2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

How in the world did it take Todd so long to see this movie? Simon Pegg’s debut to American audiences fires on all cylinders as a rollicking comedy. Yet it’s the strong characters and heart that elevates this far above most of the other horror comedies we’ve reviewed thus far.

Give it a watch, if you haven’t already. We’re coming to get you, Barbara!

Episode 70, 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 feature comes to you thanks to our good buddy Dan Tucker, a loyal listener and friend of mine who suggested Shaun of the Dead from 2004. You know, Craig, interestingly enough, I this is the first time I’ve seen this movie. Can you believe it? 

Craig:  No. I can’t believe that. I I can’t believe it at all. 

Todd:  It’s so weird. This came out about the time we were in Japan. We were in Japan. We left in 2004 and came back. So it, had just left the theaters, I think, and in all the turmoil of moving back into the States and all that, I saw it, I saw, you know, I knew of it, really did wanna see it, never got a chance to see it. And I don’t know, man, just over all these years, it’s always seemed like a great idea, but I never got around to watching it until now. And, man, I’m sure glad I did. 

Craig:  Todd. 

Todd:  How about you? What’s your history with this movie? 

Craig:  Well, you know, I don’t know. I mean, I was really surprised that you hadn’t seen it just because it’s been out for so long, and it’s really, you know, it it it’s popular. You know? People know this movie. People like this movie. I didn’t see it in the theater, I don’t think. I think I eventually rented it at some point. And, I may have been a little bit reluctant just because I don’t know if it was exactly right around this time, but it seems like sometime in the, late nineties, 2000, we were really kinda getting inundated with lots of zombie stuff. And, the zombie genre just in general isn’t really my favorite of the horror subgenres.   I mean, I like some of the zombie films, but it’s not something that I necessarily jump at, every opportunity. But I did wanna check this out and like you, I was very glad I did. You know, this is, you know, in many ways, it’s it’s pretty typical, for a zombie movie, but it’s also pretty fresh because it it injects this sense of humor that, really works and is really funny, and and they maintain it, throughout the movie as far as I’m concerned. I think overall, it’s it’s it’s really successful as a horror comedy. 

Todd:  Yeah. Honestly, I think, of all the horror comedies I’ve seen, this might be one of the funniest, if not the funniest. It’s just really sharp. It’s clever. It’s well written, and what I really love about it is how a lot of the things that are set up earlier in the movie come back later. Everything from his relationship with his girlfriend, the things that they say to each other, the things that he promises her that he falls short on, he’s later able to redeem himself on later on in the film in a funny way. You know, it’s just it’s just something cool to watch out for, it’s something cool that happens, and I really like that aspect of this movie. 

Craig:  Yeah. I’m kinda surprised that you picked up on a lot of that because frankly, as I was going through and doing research for this, I read a lot of stuff that I really hadn’t picked up on. I mean, it is well written. It’s well constructed. The director of the movie, Edgar Wright, wrote the movie with the star of the movie, Simon Pegg. And if I am thinking correctly, the 2 of them had worked together on a really popular, British television comedy series. So, you know, they knew each other. They worked together a lot.   In fact, the idea for this movie, sprung from a just a really short skit that they did, on their television program. And, they liked it so much that they thought that they really could develop it into a a full length feature film, and and they did. You know, British comedy can the I don’t know. You know, just every nation has different sensibilities, and sometimes British comedy, can be a little bit dry, and there’s nothing wrong with that. This movie, you know, there’s lots of laugh out loud stuff, and and some of it is kind of juvenile. I mean, we’ve got fart jokes and, you know, all kinds of body jokes and stuff like that. But, there’s also some, I don’t know if sophisticated is the right word, but just well planned out stuff. There there are little seeds planted throughout the beginning, that have payoffs, throughout the rest of the film.   And, that that takes some skill in writing. And and, you know, we see that sometimes in horror and sometimes in horror not so much, but, it works here, and and I think they did a great job. 

Todd:  Well, it’s neat how the filmmaker takes the idea of the every man, rising up to the occasion that we get a lot of times in zombie movies, and and really, really lays it out for us. First, we have Sean, who we’re introduced to, and, Sean seems to be he’s not a bad guy. He’s just doesn’t isn’t really going anywhere in his life, and that caused some consternation with his girlfriend. He’s got this roommate named Ed who clearly, they’re really really good friends. You can really relate to this. I think everybody else everybody’s got a really good friend that maybe not everyone in their life, thinks is the best for them or is is maybe dragging them down, at least in this case. I think his girlfriend suggests that maybe Ed is just dead weight, and, if he would kind of sever his ties or whatever with him, then Sean himself and Todd taking care of him. Ed Ed’s kinda like the guy he’s gotta take care of.   He’s the dude who’s hanging around, he’s the flatmate, in that apartment, which he shares with a guy named Pete. Pete obviously is a professional and has like a real quote unquote real job. Sean himself, is working as a salesperson at an electronics store, and Ed just seems like he sits around all day and plays video games and keeps the place messy and eats. So they really set up Sean as this guy who’s kinda caught between a rock and a hard place. His girlfriend breaks up with him in the film anyway. And, it’s really interesting, I think, how the the movie starts out, like, you know that you’re going to be watching a zombie movie. So it plays with you a little bit, and in as to when the zombies are actually coming, even from one of the opening scenes where Sean first steps out, he steps out and he kind of lumbers out, and we just see his feet move forward. And we’re hearing these moaning sounds of a zombie, but when the camera pans up, it’s just him yawning in the morning.   Right? 

Craig:  Like right. 

Todd:  Because because that’s how we all wake up out of bed kinda like zombies. At least I do. 

Craig:  Right. Right. No. I liked that too, and I liked how, it it did it does kinda play with you in the beginning. Even in the credits scene, it just kinda rolls through this small town, and you see people at their jobs, and you see them walking to work. And I think that what they’re kind of playing up there is just kind of the mundanity of everyday life, especially, you know, professional life. You know, all of us grown ups who have to get up every morning and drag ourselves to work like we are zombies, so that, when the actual zombie stuff starts to happen, Sean doesn’t even notice. Like it’s not so out of the ordinary that, that it even draws his attention, and I think that’s really clever.   You know, watching it this time, I was trying to pay more attention. You know, I always try to watch the critical eye when we’re watching these movies. And, as he’s moving through his first day, most of it is very normal and average and ordinary. But as the day goes on, we also kind of see some odd things going on. You know, there seems to be, you know, there are accidents on the road that seem a little bit, strange. There are some people who are acting strangely. I remember at one point, he’s at his job, I think, and outside the window well, actually from his job, I think that he sees military or we see military trucks driving by. And then he goes to the flower shop because he’s been reminded by his stepdad Philip that he hasn’t visited his mom in a long time.   So he’s going to pick up some flowers for her. And while he’s waiting for the flowers, he sees, you like, a a homeless guy outside, in the park across the street. And, this guy is lumbering along strangely and he’s kinda swiping at these pigeons on the ground. And eventually, he gets a hold of 1 and picks it up and starts to eat it, but just then a bus goes by, and when the bus passes by, then the homeless guy is no longer there. And there are lots of little things like that. You know, we’ll just see somebody in the background or we’ll see an odd silhouette in a window that knowing that we’re going into a zombie movie, we, the viewer, can, see that obviously this zombie, whatever it is, this outbreak, is picking up slowly, but it’s also not unbelievable that Sean and any of the other characters might not take notice, or or that they certainly at least wouldn’t jump to the quick conclusion, oh my gosh, it’s a zombie outbreak, outbreak, even if some of these things were slightly odd. And I thought that was a really clever way. I’ve never really seen it done in that way.   Usually it’s just boom, smack, here it is. You know, zombie outbreak, zombie apocalypse, whatever, and we’re thrown right into the action. But this takes its time. It’s really about almost 15 or 20 minutes into the movie before we really get into the heavy zombie stuff. But I didn’t find it to drag at all. In fact, I really liked the pacing, and kind of the slow build up to it and, the characters really not figuring out what’s going on right away. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. The pacing is fantastic. And while we’re getting all this character development and we’re learning about Simon, you’re right. We’re seeing all this stuff in the background, and that also kinda keeps us on edge. It adds a bit of urgency Todd the proceedings because we’re waiting for that moment. Right? We’re waiting for that Right. Smack dab. Here’s when the zombie’s gonna come in.   Oh, is this it? Is this the moment? And and then they they stretch it, like, to the absolute limit for us, which is part of the humor. One routine of his day. And you’re right, one of the things that I think they’re doing is is pointing fun at the fact that our days are pretty mindless, which keeps us, you know, doing the same thing, kind of like mindless zombies, but also completely unobservant to our surroundings. And I think it’s interesting how he he there’s this really long tracking shot where he crosses the street and he goes through the neighborhood, he walks across the street, there’s a guy, you know, washing his car, he he trips over a curb as he’s walking, kind of glances back at it, keeps walking down the sidewalk, past people on the right, past people on the left, people who are actually staring at him but he’s, like, not even noticing them. And you’re even wondering, are they zombies? But then you can tell, well, I guess they’re kind of not. But, again, they’re just staring slack jawed into space like we do. He walks into a little convenience store, grabs some some Todd or something out of the cooler, walks back to the front, pays the guy, and then leaves. And we get later on a repeat of that same shot except what what’s in the background.   It’s like everything’s kind of half decimated. There are crashed cars, the people who were there before aren’t there at all, there’s obviously been some turmoil with the man who had the garbage can, who now there’s garbage everywhere on the street, but he barely notices. In fact, he heart he doesn’t notice any of this. He even trips over the same curb he tripped over the first time and kinda glances back at it again like it’s nothing. You kinda get the sense that he just does this every single day. And then Yeah. And it gets even more and more funny in that very understated way when he walks into the shop and he opens up the cooler itself and we could see their bloody handprints on the cooler. He completely pays no attention.   And as he walks away, he kind of slips a little. 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  Just to imply that there’s, like, blood on the floor that he’s slipping it, but it’s so brilliantly played. He ends up just leaving the money on the counter and walking out because there’s nobody at the front, but you could see some shifting in the distance. This is something I don’t know, man. This kind of humor is very British. It seems like British humor is 2 extremes. It’s either very dry and understated, or it goes ridiculously silly and juvenile like Monty Python. And most of this movie seems to be, in my mind, at least a lot of the funniest parts I laughed at were the dry and understated things, the repeated jokes, that would come back out at you and, the times when people are simply arguing, but lines will come up that you heard earlier in the movie, but in a new context that makes it extremely funny. And I and I just loved that about this movie, and without that setup at the beginning, you don’t get that payoff, in the end.   They’re just brilliant with the setup here, I think. 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, I agree entirely. You know, and and just little kind of throwaway lines that I don’t I don’t know because this I’ve seen this many times at this point, so I don’t know if I picked up on him the first time around. But just, for example, Ed, who’s kind of the sloucher roommate, and Pete have a lot of friction between them because like you said, Pete’s the professional, Ed’s kind of the slacker, and, Sean’s kinda somewhere in the middle. But they kinda get into it over, you know, the cleanliness of the house and the fact that, Ed never locks the front door and stuff. And they kinda get into it and Sean, breaks them up and Pete goes off to work, but not before, we see that he has a bandage on his hand and they they say something about it and he says, yeah, I was mugged by some, crackheads or something on the way home from work, and one of them bit me. And then, you know, there’s this bickering between them. And when Pete goes off, Ed says, next time I see him, he’s dead.   And of course, the next time the next time we see Pete, he is gonna be dead. And, you know, out of context, that probably doesn’t sound all that funny. But just within the context, these little subtle things I think are hilarious. And yes, first of all, both of those tracking shots are pretty amazing from a technical perspective. I mean, they they don’t cut away. You know, it’s it’s really him walking, you know, like, down a city block and back to his apartment in both cases, and you’ve got lots of stuff going on in the background, the Todd day being very normal, the second day, clearly they’re, you know, these lumbering zombies, but he’s not affected by it. And when he gets back home, he sits down in front of the TV and he’s flipping through the channels, and he’s not paying any attention because he’s just flipping through at random, but the TV explains exactly what’s going on even though it’s different clips. 

Clip:  Well, there no one official is prepared to comment, religious groups are calling it judgment day. There’s High on the streets of London. As an increasing number of reports of serious attacks on People who are literally being eaten alive. A witness reports are sketchy. One unifying detail seems to be that the attackers in many instances appear to be dead excited to have with us here a sensational chart of 

Craig:  It’s just, you know, well written, clever stuff like that that I think this makes this stand out from some other horror movies in general, but horror comedies, in particular. A lot of times with horror comedies, it relies just completely on, silliness and and, you know, low brow humor. And like I said, there is that here. For example, there’s kind of a running gag where Ed will just say, I’m sorry, Sean, and Sean will say, what do you mean? Sorry about what? No, I’m really sorry, Sean. And then Sean will go, 

Clip:  oh man, that stinks. 

Craig:  And he’s just farted. I mean, it’s a fart joke. And he he says, you know, I’m gonna I’m gonna keep doing it until you quit laughing. And Sean always says, I’m not laughing. No. He totally is. And that, you know, that plays throughout, and it actually leads to kind of a sweet moment between the 2 of them in the climax, of the movie. But once we get that established shot, when when the 2 guys, Ed and Sean, are alone in their apartment, when things start to really kinda go crazy is, Ed tells Sean there’s there’s a a girl in the garden. 

Clip:  Oh my god. She’s so drunk. Yeah. I think she wants a cuddle. It’s what I’ll say is I’m just come out of a relationship. Do something. Wait Hey. 2 seconds.   Jeez. Look. I’m really flat and everything really quick. 

Craig:  And he runs in and you think he’s gonna come out with a weapon or something, but instead, he’s just got a disposable camera, and he takes a picture of the 2 of them rolling around on the floor. If you pay attention, you’ll notice that this was a girl that we had seen earlier just in one of those establishing shots as a clerk at the grocery store. And in fact, just about every single bit player that you see at any point in this movie, you will later see come back, as one of the zombies. It’s only when they get her up off of Sean and she starts coming back again, And Sean pushes her backwards, and she falls back on some sort of, like, pipe. I don’t know if it’s a drainage pipe or an exhaust pipe, or something in the back. And it totally impales her, which of course they’re horrified by, but then she picks herself up off the, post and starts coming at them. And that’s when they know that something’s going on, and that’s really where we start to get into, alright, this is happening. We don’t really know why, but this is the reality of what’s happening, and now they’ve gotta figure out what they’re gonna do. 

Todd:  Yeah. And what they decide to do is just go inside and get a crate full of stuff that they could throw at her from across the yard. It’s so silly and then they go and get his record collection at because they think, oh, Record’s gonna do it because now she gets joined by somebody else. They’re tossing records at these 2 zombies, and they’re flipping through the records arguing which ones are worthy of tossing the zombies and which ones they should really keep. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  So there’s there’s there’s a lot of flat out silliness there. But then after this, they turn to each other and say, what do you think we should do? Have a sit down. And they go inside. They just plop back down on the couch. Right. Todd try to figure it out. And that’s just that’s just part of the humor of this is that this is really not far removed from our lives. Right? Like, this is how we would sometimes deal with about any problem, and this is how these guys are dealing with these problems.   It’s just exactly the same way, except they’re kinda lazy and they it’s not your typical zombie movie like you said where somebody’s running to get a weapon and come out and suddenly becoming badass. It’s these guys Right. Who are basically solving these problems the same way, shape, and form that they that they attempt that they go through life. And that is what makes this endearing, and it adds to the comedy, but, also, it it kind of adds to the realism, I suppose, of the movie, and you’d hope that we wouldn’t be as oblivious as these guys are. And maybe this movie came right at the time when it could at least be a little more credible. Now I feel like we’re so connected, you know, to social media. We’re on our phones all the time. Here in 2004, I think Facebook had just come around.   Social media and the fact that we’re texting each other all the time and kind of keeping abreast of everything, staring down at our phones was just becoming a thing, just becoming enough of a thing that they could make fun of it in this movie, but not so much that you’d think, oh, come on. Why why don’t these guys, you know, know what’s happening halfway across the world, 3 minutes after it happens? 

Craig:  Yeah. I was gonna say the exact same thing. Like, as silly as it is, it is almost more realistic than the types of movies where all of a sudden your protagonist has a machine gun and a, you know, a rocket launcher and they’re taking out hordes of zombies. First of all, these are slow walker zombies. You know, I I feel like anymore, that’s how they started out, you know, the the zombie genre. They started out as with Night of the Living Dead, Ramirez Night of the Living Dead. They started out as slow walkers, but they’ve evolved ever since, I think, 28 days later, we’ve seen a lot more of the fast moving, zombies. And in an interview, Simon Pegg was asked why they went to go with the slow moving zombies and he said, because death is not an energy drink.   And I kinda like the return to this this form because it allows them a lot of ways to play and and it’s easier for them to be amongst the zombies. I mean, these zombies, yeah, if they get a hold of you, they can tear you up, especially if they’re in large groups. But you can pretty much just walk in among them, as so long as you’re just a hair quicker than they are, you know. And I think that’s funny. And the way that they react, I imagine would be, yeah, I’d be freaking out more, but it would be kind of the way that I would react. What would I do? I’d go in my house and I’d lock the door, you know? And I, I’d try to figure out what was going on, and and, you know, I’d be thinking about my significant other and my mom, and and, you know, that’s exactly what they do. And, Sean comes up with this plan, for he taught he gets his mom on the phone, and she says that she’s okay, but weird things are going around. She and her husband had kind of been attacked, and they’re okay.   But Philip, the stepdad, had been bitten. And and so Sean, of course, knows that that’s gonna be a problem. So he has this plan, and and he plays it out in his head, and we get to see it play out on the screen where they’re gonna go get his mom. They’re gonna kill Philip. Then they’re gonna leave and they’re gonna go get his girlfriend or ex girlfriend at this point, Liz, and then they’re just gonna hole up in her apartment. 

Clip:  Why have we got a girl Lizzie’s? Because we do. She dumped you. I have to know if she’s alright. Why? Because I love her. Alright. Gay. I’m not standing there though. Why not? If we hole up, I wanna be somewhere familiar, I wanna know where the exits are, and I wanna be allowed to smoke.   Okay. Take Pete’s car, go around mom’s, go in, deal with Philip sorry, Philip. Grab mom, go to Liz’s, pick her up, bring her back here, have a cup of tea, and wait for all this to blow over. Perfect. No. No. No. No.   No. Wait. We can’t bring him back here. Why not? Well, it’s not totally safe, is it? Yeah. Good state of it. 

Craig:  And he says, okay, new plan. And I just love that it runs through this plan on screen every single time just with a different ending and moving a little bit faster each time. Finally, they decide they’re gonna pick up all those those people, and then, they’re gonna head to the Winchester, which is their local bar, the bar where they hang out every single night. In fact, that’s why Liz, eventually dumped Sean is because he wasn’t going anywhere, and that’s all he ever wanted to do, and wouldn’t do anything else with her. I also love that when, Philip or no. Excuse me. When Sean is talking to his mom 

Clip:  Listen, mom. Sit tight. Okay? You’re not safe there. We’re coming over.   I don’t want to cause a fuss.   We’re coming to get you, Barbara. 

Craig:  Which which is a a direct nod to the original Night of the Living Dead. And I I read, I thought it was really funny that, they gave Romero, George A Romero a private screening of this movie before they released it. And he really, really liked it. He liked it so much, in fact, that he invited both the writers, to appear in his next, sequel, Land of the Dead. But he didn’t even remember that that was one of the original lines from his original movie until somebody told him later, and I thought that was pretty hilarious. But there are tons of nods to other zombie things. When Liz tells Sean that she wants to do something else and, he eventually says he’s gonna take her out to some, fish restaurant, but he forgets to make the, reservation. So he’s flipping through the yellow pages and he finds Fulci’s Italian Restaurant, a great nod to, the the Fulci, Italian, zombie film.   And and I just, you know, I didn’t catch all of these those things going in. And in fact, they’re really subtle in some places. They’re blink and you miss them. But, you can tell that these guys really were fans of the genre and were knowledgeable on the genre, and, they make a lot of those types of references, and I appreciated that too. 

Todd:  Yeah. There’s even a point in which, of course, their roommate, Pete, who we know is is gone, and Sean runs upstairs and, he’s in the bathroom getting ready to go, and, I think, he notices that Pete is behind the shower. You know, everybody, all the zombies in this movie have these white eyes a little bit. Mhmm. 

Craig:  He’s he’s 

Todd:  kind of coming at him, and he’s still talking to him like he’s his roommate and basically says, alright, so we’re we’re gonna go to the Winchester now and you’re more than welcome to join us. And the way he says join us and the way that Pete is walking towards him with the wide eyes is very evocative of Evil Dead and and that Absolutely. Is just this this real you have to know the movie to be able to get this stuff, and you have to be in tune to it. As a horror fan, you appreciate this sort of thing. Right? 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And there there was another one that comes right after that, right after he, runs down from Pete in the, restroom. He’s looking out the keyhole. They’re gonna leave. They’re gonna take Pete’s car and they’re gonna go get Liz and and Barbara, the mom. And Ed says, are there any zombies out there? And Sean looks back at him and goes, don’t say that. He said, what do you mean? He says, the zed Todd.   Don’t say that. He’s like, why not? He’s like, it’s it’s ridiculous. And I think that’s a nod to a lot of the zombie movies where the the word zombie is never actually uttered. And they just kinda draw attention to that too. And and it’s all over the place. You know, I we we we couldn’t cover them all in an hour if we wanted to because there are so many nods and references. But like you said, yes, as horror fans, we appreciate that, and it’s, you know, it’s it’s a tip of the hat, to the horror fans. And I think that we, as horror fans, really eat that up or at least I do. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s really good. It’s really good. And and so, anyway, they end up going to his mom’s and, there his mom is just a sweet lady. She’s one of the moms who are just utterly positive all the time, to the point where that becomes part of the comedy is how she’s able to smile and try to be positive, even as she’s a little confused, even as she’s more or less dragged along through the chaos of what goes on. And they go to the moms, they grab her, and part of what I think makes it really work is that we get a strong sense of character and their relationships, and it’s believable and it’s good. And one thing that’s really nice is the relationship between him and his mom. And then also very early on and throughout the film, we understand that his relationship with his stepdad is strained.   His stepdad seems to order him around. He’s kind of bossy, and we we find out that he, you know, he was a stepdad since he was 12. And one thing that he keeps repeating through the movie is he’s not my dad. He’s not my dad. That, of course, comes back later, in a funny way, but they go to this mom’s and his stepdad’s been bitten, but he brings him into the car and then they run off to Liz’s house. You know, this is what you would do. Right? This is kinda what Yeah. 

Clip:  This is 

Todd:  all they know to do is round let’s round up our friends. Let’s make sure that that close circle people that we know are okay. And, Liz has I believe there’s some flatmates. Right? David and Diane are flatmates of hers, and, they go to her to her house. And David is the kind of kind of one of these guys who’s who’s a bit sober and somber most the time. You don’t feel like he knows how to break out and have a cut loose. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. He’s just he’s tightly wound. You know, he’s a little bit high strung. And one of the gags is that he is clearly in love with Liz Todd. You know, like and Sean calls him out on it all the time and, of course, he denies it all the time. I don’t know that he ever really admits it. Diane, who I I I think that David and Diane are supposed to be a couple.   Later on down the line, you know, when somebody accuses David of being in love with Liz and he denies it. She she basically just says, oh, stop lying. You know, like, I knew you only I knew you were only around me to get close to her. And when she turned you down, then I was the next best thing. I know this. You don’t have to keep denying it. But but you like, you’re right. You know, these are not perfectly flat characters.   I mean they play certain roles and certain stereotypes, but they also do have some depth. I mean even Dave and Diane who are just kind of supposed to be the tagalongs, we get glimpses into their characters, and and they come across as real people. You know, Sean and Ed who are kind of, you know, these I don’t wanna call them losers. They’re not losers. They’re just, you know, they’re kinda stuck. You know? That’s the difference between them and Pete. You know, I think Pete used to party and stuff with them, but he’s moved on, he’s grown up. And Sean has to some degree, but he still working in the same retail job that he’s been working in probably since he was a teenager.   Yeah. He’s like an associate manager or something, but, you know, it’s not really a grown up job. And Ed is just the one who’s not grown up at all. Like, he’s still just acting like he’s in university. And like I you said before, I think we can all relate to that. I think all of us who, went off to school, and then, you know, school was over. It’s time to become an adult now. You know, some of us dove head first into that.   Some of us were a little bit more reluctant. Some of us rejected it entirely. And so it’s easy to relate to the characters. And even like you were talking about the relationship between Sean and his mom, It’s really sweet. It’s super sweet. And you even see that Ed really cares for deeply cares for Sean’s mom. Ed and Sean have been, friends since they were in, like, elementary school. And so Ed knows and loves Sean’s mom, and you see that connection, and it comes across as believable.   And I I agree with you a 100% that that is one of the major strengths of the movie. 

Todd:  Yeah. And it’s done so well. It’s just so subtly that it’s not this just never hits you over the head. It’s just natural in the circumstance. Midst of this issue that they have to deal with, and it’s fantastic writing. It’s really clever. It’s really smart. And so it’s funny, another one of these gags comes back, every when the last time he was ringing the bell, to come to Liz’s place, just before she dumped him, they wouldn’t let him in.   They wouldn’t buzz him in. They just heard him, on the other end and wouldn’t let him in. So he climbs up the side of the of the apartment, I guess, into the window. And that’s what he has to do here Todd, except they’re afraid to open the door for him. They press the button to hear what, you know, is coming through the intercom, and all they hear is the sounds of him beating back zombies. Yeah. And that’s that was their strategy, and it seems like, this is what David wanted to do. He just wanted to hang out here at the house, which is exactly what the news casters were telling them to do.   Sean is here to tell them, look, this is not safe. They will find a way in. We need to get somewhere more secure. And it’s at this moment where we see Sean growing up, and this is what you see this this recognition in Liz’s eyes. She’s suddenly attracted now to this man who, before, she accused of not being able to take any initiative, not being able to make decisions to do things. Now he is suddenly the one with the ideas, with the initiative, and and so she’s, like, yeah, we we should follow this, and you see that spark come back into her eyes, and, this is the kind of character development you need in a good movie, you know, is is that he’s gonna grow up and he’s gonna take charge. And, so they do this. They finally, convince him to do it, And she says, so what’s the plan then? And what his answer is exactly what he told her when he couldn’t get into full cheese restaurant, and that was, we’re gonna go to the Winchester.   Right. So then you have and another thing I love about this movie is it it never stops being a zombie movie, and so this next scene is just him with a cricket bat running ahead of them, whacking zombies right and left in the head, clearing the path for them to all pile in, Todd, this car. And so they’re all crammed in the back. There are, like, 4 people in the back of his car, including, his stepdad, his stepdad who is clearly not doing very well, and Ed Todd driving super recklessly as you’d imagine Ed Todd, almost like a video game. He seems to be taking some pleasure in going out of his way to whack zombies, as he’s going down the street, and so it’s pretty chaotic. It’s a really exciting scene, and then in the middle of this, in the back seat, the stepdad turns and looks at Sean, and he starts in with this little soliloquy. 

Clip:  Being a father is not easy. What? You were 12 when I met you, already grown up somehow. I just wanted you to be strong and and not give up because you lost your dad.   Philip, you don’t have to explain.   No. I I do. I I always loved you, Sean. I always thought you had it in your tongue to do well. You just need motivation. So somebody that looks up to her. I thought it could be me. 

Todd:  It’s so interesting. 

Craig:  Yeah Yeah. No. I was just gonna say you’re right. You know, I think that if if if I if I were if I were one of our listeners and I had never seen this movie, I would think that on paper, this sounds really stupid. It sounds really stupid that they would have this moment. You know, they’ve been strained their entire lives and then here in the midst of all this chaos, this stepdad who’s dying takes a minute, to deliver what is really a very sweet sentiment. And it Todd. Like you said, Simon Pegg does a great job of acting.   It clearly affects him. You know, his eyes water up and he tears up. And though to me it doesn’t sound great on paper, it just works. You know, you you care about these characters. You care about their relationships. And it’s nice to see them get some closure. And then it jumps right back into the comedy. You know, he dies.   The stepdad Philip dies, and, Sean is trying to break the news to his mom who’s in the front seat, and he’s like, Philip’s dead. Or no, first he says, Philip’s gone, and she’s, you know, she’s kind of daft anyway. She says, gone where? And he says, gone. He’s dead. And she turns over her shoulder and looks and we can’t see because she’s obstructing our view, but she goes, No, he’s not. And so then the camera shifts, and we see that that Philip has now turned and is sitting there, a zombie with them in the car. And it brings it right back to the comedy because then they all have to scramble. The child blocks are engaged.   They can’t get out. Eventually, they do get out. They’re surrounded by zombies. But again, it, you know, it takes the time for this little sweet moment, and then it jumps right back into the action and the comedy really seamlessly as far as I’m concerned, and I think that it’s really effective. 

Todd:  And so they end up going through this neighborhood, and Sean knows the shortcut, which is gonna be across all these fences. And he has these moments of badassery where David looks at the all the fences and says something like, Oh, so that’s your shortcut, I’ll cross all of the 8 foot fences across the yards. And Sean turns around and says some one liner to him, and then turns around and runs at the fence. And as he goes to leap over it, which it’s clear he’s probably gonna make it over it, the fence like collapses. It’s just so funny and the next shot is of them like going cutting through a yard by going through just the gate around the side of it. Anyway, so they’re running through the yards. There’s a moment where, Sean’s mom holds back because she says, I’m sure this is, somebody I know. They end up, in a yard next door and they’re like, wait a minute, somebody’s missing.   It’s his mom. So he has to go back and get his mom. And, his mom is lying flat on the ground and, sure enough, the sliding door has been opened and one of these neighbors that she had seen through the window is coming at them. So they have to fight him back. And, it’s funny because they’ve all they have to deal with is this, like, plastic furniture, like, all these plastic kid toys. So they’re whacking the zombies over the head with these chairs and these and these tables and things, but they’re not really doing much. So then he picks up. They pull out of the ground one of these tall oh, it’s like a tall pole with a with a rope and a and a ball.   It’s like like a tether ball or Yeah. Exactly. And he’s swing he’s like, oh, yeah. This is it. He swings it around like it’s a, a medieval, you know, instrument. This little ball just, boink, bounces off. He’s like, no. Use the end.   Use the end. So the use of the pole just impales the zombie into a tree. And so, he’s not dead, but he’s totally impaled, into the tree with this with this pole. So the Winchester is just over on the other side, and it’s clear that there are a ton of zombies that they have to work through. And what follows here is a scene of utter hilariousness. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. It’s hilarious. Diane is a a failed actress. That was mentioned just off handedly earlier on. But they she she gives them all acting lessons on how to walk and moan like a zombie. 

Clip:  Right. That’s all. Shake out. Nice and limber or not. Now take another look at the way he moves. Remember, dialing. Almost like sea walking. Look at the face.   It’s vacant with a hint of sadness. Drunk has lost a bed. Okay. Let’s try, shall we? Please. Nice. Good vocal work. 

Craig:  And then it pans to the mom, and Diane’s like, oh, that’s great. And then the mom comes back into focus. She’s like, oh, sorry dear. I was 500 miles away. Like like like her general affect is just kind of zombie like anyway. And and so then that’s what they do. And and I feel like I’ve seen this in other movies before. You know, I don’t know if this was the first one to do it, but the living people just acting like zombies and, fooling the zombies, essentially.   And it works until they get to the bar door, and then they have to start conversing with one another because the doors are locked and they don’t know how they’re gonna get in. And once they start talking to one another, the zombies again take notice and Todd, swarming in on them. And there’s an, a moment where Ed is a drug dealer. I I say drug dealer. I think he sells people weed, but he he’s been getting calls, throughout so far. And then, so he gets a call right in this moment and he takes it nonchalantly, like they’re not surrounded by zombies. And Sean gets mad and knocks the phone out of his hand and and really kind of, chastises him and says, you know, you’re always getting us into trouble. You know, it’s it’s always you.   You’re the one that’s always, you know, messing up and getting us into trouble, and then I have to fix things. He’s like, well, not this time. And, Liz is all this time trying to get his attention. Sean. Sean. And when he finally turns around, they are just completely surrounded by these zombies staring at them. And, at this point, David picks up a trash can and throws it through the window. Now Sean had advised them not to do this because, that would leave a big entrance.   It would they would just the zombies would just follow them in, But David does it anyway, and so Sean distracts the zombies and leads them away so that the other people can get in and and find shelter without the zombies noticing and following. And again, it’s more character development. Sean’s taking control. He’s taking responsibility, and he’s putting other people’s safety before his own. We really see this guy grow up, on stage. And it’s it’s subtle, but it’s effective and and believable. And I think that, again, it’s just really reflective of really good writing and character development. And I think that, you know, this movie hits all those marks. 

Todd:  It really does. It really does. And, of course, now the next scene is they’re inside the pub, and they’re sitting around, and Sean is still not there. And they’re all just waiting and wondering what they should do. And, David, of course, is giving his lecture about how we shouldn’t have come here, we should have gone, what were we gonna do? Were we just gonna come here? Were we just gonna eat peanuts? Were we just gonna drink? What was the plan once you get to the Winchester? And at that moment, Sean does pop back in and he said, well, there’s a back door. I just came through the back door and, like every bar has. Right? So, right. So now they’re all back together again and and they’re like, so what’s the plan? He says, you want a peanut? And the next shot is just of them sitting around, and that is so true.   So they are at the bar, the zombies are all outside, and what in the world are they going to do at this point, but sit around. And it’s clear that they’ve been through many drinks, and it’s clear they’ve been eating, and they’ve been talking, and there’s nothing more for them to do or say to each other. And this is the point where I feel like this movie really jumps into Night of the Living Dead territory because Yeah. Most of Night of the Living Dead isn’t really about the zombies. The zombies are just a catalyst to get a bunch of people, who can’t get along into a house and see how the drama unfolds between them. And, you know, that’s really George Romero’s wheelhouse is commenting on the fact that, look, even if zombies take over the world, the zombies aren’t the problem. It’s us. We cannot muster up enough together to take care of that kind of threat that we’re, you know, it’s gonna be a Lord of the Flies situation.   They are safe for now. They know they won’t be soon, but they’ve got to figure out what to do. And in this, there’s tons of infighting. And at this point, more character development and things come forward. The idea here, I believe, is that Sean is going to he says, well, maybe the electricity is actually working because they see the street lights coming on in the back. And so that starts to propel the plot forward. He says, I’ll go down. I’ll flip the circuit breakers.   And, they’re like, well, we don’t want the lights to come on. He’s like, no. I’ll just turn on the ones that turn on the mains and not the lights, so that at least we can get a television on and see what’s going on. So he runs down and he does that and as he’s flipping breakers, in the back room there, he flips on one light and right next to him is a window. They’re just zombies piled against the window. Yeah. He sees it, and he flips it right back off again and walks out and closes the door. He says, look, we’ve got a problem.   It’s so funny. It’s it’s hilarious, but it’s true. They were never gonna be able to hang out here together anyway for 

Craig:  the Forever. Right. And that leads that leads to one of my favorite gags in the movie, when they go, they’re they’re in there now, and they they flip on the TV, but they can’t get any stations. All of the stations are dead. It’s just like the call letter screens. But the jukebox automatically kicks on, and it’s playing Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now. And just as that happens, the zombified owner appears in the bar out of nowhere. So they all grab pool cues and start hitting this zombie guy, but they’re hitting him in perfect rhythm to the song.   And it goes and it goes on for a while, and it’s hilarious. And even I feel like Dave and Diana aren’t even participating, but they’re standing off watching, and they’re kind of, like, popping along to the music while they watch. And it’s it it that’s hilarious. But then the, the zombies, start breaking through the windows. And they’ve got this one gun because it’s the Winchester bar, and there was this gun, that hung above the bar that Sean was convinced was just a prop, but Ed was convinced was real. It turns out it was real. So they’re trying to figure out, and they found shells. They’re trying to figure out who’s gonna, you know, fight off these zombies as they come in, and they’re gonna try to, you know, like teamwork it.   The others are gonna help reload while Sean does the actual shooting. But while all this is going on, Sean and it’s chaotic. You know, zombies are starting to pour in the windows. Sean says to Liz, go get my mom somewhere safe. And, Liz goes to get her, and she pulls her into a corner of the bar, and it’s here where Barbara pulls her into a corner of the bar and it’s here where Barbara reveals that in her struggle with that neighbor zombie just, you know, 10 minutes before, she had been bitten. And she says that she didn’t wanna say anything because she didn’t wanna worry Sean. She knew Sean would be worried and she didn’t wanna make him worry. And so eventually they all even though the zombies are still pouring in, I think, David is left with the shotgun to try to hold them off.   But everybody else gathers around as Sean goes over to his mom and finds out that she has been bitten, and she starts to die. And again, it’s just another really, really sweet and frankly sad scene. Yeah. And you see, you know, Sean is really upset and he’s, you know, he’s saying, don’t leave me, don’t go. And the, and the mom is going and she does go and you see both Sean and Ed cry. And I guess that these actors were so invested in the story and in this character and potentially, I guess, the actors who played this character, that those were their genuine emotions, that they didn’t have to act through it. You know, the idea of of Barbara dying really did affect them that emotionally. And it reads, it reads on the screen.   It’s not melodramatic. It’s not overdramatic. It seems very real. You can see that they are. They’re hurting, and it’s you know, we’re talk we talk about the writing, and I I think the writing is great, but we’ve gotta give credit to these actors too. I mean, they just do a really good job. And and you don’t always find that in horror. You know, I’m not gonna knock a genre that I love, but, we get some pretty bad acting sometimes.   And and that’s that’s not that’s that’s not the case here. You know, these guys, they do they do a great job. 

Todd:  Oh, it is it is wonderful. And it is a moment, and this moment then leads to the problem that we all know is coming. And that is what are we gonna do about mom because we know she’s going to turn at any time. That’s when David picks up the rifle and steps back and says, you know what we have to do. And, Sean turns around and says, no, this is my mom. No. You’re not going to do this. She’s my mom.   And Ed breaks the bottle over the bar and holds it at his neck at David’s neck. And we get this suddenly, this Mexican standoff scene where everybody’s holding a broken bottle to somebody’s neck. I think, somebody’s got a corkscrew to David’s neck. Just whatever they had available at the bar was just broken bottles and cork and corkscrews. And, and it’s it’s a tense scene, but again, behind it all is always I mean, you know he’s gonna turn. Even Sean’s gotta know that she’s gonna turn. And so Right. Right.   You know, it’s eventually gonna end with her turning, and they have no choice. And that’s exactly what happens. But in the midst of this, you know, we get to see more of David’s character, and and quite frankly, he is not the guy to lead this group. He thinks he knows what he’s doing, and in this case, he knows what he’s doing, but his approach is completely wrong, completely insensitive. And so Right. You don’t garner a lot of sympathy for David. So when, Sean’s mom finally does turn, I don’t remember how all this happens, but somehow, Sean ends up with a gun, and he’s the one who ends up doing it. And and that is that is really heartbreaking. 

Craig:  Right. And and you knew it had to happen, and again, I think that it’s more character development for Sean. He’s not paralyzed, into inactivity. He does what has to be done as hard as it is for him. And then from then, from there, everything happens really quickly. You know, David is kind of dejected and kind of backs away towards the window, and he’s saying, I’m gonna leave. You know, I’m gonna take my chances out there. You know, if we run, we’ll be okay.   But we can see what’s gonna happen a mile away because he’s backed himself right up against the window. And and the zombies bust in and grab him and pull him out. And I feel like this is another homage shot, maybe to the original Dawn of the Dead where Yeah. Or or really any of the movies, frankly, where we actually see the guy, you know, getting eviscerated and eaten alive, and we see that. Diane, because David is her boyfriend, she’s there’s a she and Liz are trying to pull him back in, and, course, eventually, they just pull his legs free. And she she takes his leg and goes out and is trying to she opens the door and is gonna go out and try to get him, you know, irrationally, but she’s, like, beating the zombies with the leg and of course they get her. And then they, the zombies come flooding in, eventually they get a hold of Ed and and we, you know, Pete shows up, and I think that Pete is actually the one that ends up getting Ed and, and he gets bitten several times. I mean, you just know there’s no hope for him.   Liz and, Sean jump behind the bar. Sean is calling, Ed, Ed. And you see Ed’s body just kind of flop over the bar and he’s like, 

Clip:  what? 

Craig:  But he’s a mess. I mean, he’s clearly a goner. They they set the bar on fire to treat try to keep the zombies at bay, and it works, but just for a second, they realize that there’s a trap door in the floor that leads to the cellar. They get down there, but then they think they’re stuck down there. There’s some sort of like cargo door, in the ceiling, but they can’t get it open. They can’t figure out how to get it open. And, so they’ve got the shotgun and Liz says, How many bullets are left? And Sean says, I don’t know. I think 2.   And then they get into this serious moment that we see in these types of movies where they pretty much come to the conclusion that rather than be torn apart by zombies, it would probably be better for them to just take their own lives. 

Clip:  How are we gonna do this?   I don’t know. One of us has to go first.   Well well, may may maybe one should do the other and then do themselves.   Oh, maybe you should do me. I’ll only muck it up if I have to do myself.   Do you know? I don’t think I’ve got it in me to shoot my flatmate, my mom, and my girlfriend all in the same evening. Why   do I actually didn’t have taken you back? Oh,   you don’t wanna die single, do you? 

Craig:  And plus, I’ve changed. You know, I really have changed. One of the things that she had wanted him to do was to stop smoking. And he says, I haven’t had a a cigarette since yesterday. And she says, well, maybe we should have one now. So they go to light the cigarette and the illumination from the lighter illuminates a button. And it’s the button for the cargo door. It’s like an elevator.   The the last issue is that, Ed is clearly in bad shape. You know, Sean’s trying to get him you know, he’s saying come with us. And Ed says, you know, I I think I’m just gonna stay here. And and they have, you know, again, one of these surprisingly tender moments between these 2 goofy guys. You know, Sean feels bad about telling Ed that it was always his fault, that he always caused all these problems. And they they and and Sean says, I’m sorry. And, Ed says, I’m sorry too. And Sean says, Sorry for what? And then it’s the fart gag again. 

Todd:  You know? And it’s like, 

Craig:  it’s it’s a stupid gag, but when you realize that it’s as stupid and juvenile as it is, it’s something that these 2 guys shared. You know, it’s a little gag that they shared, and if this is gonna be their last moment together, the fact that they can share a laugh together, it’s nice and it’s sweet. 

Todd:  So Ed stays behind, and, Sean and his girlfriend go up the elevator onto the street, and there is, of course, as you can imagine, completely surrounded by zombies, and you’re thinking, maybe, this is kind of the end for them. How are they gonna fight their way out? And then, out of nowhere, machine gun fire, And it turns out that there’s a paramilitary force or whatever that had just been brought in by, apparently, by a friend of theirs who we neglected to mention they had run into earlier. And then the next thing you see are just, again, more flipping through the channels, very disinterestedly and this is clearly much, much later, long after the zombie threat has been neutralized. But apparently, there are still zombies in the world because we get all these funny gags of there being, like, zombie reality TV shows, people talking about the outbreak. Just as they’re about to say what what they caused of the zombie outbreak, the channel flips again. So we never quite hear that there’s a woman on a, like, a Jerry Springer type talk show saying, I know it’s crazy, but I still love him, and it’s it’s it’s the I’m married to my zombie husband episode. Just some silly stuff. But here we are back in Sean’s apartment and it’s much, much cleaner and he’s there with Liz, so they’re back together and they’re just talking about, what are we gonna do today? Her, response to him, it basically mirrors what his response would normally be to her, which is essentially this is a do nothing and a lays around kind of day.   And he says Right. That’s perfectly fine with me. 

Craig:  And then he says, do you mind if I head out to the shed for just a minute? And she kinda gives him a cute flirty smile, and she says, that’s fine. And he goes out there, and I figured this was what was gonna happen. But, he walks into the shed, and he sits down, and he picks up a game controller. And sitting right next to him, chained up very heavily is zombie Ed. And that’s and there’s a little joke where Ed tries to bite him, and he just kind of chastises him like, no, Ed. But then they just sit and play video games together like they had before. And it’s, you know, it’s it’s stupid, you know, but it’s it’s it’s kinda sweet, and it’s a a charming way to end the movie. I just really like it overall, and I think that most people do.  

I mean, it’s got a 92% fresh, rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It did pretty well. You know, I think that, people still reference this movie and talk about it a lot. There was some talk at some point about doing a sequel, and they even tentatively had a title, Shaun of the Dead 2: From Dusk till Shaun, which I actually think is really clever. But I guess, in the end, the writers decided that they were just really, really pleased with what they had done as a standalone film, and they decided just kinda let, Todd enough alone. And, as far as I know, there are no plans at this point for a sequel. And again, that’s a position I feel like I’ve talked about this before. That’s a position that I really kinda respect. 

Craig:  If you’ve done something good and you know it and, you know, why risk sullying that if you don’t have to? You know, just let it be what it is. And it’s not like they’re not still doing stuff. They’ve done, you know, the writing team, the actors, they’ve gone on to do other stuff together. Not horror, just, you know, comedies, but they’re all doing very well and I’m I’m happy for them. This, you know, it’s it’s a good movie, and, they deserves the recognition for it. 

Todd:  Oh, absolutely. I wouldn’t wanna mess with a good thing like this either. I think this was Simon Pegg’s it wasn’t the first thing he did, obviously. He was in British television and doing things otherwise, but I feel like this is the thing that put him on the map to the rest of, to the American audience anyway, and he started getting much bigger roles after this. And continuing to do writing, he’s really turned out really well from this. And, honestly, I part of the reason I think I hadn’t seen this and I took taken so long to see this is I really thought this was just gonna be another dumb horror comedy, and not that there’s anything wrong with that. I do enjoy dumb horror comedies, but this one really stands out. I mean, this, what makes this work is it’s a comedy first.   It’s a horror movie second, and it never stops being a zombie movie, which is great. It just strikes that right balance. But I think what I’m saying is the movie manages to be funny without poking fun at the genre. It’s not a horror comedy that’s making fun of horror movies. It’s not making fun of zombie movies really. It has, you know, it does play with the tropes a little bit, but not overly so. The most it really does is just reference a lot of others zombie movies. The the comedy in this movie comes from the actual interactions between the characters, and, that is a tough feat to pull off.   It is a tough to restrain yourself, to make that kind of a horror comedy because it’s not normally what we see. You’ve got scary movie on one far end of it. You know, we did student bodies recently. Again, all the comedy from that comes from poking fun at the genre. This movie really doesn’t do it much. It’s more about the people, it’s about their relationships, we care about the people, we find humor in their relationships, and they’re just stressed with a difficult situation that happens to be zombies. So there’s some comedy to be mined from that, but then there’s just the comedy to be mined from pushing these people together and forcing them to work through this. And it just fires on all cylinders.   I mean, I I don’t usually gush about a movie like this, but I came away from this going, wow, I will be seeing this again multiple times. It is that good. 

Craig:  Yeah. And that’s how I feel about it too. I mean, it’s not just a good horror movie. It’s just a good movie. And I think that anybody who, you know, likes, you know, just filmmaking and cinematography and storytelling in general can appreciate this even if they may not be the biggest horror fans. I think that there are people who may not be big fans of the genre, but could still very much enjoy this film. 

Todd:  Absolutely. Absolutely. 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 Stitcher and Google Play. Also, we wanna thank Dan Tucker for his recommendations. This is a great movie. Thank you, Dan.   I wish I could’ve watched it with you. If you have a recommendation of a film you’d like us to watch, please let us know on our Facebook, channel, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. Just search us, and you should be able to find us there. Until next time. I’m Todd 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Better late than never…This week’s tardy entry is another Italian giallo pic by horror master Dario Argento. It also happens to be both his first and perhaps most accessible feature film – so popular in Italy that it played at a single theater in Milan for several years.

Episode 69, 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, we decided to go back to the giallo genre, which is, something that we visited, oh, sometime last year, I guess. Craig, I think I introduced you to this, type of film, did I not? 

Craig:  Yep. Yep. 

Todd:  And it is an Italian style of film, was very popular during the early seventies, late sixties, and this arguably is one of the films that really set it off. It’s called The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, and it’s Dario Argento’s debut film. And, compared to the other giallo pictures, I think it’s maybe the most accessible, maybe the most conventional. Cielo pictures, for those who hadn’t heard our previous podcast, giallo means yellow in Italian, and that’s a reference to the covers that these cheap pulp detective novels used to be, printed. They used to be printed yellow, basically, so that you could see them on the shelf, they’d be they’d jump out at you. And so these films are in the same vein, in many times, actually based off of stories in these cheap crime novels that would have lots of sex and violence and usually some kind of detective story along with it. This is a story about a killer. Like I said before, I think in the the previous one that we saw, which was, Deep Red, which was also by Dario Argento, that being his more popular one, this one has a lot less violence.   It’s it’s not as gory as the other one, and, also, it has a plot that makes sense, I think. What do you think compared to the other one? 

Craig:  Yeah. Compared to the other one, sure. I would say that this one’s a little bit more straightforward, kinda crime procedural. In fact, I I don’t know. I I almost think it’s a little bit of a stretch to call it horror. I think that this would fall more neatly into the category of mystery thriller. There’s like you said, there’s not a lot of graphic violence. There’s some, but most of it is, implied.   There’s a little bit of blood. I don’t think does this have an American rating? I couldn’t tell. 

Todd:  I don’t know. I’m sure it does, but I no. I I I couldn’t find anything. 

Craig:  Because I would say, you know, PG PG 13. I mean, this is pretty tame stuff. I mean, especially yeah. It was 1970, so there were different sensibilities and what then, but, based on stuff that you would just see on prime time television in America today, this is very tame in terms of, violence and blood and, sex and and all of those things. 

Todd:  He does really seem to be holding it back here a bit. There’s there’s at least one scene in here that I would say is probably would thrust it into the PG 13, if if not, maybe into the R section. So I think it’s the second victim, that gets a little sexual and a little, suggestive there. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  There’s no nudity, but it’s it’s almost nudity because what she’s wearing is so see through, and the killer starts kind of cutting her clothes off. But yeah, you’re right. Aside from that, he really holds it back here. I think, of course, this being his first movie, maybe that’s what he was doing, but we know that later on, Dario does a few more giallo pictures as well as, some more straight conventional horror pictures like Suspiria, and those are really well known for their depictions of violence as the whole jalo genre becomes. When this film came out in 1970, this film was so successful that it actually played at the theater in Milan for, like, over 3 years, and it spawned a ton of copycat pictures, a ton of them. And again, that’s why it’s really it really kicks off the Jell O genre. Another thing that’s interesting about this movie that is good, especially to introduce people into this who may not be familiar and who might be a little hesitant, to come into these kind of pictures is that it Todd, an American actor. And while these pictures, like a lot of Italian movies of this of this day and age, a lot of westerns came out of Italy around this time, tend to be shot fairly cheaply, which means that often there’s not onset sound recording.   So most of the sound and dialogue gets dubbed in later, which can lead to a really strange effect. Even though you have, people speaking, English, or in the case of many of the Italian actors, they’re speaking English phonetically, but if you could actually hear what they were saying, it would probably sound horrible. But then, of course, they’d be dubbed in later by people who could speak better English. So mouths wouldn’t quite match up, and, you know, it would have that sort of dubbed feel even though you could tell while they’re still speaking the same language. Plus, sometimes the acting of the voice actor, just clearly something’s off. It doesn’t quite seem to match the acting of the person on the screen, you know, if that makes sense visually. The sound doesn’t quite match it visually. It leads to something you kind of have to get used to and you kind of have to overlook when you’re watching a lot of Italian films from this era.   This film, I think, doesn’t really have that problem. I mean, it’s still clear from the way the quality of the audio and the way that it is that the set most of the sound wasn’t recorded on set, but the dubbing is fantastic. And it seems like most of the actors in here probably did their own voices after the fact. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s a I I mean, you notice right away, and I expected it. You know, I knew that it was an Italian film, so I expected it to be dubbed, or for there to be subtitles. But, you know, as soon as they started talking, it was very clear that the actors were actually they were mouthing the words in English. You could tell. And even though it was dubbed, I agree with you. It wasn’t distracting. It didn’t take me long to get used to it at all.   I mean, within a a couple of minutes, I kinda forgotten. You just, I don’t know, you just kinda roll with it and kinda forget, and it wasn’t I didn’t find it distracting at all. 

Todd:  Yeah. It also leads to a really interesting aesthetic, which is, again, where I’m gonna gush over it again like I normally do with these kind of movies because I love them so much. They’re such a guilty pleasure of mine. But one of the aesthetics about watching one of these films that appeals to me is the sound design. And when you have this where the sound is recorded after the fact, they don’t seem to take a lot of interest in adding in incidental sounds, like the sounds of rustling through the papers, or the sounds of the guy walking through the apartment, or just the the kind of normal tiny little sounds that that you overlook, but you notice when they’re missing. And Right. All you hear is dialogue and everything else is fairly quiet. And that’s something that I think in some cases, particularly in some scenes, really adds to the atmosphere and the feel of these movies.   And this movie works with sound in kind of an interesting way as well. 

Craig:  Yeah. And it’s also got an interesting score, behind it a lot of the time. It’s like, if I remember correctly now I’ve only seen it once, so I I may not remember as well as you do, but, there was a lot of, like, a capella voices singing in the background, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t songs. It wasn’t that, like, they were singing songs with lyrics. It was just, like, lots of la la las and and stuff like that, and it did add kind of a spooky atmospheric feel to it. And and it was it was different. And, I don’t really know how I feel about it. I mean, it was it just kind of I was like, wow.   This is weird music for the background of this, but it did make it kind of spooky. And I don’t I don’t know. It just kinda made me a little bit uncomfortable, which I think is good for this type of movie. 

Todd:  Yeah. The score in this film was done by Ennio Morricone. I might not be saying that right, but, I mean, he did a ton of scores for even American films. He’s very popular at this time. Maybe, his big American crossover at this time was, I think, score for Romeo and Juliet. He he did a a lot of really good music, and, this is a little different from from what he had been doing before. He dives a little bit into jazz. He he goes into a little bit of, I would know, slightly new agey for the time, some stuff that’s very recognizable as seventies type stuff.   Later, Dario Argento would enlist the help of Goblin, which is a sort of progressive rock band of the era who would do a lot of his other scores. And it’s interesting. It almost feels like they might have watched this movie first to get an idea of what he was after and copied some elements of it for his later films. Because, for example, like the Suspiria soundtrack especially, that has a lot of the voices kind of going. It has one of the creepiest soundtracks, I think, in horror history where Goblin, they’re just going 

Craig:  That yeah. I mean, it’s it’s not it’s not that kind it it’s almost like it sounds almost like children in the background or or it’s it’s higher in pitch. 

Clip:  Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  But it is exactly, you know, what you were just doing. That’s the type of thing that I remember hearing in the background here. And it’s it’s different and not really like much that I’ve heard before, but it has an interesting effect, and so that’s cool. 

Todd:  It is cool. Well, again, saying that this movie is very conventional, it’s gonna be a really easy movie to break down, I think, much easier than Deep Red was, which really goes off on tangents of unbelievably as far as how the detective puts things together and figures it out. There are tons of leaps of, like, how did they get from here to there? And then also just straight out coincidences, like he’s looking through a book, and something he sees in the book leads him to a building. I mean, it was just weird stuff. And a lot of the giallo movies are really like that. They’re a little more interested in atmosphere than they are with plot. But this movie is very well plotted, I thought, at least in comparison. And it’s well filmed.   It starts out with a woman walking and we see that she’s walking down the street and the credits are rolling, But in the meantime, there’s occasionally, like, the screen freezes like a snapshot, and you can tell that we’re looking through the eyes of who is going to be the killer, who’s taking photos of this woman as she walks. And the next shot is of his hands selecting a knife. And this is again Right. 

Craig:  Very I Gloved hands. 

Todd:  Yeah. Exactly. We talked about this the last time. Right? Mhmm. That it’s something that Dario may have started, but it’s something that was picked up by a lot of the other Giallo directors, and that is that, there’s a lot of killer POV stuff, and there’s even lots of shots of the killer doing his or her thing in between, the detective work, but we never see their face, of course. But what we often see are black gloves and even like a black, like, leather jacket or slicker or something that they’re wearing, which is convenient because then you can’t really tell if it’s a male or female. And, the killer is selecting a a dagger from, like he’s got, like, a a menu, I guess, of of daggers that he likes to use for his murders. But it’s it’s a stylish effect.   It’s really cool. And, well, a little bit of trivia about, our director here is that he always insists on playing the killer’s hands, in the in the movie. That’s funny. It’s always him, so it it is a little weird. Actually, it’s kind of weird when you think about it. He’s never really said why, which just makes him seem a little creepier. But 

Craig:  I I maybe it was maybe it’s just for convenience. I mean, you know, like 

Todd:  Could be. 

Craig:  He doesn’t have to worry about, you know, directing an actor. He just gets what he wants and and can move on. 

Todd:  That’s true. Well, as she’s, after that shot, we get a scene of a man, and he’s talking with a friend of his. His name is Sam, and he is an American in Italy, talking with a guy named Carl, who’s a friend of his. 

Clip:  I was going through kind of a bad period, a little short on inspiration. Go to Italy, he said, waxing poetic. You need peace, tranquility. That’s Italy. Inspirational come to you. Nothing ever happens in Italy. May he roast 

Todd:  in hell. 

Clip:  So anyway, I came here. I believed him. Toward the country, saw all the monuments, then spaghetti, wine, the atmosphere. Great. Only I’m dead broke. I haven’t written a line in 2 years. 

Craig:  Did he say something in that scene about that he wrote pamphlets about the preservation of rare birds? Or did I just make that up in my mind? 

Clip:  Slam Dallas, great hope of American Carl? 

Todd:  Yeah. I’m it 

Craig:  about Carl? 

Todd:  Good for Carl and his bird thing. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  So Sam is walking home, and it’s nighttime by now. And, I love this shot. And this is what actually makes the movie for me. I just think this is a really clever, creative, kill scene, even though it turns out there’s no kill happening. He walks by a large it’s like a museum, and the entire face of the storefront, I guess, of this museum is glass. And as he’s walking by, he sees a struggle happening. There’s, kind of a loft in there. It’s very well lit and that’s one creepy thing about this whole scene, I think, is that it’s completely dark outside.   There doesn’t seem to be anybody else on the street, although there could be, except for Sam. And this museum is extremely well lit and bright. It’s paint it’s like white all around the inside, and except for the giant creepy artwork statues that are in there, you can’t help but see what’s happening in here. And what’s happening is there’s a killer with a hat on and, like, probably a mask and a shiny kind of vinyl jacket and black pants and everything and gloves, and he is struggling with a woman, and there’s a knife between them. She ends up, stabbed, and she comes stumbling down the steps as the killer leaps off and runs away. In the meantime, Sam is trying to get in. He could see this happening right in front of him, but he can’t do anything about it. So he’s banging on the window.   He he opens the door and finds a way into the the door, but there’s another it’s like, there’s another glass partition there in another door that he can’t get into. And so he watches this whole thing play out in front of him. He’s totally helpless to stop it. And, at this point, the victim, who’s the woman, is just crawling towards him. He’s she’s bloody. He even turns around and is trying to yell for help, but, there’s a guy who walks by and kind of looks in and he’s more focused on Sam than what’s going on inside because Sam’s banging on the window and he’s yelling, but on the other side, it’s like the guy can’t hear because he can’t hear through the glass and kind of walks on. So here’s Sam trapped between 2 planes of glass hoping to try to get the police’s attention, and finally, he just slumps against the wall, and it turns out the police do show up. Maybe the guy found somebody or or put the 2 together or whatnot, but the police do show up a few moments later.   And there, they find Sam with this woman, ostensibly dead, laying down on the floor inside. 

Craig:  I gotta say, this was a weird scene. Now I liked it too. I liked the fact that, the the action was so framed, you know, just up against this white wall. And I knew, having seen, the other one that we watched, Todd Red, that this was gonna be significant, that, Sam can’t I mean, he he can he can see what’s going on, but at first, he’s on the other side of the street. So there’s, like, buses going by between him and the storefront, and, we’re just kinda getting flashes of what’s happening. And eventually, he gets closer, and he kind of, you know, he sees the end of the struggle, and he sees the guy run away. And I and it becomes a plot point that he I feel like he even says that, I know that I saw what I needed to see to solve this mystery, but I just can’t remember what it was. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  And the same thing was true in Deep Red. We knew that the investigator, whoever that was, whoever was the person doing the investigating in that movie, we knew that they had seen and that we had probably seen the key that was gonna solve this thing. And so I was watching really closely knowing there there’s gonna be something in this scene that’s gonna be, you know, the the tip-off. And as it turns out, there is. I I don’t know if that’s a trademark of his, if that’s kind of, is that common in these movies? 

Todd:  It is. It is common. I mean, it’s not in all of them, but it is a common thing. And and Argento himself does like to do this where he likes to frame the plot around the the man who gets thrust into it, you know, character, which there always is one. It’s sort of like, the man who knew too much, you know, over and over again. Right. Having seen something and having to eventually, the clue comes out of his mind. Right? It’s all something something visual that he needs to remember, which is, you know, it’s a convenient way to do it because at any point in the movie, no matter how the investigation is going, the guy can, oh, yeah, see something and remember it, which then brings the brings it to a close.   Right? 

Craig:  Right. And that’s the thing, like, I wouldn’t call it a criticism, but it’s almost frustrating as a viewer knowing that, like, just figure it out. Why do we have to go through all of this to get to the answer when I know that at the end you’re just gonna remember? And, like, that’s gonna be the thing that tips it off. Now here, arguably, you know, there’s something that happens at the end that sparks the memory, and and that makes sense. It’s not nonsensical, but just knowing that all of the evidence is there, it just, I don’t know, it’s frustrating to me. I’m like, Get there faster. 

Clip:  We should be able to figure this out. 

Todd:  But, you know, for me And the other It’s almost like an encyclopedia Brown story. You know, where part of the fun of reading it is knowing that you should have all the clues, to piece it together. You just you yourself can’t remember. You know, you yourself can’t figure out what it was that you saw. 

Craig:  I feel like when we were kids, there was a TV show or or or something where they would do this. There would be some mystery, and at some point in the story, they would pause and say, You have all the clues you need now. Like, I don’t know, maybe it was like a video board game or something, but, it’s that type it’s that type of thing where, alright, you’ve got all the clues. Put it all together. And it is fun. It is fun to try to put this stuff together. So it’s not a criticism. It’s just kind of an observation.   The other thing about this scene, and this was weird throughout, and again, I don’t know for me, and I don’t know if this is just the style, but there’s a lot this scene, like, after the killer has run away, it’s pretty long. He’s trying to get people’s attention, and he keeps looking at this woman, and this woman is just slowly like, first, she’s kind of stumbling around, and then she falls on the ground. And, like, I couldn’t even tell at first if she was stabbed because there wasn’t very much blood. Eventually, you see that there is blood, but she’s kind of writhing on the floor and crying and moaning, and it goes on for a while. And that happens at other points in the movie too. There’s one of the kills. I think it was the one that you, referenced earlier, where the the girl is almost partially nude. When the killer comes in to kill her, she’s laying in bed, and he’s standing there, and she just screams and then just lays there and continues to, like, scream and moan.   Like, she doesn’t jump up, she doesn’t try in any way to defend herself. The killer just, like, kind of approaches her and starts messing with her, and she just lays there moaning and crying. 

Clip:  And 

Craig:  then there’s another there’s another scene nearer towards the end of the movie where Sam’s girlfriend is in peril. Somebody the killer is trying to break into her apartment, and she just does a lot of laying on the floor and crying. Like like, this killer’s trying to break in, and she’s just, like, laying on the floor crying. I’m like, girl, you need to, like, get a knife or, you know, something. I mean, to be fair, she does try to escape, and it’s the fact that she can’t get out that that makes her so upset. But I’m I I just kept, like, asking the TV, what good is are you doing laying there on the floor crying? Like, you’re just waiting for the killer to get in to get to you. So I don’t know if that’s just, you know, typical of the genre or what, but it for me, it was almost humorous. And that was something else that I wanted to ask you because I know that you’re a fan of this movie and have seen it a bunch of times.   There are so many moments where really silly things happen. Like for example, when the police do arrive, the main inspector is named, Inspector Morris Sr. Or something like that. And they come in and they’re all standing around this woman on the floor. They haven’t moved her, they haven’t turned her over, nothing, and they’re just standing there around her and the inspector goes, it wouldn’t appear to be serious. Like like, she’s just stabbed on the floor, not moving. We haven’t, like, assessed her really in any way, but it doesn’t look like it’s that 

Clip:  bad. Like, 

Craig:  I I really got the feeling at several points during this movie that it was trying to intentionally be funny. Oh. Am I right? 

Todd:  Undoubtedly so. Yeah. There there are moments of flat out, yeah, humor, and and some of it falls flat, some of it’s a little bizarre, and some of it hits the bar. But you’re right. I I think it’s clear, yeah, that that he’s he’s trying to inject some humor into the proceedings, which is a little different actually from some of his other films in that one thing that I think makes his movies so stark is the bleakness of them in in many ways. This sort of, I don’t want to say nihilistic, but just kind of a, yeah, bad things are happening and there’s really nothing funny about it and we’re just gonna keep showing you bad things, which is something that you find a lot in Asian horror, you know, that that we that we expect, I think, in western horror, which is we always inject a little bit of comedy, a little bit of winking, something in there to kind of soften the blow, I think, a little bit of this type of subject matter that we’re doing. Here, it seems like he’s trying to cop an American style in some ways. I feel like, that that’s maybe what he’s doing.   There’s a lot about this movie, I think, that that feels like he’s intentionally trying to make it a marketable film worldwide by making a little more Hollywood conventional, and that’s one of the things I think is sticking the humor in. 

Craig:  Well, it makes sense and apparently it worked because like you said, it was so popular for so long, and it has a really big following, I guess, even people today, which I gotta say, you know, this is one of those things. I know you’re a huge fan of the genre, and I I don’t wanna disparage it in any way. It’s just not really my cup of tea. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  But, the, the I I appreciated the humor. I thought it was really silly in some parts. But I found myself, you know, cracking a smile and even laughing out loud a couple of times. And so for somebody who’s not a huge fan of the genre anyway, that was kind of, refreshing to me. 

Todd:  Yeah. I agree. Now what about about the girl rioting, I feel like in this case, at least, the girl really had no choice. She’d been stabbed already. She really didn’t have anything to do but but collapse, try her best to reach out. But in any case, we do kind of assume that she’s dead until the detectives come in and assess one way or another that she’s going to live, and they take her out of here. So it’s not really a murder that we watched. It was more of an attempted murder.   But again, it’s not like he came by in the nick of time, unless he was the one who was able to attract the police’s attention. He wasn’t much help to her. Right? And I think 

Clip:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  And I think that’s what, you know, would get under your skin if you were a guy in this situation. And I think that just the way that the the shot is that it’s framed with that glass wall, it’s like the 4th wall there. You can do nothing about it. You can’t cross it. All you can do is watch in helplessness. And that’s what I like about this scene. It’s just the way that it’s visually and and conceptually set up that way. I would hate to be a guy in this particular situation. 

Craig:  Oh, sure. Sure. Yeah. Oh, I like that. I thought it was effective too. I just thought that it was kind it, like, it lingered kind of for a strangely long time, on it. I I I don’t know. Maybe that was, you know, just kinda build the suspense or the dread and and, you know, it’s fine.   This woman who was stabbed, we find out her name was Monica. She and her husband well, I guess her husband owns this gallery, and her husband, Alberto, shows up, pretty much right away as soon as the cops show up, which to me made him suspicious right from the beginning. Yeah. But I also thought if it was him and he’s shady throughout, like and I feel like Argento or or whomever, you know, kinda goes out of his way to make this guy shady throughout. And, you know, there’s some payoff there in the end, but, I I wasn’t really sure what to make of it because after this, anytime you see Alberto and Monica together, it almost seems as though he’s trying to keep her from talking with the investigators. Like, he’s keeping her very sheltered, and so you wonder, is he maybe in some way, involved in this? But anyway, Sam, the police are interested in Sam because he was the only one there on the scene, and because he was virtually trapped there. I mean, somehow he had gotten locked in that kind of, I don’t know what you call it, lobby or vestibule right outside the gallery. So the police kind of think that maybe he’s a suspect, maybe he stabbed her and then he tried to run away, but he had gotten caught.   And so they take away his, passport, and that’s what, keeps him there because he had been planning to go. 

Clip:  You’re out of your mind. You can’t just grab a foreign citizen and accuse him of murder. No one’s accusing you. Giving me the 3rd degree. It’s illegal. I want to call my consulate right now. Go ahead. Call anyone you want.   Call the president of the United States. 

Craig:  And that’s also what kind of motivates him to try to wanna find out who the actual killer is so that he can get out of Italy with his girlfriend, Julia, as they had planned. But when the police are questioning him, we kinda get the backstory. There have been 3 unexplained murders, all women, so the police believe that there’s a dangerous maniac at large, and and now Sam is potentially a suspect. They they do a lineup, for him to see if he can because he says that he didn’t get a good look at the guy, but they they keep they keep saying, keep trying to remember, try to remember, and they question him over and over and over again. And finally, they, have him look at a lineup. And this is another one of those parts that was so funny. For the lineup, the the inspector says, bring out the perverts. And these these guys these guys come walking across the stage behind the two way glass, and so we can see them.   And, the last one I thought was a woman, but he goes, hey. Hey. Not her. I I’ve told you. Holga belongs with the transvestites, not with the perverts. I was just cracking up. I thought it was so funny. And then another right after that, they’re talking about all these clues that they have, and somehow they have figured out that based on the evidence, they found a black glove at the scene of the this last crime, the one that, Sam thwarted.   They found a black glove and they analyzed it, and they found, like, residue from cigars. So they know that this guy is left handed and that he smokes cigars. And then I didn’t even really understand what they were doing here. They, like, typed all this information into this computer, and this is a computer in the seventies, so, like, it takes up an entire room. And it’s like, blip blop blip blop. And they’re like, this will give us an explanation of who the killer is. And it, like, prints out this, like, it’s not even a character sketch. It’s all like just zeros and ones.   You know, this is rough outline of like a shady criminal and then some stats underneath it. I I you know, their very advanced technology was helping them with this, but it didn’t really seem to help them all that much. 

Todd:  I I I liked this scene. I felt like it was a charming, like, 19 seventies version of CSI. Like, the computer room that they’re in has is like a total classic computer room with the reel to reel tapes spinning behind them and the guy in the white coat who’s running the computer and all that. And they’re doing as best as they can without, you know, DNA at this time. So he does the blood microscopic examination. My impression was that what they were doing was really matching this against a database of known killers, or Gotcha. Of people in the city, because it did spit out that there were 5 people with criminal records that matched this profile, and a 150,000 people in the city that it could match as well, which was, you know, not a lot to go on. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Oh, and there’s a scene between here where he’s walking home and he almost gets hacked with a meat cleaver 

Craig:  Oh, right. 

Todd:  Except a woman screams at one point. So we know that he’s kind of in danger as well. 

Craig:  So Sam goes to visit Monica after she’s released from the hospital. She’s the woman who was stabbed, but the husband, Alberto, won’t let him see her. Again, he’s just acting really shady. And then Sam, apparently being, you know, the sleuth that he is, very sneakily tosses Alberto’s cigarettes to him, and Alberto catches it with his left hand. And it’s almost like the the camera lingers there, and Alberto, like, looks at his left hand like, oh, no. I’ve revealed too much. Like it’s it’s 

Clip:  it’s it’s it’s frankly 

Craig:  a little bit heavy handed, but it didn’t bother me because it felt very much like a pulp novel, you know, where they really are kind of not even laying on clues really thick, but you have you wonder if these are clues or if they’re red herrings. And it could go either way, because you’re getting so much, thrown at you. But Sam at this point is becoming obsessed. At one point, he even says, I’m obsessed. 

Todd:  That’s true. 

Craig:  So he and Julia research, the previous victims, and one of them had worked at an antique shop. So Sam goes there. Another really funny scene where the owner of the, antique shop is this older guy who’s, like, flamboyantly gay and is clearly, kind of flirting with Sam and making making Sam uncomfortable. 

Clip:  Oh, good morning. Can I help you? Yes. I’d like to see something here. You’re interested in porcelain. Oh, are you? You have marvelous taste. These pieces are beautiful, simply divine. How much is this one? 300. Oh.   Oh, but I won’t be unreasonable about it. Not with you. 

Craig:  Sam asks about this woman who had been killed, and he said, 

Clip:  lovely girl, but, a little unusual, you know. Oh, well, yes. It was said that she preferred women. Oh, I couldn’t care less. Of course not. I’m no racist, for heaven’s sake. 

Craig:  Oh, gosh. I just thought 

Clip:  it was so funny. 

Craig:  Now, you know, now that we’re going back over it, I’m remembering how many of these parts there were that were really just laughed out loud funny. But he finds out that this woman had sold a painting, that night right before she had left and she had been murdered right after that. And Sam gets a copy of the painting, not a copy really, a photograph, of the painting. And, it it was really difficult for me at first to tell what it was. Eventually, you can see that it’s kind of like this pastoral scene, but down in one, towards the bottom, there’s imagery of a man perpetrating violence against a woman, killing her or something. There’s blood and and stuff. And so he takes it home and hangs it on the wall. I guess he thinks that that’s going to be a clue.   And Julia doesn’t like it, but we get the camera closes up or or zooms in rather on the picture of the painting. And when it zooms up, it or zooms out, excuse me, it colorizes and we see that this painting is actually hanging in the killer’s apartment. So, we know that he’s at least kind of on the right track because things are falling into place. 

Todd:  That’s right. We’d even seen some interstitials here of a girl being scoped out at a racetrack. So more of those photographs being taken of a woman from the killer’s point of view. And from this point now, where we’re in the killer’s apartment, we get, the build up to our next victim. And this is the victim I was talking about earlier. Again, just another random person who’s, who’s coming home, being dropped off at her apartment and walking inside, and going inside, getting undressed. I thought that the whole lead up, the whole build up to this next kill was really stylishly shot, and again, that’s what I love about these films. You get I was almost film noir ish.   You get lots of darkness here. You get close ups of different things. Really well framed scene, I think, here of which is looks like it’s from the killer’s point of view of the girl getting dropped off going into her apartment. And then the shot moves back a little bit and it reveals the killer in the corner. And then about a moment later, you see the woman pass by the window in the top part of her apartment in shadow. Just just really stylish. I know that at the time, Argento was was labeled, the Hitchcock of of Italy at at one point. I don’t know if that’s completely fairly deserved, but it’s things like this, I think, that, is is real deliberate shooting style that, gave him that title.   It’s it’s very Hitchcock y and it’s very reminiscent of that, how Hitchcock would really set up visually these these really elaborate and really stylish scenes, which give you a lot of information and which really unfold the plot visually for you within a single frame. It’s really really good. Mhmm. But yeah. Yeah. 

Craig:  And I think that we see I think that we see kind of hints of that in this movie. I think that his style continue to now again, I’ve only seen this and the other one that we watch, deep red, and I have seen Suspiria. But by the time you get to Suspiria, I think that he had really kind of honed his craft and and much, you know, there was much more of this strong stylized stuff. It’s here, but it’s a little bit few and far between. Yes. I agree with you in this kill scene, and then in the next or one of the other kill scenes. There’s also some really interesting stylized stuff with a woman and a very interesting, staircase and you kinda you can see up and down the staircase and some really neat framing and and stuff there. I I frankly, I would’ve liked to have seen more of it here, but what was what was there was really good and and interesting to to watch. 

Todd:  Yeah. You’re right. It it it pops into this when there’s something interesting going on. Otherwise, it’s it’s pretty pedestrian, you know, shot of this guy talking to this guy kinda stuff. You’re right. 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  The kill here, the woman, like you said, is kind of laying there on the bed in her in her very skimpy negligee when the killer comes in. It doesn’t seem to put up much of a struggle. He Todd of gets on top of her, puts his hand over her mouth, and then, with her arm still to her side, again, you think she’d be fighting back in some way, shape or form here, he cuts her negligee open and then goes down to her panties, and cuts those as well and tears them off. And the way it’s done, it’s, I think it’s extremely uncomfortable, especially Knives around genitals, you know, just all that penetration imagery here. It kind of looks like, in many ways, an implied rape scene, but Yes. But it’s not gross. It does cut away before we see anything happen. 

Craig:  It does, and I was expecting sexual violence, and that always makes me uncomfortable, in in film period, but it doesn’t go that far. It’s just it’s sort of implied, you know, that with with the ripping off of the clothes, but that’s as far as it goes. And then, well, I mean As far as we know. That he kills her. Yeah. Yeah. Right. 

Todd:  So at this point, it’s clear that Sam is not the the killer here. And so Right. He, the detective visits his apartment, says, look, we had another murder here. Can you be of any more help? Please come back to the station. And he basically just asked him the same thing. I know you saw something. I know you said something. Can you remember what it was? But really, it’s just a last ditch effort to get something more out of Sam Todd try to jog his memory.   And when it doesn’t happen, he hands him his passport back and says, look, here you go. Basically, Sam is free to go. And I love this point in the movie. It’s an interesting turn where Sam is now so obsessed with this that he decides to stick around. And that really this is the point at which the relationship this is another thing I like about this movie is I think there’s a nice kind of cute relationship between Sam and the detective. It’s this professional but also friendly. They joke around a little bit here and there. They seem to lean on each other.   It’s not this kind of movie where the police are bumbling idiots and it’s up to this, you know, one guy to solve the Craig, And it’s also not a case of where the police are hostile towards him for any kind of reason, that that maybe he’s still under suspicion or whatnot. But there’s just really a friendly, collaborative relationship that develops between these two guys that that I really liked. 

Craig:  Sure. Sure. 

Todd:  Sam, ends up saying well, the the the detective says, is there anything I can do for you? And Sam says, well, I would really like to see this prostitute’s pimp. There was a prostitute, who was one of the it was another one of the victims, and he said that can be arranged because the guy’s in jail. So he goes to visit this guy in jail, and here’s another element of humor I think you’re talking about. Yeah. This guy is is weird. He’s weird looking and he has this weird tick. He has trouble talking, kind of Tourette’s maybe, like sort of a Tourette’s syndrome. 

Craig:  Well, he calls it a stutter and he does stutter, but he also punctuates nearly every sentence with so long. 

Clip:  Yeah. She was my girl so long. Where are you going? You you said so long? I always say that. I if I don’t, I start. Oh, I see. What do you want to know? I’m trying to help, trying to help the police find the killer. That’s good, sir. 

Craig:  As far as I know, that’s not really a thing, unless it is Tourette’s, but it’s funny. And he he is weird looking and comically so. And he even says something like, do I look like a pimp? And I’m like, yeah. You look exactly like a fib. So, yeah, it’s funny. I and I feel like he doesn’t really get much, information out of that guy. But then there’s a weird I have written in my notes. I have no idea what’s going on here because we know that the inspector is having someone tail Sam, and Sam knows it too.   It’s it’s it’s for his safety. And at one point, he and Julia are walking down the street together and the tail is behind them, walking behind them, And this car comes around the corner and runs down the bodyguard and starts chasing after Sam and Julia. And I feel like Sam gets around a corner and stashes Julia somewhere, and he keeps running. And eventually, the guy who’s driving gets out and starts chasing him. And I had no idea what was going on because we see this guy’s face clearly. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And and I thought, are are are they now revealing who the murderer is to us? I mean, the murderer has been taunting the police at this point. He’s been calling and saying there will be more the killer has completely been shrouded in mystery, and I was really confused as to what was going on here. And there’s this long chase scene through, like, the streets and then, like, a big parking lot full of buses, and then eventually they kind of they kind of run out into public and Sam sees some other people and says, there’s a guy following me. And, everybody, you know, kinda looks around, and he turns around, and the guy is there, but the guy just turns around and starts walking away. And then he starts following the guy, and they end up, like, at this hotel. And this guy is wearing this really distinctive yellow jacket. And so he he follows him into this hotel and he asks the bellhop, have you seen a guy in a yellow jacket and a blue cap? And the guy’s like, oh yeah, he’s in there. So Sam goes and he opens he starts to open these sliding doors, and he sees the yellow jacket right in front of him.   But when he opens it further, it’s like this whole convention of these guys in these yellow jackets, and apparently it’s like a convention of ex prizefighters or something. And he never does find the guy that was following him. I still am confused as to what was going on there. I I feel like maybe we have to get to the end of the big reveal before you can explain it, but will you be able to explain that to me? Because I was I was really confused. 

Todd:  Well, I think what happened here is that that the car that was that ran over the tail and then was chasing after them, that this guy who hopped out of the car was a passenger in the car. So he was somebody that the killer was, like, dropping off, to run after and kill Sam, like a hired thug, basically. 

Clip:  Okay. 

Todd:  Okay. Because he says something into the car and the car speeds off. You’re right. You’ve got to know the minute you can see his face, you know, okay, we’re not dealing with the killer here, but he’s definitely in danger. I like this scene, I it is a long chase scene, it is maybe a little too long and it’s maybe a little unbelievable at times, but again it’s just shot with some serious style, and I love at this point the music behind it. There’s this it really turns into this great jazz score, very cool. As he’s chasing him around and, really what this is, is it’s just another device to move along the Todd, because Sam Sam actually goes back to the pimp and explains what happened, and here is where the pimp can help him out. He’s like, oh, yeah, these guys, these prizefighters or whatever, you need to talk to this guy named Feina, and I’ll send him to you.   So Feina Feina comes later. But in between that whole aspect, we get another kill, which is, what you had mentioned earlier about the woman who climbs a style her her cool staircase up to her house, and, she gets caught up with a razor. This is maybe one of the most brutal, I think, of the kills because we actually see more. And also, it’s just kind of brutal anyway. She is coming home to her apartment and then she can’t, the elevator’s not working, so she has to walk up this really long but cool staircase to her apartment, and then about halfway up, the lights go out. So she has to light a match. She’s got like a light or something on her that she has to light in order to see her way up. So it’s all darkness and shadows, and, we know what’s coming, and it’s pretty suspenseful.   When then, on one of these floors, she finally sees the elevator. It’s there and it’s lit, and she’s gonna go inside to try to go the rest of the way up. When she goes inside, the killer’s like right there, and he pulls out a razor, like the kind of razor you’d shave your face with, like a straight razor. 

Craig:  A straight razor, yeah. 

Todd:  And just hacks her. It’s hacking her face up. Oh, again, it’s not super gross, but there are at least 1 or 2 close ups there that we see of the knife cutting her and some blood splattering around, and and it’s just a it’s kind of a brutal thing anyway. 

Craig:  And that leads to another scene, that I was a little bit confused about. So this guy, that the pimp recommended, Fiena, he comes and there’s a little bit of comedy there where he, you know, kind of talks in riddles and stuff. But, eventually he sends Sam to this apartment where Sam finds a syringe 

Clip:  and there’s a dead guy there. I don’t know who that what what what was going on there? 

Todd:  The dead guy was the killer who was chasing him, was the the prizefighter. 

Craig:  Oh, okay. 

Todd:  Yeah. Okay. Okay. He gives he gives Sam a name, and an address or he gives Sam an address, I think. And he goes to this place. Yeah, and you’re right, it’s kind of in a rundown part of Todd. It almost looks like a bit of a junkyard that somebody set up shop in. And, when he goes inside, finds the syringe.   I’m not sure what the syringe had anything to do with. As far as I can tell, this guy was just hired to get Sam. He doesn’t seem connected to any of the other murders because we’ve seen the other murders, and this guy’s not involved. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  But I don’t know if it’s something about taking drugs or whatnot. But, anyway, you’re right. And that was really kinda cool too because anytime a guy’s wandering around an empty apartment, you do expect somebody eventually to jump out at him or something like that, and instead, what happens is this dead body is kind of flopped down in this pretty spooky position. So clearly, what’s happened here is the killer has offed this guy before he can say anything, to Sam because Okay. You know, he failed. Alright. So, as you mentioned earlier, the the killer is taunting the police a little bit in that he’s made at least one phone call, to the detective, which they recorded. He also makes a phone call to Sam and actually it says Sam he needs to lay off or he’s going to basically kill his girlfriend, Julia.   So Sam gets threatened, but he also is, prescient enough to record that as well. So that we go back again to this this awesome high-tech 19 seventies computer room, where they’ve been doing the voice analysis on the 2 phone recordings. And, the best that they could come up with from here is that there are 2 different people behind the recordings. Even though this person was using a voice changer, and even to the viewers, this sounds exactly the same, he shows him an oscilloscope and talks about vocal ranges and blah blah blah blah blah blah. At the end of the day, he’s convinced that these were actually 2 different phone calls. The other thing was that in the beginning in the cops phone call, he had heard something in the background, some kind of noise that he couldn’t make out. Nobody clearly knew what it was, and he had asked their technician to analyze it. And the technician had said, we’ve compared it against database recordings of like millions of things from construction sites to all this stuff, and we still can’t figure out what that sound is in the background.   So we’re going to keep looking. 

Craig:  Right. Right. And Sam also plays it for for his friend from the beginning of the movie. Was it Carl? Is that his name? 

Clip:  Yep. 

Craig:  Yeah. He also plays it for that friend, and the friend says, gosh, that’s really familiar. I I can’t place what it is, but I I know I can figure it out. And so, we figure that’s probably gonna be pretty significant. Then there’s a little, side Sam kinda goes No. He’s still interested in that. Now Oh, sorry. Go ahead. 

Todd:  Real quick. That bit with Carl, I thought also was another interesting cast some suspicion on somebody because in that scene as Carl’s sitting and listening to the thing, we see that he’s smoking cigars and he sees and and they make kind of a deal out of the fact that he wants to take the tape. Right? I mean, you want you wanna think that it’s it’s it’s because he’s trying to help his friend, but he also takes the tape and walks away and it kinda lingers on that fact. So there was a point here which I thought, that would be that would be a very jello thing to do to bring in this guy that we’ve only seen, like, once or twice before who seems like a total ancillary character and somehow try to connect him with 

Craig:  this. Sure. Sure. Yeah. I I kinda miss that. Well, and it would make sense. It’s a good red herring because this guy seems really friendly, so you wouldn’t expect him. So if it had turned out that it was him, that would have been a good twist.   Not that the twist isn’t Todd. It is, but it’s not Carl. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  But so, Sam is still interested in this painting. So he finds out who painted it and he goes to visit this artist, this, Berto Consalvi or something like that. And this whole scene, it’s a funny scene because it’s this eccentric artist who, like, keeps cats because he eats them, but it doesn’t really advance the plot very much except for that it gets Sam away from Julia. And so we get a scene where the killer comes and is is trying to get into Sam’s apartment where Julia is, but at the last minute, Sam, arrives and the killer runs away. And this really is where things start to become clear because Carl figures out what the sound on the tape is. 

Clip:  I think I finally figured out what that creaking sound is.   Sam, it’s very peculiar. What is it? It’s the call of Hornetus Nivalis, a magnificent bird with long white feathers that look like glass. What’s so strange about it? Well, the only place in the world that bird can live is Northern Siberia. Are you sure? Positive. In any case, it’s almost impossible to keep one of those birds alive in captivity. In fact, there’s only one specimen in the whole of Italy. 

Craig:  And conveniently, only 1, and it’s at the local zoo. 

Clip:  So 

Craig:  they go to the zoo. They they see this bird, and, Sam immediately realizes that the apartments right above this bird’s enclosure is the apartment of the couple from the beginning, Monica and Alberto. And so he thinks that they’ve got it figured out. They go up there. He’s got the police with him, and Monica and Alberto are, in fact, struggling with one another, again. And somehow, I feel like Monica gets away, and the police and Sam, the inspector and Sam are struggling with Alberto at the window, and Alberto falls out the window. They’re able to catch him momentarily, and he’s dangling out the window saying, please help me. I don’t wanna die.   I don’t wanna die. But they can’t hold on to him, and he falls probably, like, 5 or 6 stories. And the next thing we see is him down on the ground and the police standing over him and he says, I’m the murderer. I did it. Please take care of my wife. She tried to stop me. I love her. And we think that that’s it.   We the police think that the, murder is solved. It’s a little bit convenient, but, you know, all the clues have logically progressed here. Knowing, however, what little I do know about the genre, I knew there was gonna be a twist. And when Monica goes missing, Sam goes off trying to find her and that’s where the big twist comes. 

Todd:  That’s right. He goes into this building and he’s wandering around in darkness. And, finally, he ends up in an in one room and the lights flip on and it is actually the art gallery. Now they’ve since installed some new art there, including this giant wall that has all these these spikes all over it that’s that’s at the ground floor, but he’s up at the top floor in exactly the same spot that the previous struggle happened and he gets attacked by the person with the knife. He sees Monica and he remembers the knife. This is where he remembers the crucial point, from the scene before. And that is that the knife was pointed in the wrong direction. It wasn’t Sam trying to kill Monica, but it was Monica.   Alberto. It I’m sorry. Alberto. 

Craig:  Right. It wasn’t Alberto. Right? 

Todd:  Yes. It wasn’t Alberto. It was Monica trying to kill Alberto because the knife was pointed in that direction between the 2 of them. So anyway, there’s a bit a bit a bunch of a struggle. They fall down the stairs, they go down, and this giant art piece with all the spikes all over it tips over onto Sam. She pushes it over onto him. And he Mhmm. Thankfully, no.   None of the spikes go through him miraculously. Right. But he’s trapped, under there, and she starts playing with him. But conveniently and, of course, I’m thinking the whole time, you know, again, this is another this is the same place. It’s it’s still a terrible place to kill somebody because you’re completely exposed to the street. But conveniently, at this point, the cops have caught up with him, and they jump in right away, from behind, and they get her. So it’s really the cops coming in and save him at the last minute. 

Craig:  Right. And then, we see the inspector on, a local news program and he explains, you know, once they figure out who it is, he explains what had happened. Apparently, Monica had been assaulted at some point earlier in her life, and, the assault had led her to kind of collapse mentally, and she spent some time, in a hospital or an institution, but but eventually she was deemed sane enough to go back out into the world. And she was fine until, being an art dealer, she had gone to this antique shop and she had seen this painting of a woman being attacked and that had, again, triggered a mental breakdown. And for whatever reason, instead of identifying with her mental snap had caused her to identify with the attacker. And so that had led her to do all of these things and her husband, had found out about it and had tried to control and contain her and cover up for, for her crimes and, and maybe he was the one who hired the hit man to try to kill Sam, to try to get him out of the way, maybe he thought Sam was too much on the trail. But one way or another, Monica ends up in a mental institution and, Sam and Julia fly off to America to live happily ever after. 

Todd:  Yes. Now the the painting at least was the painting of her own assault. Because the one It was? Yeah. You didn’t catch that. The the one thing that 

Craig:  we No. 

Todd:  The one piece of information that we got from the artist over at his house was the origin of the painting. 

Clip:  A maniac. Got Todd of a girl I knew. Tried to cut her up, just Todd him in time, put him in an asylum for life. 

Todd:  And so it was a painting of her own assault that she saw. And that’s Oh, 

Craig:  well, that makes even more sense. 

Todd:  That’s why it triggered her. Yeah. And, of course, being an art dealer, she was a friend of this painter. So 

Clip:  Well, there there you go. That makes perfect sense. 

Todd:  So, yeah, it’s, again, and it makes a lot more sense than, you know, if you dive down this this rabbit hole of giallo pictures, you’re gonna find that most of them don’t neatly play out like you would expect a TV crime drama to play out, and and this one does. A lot of times, there’s such supreme leaps of logic and believability that you just kinda have to go with it. And that’s what I do because Right. I, again, I would not say that this is the best picture I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t tell you why it was so popular for 3 years, except maybe it was the first of its type, really. But I can say that, that I love it just for the style and the watchability. And it’s the beginning of a great career. Freaking love Argento.   Love the stuff he’s done. When you get tired of seeing conventional type horror movies or or mysteries or things, you can always turn to, somebody like him, some foreign director who just by nature of the fact that they’re out of the Hollywood system and in kind of a different world over there, just, I don’t know, just comes up with different ways of filming things, different ways of acting and styling. It doesn’t always work, but I would say it’s always interesting. And for me anyway, it’s always pretty entertaining. 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, I, you know, like I said, not exactly my cup of tea, not my favorite genre, but I do really appreciate, Argento’s style, and I think that he has a really unique style. Maybe, you know, as far as I know, probably his most well known film is Suspiria. And, I’ve only seen that once, but, I was really impressed with the art the artistry, of that movie. Lots of really cool cinematography, excellent use of color, and I think that, he really, you know, he’s he’s established his legacy, and rightfully so because, he brought a lot of interesting things to the table. I know that they have finished, shooting on a remake of Suspiria, which I am both excited and very nervous about because, his style is so unique to him, and I think that it would be something that could so easily be screwed 

Todd:  up. Yeah. 

Craig:  But but I guess we’ll see. 

Todd:  Well, the movie is nothing but style. I mean, there’s very little to it. It’s almost like a big long dream is is is how it’s always sort of felt to me. So it’ll be interesting to see how a remake is gonna is gonna retweak that for a modern audience. Yeah. I’m not looking forward to it. 

Craig:  No. Me either. I’m not. But you know, I’m I’m glad you picked this one for today. It was kind of a nice departure from some of the things that we’ve been doing, lately and I like to shake it up. So, thanks for picking this one. 

Todd:  Thanks, Craig. Alright. Well, thank you again for listening to 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. You can also find us on our website, 2 guys.red40.net, and you can find us on our Facebook page. Please like us there. Again, another great place to share us and another place to start up a conversation with us.   Tell us what you thought of this film, and put in your request for any other films you’d like us to review. Until next time, I’m Todd. 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

This American remake of a hit Japanese horror film kicked off a brief J-Horror remake craze in the early aughts. It’s about a cursed videotape. Remember those? We both seemed to like it a lot better on the second go-round.

Also, shout out to loyal listener, Jordan, for this week’s request. Thank you!

Episode 68, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Today’s movie was a request from Jordan. Jordan, thank you so much for requesting The Ring. This is the, 2002, I believe, American remake of the Japanese film Ringu. Although, it’s actually been in many different forms, besides the Japanese film that came out in 1998 or 1999. There have been, countless other Japanese versions.   I actually have a bit of a history with this movie, Craig, because, I was living in Japan, in 2,001, and people were still talking about this movie, and when I was in the video store looking for things to rent, yes, we did have a VHS player back then. The Ring was there along with, like, The Ring part 2, something called Rahsaan, Ring 0. They had made a lot of different sequels and prequels, and also, like, a television miniseries type version of it, where a girl wanders around topless most of the time. It’s it’s Japan, and they milked this for all it was worth. It was a huge hit all around Asia, and it was based on a novel by an actor, actually, named Koji Suzuki. So I imagine mister Koji Suzuki is sitting real pretty right now 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  With all the money he’s getting from this, because that then we also had some multiple sequels, I think, to this one in the United States as well. Am I right? 

Craig:  Well, I think, there was The Ring 2, and then we have in theaters right now Rings, which is a return to the franchise. I think it’s just those 2 here in the States. 

Todd:  Okay. Wasn’t there one Sadako versus, the person from The Grudge? 

Craig:  Yeah. I think that was in Japan, but that is recent too. I mean, that’s just been within the last few months that that’s come out 

Todd:  as well. Okay. So here they are about, like, man, it’s been almost 20 years, not so much from the US side. I guess it’s only been about 13 years since we’ve last seen a Ring movie, And then they’re rebooting it. It’s so weird. It it’s it’s kind of a thin story in a way. It’s hard to imagine rebooting it, especially because the old one deals so much with old technology, you know, videotapes and whatnot. It’d be interesting to see how they’ve updated it.   Have you seen the new one that’s in the theaters? 

Craig:  I haven’t seen the new one. I’ve read about it a little bit, and I think that that is kind of what they were going for was, trying to expand it into, new technology. I I read a review of it today, and the review was generally positive, and they felt like it did go in some new directions. This particular reviewer felt like it took them a little bit too long to get there, that they were relying a little bit too much kind of on, you know, just the original stuff. But, he this reviewer said that, there is a good payoff in the end that does utilize some new things and, kind of sets it up for potential sequels to move forward in different directions. So I don’t know. I I doubt very much that we’ve seen the end of it. I mean, it’s been a really successful franchise.   This movie did very, very well in theaters. They opened it, early in October to a limited release, and they wanted to just kinda see how it was gonna do, in that limited release. It did very well, and then so they expanded it, moving in closer to Halloween. And it ended up, at the time, being the most successful horror remake of all time. I don’t know if it still holds that title, but it did very well. And and, of course, they moved forward with a sequel immediately. The sequel, I think, also performed very well. It wasn’t received very well well critically, but, yeah, the the franchise has been a big success. 

Todd:  Have you seen the sequel? 

Craig:  I have, but you know what? I don’t remember anything about it. You know, I read reviews and things of it Todd prep preparing for this, and most of the fan reviews and and things that I read were were generally pretty negative. It it didn’t satisfy the public very well as a follow-up. I mean, they ate it up. They paid their money to go see it, but, I think it left people disappointed, which is probably why we’re only now getting a return to it. 

Todd:  I I I’d be curious to know if you saw the Japanese original either, or at least the the big theatrical one that everyone kinda points Todd. Ringu. 

Craig:  Yeah. No. I I haven’t, and I really know very little about it. You know, again, you know, in prepping for this, I was reading different things, and kinda the general consensus that I saw was that the remake was actually somewhat of an improvement. I guess that this film, The Ring, follows the plot and most of the plot details from the original pretty closely, but maybe adds in a few elements that make this even better. Now, of course, I’m reading American reviews. If I were reading Japanese reviews, it might be a different story, but that’s kind of what I’ve heard. Have you seen the original? 

Todd:  Yeah. I have. You know, back that would be back in 2001. I actually got a friend of mine and then one of my one of my high school students over to help translate for us. So we just popped in the videotape, and she sat there between us and was kinda telling us what we needed to know as it was going on. My whole assessment of the original was that it was creepy and then boring for a long time and then creepy again. With a killer ending. And and, honestly, that that’s how one this movie could have turned out, but I think because they added in a lot of smaller elements you’re right.   It does follow the plot, pretty closely, but there are elements of that plot and lots of little ties into the video that they kinda stick in, some a lot more flashback that they stick in, and a lot more little scares kind of along the way that, I think this one is a little bit superior in that. Yeah. And I and, you know, the ending of the original was one of the scariest things I’d seen, in a long time up until that point. We’ve we’ve since superseded that, but I think the ending of this film is also very effective. And I thought, you know, man, they have a they have a quite a baseline standard to hold up to here, when they were doing the American remake of getting an ending that’s as creepy and as scary as the Japanese one, which was done on a pretty low rent way, but very effective. But they sure did. I mean, this the ending of this one, I know we’re gonna get to it, is is great. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you talked about how the original maybe got a little bit boring. I was actually a little bit worried going into this. You know, I think, because I did see it when it came out cause there was a lot of hype, you know, there was a lot of marketing for the movie and, you know, they kinda tried to keep it shrouded in mystery. You know, there was a lot of, showing, elements of the cursed tape which we’ll get Todd here in a second, but not really providing a lot of context. And so it was really just a lot of spooky imagery. And then of course as it got closer, as it opened and they were continuing to advertise, they were showing more parts of the movie.   And I remember going in, then being very excited about it, but feeling a little bit disappointed in the end because I felt like maybe in the marketing they had given a little bit too much away. Mhmm. I I felt like maybe I had seen a little bit too much of the good stuff. And so, there wasn’t as much, surprise, the element of surprise as I would have liked. Now the ending, I did enjoy. And so in going back to this, to talk about it tonight, I looked at the run time of an of an hour and 55 minutes, and I thought, oh man, that can be really long for a horror movie. But, I didn’t think that it was too long. I thought that the pacing was actually really very strong.   I mean, it moves. There there may be some lulls where there’s there’s a lot of detective work going on in this movie. Yes. Yes. And, sometimes, you know, we would get some pretty long sequences of detective work, but in those sequences, we were constantly being fed information. We were so I I didn’t think it was too long. I thought the pacing was actually one of the strengths of the movie, and I think the storytelling is really good here. As I was watching it this time, I was watching it this 

Todd:  time, and I was watching it this time, and I was watching it this time, and I was watching it this time, and I 

Craig:  was watching it this time, and I was watching it and I think the storytelling is really good here. As I was watching it this time around, I think that I realized that it’s really a pretty traditional ghost story, except for the introduction of the, cursed tape element, which we hadn’t really seen anything quite like that. I mean, we’ve seen cursed objects and cursed houses and those types of things, but, the use of the technology, and and the the spirit using the technology as a medium to communicate with and eventually kind of enter into, the real world. That was unique. Beyond that, it’s it’s a fairly standard, ghost story where you’ve got kind of a a vengeful spirit, and, those who are affected by it kind of have to figure out, you know, the backstory of what’s going on in order to try to figure out how they can, rectify whatever needs to be rectified and and move forward. But that being said, it didn’t feel stale. It didn’t feel like something that I’d seen before. I thought that it was a fresh twist on a fairly conventional story, and I appreciate that. 

Todd:  Yeah. I completely agree. It does have its roots in urban legend, and that’s kind of interesting. Like you said, we’ve seen the cursed object thing before, but I think what makes this creepy is the same sort of thing that makes oh, we’re even seeing It Follows, for example, right now. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Where with a cursed object, you have the cursed object and, it affects you in some way. Generally speaking, if you get rid of the cursed object or pass it along to somebody else, then you’re home free. Whereas in this case, the idea that you could stumble upon a videotape and watch it, and now you’re doomed. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  No real fault or knowledge of your own. It’s not like the videotape itself said don’t watch. You know, it it’s it’s really a pretty freaky kind of idea, much like, I thought It Follows, the movie, was really had a really good concept at least, you know, where you can have sex with someone and then boom, you’re doomed. At least in that case, there was a way to kinda pass it on to somebody else, but then it could always come back to you. So Right. In this case, you’re just gonna die, you know, if you watch this tape. And Right. And that’s what these 2 girls at the beginning of this movie, begin, talking about.   And I actually thought it was a great intro too because it’s just I mean, we just jump right into that story. We have Beckett and Katie who are having some kind of sleepover. It looks at at at Katie’s house. They’re like high school age girls, and they’re just chatting, as they’re watching TV, which is also a cool thing. And you get that that green glow of the TV on their face as they’re talking. Becca just starts talking about this story that she’d heard about a videotape. 

Clip:  You start to play it, and it’s like somebody’s nightmare. Then suddenly, this woman comes on, smiling at you, right? Seeing you through the screen. And as soon as it’s over, your phone rings. Someone knows you’ve watched it. And what they say is, you will die in 7 days. And exactly 7 days later Who told you that? Somebody from Rivera. Who told you? What’s your problem? 

Craig:  I’ve watched it. 

Clip:  It’s a story, Katie. No. Me and Josh, we saw it last weekend. 

Todd:  And it’s really neat the way that scene plays out because at first you’re like, oh, come on. You know, it’s kind of a silly deal that she’s telling her the story. She happened to watch the tape, but then Katie tries to play it off. She kind of like, like she’s joking and falls into her arms, and Becca thinks she’s joking until the phone rings. And then there’s a look on Katie’s face that totally betray us, and Becca’s like, oh my gosh. You you that actually happened. And Katie never really says, yes, it did. It was a nice neat way of doing that kind of an introduction, jumping right into the story, and it just read rode the line of not being too goofy. 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, I agree. And especially, you know, in the first time seeing the movie. I mean, this scene there are a couple of iconic scenes in this movie, and this is one of them. I mean, this scene has been spoofed in in several movies, that I’ve seen. I had actually forgotten that it was from this movie. Like, I remembered all the spoofs, but I had forgotten that it came from this movie. And it is.   And it’s nice suspense. You know, the phone rings, and they had talked about how that was kind of one of the elements of what happens. And so, you know, they go to answer the phone, and and I think Becca actually answers the phone, and, she just sits there quietly. We can’t hear who’s on the other side, and she just kind of ominously hands it to Katie. And then Katie says, Oh, hi mom. And it’s just her mom. But then sort of kinda weird things start happening around the house, like doors are opening, the TV’s coming on, by itself, and and Katie is obviously scared. When she goes back upstairs, she’s calling for Becca and Becca’s not responding.   She goes back upstairs and she sees water on the floor. And she opens, the door to her bedroom and I think we maybe hear her scream, but it just cuts to like some really, really quick flashes, almost subliminal flashes. We can’t see, what’s going on, and then it it just cuts away and we cut to, some new characters. We’re in a school and we see a little boy, his name is Aiden. He’s played by, a child actor named, David Dorfman, who I recognized. He’s a really creepy looking kid. Just in general. I had to look him up.   I I the thing that I recognized him from, he was in, the remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He had a small role in that, Creepy in that too. But he’s sitting there in his classroom and his teacher’s at the front of the desk and it’s just him and we hear a woman walking down the hall, and it turns out to be, Rachel, played by Naomi Watts, who I think this was one of her big breaks. I think she had done some things before this, but, this was one of her first big films. I know that they originally approached, Jennifer Connelly with this, and she turned it down. Then they went to Jennifer Love Hewitt and Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Beckinsale, and they all turned it down. And eventually, it went to Naomi Watts, and this was kind of her breakout role. She’s coming to pick up, Aidan from school, and and she’s late.   And the teacher is concerned, about Aidan because Aidan has recently lost his cousin, who we soon find out is Katie, the girl from the opening scene, and he doesn’t seem to be taking it well. He’s drawing pictures of Katie, buried in the ground and Rachel, she kind of comes across as kind of defensive and standoffish. She doesn’t come across as particularly likable, especially in this first scene. But she tells the teacher, you know, of course, this, you know, he lost his cousin who he usually spent 2 or 3 days with. You know, it was a a week. It was his best friend, and it’s only been 3 days. And, the teacher says, so you’re saying that she died 3 days ago? And, Rachel says, yeah. And the teacher says, well, he drew these last week.   So we already know something’s going on, and when Rachel takes Aiden home, as she’s tucking him in, they’re talking about things and she says, would you like me to read a story? And he says, no, I’m kinda tired. And and then as she’s walking away, he says, we don’t have enough time. And she says, I know, I work a lot, we don’t have time together. I’m going to try to work on that. And he says, No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, we don’t have enough time to live. And she says, You’ve got plenty of time to live. And he says, Well, do you know when I’m gonna die? And she says, no we don’t know when we’re gonna die.   And he says, well Katie did, she told me. She knew something was going to happen. So already we’re putting together that there’s the story behind this tape, this urban legend that Becca was talking about. It appears that, there’s there’s something to it. And when Rachel and Aiden attend the funeral, Rachel’s sister who is Katie’s mother is distraught and, she asks of Rachel, she says, I just can’t imagine what could have happened. You know, a teenager’s heart does not just stop. I’ve talked to all these doctors, nobody can explain what happened and I just don’t know how I’m going to find out. And Rachel says something comforting, but the sister says to her, But you can find out, right? Your job is to ask questions.   Rachel is a reporter. I guess her sister kind of tasks Rachel, with investigating what’s going on and really that’s what happens. I mean, right away, even at the funeral, Rachel does start asking questions, and right away, she starts getting leads. 

Todd:  Yeah. That she goes outside where there’s some girls and a guy talking, and they’re teenagers, and they’re chatting about Katie and the death, And she learns that Katie had a boyfriend, Josh, who also died, that very night. And, at the same time, apparently, at 10 o’clock, she finds out later. And and so yeah. He and and that was apparently a suicide. We we through her investigation, she finds that he jumped off of a really, really high ledge of a building. Again, that was at 10 o’clock. And then, you know, later on, we have, detective scenes where she’s going through, and she discovers that, the other kids that they were with, at the time when they watched this tape are also died in a car accident, sure enough, the same time at 10 o’clock.   So, yeah, what they’ve revealed is that Katie and these kids, along with her boyfriend Josh, were at a cabin, and, apparently, their mother didn’t know about it. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Didn’t even know about the boyfriend too. So that’s how all this, kind of was under wraps and and gives her some things to, to find out. 

Craig:  What I found to be a little bit on the cheesy side was how easily all these pieces fall into place. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  I mean, there’s she she never really runs into any kind of roadblock. There there’s at one point in the movie where they kind of end up back where they had started. And in fact, she even says, we’re I’m back where I started. I don’t know where to go from here, but then there’s another device that very quickly leads them right on to the next path. That was the only thing. We talk about, realism in movies all the time. Would these things fall into place so easily? Surely not. But for storytelling sake, I’m glad that they do because it it keeps the pace moving and, it keeps it from lagging, and I appreciate that.   One of the things, you know, I think that after she talks to the teenagers, she goes up to get Aiden, who is in Katie’s room, and she’s kinda snooping through Katie’s stuff a little bit, and I feel like she finds a tag. Our younger listeners probably won’t even know what this is either, but, when we used to have film in cameras and we used to take that film to be developed, they would give you a tag like like a dry cleaner slip that you would turn back in to collect your pictures. And so she finds one of those in Katie’s room and she goes and, gets the the photographs and you know, it’s very typical teenage stuff. It’s of them, you know, she sees the sign, of the Shelter Mountain Inn that they’re going to and then it’s, you know, there’s, it’s a sequence of them, photographs of them walking into the cabin and and there’s even a picture of them sitting in front of the TV and then after the picture with the TV in it, there’s distortion in all of their faces. It’s just their faces, but their faces, are distorted. And she finds that odd, and so that’s what leads her, I think, to go to check out the Shelter Mountain Inn. Again, she just the the clues just keep piling up. 

Todd:  Yeah, they do. She goes to this inn. There’s an innkeeper there, a young guy, who, just nonchalantly says, yeah, I recognize these people. Yes, they were here. There are some complaints about them. They were a little rowdy, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. But, she turns around and sees that there is a shelf, and again, very conveniently, she sees a shelf of VHS tapes. 

Clip:  Reception’s never good here. That’s why we bought tape players for videos.   Quite a selection.   Mostly their hand me downs left by other guests. 

Todd:  And, looking at this tape rack, she can instantly spot and just intuit which tape is the one because it’s the only one not in a tape sleeve. 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  Yeah. You know, it’s 

Craig:  all it’s all kinda hokey. I mean It it is hokey. It’s funny though because that’s a real thing. 

Todd:  My dad 

Craig:  used to take my dad used to take me fishing in Minnesota every summer, up until I think I, you know, was like a freshman in college. We went every summer and this was not uncommon at all for there not to be any kind of satellite or cable or anything. There would just be 1 rinky old TV with the VHS and you could go to the office and borrow, movies to watch. So that was, I smiled at that because it was kind of nostalgic for me. I imagine that some, especially contemporary viewers, viewers today would think, what? That would never happen. No, folks. That was a real thing. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. It it totally was. No. I remember it too. In fact, you even even in, like, a a normal, like, a Holiday Inn or a place like that, sometimes instead of, like, instead of the movies you can rent through the television, you would have to go downstairs and, like, rent a tape and bring it back up. It was it was Right. It was totally a thing. But what’s hokey about it is that, oh, here’s the tape.   It’s right there on the shelf. It’s so obvious, but it’s not obvious. But she just knows Right. This is the one because it’s the one that’s not in the sleeve, and it’s unmarked. And so she grabs it, and she takes it back to the room, and she watches the tape. And the tape itself is pretty cool, and they this is where they took some liberties a little bit with the Japanese version, although, in spirit, it’s very similar. She sees a number of images on the tape. There’s a a tall ladder and the tall ladder falling and a close-up on what looks to be an eye, but it’s clearly like an animal eye or something.   There’s Mhmm. An image of a tree. There’s water lapping, across the ground. There’s something dead that seems to have washed up on a beach and, you know, there’s something in the distance there. There’s a fly buzzing around at one point that looks like it got on the camera as it was recording. There’s a woman who you can see through a mirror on the wall who seems to be looking at the person in the camera. The mirror moves to the other side of the wall, and you can see, like, what looks like a girl with her back to the camera. And just all of these images, flash by it.   And as, Noah, her boyfriend, who we’ll meet later, mentions it, it’s it’s like, it’s like a cheap, student art film. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Right. That actually reminded me 

Craig:  a 9 inch nails music video or something. There you go. Yeah. 

Todd:  I I it actually reminded me of, Unciendo Andalou. It’s it’s and I might not even be saying that right, but that’s a Salvador Dali film. Have you heard of this movie or seen it? 

Craig:  No. I haven’t, but I know I’m familiar with Dali’s work. It’s all very surreal, and and the the video, the images are very surreal, so that makes sense. 

Todd:  Oh, it is. And even in in Dali’s film, what’s what it’s probably most famous for is an image of a of a an eye getting stabbed, basically. And, and that, you know, where you kinda just flick that creepy thing in there. And, again, it also kind of reminds you even of, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when they’re going through the tunnel. And, there’s that Yeah. Video that’s playing behind them and it just has all these random creepy things and things that are might be even normal, but because in in the context and the way that they’re flash up so quickly at you, it just assaults your senses. It’s very convincing as a kind of tape that might have some mystical, you know, magical power about it, I think. 

Craig:  Yeah. I agree. 

Todd:  And what really separates this movie from the Japanese one is that all of these images on the tape are very deliberate in that later on in the film, as the investigation progresses, one of the things that keeps it interesting, and this is what the Japanese film lacked, which is why it was super boring during the investigation part, is that, all of the bits and elements in the tape, almost all of them get referenced at some point. Like, she will see the tree. Mhmm. She will see the ladder. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and from there, this is I I didn’t remember this. It it starts counting down the days. We move away from the cabin and we get, a title card that says Thursday, day 1. Noah is headed off to school and he runs into this guy in the street. And they just kinda pause and look at each other, which I thought was kinda odd. I and I couldn’t remember what was going on there. Oh, so true.   Noah’s played by an actor named, Martin Henderson. He’s in a lot of TV. He was in, Grey’s Anatomy. 

Todd:  It was, Aidan actually who was walking down the street and saw this guy who was Noah. He you’re right. It’s a weird scene. They stare at each other, and then they walk by, and you think that this is a stranger that he’s seeing. It it’s strange. In fact, even still, it’s strange. Apparently, Rachel has called him. And, so he is on his way to Rachel’s apartment, and he shows up there, and she tells him the story of the tape.   And later on, we intuit. And what’s really nice is, at at the times, they really spoon feed you things, and other times, they withhold information, and give it to you in a more natural way. And this is one of those circumstances where it’s slowly we learn that, oh, they have a previous relationship. And then much later we learn Aidan is actually their son. But at the time, we only know that he is maybe a photographer friend. And so she asked him for her for advice about this tape because he knows photography. She wants to know where it came from, and he wants to watch the tape and she’s like, oh, I don’t think that’s such a great idea. And he’s she’s like, you know, people died from this.   And he’s like, look, Rachel. Nobody died from watching a videotape. 

Craig:  And so Right. Well, and and the evidence that, you know, the evidence that she’s citing is that now that she’s watched it, she has, taken a bunch of pictures of herself. And, she has him take a picture of her and and I I guess it’s it it makes a sound like a a film camera, but I guess it’s a digital camera because he can see it right away. And her face is distorted in the same way that theirs the the kids was in those photographs. And so she is actually concerned that, something is going on here. And so when he wants to watch the tape, she doesn’t wanna let him. But like you said, he’s so skeptical, she finally just relents and lets him watch it. And we get to see, you know, him, watching it.   And after he does watch it, the phone rings, but they just don’t answer it. 

Todd:  I I gotta say, I mean, it it’s a little silly that this photographer would take some pictures of her, see that her face is distorted, and not find that more interesting. Like, he he then turn it around and take some pictures of himself or take some pictures of some other things. He doesn’t do a very good job in the skepticism of reassuring her, oh, it’s just a problem with the camera or something like that. I mean, she did call him over to help him because he has expertise in these matters. And he’s just 

Craig:  like True. 

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. But but it anyway, wasn’t this about a tape? You know? 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  And and then, of course, it’s a clever device in the film that they don’t answer it. But, again, if he is here to reassure her and is skeptical, wants to show her that nothing’s a thing, wouldn’t he wouldn’t they answer the phone? So he could at least 

Craig:  know for sure? You would think so. 

Todd:  I mean Yeah. 

Craig:  You would think so. I wondered I I wondered about that and I wondered if maybe she just left that part out. Like, did he know about the phone call? I don’t know. I mean, she clearly does, and she’s clearly rattled when the phone rings. But it it seems like he’s not even aware of that element cause he just says something like, aren’t you gonna answer it? That’s cool. And she almost does. I mean, I I feel like she goes towards the phone, but eventually scared. And so he says, alright.   Fine. Make me a copy. I’ll look at it. I’ll try to figure out where it came from, you know, where how it was filmed, where it was filmed. I’ll I’ll see what I can do. So she does. I guess she utilizes, the equipment at her work, to make a copy of the tape. And as she’s making it, the equipment, is acting funny.   There’s something weird going on, like, the the lights are flashing on the the face of the recorder and things, and it’s just acting odd. 

Todd:  Right. Right. And and if you’ve been in video production, this is what’s called time code. As the tape goes, there’s a track that’s laid down that basically, frame by frame, you know, says this is frame 1, this is frame 2, this is frame 3, this is frame 4. And it’s used by the VCR in order to go back and forth through it or to skip, to different frames. I mean, my gosh. You gotta explain this technology to everybody now. 

Clip:  But it 

Todd:  was an important element of of tapes, and the the control track actually gets laid down at the edge of the tape. So if you think about a tape as a physical medium being pulled through, a machine, this is one of the real flaws of VHS technology is that this time Todd track is right on the edge. And so after a while, what part of the tape gets the most worn but the edges. And so the edges get, you know, kind of like wavy and, when that time code track is damaged, then the the VCR doesn’t know quite how to read those frames, and so you get spots in the video where the it might flicker or go weird on you. And that’s because that time Todd Mhmm. Section has been damaged. But it doesn’t happen in the way that she sees it. This is total Hollywood stuff.   It’s not like it’s going to start showing things that aren’t numbers on on the equipment. You know, it flickers through all these weird symbols or something like that, and it’s not gonna do that. It’s just actually, what’s gonna happen is it’s gonna freeze. It’s gonna freeze on the last number it could read. And as you advance through the tape, you’re just not gonna see any other numbers until maybe it picks up another one later. So, yeah, it’s a little bit of unnecessary but, you know, interesting movie trivia for you. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was curious about that because I knew you knew about that stuff. And, you know, all this stuff that we’ve just talked about from the time I said that Thursday flashes on the screen to where we are now, all of this takes like 2 or 3 minutes, which I thought was really funny because then it jumps immediately to Friday day 2. And I’m like, woo, these days are gonna go by fast. And they do. Yeah, they do. This week goes by really fast.   But on day 2, she takes the tape to Noah’s apartment, and he’s got all this video equipment Todd. And he’s talking about all this techie stuff about fingerprints and about how this couldn’t possibly be a copy because of the fingerprints, and, like, the fingerprints should be able to tell you what medium it was, filmed through and all that kind of stuff. Is that stuff real or is that Hollywood too? 

Todd:  Some of that’s kind of BS. I mean, as far as I know like, now we have metadata. Right? You take a picture, and there’s a little bit of information in that JPEG or whatever that tells you, it was taken by this camera. It was on this date. It was it’s this resolution, the aperture was set at this, you know, this was the exposure, and all that information gets recorded. It’s not true, with VHS tapes. To my knowledge, you’d have to do a considerable amount of detective work to be able to figure out a camcorder, a Sony camcorder recorded this, you know. And as far as, like, dates and things like that go, none of that was on the the control track.   All of that was on, like, if you wanted it. As you as you and I know, you know, you had to have, like, a date pop up on the screen and get burned in the image somewhere. Yeah. So no. Most of that was BS. But, again, the spirit of it is there. The time code track is weird. And, actually, if you make a copy of a tape, it lays down new time code track onto the copy.   So one way that you can kind of fix even though you degrade the tape, one way that you can try to at least help try to fix the tape and and make it a little more watchable is to make a copy. Because even though you’re gonna get the same flaws that you had in the original tape, it’s gonna be with new time Todd laid under it, which is fresh, which is gonna say this is frame 1, this is frame 2, this is frame 3. So it’s not gonna freak the VCR out, you know. And it’s also not going to, you know, if you have a fresher tape, so you’re not gonna degrade it much more, you know, as quickly. So that’s really the only thing there. 

Craig:  Well and and it’s really pretty insignificant, whether it’s real or not. In except for that, it establishes that there is something odd and possibly unexplainable or supernatural about this tape. Yeah. And while they’re looking at it, another thing that they do and again, you know, I remember the tracking problems on the VCR, especially on older tapes, and you would have to try to adjust the tracking to get it back on. And it very rarely worked, especially for those tapes you watched over and over again as a kid. Eventually, they would just crap out. But while they’re trying to adjust the tracking to fix it, she thinks that she sees something over in the I I like I guess it would be in a different Craig, and so they try to stretch it so that they can see what’s in that other frame or something. I again, I don’t really know how it works, but they they can’t get it to work.   But when she leaves the apartment, she takes the tape with her. He wants her to leave it so he can look at it, but she doesn’t want his assistant to see it, so she takes it with her. And, as she walks out of his building, there’s a big tall ladder almost identical Todd, very reminiscent of the ladder that she saw. So these images are popping up, in her life. On day 3, she, visits Becca, Katie’s friend from the opening scene in a mental hospital. Becca, 

Clip:  how did she die? Please, I need to know. And you will. She’ll show me. Who? Who will show me? 

Craig:  Not now. 4 days. I don’t know how Becca can intuit this, but it’s it’s it’s pretty ominous and it kind of just reaffirms for Rachel that her fears are substantiated. And then she goes and and I don’t know, borrows some equipment or or, you know, goes and uses an equipment at some facility, and she stretches the tracking again. And not only does she see a lighthouse, which she’s just barely able to, but she’s able to catch a screen grab of that and print it out, but also that fly that we had seen before that had been buzzing around, and that she had made notice of before. When she pauses the tape this time, it’s subtle, but she can still see the fly moving. The wings of the fly are still moving. And she reaches up as though she’s gonna try to pluck it off the screen, and that’s exactly what she does.   As though she has pulled it out of, the video out through the television, which of course becomes important later. And when that happens, she also gets a bloody nose. So there’s no question throughout that there is something supernatural going on. They don’t try to keep that from us. They don’t try to keep us guessing if it’s, if she’s just being paranoid or if there really is. It’s clear. It’s evident throughout that there is something strange. Then seeing that lighthouse, lead search of the library for more research. 

Todd:  Yeah. How classic is this? Right? Oh, by by the way, none of this, none of what we have been talking about, as I remember it, was really in the Japanese film. There wasn’t pulling a fly off the screen. There might have been a little bit of them with the tracking and things like that, but, again, all of these these super supernatural things, that are going on with the tape and not things that are just kind of related to investigating the tape. 

Craig:  Gotcha. 

Todd:  I don’t remember actually in the Japanese film, and I don’t remember them also seeing images from the tape as the thing goes on. So that’s part of what keeps this interesting. And you’re right. This is so classic, investigation. She goes to the library. She pulls out a stack of books. She pulls out a book called, America’s Lighthouses, an illustrated history. And it’s so cute and it’s quaint, but, you know, we actually used to have to do research like this.   So it’s Uh-huh. All that. 

Craig:  Oh, I remember. Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. If this this movie is really at that weird, point in time where the Internet was was a thing. The Internet was definitely a thing by here, but it wasn’t as sophisticated Todd as developed as it is now. And we hadn’t digitized all of the stuff, you know, historical things yet. 

Craig:  That’s right. 

Todd:  She’s going through the library and she finds sure enough, there’s a photograph interestingly enough from the same angle basically so she can recognize it easily. And 

Craig:  not only that, but it’s also on, like, the 3rd page. Like, she just barely opens the book and, oh, here it is. 

Todd:  It’s the lighthouse. But anyway, yeah, it’s Moesco Island, is the place that it leads her to next, and, she investigates Muesco Island. I think this time she goes to the Internet and she pulls up some some articles. And what we get here is basically some backstory of, her finding about about a woman named Anna Morgan, who was a breeder of horses. There was some unusual sickness that the ranch horses on this ranch at Moesco Island were getting. Mysterious deaths. Nobody could understand what was happening. Then her suicide comes into play.   And then as she’s doing this investigation, she finds herself absolutely scribbling. And when she looks down, she sees that she has scribbled over the face of one of her photos, these long it it almost looks like she’s adding hair to it really, right over the face, and that Mhmm. Mirrors and parallels what she has seen in, Katie’s notebook in her bedroom Right. That she had taken all these magazine pictures and was just doing this constant scribbling, as well as scribbling like big rings over everything. Right. Again, I don’t remember this kind of stuff in the Japanese one either. So, you know, really connecting this and making the supernatural influence in her, you know, and her investigations of people around her. I mean, we didn’t even mention it, but Aidan himself is having premonitions.   It’s it’s a different take on what Sadako what Samara, in this case, the ghost, can do, and and had just how much of a connection to the real world she has. 

Craig:  Right. Well, all this library research leads her to that island and to this woman named Anna Morgan, and there’s been something going strange going on, you know, with their horses and and with Anna herself. And, on day 5, Noah, sees his face distorted in a security camera at a gas station. So he, is on board with her. He believes her. She decides that she’s gonna go, to this island, but at some point she’s talking to her sister trying to arrange babysitting, and she chokes, and she coughs up what appears to be some hair and maybe like a, like a, a sensor, like a, oh, what are those called? They put them on your body at the hospital, like Oh, yeah. What are those called, Todd? You know what I’m talking about? Yeah. 

Clip:  I 

Craig:  know. Read, like, your heart rate and all those types of things. 

Todd:  Yeah. Some kind of heart monitor at the end of a of a wire, but, it sticks it sticks to your Todd, like, they put, like, 5 Right. 

Craig:  On your 

Todd:  chest or something. Then now I think they use, like, suction cups, but then now, yeah, it used to be sticky. I don’t know what they’re called, but, yeah, everybody should know what that is. And if you 

Craig:  don’t, you’re an idiot. So she so she coughs one of those up, and then, she wakes up from a nightmare, I think, and, she goes into the living room, and Aidan has watched the video. And she’s, of course, very upset about that, so she knows that she’s got to go into action. So on day 6, she hooks up with Noah, and the plan is she’s gonna go to the island, and Noah is gonna go to the mental hospital where Anna Morgan had been a patient, and they’re gonna do more investigation. Rachel does go to the island where she visits mister Morgan who is still living there apparently. 

Clip:  So what is it you’re riding, miss? Are horses in general or just those that go strange?   I read you had to put so many down.   Those put themselves down. They drowned.   How’d they get out?   They just broke through the fences and ran to the shore.   So they went Craig?   It would seem so. Yes. Or maybe they just sense things before we do. 

Craig:  But eventually, he figures out, what, she’s really there asking about, and he just tells her to leave it alone. Meanwhile, before she had left, Aidan had given her this drawing. And when she leaves, the Morgans house, she opens up his drawing and sees that this was a drawing of this house. And eventually she calls, Aidan and he tells her the little girl told me to draw it. She shows me things. She lives in a dark place now. Meanwhile, Noah is at the hospital. He finds Anna’s records.   He finds that she’s had a history of miscarriage and that’s what’s kinda led to her, mental deterioration. But he also finds that at some point, there was a daughter and that the daughter had also been, a patient at the hospital. So he tries to get her records, and eventually doesn’t. I mean, this this is all cutting back and forth. We cut back and forth between the island and the hospital, but eventually, he finds out that there’s video record of Samara, this daughter, and he goes to try to get it, but it’s not there. Somebody else has already taken it, and the last person to check it out was the dad, mister Morgan. Meanwhile, back on the island, Rachel visits one of the Morgan’s neighbors, and the neighbor explains that they tried to have kids over and over again, but they couldn’t. So finally, one winter, they went away, and they came back with a baby, and it was Samara.   But soon after that, Anna, the mother, started having visions that only occurred around Samara, and things just generally started going bad around the island. Not only were the horses, going crazy and dying and jumping off cliffs and things, but, it’s a fishing island. They couldn’t get in a good haul, you know, all kinds of things that seem to point that there is something going on, with Samara, and that things are are better now that she’s gone. So Rachel goes back to the Morgan house, and she finds Samara’s birth certificate, which says that she is the, natural daughter of these 2 people, mister and Mrs. Morgan, and she also, again, very conveniently, finds the tape sticking out, the tape of Samara’s, hospital video, and she puts it in and the doctor is questioning Samara. 

Clip:  I love my mommy.   Yes, you do. But you don’t want to hurt her anymore, now do you? You don’t wanna hurt anyone.   But I do, and I’m sorry. It won’t stop.   Well, that’s why you’re here. So that I can help you to make it stop.   He’s going to leave me here. Who? Daddy. 

Craig:  And then that’s all we get before mister Morgan hits her from behind, snatches away the videotape, and then just kind of really and, yeah, and the TV, which is interesting. And I didn’t really understand the purpose of hitting her either, because it didn’t seem like he had really any malice towards her, except for that she was kind of bringing this stuff up again. But he says to her, she’ll never Todd. And meanwhile, he’s walking into the, bathroom, and there’s water all over the floor. The tub is full. And he’s got all of this electrical equipment. I don’t know if it was plugged into a generator or what, but it’s like tons of this equipment all plugged in. And he ends up, electrocuting himself because he says she’ll never stop.   And again, conveniently, I don’t have any idea how he got there in, you know, 15 minutes, but Noah shows up. Rachel remembers that Aiden had said she doesn’t like the barn, horses keep her awake. And so they go check out the barn, and again, they find the ladder, and they crawl up the ladder, and they find that in the hayloft has been set up a child’s room. And presumably that it was set up up there with the ladder so that the ladder could be removed and she would be stuck up there. And so Rachel comes to the conclusion that Mr. Morgan was neglectful and abusive of Samara because Samara was causing the wife’s, deterioration and that’s why he wanted to keep her away. And so she feels a lot of sympathy for Samara And as they’re investigating the room, they see that the the wallpaper is kind of peeling, and they pull it back and burned into the wood or etched into the wood is this tree which she recognizes as the tree from Shelter Mountain, which then of course leads them back to Shelter Mountain. And then we kinda get into, some of the climactic moments. 

Todd:  Yeah. You’re right. It’s really convenient. And again, it’s sort of like a lighthouse. You see a tree. It could be any tree, but she somehow connects us with the tree at Shelter Mountain. I don’t know. I didn’t think it was that distinctive.   No. So they go back to the cabin, and they’re in the cabin, and they’re like, alright. Well, we’re back here. She says, we’ve come full circle. What do we do? He gets angry. Now why does he get angry again? Why does Noah get angry? 

Craig:  Because it’s day 7, and she thinks it’s too late. She thinks that they’ve run into a dead end, and he’s not willing to give up. And so he starts throwing things around, like maybe it’s in the v maybe the clue’s in the VCR, maybe it’s in the TV, maybe it’s in this, and he’s, like, tearing the place apart. And it’s it’s yeah. Which is is is silly, but it it works as a device because he throws down or knocks over this vase filled with decorative marbles, and are all the marbles roll to a low spot in the floor. And they pull back the rug, and there’s this big circle, and it looks mildewed. There’s obviously something under there. So they Shop.   Max 

Todd:  as what 

Craig:  to do. And, they chop up the floor and underneath it, they find this well that we have seen. It was in, the original video. And then we have a a final destination sequence in which this Rube Goldberg device, I don’t even remember exactly what happens, but they they take, there’s this big stone lid on the well, and they slide it off, and they’re looking down in there, and somehow, like the TV stand breaks or something and it rolls down the floor towards them and it pushes Rachel into the well. And she falls into this huge well. Like, they’ve already established how deep it is, but luckily, she’s perfectly fine. 

Todd:  Yeah. Right? And and, of course, like all movie wells at the bottom of the well, somehow it’s this like gigantic cavernous room. It’s not nearly as narrow as it started out at the Todd, apparently, because that’s how you dig wells, of course. No. It was it was like a real supernatural thing, like, the TV, like, water started to come from the TV. It was flickering on and off and, like, nails were were coming out of the floor by themselves. It was like the ghost of Samara was causing all this to happen. Again, none of this is in the original.   In the original, they find the well and they investigate it. They, like, toss a rope down and they go down in there. So anyway yeah. So she ends up down at the bottom of the well and he runs off to help her. In the meantime, she is having some visions down there and she’s piecing it all together pretty quickly. Supernaturally, the well, the top of the well, is coming back over her, trying to see her back in, and when she looks up, she sees the ring that she’s been seeing this whole time Right. Which is this. And, again, it doesn’t physically make sense because in order for this to happen, the lid would have to be a little smaller than, the opening, but we’ve seen that the lid actually, like, is much bigger than the opening.   But anyway, the idea is that the sunlight kind of creeps in around the edges of the top of the well when it’s sealed, and makes that ring. So the ring really was supposed to refer to the cyclical nature of this video. At least that’s how it originally was, in the remake. Right. They really make a point of this physical actual ring. People are like like, Right. Noah’s visions, he’s drawing a ring, she’s absolutely drawing a ring, Katie was drawing a ring. But what she’s able to do, and I think this was clever, is piece it together that the ring is what Samara had to stare up at for 7 days, before she died.   In the meantime, she looks and sees on the sides of the walls that there’s scratch marks where somebody obviously been trying to claw out herself out. A cheap shot, but okay, whatever because it’s supernatural. She has the vision in the well of exactly what happened. And that is that Samara was standing at that well staring at the tree in this big field, and her mother comes up from behind her and says, all I wanted was you, before putting a big plastic bag over her head, starting to suffocate her, and then dumping her into the well. So the mother apparently thinks that she killed her before she tossed her into the well, but the tragedy of the situation is that Samara wasn’t even dead at that point. The body, kind of lifts up, in the well, and she embraces it, and it looks like Samara as she was. But again, it’s part of her vision, and as her vision kind of fades away, she sees that she’s holding a the skeleton, of this girl. And this is where, you know, we’ve hit the traditional ghost story of, oh, I guess the point of it is to make peace with the ghost by finding the body, and then bearing it properly.   You know, that kinda deal. 

Craig:  Right. Okay. And and that that’s very traditional, you know. I I you’ve seen that a lot, you know, when a when a body is not laid to rest appropriately, then the spirit, you know, haunts and whatnot. And and I’m I’m all well and good with that. And it’s actually kind of a sweet moment when she lifts up, you know, Samara in her normal childlike state is is cute and innocent, and you feel sympathy for her, and you feel sympathy for Rachel because you think that she’s done such a good thing here. And it appears then that it’s gonna be happily ever after. They kind of ride off together and, eventually they, you know, they pick up, Aidan and they’re all in the car together, and I think that Rachel and Aidan are holding hands.   And then here’s where the twist comes. Now before we get to the twist, this bothered me the first time I saw it, and it still bothers me. I understand that from what Rachel has been shown, it appears that this mother maliciously killed her daughter because she was mentally unstable or mentally unill, or maybe there was something going on with this daughter that was supernatural and that was inconvenient and was causing bad things to happen. Like, because Samara didn’t like the horses, the horses died. And of course that’s not a good thing. That’s their livelihood and, you know, if it’s causing problems for the whole island, okay, so maybe she would have a motive to kill her. But it seems like we’re supposed to sympathize with Samara at this point. However, if Samara’s whole purpose was to find peace and to find aid and assistance, why would she do that by killing people? Like Yeah.   That just didn’t make any sense to me. And and killing innocent people. I mean, it reminds me, I don’t wanna in case we ever watched this movie or in case you haven’t seen it, it reminds me of that Kevin Bacon movie, Stir of Echoes, where there’s a a very similar thing going on. And, once the spirit is, you know, satisfied, once once the spirit is laid to rest then everything is okay. But even in that movie, though there were hauntings and there were strange things going on, the spirit didn’t seem to be malicious. So I was curious as to why Rachel would just disregard all of that that had happened. You know, the the fact that all these people had died, including her niece. I mean, it ends up making sense with the twist.   Why don’t you go ahead and, explain the twist? 

Todd:  She’s laying her son to rest, and she’s like, oh, you know, it’s all over now, because we found Samara and we put her to rest, whatever. And he bolts up out of bed and says, you helped her? And she’s like, well, yeah. And he says, you weren’t supposed to do that. She never sleeps. And then we cut to Noah, and Noah remember, he watched the tape, what, the next Todd? So this would be the next Todd, and Noah’s back in his studio. And I’m not gonna walk us through the whole thing, but suffice it to say, that there is a very creepy and, I think, extremely effective, scene where the tape comes on. And basically what happened to Katie happens to Noah, except we get to more or less see it. This was great, and I think what’s kind of creepy about the Japanese film is that we don’t get a ton of the backstory.   We don’t get a ton of the explanation. There aren’t these premonitions, so there’s not a kid to say, oh, you weren’t supposed to do that. We just discover Todd our horror that that is still not going to stop this from happening. So, yeah. So that that’s that’s kinda what happens. Rachel runs there, re realizing that Noah’s in danger, tries to call him. He’s not answering. When she gets there, she discovers him in the chair.   So she runs home and she grabs the tape and she’s just smashing against the floor like, what’s wrong? What do you need from me? What do you want from me? And she destroys the tape in the process and tosses it into the fireplace. And then pretty much conveniently, I think, because she comes up with these ideas that are pretty spot on pretty quickly, she realizes what was different about her is that she made a copy of the tape. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  I don’t know if a person would ever figure that out, but 

Craig:  Yeah. I don’t know either. I mean and and again, that’s one of those things she does. I mean, she figures things out pretty quickly. I mean, we can give her credit for being smart or whatever, but, yeah, she thinks why you know, she says out loud, why not me? Why him? Why not me? So she thinks, you know, what was different? And so she sees the copy under the couch and she thinks, ah, that’s what’s different. I made a copy. He didn’t. So her theory is that if she helps or if she has Aidan make a copy, that then he will be safe.   And so that’s exactly what she does. It’s kind of a neat shot where she’s guiding his hand on the machine. As they’re sitting there, doing this, she says something like, It’s gonna be okay now. And Aiden says, Well, what about the person we show it to? What happens to them? And we see a look on her face and she doesn’t really respond and then it just cuts to black, and that’s, the end. I I like it. I don’t know, you know, talking about it now, I I I like it even more because, you know, we’ve now talked for over an hour, about the plot, and there’s there’s a lot going on. And it it is fast paced, and, I never lost interest. I was never bored.   In fact, I I really feel like I could probably go back and watch this again and catch things that I hadn’t caught before. I think that it’s it’s probably a movie that deserves at least a couple watch, a couple watches, a couple viewings because, there really is a lot going on. Is it, really, you know, believable that all of these puzzle pieces would fall into place so conveniently? Certainly not. But at the same time, it’s well constructed enough so that it doesn’t seem like such a leap of faith, to believe these things, that it doesn’t, it didn’t pull me out. It I I was okay with it. 

Todd:  I I’m the same way. You know, at at times, it can feel, you know, honestly, the investigation sequence reminded me a little bit of a giallo film. You know, we’ve seen a couple of those, and what we talk about in those is that how, oftentimes the investigation doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense. They just conveniently stumble across things or they just have some vision, and so it leads them to some house somewhere. It it all ends up pretty random in those kind of movies. This movie, there are a couple moments where it seems a little too convenient, but at least it makes sense. It’s not super random. 

Craig:  Yeah. Right. 

Todd:  So, yeah. No. It it was totally fine. And again, that’s what makes this movie, I think, better, than at least the one Japanese movie that came before it. In that, I’m telling you, with Ringu, you watch it, it creeps you out, and then you’re treated to another hour of investigation where really nothing spooky or supernatural happens. And then you get that, you know, the thing at the end, so it’s really more of a detective story bookended by a ghost story in that sense. In this case, it feels more like a ghost story throughout. But you’re right.   I guess what what we’re supposed to understand is that Samara herself, even as a girl, is just plain evil or at least Evil. Right. Yeah. Right? Or at least can’t help that she’s evil in some way, shape, or form. You know? She doesn’t need any kind of resolution. She is just going to continue to visit upon other people the pain that she experienced. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  That’s that’s that. And that’s a real nihilistic, you know, kind of thing. And I think that’s what makes this movie so creepy is it’s it’s terribly nihilistic. And, again, that’s what you’re gonna find in j horror and Korean horror and stuff like that as things are just generally really bleak and nihilistic, in their traditions of of of horror films. 

Craig:  Yeah. I wanted just to say that, visually, I I really appreciate this movie. There’s some really good images. You kind of, you know, that that last scary climactic scene with Samara climbing out of the television. Again, that’s another one of the iconic scenes, and that that specifically was a scene that I wish that I had not seen before I saw the movie. It was in almost every trailer. It’s the most exciting part of the movie, and it was just kinda spoiled, you know, in in the marketing and and that was a little bit disappointing. But there’s some other, you know, the throughout I think is good but there are some really striking images.   The one that stands out to me, is in the flashback scene where we see Samara from the back standing in front of her well, and in the background are these rolling hills and that, that that tree with the red leaves, and there are horses, you know, kind of grazing. And it’s just a beautiful picture, and there’s some really, interesting images like that that I really appreciated from a technical perspective. You’re the tech guy. Would you agree? 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. That was beautiful. The great cinematography in here. The director is Gore Verbinski, and he does really good stuff. Was it maybe a couple years after this that he did the Pirates of the Caribbean film, the first one. Yep. So he really he really switched gears here. I’ve always kinda liked what Gore Verbinski does.   A little bit of the horse stuff was kinda silly though. I I thought it was funny, you know, that fairy scene when she’s going over to the island and, she’s staring out into space, and she walks back absently and comes across that horse and the horse pen, and she reaches in and the horse kind of veers up at her. And she’s like, oh, oh, don’t worry. You know, just it’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you. And she reaches her hand back in again, and it’s clearly antagonizing this horse. And he rears up. Right.   And she’s just standing there like, no, it’s okay. It’s okay. Like like, what? Just walk away. 

Craig:  Right. Exactly. Stop annoying. Yeah. I glossed over that scene. I forgot. I actually really liked that scene. It was exciting when the horse breaks out and is running all around the ferry and it eventually jumps off.   You know, it it was kinda hard to watch, you know, we’ve talked about this before. I it’s difficult for me to watch animals in peril and animals suffering, but, it was a dramatic scene. It was exciting. And there are some, you know, cut in here into these investigation scenes. There are some exciting and suspenseful scenes. You know, I I I I like the movie. I I guess that’s what I’m getting at. I in fact, I I liked it better this time around than I remembered liking it, the first time.   So I think maybe I just kinda needed to be away from it for a while and return to it with fresh eyes. 

Todd:  I liked it Todd, and I know you’re trying to wind us down, but there’s one thing I wanna I wanna bring up, and that is this tape. Okay? As beautiful as the tape is and as as cool as the imagery is and it and how it all kinda makes sense with the story as she progresses, what I don’t understand is this tape is very specific to her and her experience. It turns out to be. So Right. When other people watch the tape, are they gonna see different things, or is it for everybody, it always gonna play out this way? You know what I mean? Or do they just not do the investigation, and so they don’t get, you know, to see the ladder and the the water, you know, of the the dead horse and the this you know, the tree on the hill or whatnot. 

Craig:  Yeah. I don’t know, and that’s something that I don’t remember from the sequel, and I don’t know like you said, I think there’s, like, 16 different iterations of this. I don’t know if the tape remains the same throughout. I can’t imagine that it would. That would seem I would think that that would get really stale and boring really soon. So there’s got to be more to, the mythology of this. I just can’t imagine it sustaining for as long as it has. And and maybe, like I said, I don’t remember the sequel, and maybe with, Rings, the one that’s in theater now, maybe we’ll get some more mythology.   I know that, that one of the Japanese sequels was actually a prequel. I think it was called Ringu 0 or something like that. And, it tells a lot more of Samara’s backstory and actually makes her more of a sympathetic character, which on paper doesn’t sound really good to me, but I’d be really interested to see what they do with it. I’m not gonna race out and seek it out right away, but, it would be interesting to kinda see I would, you know, with so many different iterations, I would be interested just to even read up more about, the universe and the mythology that goes along with it. 

Todd:  Yeah. It would be interesting because, like, for example, in the original one, like, the mother, she they they don’t breed horses. She’s like a traveling like showman, like a traveling psychic kind of person, you know, back into the turn of the century. And and it puts it back much earlier than, like, 1978, I think, which is which is when all the events of this happens. She’s a little more old, and so they don’t get to see, you know, her husband or whatever. There’s none of that. Gotcha. In their investigation, they come across old films of, this couple doing this traveling.   It’s essentially like a traveling sideshow where she would, like, you know, get objects from people in the audience and then be able to tell them about themselves, or she would, you know, do like a psychic presentation, basically, and then this was their daughter. So the parents themselves, you know, in the original novel and in the original Japanese film are also I don’t know if they are legitimately psychic, you know, or not, but there’s clearly some implication because their daughter, therefore, you know, has these powers. Gotcha. Because it would have to be totally different. You know what I mean? Yeah. In in that sense. 

Craig:  Yeah. I actually I I wanna see the new one, because with the advancements in technology, I think there’s all kinds of cool things that they could do. I mean, my Todd. Surely, somebody would put this on YouTube. Right? I mean, that would be an easy way to get it off your back. 

Todd:  And now the whole world is doomed. Yeah. It’s so funny how much of this we’ve we’ve got explain to a modern audience. Right? All these little things. Well, thank you for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend, but don’t make a copy of it. Just tell them where it is. You can find the copies that we upload anyway on iTunes.   We’re also on Google Play and on Stitcher. Also, you can find us on Facebook. Thank you again, Jordan, for your recommendation. We are take 4 recommendations, and we will, of course, watch the movies you want us to see because it’s a lot more fun that way than us just, fiddling our thumbs. Yep. Alright. Until next time. I’m Todd. 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Billed as “The World’s First Comedy Horror Movie,” today’s selection had a better run on cable television than it did in the theaters. Still, we both found plenty to laugh at in this Naked Gun-style send-up of pre-1982 horror films.

Episode 67, 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 horror film was another request put in by Andrew online. He asked for Student Bodies, the 1981 comedy horror film, actually, actually, that, for a lot of people, really   has flown under the radar, but maybe for   some people like me, you’ve really had your fill of it. I don’t know about you, Craig, I caught this a lot, on I think it would for a little while anyway. It was a bit of a staple on cable TV. It seemed to come on an awful lot, and I had, been exposed to it there. How about 

Craig:  you? I don’t remember having ever seen or really heard of this movie. I mean, phrase student Todd, of course, is familiar, but I don’t know that I ever knew about this movie. And I don’t think that I’ve ever seen it. I’m kinda surprised because you and I were kind of into the same stuff, when we were growing up. And I read that this got pretty wide circulation on cable because even though it’s rated r, there’s really not a lot of, gratuitous violence or nudity or even swearing for that matter. So, it was pretty popular for television broadcast, but no, I don’t think I ever saw it. 

Todd:  You had messaged me after you had gotten the movie saying that, you’d only watched the first few minutes. You thought it looked pretty funny. You were looking forward to, watching the the last the the rest of it. How did you feel, after the end of it? 

Craig:  Well, I I felt like, you know, from those first few minutes, I got a pretty good idea of what it was gonna be like. I mean, it opens up with, I don’t know, some text on the screen that says, this motion picture is based on an actual incident. Last year, 26 horror films were released, and none of them lost money. And then it goes, directly to these long opening credits with this, very John Carpenter Halloween style music, and it’s focusing on this house. And when the credits are done, underneath we get the text, Halloween. And then it blacks out for a second, comes back, exact same frame, and says, Friday 13th. It backs out, comes right back, and says, Jamie Lee Curtis’ birthday. And then we get this, we get this this point of view shot of this guy who’s heavy breathing going up towards the house.   And just these silly ridiculous things start happening. I mean, he’s bumbling and tripping, and we eventually see, that there’s a teenage girl inside. And, it’s obvious from the very beginning that this is just gonna be the the tempt is is going to be at humor. I I didn’t get from I didn’t get the feeling from the beginning that we were in for a serious horror movie at all and we’re not. Having now watched the whole thing, I don’t know. I mean I liked it. I enjoyed watching it. I think it’s gonna be interesting to talk about because usually we do a lot of recap, and it’s I I feel like this is gonna be difficult to recap because really, it’s just kind of an hour and 26 minute gag reel.   I mean, it’s just joke after joke after joke, gag after gag after gag. The plot line is is pretty stereotypical for a slasher film, especially from this era, but the real focus is on the gags and the jokes. And they’re funny, you know? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that. I like a good gag reel. I like to laugh, and I did find myself laughing out loud multiple times throughout this movie. I also at times found myself rolling my eyes. But you know, it was fun. I didn’t love it.   I don’t think it’s a great movie, but I felt like it knew what it was, and that’s what it went for, and it succeeded on that level. 

Todd:  Yeah. I agree with you. You know, some people have called this in retrospect, the I’ve heard some people call it the scream of the past, maybe the the world’s first scream. It’s not really that. It’s more like the the scary movie of the of the past. Scary movie meaning the Weyen Brothers, when they just went all goofball on the Scream franchise. And for people who didn’t live through it, the Scream franchise really kind of awakened a new era of hip scary movies. Before that, horror had, taken a bit of a lull, and Scream kind of brought it back and made it hip and cool, and suddenly you you had what Roger Ebert liked to call the dead teenager movies all over again, but with kind of a new flavor, I suppose.   Scary movie Todd, yes, Saturday Night Live, you know, style potshots at those kind of movies. Are there like 15 of those movies now? I I’m surprised 

Craig:  I idea. 

Todd:  I’m surprised people still watch them, but from what you can see on the video shelves or, online, it seems like there are at least 8 of those, scary movies. Probably, many of them are not nearly as funny as this movie, I’d imagine, because the whole idea gets kind of worn out after a while. I would liken this movie, actually, to Airplane in many ways. Not exactly because it doesn’t have as many, like, sight gags or total off the wall goofiness that airplane does, but it gets there at times and it’s certainly from that era. We’re talking 1981, and that was the flavor that it kind of left me with. I enjoyed it too. I do feel like some of the humor in here is a bit Todd, and some of the humor in here, like you said, is a bit roll your eyes kind of funny, but I was interested to look it up later that the writer and director of this movie was actually a television comedy writer. And he even, I believe, was a writer for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, a number of comedy shows on TV, he was a writer for, and this appears to be his only directorial effort.   And I think he probably did a good thing. He really came in at the right time. I don’t think anybody was really lampooning horror films until that point. And then, nobody really did for a little while afterwards anyway, if I’m not mistaken. So it’s No. 

Craig:  It’s kind of a novelty. Agree. Yeah. It is kind of a novelty, and I would agree that, as far as I’m aware, this I would say is probably the first movie of its type. And you’re absolutely right that it would fit right in with, the scary movie franchise because it it does exactly what that franchise tried to do, which is to not only make fun of tropes in general, but also to try to be referential to other specific horror movies. And, like you said, the the scary movie franchise, you know, I watched the first few. They were kinda funny. I mean, it’s it’s it’s low humor, lots of sex jokes, lots of fart jokes, and that kind of stuff.   And, I think actually those run the risk of being more dated than this does because they were so in the moment. I mean, they they would come out each year or every couple years, and they were so referential to the movies that had come out in those years that the further removed we are from that time, I think that people will not get the references as much. There are certainly references to other horror movies in this film too, but most of the poking fun is more at just kind of general horror movie things that we see in a lot of stuff. Now you said that you thought that this movie didn’t really get maybe as silly as those movies. I would tend to disagree. This I mean, it’s pretty darn silly stuff. I mean, like I said, we, you know, we see this teenage girl in her house, and she’s on the phone. 

Clip:  Hi, Julie. Oh, hi, Toby. Listen. I forgot to give you the answers Todd to that history question on the civil war. Now just remember the north one. Oh heavy. Hey, are you sure you don’t wanna come over? Maybe Charlie could bring a friend or 2. No, and you better be careful sometimes when a person acts wild and crazy well wild and crazy things happen to them They do? Yeah, believe me Anything could happen in this creepy place, but I have a feeling it’s the last time I babysit. 

Craig:  And like, so, you know, they’re they’re obviously just setting you up for this is what they’re gonna be making fun of. And the silliness, you know, then she hears, a cat meowing, outside. And she goes and she opens her door, and there’s a great big white dog doing this meowing. And then the dog just lifts its leg and farts. And like that’s the end of the gag. That’s just it. And it’s those types, not to say that some of them are more essential to plot, some of them are, but it’s those types of gags. I mean they are silly and they are low brow.   That’s not to say they’re not funny. It’s not to say that didn’t get a little chuckle out of me, but it’s not high art. It’s not sophisticated comedy. 

Todd:  No. It’s definitely not. And, you know, and and there are also some tedious moments here too, I think, like, where the comedy is I don’t know. And again, it is kind of like Airplane in that way, or Kentucky Fried Movie, or those kind of movies where they know they’re making a comedy and they’re just gonna go all out with it in your face. There’s not any subtlety, really, to the humor. Some of these scenes go on just a little too long. It’s like, okay, we got the gag. It would have been funnier if you just kind of stopped there, instead of push it, you know, 5 more degrees.   You know, like the like the one of the scenes coming up here is, is we’re we’re still seeing through the cure’s point of view. And I think the girl’s boyfriend has since come over and they run upstairs and he hops in the shower, which actually I thought was an interesting twist, while she waits in the bed. Except, I think that’s a call out specifically to Halloween, isn’t it? 

Craig:  Yeah, I think so. 

Todd:  Anyway, and then the killer’s point of view, again, he’s made it inside and he opens up the lid of a desk. And all of these potential murder weapons are just laid out on this desk. There’s like, rat poison, and there’s, like, a rope. It’s like Clue. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. And and his hand is wandering over them, do do do do Todd, and I think he’s even saying something like or in his breathing tone. He settles on a paper clip that’s in there and, you know, pries it open and pulls it up to a point which is a this sudden, you know, moment. And and again, that scene would have been maybe a little funnier if that had been about half as long, you know. Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. Airplane, I think is a good comparison. Naked Gun, you know, just that kind of real slapstick comedy. So okay. So it’s the typical thing where these kids are gonna have sex, but the serial killer is is coming to, punish them or whatever. And it’s all the typical stuff we see, you know, the killer’s feet slowly walking up the stairs while the girl’s in the bed and the, and the guy is in the shower. But then the killer steps in some gum, and he’s, like, struggling and pulling his boots off out of the gum. And then there’s gum on the banister, and, he’s grumbling about the gum.   And, like, it’s it’s just all just goofy stuff. And when he he finally goes in, though, kill he goes in and he kills this girl, stabs her a bunch of times with a paper clip. And then when the guy comes out, the killer, like, throws a trash bag over over his head, and apparently, that kills him. That’s so weird 

Todd:  that the trash bag is like the the weapon of choice for the second person who always enters the scene and I don’t really know what that was all about, but it kept going through the whole movie. 

Craig:  It did. And that’s the thing. You know, when we talked about New Year’s Evil, one of the criticisms that we had about it was boring in its repetition. Like there were these kills, but the and the kills were slightly different each time, but it was the exact same process. You know, it was so formulaic. It followed the same thing. And this does Todd, but it’s like it does it intentionally. Like they’re in on the joke.   Like that’s why it’s funny is because, you know, there’s a little bit of difference. So this time, the girl and and every time, it happens exactly the same. This time, the guy came in and he said, 

Clip:  Not here. Not now. Where? Where? Upstairs. 10 seconds? 

Craig:  And they run upstairs. And, every time this happens, a guy gets a girl in this position, and then for some reason, the guy has to go away. In this case, it’s because the guy, she didn’t think he was clean enough. She’s like, are you clean? And he said, yeah, I’m clean. Plus, you can’t wipe, you can’t wash off herpes anyway. 

Todd:  So she 

Craig:  so she makes him go and take a shower, so then he’s away. And then she gets killed, and then he comes back, and then he gets killed. And that’s how it happens every time. There’s, the next kill scene, and I’m skipping around. We can come back to other stuff too if we want Todd. But like the very next kill scene, it’s the exact same scenario. It’s at a parade. This girl, one of the prom queen candidates is up on a float.   A guy sees her and gets all hot and bothered, runs up and gets on the float with her and takes her down underneath. And actually, I think this may be the 3rd kill. I don’t know. But anyway, he has to go get a a condom or or something. And while he’s gone, the killer comes in and kills the girl with an eggplant. 

Todd:  Oh, that was my favorite scene in the whole movie. I mean, it’s it’s hilarious because, of course, this he’s they’re, like, inside the float, and the the humor of this is this is like a major float in the whole parade, and they’re just entering in and out of it. It’s just so obvious. The killer for no apparent reason is also in the float, but Yeah. Makes the float look so huge from the inside that he could just be in there heavy breathing and he’s talking to himself, and the killer is always talking to himself. And he’s like, gotta find a murder weapon. Gotta find a murder weapon. What can I use? What can I use? And then he go goes up to her and he says Hey. 

Clip:  You like eggplant? 

Todd:  And she screams. And when he comes in and again, this is my favorite line in the whole movie, is when the guy comes back into the float and discovers her body. Just before he discovers his body, he sees the eggplant on the floor, and he says 

Craig:  What’s this? I thought you hated eggplant. 

Todd:  And you don’t even know how he killed her with the eggplant. It’s really not obvious at all. But, again, that’s the joke. Right? And you’re right. This was the 3rd murder. The one before it was, right in the middle of the funeral of the first girl and guy. Yeah. A couple runs away, and into a car, and they’re gonna do it in a car in the middle just just feet away really from this funeral, and he has to run out and get something.   Oh, no. He’s gonna run out and get condoms, and he comes back with whole bags full of stuff. In the meantime, she’s in the back of the car and a horse head bookend, comes through the window and just, I guess, beats her to death. Right? 

Craig:  Yeah. But before the guy had left, he he had said, don’t start without me. And he comes back, and she’s dead. And she’s got, like, she’s, like, cross eyed, and she’s got her legs up in the air. And he’s, like, oh, you started without me. And then he he gets killed in a trash bag Todd as does the guy in the third one. And it and it just keeps happening like that. I mean, and like I said, it’s difficult to talk about plot.   It’s more fun to talk about the gags. What’s going on in the background of all of this is that we are in this typical high school community, and at the first funeral, everybody’s there, and I guess the principal, I think it was the principal, is talking at the funeral, and he’s like, This is so sad. It’s especially sad that it happened on such a big day because today is such a big day because of budget cuts. We have to do every school event today. So we have to have the parade today, and we have to have the big game today, and we have to have, the prom Todd, and all these things happen have to happen today. And so so all of these things happen over the course of this one day, but we still get all of the typical things that you see in these types of high school movies. We get the big game. We get the parade.   We get the dance. And we follow this girl. I gosh. I didn’t even write her name’s Toby. Toby. I didn’t write down any of the names of the actors or actresses because as far as I know, they were none of them had really done anything or didn’t I I mean, I didn’t recognize any of them. Should I have? 

Todd:  No. No. None of them none of them did anything after this. 

Craig:  So you know, I didn’t write any of that Todd, but this girl, Toby, she’s the virginal one and, she’s the one that like she wears a button on her shirt that says no. And then later on when we’re in the locker room, she takes off her shirt and she’s got an even bigger button on her bra that says something like, for the last time I said, no, 

Todd:  that was great. 

Craig:  And she’s the virginal one who is continually warning all of her friends that that, sex is is bad and sex kills. And, every time she sees somebody going off, she comments on it and she goes off to follow them. And she’s got this friend named Hardy? Yeah, Hardy, a guy friend. And every time she’s like, where are they going? He’s always like, maybe he has to help her find the bathroom or, like, get always something, like, ridiculous. We know what they’re going off to do. And so she always ends up being around in the aftermath, and so she eventually becomes the suspect. One of the things that, we haven’t mentioned and it starts right from the very beginning is the movie also does this thing where it blatantly points things out to you. Like in the in the beginning, in the very first one with the babysitter, she goes when she goes to open the door to see the meowing dog, she then closes it.   And it not only does it zoom up in to show that it’s not locked, but then words and an arrow flash up on the screen unlocked. Like don’t miss this, and they keep doing that like something will pop up, clues or suspect, and it’s so goofy. It’s ridiculously goofy, but it’s funny, and I’ve never really seen anything like it. And so just for kind of the unique nature of it, I thought that that’s a good gag. It’s a funny gag, and it it goes throughout. 

Todd:  It Todd. And I can say Todd that honestly, again, the movie was pretty ahead of its time. When I first watched this, you know, before we had like, Scary Movie or even before Scream where we were really discussing all of the tropes for movies, this movie was laying it out like nobody else was. And at least for me, this was actually the first place that I was, you know, kinda made aware of that. You know, I I have to say, like, obviously you watch these movies and you realize they’re all kind of the same but this is the first place where as a kid I had it kind of all pointed out to me that, oh yeah, this is this is the formula. This is how these movies always go. And so it really was, pretty clever actually. It Again, it seems even more goofy now and it certainly was intended to be goofy but it probably doesn’t even look as clever now then as it did then.   You know what I mean? 

Craig:  Because then. Yeah. Yeah. I I agree. And and you’re right. Like with, the Scream franchise, especially the first one, but they carried it through all of them, I think. You know, they had the character of Randy who would explain all of these conventions and explain all of these types of things. And here, they’re pretty much doing the same thing, just not through a character.   They’re just doing it through messages on the screen. And I I thought it was, I thought it was really funny. 

Todd:  Yeah. There there again also you get a lot of the same tropes that you get in a lot of other comedies. So, she for example, I guess what’s really funny about this too is that, and and and we had this actually in a movie that we saw recently and maybe I can remember which one it was, but it’s the goofiness of the fact that even though all these murders are happening, there it there aren’t really police involved in investigating this. It’s like Mhmm. All the principal and his his, associates at the school, and I think they’ve brought in a sheriff, but otherwise, it’s everything focuses around the school. And every time there’s a murder, it’s like the principal meeting with his second in command, I guess, vice principal. 

Craig:  I don’t yeah, I guess. I don’t know. 

Todd:  Who’s an older woman and and the sheriff or whatever, and they’re all in there in, his principal’s room, and they have all the evidence sort of laid out in front of them. I think they even have the body in the nurses station at one point after one of the murders. Then there’s a shrink. There’s the school psychiatrist who the principal feels like he needs to send Toby to, after the murders, and the psychiatrist himself is completely unhinged. And there’s what I thought was a pretty funny scene where she’s meeting with him and she’s being very earnest and trying to explain her feelings. And as she is, and he she’s talking to him, he is, standing up and like moving things in his office, like taking the the picture on the wall that was straight and making it crooked, and scattering some things on the table, and the words that are coming out of his mouth are are more and more bizarre, and you realize, of course, oh yeah, this is the whole psychiatrist himself is actually also crazy kind of thing. And so there are a lot of these almost SNL type characters in here where you have the crazy psychologist, you have the clueless principal who’s really, loves to hear the sound of his own voice and and just, is totally into himself. You have, of course, the clueless teenagers who are only interested in sex.   And, then you have this really weird character, which is the standout of the movie to me because it’s so strange. And he’s a really really tall guy and he’s the janitor. And suspicion is thrown on him from the first moment because we see that the killer is wearing, the the gloves that he’s wearing aren’t like classy cool leather gloves or whatnot. They’re like the kind of gloves you put on in the kitchen to wash dishes. And I believe in the first funeral scene, this, janitor is there and he points forward just at this really odd moment in the funeral and says, Sex kills. Sex kills. Sex kills. And he’s got one of those gloves on his hand.   But this guy is one of the weirdest looking guys you’ve ever seen. He’s super tall, he’s extremely thin, he has really long arms, really long hands, and he talks like Tarzan. But my gosh, this guy. Right? I mean Yeah. His arms when he walks and his arms swing, it seems like his elbows are swinging both directions. You you walk you see him in this movie and you think this guy must have had a career as a character actor or something, but really this has been like the only thing that he was in. And even at the end, he’s credited not even with his name but as and featuring as Malvert the stick man. When I was a kid, I just watched this and I was like, who is this guy? This is so weird.   Actually, I thought that was this the the time I thought that was the scariest part of this whole movie was the mystery behind who is the stick, you know. 

Craig:  Yeah. Well, they explained it at one point. They said that he used to be a teacher, but he was got he got in a car accident, and so he’s been weird ever since, and they’ve kept him around because they felt guilty or whatever. But yeah, his performance is really interesting, and he is. He’s unusually tall. He has an and and thin, and he has unusually long arms and and legs. And there are he just moves in a really interesting way. I mean, it’s almost it’s almost graceful.   It’s almost dance like the the way that he moves. And he can do things like at one point, he’s he helps Toby steal the, principal’s keys, and she asks for them. And he hands them to her between from behind between his legs. And his his legs are and arms are so long that he doesn’t even have to bend over. Like Yeah. He’s like, I I I don’t know. And that’s the thing. I tried to look up stuff about him Todd, and you just can’t find anything about him.   Yeah. I mean, there are people actively online, like, trying to find this guy and find out where he is and what happened to him. Today, I don’t know if his performance would fly so well, you know, in our PC culture, because I I think that, you know, they’re not only is he just a dumb guy, but I think that he’s kinda being presented as challenged and we’re a little bit more sensitive about that then. But I don’t know. In this type of slapstick comedy, sometimes we can still get away with those things, but it’s it’s it’s it’s fascinating to watch. 

Todd:  It really is. But yeah, you’re right. His performance as you said, and then that’s one of the Craig things I think I found about this movie. And again, maybe it’s just looking at it through modern eyes, but I like seeing him on screen. I Todd whenever he opened his mouth because I thought it was so dumb, you know? Yeah. The the manner of talking. 

Craig:  Get out of their mouth. 

Clip:  Robert’s gonna have punch. Malware, help my punch. What are you talking about? Malware t. Rich. 

Todd:  Not that things like that are out of place in a dumb movie like this, but it’s it’s even almost too dumb for this movie, you know. 

Craig:  Yeah. And I mean, I don’t know. I feel like that was the tone they were going for. I mean, they’re stupid, stupid jokes. Yeah. And and, like, he goes to the prom, and he goes to the football game with a blow up sex doll. And, you know 

Todd:  He’s dancing with it. Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. Which is a pretty funny sight to see, actually. So it is. I mean, it’s it’s lowbrow comedy. It’s juvenile comedy, but you know, there there’s a place for that. Yeah. As you listeners probably know, Todd and I started out this project. We would get together and watch the movies together and have a couple of beers, and then we would talk about it.   I missed that with this movie because I think that sitting on a couch with you, having a couple beers, it would have been a much more enjoyable experience than just sitting on my couch and watching it by myself. You know, this this would be a fun movie to to to goof on, with your friends either before or after a few drinks or or whatever. It’s that kind of experience. It’s not so much a sit down and and, you know, watch it from start to finish for the artistic quality. It’s it’s more of a, I don’t know, just a buddy kinda kinda deal, I guess. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. And you could really sit down and watch with anybody, like, even my wife sat down and watch it with me. She’s like, is this gonna be I said, you know, as I remember this, there’s not a bit of blood in it. It’s it’s pretty tame and and and I was right. In fact, like you had pointed out earlier, the only reason it’s rated R is another goofball thing that comes in. Again, there 

Craig:  I love this. Yeah. Don’t forget. I 

Todd:  love it.   The fur just did this and it is a totally random point in the movie. It just cuts to a scene of a guy sitting at a desk. 

Clip:  Ladies and gentlemen, in order to achieve an r rating today, a motion picture must contain full frontal nudity, graphic violence, or an explicit reference to the sex act. Since this film has none of those and since research has proven that r rated films are by far the most popular with the movie going public, the producers of this motion picture have asked me to take this opportunity to say, fuck you. 

Craig:  And then it and then it pops up with the r rating on the screen. I thought that was hilarious and I thought it was so clever. What was funny to me is I don’t know, maybe the MPAA standards were different back then, but I know that today, for a PG 13 movie, you’re allowed one F bomb, just the one, 

Todd:  but you 

Craig:  are allowed. But really, you’re right. That’s the only thing that I can imagine would make this r Todd. Beyond that, it’s really more just like kind of a teen comedy, and a tame one at that. Yeah. And I think There’s no nudity. I mean, there’s a there’s a scene in the locker room, but there’s no I mean, they they remain in their bras and panties. There’s suggestions of sex, but it never actually gets to that point.   Like, they start kinda fooling around. Nobody takes any clothes off or anything. There’s there’s virtually no violence unless you consider putting a plastic bag over somebody, like a giant hefty bag over somebody’s whole body. I mean, if you consider that violence. Beyond that, there’s there’s really nothing. 

Todd:  Yeah. It always cuts away, you know, and and that again is part of the comedy like the guy approaches the girl with an eggplant. It cuts away. You’re just sort of left to wonder how in the world did he murder with an eggplant Because then when you when it cuts back to the body, there’s nothing bloody. There’s nothing anything really. It’s just there. Maybe there’s a little bit of implied blood on the horse head bookend. Right? 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. But then even that’s just aftermath, like we don’t see anything happen. We just see what what kind of sort of looks like some smeared blood on it later, but, it’s certainly not gory. I mean, it doesn’t even really look like blood. I mean, just kinda looks like red food coloring or something. 

Todd:  And I think that’s part of why this movie got so much, airtime on TV is because it’s totally TV friendly and and probably just needed that f bomb cut out of it. And then on cable, you don’t even really need to do that. So, Yeah. So that might more so than it being a great movie or super popular movie. It maybe along with It’s a Wonderful Life. It was just a convenient movie at the time to be able to put in Right. On that people would enjoy it, you know that time of night when they’re in the mood for this kind of movie. 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  Right. But you’re right, There’s total goofball stuff in here when the killer is on the phone talking to people who the voice changer he’s using, he’s talking through a rubber chicken. 

Craig:  Oh, I love that. And the first time he does it, you know, he’s talking like this whole faculty. I don’t even know who they are, the the faculty, but they’re convinced that Toby is the killer and and the shop teacher who’s super weird. Somebody says, let’s give her the Craig, and he says, I could cut her. I I could saw her head off. But then they get and and they send her away to go be evaluated. Then they get this phone call where he’s talking through this rubber chicken, and he says, the next time I kill is going to be at the football game. Click.   And the lady on the other line said, did you hang up on me? And he says, no. I said, click. And the next the next time he calls, the the lady, the same lady who’s talking to him, she pulls the same thing on him. 

Clip:  I will kill next at the prom. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah? Click. 

Clip:  Did you hang up? 

Todd:  No. We just said click. 

Craig:  These goofball jokes. And a lot sometimes when in comedy, you know, they say there’s, like, the rule of 3 or whatever. I don’t know. You know, you repeat something enough times, it gets funnier. Sometimes I think that that really falls flat. Here, because it’s so stupid, it’s hilarious. Like, it’s so stupid that every time it comes up like in the first scene, the babysitter scene, after they’re dead, the parents come home, and the mom walks in the house and she screams like this terrible scream. And the husband comes running in, What is it? And she’s like, She left the TV on. 

Clip:  Todd does she think she gets to do for 75¢ an hour? 

Craig:  And then she walks into the next room and screams again, and he runs out. And she’s like, There’s chicken on 

Clip:  the floor. I’m paying her 75¢ an hour. 

Craig:  And, like, she keeps doing all this 75¢ an hour stuff, and then she actually goes up and finds the body and doesn’t react at all and just says something like, Well, I’ll be. 

Todd:  Doctor. And then he comes in and screams. 

Craig:  Doctor. Yeah. It’s goofy stuff like that, but for whatever reason, it works. I think if I had been in a different mood, if I hadn’t been in a good mood, I would have not enjoyed it. But I was in for it. I was on board. I was ready to go with this goofy humor and I enjoyed it. I don’t know that it’s necessarily something that I would need to ever go back Todd, and it’s certainly, I don’t think, something that I would wanna see over and over again because I think eventually it would get old.   But it’s funny. It’s it’s it’s goofy funny stuff. 

Todd:  It is. And I’ll and I’ll say I’ll I’ll just come out and say that I think after a while, it does get a little Todd. And because, again, the humor is not super sophisticated. And while that works for a while, you really have to you really have to pace it out, I think, at a certain to a certain degree. You either have to keep the gags coming so fast and furious, that they’re just overwhelming your senses and you’re you’re always laughing, or or you have to be a little more sophisticated about your humor. And I sort of feel like this movie, unfortunately for me anyway, falls just a little on the side of the fence that the gags are not coming fast enough to keep me a 100% in it. You know what I mean? So so then when the gags do come, you’re kind of reminded, oh, yeah. That’s right.   You know, it’s another stupid gag. And so I would have to say that by the time I reached the end of the movie, I was kind of ready for it to be over. It did feel like it got like, as we got toward the end of movie that it was getting a little tedious. I don’t know. Did you feel similar similarly? 

Craig:  I I did. I did. I was watching it, and, my partner walked through, and he kinda asked me how it was or whatever. I said, well, it’s stupid. I said, but it’s it’s it’s funny, but I I I did say too. I said, it’s too long, and it’s not. You know, it’s a short movie. It’s only an hour and 26 minutes long, but I think that it could have been about half an hour. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And, and that maybe would have been a little bit more effective. But I don’t know. I I wouldn’t necessarily say that I got bored. There were, like you said, you kind of wish that more of the gags, that they came more quickly or that more of them hit home. Because every once in a while, you know, there may have been a lull, but then there would be a gag that would really make me laugh out loud and you know, put put a big smile on my face. So it’s not that I was by the end, I was bored. It’s just it Todd did feel a little bit long. 

Todd:  Yeah. And and sometimes it’s clear they’re trying really too hard. There’s one gag in particular I’m thinking of where for no reason at all, at least that I could discern, suddenly in the corner of the film come those hands, like the killer’s hands. But they’re doing sign language. And I I’m sure it’s not even sign language because after a while, it it’s clear that it that they’re just not doing sign language. And then finally, it just it just kind of throws its hand its own hands up in the air and it disappears. And and you’re kind of like, why? What? It’s not it I don’t think it was at all connected to the action. No.   It just felt like they felt like too much time had gone through and they had to squeeze a gag in somewhere and so they put it in. But that’s one example where it kinda falls flat. What is this? Yeah. 

Craig:  I agree. And, like, it left me just like you. I was like, why? I don’t get it. You know, why this scene? Yeah. It didn’t seem it didn’t seem to have any I mean, a couple of characters were just talking. I mean, they weren’t even talking about anything interesting, really. And it just popped up and then it just went away and that was it. And and they did that with a couple of things.   One of the ones that I actually kind of liked was at one point, the screen just goes to that fuzzy VHS, type screen. You youngins out there won’t know what that looks like, but we eighties kids, know, when the tape is is is kinda messed up, and it’s just all scrambled and funny. And and the killer just talks us through. 

Clip:  We have temporarily lost our picture. Please stand by. Just kidding. Hello? It’s me, the breather. You’re probably wondering who I am. Who could I be? Could I be the innocent looking Toby? Would you trust the girl who looks like Prince Valiant in a plum sweater? Maybe I’m doctor Sigmund, a man who was once arrested for corrupting the morals of a hooker. 

Craig:  The and he just goes through this whole list of people who we already know are the suspects because every time they do something suspicious, it tells us. It flashes up on the screen. Suspect. Suspect. But I mean it it was goofy and unnecessary, but at least it was kind of clever and kind of broke the monotony of some of the other stuff. And then, you know, I’m sure we’ve skipped over. There are other deaths, but they all follow that same pattern. Then it gets to the end.   What, what’s been going on is because Toby is is the one who is under the most suspicion, she and her friend, Hardy, they are trying to investigate to find out who this is to kinda clear Toby’s name, And they end up at the prom. She’s in costume. She’s in disguise. She’s dressed up as Sandy from Grease at the end when Sandy’s all sexy and stuff. And this whole last deal, another girl gets killed in almost the exact I mean, it’s the same formula. She goes off to have sex. The boy has to go find a condom. She gets killed.   This one, she gets killed with the prom queen crown. She wanted to be prom queen, but wasn’t. He comes back, and this was a really kind of a joke and bad taste. Like, he comes back and finds her dead, but he’s gonna have sex with her anyway. Like, that was kinda close. 

Todd:  That was a little yeah. 

Craig:  But anyway, so then he gets killed Todd, and then the shop teacher gets killed, so we know it’s not him. And eventually, Toby makes her way into the principal’s office, and she, looks through his stuff, and she finds this folder with all of the girls who have been killed with, like, on each one, it’s a different over her face. It says, like, slut or whore or tramp or bad girl or something like that. And the principal walks in behind her, and is acting weird and eventually starts like taking off his clothes and stuff. So we presume it’s him. And there’s, another gag where, like, she turns around and and she turns back, and he’s got all of his clothes off except these enormous boxers that come all the way almost up to his chest. And then on his chest is painted the Iheart n y symbol. 

Todd:  Like, what was that all about? 

Clip:  So random. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And and and he like he says, I’m going to go get the school trophy. And she’s like, we have a school trophy. And he’s like, yes. 1 year, one time. The typing team won a trophy. Like, it’s just so goofy. And he goes off and gets it, and he comes back in. And it’s like, he’s gonna kill her with it.   But then he slips on a 1,000,000 marbles that just happened to be on the floor. Like, did we see that there were marbles on the floor before? 

Todd:  We actually she some at some point in here, a bowl of marbles did get knocked over, and they did go across the floor. 

Craig:  I I had missed that entirely. So I was like, Okay, I guess there’s marbles on the floor. So he falls and then falls and impales himself on this statue. And what I was thinking at this point was that she was going to be suspected of killing him too. Yeah. And and then, of course, if he really was the killer, then nobody would know or believe her, and then she would be in trouble. But what happens is she ends up going into another room where her friend, Hardy, is supposed to be waiting for her, but he’s dead too. And from behind her, she hears somebody say he’s dead too just like all the other ones.   And it turns out that this it’s this old lady, vice principal lady, who’s been with the principal all the time. And she explains that 

Clip:  I only kill the boys. He killed the girls. It breaks up the numbers. But why? Why not? I never told him. He had no idea. I did it to protect him in case there are any witnesses. I I don’t understand. Because he was my son.   You’re his mother? No. His father. Oh my god. Father hyphen mother. But why did you do it? Because I loved you. 

Craig:  Goofy. I don’t even remember exactly what happens now, except that it it I think she gets away and starts running. And things just got completely surreal, and I had no idea what was going on. Yeah. She’s, like, running through the school. And all of a sudden, all of these people who have been killed throughout the movie are like there and Yes. They’re dressed in weird costumes. What was going on? 

Todd:  It was like it suddenly became an avant garde art piece, the whole film. Yeah. She’s running through and people are coming out and they’re dressed differently and people who are dead are are there again. And it’s just you’re right. There’s nothing to describe. It’s just so weird. Like, what’s going on? And then she wakes up. Right? Right.   She wakes up and it’s like The Wizard of Oz. It it feels like that was supposed to indicate that that she was truly having this bizarre dream and that’s how dreams sometimes go. They seem like they’re going realistic and everything, and then they take a a strange turn. I I felt like maybe that was what the movie was doing. More than anything, I think the movie didn’t really know how it wanted to wrap itself up, or it wanted to get in a few extra gags at the end, probably just to make fun of how horror movies end. You know, you get the twist and then sometimes you get the double twist, and in this case, the movie is going for, like, this triple twist back flip, you know, kind of thing. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  She wakes up but it’s like the Wizard of Oz. Like, she’s in a bed and she’s surrounded by people, but they’re not the same people that they were. The shopkeeper’s there, but he’s actually the psychiatrist and the janitor, the tall lanky janitor guy is there, but he’s actually, one of the one of the teachers, like an English teacher or something, and is suddenly talking very properly, almost like a proper British accent. 

Craig:  And the principal is the janitor now. It’s like it is. It’s very Wizard of Oz. Like, and you were there and you were there and you were there, but none of you were who you really were. And I kinda I don’t know. In most movies where, it was all a dream, I don’t like that. I feel like it was a cop out, but this movie was so goofy. I had no idea where it was going anyway.   I I thought that this was appropriate. You know, it was an appropriate end to this movie. 

Todd:  Yeah. And then she goes out with her boyfriend afterwards and she’s just talk it was such a weird dream and they’re walking through the woods. And she just decides, we should do it now. And so, oh no, you know, she’s making that choice. And so they they kind of lay down in the woods and he walks, he goes away and when he comes back, he’s got the gloves on. 

Clip:  Hardy, why are you breathing so heavy? 

Todd:  I’m the killer. 

Clip:  Hardy, you’re you’re not the killer. You’re my friend. Remember? That was a dream. This is reality. Why are you doing this? 

Craig:  I don’t know. I guess I’m just that kind of guy. And they’re at her funeral. 

Todd:  Oh, it’s 10 minutes later. It says on the screen. 

Craig:  10 minutes later. 

Todd:  And they’re having this it’s like this makeshift funeral. It’s not even like a proper, like a proper tombstone. It’s just like a wooden cross with her name carved in it. 

Craig:  That’s really funny. And everybody’s putting, flowers on her like the mound of dirt that she’s under. And, the the boyfriend goes and, like, puts 2 flowers down. He’s like, I’m sorry. I guess I just lost respect for you because she decided to have sex, I guess. And he’s like, But I’ll always love you. And then I saw this coming a 100 miles away. Of course, she jumps out of the Craig, a la the end of Carrie.   And that’s the end in the credits roll. I don’t know. You know, I’m really glad. You had mentioned this before, this movie, but if I remember correctly, it wasn’t on our list. So I appreciate that a listener recommended it because, I’m glad to have seen It was it was funny, and it was fun, and it was kind of a nice departure from, some of the stuff that we do. I mean, we’ve done, goofy horror comedies before, but it’s nice every once in a while to just have something really light, something that you don’t have to think about at all, that you just roll with it and, you’re in it for the laughs. And I had a good time. 

Todd:  Doctor. Oh yeah. And if you do decide to watch it, I think you’re gonna be craving Doctor. Pepper by the end. I can almost guarantee it. Doctor. 

Craig:  Oh my god. That’s product placement. Doctor. Pepper was everywhere. Then there was everywhere. I mean, dozens of people are wearing I’m a Pepper shirts. I mean, Doctor Pepper is all over the place. And then there was also Coors and KFC and Dunkin Donuts and Nike.   Now, I don’t know how this stuff works. Don’t they have to get permission to use this stuff? How in the world did these filmmakers get to use all of this product? And it seems so intentional, like they were trying to highlight it all the time. 

Todd:  Well, now technically, you don’t have Todd get permission to use it. However, most filmmakers won’t use it without permission because they are trying to get some kind of promotional consideration. They’re actually trying to get money for putting their product in the movie. And so it only makes sense that Doctor Pepper has paid some money. Like, anytime you see Burger King or, like, we saw, you know, the Monster Squad last week. Burger King was in there heavily or whatever. They paid. There was an agreement, and the filmmakers got some money for advertising Burger King so much.   And if if you Todd through to the credits, you’ll see that it wasn’t just Doctor Pepper. There is a list of it says promotional consideration given by and there are like 3 pages. Oh, my gosh. Like product placement here. And I don’t know if this is because the screenwriter, you know, wasn’t is in television and so, you know, he had all these connections and and this is how they help pay for this movie because the movie does seem pretty low budget. 

Craig:  Yeah. I looked it 

Todd:  up and and I think they filmed the whole thing in like one high school like on location at a high school in Houston and even hastily changed the name of the high school at the end when they were like, maybe we don’t wanna draw too much attention to it Todd make it from Right. Lamar to Lamab High School. Mhmm. Just just like like taking that r and hastily making it into a b. Right. So so yeah, that’s the only thing I can think of, but Doctor Pepper stands out way above and beyond everything else in this. I swear, you could play a drinking game and get totally trashed by the end of   it. Oh, yeah. With one rule.   Yes. And that’s it. 

Craig:  Yeah. Without question. You know, the only interesting bit of trivia, I kind of assume this is, you know, it was one of those things, of course, it didn’t do very well in the theaters, but it because it aired so much on TV, it kinda has a cult following. And a lot of times when that’s the case, you can find interesting bits of trivia. I didn’t really find much on this one except for that it was, made during the writers strike of, 1980 and 1981. And I guess that it was filmed in Texas because Texas was a right to work, state, and they didn’t have to worry so much about the unions. But the the director who’s listed is Mickey Rose, and I assume that’s who you were referring to at the beginning. But what I’ve read is that really most of the direction was done by Michael Ritchie who was uncredited and who was the director of the Bad News Bears.   So I I, you know, I guess, you know, that guy, Bad News Bears, he had some experience with comedy, so maybe that kinda helped the quality a little bit. I also noticed right from the beginning, that it said, in the credits, the executive producer was Alan Smithee. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And just because I’m a a movie, you know, whore, basically, I know that that’s that’s the name that, people slap on something when they don’t want to or can’t put their real name on it. So I knew there must have been some kind of weird stuff going on behind the scenes. And and I read maybe that the the studio was trying to get as many make, movies made as they could, so that they didn’t have to pay, the unions and whatnot, and this was one of those. It’s and and the quality shows. It does look like it was put together quickly. The actors are kinda no name actors, and the acting is not great. I mean, it’s all over the top. You you kinda forgive it because you’re not expecting an Oscar worthy performance here.   But, I I would, you know, I would recommend this movie. I would rec you know, if if somebody were having a bunch friends over, whether it be guys or girls or whoever, and you just wanted to sit down and and have some popcorn and and have some good laughs. Even if you’re not a horror fan, you know, even if you’re just a comedy fan, I think that this movie that people could enjoy it. And it could be something that you could have a conversation with your friend for 5 minutes, come back to it. You haven’t really missed anything. You know? 

Todd:  Yes. Yes. 

Craig:  It’s it’s fine. 

Todd:  Yeah. That’s the kind of scenario where it doesn’t really matter that it gets a little tedious by the end because you’re with your friends and you’re you’re injecting your own fun into the movie anyway. 

Craig:  Yes. Right. 

Todd:  I totally agree. If you’re in the mood for naked gun type movie, an airplane type movie, a scary movie type movie, this is the one for you. And if you’re a horror fan, you you could point this out. This is this is the original. Right? This is the original horror comedy. Yep. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend.   You can find us on iTunes and on Stitcher and also on Google Play. You can also find us on our social media pages, particularly on Facebook, where if you have a recommendation like Andrew did thank you again, Andrew, for this recommendation. Please, post it there. Please let us know, and we would be happy to review your film. Until then, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

This childhood favorite held many special memories for Craig and this week’s guest, his sister Kristin. The three of us enjoyed chatting about this “Goonies for horror fans,” delivered like a time capsule from the 1980’s.

Episode 66, 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. If you are a long time listener, you may have heard her before. Our guest tonight is my sister, Kristen Kennedy. Say hello, Kristen. 

Kristin:  Hi, guys. I’m here. 

Craig:  Alright. The reason that, we asked Kristen to work with us today is because we are talking about a movie that is near and dear to our childhood, and maybe Todd’s too, and that is, 1987’s The Monster Squad. Now, this is a movie that I would probably count in my top five movies of all time. I just absolutely loved this movie. I was kind of surprised when I told my sister that I was going to be doing this one, that, she wanted to talk about it with us because I kind of had the feeling that maybe I had forced her to watch a little bit more than she wanted to. Kristen, what’s your thought on the movie? 

Kristin:  I don’t really remember if you forced me to or not, but when you had said you were doing it, I was like, oh my gosh. I really, really wanna do that with you. I have very fond memories of this movie. So I don’t think it was one you must have forced me to watch. I’m not sure. 

Todd:  Wow. That’s impressive. Because you forced her to do a lot of things, Craig, according to what we’ve listened to in this podcast. 

Kristin:  I don’t know. I was I was noticing it’s from 1987. And so then I was I was doing the math thinking that we probably watched it around the time that it came out, which would mean I was 5 years Todd, and you were 8 years old. And that seems crazy. When I was rewatching it last night for this, I thought, oh, my gosh. These are my kids’ ages now, 58. And I would never let them watch this movie right now. It’s fun and it’s silly and it’s cute, but the monsters are also really scary. 

Craig:  Yeah. I kinda felt the same way. That’s exactly what I was thinking when, I was watching it. I was like, there was no way that Kristen would ever let her kids watch this now. But I think that that’s maybe a little bit sad. Not to say that I think that you should let them watch it because I think that kids today aren’t necessarily exposed to this type of movie. But I personally find that sad because this is the type of movie that I really connected with and really loved as a kid. First of all, one of the aspects of it that I love so much is that really it’s kind of a buddy movie, and I loved those type of movies when I was a kid.   I didn’t have a whole lot of guy friends. I wasn’t into sports and that type of stuff. I was more into like reading and school. And so, my friends tended to be girls more often, often. And I was always a little bit jealous, of the guys in these types of movies, like This and, The Goonies and Stand by Me. And so I think that was really appealing to me Todd. Plus, our dad was always a big horror fan, and I always kinda wanted to be like him, I think. And so having access to this movie where there certainly are scary elements, but at the same time, it feels safe enough for young kids.   I just really I I and I still love it today. I mean, there are parts of it that I think are a little bit out of date. There are, there’s some language and stuff that, is a little bit not PC. Not that it was PC in the eighties either, but, we were a little bit more lax about those things unfortunately then. But beyond that, the movie itself, I just I still love it. What’s your experience with it, Todd? 

Todd:  You know, I thought I had seen this movie. And then I realized after I started watching it that I think in my mind I was confusing it with Little Monsters with Fred Savage. Uh-huh. You know that one? Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s another good one. 

Todd:  And and that one I 

Kristin:  I love that one. 

Todd:  That one I did grow up with, and this one, I have never seen, believe it or not. So when I was watching this, I was obviously watching it with fresh eyes. But just like you guys said, it is a time capsule, and it really transported me back, to those kind of movies. Well, not just the era, but also the kind of movies, the kids movies that we had in that era. It this is this has so many parallels to Goonies, which came out Yeah. You know, what, 2 years before this. And I’m sure that’s intentional because they were trying to create that same, feeling, you know, that that same sense of success that kids had, that that Goonies had. But Right.   In the same way that I go back and I rewatch Goonies now, there are parts of it that I think, jeez, Like, they just don’t make kids movies like this anymore. And I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. And the things I’m talking about are really kind of small. But first first and foremost is the language. 

Kristin:  For the Absolutely. I mean, I actually was counting because in the within the first 9 minutes of the film, they’d either said homo or faggot, 4 times 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. 

Kristin:  In under in under 9 minutes. And then, you know, the cool kid Todd had had ridden up on his bicycle, smoking a cigarette. And, I was like, yeah. I don’t I don’t know if I would want my kids watching this at their ages right now. 

Todd:  Well, yeah. And they’re supposed to be like in elementary school. Right? Or or at least middle school or something? 

Kristin:  Right. Yeah. 

Todd:  But but but they’re it’s like their high school. Like, it’s like they wrote it for high school students, but they went ahead and cast middle school like, middle school or elementary school stand by me age kids in it. It’s got that little bit of that frat boy type feeling to it. A little bit. Even the little girl says, like, chicken shit at one point, you know, and there’s Good. 

Kristin:  She does. 

Todd:  And and, you know, Goonies is the same way though. And to be quite frank, we did talk like that. At least my friends, I I I didn’t so much, but my friends, they they we all went through a period about this age where we were all trying on all the curse words and the swear words. And, so in that way, it did seem just kinda like Goonies does a it doesn’t seem inauthentic, but it’s certainly something you don’t see in kids’ movies anymore, 100%. 

Kristin:  You know what’s funny is when I was watching it, I was thinking about and you’re mentioning The Goonies. And I’m thinking, you know, The Goonies is one that my brother made me watch all the time. And I think I think I was a little too young, and I just didn’t quite find it as funny as he found it. But this one, he also watched all the time. And I think I liked it because I was probably the same age as Phoebe. And I really, really, really related to Phoebe in this movie. You know, I wanted to be hanging out with my older brother and his cool friends. And, you know, and Sean was her older brother in the movie, and he he was not like he didn’t treat her poorly or anything.   She just kinda tags along all the time, and I think I was trying to be Phoebe. Like, I tried to kinda get in the group on the fringes and just fly under the radar and every now and then say something funny. So I really related to little Phoebe, and I think probably I thought it was really cool when she told the the older boys not to be chicken shit. 

Craig:  Well, I feel like we better get into talking about the movie because, I could probably I was telling Kristen I was talking to her on the phone earlier Todd. She said, I don’t know how we’re gonna talk about it for an hour. And I said, Oh, don’t worry. I could probably recite this movie from beginning to end. I’m just gonna gush because I just love just about everything about this movie. But one of the things that I really like about this movie is that it connects all of these old, universal monsters to a different generation. You know, these, monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein, the wolf man, the mummy, and the creature from the Black Lagoon. These are all iconic horror figures, but they weren’t in play so much from the time when I was a kid on.   It came in an era before. And, this movie opens up in a spooky Todd castle and, it’s kind of in the dungeon and, there’s rats and there’s bats flying around and eventually we see a big kind of scary bat that transforms into Count Dracula. And although this isn’t an exact replica of the Bela Lugosi, Dracula, it’s very clear from the beginning that, that’s who it’s meant to be. And I guess that they were really careful. Stan Winston did the monster, effects on this movie, and I guess that they had to be really careful because they tried to get Universal to make the film, but Universal wouldn’t. So to avoid any copyright infringement, they had to make the monsters look a little bit different. But I’m surprised they didn’t get in trouble anyway because the monsters all look pretty much alike their classic carnations. So we start out there and there’s a really cool scene where Van Helsing is bringing these troops into Dracula’s castle, to try to perform this ceremony with this amulet that apparently if a virgin reads these magical words, this amulet can open up a portal to limbo, and it can suck all the evil monsters there.   Well, things don’t go right. In fact, there’s an opening scroll that says 100 years before this story begins, it was a time of darkness in Transylvania, a time when Doctor. Abraham Van Helsing and a small band of freedom fighters conspired to rid the world of vampires and monsters And And that’s what we get to see here in this opening scene. And it feels maybe on a little bit of a grander scale because it’s in color and it’s kind of a big set piece, but it feels very much like one of those old movies. So when, the portal opens, it backfires and the good guys get sucked in and, they’ve blown their chance for the next 100 years. Then we cut to the present day where we meet 2 of our main characters, Sean who is played by Andrew or excuse me, Andre Gower, and Patrick, Sean’s best friend played by Robbie Kyger. And they are in the principal’s office at their elementary school or middle school, wherever they’re supposed to be, and they’re getting in trouble because they’re not paying attention to their studies. And instead, what they’re doing is they’re drawing, these monsters that they come up with their in their heads. 

Clip:  This is spider with human head? 

Craig:  I’m sorry. Spider? 

Kristin:  With human head. Yeah. He eats dogs and cats and rabbits. 

Craig:  Does he? 

Kristin:  Sean thought him up. 

Clip:  You see, sir, we kinda have this monster club, okay? And we draw those pictures to put on our clubhouse walls. 

Craig:  Correction, mister Crenshaw. You draw pictures during missus Carlson’s science class when you are supposed to be paying attention. 

Kristin:  Wait. I just wanna say one thing. I mean, missus Carlson’s a nice teacher and all, but she’s boring and has an odd shaped head. That’s why some of the guys call Meow Mix because her head’s shaped like a cat head. But I don’t, sir, because how rude. 

Craig:  So we we then go out and meet a couple of our other characters, Horace, who is also known as Fat Kid. 

Kristin:  Fat Kid. 

Craig:  Yeah. Fat Kid. Fat Kid 

Todd:  more than anything else in this movie. 

Kristin:  Yeah. I think they only say Horace twice. Otherwise, fat kid. 

Craig:  It yeah. Fat kid. Poor guy. But, you know, it was the eighties. We were meeting the eighties, I guess. 

Todd:  Well, you know what? I I prefer to call him Chunk because that’s really who he is in this movie. 

Craig:  It is. I mean, there are so many parallels. It’s so much like The Goonies, but The Goonies with monsters. I mean, even, the mom, Sean’s mom is played by, Mary Ellen Trainor, who was the mom in Goonies. I mean, there are so many similarities. But you know, this whole probably, I don’t know, first 15, 20 minutes is just introducing us to these new characters. Fat Kid is getting bullied by, EJ who is played by Jason Hervey who is the older brother on The Wonder Years. And he’s just being mean to him and calling him bad names and whatnot.   And then the cool kid, Rudy, shows up on his bicycle. 

Kristin:  With his banana seat. He was so cool. 

Craig:  Which I think was awesome. And this kid is played by Ryan Lambert and like, I felt like I had seen this kid in a bunch of other things and I looked at his IMDB page and he really didn’t do a whole lot. I mean, he was on Kids Incorporated, which we watched when we were kids, but I think I just watched this movie so much that these kids are all so familiar to me. Anyway, Rudy rescues Fat Kid and kind of humiliates, the bully. And then, we move on and, Sean and Patrick are walking down the street having a debate about the wolf man and what the wolf man does and doesn’t Todd. You know, he wears pants, so surely he could drive a car, and they eventually, they say something about he he has to wear pants because otherwise you’d see his wolf dork. I don’t remember using that word when we were kids, but it sure is funny. And that’s that’s when, Phoebe, Sean’s little sister shows up.   Phoebe’s played by a little girl, an adorable little girl, named Ashley Bank, who also did a lot of TV work around this time. And they end up in front of this house where Phoebe says that she saw a scary German guy looking, at them, and they talk about how scary, scary German guy is. And again, we, you know, we get to their clubhouse where they’re gonna try to initiate Rudy into the club. Watching it again today, I was like, really? Would this cool older kid really wanna be in their monster club? Yeah. Apparent yeah. Apparently, he is. And then we get back to the monsters where we have, Dracula on a plane. 

Kristin:  I was watching that scene, and I remember, thinking, this is a big plane, even though they show a shot of this tiny plane, this bomber kind of a plane that’s flying. But then he they you know, the pilot and the copilot are sitting there chatting, and then they hear something. And I think, you know, it sounds just like something fell over, something little. And they freak out. They get really, really scared. And I thought, I don’t know if I’d be that scared. I don’t know if they thought something with the engine blew or what, but they decided to go check it out. And I just had to laugh because then he walks into this gigantic room, it seems, that has lots of crates and freight and different things.   And on one giant thing, it says, Frankenstein, which I just thought was hilarious. Nobody thought about the fact that this just said Frankenstein on it when they’re transporting dead Todd, and they had made jokes about, you know, one guy didn’t like doing that, and the other guy said, hey, they don’t they don’t need more peanuts, or they don’t complain about the flight.   yeah. So that was a little silly to me. And, of course, then, there’s Dracula, and he kinda takes care of the pilot. 

Todd:  It’s really a a neat scene. Scene. Actually, I was pretty impressed with it. It was it’s cool because what somehow so Dracula flies at her, at him as a bat, and then ends up materializing behind him. And when he turns around, he sees him. Then he pulls the cargo what is it, like, the lever? The pilot pulls the lever in order to release the cargo bay doors or whatever, which would release under Dracula and that Frankenstein Craig. But, of course, the Frankenstein crate falls straight down and Dracula remains suspended there in front of him. And I don’t know.   For some reason, that just seemed like a really cool scene, like, even a little pretty scary. I don’t know. If I’d seen it as a kid, I would’ve freaked out. 

Kristin:  Yeah. As a kid, I remember being really scared of that scene. I didn’t like it. I probably put a pillow in front of my face. It was all the lighting was all red and creepy. But, yeah, he just kinda hovers there and flies, and the pilot guy is kinda on the floor. He’s fallen down or gotten punched by Dracula or something, and he’s kinda watching in disbelief. Then, of course, Dracula then, after he hovers for a while, he flies out.   And who knows what happens to the pilot and the other guy for the rest of their flight? 

Todd:  That’s true. We don’t see them again, do we? It’s it’s you know? And, again, Craig Craig laughs at me for doing this a lot where I point out movie logic, and and how it all doesn’t fit. But, I just have to say, like, this whole plan of Dracula’s is so bizarre. Like, was he going to make a noise and hope for the pilot to come to the back, so that he could kinda punch him in the face or do whatever, but entice him to dump the crate exactly where he wanted him to dump it in the swamp that was near this house, which is in the suburban neighborhood where, you know, I I don’t know. You know, it it just kinda Right. But the crate ends up in a swamp. 

Craig:  You’re right. And watching this movie, I really, got that sense this time around too. Everything kind of works out perfectly. You know, he falls in this, swamp that’s not only right outside of the house where the amulet is, but it also happens to be right next to the kids’ clubhouse, which is convenient for the plot moving forward. But I wanted to take a second and, say that the guy who plays Dracula here, I don’t really know him from anything else. His name’s Duncan Reiger. And I guess in his youth, he was a champion figure skater. He was an Olympic boxing contender.   He also did some Shakespeare. And I think that, you know, I like a ton of this movie, but I really think that this guy who plays Dracula, is really, really good. And, I I don’t know. What do you guys think? 

Kristin:  I think he’s good, but I thought he was super cheesy too. I don’t know. Just with the, when you said figure skater, I’m like, I can see that. He kinda looks like a figure skater. I don’t know. He’s he was scary. And I remember as a kid that I was scared of him. But he was I don’t know.   He was just all of the characters, when we finally get them all together, they seem a little cheesy. But when they’re on their own, I feel like they seem scarier. And I don’t know what that’s about. But, he’s a very serious Dracula. He doesn’t he’s a man of few words. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Kristin:  He doesn’t he doesn’t talk a whole lot. But when he does talk, he also has a really creepy voice. So I don’t know. What did you think of him, Todd? 

Todd:  Well, he doesn’t have a lot to do, really. I mean, you know, every scene that we see of him is him wandering around and kinda making a comment, or he’s just standing ominously, you know, over somebody or something. So, but then again, that’s Dracula. Right? I mean, I guess it’s not quite true. That’s Dracula in this kind of movie, where he is just the villain, and he’s not really trying to seduce anybody, or get into their house or anything like that. That’s what really sets this apart from, I think, a lot of the other vampire movies that we’ve seen is that all of these creatures are out of their element. They’re really out of their original contexts. And so we’re just seeing them being sort of generic bad guys, banding together to get the amulet and presumably unleash some kind of, you know, destruction upon the world or I guess get more power and unleash more monsters or something.   I guess that was their end game. Right? 

Craig:  Right. Right. And and I guess I see what you’re saying. I just found this guy to be really I don’t know. He’s he’s tall and handsome and and, he’s got this old Hollywood look about him. I just thought he was really scary. I guess, in 2006, Wizard Magazine, I don’t know what magazine that is, but Wizard Magazine did a countdown of all of all the greatest movie villains. And I don’t remember exactly where Dracula fell on the list, but the Dracula that they chose was this guy’s portrayal of Dracula.   Really? And they felt that yeah. They thought that his portrayal of Dracula was the best and scariest, of them all. Now I’ve not seen all of them, and I I think that, he would certainly get some contention from from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the Dracula in that film. But I don’t know. I just really like this guy. I find him really effective, especially at the end. He’s scary. That’s the thing about another thing about this movie that I like is that it doesn’t tiptoe around things.   It really these kids are in peril. I mean, these Dracula talks about killing these kids, and you really believe that he would if that’s what it came down to. And you don’t really see that so much in kids’ movies anymore. The threat doesn’t ever really seem that bad, at least the ones that I’ve seen recently. But anyway, you’re right. Frankenstein’s thing falls in the swamp. We cut back to the kids’ clubhouse and we get a shot where we see that Dracula’s cape has fallen in a tree very near there, so we know all of this is happening in the same location. We see a little bit more, of the kids in the club, and Rudy’s taking a monster test. 

Kristin:  Second way to kill a vampire. 

Craig:  I give up. Daylight. 

Kristin:  Sunlight. Uh-huh. That kid, what other kind of light is there during the day? Oh, wait. Pete? Question 2. Is Frankenstein the name of the monster or the guy who made him? The guy. Right. 

Craig:  Rudy, while he’s up there, is also kinda looking through this camera that’s set up out the window. And through the camera, he can see this beautiful blonde girl who is always undressing in front of her window. Like, I feel like that’s all she does. 

Kristin:  And it seems like she must be looking in the mirror and posing, too. Like, she’s putting on a little show for somebody. 

Todd:  Yeah. Right? Yeah. Right. It’s like she knows there’s a camera set up across the street. 

Craig:  Exactly. It turns out to be Patrick’s sister, which we find out later. But when we’re up here, in the clubhouse, we also meet, Eugene, who is the last member of their little group. And he’s this little tiny guy. He’s probably Phoebe’s age, and he’s so cute. He’s got this little dog. And, this kid was played by Michael Faustino, who I looked up just because the name was so familiar. He’s the younger brother of Dave Faustino from Married With Children.   But he’s so cute. That’s another thing that I like about this movie is that the little kids especially, Eugene and Phoebe, are just adorable. 

Kristin:  They are. 

Craig:  And really endearing. Sean goes back into his house and his mom has bought them, again, another very convenient plot point. The mother has been to this estate sale up at that old house at 666, Shadow Brook Lane. 

Kristin:  And Shadow Brook Road. 

Craig:  Shadowbrook Road, excuse me, right? And, she bought this old book, which turns out to be Van Helsing’s diary. Now, why this book would be there, why the amulet would be there when the establishing thing that we saw in the beginning happened in Transylvania, I have no idea. And I don’t remember questioning it when I was a kid. And it didn’t bother me at all just because the the story was so much fun and and the action just kept going. Sean goes upside upstairs and meets his dad, Del, who’s played by Steven Mott. He was in tons of TV and soap and movies. If you were alive in the eighties and you watched TV, you definitely would recognize this guy. And Sean wants to go see Groundhog Day part 12, this horror franchise, but he has to stay and babysit because, his parents are going to marriage counseling.   That’s another thing that’s established. The mom and the dad are kind of having trouble. And then we cut to a scene at the police station where Del works. He gets called away, and the mom’s not happy about that because they had this appointment, but he gets called away. And this guy is going crazy at the police station, shouting, lock me up, lock me up, I’m a werewolf. And the cops are just trying to subdue him, and we see the moon outside and and we get the sense that he’s about to change, and one of the officers, shoots him. You know, I’m I’m going through all of this really quickly because it happens really quickly. You know, this is a really short movie.   It’s only, an hour and 22 minutes long, and and we just get introduced. There’s a lot of characters, but it doesn’t seem crowded, or at least it didn’t to me. Each one of the kids in the, Monster Squad, and I’m including Phoebe in that even though they won’t really let her be a part of the club, You know, they they each have their own individual personality. There may not be a whole lot of focus on them individually, but they seem like kind of an authentic group of kids. Of course, yes, you’ve got the tough one with Rudy, but beyond that, they’re not really all that stereotyped, and I find myself engaged with and caring about all these characters. I’m interested in the mom and the dad, Del and Emily. You know, I wouldn’t want to go with them to their marriage counseling, but, you know, they they seem like real human beings. Is that it nostalgia that’s giving this so much Craig? Or, Todd, since this is the first time you’ve ever seen this, did you feel that way about these characters? 

Todd:  I did. You know you know, you point out that the that the plot development really flies by at a at a quick pace. And you’re right, yet you’re also right. I also felt like I cared about these characters more than a lot of other movies where they fly through the plot and you don’t really learn enough about these people to really care. And I think that’s because it’s not like we get the scene in the diner where the kids for an some unknown reason like to go to some diner and sit down and chat. Like, these are kids doing kids things. They have their tree house. They have their clubhouse.   They’re not just walking down the street, but they’re walking down the street carrying a skateboard and wearing sunglasses, you know, which was totally our thing in the eighties. And, they’re they’re riding their bikes from place to place. They’re so convincing as kids and even in their rooms. Was, like, writing down all of the, like, eighties stuff from my childhood. So maybe there is, like, some nostalgia here. But, like, there’s a My Pet Monster in there, you know. Of course, he’s got like a Robo Tech t shirt on. They’re talking about Miami Vice, and even just their clothing was so what we wore, the jams and the the shirts and things that they were so convincing as kids.   And I think that the setting and the fact that all of the stuff that happens in the film happens while they’re going about being kids, in their natural kid settings, that it instantly made them relatable. Yeah. And even though I can’t honestly like when we talk about character development, why we care about people, usually we say we care about people because we know a lot about them. I can’t say that I really know a lot about each of them, except for the fact that I can place myself right there with them as one of their gang because I can relate just to them in general at that age. Does that make sense? And so I and I really get that empathy. Yeah. 

Kristin:  I think I feel the same way. Because even for me, here’s this boys’ club, but there’s little Phoebe, who is the same age as me, and I just totally related to that. So I feel like there’s a place for everyone. And I loved you’re talking about their clothes. I love that Sean’s shirt said, Stephen King rules. And it’s it’s it was awesome. They’re just little things like that, and it was very nostalgic as someone who grew up in the eighties, but also because, you know, I feel like this movie could it’s not just horror. It’s hilarious.   There are parts of it that are so funny. And then, you know, with the parents fighting, but they it seems like they love each other. It feels like a real family. There are just so many things that make it relatable. So I think it’s really easy to just, enjoy this movie. 

Craig:  Well, and I think maybe because we all did grow up in the eighties, maybe it makes us kind of nostalgic for a different time. You know, these kids aren’t sitting around playing video games. They’re not on their phones. Not that they’re I’m not saying that our time was better. It was just different. You know, these kids are out hanging out in clubhouses. They’re, riding their bikes, they’re, you know, they’re playing. And and, I I think that I am a little nostalgic for that time. 

Todd:  Yeah. And even to the point where they’re watching a drive in movie from the rooftop, you know. Yeah. 

Kristin:  I love that. 

Todd:  And that’s a really appealing scene. Like, man, I wish I could have sat on the roof and watched the drive in movie through binoculars, but then Your 

Craig:  dad. Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. And that was the other thing like Kristen kind of pointed out like, they they care about each other. Even though mom and dad are clearly fighting Todd be fair like, what they’re fighting about seems kinda lame, like, that he’s gone at work all the time and he even points out, well, you kinda signed up for this when you married me. I am a cop. I am gonna get pulled out, and you kind of feel like, well, he does have a point. The whole the whole parental thing, you either have to assume that there’s something else going on there, or it’s just a little bit of a forced plot point that actually goes nowhere. Because it’s not like there’s a Right. Resolution at the end where they learn to love each other again, or they Todd tighter as a family because of the events that happened in the movie.   That just kind of falls off the wayside. But you get that cool scene where even though mom and dad are fighting, mom clearly cares about the kid and dad and and, Sean have some really nice little moments where he gives him some good advice. 

Clip:  I thought you might. 

Kristin:  Well, dad, some of the guys in me will maybe gonna go see Groundhog Day part 12 tonight. Only if it’s okay with you. Is it, please? 

Todd:  Oh, we got a problem. 

Kristin:  No way. 

Clip:  Yes way. I go out with your mother tonight. You got a certain 5 year old sister in these babies. 

Todd:  Oh, come 

Kristin:  on, dad. I’m waiting all year to see this movie. 

Clip:  Easy, pal. It’s only a movie. Look, tomorrow night, you and I go see Groundhog Day. I’ll get him early. 

Kristin:  Tomorrow night? That’ll be too late. The guys will plan the entire plot. 

Clip:  Black? Like, 

Todd:  your plot? Sean, it is a 

Clip:  guy with an ax. 

Todd:  Anyway, I thought they killed him in the last one. 

Kristin:  They did. And he returns from his grave. 

Clip:  He returns from the grave? Giovanni always returns from 

Todd:  the grave. If they blew him up, put his head in a blender, and mail 

Clip:  the rest pieces to Norway, he would still return from the grave. That was part 7. 

Todd:  You wanna know what the plan is? 

Clip:  Is it a plot Todd separate you from my $5? 

Kristin:  I wanna see a stupid movie. 

Clip:  Well, you can’t. You’re babysitting. Fine. 

Todd:  And then his dad, like, lights up a cigarette right there in the house, which I also thought was hilarious. And then he comes up on the roof and joins him just for no reason at all, you know, on the roof to watch this this movie. It’s just so cute and charming. It’s really nice. 

Craig:  It is. I mean, it’s it’s like I said, it’s reminiscent of, like, The Goonies or even something like, Gremlins or something like that. I mean, it’s just even though there’s this scary stuff going on, there’s heart to the movie Todd. And I really enjoy and appreciate that. 

Kristin:  It really reminded me of E. As well. Yeah. And I had I’d seen that movie when I was younger, but I didn’t remember it at all. And so just, like, this past year, I rewatched it. And then, then I realized watching this movie again last night, that there are kinda some throwbacks to ET as well in this movie. So it it has that little feel, but then there’s, like, where Phoebe’s we haven’t quite gotten to Frankenstein very much yet, but where she’s playing kinda dress up with Frankenstein, just reminded me of Drew Barrymore dressing up E. T.   And then when they’re walking on the street, like, all the kids in Frankenstein, there’s the silhouettes of them walking on the street, and it’s just like an ET when they’re walking on the street, and ET’s in the middle with them. So it just has that that feel to it where, you know, there’s it’s supernatural, but it feels so realistic. Like, yeah. It’s any other day, and just just makes you feel good. 

Craig:  Yeah. I made those connections too, and I thought they were really sweet. There are some really sweet movies or moments in this movie. The next I’m trying to get to all the monsters so we can get to the the fun stuff. The the cops, Del and his partner, get called to a museum where a mummy has gone missing, and there’s kind of a funny scene. 

Clip:  And you’re saying you didn’t hear anybody come in here or leave. Is that right? Can you hear me now? Hello? I can hear you fine. So nobody took the money? I would have heard them. 

Todd:  Of course, 

Clip:  he would have. It was a stupid question. What a hard dog. 

Craig:  Did you take him? 

Clip:  No, sir. Just a shot. That’s sick, bro. This case is too hard, man. Let’s be fired instead. 

Todd:  I’m glad you’re get major laughs 

Clip:  out of this, Rich. 

Todd:  The problem is 2000 year old dead guys do not get up and walk away by themselves. 

Craig:  This movie is directed and written, or at least co written by Fred Decker, who also did Night of the Creeps. And, Todd, when we watched Night of the Creeps, I said there’s there’s a line in night of the creeps that is almost word for word this exact same line. Do you remember that? 

Todd:  Yes, I do. And I remember the scene. Yep. 

Craig:  So I don’t know if he was paying a little bit of homage to himself or Yeah. Clearly. If he just really liked the line. Because the scene even mirrors it. Like in that movie, a dead body which ends up being some kind of zombie goes missing and then the cop says that line, 2000 year old dead guys do not get up and walk away by themselves. And then you see that zombie guy walking around on the street. The same exact thing happens here. As soon as he said it doesn’t happen, then we see the mummy lumbering through, the street. 

Todd:  That’s right. 

Kristin:  That’s hilarious. I think it probably was him doing, like, an homage to himself because I was kinda reading about some of these things. And, one of the things was talking about how in the night of the creeps, in one of the scenes, which I haven’t seen that one, I don’t think, there’s some graffiti on the wall that says go monster squad. So I think he was, like, kind of trying to draw attention to his other movies in in newer movies. 

Craig:  So, yeah, the, crate falls out of the airplane and lands in this swamp. And it’s obvious, from where it lands, we we see, Dracula’s cape, which has fallen off him. It’s hanging in a tree, and that’s right next to the kids’ clubhouse. So like you said, pretty convenient that, this would land right in this place. And again, it doesn’t necessarily make a whole lot of sense. Why is the amulet here in this town when we started out in Transylvania? And we get all of the monsters that we’ve met so far. The mummy and the wolf man meet Dracula in the swamp, and Dracula makes some sort of gesture over the water, and the crate starts to rise up out of the water. And we see that it’s actually the creature from the black lagoon lifting it out.   And so now we’ve got our whole collection of monsters. 

Todd:  So is it that the creature from the Black Lagoon was always in this swamp as well? And he just 

Kristin:  rose up. 

Craig:  I have no idea. Maybe okay. You know, if if we’re gonna stretch for logic, maybe the amulet ended up here, and they are somehow all attracted to that, and so they’ve all just kind of congregated here. Maybe they’re in league with ano one another and Dracula, like, emailed them all where to meet or something. And I forgot this is the eighties, so he woulda had to send snail mail. But, one way or another, they all end up there. Meanwhile, back at Sean’s house, the parents are fighting. There was a cute little scene with Phoebe and the mom, which, again, we’ve talked about before how through all of this silliness with the monsters and all that stuff, there runs these little streams of sweet scenes as well.   And we get one of these with, Phoebe and and her mom. Sean is listening to his parents fighting in the kitchen, and he sees that there’s a message for him on the message board by the phone in the kitchen, and it said that a mister a la carte called for him. And being the smart kid that he is, he sits down, and he starts rearranging the letters. And when he flips them around, he sees that alacard is Dracula spelled backwards, and, of course, he gets this look of surprise on his face. We cut to another very cute scene. I’d already mentioned how Eugene is one of my favorite parts of this movie, the little tiny guy Eugene. He goes into his parents’ room, it’s at night, and gets his dad and says, there’s, a mummy in my closet. And the dad takes him back, and it’s really cute.   He does this whole shtick where he’s like, Oh, monster’s under the bed. Get out of there. Get out of there. And he shoos them all away. He says, Are there any more monsters? And cute little Eugene points to his closet, and the dad goes over and swings the closet open so that he’s standing on the other side of the door. He never actually looks in, and the mummy is standing right there. And the dad is just going, oh, look at this big scary monster. Go away, monster.   And he just slams the door and tells the kid that he’s not gonna be sleeping with him and his mom tonight. You know, just these the movie really, I mean, it moves so quickly, and it’s just these little scenes. It’s, it’s almost hard to recap just because things happen so quickly, but, I love that cute little scene, with Eugene. 

Kristin:  I have to interject because the 2 scenes you just talked about are, like, 2 well, the one with Eugene is what I remember most from my childhood. I thought it was hilarious. I the but I it just, like, stuck out to me. And now as a parent, I’m constantly thinking about that when my kids come in and are scared. 

Todd:  I have 

Kristin:  to check everything out. I’m like, I need to really look because I remember that there really was a monster in the closet, and they didn’t see it. But that stuck out to me that stuck out to me as a kid. But the other scene where you were talking about was so sweet with Phoebe and her mom. Uh-huh. Obviously, I have different eyes. I’m not 5 years old when I’m watching it this time around, but I have a 5 year old. And I thought, oh, yeah.   That’s easy to think it’s cute. It’s horrible. The mom is telling her that this candle is gonna protect her from anything bad happening. She lights a candle next to her bed, and the little girl’s kinda scared, and she has her little puppy scruff that she’s holding her stuffed animal. And, she’s like, like, oh, I’m kinda scared of monsters or something like that. And the mom’s, like, nothing bad can happen as long as this candle is lit next to your bed. And and she gives her a hug. I’m like, that’s horrible.   Like, yes, you need to comfort her, but, oh, my goodness. Don’t tell her that candle’s gonna protect her. If anything, it’s a huge fire hazard. 

Todd:  That’s what I’m just saying. 

Craig:  Nothing nothing’s gonna happen except potentially a deadly fire. 

Kristin:  Right. Right. And they had candles all over this house. It was the eighties. I’m pretty sure we had electricity at that time. But, yeah, there were there were candles lit all in that scene where he’s figuring out mister all a card, which I also thought was so funny. Like, he would just sit down and start thinking, a la carte. I bet that smells something else.   I don’t know. But those scenes really stuck out for me as a kid. And then when I saw them again as an adult, I still loved them. 

Craig:  You talk about, you know, Sean. Why would he just automatically think that there was something going on? I don’t know. Sean’s a really smart guy and very, very serious. In the next, scene, he pulls all of his friends together and explains to them that they’ve got big problems. 

Kristin:  I think there’s monsters, like real ones. Heard my dad talking on the telephone to a guy down at the police station. There was a guy screaming he was a werewolf, and they shot him. Then the body disappeared from the corner van. The corner guy was dead. For what? He got shot in a whirl, took his body? No, you peen head. He was a werewolf. Maybe. 

Craig:  But if they shot him 

Kristin:  It must have been regular bullets, not silver ones. Look, I know this does sound pretty stupid, but a mummy disappeared from the museum tonight. Mommy came in my house. And you guys, Dracula might be here too. Oh, man. Fat kid farted. They’re not gonna have to 

Craig:  They take matters into their own hands, and I think that that was just really appealing to me as a kid. It felt really empowering as a kid to think kids could take action and do something. And I still like that. And I still think it’s a good message for kids, even if today our sensitivities are a little bit different and maybe, kids this young wouldn’t be watching it. We cut back to Dracula’s house, and Dracula now has Frankenstein Todd This is another really interesting dynamic in this movie because it seems like Dracula has this genuine affection for Frankenstein. Like, he feels protective of him, and he’s gentle with him. I never really understood why he had him locked in a dungeon. I don’t know if that was for his protection or just to keep him in one place, but he tells, Frankenstein that they need this diary.   They have to have this diary, the diary that Sean has. And he says, children have it. I need you to get it from them, and if you have to, kill them. Sean and, the other boys decide that they need to go get the help of Scary German Guy because he’s the only person they know that speaks German, and they need him to, translate this this book for them. And they have a meeting at Scary German Guy’s house that I want to to talk about because it’s important, but interspersed or intercut between, in between these scenes. There’s a short scene where Phoebe is playing by the edge of the swamp and she’s approached by Frankenstein and she looks up just kind of in surprise and then it cuts away. I love this scene now as an adult because I know that it’s an homage to the original Frankenstein film, where Frankenstein’s monster in that film approached a little girl at a river, I believe it was. And they had a very sweet interaction because this little girl was blind, I believe, and so didn’t recognize him as a monster.   Unfortunately, that scene turned out Frankenstein, they were throwing petals up a flower, I believe, into the water, and when they ran out of petals, Frankenstein picked a little girl up and threw her in the river. 

Kristin:  Oh, no. 

Craig:  That doesn’t happen here, fortunately. But getting back to Scary German Guy’s house, Scary German Guy is really nice and cool and they get him to translate. 

Clip:  The amulet, so nearly as I can translate, is concentrated? Good. It is a talisman which wards off evil and is, how you say, indestructible?   That means it can’t be destroyed.   Once every 100 years at the stroke of midnight, the amulet becomes vulnerable. And at that moment, it can be shattered.   And if it is?   Then the balance between good and evil will shift, and evil will rule. However, our friend, mister Van Helsing, claims there is a way to stop the forces of darkness. 

Todd:  How? 

Clip:  If one could gain possession of the amulet before those forces, then every 100 years at midnight, there is another option. A ceremony, which when followed Todd the letter, will open a hole into limbo itself where dwell the damned. A vortex which, like a great whirlwind, can swallow the forces of evil forever. 

Kristin:  Can I just say that, like, my favorite line was, and this has tomorrow’s date, 100 years ago? Dramatic. But it was so funny. And again, like, I look at everything through new eyes now that I have young kids and, like, kids are such suckers for that kind of thing too. And I can just hear my 8 year old son saying, oh my gosh. What are the odds? Like, thinking that is so cool. And then, of course, watching it as a doll, it’s like, well, isn’t that just convenient? 

Craig:  Hey. That’s funny. Yeah. 

Todd:  Before they leave the house, there’s a a very interesting touch here. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  Where, they they’re they’re leaving. And, of course, these kids are in the monster squad. They’re obsessed about monsters, and they immediately have respect for anybody who, you know, is like them. And so they formed this bond with this guy. He I think they turn around and say something like, man, you sure do know a lot about monsters, don’t you? And he says, yeah, I suppose I do, and he closes the door, and as he closes the door, we see that he has a number tattooed onto his arm. 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  And that just came out of nowhere and was kind of left there. It was just kind of an an interesting little touch that this guy was actually a holocaust survivor. 

Craig:  Yeah. I’m I’m glad that you brought that up, because I don’t remember when I became aware of the significance of what that was. I I feel like as a kid, I knew at some point, I knew what those numbers meant, but I like that it’s included here Todd. Because even though it’s, you know, it’s blink and you miss it, it it serves as a nice reminder either to adults or to kids that there are real monsters in the world. You know, obviously, we probably, most of us, I would assume, don’t believe in vampires and black lagoon creatures and that type of thing, but there certainly are real monsters, in the world. And I thought that that was a nice, little reminder there, whether it was targeted at the kids or the adults. The boys all come back to the clubhouse and while they’re caught up in talking about their plans, Phoebe shows up and she’s trying to get their attention and when she finally does, they turn around and they see her standing there with Frankenstein. And it’s a hilarious scene where they all just split.   Like, they just take off and run and hide in these ridiculous places like, Fat Kid Jumps in the Garbage Can, and, like, the garbage can lid down over his head. 

Kristin:  They can all be Todd, Like, they’re watching them hide, so they’re not 

Todd:  even Right. 

Craig:  And they’re not more than 10 feet away. Right. Right. But it’s funny, and it’s played for the comedy. It’s really funny. And this is the part, Kristen, that you mentioned already. 

Kristin:  I love it. I love it. I just remember, like, this was my, you know, I was Phoebe in my mind. I used to do that as a kid. I don’t know if all kids do that, but whatever movie we were watching, I would pick out who I was in the movie, and I would announce, I’m Vivi, or I’m whoever. And sometimes sometimes it probably was better than others. Because I can remember in my childhood, we watched festival warehouse in Texas quite often. I would be calling out which prostitute I was.   Whichever one had the prettiest lingerie probably. But anyway, I remember, like, feeling like this is my scene. And, you know, when she yells at the big tough brother and, his friends, come on, guys. Don’t be chicken shit. And, you know, she’s not scared, and she’s made friends with Frankenstein. I remember just really loving that. 

Craig:  That that was It’s adorable. It is. 

Todd:  And it’s an interesting reversal because seeing the throwback to the Frankenstein scene beforehand, you’re expecting the worst. You know? Right. And in this case, it turns out not to be so. But it would be kind of interesting to see how their friendship formed. I feel like there’s probably a missing scene in here somewhere where where Frankenstein realized that, instead of killing the kids, and doing what Dracula wanted Todd to do, that he needs to befriend them, because it happens almost instantly. 

Kristin:  Yeah. It does. 

Craig:  It it Todd. But it I I think that what we’re supposed to kinda take away from this is that, Frankenstein really is just a gentle giant. And it’s been years years since I’ve read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but if I remember correctly, the monster is really kind of the victim in the story. Like, he didn’t ask for any of this, and it’s only because he’s rejected and treated with anger and violence that he responds accordingly. And so I like that element of this movie, that, Frankenstein looks different, he looks scary, but he’s not. He’s a good guy. And there’s another, they take him up into the clubhouse, but somebody, I think it’s Rudy, hands him they’ve got all this awesome memorabilia all around their clubhouse, but Rudy hands him this mask, this old Frankenstein mask. And he picks it up, and he looks at it, and then he throws it down and he touches his own face and just looks at the kids and says, Scary? And it’s sad.   You feel bad for 

Todd:  this guy. 

Craig:  And then, Kristen, you already mentioned right after this is that adorable scene where they are just you can just see them from behind in silhouette kind of walking into, the sunset, and and Phoebe’s holding Frankenstein’s hand. And of course, here he is probably 7 or more feet tall, and she’s maybe, I don’t know, 3 feet tall, and And they’re all just walking together, and it’s just so cute. So many sweet moments in this movie. Right after that, there’s just this really quick scene where Dracula finds the amulet behind this wall of this house that he’s been in the whole time, so we know exactly now where it is. And then, another one of my favorite parts of this movie, it’s the 80s, so there has to be a montage moment. And there’s Yeah, 

Kristin:  I love it. 

Craig:  There’s this great montage of the club, the monster squad, prepping for what they’re gonna have to do. And there’s this great song in the background. I’ve never heard this song anywhere outside of this movie. I’m sure I that I don’t, you know, it’s probably some nobody band, but it I love this song that’s playing in the background, and we see all this preparation. So Rudy makes, steaks in the woodshop. Phoebe spends her day playing with Frankenstein and dressing him up in cute little, like, Eugene, the little tiny guy, writes notes to the army guys. Army guys, there are monsters. Come help.   He mails off his letters. Patrick makes business cards for the monster squad. Rudy makes silver bullets apparently in, I guess, medals. Honestly, 

Todd:  Rudy’s Rudy’s, like, the most useful of this whole group, actually. He seems to have access to the to the most dangerous tools. You’re right. Great. I think that song was written for the movie. It’s not the best song in the world, but but when I was going through the credits at the end, I could see that the same people who wrote that song are the same people who wrote the Monster Squad rap song that’s at the end, which also is not the best song in the world. Right. 

Craig:  Oh my god. I love them both. I think they’re amazing. 

Todd:  With the monster squad. Oh my Todd. 

Kristin:  Yeah. It’s pretty awesome. 

Craig:  Dracula has, the guy who is the werewolf drugged in the house because during the day he’s still a human being, but actually, the guy has him fooled. He hasn’t really swallowed the sedatives. So when Dracula leaves, he breaks out, and he goes and he calls Dell. Now I don’t know how he would have got Dell’s phone number or how he knows all of this plan. I guess Dracul Dracula’s just been very transparent about his plan, but he tells he tells Dell he’s gonna kill your son. And then right at that moment, he transforms back into the wolf man. Rudy and Patrick, get Patrick’s sister, the girl, from the window, and very awkwardly ask her, is she a virgin? Which would be awkward for, I suppose, maybe an 8, 9 year old kid to be asking his teenage sister. So she’s gonna help them out.   The rest of the squad, which consists of Sean, Fat Kid, and I feel so bad calling him that, but that’s what they call 

Todd:  him too. That’s what 

Kristin:  they call him, the wrong cookies. 

Craig:  Sean, Fat Kid, and Eugene are at Dracula’s house, and they are going in presumably to look for the amulet. They’ve got frank Frankenstein with him Todd, and he is supposed to be their muscle. So, they they go inside, and as soon as they get in there, Dracula hears them. He’s down in the basement, I guess, and he sets off this bomb. I’m not really sure what the purpose of this bomb was. I don’t know if it was a booby trap or what, but it it’s effective because it causes part of the house to collapse and it lands on Frankenstein, so Frankenstein’s kind of out of the picture. So they’re standing in this hallway, and Sean is on one end of the hallway, Eugene and Fat Kid are on the other end, and the wolf man jumps out in between them. And this is probably the scene that most people remember from this movie, the most iconic line from the movie. 

Todd:  I’m taking them in the dark. I’m taking them in the dark. I’m taking them in the dark. Because they’re not 

Kristin:  Debate is over. 

Craig:  Bringing this movie up to anybody who knows it, and that’s probably the first thing you’re gonna hear. And it’s it’s a great line. 

Kristin:  So many great lines are coming up. Like, I just I was taking notes on my favorite lines and they all just happened in the end. There’s so many great one liners. It’s so like, the action is going, but they still take time to be really funny in all of these scenes too. I love it. 

Craig:  The 3 boys, take off, but they get cornered. They’re in this long corridor, and on one side of them is Dracula. On the other side of them are some brides of Dracula who we just recently, saw for the first time. But they pull a secret lever and end up down in the basement where the amulet is. Sean goes in and gets the amulet, but when he comes back out, Dracula’s waiting for him and grabs him. But fat kid, knowing, you know, how you defeat vampires, opens up a piece of pizza that he apparently had in his pocket. 

Kristin:  Because with a name like fat kid, you gotta have pizza in your pocket. 

Todd:  Was it pizza? I I for some reason 

Kristin:  It was pizza. 

Todd:  Oh, okay. I I wanted to think it was garlic bread because that that makes a little bit more sense. 

Kristin:  It was totally a piece of pizza. 

Todd:  Oh, my gosh. 

Craig:  It was pizza, and he puts it on Dracula’s face, which burns him because of the garlic. And so they run out and get away. They run out to the road and, again, coincidentally and fortunately, scary German guy shows up in a car and he’s got Phoebe, Rudy, Patrick, and Patrick’s sister with him. They decide that they need to go somewhere where there’s a lot of people and Patrick suggests a church. There’s an old church in the town square, so that’s where they’re gonna go. They take off, but the mummy jumps out in the road, in front of them, And scary German guy swerves away, but the mummy is able to grab onto the back of, the car, and he’s just hanging there on the back of the car. And this is another scene that I just thought was hilarious because Phoebe just shrieks for the next, like, 45 seconds as this mummy is, like, right in her face and the rest of them are trying to figure out what to do. Rudy takes out the bow and arrow that he has, and he has Patrick get him, a piece of the wolf man’s bandages.   He ties it to the, end of the arrow and shoots it into a tree, and we get to watch the mummy then slowly unravel until there’s nothing left of him but his skull. 

Kristin:  Oh oh, and here’s one of my favorite lines. Yeah. Don’t skip it. See you later, 

Craig:  Band Aid breath. As it turns out, Dracula is on his way to, Sean’s house. And again, I’m not really sure why. The motivation’s not really clear, but it’s scary. He goes, to Sean’s house, and he takes a big thing of dynamite, and he throws it into their clubhouse and blows it up. Right then, Dell and his partner show up. Dell gets out and draws his gun on Dracula, but Dracula’s not at all concerned. He lights another stick of dynamite, throws it under the cop car, and blows it up with the partner in it.   Yeah. I mean, there’s some pretty dark stuff going on here. I think that we were just less sensitive to those things in the eighties. Right. But he’s dead. 

Todd:  I was surprised by that. I was really surprised by that. But then I was also surprised by the fact that Dracula’s got this cache of dynamite that he’s using. Like, you’ve got all these monsters, and you’ve got what Todd you do when you’re having Dracula just throw dynamite around everywhere? Like, what the heck is that? Did I miss that from the walk of the movie somehow? I don’t know. 

Craig:  Yeah. And, I mean, it’s just, like, these big sticks of dynamite, like, you know, that you would that one would have laying out in the house. 

Todd:  Yeah. The Wile E. Coyote would have. Yeah. 

Craig:  Right. Right. At this point, the mom has come out on the porch, and and Dell shoots Dracula several times, but of course nothing happens. And and Dracula, before transforming into a bat, says, I will have your son. And then he flies off and takes off. Dell runs inside and gets on the walkie talkie and calls Sean, and and Sean has a walkie talkie. And so Sean fills him in on the plan. And so everybody now is converging in the town square, and this is really where the big finale takes place.   And it’s a lot of fun. It happens really fast. There’s nobody around really in this town square. It’s late at night. Scary German guy gets the sister reading. And the sister, of course, is freaked out because, hello, monsters, but she’s also pretty stupid. The reason that they asked her is because she takes German in high school, but she’s, she says something like, I’m failing German. Scary German guy just starts reading it for her, and she’s repeating it, but she’s doing it terribly.   Meanwhile, the brides show up. Rudy takes them out 1 by 1 with, the bow and arrow. Dracula shows up in bat form and starts swooping right towards Sean, but Dell, the dad, shows up and shoots the bat, and the bat goes flying into the church. The dad somehow gets into the church, even though it was locked a few minutes before, and he goes upstairs, and there’s this really cool image where it, the bullets have not killed Dracula, but for some reason getting shot in his bat like form has temporarily injured him or something because when the dad finds him, he seems to be injured and he’s like half transformed. So he’s like half man half bat. And it’s a really kinda creepy, gross, image. Yeah. 

Kristin:  It’s really creepy because then he’s like he’s like human he’s a big tall guy, and he’s more of a human size, but has this weird bat Todd. And I remember that being really super creepy to me as a kid, and it was still creepy to me as an adult too. 

Craig:  Yeah. I think that I’ve mentioned that Stan Winston did all these creature effects. And Stan Winston, of course, is amazing, so it’s it should be no surprise that, that this looks so cool, but, it does. The wolf man comes in and fights with the dad, but then Sean shows up, and somehow Sean has dynamite too? Maybe maybe he snatched it off of Dracula, I don’t know. But he, lights a stick of dynamite, sticks it in the wolf man’s pants, and I think that the dad kicks the wolf man out the window, and he blows up. But they’ve already discussed this earlier in the movie that there’s only really one way to kill a werewolf. So, we see all the bits and pieces of the werewolf in the street, but then they kinda start to rumble, and they pull back together, and he is fine, and together again. We go back to the scary German guy and And then, Kristen, would you care to look at this sun lighter? And then, Kristen, would you care to be able to get this sun lighter? 

Kristin:  Oh, gosh. I don’t even remember that part because the next line that I never noticed as a kid was so funny to me as an adult. But I I remember that that somebody says, I thought you were a virgin. And she says something like, well, Steve, but he doesn’t count. Steve. So they find out they find out that, she’s not a virgin. And then I think she says something like, well, why doesn’t he just do it or something talking about scary German guy. And one of the boys, it’s either Patrick or Rudy says, yeah, he’s not a virgin.   And I just love she goes, did you ask him? Okay. I found that more hilarious this time. 

Todd:  Well, let’s talk about how any one of those kids, any one of those boys could have had this too. 

Kristin:  And why didn’t they think of Phoebe at the beginning? Like, I guess because they were just thinking, hey, my sister takes German. Maybe that was it. But I thought, well, surely they know that this 5 year old girl is a virgin, and probably all of them. I it may have had to have been a girl. I don’t know. 

Todd:  Yeah. I mean, I think that’s applied. Anytime there’s a horror movie that involves a virgin, it always is a female virgin. Right? Right. But but also, I’m not even sure that they all quite understand what a virgin is, because isn’t the next bit one of the kids turns around and points to Phoebe and says, is she a virgin? Like, he doesn’t know. Right? 

Kristin:  Yeah. Yeah. That’s true. 

Craig:  And it’s little Eugene, so it would make sense that he wouldn’t know. Oh, that’s true. But but you’re right. You know, I read about this online. There were like message boards and things saying that exact thing that you just said. Why wouldn’t they realize that it couldn’t have been anyone? My theory is that all of their knowledge of monsters comes from these monster movies, these classic monster movies. And in all of those movies, it’s always a young woman. You know, like a teenager or a 20 something woman. 

Kristin:  Right. 

Craig:  So I think that they were just going based on what they knew, and so they didn’t consider themselves and they didn’t consider Phoebe because that’s not what they seen in these movies. So he starts saying the, incantation, and and Phoebe is repeating him, doing much better job than Patrick’s sister was doing. The cops show up, and they try to fight the werewolf, but, of course, everything is, not working because they don’t have silver bullets. Rudy, however, does. So he pulls out his gun and shoots the werewolf, and as the werewolf transforms back into his manly state and he actually says to Rudy, thank you, before he dies, and then he does die. Then the creature from the black lagoon is menacing in the street and he’s advancing upon Fat Kid. Fat Kid runs to the Burger King on the square and the bully, EJ, and his friends are in there and he knocks on the door and he’s like, let me in. 

Kristin:  It’s gotta be his 

Todd:  Yeah. Oh, Burger King got some serious product placement in this movie. 

Kristin:  Yeah. They 

Todd:  did. Along with Adidas in the, the werewolf fighting scene that you mentioned earlier and and all the Pepsi that they drink.   That’s funny. 

Craig:  Burger King is very prominent in this square, so I did notice that. 

Clip:  Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  The bullies won’t let Fat Kid in, so he grabs, a rifle from one of the fallen policemen. And as the creature black lagoon approaches him, he shoots him in the chest and he’s dead. I mean, he just takes out the creature like that. And, EJ comes out and says something like, hey, back in. Good job. 

Kristin:  My name is Horace. 

Craig:  And then my very favorite part of this whole movie. Dracula is restored. He’s apparently feeling fine again. And he is just walking down the street very slowly towards German scary German guy and Phoebe as they continue, to try to finish this incantation. And the cops are trying to fight him off. He’s breaking cops’ necks. I mean, just a steady walk towards them, not being fazed by these other cops or anything. And then poor little tiny Phoebe is just standing there and he walks right up to her, and she’s holding the amulet.   He grabs her by the chin, picks her up so that by her chin, so that they are face to face, and he says, give me the amulet, you bitch. And in that moment, his eyes kind of light up a little bit more red, his fangs kind of sharpen a little bit. He looks really scary, and Phoebe just screams at the top of her lungs. And it’s so effective. And I think that the reason that it’s effective is because the actor who played Dracula didn’t let this little girl see what his makeup was going to look like or see the effects that were going to happen in this scene. And the director told her, in this scene, you’re gonna need to scream. And she said, when? And the director just said, you’ll know. But when he delivered that line and his face got so scary, that was her genuine reaction.   I mean, it was a genuine reaction of terror. And, it’s such a good part of the movie. 

Kristin:  Meanwhile, this poor girl’s in therapy still because it was terrifying. That was, like, I was kind of talking about how Dracula looked a little cheese Volley to me, in the beginning in the movie. But that was and I don’t know if it’s just because, you know, he used I watched this when I was a kid and he used such strong language talking to this 5 year old that it was, like, woah, he is serious and he doesn’t care how old you are. He’s gonna kill you. It was terrifying. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s true. Yeah. But he’s still a gentleman because it’s not like he, you know, he politely well, not politely. But he asked for the amulet instead of just ripping it out of her hand, which I’m pretty sure he was capable of doing. 

Craig:  So Phoebe’s screaming, but then it’s Frankenstein to the rescue. He grabs Dracula and throws him on the fence of the church, which, you know, if we know monster stuff, we know that’s not gonna take him out because it’s not a wooden stake, but he’s there for the meantime. Scary German guy and Phoebe finish the incantation and the vortex opens, and things start getting sucked in. And Dracula Sean is standing, I guess, kind of in the street and Dracula, I guess, has gotten himself off of this, stake, and he grabs Sean, and they’re on the ground together, and they’re both getting pulled into this vortex. Sean grabs, I don’t know what it was, I don’t remember, something wooden and sharp off the street and stakes Dracula. And then this is the only part of the movie that even as a kid I thought was pretty cheesy. Van Helsing shows up. I guess Van Helsing must have gotten sucked into the vortex in the beginning, and now he’s been able to come back out to help out.   He grabs Dracula and he’s holding around his chest and they’re both getting sucked into the vortex, and Van Helsing just gives Sean a great big old thumbs up. Al, you did it. And, okay, so then we go to that cornball moment Todd the moment in the movie that literally makes me cry. Now, it doesn’t take much to make me cry, to be fair. But, But, Frankenstein is getting sucked towards the vortex and Phoebe is huddled behind this park bench that I guess must be screwed to the ground or something so it’s not getting pulled. And Frankenstein’s reaching towards her and she’s reaching towards him and she’s just saying, Don’t go. Don’t go, Frankenstein. Please don’t go.   And he’s saying Phoebe and reaching for her, and I think they get a Todd of each other’s hands a little bit, but then he gets sucked in, and she takes her little stuffed animal scraps that she’s had with her in every scene, and tosses it to him. And, Todd, that that it I mean, it’s, you know, it’s goofy, it’s a cheese ball movie, but that part got me. I just thought it was so sad. Poor Frankenstein was a good guy all along, and now he has to get sucked into limbo, with all the rest of the, the rest of the monsters. 

Todd:  Yeah. With that buddy to forever remind him of what he left behind. 

Kristin:  Scraps. But scraps, I’ll have you know, Phoebe wore scraps in a belt through the whole movie. Like, she had this belt and she stuck her little stuffed animal. And I I think I did that. My stuffed animals after watching that, or I thought it was like a backpack. I just knew that I had to have that, like, the stuffed animal that could be on my body, like Phoebe wore. 

Craig:  That’s cute. Well then, it’s just the end. We have a sweet little family reunion. Todd, you kind of said earlier that, there wasn’t really any resolution to their family problems, and I feel like there is. I feel like this this traumatic experience that they’ve gone through kind of brings them together. In the end, we see, Sean and Phoebe and, the mom and the dad embracing one another as a full family. And I remember thinking as a kid that maybe this was going to be the thing that brought the parents back together. I don’t know if that’s true.   I don’t know if that’s just me being sentimental or what. But then the army arrives, and I love this. The guy, the general or whoever he is, pulls out Eugene’s letter. Alright. Where are they? Where are the monsters? 

Todd:  I love that scene. I thought it was hilarious. And for for a few reasons of obviously, like, that Eugene’s letter actually brought the army. Second of all, it was kinda cute that, like, even Eugene’s letter turned out to be helpful. You know, that was kinda nice.   Right.   And the third thing is, whatever they they’re portraying the army just like they do in those old b movies. Like, this guy is like he just came off of the World War 2 battlefield. He’s got his helmet on, and he’s chopping on a cigar. 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, yeah. And they roll up in tanks 

Kristin:  They have a tank. Yeah. 

Todd:  Down the street.   I 

Craig:  think the army guy says something like, who’s in charge here? And Sean steps up and says, I am. And he says, Well, who are you? And Sean hands him one of the cards and says, We’re the monster squad. And then the amazing Cue 

Kristin:  the rap song. 

Craig:  Cue the rap song. 

Todd:  Oh, and 

Craig:  it’s so good. Readers, listeners, I know you’re going to side with me on this one. This is a classic song here at the end. 

Todd:  Oh, man. 

Kristin:  Oh my gosh. It is funny. It’s very funny. 

Todd:  It was a prerequisite, though. Like, every movie, like, there was a period of time there for a good decade where every movie had to end with the rap song playing. 

Craig:  Yeah. With the title of the movie in it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I usually try to find some trivia on these movies. I didn’t find a whole lot for this one. Sadly, one of the only things that I found was that the actor who portrayed Fat Kid, died, I think, of pneumonia in 1997.   The movie didn’t get, it was basically a flop, when it was released into theaters, and it had a really short release because it didn’t do well. It wasn’t until it came out on home video that it really found a cult following. And I was kind of surprised to hear that because this was a movie that I remember talking about with people as a kid, and that I remember watching with my friends and my cousins and stuff, and everybody that I knew and everybody that I watched it with loved this movie. But maybe it just Todd, you know, the video store shelves to get it circulating. 

Todd:  Well, I remember the hype around this movie. And that’s why I thought I had seen it, you know, until I actually popped it in and realized, no, I was confusing it with Little Monsters, and I’d never seen it. So but but there was a lot of hype. I mean, there was the Burger King tie in. I remember that. I even found online an Adidas poster, like, that they might have had, like, shoe stores or something, and it’s so hilarious. It’s got all the monsters there, and it says the boys are back. At this time, they’re wearing Adidas.   And they Oh, buddy. I’m gonna post it on the on the site. It’s too funny. 

Craig:  Yeah. Dude. 

Todd:  But like, I think that prob this should have been like The Goonies of monster movies. And I the only thing I can think of is that I think this movie was rated PG 13, which would have totally limited the audience that could have gone to see it. Right. You know, or at least might have given parents pause and might have made it a little less. Plus, it wasn’t Steven Spielberg, so you got that Todd, I 

Craig:  suppose. Right. 

Todd:  Right. But 

Craig:  Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, I I think it’s pretty obvious how I feel about this movie. And Kristen, it seems I’m I’m happy to hear that you still have such fond memories of it, because I know there were some movies that I made you watch that you were not so fond of. But, Todd, 

Kristin:  I do Yeah. There were a lot. There were a lot. But I do like this one, and I liked it. I liked it again this time. I mean, I haven’t watched it since we were kids, but I really liked it, and I appreciate it in different ways. But, yeah, it’s good. So, Todd, what do you think? 

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. You know, I really thought it was charming as a kid’s movie. And, obviously, like and and again, it’s a time capsule of the eighties. Like, I can forgive so much stuff because of the era it was done in and the fact that it’s aimed for kids. Okay. All those coincidences or whatever, that’s fine. That’s fine.   You know, what are you gonna do? But I was really impressed, again, by the fact that they pulled no punches in, like, what you were saying earlier, Craig, about the the real danger that these kids are in. And the creature effects are so damn good. 

Craig:  Yeah. They’re great. 

Todd:  These monsters could be in any, like, serious horror film, and maybe the best one is that creature from the Black Lagoon. Like, man, if he could have had more screen time, because Yeah. That is the best creature for the black lagoon makeup I have seen in a really long time. I mean, his Yeah. 

Kristin:  It was really Todd. 

Todd:  He moves and he’s slimy, and and scaly, and, oh my gosh, was that good. But, yeah, you know, there’s gore in it, there’s some blood, and I think maybe all of that probably combined to give it that PG 13 rating, which probably, maybe all of that just kind of explains why it, maybe parents shied away from it a little bit. I don’t know it, I don’t know if that would be enough, but it’s the only theory I have, because otherwise, I, if I had seen this movie when you guys had seen this movie, I would have just as many fond memories of it, as you do. And this would 

Craig:  the their kids, even if they wait and maybe show it to them when they’re a little bit older. This is the type of movie that I think, if they ever remade it, which of course pretty much seems inevitable, with any movie these days, I just don’t think that it would have the same charm. I I can’t imagine, and I could be surprised, and I’d be willing to give it a shot, but I I kinda hope that instead people can just appreciate the charm of the original. 

Todd:  There’d be a cynicism about it Todd, you know? There’d be a lot of, like, nudging and winking, and the kids would probably be a little more crass and a little more knowing and a little more, I don’t know, adult. And it it you’re right. It just wouldn’t have the same flavor. Maybe we’re gonna come back to seeing more kids movies and things that aren’t always winking at the audience, but just go straight forward with the heart, you know, and the honesty and the, yep, this is what we’re doing, and this is what it’s about, and just deal with it that this movie has. And and I think kids like that. I mean, I think kids appreciate that. And and, you know, I think that the monster squad belongs on your shelf right next to, Best Little Horror House in Texas. You know? That’s good.   Positive movies to show your children. 

Kristin:  Yeah. It it certainly was in our house. 

Todd:  You know what? It’s so funny that I learned this today because I kid you not, it was also in our house. My my mom loved the best Little Horror House in Texas, and I started watching that into from, like, 5 years old. 

Kristin:  Oh, yeah. We did too. Yeah. 

Craig:  Oh, the good old days. 

Kristin:  Right? Right? But I do I do look forward to sharing these types of movies with my kids. I just know they’re not there yet. We watched ET together, which I know is not a horror movie, but, like, you know, my my daughter who’s 5 is less scared by things than my son is. But he’s like at that age, you know, he’s 8 where he’s starting Todd, like, I think he knows, like, other boys think it’s cool, like, creepy things are cool. And so he started reading these, like, scary stories, but then at night it becomes a problem, and he’s totally scared of zombies. And so I was thinking about, like, when I could watch this movie with him, and then I can’t remember what it was, but we were talking about something, and, like, it might have been kind of scary. We’re reading through all the Harry Potters and watching them. So maybe it’s something about that.   But he said, I don’t know if I could do that, mom. And I said, why? And he goes, because of my condition? I said, what condition? 

Todd:  Zombies? 

Kristin:  But I thought it was so hilarious. And I was like, okay. We’re not there yet. But someday, we will. He will be exposed to these movies from my childhood, and he’ll probably roll his eyes at me. Who knows? He may be in high school, but I will make my children watch these movies. 

Todd:  What is condition passes? Yes. 

Craig:  Alright. Well, thank you for listening to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. If you like this episode, we have tons of back episodes. You can find us on iTunes and Stitcher. We’re on Facebook. Please feel free to let us know what you think. Let us know if there are any movies that you would like for us to see. Kristen, thank you very much for being our guest.   It was a pleasure. 

Kristin:  Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun. 

Craig:  And so until next time, I’m Craig, 

Todd:  and I’m Todd 

Craig:  with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

After all these years, both of us discovered some surprising things about the modern-day horror classic, Hostel. Listen in for our take on how Eli Roth’s notorious “torture porn” flick has weathered the years.

Episode 65, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Todd:  And I’m Todd. 

Craig:  At the end of every podcast, we ask our listeners if they would like to recommend any movies for us to, watch and talk about. And frankly, we don’t get a whole lot of response, and that’s alright. But, we have had a couple of people request the 2,005 film Hostel, directed by Eli Roth, produced by Quentin Tarantino. And so we thought we would give that one a go this week. Todd, what was your what’s your history with this movie? 

Todd:  Oh, I’m pretty sure I saw Hostel in the theater when it came out. It did have a little bit of buzz around it. I didn’t know much about Eli Roth at the time. I hadn’t seen Cabin Fever yet. But, of course, I’m a big Quentin Tarantino fan, and I knew the story behind this, that he and Tarantino had been looking at this idea or of this murder for murder for pay or kinda murder shopping mall kind of thing. I think at one time, the story was that Eli Roth himself was looking for to do a documentary about this kind of thing, but Uh-huh. Either couldn’t dig anything up or was too scared to or was worried that if he did, then he would, get targeted himself, and so decided to turn into a horror movie. I think the story I remember reading at the time was just that he had this idea that was really crazy, and he took it to Quentin Tarantino.   And he said, you’re right. That’s really crazy. You should totally make that movie, and I’ll go ahead and produce it. 

Craig:  Yeah. Right. Yeah. That’s what I that’s what I read too when I was reading about this today, and I I I guess that, Eli Roth actually found, like, a, a Thai, website that was, offering this kind of thing. Like, you could come to this place and and pay, I don’t remember how much it was, like, 10,000 American dollars or something and that would buy you the ability to murder somebody. And he showed that website to Tarantino and they talked about it and they decided to to make this movie. Neither one of them knows if that was actually a real website or not, but they were fascinated with the idea. Yeah.   I I think that I saw this movie. I don’t remember if I saw it in the theater, but I know I saw it around the time that it came out. And this was a time in horror, where there was really a lot of emphasis on really brutal violence and gore. You know, the Saw films were doing well. I think, right around this time, maybe just shortly after the Hills Have Eyes remake came out, and it was really brutal as was its sequel. And, for whatever reason, it was just a trend that came along and lasted probably for a good decade or so. I feel like you and I have talked about this before. I know that you’re not a fan of movies like Wolf Creek and that type of thing.   So what but I know that you are also a huge fan of the soft franchise. So what were I mean, what do you think about this whole subgenre? 

Todd:  This subgenre that a lot of people call torture porn, I think as we see a lot of them, we see a wide range. We see a wide range of these kind of movies. We see movies that I think are smart, that have something to say, that are really interesting and captivating, that happen to have a lot of this kind of stuff in it, where just this really brutal thing people doing terrible things to each other, and which we then get to see in more excruciating detail than we used to. But then, on the other hand, we see movies that seem to just want to do that. They’re just putting it in there. It’s just a special effects extravaganza, really, and, trying to see how far they can go, but they don’t really have anything to say. And I think what I really liked about Saw, for example, not that it really had anything to say, but, what saw what saw really did well was it had all those puzzles. And part of the entertaining thing about watching saw was that you knew there was always going to be some crazy twist at the end.   And with every successive of movie, you’re wondering, geez, how how are they gonna do this so that I can’t it’s it was almost like, there for a while, we had we had M. Night Shyamalan, where every movie he came out with, we were all excited to see because we knew there’d be some crazy twist, and we knew we’d spend half the movie trying to figure out what that was going to be. And the puzzles were fun. It was neat to see these different crazy convoluted as it convoluted as it could be, behind, Jigsaw’s madness here, where he was trying to teach them a lesson. And so that’s what I really liked about that franchise. And, so I could put up with it, and I was I was totally fine with it. I felt that the brutality didn’t of course, it didn’t necessarily need to be there. It never needs to be there, but it did serve a purpose.   This movie, I’d put in the same category, really, at least the first one. And I was a little surprised by that because, I remembered this movie actually as being a lot more brutal than it turned out to be. And I think I’ve just been so desensitized and deadened by what has come out since then, that this movie truly isn’t quite as brutal as the quote, unquote torture porn films that have come out later. So when I went back to watch this, and this is probably only the second time I’ve seen this movie, I think I think since 2006, you know, 10 years ago. And when I came back to it this time, I realized, well, not only is it not nearly as brutal as I thought it, as I remembered it being, but it also had something to say. It’s pretty obvious about what it says, but it sure is kind of interesting social commentary on what is the difference here between what these guys are doing when they are tripping around Europe and Amsterdam, and what these guys end up becoming victim to when they themselves, go a little too far, in looking for their their, sort of, their pleasure, their sex, and and their all that at a price. And I I honestly didn’t remember that. I don’t think I I think that went right over my head 10 years ago, maybe, or at least that’s sort of how I recall it. 

Craig:  Well, I think it may have gone over my head this time. You know, now that you say that, I that that makes sense. You know, it’s really it’s a movie about exploitation, and and to what degree is exploitation okay, I guess, and, you know, where where do we draw the line? I remember, you know, when we decided to do this, I haven’t seen it in a really long time. I’ve seen it more than once, but it’s been a really long time. And I remember that in 2005, I thought this was a good movie. I enjoyed it. I think that maybe, like you said, we’ve kind of been desensitized, and and so now even though this was one of the first ones of its of its type, to me watching it this time around, it felt a little tired. Like, I I I’ve I’ve kinda seen it before, you know.   I’ve I’ve seen people getting tortured and and hacked up and, I don’t know. My experience with it, this time around wasn’t quite as positive. I don’t think it’s a bad movie. I actually think that it’s really well made, especially, you know, if this was only Roth’s, what, his second directing film? For that, I think, you know, he he did a good job. The the cinematography is good. The the pacing is pretty good. The acting is certainly not bad. Most of the actors here were not established actors and and some of them, most of them haven’t really done a whole lot, after this as far as I could tell.   But, you know, that that all was, fine. I think that what put me off of it this time was I kinda forgot what a dude bro movie this is. Like, this this this seems to be targeted at a population of horror fans that I’m really not. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  You know, this is this is this is kind of like a very macho, frat guy kind of movie, and you know, I can appreciate other points of view. I can appreciate other people’s lifestyles and whatnot. It’s just so far removed from who I am and the, you know, the the type of people I surround myself with that it just I I felt like I was not the target audience for this movie. But, you know, to be fair, there certainly is that audience out there. 

Todd:  So what I guess what you’re saying is you didn’t really empathize with the characters as much as you as you remember doing? Like, you saw these guys, and at the end of the day, you almost didn’t care if they got what was coming to them? 

Craig:  You know, I don’t know. I mean, I wouldn’t say that they’re bad guys. The the the movie opens up with a credit sequence, and it’s all dark and grimy, and it, you know, it looks like a dirty warehouse and there’s, like, torture instruments and stuff. You know what kind of movie you’re getting into. And the campaign, the advertising campaign for this movie made it very clear exactly what it was going to be. And, then we get to our 3 main characters. Paxton played by Jay Hernandez, Josh played by Derek Richardson, and, Ollie played by an Icelandic guy whose name I’m not even gonna attempt. And and these 3 guys, it’s not that they’re unlikable guys.   They’re really not. They’re just I am so not like them. I mean, these are guys, they’re they’re in Amsterdam. They’re staying in a hostel and they’re going around doing all the very stereotypical American things to do in Amsterdam. And they even have a conversation about it where one of them says something like, Did we come all the way to Amsterdam just to smoke weed? We did that all through college, can’t we find something else to do? But they don’t. I mean, they just do all the typical stuff. They go to a coffee shop, a smoke shop. They go to a nightclub.   You know, they’re hitting on girls left and right, especially Ollie. Ollie seems to be kind of the ladies man, of of the group. They go to the red light district, and they go to, whorehouse, and, you know, there’s some pretty graphic sexual stuff going on there so much. I had forgotten how much nudity there was in the first half of this movie. Like, just everybody is naked all the time for the first, at least, half hour of this movie. And I’ve been to Amsterdam. I didn’t do all of those things, but, you know, I get it. I I get the the touristy thing, and I get that they’re guys.   They’re, you know, Paxton and Josh are red blooded American guys. Ollie’s, you know, just a a a guy’s guy. I I get that. So it’s not like I didn’t like the characters. I thought they were pretty likable guys, but they make some pretty, foolish decisions. First of all, they’re, you know, they’re drunk, they’re stoned. They’re late, getting back to their hostel, and hostels have curfews. And if you don’t make the curfew, you’re just locked out for the night, and that’s what ends up happening.   And so they’re kinda outside the hostel yelling and screaming, and and people are leaning out of their apartments yelling at them and throwing bottles at them for making so much noise in the middle of the night. And they get called up into this apartment, where there’s a couple who are having sex, who are apparently so stoned that they’re just oblivious that there are even other people around, and they meet this guy named Alex. And Alex, you know, kinda starts chumming with them or whatever, asking them what they’re doing. And and he says, well, if you’re looking for girls, I can tell you where to find the best girls. 

Clip:  These girls I met at this one hostel in Slovakia, just outside Bratislava. The girls there are so hot. You cannot believe it. And they love anyone for it, especially American. They hear your ex and they fuck you.   So wait. This this place is is near Bratislava? Josh,   you won’t find this hostel in any guidebook. Barcelona. So many Americans. But Slovakia, no one there. There is so much pussy, and because of the war, there are no guys. You go to this hostel, you will have any girl you want. They go crazy for any foreigner. You just 

Craig:  take 10. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s interesting. This really plays to a fantasy. I’ve I’ve been I’ve done quite a bit of traveling Todd. I’ve lived overseas, I’m living overseas now. And this notion that because you’re foreign, women are going to be super attracted to you and interested to you because you’re the outsider. That is legitimately something that exists. I mean, there are always women attracted to foreigners, no matter what country you’re in, or men attracted for you know, whatever.   But when you’re traveling, there is a certain, that’s always kind of in the back of your mind, like, oh, how do these people find me attractive, and you know, how could I get lucky here or whatever, and without consequence, right? Because especially when you’re traveling, you know that whatever you do, you’re gonna go home and you’re never gonna see these people again, you’re never gonna see this thing again. And so I can understand the feeling that these guys have. It’s really interesting that here they are, they’ve been backpacking all over Europe, and not only are they taking advantage of all the pleasures in Amsterdam or whatever, but they actually decide to change their plans just to seek out this hostel. I mean, that’s how, like, dude bro these guys are. Right? 

Craig:  Right. Well, and it’s funny that you say that. I haven’t done nearly as much traveling as you have, but I see, I I thought that that part of the movie, the that part of the premise was so stupid. I thought, you know, none of these guys are bad guys. They’re all good looking guys, but these women that they encounter are all, like, supermodel gorgeous. Like, you know, big big fake boobs, totally, you know, teeny waist, you know, just these these gorgeous, gorgeous women. And the notion that these women would be throwing themselves at these guys just seemed ridiculous to me. It’s funny to hear that that’s actually a thing. 

Todd:  Well, it is a thing, but, again, it’s never happened to me. It’s but it happens to people. I mean, I have friends who are like this, who just love tripping around, and it’s like sex tourism, except they’re not paying for it. You know, they, they live in a country abroad and, and, and they’re always getting laid. But the fact that this movie really plays to that fantasy, I think is interesting, and I think is part of what makes the movie a little terrifying. Like if you were a guy like this, and if this was in the either part of your reason for travel or at least in the back of your mind, like, hey, maybe this could happen when I when I’m when I’m out and about. If you experience just a little bit of this when you’re out and abroad, then this movie is gonna pop into your head. You know? And it’s it’s gonna make you think twice about all this.   Like, why is this really beautiful woman really, really, coming on to me? 

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, it it is kind of scary in that if this were to happen manipulate somebody, and that’s exactly what happens to them really. I I guess it’s to manipulate somebody and that’s exactly what happens to them really. I I guess it’s important that you when they’re on the train ride there, this guy, this older guy comes into their car, He’s just credited as Dutch businessman. He’s never given a name. He’s this older guy, you know, average looking, older middle aged guy. And he sits down and he’s talking to him and it’s, you know, just casual, not really anything weird. The only weird thing about it is he pulls out this bowl of salad, like, from his briefcase and starts eating it with his fingers, which they think is is weird.   And then he appears to kind of hit on Josh. Now Josh is the guy in the group who’s more reticent. We’ve seen both of the other 2 getting it on with girls, sometimes both of them together with the same girl, but Josh has always pulled back. And it’s not that he hasn’t had the opportunity, he has, but he has shied away from it for whatever reason. And we see this I guess the reason that they give is that he has just recently, broken up with a girlfriend and he’s still trying to get over that. But this weird guy as he’s talking, he’s saying something about human nature, how it’s it’s human nature to eat meat or something along those lines, and he’s talking weird stuff about your relationship with your food and and that kind of stuff. And and, he says something like, what’s your nature? And he grabs Josh’s leg, and it seems like a pass. And and Josh takes it as a pass and kinda freaks out.   And, so the guy, he just gets up and and walks away quickly. And the other 2, Paxton and Ollie, you know, Rip, Josh, for finally getting some action on the trip and and whatnot. And and it doesn’t really seem all that significant, but of course, why would we be introduced to this character if we’re gonna come back around later? And of course, it does. But they get to where they’re going, wherever this is in Slovakia. And when they pull into the train station, it looks totally shady. Like, this would not be a train station that I would wanna get off on. Like, if if this were my destination and we I pulled up and this is what it looked like, I might consider just staying on the train and taking my chances later on down the line. But when they walk through the town, the town actually is pretty beautiful.   It’s like, you know, all these red roofed buildings. Yeah and cool architecture and stone streets and, when they get to the hostel, it’s super, super nice. Like it’s not like it I’ve never actually stayed in a hostel. When I was in Amsterdam, we were just there on like an overnight trip and it was a bank holiday and, we couldn’t get a hostel. We walked around all day trying to get one, couldn’t ever get one, ended up sleeping in the airport. But even just you know walking around Amsterdam looking at these hostels, they’re usually pretty run down places and this place is luxurious. So right away it kind of seems strange, you know, why would there be this luxurious hostel in this far off exotic place that’s kind of off the map? It’s certainly probably not a big tourist place. But of course, you know, they’re just they’re just thrilled.   And again, something else, this is, it’s so entrenched in 2005 because they keep, Paxton refers to everything. Oh, that’s so gay. That’s so gay. And he’s calling everybody fags. And, you know, I I think in 2,005, I was kinda desensitized to that. Now that we’re in off putting to me. But, they they find out they’re gonna have to have roommates, and and Paxon says, oh, that’s so gay. But then when they walk into their room, they find out that it’s not so gay after all.   Yeah. 

Todd:  When they walk in the door, there are these 2 absolutely gorgeous women who are topless in the middle of of changing. And, they’re like, what? And we’re like, what? And, they walk by and say, we’re going to the spa. You can, once you join us there. And when and so the hostel has a spa, again, super luxurious. And when they go to the spa, like, they walk in the door, and it’s it’s set up almost like a painting. They’re just like the camera sweeps across and it’s all women, right? Maybe a couple men 

Clip:  in there, 

Todd:  but mostly all women, completely naked, walking around, all beautiful. And the 2 of them end up in the sauna with these girls who are now their roommates, who are not at all interested in covering up. 

Craig:  Natalia is a beautiful both these women are just gorgeous. Natalia is, a brunette, and I think Svetlana is the other one, and she’s blonde. She’s blonde. Both of them gorgeous. 

Todd:  They are just flirting with them, and they’re flirting back, and they’re having a lot of fun, and it’s it’s funny because this never happens, like, in real life. Like, major warning bells should be going off for these guys at this time. But, again, this plays to that fantasy, and they’re getting exactly what was promised to them. And so they’re very excited about it, but be careful what you wish for. If it seems too good to be true. So they basically spend a few more scenes just hanging out with these girls. They go to the clubs with them, and Ollie’s there, and Ollie’s having a good time. 

Craig:  I knew that they were in trouble when they were in the the club with these girls. Now, you know, the girls seemed really friendly, and they’re just hanging out, you know, it’s not nothing really out of the ordinary there. But the blonde ones, Svetlana, pulls out a pill and and puts it in Paxton’s mouth, and then we see that all that both of the other guys end up getting pills too. And, you know, I get it that, you know, they’re out, they’re partying, you know, this is kinda what they’re out there for, but taking a pill from somebody you just met, in a foreign country, it doesn’t get much more naive and stupid than that. And you’re kind of asking for it, frankly, if that’s if that’s what you’re going for. And, you know, I don’t know what it was. You know, I I assume it was supposed to be ecstasy. It loosens the the guys up, and you’re right.   Then they then they all come back to the to the hostel, and Josh and Paxton are in one room with, Natalia and Svetlana, and they’re having sex. And Ollie has picked up another girl at the club, and they end up going into another room. And it looks like, like you just said, I mean, it looks like their fantasy has come true, like, everything they have been promised has come true. And they wake up in the morning, and everything seems fine, but they realize that Ollie’s bed, hasn’t been slept in. Or or either that or he’s gotten up and made it and left, and and and they don’t know where it is. And that’s kinda where things start to get, a little scary. 

Todd:  Yeah. They’re really interested in finding Ollie, and it really bothers them. I guess they’ve been with him for a while, and they’re trying to justify, well, you know, he is just a guy we met as we went along, and they even get a texted picture of him with a Japanese girl who we had seen very briefly in an earlier scene. And her name was Kana, and she was there with another friend of hers. And, it says, we’ve gone, we’ve left, we’ve gone away, which is very strange because I don’t think the 2 of them were really together at any point. They didn’t seem interested in each other. So it did this does this does seem very strange to them, but they’re and they’re not they’re not willing to just write this off and go on. I mean, they kinda continue to do their thing, but they’re they’re a lot more uneasy.   And, to their credit, at least, they recognize that as being strange. At least they’re starting to become a little more cautious now. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and Josh, I think, is a little bit more concerned. I mean, they’re both concerned, but, you know, Paxton says, you know, we don’t really know him. He could have just gone on. He says, you know, we’re American. We don’t do that kind of thing, but these Europeans, that’s they’re used to it. They travel all over the place. They, you know, just pack up on a whim and and go wherever they want.   So maybe it’s no big deal. The only really thing they’re searching for him basically, and and that’s that’s probably, I don’t know, a good 10 minute clip of the movie where they’re searching around. And, as they’re walking down the street, I I don’t remember if last time that I saw this that I I considered the significance. It just seemed to kinda come out of the blue. But Paxton, just out of the blue, tells this story about how when he was a kid well, maybe not a kid, but at at some point in his life, he had, seen a little girl drown. 

Clip:  I ran to the life guard who was busy talking to her boyfriend at the time, and I yelled. You know, there’s this girl drowning. And, she couldn’t see her from the tower and probably thought I was making it up. And then, like, a second later, all you can hear was this horrible screaming. It was that little girl’s mother, dude. The kid was dead. Jesus. Yeah.   I had nightmares for years after that. I mean, I’d wake up every night hearing that mother scream. Just I just felt like I could’ve done more to save that girl. 

Craig:  And it seems in the context of the scene, totally random. Yeah. But it it kind of, yeah. It it it kind of plays out later. And they they’re walking the streets, they see a guy in Ollie’s coat. For whatever reason, this guy, like, slips into a torture museum. They walk through a torture museum. 

Todd:  That’s so silly. That that Yeah. Is so goofy. I don’t know, and this is just a guy wearing Ollie’s coat, and I think we’re supposed to figure out later on that maybe he was, the one who killed Ollie, or at least he was involved in somehow, in the whole process of, collecting Ollie for this for this thing. But the fact that he’s walking around and he goes into a torture museum, and he pops out just as soon as he popped in, and I mean, he’s presumably a local, it’s it’s so contrived. I thought that was a little goofy. And and and it’s funny because as he’s chasing him into this museum, they really play up this museum Todd. It’s a wax museum, and instead of really running through it to find this guy, suddenly he stops and starts looking at the exhibits and making comments on them and things.   Yeah. I thought it was a real clunky part of the movie. It would have been better if he’d just seen a guy in a coat and tried to chase him down, and when he put his arm on his shoulder and turn him around, he wasn’t Ollie. You know? 

Craig:  Well and I I thought that right. I thought that there might be maybe somehow that this torture museum was in some way tied to this other organization that we’re gonna find out about later, but it apparently isn’t. So, yeah, I mean, it Todd just seem, clunky. 

Todd:  And it’s it’s also this, like, extremely touristy kind of attraction in what is supposed to be this far flung town that nobody visits, which also seemed really out of place. I mean, this is the sort of thing this is like Madame Tussauds you’d find on, you know, on Right. San Francisco or someplace. It’s and and it was just right in an alley, fully staffed and manned and extremely elaborate in the middle again of what’s supposed to be this Slovakian town that almost nobody goes Todd. So that also felt really false to me. It was weird. Right. 

Craig:  And then so they confront this guy, and this guy is kinda standoffish, like, this is my code. I don’t know what you’re talking about. And then right after that, they get a text from Ollie that looks kinda like a selfie, like it’s a super up close selfie, and it just said, I went home. And of course, they’re confused by that, but then we get to see the source of the text, and we’re back in that grimy place from the credit sequence, and we it pulls back from Ollie’s face, and we see that it’s his decapitated head. So Ollie’s dead, and and we know that now, and we know what the danger is. We also see that, whoever this is in this torture place has that Japanese girl that’s missing too, and we see him, like, cut off her toe with, like, some gardening shears. So if we hadn’t if we didn’t if we hadn’t come into this movie already knowing exactly what to expect, now they’re they’re just throwing it right in our face. This is what it is.   They’re still worried about Ollie, but they run into the girls again, Natalia and Svetlana, and they’re the girls are going off to the club and want the guys to go with them, but Josh says, no. I just wanna wait for my friend and then get out of here. But Paxton says something along the lines of, look. We could sit here and wait for him and then leave for Spain in the morning, or we could go out and get laid one more time and then leave for Spain in the morning anyway. You know, why waste this opportunity? So they do go out again with them, and this time the scene is much shorter. We see both of the girls, each of them give their respective guy a shot, and they take the shot. And right away, Josh starts feeling bad. I mean, this was it’s obviously roofies.   You know, they’ve roofied these guys. Josh, he heads home. He hit or back to the hostel, where he’s met by the desk clerk, female desk clerk, and she helps him into his room. But then when she leaves, as he’s passing out, she pauses in the doorway, and we can just see her feet, and her feet are then joined by a man’s pair of feet. So we know there’s something going on there. Paxton kinda lucks out because he tells the girls that he’s going to the bathroom, and he goes to try to find the bathroom, but instead of finding the bathroom, he finds, like, a storage closet or something like that. He accidentally gets locked in there, and and that really, I I think, is the only thing that saved him. 

Todd:  Do you think that was an accident? Because the the DJ, I think, is the one there’s like a DJ there, and he’s the one who ends up putting his equipment in front of the door, and he exchanges some looks with Natalia or Svetlana or one of the girls in there. There are, like, some knowing looks between them, and then it’s shortly after he ends up in in the bathroom or whatever that then this guy comes and just almost deliberately puts it in front of the door. I felt like this was a deliberate thing to separate the 2 of them. 

Craig:  I don’t think so, and and the reason is okay. So the next day, Josh wakes up, and he’s in one of these torture rooms. I mean, it just it looks like, you know, a cold, barren, dark, dirty, gross room, and he’s, immediately, he starts to be tortured and notably by the Dutch businessmen. And I don’t know how important it is to detail the torture. It’s torture, you know? Like, he he drills into his his chest. He cuts his Achilles heel. And all the while, Josh, who arguably is the most likable of all these guys, is just begging and begging and begging. And it’s it’s scary, and it’s it’s sad, and and you feel bad for the guy.   The reason that I think that the whole Paxton thing was an accident is because when he wakes up in the morning and makes his way out, he makes his way back to the hostel, and he goes to the front desk to ask for the key, and they say the guy at the desk says, you’ve already checked out. And he says, no, I haven’t. He says, yeah, you have. You checked out. You checked out this morning. And he says, but is this your bag? The maid brought it down. She thought you must have left it. And he says, no, I didn’t check out.   Give me the key to my room. And when he goes back up to his room, he opens the door and the exact same scene plays out again, but with different girls. There’s 2 different girls in there who just happened to be getting dressed right in this moment, and when he says I’m sorry as they done the first time, the girls say the exact same thing. Oh, don’t worry about it. We’re just going down to the spa. Don’t you wanna join us? I think that somehow, Paxton had gotten himself locked in there, so he was not able to be abducted. And they this the cycle was just starting over again with new guys. That is, that’s the impression that I got.   And he then Paxton goes out and is looking around town, and he ends up finding he sees, Natalia walking down the street, and he follows her into this dive bar, like, you know, the total opposite of the glamour of, of the hostel. And both she and Svetlana are in there sitting with some guy, and they just look like a mess. You know, they look like they’re strung out on something. They’re not the gorgeous sexbots that they were before, and they’re surprised to see him. So that’s why I think that he lucked out, that he just happens, to end up in there. 

Todd:  Fair enough. That make that make that that kinda makes sense. I I kind of noticed that it didn’t seem to matter. You know, if I were running this gang, I would take all 3 people at once, you know? I mean, I would take, why not? But of course, there’s certain opportunities will come up and, you know, you can’t always force a situation where you’re gonna conveniently be able to take all 3 of them at once. At any rate, these guys don’t really seem to care that they pull off 1 at a time because they have ways of convincing the others that people just moved on. And so I felt like that might just be their MO is that they just take one at a time. And so when Josh was taken Paxton was left, I felt like, again, that was that was the same thing as as this girl taking Ollie away, and then that later he should be getting a text soon or something from Josh saying, hey, I’m okay. But, yeah, that I mean, that that also makes sense.   The reset makes sense. Although, again, these people running this hostel are in on it, right? They should know who they’ve taken and who they haven’t. If Paxton couldn’t be found and they only take Josh, then there wouldn’t the the the confusion at the front desk would seem to be just another part of the ruse. It it wouldn’t be an accident, a mix up, you know. I mean, the front desk should know, well, we only took 1. And so his story wouldn’t be a total reset, but it would seem like there’s some mistake that happened or something. Or again, one of those notions in the movies where I never saw this guy, you know, where somebody completely pretends that they don’t that they don’t know. A couple of Alfred Hitchcock movies are like that.   Anyway, it’s really unimportant whether that’s true or not, but obviously, he knows at this point that something’s definitely messed up. And, also, I guess we skipped over a little bit, but, Connor had a friend The Japanese girl had a friend that they had been commiserating with a little bit in this. I don’t remember. I think his her friend is now missing as well, right, when he comes 

Craig:  into Uh-huh. 

Todd:  Back into the hostel. She had been basically sitting on a Craig, and they’re waiting for Connor to come back, and she was now gone. So we see ominous Right. That she is also missing. 

Craig:  Right. And she she had agreed to wait for them the next day to go on the train with them to Spain. 

Todd:  So Oh, that’s right. 

Craig:  They were expecting her there. 

Todd:  That’s right. And it’s really neat what you point out him finding these girls in the bar, and they do look like a mess. It it Their makeup is clearly not done, it’s really cool, and that’s what again, this is something I maybe I didn’t notice the first time around, or maybe I did, but I just forgot about it, but it really made me respect the thought that went into this movie. Is that, at this point, these girls are not we know for sure that these girls are not sweet and not innocent, and now they don’t look sweet and innocent, you know, The curtain is away, and now we’re seeing them how they really are in this dive bar without their makeup on, totally unconcerned. And their personalities toward Paxton has totally changed as well. 

Clip:  Where are my friends?   The Art Show.   You mean, like, a museum?   No. No. No. No. No. Not the museum day when, how you say, for artists. Exhibit. Exhibit for artists.   No. That that Todd doesn’t make any sense.   Why? What is wrong?   Well, because they didn’t leave a note. They didn’t call or do anything. It’s   They tell us to tell you.   Yeah. But I tried calling them all day.   Yes. But they’re phoning about their diet, and they do not have, how you say it, for electricity.   Converter. Okay. Whatever. Where where is this art show? Because I wanna go.   Have a drink.   I don’t want a drink. Alright? I I wanna see some art. 

Todd:  It’s interesting what happens next. Right? Yeah. She gets in a car and she literally takes them to this old what looks like an old abandoned factory that’s been kind of looming over the town this whole time and walks them right into the place. You know? 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Very surprising. And and, you know, they the funny thing is is, like, this place is completely guarded by all these people. It’s all, you know, he pulls up in this car with her, she drops him off, and they get out, and there’s shady characters over here, there’s shady characters over there, they’re walking into what’s obviously an abandoned factory, there’s clearly no art show going on here, but Paxton is still gonna go along with it, and I mean he’s not as cautious, he vacillates from being really cautious to really stupid an awful lot in this movie, but also what’s going through my mind is all of this is just way too convoluted for it for its own good. I mean, at any time, the girls could have just said, hey. Let’s go to an art show. Brought all 3 of them to this place, and they’re totally surrounded by enough heavies that are gonna take them out. The whole elaborate ruse in the first place where they’re pulling them away 1 by 1 and and biding their time and giving them drugs, but not taking them yet just to kind of get them used to it. All of that seems totally unnecessary. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I know what you mean. And you’re funny because you think of stuff like that all the time. You know, the answer is if it had happened like that, it would have been a really short, boring 

Todd:  movie. Well, of course You’re right. 

Craig:  You’re absolutely right. And and I thought that the whole time too. Like, if the purpose of these girls was just to lure these guys and if they’re if these guys are willingly taking drugs from them, like, why are these girls having sex having sex with these guys? You know, they they they clearly don’t have Todd. You know, the guys took the drugs before they had sex with them. They could have roofied him the 1st night. You’re right. It it it’s it’s convoluted. 

Todd:  Well, and then and I mean, my response to that is, well, this whole seed bed is a little out of place where he she takes her him there. I mean, obviously, we need a scene where he’s there, and he sees the horrible things that are happening that are happening, and he sees what happens to Josh before he’s taken himself. I think that’s the movie logic here, as we want a build up to his revelation. Right? Instead of just another, he falls asleep, he also wakes up in a scary place. But the way that we get there just kind of, again, negates a little bit of what came before it as far as the logic goes and and really calls into and it really, really get calls into question the legitimacy of this entire operation. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I’m with you on that. But it it is Todd, and it is a good reveal. You know, she lets him kinda walk ahead, and he walks right into not into, but right to outside the door where the Dutch businessman is performing like surgery on Josh. I mean, Josh is already dead, but he’s got him cut, you know, from crotch to stern. Haxton 

Clip:  and that make you my bitch. 

Craig:  And then, of course, the muscle comes out and grabs him and takes him to one of these torture rooms too. And he gets strapped down to a chair and they, the the muscle, whoever it is that works there, brings in this little guy, who’s going to do the the torturing. And this guy starts to torture him a little bit. The the the guard made Paxton speak to prove that he was American. Apparently, this guy wanted an American, but Paxton is all time multi also multilingual, which has been established earlier in the movie. So this guy that’s that’s starting to torture him, he really just gets started before Paxton starts speaking to him in German. Now, I was watching this on YouTube and it wasn’t a very good transfer. Did you have subtitles that showed you what he was saying? 

Todd:  No, I didn’t. I didn’t. 

Craig:  I didn’t either. I looked it up, he says to him in German, if you kill me, it’ll ruin your life. Every time you close your eyes, you’ll see me. I’ll be in your nightmares every night. Your whole life, I’ll ruin it. So the German guy goes out, gets the muscle again, and the muscle puts a ball gag on him. The German guy pulls out a chainsaw. Paxton, out of fear of the chainsaw, starts to vomit, but he’s got this ball gag in his mouth, and it looks like he’s gonna choke to death on his own vomit, which the German guy doesn’t wanna happen because then he doesn’t get to have his fun.   So he pulls the ball gag out, drops it on the floor, pukes, splatters everywhere. The guy goes and picks up his chainsaw again, kinda swings it around in such a way that it just nicks Paxton’s hands and takes off a couple of his fingers. But when he comes in apparently for the kill, he slips or trips on the vomit and the ball gag, and he falls, and the chainsaw comes down on his leg. Paxton, when when the chainsaw had cut his hand, it had also cut his hands free from the Craig, and he’s able to, squirm and wiggle enough to get out of the chair and get a gun that this German guy had sat down, kind of haphazardly. And he shoots the German guy, and then he calls for the guard and pretends that he’s still chained to the Craig. But when the guard goes down to check out the German guy, he turns around and shoots the guard, And, he he gets the keys from the guard. He unlocks his legs. And, he I thought it was really funny.   He grabs his fingers, like, he thinks that maybe like, maybe they’re gonna get reattached later. And then there’s a whole thing where he, like, puts on a disguise, one of the torture, you know, like a big helmet and one of the big aprons for the torture or whatever. And, he runs someplace and then somebody come, you know, somebody’s coming so he has to hide. So he hides on this cart of Todd, and then this cart of bodies that he’s on gets rolled, you know, to this other room where this big guy is, like, butchering the body. But he ends up, hitting the butcher guy when he’s got his back turned with a mallet, and he ends up going back upstairs where he ends up in, like, I what I guess is the locker room for these for these patrons of this place. 

Todd:  Backing up just a little bit. It we’re breezing through it so quickly that it’s it’s hard to forget how shocking it’s hard to remember how shocking this whole notion was. He stumbles into this room where this guy whose sole job it is is just to cut up these bodies so that they can be put in the incinerator. And it’s so it’s such mundane work. Of course, a place like this would have to deal with the bodies, but it’s so terrible. This is such a routine thing. This is just a business for these people, you know, that this is a part of the business. Oh, you gotta deal with the Todd, so we just hire this dumb guy who just chops them up and puts them away. 

Craig:  And then the he encounters this guy in this locker room. 

Todd:  When he meets this guy, he really meets I think he’s really meeting himself from earlier in the movie. You just substitute sex for murder and and girls, you know, for victims, and you get the same thing. This is a total dude bro who’s an American and he’s totally psyched to be there. 

Craig:  What’d you 

Clip:  go for? Local? What? European? 

Craig:  American. 

Clip:  An American. Ain’t that a bitch? Big spender. I I just love it. 

Todd:  I just love that shit. 

Clip:  You know   what they got for me? They told me they lined up something real special. I’ve been waiting for almost a week for this shit. I mean, like, for $50, she better be worth it. You know what I mean? But it’s supposed it’s supposed to be real. It’s supposed to be a real rush. Right? It’s like like it’s like it’s a they told me and it’s like it’s like a real rush. Right? 

Todd:  Paxton is just like staring at him like, who the hell are you? You’re absolutely crazy. But he doesn’t wanna blow his cover, so he just lets this guy ramble on and on and on. I thought this was a really cool scene, and I’m really glad that this scene was in there. It’s scary in that it puts us in the mind of these guys who were going in to do it and shows them that they’re not all creepy Dutch businessmen, you know, who have weird habits, but it’s also just this guy who thinks this is a cool idea and has never done it before and is gonna get off on it. He wants to know how it is, like it’s like it’s any tourist attraction that he’s that he’s come to do. But then it also, reflects back Todd, I think, an earlier time when these guys were treating women this way, You know, it was just all about sex. The only difference, of course, is that in that case the women are voluntarily or and and you know what? That’s actually not always the case, but at least, you know, there’s an exploitation that was going on earlier that he is getting to see. Again, I think, in a way, part of his disgust has to be that he’s looking in a mirror at himself, and and maybe he’s not quite dense enough to realize, the parallels there. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. You’re right. No. I and I and honestly, I I’m a little bit embarrassed to admit it, but I really kinda think that went over my head. And and I it makes a lot of sense, and I I can only imagine that that was intentional. When it all comes down to it, I mean, he finds out he he sees a card that says elite hunting, and it has prices on it and and things. So he understands now what he’s gotten himself into.   He he escapes. He gets out, and he finds a car with the keys in it, but here’s where that story comes back, the weird drowning story that he told before. He hears a woman screaming from inside, and I guess his conscience won’t allow him to just leave her in peril. So he goes back in to find her and he does, and this American guy that he was just talking to is torturing her with a blowtorch, like he’s blowtorching her face and her eyes. He kills the guy. It’s it’s it’s the girl. It’s the Japanese girl who was the friend who he knows. It’s it’s really gross.   Like, her eyeball is hanging out and, like, I don’t know why he thinks he needs to cut 

Todd:  it off 

Craig:  Yeah. But for some reason, he does. I don’t know that anymore. It’s just it’s just Todd just disgusting. I mean, all this puss comes out and stuff. It’s so gross. But, he gets her, you know, the the the business associates, whoever they are, are now aware that he’s out and they’re chasing them, but they get back to the car, and they get away. And and they’re they’re being chased through the town by these goons, and and there’s one point where this is probably my favorite part of the movie, where Paxton pulls up to this intersection, and there’s this big, like, moving truck blocking the intersection.   And and he honks and honks and honks, and finally, a guy comes and pulls the car away. And when he pulls the car away, standing in the street on the other side of the car are, Natalia, Svetlana, and Alex. So they have been set up from this since Amsterdam, and he realizes that now. And he runs them all down. And that was that’s it’s just so satisfying. 

Todd:  It is. These people are 

Craig:  so wicked. They’re so wicked and they’ve gotten away with it up until this point. To see them get their comeuppance, feels good. And and, not only do they does he run them down, but, the, Natalia is not dead. But when she looks down the road the other way, the the the car that’s in pursuit just runs right over her and just crushes her. So they’re dead. Paxton and this girl are trying to make their way to the train station. They run into a roadblock, and it looks shady, so they get out and they run to the train station, and they get there, but it’s heavily guarded too.   And Paxton saw the police out the window, at the factory, so he knows the police are in on it. There’s nowhere he can turn. So he’s just kind of hiding, trying to think what they’re gonna do, and they walk past this, it’s not a mirror, but it’s something reflective, a piece of glass. And the Japanese girl sees herself in it and is so upset by what she sees that she throws herself in front of a coming Craig, which is very sad. But fortunately, it provides enough distraction that Paxton is able to get on the Craig, and and you think he’s gonna get away. And then there’s kind of a little surprise tag here at the end. 

Todd:  Yeah. This was a very satisfying part for me in the movie. You know, he gets away, and you think that’s the end. He ends up back in the station, I think. Is it is it in Vienna or someplace or Prague? Yeah. And, and this guy that kept popping up, this Dutch businessman, he suddenly sees him, also getting off the train. And he decides he’s gonna follow him a little bit, and the guy conveniently goes into a bathroom here at the train station. And so he follows him into the bathroom.   He closes the door. There’s a sign there. He can lock it, and there’s a sign there that he can flip around saying that the bathroom is closed. And when the while the Dutch businessman is on the toilet, he goes into the stall next to him, and he just flips that card, that hunting card down at the guy’s feet. And the guy looks at it, he’s a little stunned. And as he reaches down for the card, he grabs his hand, pulls it under, and cuts off his fingers as well, and then comes around in there and starts to drown him in the toilet, and then pulls him up so that he can see his own reflection and slits his throat. Totally kills this guy, and I have to say, you’re just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, the whole time. It’s just like when he sees the the girls, you know, and runs over them with the car.   I thought this was a great way to end this movie, and I remembered I remembered it Like, there’s not a lot of this movie that I did remember, but I remembered that. I knew it was coming, and it was the the only thing that kinda takes you through it. So Yeah. It’s really a nice way to end it, and I guess when I looked up online, it didn’t originally end that way. Honestly, it ended in what I consider almost an even more mean spirited way. 

Craig:  They shot it first. That was the intended end. 

Todd:  Have you seen the that alternate ending at all? 

Craig:  I did. Yeah. It didn’t it didn’t test well. So the the guy has, his little daughter, and he said earlier in the movie that his little daughter is is his world. That’s the most important thing in the world to him. And so you see him, and I did. I I looked it up. It’s on YouTube.   The alternate ending, he he gets off. And his daughter is little. I would say maybe, like, 5. And she’s just adorable. And he sends her into the women’s bathroom while he goes into the men’s bathroom, and we see Paxton is following them. And then the guy, the Dutch businessman comes out, and he’s looking for his daughter. She’s not coming out. He goes, and he actually goes into the women’s room, and she’s not in there and he comes out and he’s holding her teddy bear.   And then he’s frantically running around looking for her, looking for her, and he ends up on the platform And he doesn’t see, but we see Paxton sitting on the train holding this girl on his lap, and she’s struggling, and he’s got his hand over her mouth trying to keep her quiet. And it’s a and not only is that unsettling, but the other thing that’s unsettling about it is that Paxton almost seems to be crying like this is upsetting to him Todd. It’s somewhat ambiguous. I think it’s meant to be ambiguous. Like, maybe he’s getting her away from the dad because he knows that the dad is really a monster. But the way that I read it, and I think the way that probably the test audiences read it, was that he was taking this girl because he knew that that was the most important thing to this guy. And just like this guy had taken his friend from him, he was now gonna take this little girl from from her dad, and, it was really dark. I actually think I’m glad that it got changed because I’m happy to see the businessman punished in the way that he is in the ending that we actually get.   Yeah. Yes. It it may be just as bad, if not worse punishment to lose his daughter, but then the daughter is like collateral damage. Like, that’s 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  It it was upsetting. I’m kinda glad they changed it. 

Todd:  That would totally well, and it kinda changes it would change your sympathies a little bit towards Paxton, and, I mean, this is more eye for an eye. Right? This is definitely way more eye for an eye. Right. The the the movie, again, I I I think a lot of this went over my head, like, as you kinda mentioned too, a little bit over yours as well when I first saw it, but there is a lot going on here that I really like about it, even though it I don’t know. You know what? Have you been back to see Pulp Fiction at all? When was the last time you went there? 

Craig:  Not Oh gosh. Years ago. I’ve seen it several times, but years ago. 

Todd:  Did you see it when it first came out? Like, did you go to the theater and see it or see it shortly there? 

Craig:  I didn’t see it in the theater, but I saw it I saw it soon thereafter. 

Todd:  And and I don’t know if you’re like me, but when I first saw Pulp Fiction, that movie just that changed my idea of what a movie could be. Like that was huge. The stuff that we saw in that movie, the way that that movie was and was filmed was just unlike anything we’d ever seen. You’ve got the gangsters, but you have all this really clever dialogue that’s almost a sideline to the action, but it’s kind of what the movie is about and he was told out of order, which isn’t an absolutely new thing, but at the time lot of people really weren’t doing it. The whole movie just and and and and it did all this while just exuding cool. It was also one of the first movies to really use, like, a soundtrack that’s nothing but songs. You know? Right. That the pulp fiction set so many standards.   It happened Todd also be a Quentin Tarantino movie, but it set so many standards when it came out. That now, if you go back and watch it, it seems tired and cliche. Mhmm. The last time I watched it, I was kinda let down. I was like, man, this movie was so great, but because so much has come out afterwards, in that vein, patterned after it, it being the standard bearer, that now the standard bearer itself looks a little worn and cliche and even not as good as some of the movies that came after it. You know? Mhmm. I think I’ve I felt, a little the opposite about hostile. You know? When I went back and saw it, I thought, wow.   There’s a lot going on here that I totally missed the first time. There’s there’s like some Nazi holocaust kind of imagery going in here, you know. Obviously being in this this this rundown factory, which is just a machine for, killing people, and the one guy that Paxton goes up against is German. There’s a little bit of that aspect to it. There’s obviously we’re talking about capitalism here, and as you sometimes do when you’re talking about these subjects like prostitution and things like that, you’re exchanging money for a service, you know, how far is too far, what service too is too precious to be bought? That’s what we’re doing here, and with the parallels at the beginning of the movie with the prostitution, and the guys doing that at the end of the movie are so so clear that there’s almost no subtlety there. The scenes where they’re walking through the the brothel and it’s this, you know, brightly lit. Probably, I’ve never been in a brothel, obviously, but probably like no no brothel ever does actually look. But you know, they’re walking down this hallway and they’re seeing it’s like the doors are translucent, so you can see shadows of what’s happening behind them, but you can actually see it.   But there’s all the noises, you know, of the sex going on, and as he walks by, he looks into each door and sees what’s happening. It’s like a perfect parallel of when he fur of when Paxton ends up in, the torture place and is dragged through the hallway, which is a similar kind of setup. And as he’s looking left and as he’s hearing the horrors of what’s happening behind the doors, he’s looking left and right. Except in this case, he can see exactly what’s going on in the rooms Right. Which is also kind of interesting, I think. Maybe if this if this were a European movie instead of an American movie, we would actually see the sex happening in the brothel much more than we actually do. It’s an interesting, almost kind of a sad commentary when they feel like they need to show us sex in the shadows, but when it comes to gore and violence, you know, all bets are off, and the movie can just show whatever it wants, and and we’re fine with that. Yeah.   But that’s kind of a whole other thing, you know, and also it plays off of this notion of American ignorance that Americans traveling abroad tend to be pretty stupid, and ignorant, and 

Clip:  That’s true. 

Todd:  Don’t take into full account the fact that we are in a foreign country, and we need to respect that, and we need to not just be cautious, but we also need to, like, not take advantage of people, you you know, not take advantage of the locals, not see the locals as just more meat for us to conquer as we trip around Amsterdam, And so there’s there’s a little bit of that in there too. I’m not saying it’s like the most clever writing in the world, but at least, 

Clip:  at 

Todd:  least he’s playing with these themes, I think. Yeah. 

Craig:  And and honestly, you know, having talked to you about it for an hour now, I I really kind of appreciate it more. I I I don’t know. I I wasn’t feeling it so much when we were watching it or when I was watching it. But, hearing that take on it, I I think that there is something to be said for the message that it has. It it spawns 2 sequels. I actually vastly prefer part 2 over part 1. Have you seen it? 

Todd:  I have. I don’t remember it very well. I I remember one scene. 

Craig:  Yeah. There’s there’s there’s a couple memorable scenes. There’s a, like, a, a lady bathry scene. Yeah. Mhmm. 

Todd:  And then there’s the the nut scene. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and the protagonists in in the second one are women, and and so maybe maybe I was able to relate better to them than to the dude bros. I don’t know. But I really like the second one. The third one was trash. I mean, it was it was just rehashing. It was all just about the violence. It there was nothing new going on there, but I don’t know.   You know? Overall, I’d say, not something that I’m gonna be in a big rush to watch again, but as for what it is, I think a pretty quality film. 

Todd:  Yeah. And and again, I’m with you. Like, I I also have that feeling like like I’ve seen so much of it already that this almost seems a little worn and tired, and it does have its flaws. But I really like the fact that Roth has slipped in a number of these themes in there, and that’s something that you don’t often see. And when you asked me at the beginning, like, what’s the difference for you? Why do you like some of these movies? Why do you not like some of them? This is the only thing that can really kind of pull me in anymore now that the shock value has totally passed for me. This is the only thing that kinda Right. Can make me say, you know, I really appreciate this film a little bit more than, than maybe even I initially did. 

Craig:  Alright. Well, thank you very much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, you can find all of our, back episodes either on iTunes or Stitcher. We have a Facebook page. We love to hear from you all. Give us some feedback. Let us know what your thoughts are on this movie. And, again, we are always open to suggestions for things we should watch in the future.   So until next week, I’m Craig And I’m Todd. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Good lord. This is one insane film.

Episode 64, 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? Craig, are you there? 

Craig:  What the fuck did we just watch?   I’m speechless. I’m I’m in a state of confusion.   I don’t know what to think about the world anymore. 

Todd:  You’re not ready to join high society. Is that what you’re saying? 

Craig:  Where’s your ambition? 

Todd:  Craig, where’s your where’s your American spirit? Oh, man. This this was one messed up movie. We chose, the 1989 horror film Society. This is something that I had seen on the shelves, and I didn’t realize it until I saw the box art that there’s an odd picture of a woman kind of like peeling off her face or something it wasn’t to be frank it wasn’t box art that really captured my attention I just remembered it obviously wasn’t one that we chose to pick up The tagline on it says, the rich have always fed off the poor. This time it’s for real, and that’s a pretty apt description of what we get in this film. So, yeah, it is from the producer of the reanimator, which is actually a movie I really enjoy a lot. Had you heard of this movie before, Craig? Because I I didn’t No. 

Craig:  No. I had never heard of it. I had never I I had never seen the box art and, you told me not to, read anything about it before I watched it. And I’m glad that I didn’t because if I had read anything about it, I I don’t think that it would have been as shocking. So if you haven’t seen this movie and it’s something that you’re interested in, turn off this podcast before, we get going because it really is, I think something that you should allow yourself to be surprised by if you don’t know anything about it already. 

Todd:  Yes. This is a movie I think most horror fans are gonna wanna see, especially horror fans of the eighties or people who like body horror, if you’re a fan 

Craig:  Yeah. Of 

Todd:  well, I’d say the reanimator, but or or basket case, but mostly if you’re a fan of pretty much anything that David Cronenberg has put out, like Videodrome or his whole catalog, then this movie is going to be interesting to you. Also, if you’re a fan of, special, practical effects because there are a lot of those in this movie, and I noticed when we were going through the credits and this is something I confirmed later that the special effects were done by a guy named screaming mad George who was responsible for the special effects in another movie we watched recently, which was Silent Night, Deadly Night 5, The Toymaker. 

Craig:  Interesting. Yeah. There’s I didn’t I didn’t know that, but I did notice there was there’s one guy in this movie. His name is Petrie, and he’s played, oh gosh, I didn’t even write down his name, but he was was so familiar, and it I couldn’t figure out where he was from. And so I finally, after the movie, looked it up, and he was Pinot from Silent Night, Deadly Night 5. So, a little bit of crossover there too. 

Todd:  Brian Bremmer. Yeah. From Petrie to Pinot. Yeah. 

Craig:  It was driving me nuts because he was so familiar. It makes sense since we just watched that. 

Todd:  Yeah. You know what? I I looked at his, ouvoir, and he did, pumpkin head before that. Do you know pumpkin head? 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  That’s a great movie. So that guy 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  That guy’s, a little more interesting than I thought he was when we watched silent night deadly night 5. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  Alright. So, anyway, society, starts out, and I’ll say that the movie is pretty heavy handed. It starts out in a white house, very opulent looking, opulent eighties looking house. It’s what we imagined that, high society was like back then. It was a lot of the modern look with a cold white, kitchen and walls and a lot of emptiness. Oh, it just looks like an IKEA, basically. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  Anyway, it so it’s a large mansion, and it zooms in on the door, and we get this very, I thought, stylish Todd cam and some really good sound design, while our main protagonist, Bill, who is a high school student that, like all high school students in these movies doesn’t look young enough to be a high school student anyway, he’s going through the house and he’s very upset about something it’s like he’s searching for something he hears very strange noises going on like cackling and it’s just hard to pin down but he ends up going into the kitchen grabbing a knife swinging around, and then gets kind of cornered in the by the front door, and then it pulls out and it reveals that this is just like, Bill’s nightmare or his dream. At least that’s what it seems to be. And he’s Mhmm. He’s actually talking to a psychiatrist. And this whole intro, I think, really sets the tone for the movie well because it’s very dreamlike, and I think it gets us into the mind of I think it’s just actually very well done. It it gets us into the the mind of a guy who we’re going to be questioning. We’re supposed to be questioning his sanity throughout the film 

Craig:  yeah 

Todd:  and as he’s talking to the psychiatrist he bites into an apple and he looks at the apple, and it almost reminded me a little bit actually of The Lost Boys where he looks at the apple and there are just worms coming out of it, but he just stares at it in that he knows that this is a vision in his head and finally puts the apple down but of course we’re kind of wondering what that’s all about so he’s talking to a psychiatrist he’s obviously kind of troubled by his family and you get the sense that this is one of those guy going through puberty weird point in his life kind of films, and he’s exhibiting the emotional kind of hormonal trauma that goes along with that stage in your life. But he’s also super rich, and that gets hammered into us throughout the movie. We cut to another scene of him playing basketball with his friend named Milo, and they’re talking and I don’t know. I got the feeling. Was Milo supposed to be not quite as well off as them, or were were you all just completely in Beverly Hills, Richmond? 

Craig:  Well, I think we were in Beverly Hills, but I think that Milo is like lower Craig Beverly Hills. Yeah. You know that that opening scene, Frank, oh, excuse me, not Frank. I I called him that for a reason. Bill, he’s played by a guy named Billy Warlock who I totally recognize, because when I was a kid, my mom watched Days of Our Lives every day, and he was on that for a long time right around this time. And his his character’s name on that was Frank. That’s why I I was confused. But, yeah, he seems he seems paranoid.   I I I feel like something’s gonna happen. And if I scratch the surface, there’ll be something terrible underneath.   And that kind of establishes, like, what you said, like, we’re supposed to be questioning his sanity. And we can’t just jump to the Milo scene without saying that right after that scene Ah. We get the opening credits and it’s over this I was like, what is happening? Like Yeah. It it’s really dark and it’s it’s it seems like it’s maybe shot through a filter or or they put a filter over the film later, and it’s all hues of red. And it looks like I couldn’t tell what it was, but it was so bizarre. And all I wrote down on my notes was, is this a blood orgy? Like what what is happening? And it’s not explained at all. Then it just jumps to that very normal scene of a couple kids playing basketball. Of course, we will find out what’s going on here later.   But just right from the beginning, it’s so surreal. And that’s how I would describe this movie. I would I would it surreal. I would call it Kafkaesque. It’s just oh, man. From start to finish, I was like, what is going on? This is so bizarre. Oh, yeah. But yeah.   Yeah. So then we cut to this very domestic scene of them playing basketball. 

Todd:  Yeah. We meet Jenny who we find out is Bill’s sister. They’re talking about a guy, named David who may or may not be coming by her sister is dressing up in her room and so we get immediately into there where she’s dressing and she drops an earring or she’s looking for an earring rather. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  And there’s some movement in her closet. And again, you know, again, this movie starts out so surreal, and now we’re in a very domestic scene, and everything seems to be pretty happy, and the movie is scored almost completely throughout. And honestly, if I have one knock on the movie, I don’t think that’s the best part. I really don’t like the the score behind it. It feels really cheap, and maybe a little too prevalent. It’s got this. I don’t know. It’s a little bit like it’s all done with an organ anyway, but but we’re supposed to feel some tension here.   Although, this seems like a pretty normal kind of area, and it’s way too early in the movie for us to for Jenny to, like, getting be getting slaughtered or something by some strange person’s pocket. Anyway, out jumps this guy, and it turns out to be this David, who she knows, who it seemed like was being set up as a boyfriend of hers, but I think we we we find out later maybe a former boyfriend or just a former Former. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. Who was interested in her. And he leaps out, and he runs down the stairs and runs out, and then, he we see his parents, and his parents are, I’m sorry, Jenny and Bill’s parents are totally cheesy, eighties rich yuppie people. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Totally stereotyped. But at the same time, didn’t you totally get a creepy vibe from them right from the beginning? 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And and because they seem completely unconcerned, like, about pretty much everything that happens throughout this movie. Uh-huh. Even when this guy was hiding up in their daughter’s thing, they’re just they just kind of brushed that off, oh well, and they’re way more interested in talking about her coming out party, which is the subject of everything, that they talk about or seem to be working towards in this movie. And I really liked this aspect of the film that you have this layer of society that seems totally unconcerned with everything but themselves no matter what’s going on around them, even when it involves their kids, even it involves things that should be kind of disturbing or troubling to them, they’re completely absolutely uninterested in that. At least you get the impression that everything’s going right by them.   So that was what made them so creepy I thought and you get that established right from the beginning and I think this movie hits you with a hammer with this theme could continue. It’s the point. It’s the it’s the title of the movie society. And even their house, you know, this is when we’re downstairs and we’re in their foyer, which which you can’t even see all the walls. It’s so big. Kinda looks like a set, to be honest, but 

Craig:  Yeah. It does. 

Todd:  So they’re all white and all smiles and grins. Oh, and then and then there’s another really interesting shot where it maybe it was just me, but I thought it was played kind of creepy where after all this is kind of done and they’re done talking, the sister turns around and says to Billy, can you zip me up? And just the way that that is shot, it just seems a little creepy, incestuous. 

Craig:  It does. Yeah. And and you’re totally right. I think it totally was the way that it was shot. You know, the the camera, Todd doesn’t, like, slow pan in. It just cuts to a really close-up shot of her back, and he’s, like, kind of zipping her up slowly. It does. It seems sensual and it’s weird.   But the other weird thing is she’s got, like, I don’t know what was supposed to be sweat or if it was supposed to be some remnants of her shower that she just got out of or maybe something else. But then he also sees something like bulge underneath her skin and her back. And like he’s shocked by it, but he doesn’t say anything. And this I think that this movie, they were less concerned about any kind of logic than they were about just the surreal nature of it and the effects. Because, like, he sees this happen, but he he doesn’t say anything. He’s like, oh, you just got a little water on your back. Like   Yeah.   If if I were in that position with anybody, my sister, anybody, and I saw something weird bulge underneath their skin, you know, and and then just go right back, I think I’d say something. I think that would freak me out a little bit, but it doesn’t. And I couldn’t get the sense of whether or not that was him questioning his own sanity. I think that that’s what we were supposed to think. Yeah. He knows that he’s paranoid. He knows that he may be seeing things because of the whole thing with the apple. And so but it it was just it was weird.   But, of course, obviously, we know something is weird and and wrong with this family. 

Todd:  Yeah. You get that sense even if even if you’re going to go with the through line that Billy is simply imagining a lot of things. There’s still a lot that’s wrong with this this family that you can’t pin down. But because of the opening credits scene, like you said, being so strange, this hearkens back to that too a little bit. So, you know, it all puts us on edge. It does a really good job of that. And so the next shot that we get is of a cheerleader at Beverly Hills High, who we later find out is, Billy’s girlfriend, Shauna, and she’s doing a little cheer, kinda dumb, doing a little cheer on stage before the big debate. And, Billy, we find out, is running for, like, I don’t know, class president or something. 

Craig:  I couldn’t tell. It looked that way. It was some kind of debate. 

Todd:  Against, a guy named Petrie, who is the person we mentioned earlier for the we remember from Saturday Night, Deadly Night. So he’s running against him, and so they do this whole little debate thing in front of the whole class. And there’s a girl in the front row who, interestingly enough, in a movie that’s basically chock full of white people, is the only person who’s got a little bit more of a dark complexion and seems like she has 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  A different kind of background. And I thought that might be a little significant, and I’m not really sure that it is. I just think it was the casting. But, she’s really kind of distracting him by coming on to him in a sort of way from the front row. Yeah. Just like 

Craig:  Yeah. Not subtly at all. 

Todd:  No. Yeah. She’s just, like, spreading her legs a little bit and, 

Craig:  Licking her lips. 

Todd:  Yeah. She’s a really attractive woman. 

Craig:  She is. Yeah. 

Todd:  And, her name we find out later is is Clarissa. From this point until about halfway through the movie, it becomes almost like the dream girl. Right? She’s Mhmm. She’s the girl that’s on his mind that he kind of sees from a distance every now and then. 

Craig:  But the other funny thing about this scene, first of all, something that’s inadvertently funny. They they say at the beginning of the debate when they’re introducing people that Billy is the star basketball player of the school. This guy can’t be over, like, 56. Like like, he’s a tiny little guy. There’s no way that he’s the star basketball player. But then also, you know, with that whole, the girl in the front flirting with him trying to seduce him and whatnot, it’s played for comedy. And and the movie is billed as a horror comedy, and I didn’t really see the attempts at comedy really felt they were few and far between,   first of   all, and they really fell flat to me. Agreed. What what did you think? 

Todd:  Yeah. I I agree with you. I thought it was it it got to be again, it’s like a Cronenberg movie or even like a David Lynch movie where the attempts at comedy, there’s just too much bizarre stuff in it for the comedy to really come through and become light hearted right you just have a tone that’s set up from the very beginning that is so strange that you’ve got to filter everything through that and when it comes through on the other side there’s nothing to laugh at. Even the comedy even the attempts at comedy, you wonder if if it’s even supposed to be funny. Does that make sense? 

Craig:  Right. Yeah. 

Todd:  And if it was supposed to be funny and we were supposed to be laughing out loud, it it was not successful in almost every No. 

Craig:  It’s it yeah. It’s just too bizarre. I mean, even when we get to the last 30 minutes where things really get batshit Craig, I I feel like it’s supposed to also be, like, darkly comic, and I don’t know. For me, it was just so bizarre that I couldn’t appreciate, the comedy. It was really weird. After that scene, he goes back to the psychologist, which he does sporadically. And, and he talks about, I don’t know. He’s talking about the paranoia surrounding his, you know, his paranoia surrounding his family and stuff.   And the the doctor says to him,   you know, you really deserve what’s gonna happen to you, you know. What’s gonna happen? You’re gonna make a wonderful contribution to society.   And little things like that get dropped here and there. All through the movie, I thought that the twist was gonna be that it really was all in his head. And as it turns out, it’s not, but, really up until near the very end, I was really thinking, okay, they’ve got me convinced that something weird is going on, so the twist is gonna be, that he really is just crazy and he’s paranoid and all of these things that he’s thinking and seeing and and whatever that they are just a product of his imagination. 

Todd:  You know, it could have gone in that direction, and it would have been a pretty interesting movie because he’s set up as the outcast in a way of his family. He’s kind of on the debate team or whatever, he’s running for president or whatever that is, but he’s also the star basketball player, he’s a little jockey, and he’s not really he can’t really fit in with what his parents are talking about, and even what his sister is talking about, they’re totally uninteresting to him, And it seems to be set up like that’s why he’s going to therapy is not just because, but I think part of it is is because something that rich people are perceived to be able to do you know because therapy is something you have to be able to afford and so right therapy I think kind of like exercising or jogging kind of in America seems to be something that poor people think are a hallmark of the rich because well, they have the time and the the leisure and the the money and the extra whatever you need to be able to do those activities. And so on the one hand, the therapy kind of points to that level of social status, but it also is a way that we can kind of look into and see that, yeah, he realizes that he’s different from his family, he can’t really relate to them, and he’s trying to work through that and trying to figure out the next step, which then again also adds to that feeling that maybe this is all in his head. But then there’s another scene, where he is going upstairs to get something. 

Craig:  Suntan lotion. 

Todd:  Thank you. 

Craig:  Because they’re going because he’s going to the beach. 

Todd:  Yeah. He’s going to the beach, he goes upstairs to get it, and it’s in his sister’s room, and his sister is taking a shower. And there’s, again, a little bit of that, I would have to say, kind of incestuous curiosity vibe going here because he does grab the suntan lotion but then he wanders a little bit into look in Todd in to see his sister showering, and the shower has that translucent kind of glass, that’s distorting the 

Craig:  fog glass. Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. But you can still see the image, behind it. And even we have to kind of stare at it for a minute or 2 to figure out if we’re seeing something weird or not. Again, right? I mean, it’s it’s 

Craig:  I just I’m I’m watching it. First of all, the reason I at least I think the reason that he is, looking at her at all is because she’s like moaning and making weird noises. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And and, so when he looks in there, like you said, like we have to look really close to it. And I’m looking and I’m looking and I’m like, wait a minute. Why are her boobs on her back? Like, what? Because you can totally see her boobs and then right below it, it’s her butt. And I’m like, what is happening? Did she grow new boobs on her back? Is that what that was that was, like, popping out before? Like, does she have 4 boobs? Like, it’s so weird.   It is. But then he opens the door then he opens the door, and she’s just normal. And she’s like, what are you doing? And she covers herself up and and he leaves. So again, I’m I I okay. Maybe he’s just nuts. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s it’s a very Lynch ian moment in the movie. I I really actually thought that this was these these scenes were really well done for a for a low budget film, that’s produced and directed by, Brian Usna, who’s the same guy who brought us the reanimator. And and I’m not knocking reanimator, but it’s definitely a low budget movie. It’s not high art. 

Craig:  Did he Todd did he produce that one? Because He produced What I read was that they wanted him to direct Bride of Re Animator 

Todd:  Yes. 

Craig:  And he said that he would, but only if he got to make this movie first. And so that’s how this movie ended up getting made. 

Todd:  Well, yeah. And then he jumps into, like, Silent Night, Deadly Night 4, which I guess is the connection with the he he must have had something to do with 5 as well, which is kinda why it’s so many people in this, including the our our guy kinda got involved with that. But, I mean, I’m really pretty impressed with what he did with this, his first directing, directing effort for a movie, and then he went on to do, by the way, honey, I shrunk the kids. He he did the story, for that movie. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. I saw that, and I was very surprised because it’s a very different movie. It really is. 

Todd:  Oh my gosh. But, yeah, I I just thought these scenes were really well done. Again, it I was wondering the whole time. Is this in his head? Is it not? But also just the fact that it lingered on this long enough and it was just obscure enough and all of the scenes like this are kind of like this for us to wonder wait a minute is are we seeing something strange or no, wait oh yeah yeah her boobs are on her 

Craig:  back, you know it puts us in 

Todd:  the character’s head as well and and that was really again, I I think it was really clever. 

Craig:  I do Todd, and and I thought that as far as I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s directing or editing or or some combination, but, the movie’s really fast paced, but it’s really just a series of these really surreal moments. Because like right after that, he goes outside, he’s going to the beach, and the parents are out there with the gardener, and the gardener’s kinda down on the ground. It looks like he’s maybe pruning something, and they’re watching and admiring, you know, their garden or whatever. But when Billy gets up there, what the gardener is doing is pulling all these slugs out of, out of the garden and putting them on a plate, like a dinner plate. And the parents are like, Oh, that one looks good. Oh, yes. That’s a beauty.   And Bill just looks at them like, you’re weird, but whatever. Going to the beach. See you later. He just he and again, I I I don’t think it’s ex we’re supposed to expect realism here. But again, this is one of those things like, okay? Like, that I guess, you just don’t question the fact that your parents are collecting slugs on a plate? Alright. 

Todd:  It it 

Craig:  to me, I don’t at the beach. 

Todd:  I was thinking of, like, escargot. That that’s what I was thinking with the slugs. 

Craig:  It it crossed my mind too, but you don’t get escargot out of No. 

Todd:  Garden slugs. You don’t. You’re right. 

Craig:  I can almost guarantee you that the people who live in in Bel Air are not harvesting their own escargot in the garden. 

Todd:  No. I I know. I completely agree. It serves to emphasize the fact that these people just live in a completely different world or totally unconcerned with anything going on around them, including Billy, and he himself just can’t relate just like we can’t relate. The you know, what’s what’s interesting about this film is that we get these what I describe what we described earlier, these really well done surreal strange moments against these really just flat out weird strange moments that aren’t even that surreal at all, and I feel like this whole beach scene is just one Yeah. Thing like this after another. He is now, basically laying down next to his girlfriend, Shauna, and she’s in a bikini, and she’s super attractive. And her main concern throughout this whole film is that she get invited to this big party that this guy, Ted Ferguson is throwing, who’s another super rich dude who is apparently really popular, but he’s kind of the bully of this movie, and he’s a little bit down the way on the beach with his friends, and she says, why don’t you go down there and talk to him and see if we can get invited to this party? He doesn’t really care, but he does anyway.   Now you’re gonna have to help me with the sequence of the scene, Craig, because there’s a whole bunch of stuff with the suntan lotion 

Craig:  here. Okay. Yeah. I I I thought maybe you were gonna skip over it for all some reasons because 

Todd:  There’s no way we’re gonna skip over the suntan lotion. Okay. 

Craig:  Yeah. Okay. So he’s, like, rubbing suntan lotion on her stomach or whatever, and then they start making out. And then there’s this weird thing where these kids are, like, army crawling, like, like, right next to them, and they they they, like, sneak up right in between their legs and grab this suntan lotion and stand up and squirt it all over the girl, all over her face and all over her boobs. And then and then they throw the suntan lotion, and then he go the Billy goes and gets it, but right before he gets there, that his dream girl, Clarissa is standing there in a bikini and she picks it up and squirts it all over his face. There’s a lot of white stuff getting shot on people’s faces and boobs in this scene. And I was like, I’m giving my screen side eye like, what are you doing? That’s dirty. Exactly. 

Todd:  And he’s, like, on his hands and knees, and he’s looking up at her. It’s all yeah. It’s super suggestive. 

Craig:  Well, and that’s   the thing. Like, it it felt like it was trying to be both this weird surreal thing and at the same time, like, an eighties sex comedy. And and I don’t know. I mean, it’s fine. Because it was so surreal Todd didn’t bother me or take me out of it when they would do these, you know, jokey kind of things but it makes it even all the more surreal, like, because it just seems so out of place.   Yeah.   And then, right after that, right after he gets squirted on the face, which he doesn’t even wipe off. 

Todd:  I mean, 

Craig:  it’s it’s so strange. Then he’s, like, backing. He’s gonna go, try to talk to this Ferguson guy to get invited to the party or whatever. And he backs into this large, heavily made up I’ll say woman because the character was supposed to be a woman. But that was surely 

Todd:  a dude. Right? Yeah. It’s a very androgynous looking character. Kind of reminded me of, 

Craig:  Like, Divine? 

Todd:  Yes. Exactly. Divine. Yes. 

Craig:  Yeah. That’s the first thing that popped into my head was John Waters. I mean, it it looked it it looked like a character stepped right out of a John Waters movie. Very large, very imposing, very odd looking. 

Todd:  Which just who just kinda stares at him, and he stares back, and then they walk away. And you’re like, what 

Craig:  is this all about? 

Todd:  It’s we we we’re introduced to these strange characters, but this this character’s flat out strange, just completely flat out. So she didn’t say anything, but she does pop up a couple more times later, and it isn’t until much later that you realize, that you understand who she is even though it doesn’t even really make them a difference. So, yeah, he goes over and he talks to David, and he’s the typical jerky bully guy. And Todd Ted 

Craig:  Ted Todd Ted 

Todd:  yeah but it cuts for a moment to his parents and they’re sitting and talking to this judge guy who is apparently a bigwig that they keep talking about and they want they keep inviting him over and he’s gonna come to her coming out party, but his sister comes in and mentions this earring that she had, and she says it’s kind of weird, and they look at it, And then it cuts back to the beach, and he is done with Todd, and I don’t think it’s 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Ted Ferguson. He has not he has not become successful at getting invited to this park. Right. But then he runs into David, hit this guy, and David says Ted says Bill Billy Billy you got I’ve got something you’ve got to see this you gotta see you gotta hear this and so he pulls him aside on the beach and he plays a tape for him and it is a he says don’t be bad at me but, I put a bug in your sister’s ear, and it turns out that that’s was in the earring that the parents see. 

Craig:  That’s what he had been doing in her bathroom was bugging her earring. Exactly. And, and I put a 

Todd:  transmitter under the car, whatever, and I’ve been recording your family. He gets upset about that, but he listens to this tape. I’m gonna car, whatever, and I’ve been recording your family. He gets upset about that, but he listens to this tape, and this tape is super disturbing. 

Craig:  I remember my own coming out. I was so excited.   Then you   can do it with women as well as men. Of course. Look,   you know the schedule. 1st, we die and then copulation. Someone your own age first, then with your mother and me. Then in comes the host. 

Todd:  You’ll be ready. 

Craig:  Oh, you know, I could hardly keep a straight face when Bill apologized to me about not being able to make it tonight.   Don’t be concerned about your brother, Jen. He’s too busy with things in his own world to worry about, aren’t   He really lucked out, Jen. Ted Ferguson is really cute for our first partner.   Ted Ferguson? Ted Ferguson? Yeah. Jenny and Ferguson. That’s just the beginning. Here, listen.   Wow. Your boobs look totally sexy. Guys are gonna pop high once the second they see you. I’m a little nervous, though. It’s fun. Oh, relax, Jenny. Just gump with it. It’s so much fun to see how far you can stretch.   Yeah. The hotter and wetter you get, the more you can do. It’s great.   I swear, I I was watching this I was watching this and I just had this look of horror and disgust on my face like the movie if nothing else, it does a really good job of shocking you. I mean, I was shocked several times throughout this movie. I knew this family was weird. I knew they were Todd, but I didn’t see this coming. I mean it was and and just that they’re talking about it so casually and like, oh, this is just what we do with the coming out parties. And it’s so gross.   Like, it’s   just disgusting. Oh, man. Oh, I I I didn’t know what to think. 

Todd:  Well, it honestly, it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you’re gonna get in this movie. Yeah. In a movie like this. Right? I mean, this is like an eighties horror film comedy kinda low budget, but it usually doesn’t go in these kind of places. This is for, like, heavy drama type weird strange few movies do really go this far, actually. 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  But then he runs to the psychiatrist, in the kind of in the middle of the night or in the middle of the evening or whatever when the psychiatrist is is not available, and he hands him the tape. He says, Look, you’ve got to just listen to this, I don’t care, and he’s like, I gotta go to bed, you gotta leave, no, well just listen to this tape, listen to this tape, listen to this tape. He’s like, Fine, I’ll listen to it. Then he gets a call and he goes back to the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist is like what are you doing what’s going on and he plays the tape and the tape is completely normal. They’re just talking about the parts. So either the tape has been changed or, Billy is going crazy and hearing things that he 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  Whatever, and that’s what you’re supposed to think. And so at this point on, the movie has been building towards this, invasion to the body snatchers or invaders from Mars kind of deal, and that’s exactly what what you get, absolutely. Now now is the point in the movie where your face your mind is faced with making a decision, like, okay, is there some conspiracy against this guy or is it all in his head? And from here on out, the rest of the movie was me trying to figure out which of the 2 it was. Was it that way for you? 

Craig:  Yeah. And at this point, I still really thought that it being in his head was a possibility, and I thought that the movie was doing a really good job of messing with my head, like I I I really didn’t know. Usually I feel like I have a better idea, you know, if they’re trying to tease things, I feel like I’m pretty good at figuring things out, but I really didn’t know That tape really threw me for a loop, because it’s it’s altered and it’s totally normal, but it follows the same pattern of the conversation. So if he were paranoid and was was hearing things, it would I mean, it would kind of make sense because the things that they say when we hear it the second time around, they all sound very normal, but if you just twist around some of the words a little bit, you could get to where it was originally. So I was thinking, well, maybe his mind is just playing tricks on him. I I really was unsure. There’s a lot to suggest that there is something shady going on a lot. You know, the fact that, Dave was so concerned and upset about this.   You know, if he if if it had just been a normal conversation, why would he have been so concerned or upset about it? But I’m still questioning my mind. Well, maybe that whole exchange was was, you know, messed up in in Billy’s head. So, I was really confused. 

Todd:  Yeah. And, also the psychiatrist and, you know, I didn’t realize this until after the movie, which is almost hard to believe that these psychiatrist scenes were actually shot after. They weren’t in the original script. They added these later, and it’s hard to imagine this movie making a lot of sense without it in there quite honestly because it does provide some really good context, and it gives us a chance to get into his head and see what he’s thinking, but the psychiatrist in this scene says to him, look, people are what they are. You have to accept society’s rules, it’s a question of what you were born into, but I thought it was pretty relevant to Todd. This is a kind of movie that could be remade in in Trump’s America and would have a lot more 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. 

Todd:  To say. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. 

Todd:  You know, it’s Absolutely. Again, it hits it all over the head, with a hammer, though, with Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. It does. I mean, it’s it’s clearly social commentary, you know, and it’s it’s it’s bold faced. It’s not it’s not beating around the bush in any way. Well, anyway, so, Billy grabs the cassette and he he well, first of all, he calls in front of the psychiatrist. And again, I thought this was so stupid. He calls in front of the psychiatrist and says, Dave, you have another copy of the tape. You gotta meet me at this certain place right now.   And he runs out. And of course, when he gets there, just minutes later, Dave’s van is there, and it’s been in a terrible accident, and they’re taking Dave dead presumably away. And so he goes home and his mom and his dad and his sister are all just sitting in the, like, sitting room. They’re not doing anything. I mean, it just seems like they’re just waiting for him to come in. And when he comes in, they’re like, you got a 10agram. I don’t remember getting telegrams in 1989, but apparently apparently they’re fancy in Beverly Hills and they do telegrams. But he is he he has now been invited, to Ferguson’s party.   And he’s he doesn’t understand. They have heard about the accident, but they’re totally unconcerned about it, and and totally without any kind of emotion or sympathy. Even the sister who had dated this guy at one time, is is totally unconcerned. All they’re concerned about is getting him to go to this party, which he does. And then this scene, I just I don’t know how I felt about this scene. So he gets to the party, and he’s looking for Ferguson, but first he bumps into Clarissa again, And they kind of flirt a little bit, and then she, Milo shows up, I think. It’s not really important. There’s kind of Milo’s kind of this character that, kind of orbits around the whole movie, but he’s really not all that important.   Clarissa goes into this tent. Like, there’s this big tent set up in this backyard and, David follows her in there, and Ferguson is in there. And and Billy is questioning him, and he’s saying things like, I wanna know, what went down at my sister’s party or whatever. And Ferguson tells the truth. He says, we all had dinner and then I banged. He doesn’t say that. But then I banged your sister and then everybody else was so turned on they all did too. And I think that Billy punches him, and and Ferguson takes him out of the tent and throws him in the pool.   And then what I thought was so weird, and again it’s just kind of the surreal nature of the the movie, you just kinda have to go with it I guess, but Billy gets out of the pool and just continues to flirt with Clarissa. Like Yeah. This nukes that he got confirmed wasn’t all that particularly shocking or upsetting. Like, oh, I’m mad that the cute girl’s flirting with me, so let’s go to your bedroom. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Where we will have a dirty sex scene. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s you’re right. It is a bit uneven. The well, and even when Clarissa shows up, again, it’s done in that dream girl kind of way where he sees her from across, and then we get this this slow dolly into her face, as he sees her. And then the very next shot is of the 2 of them dancing. It’s like, what happens in between there and there? Mhmm. And, this other girl pops in and and I was like, who is she? This other girl pops in and looks like she’s upset and and walks away, and I was like, who is she? Like, that’s not his girlfriend. It turns out it’s his girlfriend’s friend, who later, you know, is telling about this.   But, yeah, yeah, so then they go up and they make out, and there’s this really raunchy sex scene, and there is another hand that comes into play, it’s like her hand coming around her own shoulder that he sees. 

Craig:  The wrong way. Yeah. Like, it it’s it’s it it like, in a way that it shouldn’t be able to. And then I don’t remember. Does he fall out of the bed when he sees that? 

Todd:  Pushes himself away from her, which has him fall out of the bed, and then he turns around and looks up, and she’s leaning kind of over the side of the bed and it’s like, well, how you know what’s going on? What’s wrong? And, once again you get this shot where you have to stare at it for like a minute or 2, like it lingers there so you think it’s important but it takes you a few more seconds to realize wait a minute are her legs flipped around? She’s kind of half covered with a blanket, and so between her top and her legs is the blanket covering her, but then her legs maybe seem to be backwards. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it just it’s it’s like one of those things where you look at it and you can tell that something’s not right, and it takes your mind a minute to figure out, wait a second, why are her legs facing the wrong way? And I I feel like he kind of rubs his eyes or shakes his head or something and looks back at her, and she’s normal again. Yeah. So I I I had no idea what was going on there. 

Todd:  Really well done, though. I I like that. 

Craig:  Yeah. It was well done. And they you know, I read about how they did it. I mean, they just did it with with 2, you know, the actress and then another person, and they just, you know, positioned them in the bed so that it looked like there was one body, but but contorted. And and it is effective. It’s it’s really unsettling as are many things, and, oh my god, we haven’t even gotten 

Todd:  Well, they go they go downstairs, and she makes them some tea. And she asks them 

Clip:  How do you like your tea? Cream? Sugar? Or do you want me to pee in it? 

Craig:  I’m sorry. No. What? Like, I didn’t like, she asks it totally deadpan. Like, she’s serious. And I’m like, what? It and again, he just kinda blows it off, and they start making out again. And we see kind of this POV of somebody walking in on them. And, he’s like, oh, Clarissa. Clarissa.   And he sits up, and she turns around, and her boobs are hanging out. And then it’s that big creepy drag queen again who turns out to be her mom. And apparently, she doesn’t care at all that her mom is just   Yeah.   You know, and and she basically just kinda kicks her mom out, but not before her mom starts hacking and eventually hacks something up and puts it into Billy’s hand, and it’s like a freaking hairball. I’m like, what is going on? Oh Todd. It’s just so strange. 

Todd:  No. Yeah. Yeah. He goes home and he runs upstairs and opens the door, and his parents and his sister are kind of lounging on the bed. Sitting up, and dad is giving his sister a massage. It is really creepy, incestuous moment. 

Craig:  It’s gross. Right. And, like, they’re not dressed. Like they’re not nude, but they’re in their under things. And, yeah, at this point, obviously, something I think it was at this point that I thought there’s no misinterpreting this. There’s no rational explanation for this. It’s too weird. It’s too gross.   Something is really going on. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. And then there’s a funeral scene after this for his friend, and they walk up and there’s like he has like a looks like kind of a birthmark or something his friend has on his face and he kind of touches one of them touches his face and that spot kind of crumbles away or his finger kind of goes into his cheek a little bit it’s again it’s just kind of a weird out of nowhere bit and Petrie approaches Todd him, after this and says, meet me in the woods. There’s some stuff I need to tell you about your family, and it seems like, okay, this is the guy who’s maybe been in on this but is having a change of heart and wants to let him know what’s going on and so this isn’t a safe place for that and he says basically meet me in the woods down here at a certain time so Billy goes out and drives, down to the woods and goes to meet him, but when he goes into the woods, there’s just a car there. And when he opens the back door of the car, Petrie’s throat is slashed, but there’s somebody else there, and he’s kinda wandering around. There’s this, like, a, like, a, what is it? It’s like a sweater or a, sweater? 

Craig:  No idea what was that was. I had no idea what was going on there. 

Todd:  Where did that come from? Was it supposed to be Petrie’s? Was it supposed to be his? 

Craig:  I I don’t know. Petrie was wearing? I missed it entirely. It was like he and it’s it it ultimately doesn’t pay off. I mean, not nothing comes of it, but it’s like yeah. There’s like a a a sweater, like, hanging in the bushes, and it like, he sees it, and it’s like and then some guy in all black jumps out and grabs it and takes off running. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And, he he doesn’t catch the guy. Did did you know do you have   any idea what was going on with the sweater? 

Todd:  Well, it comes up later. The sweater comes up later. 

Craig:  Oh, I missed it. 

Todd:  Yeah. Later on, when he’s doing his debate again, and he’s being, he’s being, what do you call it, heckled in the front row by Ferguson. Ferguson is holding that sweater. He’s he’s got 

Craig:  his sister wide. I totally missed that. 

Todd:  Yeah. So he’s kinda 

Craig:  following up. It turns out as it turns out, this whole thing was a setup or at least that’s what it appears to be because Milo, Billy didn’t know it, but Milo had followed him there. And Milo, after Billy left, had seen, Petrie and Ferguson come out of the woods together. So it was just a setup. And I I think what they were trying to do was trying to make him look crazy in front of other people to then justify what they were gonna do later. Because, Billy goes home and he’s ambushed by his family and the judge and the doctor and these ambulance guys take him well, they they tranquilize him, knock him out, and then they take him to the hospital. And when Milo goes to the hospital to check up on him, the lady at the desk tells him that he’s in the morgue, that he’s dead. And he says that can’t be.   And, what then we see Billy, he’s not dead. He’s in a hospital bed. He, he, he in kind of in his waking state, he thinks that he hears, David, the guy that he thought was dead. But when he wakes up, nobody’s there. And he goes out to the car, to his car, which has mysteriously been placed right outside the hospital, and he, at this point, seems like he’s kinda coming unhinged. And, Milo is there waiting, and he says, What’s going on? You know, they’re setting you up for something you don’t understand. You’re officially dead now. They’re setting you up for something.   And, so he says, no. Don’t you get it? I’m free now. I mean, it seems bizarre to me. But anyway, so then he goes he drives, I guess, to Clarissa’s house, which I didn’t really understand why. He’s really aggressive with her and, like, chokes her and, hits her. I I didn’t understand what the purpose of that was. Did you? Was he trying to get information out of her or something? 

Todd:  I have no idea. Except that maybe he was just mad at her. Like, in his crazy state, he came to realize that she was bad or she was doing bad things, so he wanted to go over there and, like, yell at her. That that’s the only thing I could think of. Yeah. 

Craig:  Well, it was unsettling because up until the up until this point, this guy, you know, has kind of been the hero, and now he’s smacking girls around. And I was like, what? Maybe he really has lost his mind. I don’t know. But anyway, it all culminates when he she tells him don’t go home. And he says, of course, I’m going home. They want me to come home. So he goes home and he’s walking around in his house much like he was in that initial dream in the beginning. And he gets a knife, and he’s holding a knife, and he’s looking for his parents, but he can’t find them.   He looks out the window and sees that they are arriving home, And so he waits in the dark behind the door until they come in, and when they come in, he says something like, hello, mom. And then all of the lights come on, and everybody is there. All of the society is there. Ferguson, all the young people, the judge, all the old people, they’re all there. It’s this big gathering. And they, the I think the cop, who has been shady this whole time, puts puts, Billy in one of those I don’t know what they’re called, like choke sticks that that animal control uses.   Yeah.   That’s the big stick with the wire at the end. You get the animal’s head in. They put them in one of those and get them down on the ground. And this is where I don’t even know what to say. I don’t even like I don’t know I don’t know how to describe I don’t even know how to describe what happens next. 

Todd:  Well, they break in, they they’re basically taunting him, and his parents show up, and they’re all laughing at him. And, I mean, you kinda knew what was coming in a way. You knew that this was going to be some kind of invader Todd the invasion of the Todd snatchers type of scenario at this point where, he is not like everybody else around him, and, you know, his his dad just taunts him, and he looks at him, and he says, 

Craig:  you’re a different race from us, a different species, a different class. You’re not one of   us. You   have to be born in the society. Alien Todd. No. No. We’re not from outer space or anything like that. We have been here as long as you have. Have. It’s a matter of good breeding, really. 

Todd:  Which confirms, Billy’s suspicions the whole time that he’s adopted. You know? And and Mhmm. Again, we’re still playing with a lot of adolescent things. You know? How many of us, you know, growing up, at one point go through this feeling, you know, where where where you’re kind of against your parents, and you maybe you don’t literally believe that you’re adopted, but you certainly feel that way. You know? Like, they you know, I’m not like them or whatever. But you know he’s in for it because he’s gonna get it, but you’re not quite sure what he’s gonna get. And then they drag in, David, his friend who we thought was dead, you know, whose cheek was like falling apart earlier. And I wasn’t clear how he came back from the dead either, but he’s there, and he’s screaming and yelling.   Go ahead. 

Craig:  I don’t think he was ever dead. I think they staged that. And and so whatever that was in the coffin, I don’t think that was really him. 

Todd:  Oh, okay. That’s probably it. So that then the coffin scene makes a little more sense to me. So yeah. So so he comes in and he’s down on the ground next to him too, and the judge comes in and he’s basically like, 

Craig:  I do love the smell of the hunt and the taste of the shunt.   And I was like, oh my god. What is hap what’s going to happen?   The taste   of the shot. And I could’ve never in a 100 years predicted what was about to happen. 

Todd:  They all descend on on David, everybody, and they’re taking off their clothes, and they reach into his skin, in some places. Like, David has suddenly become really, really soft, and pliable. Mhmm. Yeah. And he’s screaming. And in the meantime, they’re grabbing it. They’re reaching into his skin, they’re like melding with his body, they’re going up to him with their mouths, and it looks like they’re gonna bite pieces off of him like a kind of like a zombie movie except Uh-huh. They as they pull away, their mouths and lips just become elongated and it’s, oh my gosh, there’s no way to to really describe it. 

Craig:  No. You would have to see it. You would have to see it because it’s so gross and so bizarre. I mean it’s lovecraftian. It’s, I mean it’s nightmare. It’s nightmarish. It’s literally the stuff of nightmares. And it’s like, I guess they’re feeding off of him.   And then at the end oh, and at some point so so Billy’s watching all of this and Ferguson, is, like, taunting him and saying, watch because this is what’s gonna happen to you next. And then for and and Billy’s like, why are you doing this or something like that? And he says, oh, you silly boy. Don’t you know the rich have always sucked off low class shit like you, which I thought was a really interesting choice of words. And and Yes. If I heard that context, I would think something very different. 

Todd:  Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It was, the whole thing just becomes a basically a big orgy like, again, very like David Cronenberg filming an orgy where it they it pans out, and it’s just this amorphous mass of flesh, that you can’t tell who’s who or what’s what, and there’s not even human anymore. And everybody’s laughing. It’s a big nightmare monster. Yeah. And I guess they they had these ideas.   The filmmakers had these ideas first. Like, the idea first was the special effects for this film, and they basically went backwards and developed a plot around this. 

Craig:  Right. Yeah. Which oh my gosh. How do where do you start to develop a plot around this? It’s so weird. I mean, even before they all and again, I I feel like they’re trying to incorporate comedy even before it turns into that one big mass. Mean, they’re all kind of connected, but, I guess the judge gets to kind of do the final thing or whatever, and he, like, crawls up to Dave and says, now we’re finally gonna get to the bottom of this. And he takes his hand and shoves it up Dave’s ass, and then, like, shoves it all the way up so that it comes out of his mouth and eyeballs and then kinda just, like, pulls it all down into one amorphous thing, and that’s when the whole big orgy is going on. And it’s just surreal and just gross in the visual.   There’s there’s little to no blood, because the director was concerned that the MPAA would, make him cut it if there was blood. But blood could not, I don’t think, have made this any more disgusting than it was. In fact, blood may have added a sense of realism to it that would have made it even less nightmarish. I mean, it’s just you you you gotta see it to believe it. 

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. There’s nothing else like it, on film, I don’t think. Yeah. And the funny thing is is even in some later scenes where there’s a little bit more talking going on, and this scene lasts way too long, there is way too much talking and other stuff that’s kind of happening amidst all this, but you can even, like, the the the head with the fist and hand through it is just kind of, like, bobbing up and down while the judge is chatting with somebody else later. Mhmm. It’s all happening, continuing to happen around them, and they’re supposed to be funny moments, I think. I think we’re supposed to be laughing at a lot of this, but it’s so strange, so bizarre, and so disturbing that I just couldn’t bring myself to think any of it was funny. 

Craig:  Right. Like, I think so, Clarissa lets, David go, and David they block the door so he can’t get out, so he runs upstairs. And he ends up in his mom and dad’s bedroom. And at first, you just see the mom laying in bed, but it looks like instead of legs, she now has man arms. And then she gets out of bed, and she’s walking towards him, and it’s, you know, it’s all practical effects. It’s all in the way that it’s shot. Some of it’s, you know, clearly a puppet. But she gets up to him, and then, like, the sister, like, pops out of her vag.   Like, like, the sister’s head pops out of her vag and, like, talks to the kid. And then he he turns around, and the dad is, like, I guess, on all fours, but we’re just seeing him from behind. And his face is coming out of his butthole, and he’s and he’s like and he’s like, hey, Billy. I think it was supposed to be funny, but it was so gross and surreal that the last thing that I was gonna do was laugh. I mean, I I could recognize that they were going for the comedy, but it’s so gross that, no, I I was not laughing at all. I I I would I wish that I had a camera. I wish that I had trained a camera on me while I was watching this because I think that in itself would have been entertaining to watch because the looks on my face must have just been priceless. 

Todd:  Now doesn’t the doesn’t the weird mom come in at some point too? 

Craig:  It’s kind of a subplot that, Clarissa’s mom, Milo uses her to get inside. And and it’s really not all that important except for when, Billy is runs downstairs to escape his parents. He’s trapped again. And in another totally why would this happen moment, he, like, challenges Ferguson to a fight. He’s like, me and you, 1 on 1, man to man. Like, really? Now? Yeah. 

Todd:  This is not gonna work. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and, they fight, and Ferguson is is kicking his butt. And, but, Clarissa tries to intervene, and he punches her. And so the mom tackles him. But, I mean, it doesn’t amount to anything. Eventually, he gets back up, and they start fighting again. And then I don’t remember what Ferguson says to him. He’s got he’s, you know, Billy’s beat the Craig out he’s had the crap beat out of him, And, I guess Ferguson’s, like, holding his face.   And then it looks like he starts to make out with them. Like, that’s what it looks like, and it holds there for a long time, which is also something I thought was odd for something in the late eighties, early nineties. But he’s doing the shunting thing. He’s, like, sucking the stuff out of him or whatever. But and and I don’t know how to explain this. Billy does the same thing that the judge had done. I don’t know if he got some strength because of his connection to Ferguson or what, but he takes his fist and punches up presumably through David’s butthole, and he does the same thing, grabs from the inside his face and pulls and turns him completely inside out. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And then he’s just a massive, like, worms and maggots and and gross stuff. And and at that point, it’s like everybody is scared of him because he’s done that and he’s capable of it. And so his dad kind of confronts him one more time, and he he punches his dad out. And then he and Milo and, Clarissa run out together, get in the car, drive away, and that’s it.   Yeah. 

Todd:  And I’m 

Craig:  like, are you serious? That’s the it? Like, we there. I thought it was so strange, and I was left with so many questions. But ultimately, you know, I don’t think that they could ever be answered. So what what what would be the point in trying to explain this totally nonsensical, surrealistic, weird ass movie. 

Todd:  I don’t know, man. It’s that’s it. And and it just had something to say about society, and it did. And it’s done. And they showed us what they wanted to show us which was the gross special effects, at the end which is completely memorable, and you’ll never forget it once you’ve seen it. Yes. And yeah. Oh my god. 

Craig:  I don’t think I’m asleep for a week. And it’s not that it was scary. I I I wasn’t scared. It was just so bizarre and gross. Like, I I I walked back to to our the back room in our house, and I told my partner. I said, I may be scarred for life. Like, I I don’t know. That being said that being said, if you are a horror fan like us, you’ve gotta watch this movie.   I can’t believe that I had never seen it, never heard of it. I don’t know how it felt between the Craig. You know, it opened theatrically here. It did terribly, and then it just kinda disappeared. I guess it was a big hit in Europe. Oh. Maybe American audience is just weren’t ready. I don’t think I was ready.   I was gonna say I’m not sure 

Todd:  we’re ready yet still. Just in some ways, it’s even more disturbing than things that we’ve seen at hostel. Yeah. Yes. It’s very much interested in making this social commentary that, about the upper class, about how unconcerned they are about anybody but themselves, about how they feed off of the poor, and how inside they’re nothing but maggots and worms and and and gross stuff. Mhmm. So there’s that aspect to it. And then, you know, it’s also doing this this weird, kind of sexual body stuff, which takes it to a whole other level.   It’s it’s invasion of the body snatchers as like a weirdo porno kinda thing. You know? 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It’s Rosemary’s Baby. It’s, Mulholland Drive. It’s it’s, you know, there’s a little bit of John Waters in there like I said before. It’s this crazy combination of different genres that I don’t know if I’d even say that it worked. I definitely wouldn’t say it 100% worked. But as a standalone, unique, different film, my gosh, if that’s what they were going for, then absolutely they were successful. 

Todd:  And then this, of course, led to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids somehow. Disney must have seen this and this is the man for 

Craig:  me for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. 

Todd:  Well, thank you for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this, please, share it with a friend. We’re on Itunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. You can find us online. If you happen to have seen this movie, we’d love to hear what you thought about it. Leave us a comment on Facebook or on Google Plus. Until next time, I am Todd. 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

There aren’t too many New Year’s Eve-themed horror movies, so you can’t blame us for choosing this turkey to watch this week. Brought to you by the Globus-Golan team of schlocksters behind the late Cannon Films production powerhouse, we can’t even say it’s more than mildly interesting. But we did have a lot of fun talking about just how bad it is.

So it’s in this spirit that we lift up this first podcast as a toast to 2017 – hoping that you’ll stay safe and avoid EEEEVIIIIIL as you ring in the new year.

Episode 63, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Podcast

Craig:  Hello?   Hello. How’s it going? 

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

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  And we hope you had a Merry Christmas. We have another holiday coming upon us, and that is New Year. And what better way to celebrate the New Year than to go with the New Year’s themed horror movie? In this case, we chose the aptly named New Year’s Evil. The 1980, Cannon Films movie. Craig, had you heard of this film? I don’t know. I saw the box cover art when I was, walking around Blockbuster. That that’s that’s the only thing I knew about this movie. 

Craig:  Yeah. I think that you had mentioned it to me at some point, but, I had never seen it. It didn’t look familiar. I don’t remember having ever seen it anywhere, and maybe there’s reason for that. 

Todd:  This film was made by a very notorious producing team in Hollywood, Goran and Globus, 2 Israeli cousins, who came over in 1978 and bought Canon Pictures. And if you remember all of the horrible, but lots of times pretty fun anyway movies that you’ve seen over the years, you probably remember that Canon logo, that came up after you popped in the v VHS tape. The movies the movies were all released in theaters. In fact, some of their most famous ones you definitely know, such as Delta Force, and Van Damme’s first film, Bloodsport, I believe, was produced by them. They also produced the absolutely horrible Superman 4. Somehow, in the in the midst of all the craziness, they got a Todd of the Superman license and produced that abomination and a bunch of stuff with with Sylvester Stallone, including an arm wrestling movie called Over the Top that tried to make arm wrestling really, really cool. 

Craig:  I actually really remember liking that movie when I was a kid. 

Todd:  Do you? I never saw it. I never saw it. But, pretty much every Chuck Norris movie almost every Chuck Norris movie was produced by these guys, for better or for worse. And, if you want to learn more about these guys, I highly recommend a documentary that may still be up on Netflix called Electric Boogaloo, the untold wild story of Canon films. Because they did do the Electric Boogaloo movie, which was one of their earliest and biggest hits, and then that product produced the sequel, Electric Boogaloo 2. And, you know, so so it’s it’s interesting. Oh, and breakin’. Breakin’ was another film that they did, which, was early and popular.   Do you know breakin’? With breakdancing? 

Craig:  I don’t know it, but but I think the electric boogaloo is actually breakin’ too. I think it’s breakin’ Todd electric boogaloo. That’s right. 

Todd:  Because because everybody makes jokes about it all the time. Breakin’ Todd electric boogaloo. Yeah. That’s right. So breakin’ was the first one. I’m sorry. And that was really, really popular as a big hit and actually culturally significant, maybe the only culturally significant movie they made because this movie here is certainly not culturally significant. Nope.   So New Year’s evil begins. 

Craig:  It begins with the kill. There’s it starts out and it’s it’s funny. We got into you know, we we put this I put the movie in. I didn’t know anything about it. I looked I just on IMDB, I just looked to see what year it was made, how long it was. I saw 1980 and that kinda made me excited because I, you know, I’m a kid of the eighties. I I enjoy eighties movies, so I was kind of excited about that. And then it started, and it starts with this woman getting her or doing her makeup, and her name is Diane, and she’s played by Roz Kelly, who I had never heard of before, and it wasn’t until I did a little bit of research after.   The only thing that I would have ever known her from, she was Fonzie’s girlfriend, Pinky Tuscadero, on Happy Days, which I thought was pretty funny. And she appears to be, like, in entertainment or something. She’s got a, an assistant or an agent or something who’s talking to her. And I just knew from the first snips of dialogue that we had gotten ourself into something bad. 

Todd:  It’s pretty obvious. 

Craig:  Because not only was the dialogue bad, I mean, there’s there’s, it’s not even a joke. Like, it’s played very seriously, but like the, I guess the agent’s, like, nervous or something. And she’s like, oh my gosh. Take a lewd and calm down. I’m like, oh boy. Here we go. And so it’s just an establishing shot really where we kind of are introduced to her. She’s famous apparently.   And we it’s established that her it’s New Year’s Eve, and she’s gonna be hosting this countdown. Apparently, she hosts, like, a new wave rock music radio show, and and she’s pretty famous. And this New Year’s Eve, she’s holding a live countdown of the year’s best new wave music. We find out that her husband, can’t be there. He’s on the other coast. They’re in California. He’s on the other coast. And it it says something about how he’s incapacitating, can’t make it.   Like, he’s drunk or he’s high on coke or something. He can’t come. And then, I don’t remember if we meet him right now, but eventually, this young, blonde, good looking guy. I say young, probably twenties, somewhere in there. And we find out that he is Derek and he is, Diane’s son. And he’s coming in and and talking to her, and she’s kind of ignoring him, and he and she’s getting ready and not paying any attention to him and he’s he says 

Clip:  I got some good news. Oh,   that’s nice, honey.   Got a   part in a new series. Spaceship America.   Ernie. I just remembered I wanna see those press releases Yvonne has before she passes them out. Got it? Okay.   It’s really a good part.   You wanna get her on the phone for me,   Sure, bud. Snap it up. Todd shooting next week.   What?   The series. My   part. Look. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you tell me all about it later after the show? I’ll take you out to dinner. Okay? 

Craig:  And Yvonne is in her hotel room, I guess in the same building. I think all of this takes place in a hotel building. Anyway, she talks to Yvonne and she get off gets off the phone with Yvonne and suddenly, Yvonne hears a noise in her her room, and that we see that the door to her hotel room is coming open, and and she goes out to investigate. There’s nobody there. So she goes back in the bathroom where she’s been getting ready and she gets killed. Somebody grabs her and pulls her in the shower and and stabs her or cuts her throat with a switchblade, or something like that. And so that’s it. You know, we get the first establishing kill, which we’re pretty much always given.   And then, basically, we end up at this like you said, there are these punk rock kids driving around, and I didn’t know what was going on there. I I I didn’t know if these were characters I should be paying attention to or if it was just kind of a side thing going on, but very eighties and played so hammy. And, like, I don’t think that it was intended to be hammy. It just came across that way, and that’s kind of the case with the whole movie. But anyway, they get there to the hotel, and we see that it’s this big party, and Diane comes out and introduces herself as Blaze. That’s her stage name. And she introduces, like I said, she says, this is the Hollywood hotline countdown of the year’s best new wave rock. 

Clip:  Now this is your last chance to be bad before you make those New Year’s resolutions. That’s why we call our celebration New Year’s EVA. 

Craig:  And it’s so funny. One of my one of the things that I thought was kind of hilarious inadvertently about this movie was she’s got all these new wave, kind of punk rock people dancing, and they’re dancing throughout the whole movie. And it is the strangest, most bizarre dancing I’ve ever seen in my life. Like, seriously, it looks like it’s out of a different movie. It looks like it’s out of a Night of the Living Dead movie. These look like zombies dancing, and I what was that all about? 

Todd:  Like, did you think that’s anything? I did. It was like a giant, like, mosh pit, but it was a half hearted mosh pit. They’re just kind of bouncing around and off of each other, but in, but not very quickly. The music sections were some of my favorite laugh out loud moments of the movie, where we’re constantly cutting back to for no real good reason, except it seems to highlight the 2 bands that they got Todd, perform in this movie. Made in Japan was 1, and the first one was called Shadow. And Yeah. So they’re they’re playing this this punk, new wave, whatever kind of music. The whole idea, honestly, of, like, a punk or New wave.   New wave is like I don’t know. It was sort of a a very short lived version of music that tried to combine punk, which is so anti establishment and almost anti music with, like, the modern, like, glam rock. And so you ended up with this thing that just didn’t last very long. And I can’t say that what they’re playing even seems like new wave music to me. But, anyway, the idea the idea of a new wave countdown is is so anti punk. You know what I mean? That that and she’s Yeah. It’s hilarious. And she’s set up as this kind of, I guess, like, a Dick Clark American Bandstand type host.   Right? Because this is happening on the New Year’s, and she’s apparently broadcasting the show. Even though she’s broadcasting it from LA, she has, like, people in all these different time zones who are also throwing their own parties, who they’re all kind of linked up to. Right? Which seemed seemed like it would become, important. I mean, it kinda does, but kinda doesn’t. But that’s sort of the last that we see about the coordination between the different shows and these different time zones going on that she’s kinda, like, lording over, but whatever. Yeah, dude. Their dancing was hilarious. And also, later on, when we cut back to them at some point in the movie, suddenly they’re playing like blues. 

Craig:  Yeah. It was so strange. 

Todd:  And and their dancing is exactly what it was for the new wave, except it’s like 10 times slower. Yeah. It’s it’s 

Craig:  And it’s so weird. Like, you can barely even call it dancing. Like, they’re really just flailing about. Like, there’s no rhyme or rhythm to it. Like, it’s it’s just bizarre. You know? Yeah. We lived through the whole mosh pit experience. I’ve been in a mosh pit or 2 in my life.   It’s nothing like this, and this is just it’s just bizarre. Part of this countdown apparently also is that it’s being voted on live. So there’s a bank of phones, on the stage, and, there are operators there taking calls, but periodically, Blaze will take calls also. And she takes one call and it’s totally normal, nothing weird. And then the very next, call she gets, we see that it’s coming from this guy, like, in a trench coat in a, phone booth. And he he’s got, like, this voice modifier or something. I mean, reminiscent of, like, the voice modifier in Scream, but, like, way, way lower tech. So all it does is just make his voice kind of buzzy. 

Clip:  But let’s hear a crazy New Year to you. 

Craig:  Happy new year to you, Lays. 

Clip:  Oh. Some kind of voice you got there. Sound like the phantom. 

Craig:  You could call me that. 

Clip:  So you got a name, phantom? 

Craig:  Call me evil. 

Clip:  Evil? You bad, 

Craig:  No. Just evil.   Oh, it’s so corny and funny. I can’t even do it justice. He says, I’m gonna commit murder at midnight. I’m gonna kill someone you know, someone close to you. And he says, I’m gonna do it at the at midnight for every time zone. So as it turns midnight in every time zone and this radio show is celebrating it, he’s gonna murder somebody supposedly, close to her. And that’s the setup for the whole movie. Now the thing that I found interesting that made this a little bit different than your typical slasher movie is that we see the killer from the very beginning.   I mean, we he’s not masked at all. He’s not hidden. They don’t keep his face out of Craig. And I thought that there had to be a reason for that. And as it turns out, there there kind of is. There’s a little bit of a twist towards the end, that really I didn’t find to be very twisty at all. In fact, I totally had it figured out by the time we got there. But this just sets up I mean, we can go into some of the details of the plot, but honest to Todd, really all that happens is she’s kinda freaked out and she, wants additional police presence there and and they come.   And then we cut to, an outside view of a building with a sign out front that says Crawford Sanitarium, and we see evil, break in, sneaks in when somebody’s not looking, and he comes in and he’s dressed as an orderly, and he introduces himself to this pretty nurse who he bumps into in the hall, and he introduces himself as Jeff Winters, which I I wrote down because I thought it would be important, but it’s not. It’s just an alias. Basically, he seduces her in the 5 minutes that he knows her, and then he’s got this tape recorder with him. And when, it turn when it comes to midnight, they’re, like, making out. He’s got her on a table. He presses record, and when it strikes midnight and he can hear it on the radio, he stabs her and kills her. And that basically happens, like, 4 more times with different costumes, but basically the exact same thing 4 more times. And that’s pretty much and then we get to the end of the movie.   You know? Like, it’s it’s so formulaic. 

Todd:  It is. 

Craig:  It’s it’s so formulaic. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s a paint by numbers kinda script. You’ve seen movies like this, much better movies exactly like this. In fact, and I had to look up I I was curious because this came out in 1980, and Roger Ebert was one of my absolute favorite, in reviewers. I I could agree with him on almost everything, and he had just such a love for film that he could even find ways to appreciate, for good reason, bad movies. Let’s just put it that way. Movies that had some heart, but, were seriously lacking in many departments. And he he reviewed this movie, and I was really interested to to to read it online.   Now he didn’t say it was a good movie. You know, he gave it, like, one and a half Todd. Then this was when it came out. But he but he did say some interesting things about it. He said New Year’s Evil is an endangered species, a plain, old fashioned, gory thriller. He said it’s not very good, the plot is dumb, and the twist at the end has been borrowed from 100, if not thousands, of other movies. But as thrillers go these days, and again, he’s talking about 1980, New Year’s evil is a throwback to an older and simpler tradition, one that flourished way back in the dimly remembered past before 1978. So what what he’s basically saying in this review was was actually going through my head, is that this movie looks like an old style of movie that I used to see.   And the first one that came to mind was The Taking of Pelham 123. Have you seen that? Mm-mm. It was a it it was several years before this movie, and it was a much better movie. It has a much better plot and a lot more suspense, a lot more going for it. But, in its at its core, it it’s very similar. It’s about, a Craig, some kind of crime happening, and we see both parallel the killer doing his thing and the detectives closing in on them. So we get both sides of the story kind of in parallel, and it’s really no question who the killer is. Maybe maybe his significance or his identity, you know, is in question.   But but, you know, it’s not hidden as far as who he is. And so it becomes this it’s too generous to call it a cat and mouse game when we’re referring to this movie. But it’s supposed to be anyway a cat and mouse game between, how far can the killer go, and is the killer gonna screw up, and is the killer gonna make a mistake before the cops working on their other end get to them? The problem with this movie is the killer, like you said, just can just does it 4 more times in ways that there’s no way they’re gonna close in on him because they’re just these random killings all around the city. Mhmm. And and it and it’s such a short time span, 4 hours, that it’s a miracle the police can even make it to each of these crime scenes, in any amount of time to be able to start to piece together, let alone link it to this guy. You know what I mean? They’re all there are just so many plot holes and problems in it. But then on the other end, like you said, they they bring in this cop that she had requested. And he’s a detective who does almost literally nothing except Mhmm.   Lock down the building at some point and talk to her. That’s really about it. Oh, it tells her to keep the him on the line a little longer so that they can trace the phone call, which you think is leading up Todd 

Craig:  point of call. 

Todd:  Yeah. Right? You think it’s leading up to one of those scenes where they tensely keep, you know, the killer on the line and see how how long they could keep him Todd. But no, that’s really not even a thing. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  But but it is it it reminded me of one of those earlier kind of movies in that it just went straightforward with this plot, and it almost seemed like a TV movie to me. Did it feel like that to you? Just totally. 

Craig:  It felt like it yeah. Yeah. And it felt like a TV movie from the seventies or eighties.   Yes.   Or if you’re gonna compare it to something today, it would be like a bad episode of a bad crime procedural, like Criminal Minds or something. And I don’t the being kind of a throwback, you know, I don’t know if it was intentionally a throwback or if it was just kind of coming at the last, you know, of of these types of movies. But, yeah, I mean, I can see that. It it it almost feels like it makes attempts to be Hitchcockian as far as Hitchcock’s thrillers, were concerned. But it just it just it just falls flat. The thing is, it’s not terrible. And I almost wish that it was because then it would be more fun to watch and more fun to talk about. It’s just, like, it’s not good.   It’s not so bad. I mean, there are parts of it like the dancing that are so bad, it’s funny and you can laugh out loud. But beyond that, it plays it pretty straight, and it’s just, you know, I was I was checking my phone. I was looking at Facebook. I’m like, like, it was just it’s and it’s not even so much that it was boring. I mean, things keep happening. It’s not like there’s big lulls in the action or anything. It’s just, yeah, seen it, seen it, seen it. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Like we said, you know, there’s there’s more kill scenes. And they it it it’s all cut back and forth. Every time, you know, the kill scenes are juxtaposed against the party scenes. And every time he kills somebody, he calls the radio station back, and tells them, you know, where he’s left the bodies and stuff. So the police can find the bodies like that pretty quickly. The second kill is he puts on a mustache, which I guess makes him look sexy, and then he goes into a disco. 

Todd:  Maybe at this time. 

Craig:  Yeah. Right. I mean, he he he’s not a bad looking man. He’s tall and athletic. He reminded me a lot of Bruce Jenner, pre Caitlyn Jenner. 

Todd:  Oh, yes. Yes. 

Craig:  Like, young young Bruce Jenner.   so he picks up a girl in the bar, and she’s pretty and ditzy and, like, he’s gonna get her out of there. He says he I I thought it was so funny. He’s he’s pretending to be, like, a Hollywood agent or something, and he says he’s gonna take her to a party at Estrada’s house. Eric Estrada. 

Todd:  Eric Estrada. 

Craig:  Oh, gosh. I thought that was so funny. 

Clip:  I got this business thing I have to attend. There’s a big party up at Estrada’s place, Kind of a command performance. He’s a client of mine.   Oh, are you an agent?   No. No. I’m a business manager. I handle investments, that sort of thing. Pay Pay’s okay, but, there’s no bed of roses. Some of these picture people are real prima donnas. Hey. I got an idea.   Why don’t you come along? I think you’d really enjoy yourself.   Well, I no. I don’t.   Come on. I could introduce you to some very interesting   people. At least I wouldn’t get crushed to death. 

Craig:  And and she brings her, roommate along, which wasn’t part of his plan, and he’s running low on time. He doesn’t know how things are gonna work out. They end up stopping at a liquor store. He sends the, roommate in, and then he suffocates the 1 girl with a a plastic bag. And then when the other girl comes back out, the car is gone, and she sees one of the girl’s shoes, and then she sees another shoe, like, down the alleyway, and then she sees, a piece of of her friend’s dress hanging out of the dumpster. And there’s blood on the shoes. She knows something’s wrong. So she lifts up the dumpster lid, and in the blackness, he, the I didn’t expect this at all.   The killer’s in there and I think he lights a lighter to illuminate his face. And I found that to be the only effective scare of 

Clip:  the whole 

Craig:  movie. That was really the only part that I thought was actually somewhat frightening. 

Todd:  Yeah. I agree. I I I noted that as this was the best jump scare in the film, and and it was it was pretty creepy. Of course, it’s a little silly that if he’s gonna leap out at her from a dumpster, that he’s gonna light up a lighter so she can dramatically see his face first. But Right. But for the film, it looked pretty Todd, and that gives you actually the image that’s on the cover of the movie. It’s his face from that perspective kind of eerily lit from below, except in in the cover, of course. He’s he’s got a switchblade thrust out, and he’s breaking through a calendar.   But, you know, that that brings to mind something else, and that is that you can tell this is an eighties movie by a few things. 1, of course, is the new wave music. B is sort of the haircut. Mhmm. C is we’re coming out off of the seventies pretty quickly. And, like you said, there are references to quaaludes. There’s, when he suffocates her in the car, he is offering her pot, and he’s got it in a big plastic bag, and he asked her to smell it, you know, and so she kind of puts her head into the bag to smell it, and he puts that bag over. I thought, okay.   Well, that’s kind clever. But the other thing is the constant and almost annoyingly constant use of Switchblades in this movie. 

Craig:  Like Yes. Everybody has a switchblade. 

Todd:  I think you could have this great drinking game with this movie if every time somebody brandishes a Switchblade in any way, shape, or form, take a drink and you will be totally plastered by the end. 

Clip:  Oh, 

Todd:  yeah. Even even even in the beginning where we have the pointless, scenario of the punks cruising around town, and it turns out that they’re going to that hotel, to join the the New Wave party. They come up, and they just start surrounding a police officer who who just stands there like no police officer is trained to do and just take his abuse from the punks. And at one point, a punk holds up, what looks like a switchblade in his face to which the officer makes a facial expression, but absolutely no movement. And, then flips it open, and it turns out it’s one of those Switchblade combs. We’re just so scared about, dude. I mean, there’s so many freaking switchblades in this movie. 

Craig:  I know. I I wrote that too. I’m like, in all caps, I’m like, what is with all the flipping Switchblades? 

Todd:  Because it was it 

Craig:  was I went through the eighties. We didn’t really all have Switchblades. I I swear. 

Todd:  No. We didn’t. But we thought they were edgy and cool. Remember? I mean, didn’t everybody you know? 

Craig:  They were a tough guy. Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. Switchblade combs. 

Craig:  Yeah. And the toy ones. Gosh. The things our parents used to let play with. We’d they’d never get away with that today. So so he kills those 2, and then, then he dresses up as a priest and, is driving around and gets in a tangle with some bikers, which is so random. And so then the bikers are chasing him, and he ends up at a, drive in movie theater where we find this young couple, like, just groping each other. We we get some boobs in the movie.   Not at all a big surprise, late seventies, early eighties. Gotta get some boobies in there. The the biker guys find him in there, and he kills one of them, and then he kicks the guy, the make out guy, out of the car, but keeps the girl in there. And he’s, like, taunting her with the switchblade, and, she’s in the back seat crying and the dialogue is so awkward. 

Clip:  Listen, mister. If it’s money you want, I don’t have have any. Just $33 in this garment ring. 

Craig:  I I 

Clip:  don’t want your   money. Leave. I’ll do anything you want. You can even get it on if you want to. I won’t make any kind of fuss. 

Craig:  Oh my Todd. This is so weird. This makes me uncomfortable. I I don’t like this. But then I guess the bikers kinda somebody stops him again. Maybe it’s a couple of drunks that get out of the car 

Todd:  so we can’t go. He’s driving down the highway, and it’s a big highway with a large shoulder. And for no good reason, he first of all, he’s driving way too slowly. And the second thing is for no good reason as these drunks are stumbling around on the shoulder, he slowly veers off and towards them. It it’s such a staged scene that it it’s supposed to be like, oh, he almost accidentally hits them if they’re crossing the road. But the problem is, I I guess, as actors, they didn’t get far enough across the Todd, so the car had to adjust to meet them. 

Craig:  Yeah. Todd didn’t make any sense. It didn’t make any sense. First of all, why he wouldn’t have just gone around them. There were only 2 of them. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And secondly, he’s he’s a crazy murderer. Like, just run him down. Like Yeah. What difference does it make? 

Todd:  Or or get or just back the car up and continue along your way. You’re better off in a car anyway. 

Craig:  Right. But anyway, so when he stops the car, the girl girl gets out and and runs, and he goes and chases her. But then the cops show show up. Like, I guess the drunks, like, flag the cops down or something. And, right as he’s he’s found the girl, she’s hiding under something in a park and but, the cops, show up and so he has to run away. So he doesn’t get that kill, but he makes his way to the hotel, which we’ve known from the beginning was gonna be his end game, which is why that made this whole middle section so frustrating. Like, you’ve already told us where the plot is going, so it almost feels like a waste of time. You know, just get there.   Yeah. So that’s all of his kills, and I’ve wrapped those up really quickly because I just didn’t wanna spend a whole bunch of time on it. It just didn’t seem worth it. All of that. Then there’s this sub plot going on, which, again, I don’t like this movie, but there are some things going on here that I’m like, what? Okay. So throughout all of this, every once in a while, like, it’s always going back and forth to the to the DJ Blaze, and she’s always talking to the cops, but it’s always the same. It’s always exactly the same. Meanwhile, the son, Derek, who we just met in the beginning, is sitting up in his mom’s hotel room, and like she calls him at some point, and she’s asking him like these asinine questions, and like she’s worried about him, and then as soon as he says, I’ve got something important I need to tell you, she says, oh, wait, sorry, I gotta go.   Like it’s 

Todd:  the most contrived, 

Craig:  stupid conversation ever. Yeah. Todd. It was just so bad. I can’t say that the performances were terrible. I think it’s just the writing was so bad that they just didn’t have anything to do with it. Yeah. So when he hangs up the phone with her, he, like, picks up, like, I didn’t know what it was at first.   I thought it was like a scarf. It’s like red and gossamer and it turns out it’s like pantyhose, I guess, or tights. And, like, he’s sniffing them, and then he takes, like, and then he takes a Switchblade because everybody’s got one, and and he cuts it, and he puts it down over his face. So he’s got this red pantyhose over his face. And I’m like, what is happening? What is 

Todd:  going on here? 

Craig:  Like, I know I had no idea what was going on. And it was so confusing because we already know that there’s a crazy psycho killer out there and we know that it’s not Derek. Like somehow if the killer had been in shadows or something, I would’ve been thinking, I don’t know how he’s doing this, but it must be him somehow or I don’t know. And then at one point, he goes down to the studio where he hears his mom and the cops talking, but he doesn’t reveal himself. And not only is he wearing the pantyhose over his head still, but he’s also got those awesome, like, headband sunglasses, like that like that guy, like, LeVar Burton used to wear on, Star Trek. 

Todd:  Yeah. It just it’s like, what? This look he looks like he’s just slowly coming unhinged in the weirdest way. Right. 

Craig:  But but it it seems so disconnected from the rest of the plot that I I I just had my hands in the air, like, I have no idea what is going on. Now eventually I figured it out because once the killer gets back into the, hotel and we see that he’s going to be he puts on this goofy mask. Was that mask some sort of reference to something or was it just a generic mask? 

Todd:  Oh, you know what? It looks like a Laurel and Hardy mask. Yeah. Like Hardy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you’re right. It was goofy. At first, I thought it was one of those Nixon masks, but it wasn’t. It doesn’t matter. It was goofy. Anyway, the killer is in the room with her, and I knew, I just it clicked in my head, he’s gonna take off that mask and she is not going to react badly because she’s gonna know him, whoever this is, and then immediately, it clicked in my mind.   It’s her husband. It’s it’s the the absent husband that they made a point of explaining why he wasn’t there in the beginning. I I’m kind of irritated with myself that I didn’t figure it out sooner. 

Clip:  Oh, okay. 

Craig:  Because in hindsight, it was so obvious. And then I don’t know. How did you feel about the his motivation? 

Todd:  There were 

Craig:  And his character, I guess. 

Todd:  You know, his motivation was a little muddled. It seemed like they were trying to make this kind of, a Freudian type deal, especially with the sun. You know, with the sun part being added into it. And here is my theory behind what they were thinking about. I think it, especially as it turns out at the end of the movie, even though father and son weren’t in cahoots, father and son seem to have a similar attitude toward their mother, but in a different way. But I’m I really wasn’t even clear of his motivation except that they just didn’t get along, and he couldn’t he couldn’t take it. Once he corners her in the elevator, we get an extremely long scene where he can lay all this out for her while she has almost no reaction at all except cowering in the corner. And the stuff that he says to her is just basically, like, after they split up, he got really frustrated, he couldn’t do anything, or he couldn’t get money.   What one of the questions was continually lingering when my mind was why did he kill Todd in the beginning of the movie? 

Clip:  Ladies are not very nice people. They are manipulative and deceitful and immoral, and very, very selfish. See, that’s why Yvonne was first. 

Craig:  You killed Yvonne? Yes. 

Clip:  Because you and she have been short changing me for years. I have had to beg her through you for every cent I ever got. My allowance. Oh, yes. It is. See you?   You castrated me.   That is not nice. 

Todd:  It was it was all kinda mild to me. 

Craig:  It’s it’s obvious that he’s just a crazy person. Oh, okay. Well, it makes sense now that the son is crazy because, you know, his dad is crazy. Maybe it runs in the family. Okay. That makes sense. Basically, the the sense that I got from it was just that he felt emasculated by her, because she was so successful and so famous, and he wasn’t. He just felt emasculated.   And then he had also convinced himself that she was, unfaithful. And he said something I don’t know. He said, I know how you are. I see how you flirt with other men or something. And he says, and no. He says, Derek has told me how you are around other men. And then he said something, and I almost I didn’t rewind it because it he says something like, and Derek told me how you even try to turn him on. So yeah.   Really? So, like, like, Derek has this, like, edible thing going on. Like Yeah. Gross. I felt like that was 

Todd:  that was pointed to in the movie. Yeah. With the whole pantyhose and stuff. But it’s also happening. Well, it’s so half hearted that it’s unclear. Like, we don’t see her flirting with guys in in the show. 

Craig:  No. Not really. I mean, her persona is really seductive, but, I mean, that’s her persona. No. We I mean, yes, we see that she kind of ignores her husband and son, but no, we don’t get any real suggestion that his suspicions are real or true. 

Todd:  Yeah. We we don’t get any sympathy for either character because there’s not enough information given to us. We don’t get to know these characters well enough. Like, we don’t see her as a terrible, horrible, emasculating woman or whatever that means. And we we see her as a terrible mother, but it’s in such a corny way. Again, like you said, all she does is just ignore him the minute She’s all very concerned about him until he says he wants to tell her something important, and then she’s like, oh, well, I need to go now. It’s so unbelievable. And you’re right.   His dialogue with her in this l s elevator seems to want to lay it all out. He even flat out says, you emasculated Todd, I think, which is something nobody would say. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  So Right. Even that just I just I just couldn’t follow it at all. I couldn’t pin down except that he’s just mad at her because he’s an ex husband and he’s a crazy guy. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I think that that’s it. I don’t think that there’s supposed to be anything more to it, but because there’s nothing more to it, it’s just again, it’s just meh. Like, whatever. Okay. So okay. So then he’s been, like, messing with the elevators, and he, like, chains her underneath the elevator.   And I guess he his plan is he’s going to then take the elevator or send the elevator all the way up to the top floor and then drop it. 

Todd:  Was that, like, a reference to dropping the ball on New Year’s Eve? Like, he was gonna drop her at midnight? Because it wasn’t clear. I didn’t even think of that. Yeah. I mean, I thought that was the coolest part of the movie actually was I was like, wow, that’s really unique. And they actually filmed, you know, somebody was dangling underneath an elevator as we saw it go up the shaft really fast. I thought, wow. That’s really cool. 

Craig:  Agreed. As far as imagery and as far as original ideas go, yeah. I’ve never seen that before, and that would be incredibly frightening to be in that situation. But what happens is, the police catch him before he’s able to drop it, and we don’t ever see her get out, but she does somehow because she’s still alive at the end. And basically, like, if and again, it’s it’s just it’s super anticlimactic. Like, the police show they find him. They’ve been looking for him because they think that he’s in the the hotel building because they found a knocked out guard. That was another thing.   The way that he gets in is he distracts this guard and then knocks him out. Steals his clothes. And it’s so funny because the 2 actors, the one who plays the guard and the one who plays the killer are completely different body shapes. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  But when but when he puts on the uniform, it fits perfect. 

Todd:  And and 

Craig:  it’s I mean, there’s not much more to tell. I mean, he puts that goofy mask back on. They chase him up to the roof, and, the detective gets up there with him and, he does he quote Shakespeare? 

Todd:  It must be. It comes out of the blue just like everything else. 

Clip:  Put your hands on top of your head. 

Craig:  To die, to sleep no more, And by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the 1,000 natural shocks that flesh is into. 

Todd:  It was meant to sound like a really significant scene, but I think it had the the content of what he quoted had absolutely no significance to what was going on. 

Craig:  So he jumps off the building. That’s it. I mean, like, the police get him up there, and he jumps off the building, and we see a shot of what is clearly a mannequin being thrown off a building. Yeah. And then he’s dead down on the floor or on the ground. And when we cut back to his body on the ground, the son, Derek, is, like, crying over him. And when he gets up and walks away, he still got the mask in his hand. Blaze, Diane gets, rolled out on a gurney, and they put her in an ambulance.   And, the guy who’s in the back of the ambulance with her says to the guy in the front, alright. Let’s go. And we see that the ambulance driver is dead in the floor of the passenger side, and Derek is driving the the ambulance with the mask on. Presumably, he’s now gonna pick up his dad’s work. See, and I didn’t know. You said that you didn’t think that this father and son were in cahoots. I kinda got the impression that maybe they were. You didn’t think so? 

Todd:  Well, if they were, I felt like there would be a scene or something where the son would get the father into the building or at least retroactively we’d learn Right. That somehow the son facilitated some of this. But it just seems like father is doing all of this completely independently. He doesn’t try to make contact with the son, he doesn’t ask where the son is, he doesn’t do anything, he has no interaction with him at all, and that’s why I thought, no. I don’t think they really were in cahoots, but I felt like the movie was trying to make some kind of connection, like, they both had similar issues. I mean, obviously, the movie is setting us up for this moment. The movie is trying to give us some reason for this twist at the end. You know, the son hates mom too, But I I felt like that was a completely independent thing.   It’s just that the 2 of them had talked, the 2 of them completely agree that they hated mom. But then wouldn’t it make more sense for the son who already has more access 

Craig:  to mom Yeah. 

Todd:  To just kinda deal with it at midnight instead of the father? Like that would have been maybe a better twist slightly if it had included that. 

Craig:  I don’t know. I mean, he says the only thing okay. So we know that they’ve talked badly about her in the past. And at one point, when she blows him off, he says, I had a 

Todd:  I 

Craig:  I didn’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know if he kinda knew about it, and then he backed out or I I don’t know. It really doesn’t matter. It Oh. It’s so stupid. So maybe 

Todd:  so maybe he’s going through his own mental, seesawing back and forth whether he’s gonna go through with it or not. And so dad ends up having to come break in and kinda do it to to finish the job because son’s not going to. Do you think? I mean, that’s giving this movie a lot of credit. That that would be a a kind explanation. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s good enough for me. I don’t care. There’s really I don’t really feel like there’s a whole lot more to say in this movie. There were some weird things that happened that I just I don’t like, at one point, like, after one of the kills, like, after the dumpster kill, they played the Friday 13th.   Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Cock. Cock. Cock.   I mean, I don’t think that it was the exact same, but it was so close. I’m like, wait, what? What is happening? 

Todd:  Am I in the wrong movie? 

Craig:  And I I feel like I read that there were a couple of other instances of things like that from other movies. I don’t know if that was supposed to be homage or if it was just blatant stealing. I don’t know. But beyond that, you know, I gotta say, I you know, I say this all the time. I am a horror movie completist. I will watch just about anything, that I can get my hands on. And I had really never heard anything about this movie. And and usually these types of movies at least have some sort of cult following. 

Todd:  And I 

Craig:  don’t get the impression that this one even does. And I understand why because it’s just barely even worth a mention, you know? There’s just there’s just really nothing all that redeemable about it. And it’s I don’t know. I I feel like the the concept isn’t terrible, so maybe if it had been executed better, I I don’t know. What are what are your thoughts? 

Todd:  Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about just some of the laughable parts of this movie, the parts where you will laugh with friends, at the goofiness of it, because you’re right. It is a pretty paint by numbers type film, and it is competently made. I mean, the lighting is good and the cinematography is fine. Again, it has a cinematography of kind of an early to mid eighties TV movie. It has that feel to it. But the acting is so all over the place. I I really feel like Diane’s acting is pretty good 

Craig:  It’s not bad. 

Todd:  For what, again, for what they had to deal with, the guy who played Richard, the dad, his he he’s Kip Niven, and Kip Niven was in a ton of stuff. He was in a ton of TV, before this movie, and then he was in several movies after this. He was working in in law and or he had parts in law and order come later, in 1990, and guess what? He is in Kansas City now because he’s from the Kansas City area. And right now, he’s he apparently, for for decades, has been very active on stage and in musicals, and he moved back to Kansas City sometime in 1995 and has been very active in the local acting scene. In fact, I’ve been to enough shows in Kansas City that I’m wondering if I haven’t seen him in a show, or 2, there. I mean, 

Craig:  he was Interesting. 

Todd:  Even just this Christmas, he’s playing in a show at Crown Center. And I just bring all this up because Kansas City is pretty near to us, and it’s right out in the middle of Yeah. Of of the United States, very far from LA and Hollywood. And the kid, the the person who played the son is Grant Craig, and Grant Cramer, had a long running stint on, The Young and the Restless back in 86, and, did, just some kind of movies off and on. He was Mark Tobacco in Killer Clowns from Outer Space. So Yeah. I saw that too. We will probably be talking about him, sometime later, but this was his very first film.   Apparently, somebody thought enough of this or at least he met some of the right people on this set that he was able to move up and do some things. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I I, you know, I was looking to see their their acting credits and whatnot, and I saw his. And the very top credit on his IMDB page is a killer clown sequel that’s apparently been announced, and that kinda made me a little bit giddy. 

Todd:  Yeah. That would that should be good. Killer clowns are in the in the news now too. Right? So or had been 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Fairly recently. Yeah. It it is a shame. I I you can see where this this whole film looked great on paper as a thriller. Probably the script even looked alright. And and then you put people in here who are, at least at the time, were maybe weren’t well known, but were kind of up and coming Todd, And then you get a very paint by numbers movie. I thought there were so many goofy like, the sanitarium scene was like a parody of a sanitarium. You just had a bunch of people gosh.   Like, in what looked like a living room, all dressed in white and acting like like if you told a a 10 year Todd, act like a crazy person, you know, who’d just be kind of Right. Bouncing around the room, like, acting like a monkey or something like that. That was how everybody in the San Antonio was. 

Craig:  I actually found that pretty distasteful. 

Todd:  Yes. Oh, yes. 

Craig:  I I I wasn’t a fan of that. 

Todd:  No. No. No. It’s it’s bad. And then the shot that was totally unnecessary, but I thought called attention to itself all the more when they’re when he’s going up for his second kill and he has the 2 ladies in the car and they park at the at the gas station, and he sends the 1 woman in to get cigarettes so that he can murder this woman. When she goes in, there is actually a scene of her buying them from the clerk. And it’s a totally unnecessary scene. You don’t need to see this happen because she pops in, she buys them.   It’s, like, 10 seconds long, and then she leaves, and we never see the clerk. I thought, oh, well, the clerk’s gonna discover the body or something like that. There’s none of this. But the performance by the clerk in this scene is so sincere that you have to rewind it and go back and watch it again. Maybe you were you were looking at your phone at this point, but this clerk treats this scene like it is his big break. He’s not just casually selling her cigarettes. He, like, has this look of concern on his face. And he he may even ask her, are you alright? And she’s like, yeah, I’m fine.   And she walks out and and as she walks out, he turns and stares at her as she goes away. It’s so hilarious. 

Craig:  That’s funny. And then I thought I didn’t notice. 

Todd:  Oh my gosh, dude. It was so funny. And then the the bit where he’s chasing her through the woods, which we already talked about is pretty ridiculous. And they end up at these bleachers, which must be in, like, a park. It may must be bleachers Yeah. Like a baseball field or something like that. But he’s doing that whole deal, and it’s supposed to seem intimidating where he’s creeping past the bleachers. And as he does it, he’s tapping a switchblade tap tap tap on the Todd.   Mhmm. And then he goes down. It’s tap tap tap on the second bleacher, which he’s in a big open park looking for this woman. This this would not, in the very least bit, be intimidating unless it were in a tiny room where everything was dark, and you’re trying to give sound cues to her as to where where you might be and be someone ominously threatening. But for all he knows, she could have long torn through the trees on the other side of the park by now. So the fact that he’s going by and and dramatically tapping these bleachers as he goes by is it it’s just it’s so silly. Again, it’s pulled out I know. Better movie and placed in a scene where it doesn’t belong. 

Craig:  Yeah. I didn’t even understand why he was doing that. Like, at first, I thought, like, he was, like, trying to check for a different sound. Like, if one of them sounded different, maybe she was under that one. I guess he was just trying to be intimidating, but you’re right. I mean, she from where she was, she could see him. It’s not like it’s not like she didn’t know he was stopping. Oh, jeez. 

Todd:  Hey, dude. When you talk about acting, do you remember the shot with a psychologist? No. This was the same scene in which the kid was creeping up on them, with his new wave glasses on. And it’s, again, it’s really shoehorned in there, and they’re just trying to provide a quick explanation for why they believe that the killer is on their way to kill her. And that is, the detective brings in a psychologist from out of nowhere, who is, I guess, the police, you know, psychologist or the person that they have. And the psychologist goes through a bit of explanation, but his performance in this is so over the top and hilarious. He sounds like like a radio announcer. Another guy in this movie who was who who was getting his big break and playing it up for all that it was worth and just felt like his voice was the thing that was gonna take him into Hollywood. 

Clip:  This is doctor Reid, our consulting psychologist. It was his decision. We definitely have to consider and prepare for the one possibility that he’ll be right here at midnight Pacific Standard Time. Why? Because he has a compulsion to kill on the hour. It’s a sequential drama with miss Sullivan as the link, and it’s building step by step to a grand climax with his ultimate victim, you. Killing a named personality at the stroke of midnight New Year’s Eve would satisfy his egotistical desire for attention. Make him bigger than the son of Sam or the zodiac killer. All those psychopaths have a need to be big in the media. 

Craig:  That’s funny. Oh, no. I wasn’t even paying attention. I was so distracted by the kid in the pantyhose. Oh, man. 

Todd:  So there are some really funny moments in this movie where you are gonna laugh out Todd, but the problem with it is is you’re not gonna pay attention long enough to actually catch those. 

Craig:  Right. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I wouldn’t have finished this. This you know, you’ve said it before. I’ll say it this time. If we weren’t watching it to talk about it, I would not have sat through this whole movie. I would have turned it off.   It just it it it I don’t know. It did not move me in any positive way at all. 

Todd:  Yet it’s available on Blu ray now. 

Craig:  Yeah. I saw that. It’s also available on YouTube. Don’t waste your money. 

Todd:  That’s right. That’s right. Any final thoughts, Craig? 

Craig:  Yeah. Have a happy New Year, and and keep it happy by not watching this movie. 

Todd:  Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes and on Stitcher and on Google Play. You can also find us on social media. We have a Facebook page and also Google Plus page. If you enjoyed this film or like us didn’t enjoy this film, leave a comment. We can all laugh about it and tell us what movie you’d like us to watch in the future. Until then, I’m Todd. 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Happy Holidays, Loyal Listeners! We end our 2016 Holiday Horror Edition of the podcast with an old favorite, Gremlins. Did you remember that this is a Christmas movie?

Episode 62, 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:  Merry Christmas or happy holidays or happy Hanukkah, whatever you happen to celebrate around this time of year. We are reviewing Christmas horror films, and this is the last of our 4 for this month. And I think we picked a pretty good one, Craig, for the tail end. 

Craig:  I used 

Todd:  it too. This is the 1984, Steven Spielberg produced Christopher Columbus written, Joe Dante directed Gremlins. And, I have to say, as as as notorious as this movie is, as much as I remember enjoying this movie, I kid you not, I don’t think I’ve seen it since it came out. 

Craig:  Oh my gosh. That’s crazy. Here, I was thinking that I was gonna be the one who was the freak because I saw this movie. I was 5 years old when this movie came out, and my parents took me to the theater to see it. And while I enjoyed it, it really scared me too. And and when I put it in to watch it today, I realized that I probably haven’t sat down and watched this for a good 10 years. And that really surprised me because I’m a big fan of the movie. With that lineup that you mentioned, Joe Dante, Chris Columbus, and Steven Spielberg, it would have been really difficult for them to go wrong.   I mean, these are some really talented guys who, on their own have put out a 1000000 great movies. So that collaboration, I imagine and and what I read was, it was a good collaboration. They really enjoyed working with one another, and I think that, they got a really good film as a result. 

Todd:  Yeah. And you know, I’ve gotta say too, I also saw this in the theater, and this was I I just remember this was a fantastic year for movies. Ghostbusters, I think, came out the same weekend that Gremlins did, and that was huge. Gremlins was huge. And then, we had all been waiting, Temple of Doom, Steven Spielberg directed film, which competed competed with Gremlins as well at the box office. All three of those movies did fantastic, and all three of those movies were hype machines. I mean, I was about the same age you were, 5 or 6, and I remember the hype behind this. I had a Ghostbusters t shirt, We had a gremlin stuffed toy at home.   I think those were really hot Christmas items, at the time. I remember going to Pizza Hut and playing now this is my recollection anyway. I remember playing an arcade game for, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that I think was there before the movie itself came out. 

Craig:  That sounds right. 

Todd:  Does that sound right? Okay. 

Craig:  Yeah. It does. I remember that. 

Todd:  Because I I I remember playing this game not knowing about the movie yet. And we, again, we went to see the movie in the theaters because it was huge, and I was like, oh, I could play this game. I could learn a little bit about the movie before I see it. Yeah. What what a year, man. 1984. If I could go back to 1984 and just live there for a while, that was 

Craig:  It was a good time. Yeah. You you mentioned those movies that it opened up against. Of the movies that we’ve watched, I mean, all of them have had distinctly Christmas elements, but this really feels like a Christmas movie. And ironically, it was intended to come out at Christmas, but, the studio realized that they didn’t have anything to compete with some of the summer blockbusters, so they rushed it for a summer release, which, you know, I don’t know. We we still went. It still got a good audience, but man, this is a Christmassy movie. This is definitely I I feel like they may have missed a little bit of opportunity by, not releasing it at Christmas time.   But but whatever, I mean, we still got it, and it’s it’s it’s great. 

Todd:  Yeah. It it is a Christmassy movie. You’re right. More so than the other ones. It definitely takes place at Christmas. It’s kind of all about Christmas. It starts out with a Christmas present. In fact Mhmm.   It starts out in a way that I do not remember it starting out, and and that is almost this honestly, the whole movie has so many nods to so many different movies, throughout it, but it opens up as like this detective gumshoe kind of way where, where this man who who looks like, almost looks like Bob Hoskins from, who framed Roger Rabbit, but you’ll recognize him if you watch a lot of television, during this time. His name is Hoyt Axton, and he’s actually more of a of a country western singer than he is, an actor, but he did a ton of stuff on, oh my gosh. He did a ton of stuff on, on television at the very least, and quite a bit of of of movies as well. I mean, you’ll recognize him, from this era. Anyway, he he’s got this voice over, that that almost sounds like, you know, she walked in, and it was, the dark stormy night. I just poured my 3rd bottle of Scotch. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. The whole movie kind of has a feel like it’s one of those older type movies. I mean, it reminds me almost a little bit of the beginning of the original Little Shop of Horrors first with the the narration over the opening credits and stuff. 

Clip:  Friends, let me introduce myself. Peltzer is the name, Rand Peltzer. That’s me there on the corner. I’m an inventor, and I have a story to tell. Yeah. I know who hadn’t got a story. Well, nobody’s got a story like this one. Nobody. 

Craig:  I I feel like that had to be intentional. It feels like an old movie. I mean, it just I guess by today’s standards, it really is an old movie now, but, it just feels like it calls back to an era like in the forties fifties. In a way, it’s also contemporized too in just the way that it looks because it looks so good. The colors and and, just all of the imagery in the movie is so strong. Like, it’s just a it’s a beautiful movie to watch. Even this opening scene where it opens up in dingy Chinatown and things are all kind of smoky and foggy and it’s kind of seedy looking, still the color is so Todd, and I mean, it’s just it draws you in right from the very beginning. 

Todd:  Yeah. It does call back to those, especially those older films where Chinatown was exoticized. And Right. It really runs the risk. It’s right on the edge of being a little racially offensive. 

Craig:  Sure. 

Todd:  Because he does go into this Chinatown shop and who’s in there, but this this little boy, and he follows him in, says, you’re sure this is your this this is your place? And he’s like, yeah, my dad’s shop is right down here. And of course, it’s under this building and this place that’s hard to find. And when he walks in, it looks like, an opium den, you know, from from from the Chinatown, again, from from these movies. And, the guy who’s in here is played by or the shop owner is played by a man who has been in, I think, pretty much anytime they needed a Chinese man in a film from, like, 19 thirties on, this guy was the person. I mean, he’s he his name is it’s Ken. I can’t remember his name, but he’s in this movie, and he’s 80 something years old. And, apparently, they still had to use makeup so that he looked older because he looked older. Yeah. 

Craig:  I read that too. Yeah. Yeah. And and he’s you know, you’re right. They play on a stereotype very much. I mean, this looks like, an ancient Chinese wise man, you know, not an actual American citizen of the time. But I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m just so used to it.   Maybe it’s because I’m so nostalgic for the movie. That doesn’t even really cross my mind. Yes. It’s a caricature. I could see how perhaps if if that were my culture that was being represented, maybe it might rub me the wrong way a little bit, but here, it doesn’t really bother me at all. 

Todd:  No. And and I think that actually the reason it doesn’t is because it’s so obviously a caricature. I think it’s I think as you said, it it starts it starts very cleverly with, that voice over, which immediately gets you thinking of old movie. So when he meets this man, and it’s not like he’s talking like, you know, Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at 10 Days. So, you know, they don’t go that far, and they don’t dwell in here too much and they don’t, you know, show you all these crazy things in the shop or whatnot. It’s pretty straightforward. I think it I think it falls on the on the side of the fence that’s that’s okay. It’s it’s enough of a throwback that it’s okay, and it’s obviously a throwback, so we’re fine with it.   And he, is looking around, and this man’s an inventor. And and this is another thing Chris Columbus loves to put in his movies, like gadgets and inventions and things and inventors and whatnot. And, this man is showing this guy this truly horrible invention called the bathroom buddy or something where it’s like a travel, contraption that has everything that you’d need in your bathroom in in one thing, like a toothbrush and toothpaste and whatnot. Of course, it doesn’t work very well. So he’s still putting the finishing touches on. He embarrasses himself in front of this guy. But it’s it’s like he’s looking for a Christmas present for his son, but he also is a consummate salesman. And everywhere he goes, he’s looking for an opportunity to sell his stuff.   And again, it’s another neat setup for this guy. Anyway, so then you have the the mad wacky inventor, scenario coming in as well. And he he goes around in the shop, and he hears some sound, and he looks and sees this little cage back there that’s covered up. And when he uncovers it, there’s this cute little creature. We don’t see the creature in the beginning, which is also an otherwise choice, but he’s taken carries too much responsibility. He’s not for sale at any price. But as Rand starts throwing money on the table, his grandson is watching and is trying to convince grandpa Todd sell the to sell the creature. And eventually, when grandpa walks away, he says to Rand, meet me outside and I’ll I’ll do the deal with you.   So sure enough, he meets him outside, Rand pays him the money, and he walks home with this cage with this maguai inside. 

Craig:  Yeah. And it’s a cute little setup, and then it throws us right into the main location, which is Kingston Falls, and it just cuts to this you know, this has all been very dark and smoky, and then it cuts to this bright snowy outdoor scene, and we’re looking at this, what looks kinda like a vintage, forties billboard for, a DJ, and and we hear the music. It it comes in loud and strong, this loud Christmas song. And it’s upbeat, and it’s fun, and we kinda scan through this this set, this town set of Kingston Falls. And it might look familiar to some people because it’s the exact same set that they used for the town in Back to the Future. But it’s all very oh, gosh. I can’t think of any word other than nostalgic. I mean, it looks like it looks like a scene out of It’s a Wonderful Life.   I mean, that’s what it looks like, and that’s the feel that you get, from the movie as it just kinda pans through this town. And we kinda see some different, people in the town for we we see the, the the Christmas tree vendor and, Corey Feldman. Little tiny young Corey Feldman is helping out at And then we meet, our main character, Billy, who was the inventor’s son, and he’s played by Zach Galligan, who, I think this was his first big break. I don’t know if he had worked at all before this. If he had, he was pretty unknown. We’ve talked about him before, he was the lead in Waxwork, and we were pretty critical of his acting in that. I think he’s perfect in this movie. They considered both, Judd Nelson and Emilio Estevez for this role, and of course, it’s because I love this movie.   I can’t imagine anybody else in this role. But Billy and Zach Galligan in this movie, he’s just so doe eyed and innocent. He’s really easy to root for and identify with. And he’s got his dog, Barney, and and he’s trying to make his way to work. His car won’t Todd, and so, he says, you know, his neighbor sees that his car won’t start. His neighbor is mister Futterman played by the classic Dick Miller, that we’ve seen in so many movies at this point. This is the movie that I remember him from, but we’ve seen him in so many things, at this point. 

Clip:  Hey, Billy. What’s your mom? You need a jump? Oh, no. Thanks, mister Futterman. I’m pretty much late 

Craig:  for work as it is. 

Clip:  It Todd goddamn foreign cars. They always freeze up on you. You don’t find American machinery doing that. Our stuff can take anything. See that plow? 15 years old. Hasn’t give me a day’s trouble in 15 years. You know why? Kentucky Harvester. Ain’t some farm piece of crap you pick up these days.   That’s a Kentucky Harvester. Well, if I wanna keep my job, I really think I should be going now. Hey, how’s that, comic strip of yours coming? I expect to see you in the funnies any day now with Smiling Jack and a little Abner. Oh, well, mister Fetterman, they don’t run those comics anymore. They don’t. 

Craig:  All of this happens really fast, and it’s really just an opportunity to let us meet some of these players that are gonna come around, later on. He gets he just makes it to work on time. He’s got his dog with him. You know, apparently, he lives in one of these worlds where you can just take your dog with you to work. Work. I wish I lived in that world. And the dog’s name is Barney. And when he gets there, he’s greeted by Kate, played by Phoebe Cates, who, man, in the 1980s, weren’t we all just in love with Phoebe Cates? 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  Were you? I mean, I Oh, yeah. I was just desperately in love with her. Oh, my Todd. She’s so beautiful. She still is. She doesn’t act much anymore. She kinda retired to start her family. But, just just so pretty and so girl next door and, like, your heart just melts for her.   Yeah. And and then, another employee there, Gerald is played by Judge Reinhold, who was pretty popular, at the time. In fact, he and Phoebe Cates just a couple years earlier, had filmed Fast Times at Ridgemont High together, and that, had been a pretty big movie. I guess that Judge Reinhold’s character initially had a much larger role, but they ended up cutting it down. The movie in its entirety is an hour and 45 minutes long. The original rough cut was 2 hours and 40 minutes. So they had to go and do a lot of cutting, and I think most of, Judge Reinhold’s stuff ended up on the floor. And and then the villain or what we kind of assume, it’s the Scrooge character, in the movie, Missus Deagle, played by Polly Holliday, comes in, and she has a confrontation.   She’s carrying she comes marching down the street carrying this giant snowman’s head, like a ceramic snowman’s head that’s clearly broken off of the body. And she brings it in and, she just pushes her way through the line and comes right up to Billy’s station and says, your dog broke my snowman. And I didn’t remember how dark this got. I mean, I watched this movie all through my childhood, from the time that I was a little kid, and I think that some of these darker elements went over my head. 

Clip:  I’m terribly sorry. Just tell me how much I owe you. I’ll be more than happy to   I don’t want money. I want your dog. Barney? Give him to me. I’ll take him to the kennel. They’ll put him to sleep. It’ll be quick and painless compared to what I could do to him.   What could you do?   I’ll catch the beast myself. Then you’ll get what he deserves, a slow painful death. Maybe I’ll put him in my spin dryer on high heat. 

Craig:  Like, what? Like 

Todd:  Yeah. She’s threatening That’s horrible. She’s threatening to kill his dog quite openly and quite honestly. Multiple times. 

Craig:  Yes. Multiple times. And and I guess that when Chris Columbus originally wrote this script, it was significantly darker. And there are some things that they change, we’ll talk about when we get to them, but there are definitely horror elements, and there are definitely scary elements. But at the same time, this is one of those rare movies that I think does a good job of really balancing the horror and the comedy and the family friendliness. Like, I mean, it feels like a sweet movie. It’s like a kind of a heartwarming movie, but there certainly are the darker elements of it too. 

Todd:  Yeah. And I remember that distinctly even at that time, it was a bit of a controversy. Parents were bringing their kids to this movie, and the way it had been marketed with the Mogwai and everything being so cute, a lot of parents I think were led astray and pretty upset that they were bringing their young kids in, and then they were gonna see, you know, gremlins getting blown up in a microwave and, and people getting killed and things like that. And I do remember that. Now I don’t remember my parents being so up in arms about it. I remember my parents, because Chris Columbus then did Goonies about a year or 2 after this, and I remember my parents being more upset about the language in Goonies, than they were about the violence in these movies. They’re so they’re so American. I don’t know what that 

Craig:  says about your parents. 

Todd:  I don’t know either. Oh, man. 

Craig:  But it is cute. I mean, it’s there are those dark elements, but, it it like you talked about, Gizmo. Eventually, we get back, you know, Billy’s back at his house and we meet his mom. She’s played by Frances Lee McCain. She was, Gordy’s mom in Stand by Me. She was, the she was the main kid’s mom in Footloose. She was Lorraine’s mom in Back to the Future. She was very much a go to mom of the eighties apparently.   And and I really like her in this movie, but, we meet her and there’s this running gag of of the dad’s inventions always malfunctioning and making a huge mess. And, but finally the dad comes home, and he says right away, I’ve got a present for you to the to the kid. And he and he hands Billy this box and Billy shakes it, and we hear the little Mogwai noise inside. 

Todd:  Then 

Craig:  he says, oh, no. No. Don’t shake it. Yeah. And and Billy says, oh, it’s a puppy. I know it’s a puppy. But then he opens it up, and this little creature comes out. And I’m sure all of our listeners are familiar with, what this thing looks like, but it is so stinking cute.   It’s just this cute little furry animal, brown and white fur, with these great big almost bat like ears, and it’s just adorable and it talks, Kind of talks, like it mostly just makes noises and throughout the movie, both the Mogwai and the Gremlins can kind of talk, but more mostly they just kinda repeat words that they’ve heard. But Gizmo is voiced by Howie Mandel. And so he’s got this high, just really cute little voice, and he sings. And it’s just the cutest thing. And this time watching this, I was thinking, he’s sitting there opening it with his mom and dad and the dog, and I’m thinking, Aw, poor dog. Poor Barney has just been totally displaced by this cute little by this cute little. 

Todd:  I was thinking they have so much trust in this dog to open to to pull this creature out right in front of it. I was like, wow, man. And and especially later on when he sleeps with the Mogwai and the dog is right there, I’m thinking, man, you really, this dog must be a very pacifist dog for you guys, to not even be concerned that he might, give the creature a bit of a hard time. 

Craig:  I all you know, thinking from an adult perspective now Todd, of course, I never considered this when I was a kid, but I also think, you know, this guy, Rand, must also have a lot of faith in his kid. I mean, the the guys that the kids are got a dog, and now he’s giving him another pet as a responsibility. That’s quite a bit of responsibility for 1 kid. But as it turns out, Gizmo doesn’t really need much taken care of except for the Chinese kid told, Rand that there are 3 rules. And the 3 rules are 

Clip:  Number 1, he hates bright lights. We know that. But you gotta keep him out of the sunlight. Sunlight will kill him. Number 2, keep him away from water. Don’t give him any water to drink, and whatever you do, don’t give him a bath. And probably the most important thing, don’t ever feed him after midnight. 

Craig:  It’s just a setup for him to allow every single one of those things to happen. Yep. 

Todd:  Corey Feldman, finally, his character comes over and, sees the Mogwai, and I think this is the first time something bad happens. Right? Obviously, mom takes a picture, and she flashes a camera at them, and that’s that’s the impetus for him telling the rules. But, anyway, yeah. They go upstairs, and they have a little chat back and forth about comic books. And he says, oh, by the way, I have this strange creature. And the whole time, you know, through this movie again as an adult, again, looking back on it, I’m thinking, man, nobody gives a crap that this creature that nobody has ever heard of or seen or can imagine has existed before is now just in his house and he owns 1. Yeah. Right? They’re so cavalier and casual about it. 

Craig:  I know. It’s funny. I thought the same thing, especially since later on Billy takes him to his science teacher, and this science teacher is totally cavalier about it. Like, oh, here’s a species nobody’s ever seen before. I’m just gonna do private experiments on it in my science classroom. 

Todd:  That’s right. That’s right. And isn’t this a middle school science teacher? 

Craig:  I’m not sure. 

Todd:  I don’t know. I looked at the signs several times in the background as they’re coming in and out of the main doors of that building, and it says something something middle school. I’m thinking you’re not trying to tell me that Billy is a middle school student. But 

Craig:  No. Maybe this is just one of his old teachers. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Todd does make it does make sense that it’s a middle school though because Corey Feldman seems significantly younger than Billy, and I think it’s his school. It’s his class, so it would make sense. 

Todd:  Okay. There you go. You’re right about that. Alright. So, anyway, they’re upstairs, and they’re playing around with the and Corey Feldman’s character, Pete, I think is his name, spills some water accidentally on Gizmo. And then Gizmo, like, really starts freaking out. He falls forward. His back starts to, bubble up, and out of his back pops about 5 or 6 little hairballs, that fly up into the air, fall down, and like a balloon, kind of slowly expand and molt into more mogwai.   Apparently, this is how they reproduce. But it’s interesting because Billy makes a comment later to his dad when he, when he tells him that this has happened or his mom and, and says they’re not like Gizmo. They’re Gizmo, I think, is just a character all his own. He’s cute. He’s friendly. He’s pretty pacifist. These other ones are a little more mischievous, they’re more like brothers and sisters. And so now he’s got a whole suitcase full of these little creatures that nobody’s ever seen or heard about before, and he’s like, oh, well, now I just have a bunch of them.   And and one of them, which seems to be the leader of the gang, it looks a little different from the rest, and he is Stripe. And he’s another one that I remember very much from this movie. 

Craig:  Yeah. He’s got this white mohawk that makes him, different than the rest. 

Todd:  Yeah. Otherwise, you really can’t tell them apart. And the animatronics for these creatures are pretty good for their time. You can tell, when they go to close-up that they’re using a much more detailed, mocked up, a little bit bigger puppet, for that just to get all the facial expressions and everything right, because when they’re their actual size, they’re a lot more limited in what they’re able to do, facially and everything, but they do a really good job, I think, of working within those limitations. Like he’ll he’ll pick up Gizmo, which which looks, I mean, if you’re really being if you’re really looking for how they do it, you can kind of tell there’s a doll, and then he’ll move him off screen and like set him down, and then when the camera comes down, you can see that there’s a more articulated puppet that’s that’s already set there on the desk who can move and and do things a little more. But it’s it’s really, for a movie that, as you said earlier, seems like a throwback to earlier movies, and quite honestly, just seems like a throwback to old b movies, You know? Yeah. Yeah. It it has fantastic special effects, especially for the time. 

Craig:  It really does. And, the Mogwai puppet is is really cute, and, I mean, it’s a it doesn’t necessarily look real. It doesn’t look like a living animal, but it its moves are pretty natural looking. Interestingly enough, like I said earlier, the script was originally supposed to be darker. Now these new Mogwai, like you said, they are mischievous. Like for example, I think on the 1st night that he has them, he wakes up in the night and hears his dog whining and he goes outside and he finds his dog strung up in the Christmas lights. Now it’s alive, it’s not hung by its neck, but it’s it’s just hung in the lights. And he thinks that it was missus Deagle that did it, but of course, it was these, little in the original script, they actually killed the dog.   And and like I said, eventually these guys are gonna turn into the gremlins after they eat after midnight, after the last rule is broken. But, Stripe, the leader, was originally intended to be Gizmo. Gizmo and Stripe were originally intended to be the same character, but Steven Spielberg stepped in and said that he really wanted one of them to be nice so that, the audience would feel a connection, to to this nice Todd guy one. 

Todd:  So the audience would buy the Todd. 

Craig:  Yeah. Right. Exactly. And boy did we. Man, I think I had a Gizmo lunchbox. I love that little guy. Like we said before, Billy takes, one of the new Mogwai, not Gizmo. He really Gizmo is well behaved.   He kinda keeps Gizmo as his personal pet. The other ones are really just more of a nuisance than anything else. He takes the Mogwai to the science teacher, and this is where we’re first introduced to this musical motif that becomes associated with the Gremlins. And I just gotta say, the score of this movie, I thought was excellent. I just loved it. And most of the movie is scored, except for there are sometimes when there’s Christmas music playing. And also Christmas music is incorporated into the score. But the score here is just so Todd, and that little Gremlins motif, it it it gets stronger when they actually turn into the Gremlins that were first introduced to it here.   And so basically, he leaves this Mogwai with the science teacher, and I I guess he goes to pick up Kate from her job. She in addition to working at the bank, she’s also volunteering at the local bar, Dory’s, because the bar has far fallen on hard times, so she’s trying to help out. And she it’s the end of her shift, and mister Futterman is there and he’s been drinking, and and she’s trying to get him home. He drives the snowplow, which is parked outside, but she convinces him that he’s been drinking too much, and he shouldn’t be, driving. But he has this little brief monologue. 

Clip:  You got you gotta watch out for the foreigners because they plant gremlins in their machinery. That’s the same gremlins brought down our planes in the big one.   Big one.   That’s right. World War 2. Good old w w I I. You know, they’re still shipping them over here. They put them in the cars. They put them in the TV. They put them in the stereos, and the radios just stick in your ears. They put them in our watches.   They got a little TV. I remember it’s for our watches.   Don’t think it’s such a good idea that you drive. Why don’t you walk home? 

Craig:  But then Kate and, Billy, he’s walking her home and they’re talking about Christmas And she says, mister Futterman, has been like this ever since his business went under or he lost his job or something. And Billy says, well, Christmas is supposed to be a happy time. And she says, no. People get really depressed at the hall holidays. Suicide rates are always the highest. And she tells him that she doesn’t celebrate Christmas, and and to which he’s surprised. 

Clip:  Well, what’s not to like? I mean, it’s a lot of fun now.   God. Say you hate Washington’s birthday or Thanksgiving and nobody cares. Say you hate Christmas, it really makes you feel like you’re a leper or something. 

Craig:  And he kind of apologizes and then they have a sweet moment where they’re gonna set up a date. So we know that this is our kind of cute little, love interest. 

Todd:  I have to say I was a little I kinda groaned at this scene. I thought the dialogue was kinda bad here. It felt very written. Let’s put it that way. Oh, we’re setting up the mystery of why she hates Christmas. We’re gonna discover later. Oh, we’ve got a little romance thing going all of a sudden, which, you know, they work at the same bank, and he’s he’s been in her face and exchanged looks, before that. I I was really surprised they hadn’t been on 3 or 4 dates already.   But 

Craig:  Right. Right. Well, you’re right. It is a setup for what for why she we find out she doesn’t like Christmas later, and that part of it does seem a little contrived. But I have to say that the chemistry between these 2, which is in large part why, he got the role was because during their screen test, the the chemistry between these two was good. And I think the chemistry between these two is so Todd, and it’s so sweet, and they’re both so puppy dog eyed. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  I don’t know. I I still like it. Yes. Yes. The writing’s a little bit contrived, but they pull it off, I think. I think it’s good. 

Todd:  The chemistry’s good. No no question. 

Craig:  He goes home. Billy goes home, and he’s watching, ironically enough, a Pod People movie. And the and and Gizmo is sitting very politely what next to him doing something else while he’s watching the movie. But the other Mogwai Todd, acting up, start making a bunch of noise. And he says, Well, I already fed you. But they they won’t calm down. So he looks at his clock and it’s still like 20 till 12. He says, Well, okay.   It’s not after midnight yet, so I guess I can give you some food. So they’re making all this noise. As soon as he walks out the door, they stop making the noise and they look after him for a little while, and then they all get in the huddle and kind of, and they’re like conspiring. So we know something’s up, And he brings up food and some chicken, and they’re, like, eating it savagely, and it’s kind of really these close ups on their face, and they’re smearing this gross chicken all over their face. I remember thinking that part was really gross when I was a kid. And he offers some to, Gizmo, but Gizmo won’t, eat any. And and and the Mogwai in the lab gets a Todd of some food too and eats, and we see that. But then it cuts to the next morning, and the Mogwai have all transformed into these gross looking, almost reptilian looking Todd.   Not entirely unlike the pods from Alien. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  Not exactly like them either, but but very similar. And so we know that trouble’s brewing. 

Todd:  Yeah. Again, another big throwback, and and I think even further back than Alien, of course, is, back to, I think it’s invasion of the Todd snatchers and the original one where you have these these pod creatures in, I think, what ends up being the greenhouse back, which is one of the movies he’s watching on television. So the movie is absolutely calling. It’s having so much fun with calling back to these earlier movies and just straight out throwing these nods at them, and I think that’s part of the comedy of it. But again, it’s a little goofy in that, okay, I’ve got these absolutely disgusting looking reptilian pods up in my room. Here you go, mom. Check them out. Wow.   These are really weird. Okay. Now I’m gonna go and leave. We’re all just gonna go about our daily business. 

Craig:  Right. I guess we’ll just see what happens. You know, it it there it is such a throwback to these old movies because a lot of the times in these movies, it just seems like they weren’t as concerned with believability as we are today. One of the problems that I always had with this movie, and I say a problem, I really don’t care. I don’t need everything explained to me. But isn’t it always after midnight? Like like like, when can you feed them? 

Todd:  I know. I was wondering that too. At what point 

Craig:  does Technically, 5 PM is after midnight. 

Todd:  Maybe is it 6 AM? Is it 7? That’s so true. Well, much like in these older movies, you’ve got to get the woman in peril, and by to do that, you’ve got to get the dad out of the picture. And so they have dad away at this inventor’s convention. And I just have to say something about this scene because I think it pops up somewhere around here where, they’re calling dad and they’re talking, and and you can see on dad’s end of the phone, he’s at this adventures in convention. Every single time they they cut to him at this convention, the scene is like sillier and sillier. He’s in a phone booth, which he’s sharing with another inventor, has this weird contraption on his face. It doesn’t make any sense. There’s, like, a robot in the background.   But then in the background on the right is is the time machine from h g Wells, the the time machine. Alright. And I laughed out loud at this because I could not believe it, but that’s in the middle of this conversation, they’re cutting back and forth. And when they cut back to him again, the time machine is missing and there’s like a smoky, like patch on the floor and people kind of milling around and kinda looking at like what just happened. Like at this inventor’s convention, there are people with these amazing inventions, including a time machine, which is so funny because his dad’s got the crappiest, Clearly, he has the crappiest inventions at this at this whole thing. 

Craig:  That’s funny. I I had read that the time machine was back there, but I had missed that little bit. That’s funny. It’s good. So right away, another thing I like about this movie, and I’m sure it has a lot to do with the editing, but the pacing is pretty good. I mean, we don’t get lags in in the action. Billy goes to work and the pods begin to hatch, and all this very ominous these ominous sound effects and music play. We don’t see what’s coming out of them.   We just see Gizmo kind of sitting back in the corner watching in terror and and trembling in terror. And then I think we see maybe a hand grab Gizmo or something like that. And then we cut back to the science teacher and his pod hatches too. It hatches like in class, like he’s put it like in some sort of cardboard box or something, and the box starts moving and falls off the table right as class is ending. And so he he ushers all of the kids out and, he immediately calls Billy and just says, It’s Hatch. And Billy says, Okay, I’ll be right there. And then the science teacher for some reason doesn’t turn the light on in his in his room. He’s been showing a film strip, the film strip still going on in the background.   And he he thinks that whatever the creature is is under this table, this lab table. And again, willing suspension of disbelief. He has no idea what this thing is. I think he’d probably approach a little more caution. What he what he does is he takes a candy bar and he says, here I got something for you. And he sticks it down under the table and he sticks his arm under the table and apparently something bites him and yanks on him, and then it cuts away. And we cut to Billy showing up, and he when he walks into the classroom, he sees the science teacher dead on the floor with a needle, sticking out of his butt. Another one of those places where originally it was meant to be darker.   Originally, he was going to have 100 of hypodermics sticking out of his face. But Spielberg specifically asked them to change that. And then there’s this scene that’s really pretty inconsequential, but I think I’ve told this story before. Billy immediately goes to grab the telephone and super fast, seemingly from out of nowhere from the other side of the table, this green reptilian claw like hand reaches up and scratches Billy’s, hand. And it’s a total jump scare. It’s really not even all that scary. But Todd 5 year old Craig Higgins scared me. I screamed.   We were at a movie theater full of people. I screamed, jumped up in my seat, did a 180 so I was facing backwards in the theater. And if I remember correctly, my parents who were flaking me on either side just laughed and laughed. Oh, man. But I will I will remember that story until I die, I think. So and I I’m pretty sure I stayed and and watched the rest of the movie, and I was fine, but, man, that that jump scare got me. 

Todd:  Oh, it’s our son’s first jump scare. 

Craig:  So he run the the the creature, the gremlin, goes through a vent. So all we’ve seen of it so far is its hand. Billy runs to the nurse’s office to get something to wrap his hand, and this is the first time that we get a complete look at the creature. The creature pops out of one of the cabinets and and really just kind of stands there and and taunts Billy for a second before then going through another vent. But these gremlins, I don’t know, I’d say they’re probably about 2 feet tall, and all of this is pre CGI. Completely, you know, before CGI even existed in any fashion, so everything they did had to be practical. And these, gremlins, I guess, Zach Galligan in an interview said that there were so many of these gremlins, and each one had to be made, you know, on its own, and each one of them cost like 30 to 40 $1,000 to make, which I find really hard to believe, and it must make me think that they did some really fancy camera work using the same ones 

Todd:  Uh-huh. 

Craig:  In different frames. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Because if they really made as many as it seemed like, that would take up, like, the whole budget. Yeah. 

Clip:  But 

Craig:  they look great. And I guess, I don’t know if it was a joke or if it was true, but, in the interview, he also said that, every night after filming, the security would check everybody’s cars to make sure that they hadn’t stolen them because they were so expensive. But it was worth the money because they really look good. I mean, they really, again, real. Do they look real? I don’t know, but they look pretty darn believable. 

Todd:  Yeah. I I like them. You know, they look as real as Gizmo does. In fact, maybe a little more real because they’re they’re more reptilian. They’re more creature like than Gizmo. Gizmo looks like a furry puppy, and so you start to expect, I think, a little bit more, realism out of that kind of thing because you’re used to that. Whereas this is a a reptilian monster. It could really be anything.   And so, you know, can their mouths move as much as, as you’d expect them? Probably not. But it doesn’t matter because reptiles just have open and closed mouths anyway, you know, most of them. 

Craig:  So Right. 

Todd:  Right. Yeah. You put all that on it, and it’s really a wise choice to make them that reptilian and that different looking. I I thought they were pretty good. I I thought actually that the gremlin shots and the gremlin puppets were more real than any of the Mogwai stuff was. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. And there may be there may be a reason for that. Like I said before, Gizmo was originally intended to turn into a gremlin. He was supposed to become Spike. So the guy that invented him or created him only had anticipated his movements for the first half of the movie, and then he wasn’t gonna be used anymore. And I guess apparently because this because Gizmo was a smaller animatronic, for whatever reason, it malfunctioned more often than the Gremlin, animatronics. And so the crew actually came to hate Gizmo, and they they they made up a list and had it posted somewhere on set.   It was something like awful things to do to Gizmo. And we got one of those things in the very next scene. We cut back to Billy’s house where his mom is, and we see that the gremlins who have hatched at his house now have Gizmo, tied up to a dart board and they’re throwing darts at him. And that was just one of the horrible things that they figured they could do at Gizmo because they hated that little puppet or that little animatronic so much. And then we get a great scene with the mom coming under siege from these, creatures. And this, I think this is my favorite scene in the movie. 

Todd:  This is so notorious. If you remember nothing else from this movie, you’ve got to remember this scene. Mom goes upstairs and sees that the pods have hatched. So she goes downstairs and she immediately starts getting terrorized by these things. She runs to the kitchen and there is one, of the gremlins playing on top of man, they they don’t have anything else but this guy’s inventions in their kitchen, and I don’t know how they have the counter space for all of it because they’re really rather big. But, there’s there’s one for juicing oranges, there’s one that’s like a blender but it’s a bowl, which is funny because I remember this in my mind as an actual blender, which makes more sense than this blender that’s a bowl. Maybe there’s supposed to be a lid for it or something. I don’t know.   But anyway. Yeah. Yeah. She she quickly runs over and, is able to switch it on, and the gremlin just totally, gets torn up and the green goo and blood is like splattering everywhere. It’s a pretty gross scene for a kid’s movie, really. She runs across, and there’s another one there on the counter, and she stabs it. Just flat out, stabs it in the chest. And I was like, woah, I do not remember this.   I mean, I remember the I 

Craig:  didn’t remember that either. 

Todd:  Man, it’s it’s dark for this kind of movie. And That’s brutal. Stabs it in the chest, and then turns around, and there’s one, that she’s able to shove into the microwave and turn the microwave on. Of course, we all remember this one Todd. And it pulls no punches. It shows you this gremlin in the microwave and suddenly it explodes, and, junk goes all over the microwave and she leaves this kitchen shaking, and, and there’s just complete carnage all over the place. And if you, you know, if it weren’t green and black and gooey, this would be like the kitchen scene from your next. Yeah.   Yeah. In fact, I would almost say the kitchen scene from your next is a bit of a throwback to this because we do get a blender death there too, but it’s a person. True. And it’s a comedy as well. Yeah. Everybody remembers this scene. It was we talked about it as kids. How can you not who went who of us had ever seen anything like this before as a child? 

Craig:  Right. Exactly. And and, you know, it’s Christmas time now. I’ve been listening to Christmas music and stuff, and I swear every time I hear the song Do You Hear What I Hear, this is the first thing that I think of. 

Todd:  That’s the very 

Craig:  first thing I think of every single time because it’s playing the gremlins turn it on really loud and it startles her. She eventually turns it off, but every time I hear that Christmas song, I think of, this scene. And after the one in the microwave, she comes into the living room and there’s something moving in one of the stockings. And I think that she stabs at the stocking, but it was just a little animatronic toy. And then I think maybe the lights go out, and, we see all all the lights on the Christmas tree, which is behind her go out except for these two red lights and you realize that they’re glowing eyes. And she walks towards the tree and the tree attacks her, like, obviously, it’s it’s a gremlin in there that’s doing the attacking, but it really looks like she’s being attacked by the Christmas tree. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And that’s when, Billy comes in and and, and cuts off the gremlin’s head, and it shoots into the fireplace and burns up in the fire. 

Todd:  With the samurai sword, they keep by the door that they’ve been calling attention to because it keeps falling off the wall every time the door opens. Right. 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  Like, my gosh, family. Like, you really have no sense of safety. You have these these these strange contraptions that do nothing but harm in the house. You’ve got a samurai sword that falls off every time you get in, and then you you invite these creatures into the home. I really think it’s just this family doesn’t care about they have a death wish. That’s what it is. They have no concern for 

Craig:  their safety. It was the eighties. It was a different time. Our parents let us go out and play. Didn’t even know where we were. They didn’t have any of those baby proofing things and stuff back then. That’s true. No.   It was it was just devil may care. But 

Todd:  Now were you were you thinking, evil dad when the tree was attacking her? 

Craig:  No. But now that you say it, I am. 

Todd:  I was just I couldn’t help but wonder. There’s so many, callbacks to earlier films. I could not help but wonder if if Joe Dante was throwing that one in there too. I don’t know. 

Craig:  Certainly a possibility. Yeah. So the last I I guess, I mean, if you do the numbers, I think that they’ve now killed them all except for the one in the school that got away, which we never really see him again. We I I guess Dante in a in an interview said that he just runs and joins the other ones at some point. But as far as we know, the only one that’s left is is Stripe, and we see him and he breaks out and and goes out the window. And Billy grabs Gizmo and runs after him, and Spike leads them to the YMCA where he jumps in the swimming pool. And the swimming pool starts bubbling and smoking and flashing, and the flashes are all red and green, And, Billy goes running out and I I just love this visual. He runs out into the darkness and into the snow, and we can just see through the glass doors and windows of the YMCA, all this flashing red and green light, the kind of howling of the new gremlins, getting created.   He goes then, I think, to the cops, but, of course, they don’t believe him. But as he’s telling yeah. They’re drunk. You know, As cops will be on Christmas Eve, I suppose. 

Todd:  The 2 cops in this town, by the way. Yeah. The the no. It’s the least first. The 2 of them. It’s Mayberry, man. 

Craig:  But as he’s yeah. 

Todd:  It’s total Mayberry. 

Craig:  As he’s telling them, we get a shot. It’s a wide shot of the street in town and we see just 100 of gremlins, coming down the street and I always remember that shot too and I really like it. I didn’t read anything about how that was done. Do you think that was stop motion? 

Todd:  It it had all the hallmarks of stop motion. I think it was. Yeah. It looked a lot like it to me. I could tell there was a matte painting around, that dark spot where the gremlins are emerging from of the rest of the the street or the town or whatever. And then of course they’re in the middle and they just have that jumpiness to them. And, of course, they’re all full figured Todd. So, yeah, it had to be stop motion.   It’s not a very long scene, but it’s it’s effective. It does what it needs to do. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s really brief. I mean, just a few seconds, but you just you get the idea that there are now 100 of these things. And then we basically just get a mischief montage, of what these gremlins are doing around town. First, we, go to the Futterman’s house, where we’ve met mister Futterman before, and now we meet missus Futterman who is played by Jackie Joseph 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Who was the original Audrey in the original, Little Shop of Horrors 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Which Dick Miller was also in with her. And I didn’t even realize that until you and I watched that movie together and talked about it. And, the gremlins are messing with their antenna. Mister Futterman goes out to see what’s going on, and, the gremlins drive his snowplow through the garage at him, drive it into the house. And, it it appears that it drives it right into mister and missus Futterman. And all my life growing up, I thought that they died. But and so then I was surprised because they popped back up in Gremlins Todd. So obviously, they didn’t die.   I didn’t notice until today that at the very end of the movie, in the background, there’s a news report about all the weird things that had happened the night before. And it says, and we’ll be talking to mister Futterman at the at the hospital. So, they weren’t intended to die, I guess, but in my kid mind, I I thought that they had. And again, now so there’s a little there’s a gag with a post office box that a gremlins in. They’re messing with the stoplights and causing car wrecks. They kill a Santa. We hear on the radio that they’ve broken into the Craig, station. And then another scene that I always remember, and again, it’s another one of those dark ones, the Missus Deagle scene.   You wanna do the Missus Deagle scene? 

Todd:  Oh my gosh. This is also, Yeah. You’re right. This is the only in fact, I remember the scene, and I forgot what movie it was from, believe it or not. But, yeah, missus missus Deagle, who you’d mentioned earlier, who must have had a bigger role in the original script because 

Craig:  She yeah. She did. 

Todd:  She did. Okay. Yeah. She’s really just like judge Reynolds, she’s kind of introduced and we forget about her except we at least see judge, see her again, later in this scene. And it turns out that missus Deagle, I guess part of the reason she hates dogs so much is she is the crazy cat lady. Yeah. Because she’s got cats everywhere and she’s coming down the stairs in this mechanical, what do you call it? It’s like a wheelchair that goes up and downstairs. 

Craig:  Like a stair lift, right? 

Todd:  Yeah. Stair lift. But of course, she’s rich, so she has this very, ornate and elaborate stairlift. The staircase curves around what must be once or twice, to get to the top of the, of the house. Anyway, it’s a very big house. And, she is, her cats are kind of running around, she’s trying to corral them. In the meantime, there’s a gremlin you can see in there who is messing with the controls on her chairlift. Gremlins pop out, scare her, she runs to her chairlift and tries to get away, but when she turns it on, it goes super speed up and around and around and around and then completely flies out the window and over over the cop car that’s outside, and she ends up in the snow and I almost half and and her legs, it’s as much as you can do that’s not a cartoon to have 2 legs just sticking up out of the snow after somebody fell down.   Yeah. 

Craig:  It’s it’s hilarious. Yeah. It’s hilarious. It’s such a funny joke, but it’s also really dark. I mean, she is dead. 

Todd:  I’m sorry. That scene really bothered me as a kid. I was like and and I guess that was the first one time I realized, wow, a a gremlin killed somebody, and, oh, that poor lady. You know, I mean, it was just, you know, just one of those things. No. 

Craig:  I mean, even though she was villainous and we didn’t like her, I mean, that was in this scene, she’s presented more as just kind of a feeble old lady, and and you do kinda feel bad for her as horrible as she’s been. But that’s just, you know, one of those darker elements. I forgot to mention that in the original script, the ending of the mom scene was much different too. Billy, was to come home, and the gremlins were to roll his mom’s head down the stairs. 

Todd:  Oh my gosh. And 

Craig:  I I I gotta say I gotta say I’m glad that they toned it down a little bit, because I think that might have been a little bit too much. I I don’t think it would have been as heartwarming if some of those things happen. Then we cut to a really funny scene where the gremlins have taken over Dory’s the bar, and it’s just full of gags. I mean, it’s played completely for the comedy. There’s, like, a Humphrey Bogart gag. There’s a Gremlin doing the Flashdance, or or similar dance gag. They’re smoking, they’re drinking, they’re dancing and laughing. It’s really funny, but they’re also menacing Kate who I guess decided that she needed to stay in 10 bar even though the other 

Clip:  one went 

Todd:  to her. Yeah. I couldn’t figure that out either. She’s she’s really trying her best too, to keep them happy. I don’t know what she thinks. If I placate them, they’ll leave me alone. I don’t know. Right.   It’s a pretty silly scene. 

Craig:  It is silly. I but it’s fun, and it appealed to me as a kid, you know. I don’t know. A more mature audience might think is a little too goofy or over the top. I just think it’s funny. Like I said, I think it’s a good balance of the goofy and the scary. But Billy shows up and rescues her, and, they have to run I think they run to their bank. And and while they’re in there, Kate finally tells her story of why she hates Christmas. 

Clip:  It was Christmas Eve. I was 9 years old. Me and mom were were decorating the tree, waiting for dad to come home from work. A couple hours went by. Dad wasn’t home. His mom called the office. No answer. Christmas Day came and went and still nothing. 

Todd:  So the 

Clip:  police began a search. 4 or 5 days went by. Neither one of us could eat or sleep. Everything was falling apart. It was snowing outside. The house was freezing so I went to try to light up the fire and that’s when I noticed the smell. Firemen came and broke through the chimney Todd, and me and mom were expecting them to pull out a dead cat or a bird. And instead, they pulled out my father.   He was dressed in a Santa Claus suit. He’d been climbing down the chimney on Christmas Eve. His arm is Todd with presents. It was gonna surprise us. He slipped and broke his neck died instantly.   And that’s   how I found out there was no Santa Claus. 

Todd:  I didn’t remember this scene, obviously, as a kid. I can’t remember everything about this movie, but I watched this and my eyes were rolling. I know that people are divided about this scene. I know that even Spielberg himself and some of the, some of the studio heads wanted them to cut it, but John, Joe Dante was like, no, you’ve gotta leave it in because it’s, it’s a metaphor for the whole movie. And what makes this scene, I thought, uncomfortable is that you don’t know whether it’s supposed to be funny or whether it’s supposed to be sad because the story she’s telling is a well known urban legend. Right. In the in the world of this movie I don’t know. I just I just Was 

Craig:  it was it well known before this, though? 

Clip:  I 

Craig:  Or does it come from this? 

Todd:  No. I I think this is a well known urban even before this, I you know, it did not come. Christopher Columbus did not make this one up. No. The whole the whole, you know, dad was missing. It was Christmas day. We called people, then we found that he was stuck in the chimney, chiming down. Yeah.   That that’s that’s an old story. It’s an old story. And and for her to tell it about her dad, and it’s supposed to be the sort of sad moment, plus I feel like it was shoehorned in. It’s like it just comes out of nowhere. And this isn’t the first Christmas. It was horrible for me. And she tells this story and then it’s like, okay, we move on. You know, it’s not a setup for them to get closer.   It’s not at the it just it just feels wrong, I think. I mean, it it doesn’t feel wrong for a goofy thing like that to be in a goofy movie like this. I mean, I get the director’s point, but I just I just think it stands out like a sore thumb. It’s just too much. 

Craig:  Now that you say that that it really isn’t connected, there’s really no purpose for it. I had never really thought about that, but you’re absolutely right. I mean, it’s really inconsequential to the plot. It it doesn’t forward the plot in any way. It’s one of my favorite scenes in the movie. I love it. And and I think it is melodramatic, but Phoebe Cates plays it with such sincerity that for me it’s almost like, Oh, this should kind of be funny, but she’s playing it with such sincerity that I almost feel guilty for even having an inclination to laugh. And I don’t know, it just, oh I just think that she delivers it so well.   I I don’t know. Had I never seen it, of course, I wouldn’t miss it. Maybe it would’ve tightened the movie up a little bit further, but you’re right. Dante wanted to keep it. And I totally understand his rationale that it really is emblematic of the tone of the film that, it is both dark and light. And this is one of those moments where the balance is, it could tip either way. I don’t know. I I and and it’s, you know, again, I feel we’ve said this a 1000000 times.   This is a a classic movie in in especially for those of us who grew up in the eighties. So all a lot of these things are iconic. But people remember this scene, like it or don’t like it. People remember this scene. And if you talk about this movie, for me, this is one of the first things that comes up. Yeah. So I don’t know. There’s that. 

Todd:  You’re right. I mean, the the sincerity is there in the acting and, you know, put other words her mouth, and I’d probably love this scene too. Although, the that’s part of what kind of, like, distracts me from it is because all I’m imagining is, jeez, how many takes did they have to do before they got one where she just wasn’t busting out laughing in the middle of 

Craig:  this? Sure. Sure. You know? Anyway And and then we’re we’re leading up to the climax of the movie. They they leave the bank, and and when they were running to the bank, the town was just in chaos. There were gremlins everywhere. There were fires. There was, you know, just chaos all around. When they come out of the bank, everything’s eerily quiet and, Kate says, where did they all go? And Billy says, well, it’s gonna be light soon.   They’re probably altogether somewhere that’s dark. And so where’s a big place where they would all fit that somebody’s where it’s dark? The movie theater. And so they go to the movie theater and they find that, yes, all of the gremlins are there. They’ve all congregated, and they are watching Snow White, and they are absolutely loving it. And I love this scene too. I mean, it’s just all these gremlins in the movie theater, and it’s gags. You know, they’re wearing sunglasses and Mickey Mouse ears, and they’re eating the pop corn, and they’re, like, you know, drinking out of the soda fountains and stuff. It’s it’s goofy, but, I just love it.   And I love that they are transfixed by Snow White. It’s cute. It is. Even these, you know, these mischievous villainous gremlins in this scene are cute, and and I I love it. 

Todd:  Yeah. It really endears you to them, and and that’s part of how this movie works is by, yes, it shows you this violence and these guys are are can do these terrible things, but there’s this party that’s drawn to them as well. It kind of makes you think, you know what? If it weren’t for the fact that it might murder me in my sleep, this would be kind of a fun pet to have at home. 

Craig:  Yeah. They’re mischievous. You know? It’s it’s almost like I mean, I guess they do have some murderous intent, but more than that, it’s just causing mischief and chaos. And there’s something cute, about that. I like it. 

Todd:  They’re having fun, right? And they’re 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  They’re seeing these other small creatures up on the screen, and they think it’s cute. This was definitely dark days at Disney. I think it was the mid eighties, 84 and 85. Disney was really, actually a threat of hostile takeover. I think they were not doing well. That’s the only way I can imagine they would have allowed, Snow White to play such a prominent role in this film. You would never see this today. 

Craig:  You would Yeah. That’s true. I had never even thought about that. 

Todd:  Oh, they would never give the rights for something like that. They really don’t let their movies show up in any other movies, let alone something like this. But, 

Craig:  it’s true. It’s interesting. 

Todd:  We’re so lucky because it it totally it’s a very endearing scene. You’re absolutely right. 

Craig:  Right. Right. It works. Well, Billy and Kate break the gas line, and they they run out and they blow up the theater, but not before Stripe leaves the theater because he sees candy in a department store window across the street. So we presume that all of the gremlins are dead, except now Stripe, who’s in this department store, and they chase him in there. Billy sends Kate to go try to get the lights turned on somehow, which she does. She goes to the control room, and she’s flipping on, various lights. But she also one of the light switches she turns on turns on this fountain.   And of course, we know if spike or Stripe gets water, he’ll just, reproduce again. So we know that that’s probably gonna play into it. And then again, it’s just kind of a montage. It’s it’s a clever montage. I like it. They Billy chases, Stripe through these various, parts of the department store. So there’s 1, in, the hardware section where throws saw blades at him. There’s one in a sporting goods section where he, like, hits him with a baseball bat and shoots him with a crossbow.   Then there’s one in, like, oh, gosh. I guess it’s hardware again where he gets a chainsaw, and is is going after Billy with a chainsaw. 

Todd:  I was watching this with my wife, and I think it was at this point that she turned to me and said, boy, these gremlins are pretty smart for newborns. Like, they know how to operate a chainsaw. They know how to operate a gun. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Smart and strong for as small as they are, apparently. Meanwhile, Gizmo has gone off on his own, and there’s this really funny little scene of him, like, army crawling across this store. And then he gets a Barbie car and he’s driving around in this Barbie car which is just so cute. And it all ends at a confrontation at this fountain where Stripe now has a gun, and he’s shooting at Billy and getting ready to jump into the fountain, which he doesn’t jump in. He just dips his finger in, but the it’s he’s kinda starts to reproduce. But here comes Gizmo in his Barbie car to save the day.   He jumps his Barbie car over this ramp and, is able to somehow knock these blinds open that allows the sunlight to come in, which causes, Stripe to melt ala the Wicked Witch of the West. Yeah. And again, good practical effects here for this, melting. 

Todd:  Oh, it’s such a gross scene and that was one that stuck with me as a kid Todd. In a delightful gleeful way, we all loved seeing Stripe meltdown and then come back out for one final jump scare before he completely belts into nothing. 

Craig:  Yeah. Jumps out of the the fountain just as a skeleton, and the skeleton is still kind of like, undulating, like it’s breathing. But, then it just dissolves into a puddle of goo that just bubbles. So, yeah, it’s it was good. It’s memorable. And that’s pretty much the end except for that we get a cap. We get we go back to, Billy’s house, where his family has gathered, and the old Chinese guy from the beginning shows up and says, I told you with Maguai comes much responsibility. He takes Gizmo back, which I remember as a kid thinking, that was so sad.   Like, here, Philly and and, Gizmo have been through so much together. They’ve watched each other’s back, and now he has to go back and live, with the Chinese guy. But and and so the last shot that we get is the Chinese guy but he says, Gizmo says, Bye, Billy, to Billy, before he leaves. It’s really sweet. And then the last shot we get is the old Chinese guy walking down the street at night at Christmas time. Beautiful, beautiful shot, the full moon in the background. And we return to the father’s, narration and he closes out the story. And then that that’s the end.   At the end of a great movie, you know, I I asked you. I don’t remember which one of us brought this one up, as a suggestion for this year, but I specifically asked you if we could save this one for the last because I just have so many fond memories of this movie. I just like it so much. I just kinda wanted to save the best for last this year. 

Todd:  Yeah. It is a Christmas movie through and through as we said, unlike some of the other ones we’ve watched, which, either just sort of take place at Christmas’s convenience or just throw some tinsel up every now and then. This movie is all about giving a gift. It’s about the terrible tragedies that happen during the holidays that, throw people into depression, the caroling, of, you know, there’s caroling 

Craig:  Making Christmas cookies. 

Todd:  That’s right. And eating the heads off in a sinister way, all that stuff. So it’s perfectly encapsulated in this film. It Todd warm you up. It is a warm movie even as dark as it is. I didn’t remember it being this dark, of course. And so watching it again, I realized, wow, for a kids, they just aren’t gonna make another movie like this. Nope.   They don’t do this kind of thing. And they’re certainly not rated PG. This this movie was one of the 2 movies, the other one being Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, that just Todd that line where they couldn’t be r, but they were really not as kid friendly as PG tends to be. And so because Steven Spielberg is all powerful, he said, well, MPAA, you guys just need to make another rating and put it in between. And so, he got a PG 13 movie. It’s a p Steven Spielberg used to insist that I do not make r rated films, and that’s 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  That’s kind of the bullying that he did to make sure that this movie, got a whole new rating made. Well, not for this one, but for subsequent films. I think Red Dawn was the next was the one to actually get the first PG 13. And then I don’t think he 

Craig:  he really did make I think, was one of the first ones too. 

Todd:  Yeah. And, he didn’t make a r rated movie, I think, until Schindler’s List. So it was a little ways after this Yeah. Before he actually but but, yeah, I liked it too, and I still enjoy it, and I like the, the back and forth. I’ll be watching this one again, more soon. 

Craig:  Yeah. You know, you say we won’t get another movie like this. I would say Krampus was pretty close, in tone. But not not appropriate. 

Todd:  Not so kid friendly though as this one is. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I guess. I mean, I think we’re you and I might be thinking about this from our own perspective. I don’t know. Someday, maybe, if either of us have kids, we might be a little bit more, guarded about what we would share with them. I know my sister wouldn’t let her kids watch this. Not yet anyway. I mean, we were watching it when we were their age, but there’s no way she’d let them watch this.  

I know. There was a sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, which really amped up the comedy and, toned down the darkness. I liked it. I didn’t think it was nearly as good. I didn’t think it had nearly the heart of this one. It’s it’s far more goofy. I was surprised to read today and looking, at at stuff about this movie that Joe Dante actually prefers the second one, which kinda surprised me. But yeah. 

Craig:  And, you know, there’s been talk there’s always talk. There’s been talk for years about rebooting this franchise, may maybe, you know, whether it be in a a direct sequel or a remake, and I have mixed feelings about that, because you know if they did it now, it would all be CGI. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  It would probably not have the dark under tones that the original has. It would probably be much more family friendly. Not that there’s anything wrong with family friendly fare, but this is one of those movies that there’s a part of me that kind of is secretly hoping for a sequel, but if there was one, I would hope that they would try to do as much of it practically as they could to be in keeping with the original. But I just, the other part of me thinks that would never happen, and maybe we should just leave better or, you know, good enough alone. So I don’t know. 

Todd:  Yeah. You know, you’re right. The way that they bounce around and the way that the gremlins interact with each other and the way that they move, it just works better as a puppet show, you know. Yeah. I just I can’t see it as a as a CGI animated thing. It it’ll be too slick and too smooth, and it’ll lose a lot of its charm. 

Craig:  Yeah. Well, regardless of what happens, we’ll always have the original. So, I’m grateful for that. 

Todd:  That’s right. That’s right. Well, thank you again for listening. This has, been your Christmas edition of 2 Guys in a Chainsaw. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. You can find us on Itunes and Stitcher. You can also like us on Facebook and, Google Plus. We have a couple pages there.   Leave us a comment. Let us know what you thought of this episode and about this film, as well as suggestions for for future episodes. Until then, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

We were a bit divided on this movie, but we came together to agree that this woman-in-peril film bleeds pure holiday spirit. Listen to our take on two excellent performances by two talented actors in this American-Canadian production that flopped on its release back in 2007.’

Episode 61, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Todd:  And I’m Todd.

Craig:  And we are continuing our Christmas films this week, and I chose today’s movie. And I chose 2,007’s P2 directed by Frank Calhoun. This is a movie that I just happened to stumble across on Netflix. It was available on Netflix 

Clip:  since then until I watched it, for this recording. What did you know about 

Craig:  p 2 since then until I watched it, for this recording. What did you know about p 2 going in, Todd? 

Todd:  Absolutely nothing. Just slipped right past my radar. So, when you suggested it, I was like, oh, this will be interesting to check out. 

Craig:  Well, I think it passed a lot of people’s radar because, it got a wide release in the United States. It’s an American slash Canadian, film. And it did get a wide release, but it did really, really poorly. And it’s opening weekend, it only pulled in about $2,000,000. And, as of now, I think that it’s, like, the 5th worst opening for a wide release. So it really didn’t find an audience. I don’t remember seeing any marketing for it at all. When it popped up on Netflix, I assumed that it was just one of those, little bit lower grade, films that you see there every once in a while.   I guess, DVD sales did better, and it’s it’s found a little bit of an audience, but people seem to be kind of mixed. There are those out there who think it’s it’s really good, and those out there who for some reason, don’t like it. And I I know which side of the fence I fall on. I’ll be interested to see, which side you fall on. Any initial thoughts before we get going? 

Todd:  You know, when you’re talking about the the history of this movie, I’m wondering I’m thinking back to 2,007, and I’m wondering if it seems like this movie came out around maybe the middle or if not sort of the tail end of the sort of torture porn craze, I would say, where we saw a lot of these movies of people in peril and people doing bad things to each other, like, crazy people. You probably saw 3 or 4 was coming out around this. I wonder if it just kinda got buried among the rest of those kind of films. I mean, when did Wolf Creek come out? Was it around this time as well? 

Craig:  I I don’t remember. I have no idea. 

Todd:  You should’ve done my research. 

Craig:  It’s kinda surprising. Yeah. It’s kinda surprising that, it didn’t do particularly well because the guys who worked on this, the, director Frank Calhoun and one of the writers, Alexander and one of the other guys in the production, I don’t remember who it was, but all 3 of them had also worked together on the remake of The Hills Have Eyes, which had just come out, I think, the year before. And if I remember correctly, that movie did really well, and got pretty positive reviews. So coming off the heels of that, one would have thought that, this would have done well too. Maybe it didn’t have the kind of recognition, name recognition that the Hills Have Eyes had. Maybe that had something to do with that. I don’t know. 

Todd:  And, didn’t do High Tension as well? 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  And that was 

Craig:  Which was a French film. Right? 

Todd:  Yeah. And that came out here. Now I’m not sure if it it had a wide release here, but I think it it did pretty well, at least, on streaming or video or something like that. It has a bit of a following in the US anyway, a lot a lot more than this one anyway. 

Craig:  Yeah. Definitely. Well, this one is, set at Christmas time. You know, we’ve said before how we’ve done enough Christmas movies now that we’re kinda doing a stretch every once in a while, but I would actually say that this movie has a really distinctive Christmas feel. It opens up, in a parking garage, and we’re just kind of looking slowly around this, parking garage. We see the security cameras and whatnot, and, we see the title of the film, p 2 on 1 of the walls. It’s just referring to the level of this underground, parking garage where the vast majority of the movie is set. And, as we’re going through this parking garage, Santa Baby is, playing in the background.   And, we pan up to this BMW, this nice BMW, and and we kinda the the camera pans around to the back of it so that we’re looking at the trunk. And out of nowhere, we see the lock pop out, and we see an eyeball behind it. And right after that, we see a girl who appears to be bound somehow emerge out of, this car, out of the trunk of this car. And it’s a good jump scare right there at the beginning. It’s it’s, juxtaposed well against the kind of nice Santa Baby song, 

Todd:  in the background. That’s just one of those, ways that people often set up these a lot of creepy movies is, take some song like Santa Baby or, what’s another Elvis song? The American Werewolf in London. Blue Moon? I guess that’s not Elvis. But yeah. Yeah. Take take the song that doesn’t seem too horrible and then slap something horrible over it. And, yeah, it it really kinda turns your stomach a bit. 

Craig:  Yeah. And it got me. I had seen the movie before, but it had been so long I forgot. I mean, I really jumped. It was a it was pretty good scare to get it started out. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Then we jumped to another scene. We don’t know this at the time, but what we’re really doing is we’re jumping back in time. We will eventually work our way back up to this, opening scene that we started with. But we’re introduced to our main character, Angela, played by, Rachel Nichols, who has done mostly TV stuff, stuff like Chicago Fire and Criminal Minds. She does have movies, to her credit Todd. But it it appears that she’s mostly, a TV actress. Lovely young lady, and she works in some corporate building in what I assume is supposed to be New York. Was that the field that you got? Yeah.   It is New York. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  It is because she’s she’s working on Christmas Eve, in in some big corp you know, some high rise. We I don’t know exactly what she does, but it’s a very corporate feel, office feel. 

Todd:  Yeah. They just talk about clients a lot. 

Craig:  Right. Right. Exactly. And it seems like she’s working the Christmas party has either happened earlier that night or maybe the the day before. There’s still remnants of the Christmas party around, but it seems like it’s late at night and people are, starting to, file out to go home, and she’s one of the last ones there. And this guy comes into her office. 

Clip:  Hey, July. I I feel terrible about what happened.   It’s okay. It’s fine. Let’s just not worry about it. Okay?   No. No. It’s it’s not okay. I feel like a real jerk. I had too many drinks, and you know how these Christmas parties can be. You know, we had a baby last year, and it’s been a hard year.   I’m sure that it has.   I I simply wanna tell you that I’m just really, really sorry. Okay?   Apology accepted. 

Craig:  So we know that there’s something that’s going on with them, but we don’t have any idea at this point what it is. But it it comes out up later. She talks on the phone, to her sister, Lorraine, and she’s supposed to be going home to New Jersey, that night for their Christmas celebration. But she’s late, and it seems like that’s kind of par for the course for her. You know, it seems like they’re kind of doubtful of whether she’s going to make it or when she’s going to make it, but she assures them that she’s gonna be there. When she does leave, she’s the last one to leave. She runs into Carl, a security guard, who tells her that he does have to work tonight, but that after that they’re closing the building down for the next, 3 days. And so she goes down to the parking garage.   She’s got a Santa suit that she’s supposed to be taking so her dad can dress up, as Santa for his grandkids, her nieces and nephews and whatnot. And, she’s got some gifts and things, and she goes down and we see that her car is the same black BMW that we saw before. But she gets in it, and it appears to be dead. Meanwhile, we see that somebody is watching this car on surveillance. So she grabs the gifts and everything and heads for, the security office where she’s first, greeted by Rocky, this, rottweiler, this that that seems like a pretty aggressive rottweiler. And that’s where she meets our other main character, Thomas, played by Wes Bentley, who I always remember as the the bag boy from American Beauty, the weirdo who is always, like, taking photographs of, like, shopping bags and whatnot. Mhmm. But he’s been in lots and lots of stuff.   He’s a good looking guy, dark haired, blue eyes. He’s also been, in American Horror Story. He was in one of the Hunger Games movies. You’ve seen him around quite a bit. Now we’ve met both of our main characters, though we may not really know that yet. And Thomas seems very nice and helpful, but at the same time, he also seems like he’s kinda got a little bit of an edge to him. He offers to help her with the car. It and she’s grateful, but she thinks it would be better to just get a cab.   But he says, no, I can get you up and running. I’ve got a charger. And and so they try, but he can’t get it started, so she is just gonna get a cab. And it appears like he doesn’t really think that maybe she’s as grateful as she should be, for for, his his assistance. 

Clip:  Yeah. I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what happened. You know, I thought I could do something about it.   That’s okay. You’ve been great. Can you just let me into the elevator room now?   I was just trying to help.   I know, And I I appreciate it. Thank you.   Hey. Listen. I, I know you’re upset about your car not starting, but it’s the holidays, you know? It’s time to be thankful.   No. You know what? You’re right. Yeah? I should be thankful. 

Craig:  Did you have any idea where this was headed at this point? 

Todd:  Yeah. I kinda did. I’d say that maybe it’s just the title of the movie p 2 and the opening scene that proceeds that we know that I knew that we were probably not gonna leave this parking garage. And as the other characters are super friendly and and walk away, this is the only guy who starts to, seem a little strange. The minute she couldn’t start her car and she knocked on the door, and there’s this other guy, there to help her. I thought, well, this is gonna be the guy, right? And I didn’t even read anything about this beforehand, like, I had no idea of the plot, no idea of anything, and to her credit, you know, as far as the writing goes in this movie, I think she deals with him, in a very smart way. She seems to be a smart person who’s probably been come on to by a lot of guys, like a lot of pre girls, have been. And, again, we even get that suggestion maybe from earlier, her interaction with Jim.   Right. So the way that she deals with him is the way I would imagine that women tend to deal with guys like this. They keep their distance, but they say nice things in order not to rile them up a little bit. And so Right. She’s so, oh oh, that’s okay. That’s okay. That’s fine. No.   Really, I appreciate the help, but but, really, let’s let’s get me a cab. Throughout this movie, at least the earlier moment when she starts to become in peril, I think it’s really smart that she deals with him in that way in the beginning at least. But yeah, I saw it coming from a mile away the minute we met this guy. In fact, I actually thought that Tom was not the security guard at the building because when she meets him in that room, he makes a big deal out of looking for his keys, and he’s kind of come in from the back. And I know I’ve seen this in movies before where it’s the guy who has killed the security guard and he’s quickly dressed as the security guard. And so he doesn’t know where the keys are because he’s not the guy, and so he’s looking around. I thought that was the case. I don’t think that’s the case here.   He really was the security guard in this building. If he wasn’t, I don’t think there’s any indication. Is there, Craig, or did I miss that? 

Craig:  No. No. No. I think that’s the suggestion. I think that suggestion is that this really is his job. You know, he’s kind of security, but he’s really just the parking lot attendant. You know, that’s that’s his field, I guess. And we get the sense later on that he has been watching, Angela for a long time, and I I think that’s the case and and that this what’s about to happen is something that he has planned.   I mean, it has to be. There’s no way that he could have just done this on the spur of the moment. There there had to have been a lot of planning that went into it. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  As it turns out, it turns out that he’s a psychopath, and that he’s obsessed with her. He doesn’t know her at all, and she doesn’t know him, but he apparently has been watching her for a long time. And I have to say that, Wes Bentley, I think, does a really good job in this movie. I I I mean, I I I think the guy is just a good actor, period, but he plays a really good job of, I think, of somebody who’s really unhinged, because it really seems like he does want to help her. He does want to be her knight in shining armor. He just doesn’t realize that the way that he’s going about it is totally psychotic. And that being so self unaware, that really reads to me as actual crazy. And that becomes clear very soon because, Angela goes back upstairs and Carl’s not there.   And and I’m thinking, you know, where is Carl? You know, why wouldn’t he be there? You know, she he was just there a little while ago. She calls and tells her family that she’s running late, but that she’s still gonna be there, and and then she calls for a cab. And she waits in the lobby and kind of falls asleep until the cab gets there. And it honks for her. She grabs all her stuff and goes to leave, but the door’s locked, and she can’t get out. And Carl’s still not around, so she can’t get his assistance. So she yells through the window, you know, hold on. Just wait a minute.   I’ll be right there. And she runs back down into the garage. Apparently, it seems like she’s gonna try to exit through the garage, but when she gets down there, it’s all closed up and locked up too. The cab takes off. And right after that happens, all of the lights in the parking garage go out. And so she’s kinda stumbling around in the dark trying to use her phone as a flashlight like we all do. It like, these stupid it’s not like it really provides any kind of illumination at all. But for some reason, we all think that, oh, oh, it’s dark.   I guess our cell phones will work. But anyway, so she’s walking around. I think she trips over something, and she drops her phone under a car. And, when she retrieves it and she stands up, she turns it towards her, and we’re looking at her, and and the light from the phone illuminates Tom standing right behind her. And he grabs her and chloroforms her, and she, the camera fades to black as she passes out. When she wakes up, we see from her kind of groggily waking up, and all we can kind of see in a fuzzy detail is Tom apparently sitting across a table from her in full Santa suit. But that she she she loses consciousness again, and when she wakes up, he is trying to he’s taken off the the beard and the hat, but he’s still got the the Santa coat on And we see that she’s now in a different dress. She’s in this kind of really sultry white dress that, really accentuates her full bosom.   He she’s she’s sick and and confused, from the chloroform, And she tries to get up and she falls down and we see that she is chained to the chair. She vomits on the floor because she’s sick, from the chloroform, but he helps her back up into her seat, and he tells her that he has this holiday dinner. He had actually invited her and asked if she would wanna stay. He’s got some Todd, and and, she said no, of course, because that’s crazy. But, apparently, he didn’t take no for an answer, and here she is. And he’s, like, serving her food and talking to her really nice and asking her questions like you would ask on a first date.   And she is understandably totally confused and frightened, but like you said before, she seems to be really smart. 

Clip:  Listen. Tom. Tom, I have some place to be. You know I have I have obligations.   Yeah. I know. Way too many. You know, make time for yourself. You know? You don’t need to be at everyone’s beck and call.   Southern, maybe we should get a drink in the new year. I’ve   already prepared everything. I mean, it’s all here.   I know. And it it it looks really good.   Yeah? Great. Well, let’s eat. I’m starving.   Tom, this is really sweet of you, and and I mean that, but my whole family is expecting me. I have plans. I mean,   I guess some plans are made to be broken. 

Todd:  This scene I thought was pretty well done. Actually, it reminded me a lot of The Loved Ones. I almost I mean, I think Yeah. Yeah. This movie came first, right, before it, 

Craig:  but it it also I think so. 

Todd:  It seems like, the the director of the loved ones or the writer of the loved ones might have seen this movie and thought, you know, I can take this and and do it one better. In filmmaking, there’s something called the 180 degree rule, where when you’re shooting a scene, there’s an invisible line across the scene that that you don’t cross with the camera unless you have to. So if you can imagine, like, say, a dinner table, you’re only going to shoot from one side of the table. 1 person is looking to the right and talking to a person, and then they’re responding and they’re looking to the left, you know, in the close ups. If you start going back and forth between the different sides of the table, it becomes confusing to you spatially. And suddenly, this person is talking to the right, and then the other person responds, and they’re talking to the right. It seems Todd, So that’s just a general rule of filmmaking, is that you don’t do that. And the way that this scene starts out, she’s on the left, and he’s on the right.   It’s it’s shot from that side of the table, and it’s a position just naturally as people. We’re comfortable with left to right scenarios. So Right. When she’s on the left, she seems like the scene I I guess the scene seems a little friendlier, if that’s what way to put it. Not that she seems like she has the upper hand, but at least, our sympathies, kind of lie in her direction because she’s on the left, and he’s on the right. It’s just a subtle psychological thing, but then, she says the first thing that he doesn’t like. 

Clip:  My boyfriend’s gonna get worried, and he’s gonna come looking for me. 

Todd:  And at that moment, the shot is over her right shoulder and the camera slowly pants behind her and comes around to other side of the table in a in a nice swooping motion, and there’s even a musical cue with it, and that visually is very effective. It’s signaling a sudden change in a shift. And now from this point on, the camera’s on the other side of the table. He’s on the left, and she’s on the right. And he it all of a sudden feels very sinister and wrong. Now he’s in that position of power, and she’s not. It’s really well done, and it’s a very clear shift, that we know that the tone of the movie is gonna change from here on out, and this guy is not gonna be as nice. 

Craig:  Well, I didn’t notice that at all. You’re the filmmaker, I’m not, but it certainly was effective because it really made me uneasy and it really highlighted the shift because he is so friendly, you know, and that’s again, that’s the thing that makes him so psychotic. In one moment, he will be charming. I mean, this is a good looking guy, and if this were if she weren’t chained to the chair and this if she were there consensually, he’s very sweet, but he’s a psycho, and and she is tied to the chair. You know, he’s saying, you know, just very casual things like asking her what her hobbies are, and he says, I like to read. And right now, I’m reading The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. It’s, it’s this story about this guy that loves this girl so much that he’s willing to forgive anything she does, even her infidelities. And he says, It’s a pretty intense story, but that’s what love’s supposed to be, right? And, you know, I’m sure she’s thinking the same thing I’m thinking, Oh, shit.   This guy is a whack job. 

Todd:  Well But 

Craig:  she keeps her cool pretty well. And you’re right. She brings up the boyfriend, and he starts grilling her about the boyfriend. How long have you been together? What’s his name? What does he do? And she says he’s a sportswriter. And and, he’s like, well, what for what publication? She says, The Washington Post. He’s like, Oh, I read that. I don’t remember his name. And he he says, I even have one.   And, he goes to grab it. She’s like, no. He he’s, online. He he does it online. And he just keeps on grilling her, keeps on grilling her, until finally 

Clip:  You know, you haven’t been very talkative since we met. But now you’re telling me all about your boyfriend. Oh, sorry, fiance. So either we become best friends over dinner or you’re lying to me. 

Craig:  And then he says something about her family and he calls them out by name. So this guy has obviously done his homework, and that’s scary in and of itself Todd. I mean, he’s clearly he’s he’s stalking her. She didn’t know it. She had no idea, but he’s who knows how long this has been going on for him to know so much about her. 

Todd:  What what makes it even spookier is that she has never even seen this guy before. Like, this isn’t, like, the parking attendant that she sees every evening and waves at or anything. She has 

Clip:  no recollection of this guy whatsoever from this building. And it’s effective. 

Todd:  I mean, this is a 

Craig:  I would say that it maybe is a little bit long. And it’s not a long movie, it’s only an hour 40. But I it’s really tense and it never really gets slow or boring, but I felt like maybe they could have trimmed it just a little bit. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  It it felt a little long maybe. 

Todd:  My criticism would be that it sometimes loses some of its tension or thinks things, she gets away a little too easily at moments. I think this first part is the most effective and the most tense. I would argue that it kind of loses a little bit of tension here and there as the movie progresses, but you’re right. It doesn’t stop moving, as soon as she starts to to, take things matters into her own hands. 

Craig:  Well, in this whether it’s the performance or or whatever, you know, the the setup, I mean, this office is all very cheerily decorated for Christmas with tons of Christmas lights, and there’s Christmas music playing. And like you said, you know, juxtaposing something that’s she does get away, which she does, I mean, not completely, but, she gets away from him for a while, then it becomes, I think, a little bit more typical. It kind of starts kind of following the same sort of pattern as many slasher movies. Yeah. And and that’s okay. I mean, I don’t have a problem with that, and it’s still enjoyable and fun, but this first part feels very much like something that I haven’t really seen exactly like this before. Yeah. Totally.   And it feels fresh, and I like that. Mhmm. Yeah. He makes her call her family, and it’s a very tense scene where, you know, he dials for her, but he makes her do it on speaker phone. And, as the phone is ringing, he kind of oh, gosh. Like, he kind of runs his hands sensually up her arm and up to her neck, and it seems very sensual until he then puts his hands in a choking fashion around her neck. So, obviously, she’s threatened, and she has to do what he says. 

Todd:  Oh, that was so creepy. 

Craig:  It was creepy, and it was sad, and it was hard to watch. And she’s a good actress too. I mean, trying to keep her cool so as not to alarm her family and also so as not to incur his anger and and wrath. But she, you know, she just tells her sister, I I’m sick. I had to go home. I’m not gonna be able to make it. And the sister, you know, is she’s like, gosh, you always do this. You always put your family for or your work first.   And, meanwhile, she’s crying and the mom gets on the phone and and says, oh, it’s okay, honey. We’ll see you tomorrow. Just get your rest. And then, they hang up. And then he gives her a presence, and it’s the surveillance footage of the incident that we don’t know about, but that was suggested with the whole gym conversation earlier. Apparently at the Christmas party, she and Jim had been on the elevator alone together, and it seemed like they were just kind of joking around with one another, but then he took it too far. And he kinda tried to grab her and and kiss her, and she rebuffed his advances. At that point, he says, let’s go for a ride.   And as he chains her from the he’s down because she’s shackled by her ankle to the chair. So he has to get down to do that. And while he’s doing that, she’s looking around at the table where there’s been food and and dining stuff set up. As soon as she’s unchanged, she jumps up, she grabs a fork, and she stabs him in the back with it. But he’s able to overpower her, and he handcuffs her, behind his back. And I’m thinking, you know, oh man, she’s in trouble now. But he’s again, he’s just such a psycho that he’s like, oh now why would you go and do a thing like that? I’m I’m just trying to help you. And and he remains calm, and he puts her in a car and they start driving around, but she can tell that they’re driving down.   She says, I thought we were going for a ride. And he says, we are, but it’s nicer down here. And this leads to a really chilling scene that I want you to tell our listeners about because I wanna see what you thought about this scene. 

Todd:  Yeah. This was a pretty good scene, actually. And you’re right. It was very chilling. And I guess I wasn’t expecting it. He pulls down to level 4, p 4. We’ve gone from p 2 to p 4, and, and he’s in his car, and she’s chatting with him, and she’s again turning on the charm a little bit. She’s trying to act friendlier towards him, and she’s using his name a lot in the conversation.   And they get down here, and he turns his headlights on, and in front of them is this guy, Jim, who is duct taped to an office chair, in front of a a little bit of a distance in front of a wall, and in front of them. 

Craig:  Oh, my god. Todd, what is this? 

Clip:  This is my present to you. Take this and show him.   Show him what?   Show him you’re not a slut. Take this and teach him he can’t be touching every woman he wants.   Are you talking about what happened in the elevator, Octav? No. No. No. No. You don’t understand. That was a mistake. That was a stupid mistake. 

Craig:  What? He tried to rape you? 

Todd:  No. No. He he 

Clip:  got a little out of hand at the party, Tom. He hardly tried to rape me. Look. He was drunk. He popped up. 

Todd:  I guess it’s a flashlight, like a one of those big heavy flashlights. 

Craig:  Mag lights. Yeah. 

Todd:  Mag yeah. And and hands it to her. And so after a bit of back and forth, and you’re thinking, oh my gosh, this guy is totally gonna get it, she says, okay, I’ll do it, but you need to untie me first, which was a really dumb thing for her to say, I think, because, of course, he’d have to untie her. She shouldn’t have called attention to the fact that he’d have to untie her, and that seems to I don’t know. You could argue it triggers in his mind this idea that, no, maybe I shouldn’t do that, but I sort of feel like he was playing with her all along and that he really intended to beat this guy for her anyway. Whatever the case may be, he goes, no. You know what? I shouldn’t put you in this position. I need to do this myself.   And so he gets out of the car, and of course, she’s screaming and pleading with him. No, no, no, no. Don’t, I’ll do it. She’s kind of trying anything at this point. He walks up to this guy and just starts brutally beating on him, and it’s it’s pretty it’s pretty hard to see. And, of course Yeah. This guy can see her through the windshield as well. And so you can imagine what’s going through her mind.   Like, I I don’t want him to think that I put him up to this. It’s just a terrible situation, terrible situation. Right. He gets back in the car, like, they’re going to leave, but he doesn’t leave. He backs up, and I mean, I knew this was coming too. I knew at the minute he was in the car and they were, you know, they were in the car and he was in the thing, but still, he says, no. Basically, he’s gonna finish the job, and he backs up far and then completely smashed Jim against the wall repeatedly. And it’s Repeatedly.   Yeah. It’s repeatedly, and it is hard to watch. And that, again, is why I say this really comes from that era, I think, where I think movies were going out of their way to be shockingly brutal and shockingly gory. It definitely harkened back to that time, because it pulls no punches and showing you exactly what’s happening to Jim as he’s repeatedly getting smashed up against this wall. It’s pretty gross, and it definitely ups the ante considerably, for the movie. We know that this guy’s psychotic and that he’s just willing to totally kill. He can do it without any kind of remorse whatsoever. So the Yeah. 

Craig:  He can do it with a smile on his face. 

Todd:  Yeah. Exactly. And, you know, at this point, you even you’re not even sure that this guy doesn’t realize this is wrong. You know? It’s not like he’s it ups it to a whole new level where there’s no way a human being could do this to another human being and still think that he’s doing the right thing. So it tells you this guy is is completely unhinged, and also that he’s completely unpredictable. He can’t be manipulated by her, and he can do some absolutely horrible things with a smile on his face. And so, a movie a scene like this sort of has to happen in a movie like this in order to show you exactly what you’re dealing with and put you on that edge of uncomfortability and unpredictability. And the fact that this girl’s sweet talking just is not going to get her out of this situation, she realizes it, and now the film becomes how is how am I gonna get out of this, for her? 

Craig:  Yeah. I thought that this scene was really effective too, for a couple of reasons. The the the gore effects, you know, I can take or leave gore. You know, if it’s done well, great. I think movies can be suggestive without a lot of graphic imagery, and and that can be really effective too. But here, the gore is super brutal, and it’s so well done that it really looks real. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And, that I mean, that it’s it’s really unsettling. The other thing, that was really unsettling for me, I mean, it’s just well acted. You know, these two main actors, just do a really, really good job, And the exchange between them in the car before he beats Tom, I thought was so effective when she was, you know, saying his name over and over again. And it’s not like, you know, he was just like, stop it. Like, he full out freaks out on her. Like, he’s screaming in at the top of his lungs at her, and we really see that that that charming facade behind that, there is a lot of anger and and violence. And, I I thought that was really good. I thought it was a great scene, and you’re right.   It kind of just establishes, wow, she is really, really in trouble. Gosh, what happens next? Oh, and another thing, you know, he’s so psycho. Like, he he first of all, he, like, gives, Jim a lecture beforehand, kind of explaining why he’s getting this punishment. And then after he beats him with the with the flashlight multiple times, he leans in and says 

Clip:  Way to run Christmas, asshole. 

Craig:  And, like, he’s sincere about it. Like like, you did this. You ruined Christmas, and it’s messed up. Well, let’s see. At that point, the the whole time this has been going on, she has been trying to get the door unlocked, and and and she does. I mean, it’s it’s difficult because she’s handcuffed. She’s handcuffed through, like, 4 5ths of this movie, which makes everything even more difficult for her. Made me feel bad for the actress. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  It felt like that that surely had to hurt after a while. But she gets out and she runs. And he doesn’t take off after her, which I thought was interesting. He lets her go and instead he stays there and kind of cleans up the mess. We see him over the surveillance cameras pulling the body away, putting up industrial flats, putting them over the stain in the wall from where he smashed this guy against the wall. Meanwhile, she runs back to the office, and she gets she’s trying to get her purse because she wants her phone, but she has to deal with Rocky who’s really close to her purse. She she gets a hold of it, but the dog snaps at it and gets a hold of it too. So she’s playing tug of war, with Rocky.   And here, I’m thinking, I’ve got a rottweiler. This girl is not gonna win a tug of war with a rottweiler. And she doesn’t, really. The the purse, I think, tears in half, but her phone falls out and she’s able to get it. And she also grabs, a set of passkeys, off the desk. And so she’s running around, trying to get her phone to get service, but it has no service. She gets to the gate, and, she’s searching for service, she can’t get any, but if she puts the phone through a hole in the gate, there’s a little bit of service. So she does that, but then of course, she drops it. 

Todd:  But I 

Craig:  think that she had already dialed 911. She can’t tell if there’s anybody on it. She says, If there if anybody can hear me, and she explains her situation. She says, What’s happening? She says, Where she is. Meanwhile, Tom’s looking for her and he’s getting close, And, we think that he’s going to find her because her handcuffs are stuck in the gate. She can’t get out, but right at the last minute, Tom comes around the corner and she’s not there. And she, runs to an elevator and, gets in the elevator just right in the nick of time, but I don’t know if the elevator is locked or something. I mean, earlier we had seen Carl lock the main elevator that they had used to come down.   So I don’t know if this elevator is locked. She can she can only get it to move in between the floors of the parking garage. Yeah. Maybe it’s just a parking garage elevator. I don’t know. 

Todd:  I think I think it was the lock because they make a big deal, out of Carl locking the elevator just visually a couple times in the in the movie. And I think she even says, well, why why is it locked or something like that? But, yeah, and and I feel like this whole sequence here, this is where I lost a little bit of attention because I felt like this was happening a little too easy for her. I hate those scenes in a movie. I mean, you’re always rooting for her. Right? You always want the character to get out of these situations, so you’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, don’t find her. Don’t find her. I mean, that’s going on in your head, but at the same time without the impending danger, you lose the tension and the gut wrenchingness of the scene and the bit where her arms almost seem stuck through the door and they’re intercutting that with, Jim getting closer.   They pull one of those old tricks where he comes around the corner and suddenly she’s gotten out. Like, she’s just not there. And I can’t really tell where or how. It’s just a little too easy, because this is a big wide empty parking garage. A voice should travel through here like nothing, footsteps will travel through here like nothing, and he’s getting super, super close, and suddenly she’s not there, and she’s managed to escape. That happens so often in this movie, just so conveniently, that it it really kills, I think, some of the some of the Todd. Even though I’m rooting for her, even though I want her to get away, you know, it’s there’s a part of you that’s a little like, what? It’s it’s a mixture of disappointment and a little bit of disbelief too of that she’s able to then run away from this guy and make it to this elevator, and he’s even got the dog with him at this point, doesn’t he? Uh-huh. Yeah.   Yeah. He’s searching for her. He’s got the flashlight swinging around, and she’s able to evade him and this dog. A dog which, I mean, if I remember correctly, there’s a shot of her kind of around the corner just maybe about 30 feet away from him and this dog. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  And the dog I thought, well, the dog’s gonna smell her or sense her or with its hearing, it’s gonna be able to hear her breath or something, but he doesn’t. It’s a little too convenient. 

Craig:  Well, I I get what you’re saying. That part actually felt very tense to me because I thought that he was going to come around the corner and she was still gonna be there. And so it was kind of a relief to me when she was gone. Realistic? Maybe not. And then this next scene that’s coming up Todd, realistic? Certainly not. And I almost again, you know, I I don’t hate this scene. I appreciate it for what it is. It it pulls me out a little bit, because it just feels so unrealistic.   She gets in the elevator, and she stops it there, which I thought was actually pretty genius. 

Todd:  It’s brilliant. 

Clip:  You know? 

Craig:  I mean, even if even if she had to wait it out for the next 3 days. I mean Yeah. In theory, she could. But what happens is, you know, she tries to call security on on the thing in the elevator, and somebody comes on, got an Indian accent. I knew it was Tom from the beginning, and eventually he reveals himself that it is. And he’s just saying things like 

Todd:  You know, if you just give us a chance, it can work out. You’ll go to like me. You know, that’s that’s usually what happens when 2 people are forced to to be together in a stressful situation. They have to depend on one another. 

Craig:  And at this point, you know, safe behind the doors of this elevator, she’s letting them have it, telling them how she really feels. And so she’s saying, I’m not coming out. There’s nothing you can do to make me come out. Well, apparently there is because he lowers a fire hose into the shaft from the floor above and turns it on. And, water starts to fill the elevator, which wouldn’t happen. 

Todd:  Like, it 

Craig:  it just it just wouldn’t happen. I mean, the the it first of all, it could have run down the sides, and I’m sure that there’s some sort of drainage, in elevators. It’s not like this is a watertight deal. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  But not only that. So she’s freaking out, and and then something comes falling through the ceiling that he’s obviously thrown from above, and it’s Carl. It’s Carl’s dead body. So she, gets out at P3, and she takes off running again and hides under a truck. So then he, Tom, comes back down. He goes in, he looks at Carl, first, and he says to him, Way to ruin Christmas, Carl. And like, it sounds really funny when I say it, but when he says it, he’s so sincere in saying it that it’s really it’s creepy. I mean, this guy is just totally whacked.   So he he he kind of finds her under the truck, and and he doesn’t actually look under there, but I think he thinks she’s under there. And he she is, and he’s talking to her. And he’s also popping the tires. And every time he pops a tire, it lowers down. And so after he’s popped 2 on one side, she rolls out the other side and takes off and gets away again. Again, I guess you can consider that realistic that he doesn’t feel like he needs to chase her because she’s stuck in here. She can’t get out. And he has access to these security cameras which show every part of the building so he can find her.   And I guess that’s kinda what he does. He goes back to the office, and I loved this scene too. He he puts a an Elvis ornament on the turntable of a record player and puts the record on, and it’s Blue Christmas by Elvis Presley. And he does the entire number. Like, he does a Elvis impersonation, which is actually quite good. I mean, the guy can move. And there’s there’s a you see a picture of him on the bulletin board in full, Elvis garb. So apparently, this is something that he does.   And I just thought that it was really creepy to watch him stand there and dance and sing while he’s watching her run around on the security cameras. But eventually, he gets so into his performance that he doesn’t see that she grabs a fire ax and starts taking out the security cameras. And then she does what I wanted her to do. She heads back towards the office with the ax. 

Todd:  Yeah. And, you know, this bit where she’s taken out the security cameras, I thought, oh, wow. This is cool. Because as you say, he doesn’t notice. Every time she whacks a camera, he’s kind of into his performance or he’s turned around or he’s twirling or something. And the way that the screens are set up, they can only show, you know, so many cameras at once. And so, when a camera goes out, it’s not like in other movies where the camera goes out and then all we see is fuzz, and somebody notices, hey, camera 3 is out. But it just gets replaced automatically by another feed.   So she’s doing a really smart thing and whacking out all these cameras. Now, she’s not whacking out enough of them, 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  But then none of that ends up going anywhere. Like, I thought for sure that this would turn out in her favor, but the way the rest of the movie plays out, it doesn’t really even seem to matter because it doesn’t really come into play. He doesn’t turn around and notice, hey. Wait a minute. I can’t find her and go back out again. He doesn’t, he doesn’t run to the to the screens and frantically look for her at any point and find where is she? 

Clip:  You know 

Craig:  what I mean? 

Todd:  There’s there’s just nothing, and that’s one of the weaknesses here of this setup. The great thing about it that I thought was really good is that the movie constantly reminds you that there are security cameras all around.   Right. Right.   It seems like there’s no inch you can go. And we’re seeing the security cameras early on, and, of of course, the whole thing is predicated on the fact that he’s monitoring her. And, the incident that incites him to take action happens on a security camera in in the elevator. Yet the problem with the security cameras is there’s only one place you can see them, and that is in the office. So if she’s out running around and he needs to find her, eventually, he can he can watch these cameras, but he’s gonna have to leave there. At which point, she’s going to have moved changed her position. So it seems like this really sinister thing, but, honestly, it doesn’t end up mattering, and it couldn’t end up mattering because of that weakness. So I was a little disappointed too, and that that didn’t end up being as effective as I thought it would be.   And her knocking out those cameras didn’t really make any difference for her in the long run. 

Craig:  Not really. I mean, I I guess it kind of allowed her to get back to the office unnoticed, I guess. But it seems it seems like he knew that she was eventually gonna have to end up there. I don’t know. Yeah. Because he’s gone. This was a trap. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Right. It seem it seems like this is a trap that he has set. And and so as the song ends, she’s sneaking into the office, and the song ends, and she sees that the TV is playing again. Not the security monitors, but the TV he had shown her the other video on. And it’s video from his perspective, like he’s clearly holding a handheld camera, and it’s of her unconscious. And he’s putting that red lipstick on her, and then he’s kind of fondling her breasts, and, it it looks like his hand is maybe kind of going up her skirt, and she takes the accent and and destroys, the, TV because she’s so upset by what she’s seeing. Unfortunately, he his plan worked. She was distracted so that he was able to sneak up behind her and he tases her, and she’s unconscious.   At that moment, the cops arrive and he sees them at the gate. And so he talks to him on the monitor, well, he tases her again to make sure she stays unconscious. Again, not really believable because tasers don’t knock you out, unless they give you a heart attack, in which case you’d be dead. But anyway, she’s, she’s knocked out. He goes down to talk to the police, and they say they received a call, about a disturbance. So apparently, her call had gone through. It bothered me that they were coming through the same gate where she had dropped her phone and they don’t notice that. I mean, I guess if they weren’t paying attention and they pulled over it with the car, then they wouldn’t see it.   But I would think if I were pulling slowly down towards the gate, I would notice a phone on the ground. Yeah. But they don’t. They wanna look around, and, they do. And it it it looks at some they they appear very suspicious, but he’s very calm and just says, Nope. It’s it’s been real quiet. Nothing’s happened here. Meanwhile, we realize, we find out that before he has gone to go to the cops, he has locked her in the BMW.   So we have now looped our way back around to where we began. And the cops drive by the BMW. She tries to, scream from inside it. That’s why, Tom turns on Santa Baby and plays it over the the Todd speakers, the intercom, is to kinda muffle her cries. And the cops, eventually leave. But she gets out as they’re leaving, and she’s running, running, running, trying to get to them before they leave, but she’s just a split second too late. Tom is there putting the gate down, Tom and Rocky both. And so she turns and runs away again, and this time, Tom VIck’s Rocky on her. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And you talk about this scene because it’s too hard for me. 

Todd:  Well, this movie is definitely willing to go places. I will say that the before that, the the cop sequence was really well done. I guess we keep saying this, you know, there are individual sequences in this movie that are really well done. To me, the movie as a whole pieced together, I won’t say I didn’t like it. I guess I would just say that it didn’t hold the interest for me, and maybe I’ve seen too many of these movies. Maybe I’m getting kind of tired of the psychotic guy keeps a woman in peril somewhere, and then she’s trying to get out, and it’s this cat and mouse thing. But then, of course, I pointed out some weaknesses earlier. This the cop sequence that was really great that they showed us the bit of her in the trunk beforehand.   It was more than just a clever way of giving us a jump scare early on in the movie, you know, which which horror films have to do, but it it lets you know she does burst out of this trunk, and you’re just hoping with that knowledge. You’re hoping that she’s gonna do it while the cops are coming by. So it’s a case where being armed with that knowledge really ratchets up the tension in the scene because you know she’s going to escape. You’re just hoping it’s gonna be in time, and as you say, of course, it turns out not to be, and I also like the fact that the cops are not your horror movie cops who just come and take the other guy’s word for it, poke around, and then leave. They really do us a thorough sweep of the place, and they grill him too. And I was really impressed with that and really sad, you know, as a viewer Todd obviously that, that that it worked, you know, that the guy was able to stave them off. They escape. Right.   But here’s another thing which I think is again a weakness, and it’s just a movie trope, really. You sic the dog on the person, and in in an instant that person should be gone. There’s no way you can outrun this dog. No. 

Craig:  No. No way. 

Todd:  But she’s able to run pretty darn far away from this dog. Ends up, breaking her way into the back of a car and diving into the back seat. The dog leaves through the window and no. I I love animals. I love animals, but of course the whole thing I’m thinking this entire time is you gotta get you gotta take this dog out, you’ve gotta take this dog out. I was thinking this in the earlier scene she had with him when the dog was chained, I was going my god woman, the dog is chained to a wall, there’s only so far he can go and you are within reach of so many things right now and you clearly have plenty of time, whack this dog over the head, I know it’s a dog, but the dog is not cute and cuddly. It’s trying to kill you. Right.   And take the opportunity to take out the dog, but she doesn’t then, and this time, she obviously she definitely, has to. And so, she has I guess she still has a screwdriver or something from 

Craig:  It’s a tire iron. She she that’s what she got out of the that’s what she got out of the trunk with. She had used a tire iron to pop the lock out, 

Todd:  and she still has it. That’s right. And she just nails the tie this dog through the head with the tire iron. And I don’t know. Maybe this is even a more brutal no. But it’s it’s a bloodier. Yeah. Blood sprays everywhere, and she kills this dog.   And I know I know, Craig. I mean, the poor dog, it Todd didn’t deserve this. The dog doesn’t know what’s going on. And, you know, anytime you kill dogs is is kind of a sad thing. But I don’t know, man. This wasn’t that hard for me to watch. I wanted that dog to die. 

Craig:  Oh, no. And no. And and she had Todd, and and Yeah. 

Todd:  You know, 

Craig:  again, it wasn’t the dog’s fault. You know, that’s it was doing what it had been trained to do. It’s just violence against animals just bothers me anytime, anywhere. It it it’s just really difficult for me to watch. She had to do it. I probably would’ve done the same thing. It’s just it’s you know, that dog looks just like my dog. Oh.   So, so it it was it was just unsettling. And I was glad that my dog wasn’t in the room because I wouldn’t have want her to see that. 

Todd:  That’s hilarious. 

Craig:  But, anyway, she gets out, and she breaks into this rent a car place, which is down in this garage. He comes and he finds the dog, and he’s saying things like, 

Todd:  Why would you do that? He’s just an animal. Angela, Why would you kill Todd defenseless animal? After all I did for you to help you, this is what I get? You killed my dog. You really started to piss me off.   I mean, he’s 

Craig:  just crazy. Like, he has absolutely no ration no reason, at all. I mean, he’s just crazy. He sees her bloody handprints on the on the door. She’s tried to call 911, but, it was busy. Of course, it’s always busy. Yeah. I 

Todd:  groaned at that. I’m sorry. I totally groaned at that. 911. Please hold. Our lines are busy. Oh, come on. 

Craig:  Right. Right. I don’t know. I mean, the holidays are I guess, crime rates do go up on the holidays. I don’t suppose. 

Todd:  But, you know, she could’ve called anybody. She could’ve called her sister. I mean, there’s there’s some True. Yeah. You know? I don’t know. She had time. She clearly 

Craig:  Well, I don’t know. Maybe she’s like me and doesn’t really know anybody’s numbers. I don’t know anybody’s phone numbers. I just punched their name in my phone. You know? It made a point. Who knows? Anyway, so she actually tricks him, and I thought this was really clever. She’s hiding in something, and it appears that she’s hiding in this cabinet that he has found, and there’s even a little piece of her dress sticking out of it. But when he opens it up, she’s not in there.   What she has done is she’s torn off a little piece of her dress to trick him. And, when she’s not in there, he turns around, she’s right behind him, and she sprays him in the eyes with something. I I don’t know. 

Todd:  I don’t know what it is. 

Craig:  Todd doesn’t really matter. Something aerosol that burns, his eyes. And, she has grabbed keys from this rental car place. She runs out there. She she finds the car. She gets in. She’s driving this car court towards the gate, and I’m like, this is it. She’s gonna make it.   She’s gonna drive the car through the gate, and she’s gonna be out. But right as she gets to the gate, somehow he’s gotten in his car, and he rams her from the side so that she can’t go out. 

Todd:  That was surprising. That that really hits me. 

Craig:  It was surprising. I don’t know if I believe that it could have really happened. I don’t know how he got there faster than her. 

Todd:  There’s no way. And and and now he can see again. I mean, you know, I mean 

Craig:  Right. And maybe we’re supposed to believe that just he happens to get there right at the same time. I don’t know. I I don’t really care. I mean, it it doesn’t bother me. It was it was exciting. Yeah. It was.   But her car is still I mean, he hits her hard, but both of their cars are still operational. So she takes off again. He takes off after her, but somehow he pulls around so he ends up in front of her, and they’re face to face, and it’s this classic game of chicken. And he’s revving his engines, and I love it. At this point, she just goes, let’s effing do this. I love it. And they both start barreling at one another, and she is you know, this is it. You know, this is the end of the road for her.   It’s all or nothing. She does not puss out. He does. And so she goes right by him. And again, I’m thinking this is it. She’s gonna make it. But then she crashes the car and flips the car. And it’s that classic thing where the horn is blaring because her head she’s unconscious with her head down against the horn.   And he goes to the car, opens it up, and starts to try to help her again. And she takes this nail file. Again, she has this because she got it out of the back of the car. I think it’s a nail file or some sort of maybe it’s screwdriver. I don’t remember. And she stabs him in the eyeball with it. And then 

Todd:  They show they show the stabbing close-up, like, 2 or 3 times. Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. So gross. And then so he’s down on the ground in pain and she’s, again, smart, smart girl. She takes her handcuffs and uses her handcuffs to choke him out. So smart. After she’s after he’s he’s not unconscious, but he’s choking and and coughing on the floor. She gets the key off of his belt, uncuffs herself, and cuffs him to the car. And meanwhile, we see that due to the accident, gas is now leaking out, beneath him.   And at this point, I I again, I thought that Wes Bentley did such a good job because he he goes back to his kind, charming self. 

Todd:  I just I just wanted to be friends. 

Clip:  I’m alone. I’m always 

Craig:  alone. I almost felt bad for the guy. Yeah. You know, I almost that this poor guy really is just he doesn’t have anybody. Maybe he doesn’t have anybody because he’s Craig, but I felt bad for him nonetheless. And and it and it looks like she’s just gonna walk away and and leave him there and and get out and probably call the cops, And that’s when he makes the mistake of, again, showing his true colors and calling her a word that no tough girl like this is gonna take laying down. He calls her a stupid effing c Todd. And that just stops her in her tracks And she turns around and she’s got the taser and the gas is coming towards her and she goes, Merry Christmas, Thomas.   And she sets the taser to the gasoline. It erupts in fire. It gets to him and, catches him on fire and he’s screaming. Again, a good performance. I mean, it’s it felt very real. It it it looked like he was in pain. And eventually it blows up. The sprinklers come on, and she walks out, into Christmas morning in New York City.   She’s alone walking down the street. She’s all bloody and she’s barefoot and it’s snowing, and we see the fire trucks coming. It cuts to black and we hear a voice, presumably a fireman saying, ma’am, ma’am, are you okay? And that’s the end of the movie. Yeah. But then we get the credits and normally credits, you know, are nothing to talk about, but I really thought this was really clever. In the first third of the credits, they show all these stills from the movie. It so it looks like snapshots, and that’s how they show them on the screen. It looks like, a photograph.   And they it shows all these scenes that make it look like we have just watched a comedy. 

Clip:  And I just thought that was 

Craig:  I thought it was so clever. I just thought it was such a clever way to end this movie that was really very violent and and suspenseful. I just thought it was a a nice end. I it put a smile on my face at the end. 

Todd:  Yeah. I took them as, like, snapshots that you might take at a family Christmas gathering. Right. You know, I I have to say, I thought this movie was pretty pedestrian. And I don’t know if I had seen it when it came out in 2007 if I would feel the same way. Maybe it’s just that I’ve seen a lot of movies like this, and this movie didn’t feel like it had much more to offer in that regard, except for, like you said, that little bit of setup where he’s got her chained to the table and he’s he’s cooked a dinner for. Again, I’ve seen that in in the loved ones, but again, that came after this movie, so I can’t really hold it too much against it. But I guess I’m just maybe getting tired of these kind of woman in peril because the psychotic guy has has chained her up and and loves her kind of films.   And if I’m gonna see 1, I wanna see one that has a little bit more of a twist to it. And this movie, I don’t know, not only did it not offer much of anything new, but like I said earlier, I felt like she just could it was just one sequence after another, and it almost like a sitcom. You know how a sitcom always has to end by resetting everything back to where you were? Yeah. That’s how this movie felt like none of the sequences really upped the stakes much, after she’s fleeing. None of the sequences really change her situation. It’s like, oh, she got out of that Craig, now she’s gonna be in a new Craig. Now she got out of this scrape, now she’s gonna be in a new Craig. And she never, for a woman who has the determination and the smarts to do what she does at the very end, which is pretty complicated, pretending Todd to to be unconscious, stabbing the guy in the eye, then choking him to the point of death that why she didn’t choke him to death, I don’t know, but maybe she thought he was dead, taking his keys off, unlocking herself, and then locking her to there.   There were so many other times in this movie when she could have done the smart thing that she didn’t. When she goes in and she’s like gonna gonna take him out with the ax and then gets distracted by the screen so much that she blows her cover by smashing it. 

Craig:  True. 

Todd:  The, you know, the whole 911 sequence is nice. It’s really smart that she’s gone to this trouble of putting her dress in the door, but she just maces the guy and doesn’t finish the job. Right. She maces him and runs off, and when she gets escapes from underneath the truck, she there’s just this convenient hole in the wall that she ducks to, so that she can escape for the next sequence. That was disappointing to me. His other movie, I felt like wasn’t really like this, High Tension. I felt and maybe I’m misremembering that movie too, but I felt like High Tension was a film. And again, he did he directed High Tension.   I think he just wrote and produced this movie. Uh-huh. But, yeah. That one held a lot more for me. And by the way, we’re gonna have to do that movie. I don’t think it’s on our list, but we’ve gotta put that on our list. 

Craig:  Yeah. I’ve seen it, but I remember nothing about it. I I don’t remember anything. It’s been so long since I’ve seen it. I understand I understand your complaints about the movie, and I agree with them for the most part, But I like this movie. I don’t love it, but I I actually kinda really like it. And I think that the largest reason for that is because of the performances of the lead actors. I thought that they both did a really good job.   The the Angela, Rachel Nichols, again, I’ve never seen her in anything else, but I thought that she really held her own. And Wes Bentley as Thomas, I just thought his performance was phenomenal, which is ironic because he’s later, said in, interviews that this movie was filmed during a decade in his life where he was severely addicted, Todd, I think it was cocaine and, heroin. Really? And he was really just yeah. He was really just taking roles, taking whatever roles he could get to have money to pay for drugs. And I I wouldn’t have believed that if if if it hadn’t come from his own mouth because he seemed very much in control of his performance. There were a couple of times because I had read that before I watched it again, there were a couple of times that I noticed that he had, like, sweat on his forehead and stuff, but that’s not out of character. 

Todd:  You know? That could usually just 

Craig:  be from the lights or whatever. So the fact that he was able to pull off such a strong performance at such a dark time in his life, I find impressive. And I just liked it. The other thing that I like about it is there’s enough of a Christmas atmosphere for me to really kind of feel like this is a Christmassy movie, and it will be something that I can have at my disposal if I want a Christmas horror movie during this time of year. It I I I would I probably will. I would and will watch this movie again, probably around Christmas time in the future. And like you said, the the cinematography is is good, I think. It’s got a lot going for it.   The things that you mentioned as as being, kind of where it has some, I don’t know, some some downsides. I I agree with, but I think that the good stuff outweighs the bad stuff. 

Todd:  You know, I agree with you about the performances. They are really stellar, and this movie would have been horrible without fantastic performances from them. 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  Really would have been bad. You’re right. This is this is like, this movie is to horror films as Die Hard is to action films. 

Craig:  Right. Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  It’s it’s a Christmas movie, in in all the right tones, even though it it’s not about Santa Claus and people, giving and sharing goodwill with each other. 

Craig:  Well, thank you for joining us for another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. We will be back next week with another Christmas movie, and this one is one of my absolute favorites. I’m so looking forward to it. Next week, we will be talking about Gremlins, which is just a quintessential, Christmas movie in my mind. So, if you’re a fan of that movie, make sure you check-in next week. If you liked this podcast, we have a whole backlog of episodes available. We are on Itunes. We’re on Stitcher.   You can find us on Facebook. Let us know what you thought of this episode. Or if you’ve seen this movie, let us know what you thought, whether you, agreed or disagreed with our assessment. And until next week, I’m Craig 

Todd:  And I’m Todd. 

Craig:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.