most interesting. It was the most visually interesting. There was a lot going on, and I found myself really fascinated, with this one. I feel like I have very little business in talking about that specific issue, But it is, you know, a significant issue. It is still a problem today, and I thought that it addressed that in a really clever way. And and like I’ve said from the beginning, I appreciate that and respect that. I think that it was a valiant attempt to bring attention to some of these issues that were relevant in 1995, that are still relevant today.   And in that arena, I applaud the filmmakers for that. As for a movie to sit down and watch for fun, I I don’t think I’ll ever watch this movie again. I’m glad to have seen it from a completeness perspective, but, it’s not anything I would ever need to see again. 

Todd:  Yeah. I think you’re right. We’re definitely not the target audience for it. And it could be argued that even the target audience, might find it a little heavy handed, and definitely not scary. You know, that’s the thing. 

Craig:  It’s No. It’s not scary. 

Todd:  It’s not scary. If it were scary, it might be a little different. Now you know there’s another movie we we should see sometime, because I don’t remember how scary it is. It would be interesting to compare to this, which is Snoop Dogg’s tales from the tales from the dog pound or something like that, which 

Craig:  Yeah. I know what you’re talking about. 

Todd:  And I have seen it, and I remembered enjoying it a little bit more than I thought it would. It is a very different film. It’s very different from this, and it’s very the filmmaking style is very different from this. It’s a lot more stylish and trippy as you could imagine a movie by Snoop Dogg. 

Craig:  Yes. Sure. 

Todd:  But, but I don’t remember if that movie tries so hard Todd be political or not. I I’d be interested, to see it again and compare. But, this one yeah. I I’m with you on all points. I I really agree with you, but again, I don’t I feel it’s a competently made movie. It’s not stupid, it’s not low budget, it’s not really dumb. It just misses the mark in the entertainment value, and in my opinion, even from the political aspect. It’s it’s just and, you know, maybe this is my personal preference, but if you’re gonna if you’re gonna try to and, again, I realize I’m not the the intended audience for this film.   But, again, if you’re gonna try to reach me with a message, it better be wrapped in a lot of entertainment. And, also, it better be very poignant. You know, I wanna I wanna really feel. And the way that I’m really gonna feel is I wanna see people I recognize. And about the only people I could really recognize in this was that that Duke politician, you know. Everybody else Yeah. 

Craig:  Corbin Benson. 

Todd:  Seemed just a little too over the top for me to recognize and really empathize or go, yeah. Give that guy what’s coming to him because I know a guy like that, and he deserves that kinda stuff, you 

Craig:  know. I do agree with you that, I do think it’s competently made. We have certainly seen worse movies. And and in a way, I I had kinda hoped that this would be more like that because those movies are fun in in being able to, make fun of them and and and, you know, laugh, about them. And I I I just I don’t think that that’s what they were going for here. So I can’t say that they failed in that regard, but, you know, it is what it is. I I I right. I I don’t I don’t think it’s bad.   I wouldn’t, you know, tell people, oh, don’t watch it. It’s not worth your time. I would just say, you know, it wasn’t really my cup of tea, but, you know, there’s there’s certainly stuff for discussion if nothing else. 

Todd:  Yeah. Show it to your class and talk about it there. You know what I mean? I mean, that you’re right. It’s it’s way too educational to be entertaining. Sorry, Craig. Alright. Thank you so much for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend.   You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, and on our Facebook page, where you can like us there, spread the love around, and also tell us what other movies you’d like us to see. Until that time, I’m Todd 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.