2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

Despite being a killer Santa movie with intriguing possibilities, we both felt this 2011 Dutch film squandered its premise on a lousy plot. But we enjoyed dissecting the movie and talking about where it went wrong – starting with some terrible voice acting in the English-dubbed version.

Episode 60, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: And today, of course, we are continuing our 2010 Dutch movie. Sint, also known as Saint. Now, uh, I used to own and operate an independent movie theater, and we were open in 2011, and this movie came out, of course, in 2010, as I just said.

And we, this was one of our offerings, uh, during 2011 Christmastime. During our extreme movie, uh, week. We, we would do extreme movies every, every week. On, uh, I think it was Wednesday nights or Tuesday nights or something like that. And so around Christmastime, it just seemed very appropriate to do this. I was really excited to see, uh, something that looked like a, High budget, killer Santa Claus movie because, again, as we said last week, very little out there, um, that’s good.

You’ve got the Silent Night, Deadly Night series and some really crappy stuff. Um, although I think we enjoyed Krampus that we, uh, that we did last year as well. And I expected this to fall a little bit in line with Krampus. This is the second time I’d seen it, um, so I hadn’t seen it in the last five years.

And I remembered it a little bit better, I think, than I ended up seeing it today. Um, I think Krampus kind of Whomped it. In many ways. Yeah. But, uh, anyway, Craig, had you ever heard of this movie or seen it before? 

Craig: I had not. Um, I may have heard of it because the poster art looked really familiar, um, but I had not seen it before.

This was, uh, my first time around. And, um, This is a foreign film. It was filmed in Amsterdam, and, uh, I was unable to get the, uh, the, the version, uh, that’s subtitled. All I had to go on was, um, the dubs, and so, uh, you and I may have different experience on this based on which version we watched, because I’m assuming you watched the, uh, subtitled version, right?

I did, yes. Yeah, and I would have much preferred to. When it comes to foreign films, foreign language films, um, I typically prefer to read the subtitles, um, because even if I can’t understand what the actors are saying, um, I still like to get a sense of their performance and the way that they’re emoting and, and all that stuff.

And when you have other voice actors dub, uh, English over, The performances a lot of times I think things are not only lost in translation when it comes to the language But some things are lost in translation when it comes to tone and delivery, too So I think you and I may have some differing opinions on this one 

Todd: now So did the dubbing was it good?

I guess is what I’m asking. No 

Craig: No, no, it was actually really really painfully bad Um And I don’t really know how to describe it other than it was just really bad. Like the voices didn’t even match what the characters look like. For example, the movie opens, um, well, first of all, there’s a title card and there’s a quote that said, your parents have told you that he doesn’t exist.

And, you know, I knew what type of movie we were getting into here. So, um, I, you know, I kind of knew what to expect. And it opens up in 1492 AD. Um, on December 5th and we get that, you know, um, on screen and there’s a full moon and a ship and we see what I presume is the original St. Nick on a white horse and he’s got kind of all these goons with him and they’re, um, they’re going through this little village that I assume is, Amsterdam, 1492, um, and uh, they are collecting goods that have been left outside the village doors, and they’re terrorizing the people.

Um, and they leave a list on the church door that says, provide the following on the full moon. Gold, silver, meat, virgins, pigs, fur, uh, wax. And then it’s signed, Nicholas. Um, and so they raid this town, but then the townspeople get angry and revolt. And they come, the townspeople come to where the ship is docked, Uh, and they kill all the guards, and they burn the ship, and we see Nicholas burning as well.

And then it jumps to 1968 again on December 5th. And, um, we’re in what appears to be a farmhouse and there are kids singing and there’s a St. Nick commercial on TV. Um, but we also, as the mother is putting away things in the kitchen, we see kind of a scary burned, charred face looking at her from behind the pantry.

The oldest boy is sent out to take care of the pigs. And this was the first time, you know, this is a little boy. I would guess he was probably. Um, but the voice actor had this really, really deep manly voice like they didn’t even bother to go with a child’s voice. And it shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it’s something that just really pulls you out.

And. And it was like that consistently throughout. Later on in the movie, there is, um, this like police goon. I never really understood who he was supposed to be, but he’s this big hulking man. Um, and his voice, it almost sounded like they had just recorded some, um, normal guy’s voice. And then they had tried to using technology, make it lower and deeper.

And, and it sounds almost like they just kind of slowed the track down a little bit to try to get a difference in pitch. And it, it just was really strange. It created this really weird effect. And, um, and, and just even beyond that, all of the characters, it wasn’t good voice acting. You know, I don’t even know if I believe that these voice actors, if English was their first language, I mean, it didn’t really seem like it.

So, um, I don’t know. So that, that pulled me out. Anyway, in that scene, um, we basically see this house, uh, terrorized by what I guess now is the spirit of Nicholas and his, um, little cronies, um, and, and, and the kids are, are pulled up the chimney. The dad is attacked, you know, with some, um, I don’t remember. He stabbed through the head, I think with something.

And, um, because the boy is outside, he does not experience all the carnage, but he sees St. Nick and the elves or whatever they are on the roof. And when he goes into the house, he sees all the carnage and his dying mom with her eyes and tongue cut out, um, scare him. Uh, and then we cut to. Present day, uh, Amsterdam.

And that’s where the, the, the plot of the movie basically picks up. Uh, but you know, I didn’t like this movie because I, I just felt like they laid out what the premise was. And then there just really wasn’t much more to it. Like, okay, here’s the premise. We’ve got an evil St. Nick. He shows up every, I don’t know what they said, like every 32 years or something.

Every time there’s a full moon on December the 5th and he terrorizes the town and kills a bunch of people and takes, um, naughty children and, and puts them on his ship and takes them back to Spain. And they’re never heard from again. And, And then we just see that happen. Like, there aren’t really any plot twists.

There’s not really, I thought, I hated All of the characters, like they were all super obnoxious and they had no endearing qualities, whatever. And, uh, so I don’t know. I mean, I watched the whole thing and, you know, I already talked, I kind of skimmed over it and you may want to go back and talk about it in more detail, but like that first, um, attack scene at the farmhouse, um, it’s violent and, and bloody, and I thought that the whole movie was well filmed and it looked good.

I just didn’t, I just didn’t, I don’t, I didn’t like the characters, I didn’t like the story. Um, so, what are your thoughts? 

Todd: I, I would have to agree with you. I, I would say hate. Um, but I agree that I feel like they really squandered, uh, what was a great setup. You have to understand the Dutch, uh, tradition of Saint Nicholas.

It’s a little different from ours. Uh, it looks, um, it’s, it’s Saint Nicholas was a bishop at one time. It’s, And he comes back on Chris on around this time of year. And the kids also leave things out for him as well. Just like we would leave milk and cookies out for St. Nick. And I think traditionally they would leave their wooden shoes out the door and then Santa would fill the shoes with goodies and treats and things, which must be maybe a little bit where our stocking tradition comes from.

There’s also the coming down the chimney thing, but Santa has a helper named Zuarte Pete. And Zwarte Piet is unfortunately like a, um, African, it’s an African pygmy. And, you know, this wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, except, What they do then over there is dress up in blackface as Zwarte P. So you, the Dutch tradition of Santa Claus anyway is mired in this uncomfortable, for to modern day audiences, it’s uncomfortable sense of things.

And so when I first saw this and Zwarte P character first came in, I was like, what in the world, why are these people dressing up in blackface? This is really strange. Um, until I went out and researched and learned a little bit more about it. So. I like the idea that the, there’s a, that Santa Claus isn’t always murderous.

This isn’t like a murderous Santa Claus, a guy who dresses up as Santa Claus and kills people. This is actually Santa Claus. This isn’t Krampus, which is a creature that exists alongside and parallel with Santa Claus. But this is this idea that this murderous Bishop Saint comes back every 32 years. And so Santa Claus is not nice for those, It’s a little unrealistic that that would happen every 32 years and they would just completely cover it up every time and that’s what the movie basically presents to you.

And I guess this murderous bishop doesn’t come to every place, it just comes to Amsterdam, it just comes to the city, uh, where he was dispatched, apparently. And then, the way that they have Zwarte Piet incorporated into the legend is that when the saint and all of his cronies, which almost are like pirates in a way, are all burned up on their ship back in 1492 by the villagers, they all come back black and charred.

And so, it’s an interesting twist on the Dutch legend and gives a nice little, lays out nice little reasons for everything. Yeah. So you’ve got a neat setup, I think. And then, as you said, really poor execution. Because, you’re right, it just doesn’t work. Plays it out, and there isn’t even much tension. There isn’t even a lot of The scenes where we do get gore and the scenes where we do have killings and things are pretty intense themselves But there aren’t many of them right?

Right. Right. There’s a chase sequence in here that’s kind of half assed, I would say. I mean, there’s a chase that goes on, but he kind of gets away because he’s Supernatural Santa. And the way that it ends is that, well, you know, they haven’t really dispatched him. Uh, they think they have, but apparently they haven’t, which leaves all kinds of questions.

I guess we’ll get to that as well, but You’re right. I feel the same way. I feel like it’s a movie with a great setup, a great potential, and it just totally got squandered on this very pedestrian kind of plot. And the acting, I’ll tell you from my, from my perspective, the acting wasn’t, wasn’t horrible.

Again, when you’re watching foreign films, you have to make adjustments in your mind, like, well, is this just that style of acting? Like, you, man, you watch a Japanese movie or you watch a Chinese movie, you gotta get used to hammy. Acting and overblown stuff for a lot of modern day films at least and uh, this movie Maybe there was a little bit of that But they came across more or less as realistic and I’ll tell you the voice of that one guy you were talking about the older beefier Yeah, yeah.

Who seems to get pulled in like a, like a hitman for some things or whatever. Um, he sounded very similar to what you described as well. 

Clip: Problems? Can you find Goert Hoekstra? Goert? Is he with Wenegang? I, um, would like to speak to him. Doesn’t seem like a problem. And be a little, uh, 

Todd: discreet. So. I don’t know if that is actually the actor’s voice, or they changed it for us too, or maybe they had the original actor with that really distinct voice go through and dub things in English as well, and that’s what you heard.

But yeah, that was, that was a little jarring as well. Very strange voice that guy had, if that is indeed his voice and not some modified thing. 

Craig: Yeah, I mean, like you said, it squanders opportunity and in comparison, you know, there are good Evil Santa movies and there are bad ones. Um, and there’s a place for both.

I mean, we talk about this all the time. You know, there’s times when you want to kind of goof on a movie and, you know, you don’t want to have to think too hard, but At least in the good ones, like, you know, we reviewed, uh, Krampus and, um, we also did Rare Exports, Rare Imports, whatever, yeah, and, and in both of those, I, I liked them both very much, and in both of those, you had characters to root for, you had characters that you cared about, and, and you cared about the fact that they were in peril, and here, you don’t, there, there is nobody like that, there’s nobody to root for, I mean, everybody’s pretty terrible.

Um, when we, when we jumped to present day, it opens up in this high school class where apparently they’re doing some kind of secret Santa tradition. And I understand that, um, I’ve been to Amsterdam and their sensibilities are very different there. You know, they’ve got prostitutes in the windows on the street and, and, you know, they’re, they’re very, um, liberal, let’s say.

And, but, you know, I teach high school too, and this high school class, they’re doing Secret Santa, and they’re like, giving, and like, they get up in front of the class, and like, read a poem that their Secret Santa has written for them, in preparation for opening the gift, and then they open the gift in front of everybody, and the first girl who we see, she reads this, this poem, that at least the English translation was, was, overtly sexual.

Um, and then her, her gift was this giant purple dildo. And like everybody laughs, ha ha. That’s so funny. And the teacher makes a joke. He’s like, Oh, six dildos that year. That’s one up from last year and everybody cheers. And, um, I don’t know. I’m just like, is that real? Is that, is that how things are in Amsterdam?

Is this supposed to be comedy? Because if it is, it’s not really, Landing, right? And again, maybe that’s something that’s lost in translation. I don’t know. And then the next person who, um, gets up in front of the room is this guy. He gets called up. There’s a, there’s a gift for him and his name’s Frank. Um, and his box, it talks about how your, his poem talks about like how he cheated on his girlfriend or whatever.

And that’s why he’s getting this gift. And it, it ends up just being a bunch of his stuff. Like his girlfriend, um, Sophie, who’s also in the class. Is, is dumping him in front of everybody and returning all of his stuff and, and all that kind of stuff. Um, and, and so he’s, we get the idea that maybe he’s kind of the main character.

But then school gets out and Sophie starts walking home, um, with a couple of friends. Uh, one of them, Sophie seems like she’s kind of the wild girl. She’s got, she’s really pretty. She’s got this red curly hair. Um, and she’s talking to her friends. One of whom is Lisa, who seems to be kind of the goody goody friend.

Um, and, and she, these three girls are talking about how Sophie doesn’t really care that she and Frank broke up because she’s been cheating on him too for the past couple months. And like, it’s just all really off putting. Like, these characters are presenting themselves and you’re like, These are all pretty terrible people.

Like, Am I supposed to like these people? Cause I don’t. Sophie says to Lisa, do you want to come over tonight? I have to watch my little brother. And, um, the girl’s kind of like, nah, you know, I’ve got to celebrate with my sister. And, uh, Sophie says, well, careful who you open your door for tonight. It might be the evil St.

Nicholas. And she kind of gives us again, this story of how he comes every so many years on the full moon or, or whatever. And so Lisa starts walking off and something falls from the roof of the house. As she’s walking and she looks up and just catches a glimpse of somebody pulling away. Now we know that this is this Pete character, which by the way, in the English dub, they, they call him black Pete, which, which is also, you know, it’s, it’s kind of like, it compares in my mind to people in the South who still, you know, put up lawn jockeys or have like mammy dolls or confederate flags.

You know, there, there’s some of us. Find that to be distasteful. I find that to be distasteful But but but it’s tradition and and some people cling to tradition no matter How bad that tradition might be so I get it, but it does make me um, uncomfortable And then okay, so i’m thinking lisa’s the good girl.

She’s the nice girl, but as she’s walking home Frank jumps out and scares her and we find out that the girl that frank has been cheating with is this girl So even the nice Sweet character is a slut Who’s sleeping with her her best friend’s boyfriend and and so there’s just nobody to root for and So I don’t care, you know I’m almost I’m almost waiting for them to start getting picked off and I kind of wish that it would have happened sooner 

Todd: Yeah, I guess the the kinder way of saying it is they’re a very sexually liberal group.

Craig: I Guess so and see again, like I said, maybe that’s Maybe I’m just a prudish American. Maybe that’s, maybe that wouldn’t strike them as being scandalous or anything out of the ordinary. I, I really just don’t know, but it was off putting to me. 

Todd: Yeah, no, I agree with you. It’s very strange. Now, quick question.

In your version, then, was, could you confirm that they were in high school? Because I always assumed they were in college. 

Craig: I don’t know. It could have been college, I suppose, but they all still live with their parents. Well, that’s true. Right? Yeah, that’s good. Again, you know, university is different in Europe than it is here.

So I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, they don’t as as is always the case. They don’t look like high school kids. They look like college kids, but I kind of got the sense that they were maybe like high school seniors. I really don’t know. 

Todd: That’s true, that’s true. It could be, it could be. Either way, you’re right, it is a little off putting, uh, the characters, the way they’re drawn.

And, you’re right, that’s the thing, that’s a problem with all the characters throughout this movie. There’s really, the ones that you even get to know, uh, you don’t really sympathize all that much with or care that much about. No, I completely agree with you there. Um, and then we get to Gert, and Gert is the kid who had been out feeding the pigs while his family got slaughtered, who is now, like, 40 something, or so, and he’s an edgy cop, and he’s getting pulled into the office by his superior, the chief inspector.

And basically said, dude, you need to chill out. You need to take a break about all of this deadly Santa stuff. You’re scaring everybody. And, uh, and he has a report like a big thick report on his desk that Gert has given him that is his whole expose on this deadly Santa and Gert is basically trying to encourage him to take all these measures to protect everybody this year, because it’s going to be a full moon.

Gert knows from personal experience that that means that murderous Santa is coming. And so, he says, you’re gonna have to take a break, I’m putting you on leave for, like, a month or two. And go out and enjoy the holidays. Gert gets angry and storms off. So, so we get that little bit, which sets that aspect up, and then we jump immediately to a boat.

And there’s a boat patrol, kind of like the Coast Guard, I guess, out in the bay, or I shouldn’t say bay, but yeah, basically out there in the water. And, uh, they see on the radar, uh, some blip coming in and they’re surprised because it’s extremely foggy. There shouldn’t be other ships out here, especially not one this big coming in so fast and boom, this giant, we see just.

The giant bulk of a ship kind of tear through them and then that’s the end of that scene 

Craig: It was a good scare though. I have to say that I jumped when when the ship, uh came so quickly out of the fog And just you know obliterated the other ship

And that’s the thing. I mean, there are a few good scares. And like you said, I think you said some of the effects are good. I mean, it’s, it’s a lot of CGI. Um, I tend to prefer practical effects, but it’s not terrible CGI. It’s not great, but it’s not terrible. Um, and it is, you know, it’s, it’s bloody and, and, and violent.

And so if you like that in your horror movies, there’s at least that. 

Todd: Well, and as you said, this is a well made film. I mean, it clearly has some dollars behind it, uh, especially for a Dutch film, apparently. Uh, but, and, and, yeah, so it, it really has all of the appearance of a really high quality production that just doesn’t come through in the script and the characters.

Um, Gert goes out on patrol. He’s just gonna drive around the neighborhood looking for the Santa to see if he can stop him. Um, Sophie is at home building a fire. She has a brother, Timothy, who is, uh, super nervous, who’s in bed, who’s worried about the, the Santa legend. And she tries to set him at ease. And then she goes back down, she gets on the phone, I think she gets back on the phone with, is it with Lisa?

Right? 

Craig: Yeah, uh huh. 

Todd: Yeah. And, uh, there’s on the roof. Timothy thought he heard something on the roof and that’s kind of why he was nervous instead of excited. And uh, then she sees, you know, stuff kind of falling down the chimney a little bit, the fire’s out. And so she pokes her head up around there and then on Lisa’s end of the line we hear a scream.

And Lisa, who must live just down the street, uh, runs right on over. And discovers her dead, uh, she has, basically her body is hanging in the chimney upside down. Which seems to be a thing, right? I mean, haven’t we seen that body hanging upside down in the chimney an awful lot? And not just in Santa movies.

Like, how do you even do that, right? How do you I mean You’ve gotta I guess a chimney always gets a little narrower, so there’s a way to shove somebody up there, but then you’ve gotta shove them up sorta halfway so that they’re still kinda hanging, but not touching the ground, and it just seems like a lot of work.

Like a lot of effort. Ha ha ha 

Craig: ha ha! Yeah, yeah. And, uh, I don’t know. And, and the fact that, you know, they just left, why all of a sudden are they interested in concealing the bodies? I guess just so there can be a nice jump scare for us when she, when, when Lisa looks in there and she falls down. Um, I don’t know.

It didn’t bother me. It was fine. But like you said, it was really typical. You know, there was nothing, nothing creative or unique, um, about it. And, and that, that It’s kind of disappointing. Meanwhile, Frank and a couple of his friends are going to, at first, I thought that he worked like as a mall Santa or something, but that’s not the case.

I don’t think, I think, um, that he and his friends just have a tradition of going to a party. Um, at some point, I think he said it was at a sorority house and he dresses up as St. Nick and his friends dress up as Black Pete’s and he’s all excited because, you know, all these drunk girls are going to be sitting on his lap all night, goofy.

stuff. Um, but they get lost. Their GPS gets them lost somehow and they end up just kind of stranded. They don’t know where they are. I mean, this all takes place in the city. Um, so they’re on well lit streets and whatnot, but one of the black Pete’s has to, uh, take a piss. So he, um, gets out of the car and is like peeing on the side of the street.

And he looks over and sees St. Nick. The evil dead Saint Nick, um, but he’s kind of off in the shadows, uh, a ways off and he’s on a horse. And, um, so the guy who’s peeing waves at him and, um, you know, just thinks he’s a fellow reveler. Um, and then he says, next year, next year, you need to get a couple of black Pete’s.

Um, and he kind of goes back to his business, uh, and then he looks back again and he’s surrounded by these evil black Pete’s. And, um, yeah. I don’t remember if we see him get killed or not, but then Frank and the other friend are in the car. The other friend leans his head out to holler at the guy who hasn’t come back yet.

And he gets like a sickle through the head and gets pulled out. Um, 

Todd: I thought that was cool. 

Craig: Yeah, I did too. I liked this whole scene actually. I mean, there was some, there was some. It was short, unfortunately, but, um, Frank, uh, gets out, not knowing, understanding what’s happening, and all these black peeps start attacking him, and he kind of fights back, and he offs a few of them.

Eventually he’s able to get back in the car and, and, and drives away unscathed, but he gets stopped by the police, who arrest him. him because apparently, um, of course, Lisa and her parents reported the murder of Sophie. And because Sophie had publicly broken up with Frank in school that day, he’s a subject, uh, a suspect.

Um, so they take him in, uh, for, for questioning. 

Todd: It’s worth mentioning. I’m not sure if we said this or not, but, uh, St. Nick is on a horse. Uh, that is, yeah, his thing, and he has this bishop’s staff, so what he gets through the mouth is this evil, it’s, it, Saint Nick would have this bishop’s staff that comes up and just kind of curls around at the top, and this one is much sharper.

It’s almost an icon for the movie actually, I think it’s in the postcard, and it’s in the beginning. It, it, this one curls around, it comes around almost like a sickle, kind of like a knifey sharp. And that’s what pops out through this guy’s mouth, and what he uses, um, to lop heads off of people and stuff like that.

So, yeah, so, uh, they’re trying to link Frank to, uh, Sophie’s murder. In the meantime, the captain, or the chief inspector, calls for this guy that you mentioned earlier, Van Dyke, I think is his name, uh, to find Gert, because he’s starting to have second thoughts. Maybe Gert has something to do with this in some way.

Now, how did he piece that together? Was there something St. Nicholas y about this whole deal? Or was it just because murder, more and more murders were starting to happen that night that we were just kind of hearing about in the background? 

Craig: This is a hole in the script as far as I’m concerned. Um, and again, I, I apologize if there are any of you out there who don’t like us to spoil the ending before we get there.

But, um, as it turns out, the chief of police knows all about this. He and, and the superintendent, the, the, they call them the mayor in the, um, in the English dub, but I don’t think that’s really an appropriate translation. But anyway, the, the government officials, they know, they know about this whole Saint Nick thing and they know that he comes when the moon is full and that he kills people and they’ve been working to cover it up.

So it doesn’t make any sense, really, that. I don’t know. I, I, I, I can’t imagine why he is looking for this guy now or, or sending for him now. It doesn’t make any sense. The, the guy, uh, Gert had given his boss like this whole book of research that he had done, you know, chronicling the history of this and showing it to be true.

And when the guy gets the book, he kind of looks through it and it’s like, he’s looking through it disbelievingly. And so it doesn’t make any sense that he, We find out at the end, he really knows. I don’t know why, um, he’s looking for him. I guess to get him back in the movie. I 

Todd: don’t know. Now, you got the, I, you got the sense that he really knew.

I, I got the sense at the end that the mayor was telling him for the first time. That the mayor knew, but that he didn’t. 

Craig: Well, okay, I guess that could be true. I, I really did get the sense that he knew. But, um, that, that could be. That could be. I don’t know. I don’t know. 

Todd: That’s a 

Craig: good question. Well, there’s also, and again, you know, I don’t know, I, the scriptures isn’t very strong.

You know, there’s a scene, I can’t say it’s unrelated, you know, cause it’s, it’s more St. Nick doing his thing, but there’s a scene in a children’s hospital where the black Pete’s and St. Nick show up and, um, we don’t really see any carnage with the kids. We just see the door of their ward open up and of course all their beds are just all lined up in this long ward.

And they, they look, it’s St. Nick’s kind of. He’s lit from behind, so it’s just silhouette, and we see these kids, when they see him, they sit up in their beds, and they’ve all got these big smiles on their face, which then, when he steps forward, turn to fear, and they, like, hide. We don’t see what happens to them.

At the end of the movie, when the government’s trying to cover everything up, uh, we see that they’re reporting that there was a fire in the children’s ward, and it was so intense that they’re not even going to be able to identify the bodies. Um, so there’s that little scene. And then, somehow, I guess they’re going to be transporting Um, Frank to jail away from the police station and to jail and these two cops are driving and he’s in the backseat, um, handcuffed.

Um, so they hear on the radio that there is this chase happening right now nearby where they are and it’s a guy, uh, in a St. Nick. costume on a horse and they jokingly say something like, Oh, I suppose you’re going to tell me it’s not on the street. And the dispatcher is like, yep. And then this is that chase scene that you were talking about where it just doesn’t, I don’t know, like it doesn’t seem.

chronological. It’s just not very good writing. You know, why is Saint Nick all of a sudden being pursued? I guess they just saw him riding around on the roofs and now they’re chasing him. Um, but I guess, I mean, it’s a kind of cool sequence where this scary guy on the horse is riding this horse furiously over all these rooftops and it’s jumping across the street from roof to roof.

And the cops that have Frank get in on the chase. And they’re chasing, uh, the, the guy and, um, one of them rolls down as the guy in the passenger seat rolls down his window and gets up, uh, sitting on in, in the window with his gun. And the other guy’s like, wait a second, what are you doing? And he’s like, I’m going to shoot him.

And the guy’s like, but it’s St. Nick, which I thought was kind of funny. Um, so he’s shooting at him and he doesn’t, He doesn’t hit St. Nick, but he hits his horse in the neck, um, and the horse, this was so bizarre to me, the horse like falls through a skylight or something, with St. Nick on it, and into this apartment of what appear to be these two gay guys who are celebrating the holiday together, and one of them’s like, I thought we weren’t going to celebrate St.

Nick this year. Like, It’s just so goofy. And then I didn’t understand how this happened at all. But like, I guess the weight of the horse and St. Nick caved in their floor and they fall through, but somehow they land exactly on the cop car that’s outside. I don’t know. I, I have no idea how that happened. I, I, I just, like, I’m at a loss.

I, I, it’s just bizarre. 

Todd: Yeah. I didn’t get that either. You’re right. It’s all a little nebulous here. And of course the cops are the only ones on the street at this point. It seems like, uh, the chase should be really great and should be really fun, but it just all ends in a fizzle as St. Nick gets up, uh, back on his horse.

And as he is approaching. Well, I guess the only person alive now is Frank, who’s crawled out of the back of this car. He apparently didn’t get crushed, and uh, he’s, it looks like it’s the end for Frank until Plruhhh! A guy with a flamethrower shows up behind him, and uh, that turns out to be Gert, and the flames chase Saint Nick away.

And we realize, of course, it makes a lot of sense that you know, Saint Nick, if you can’t kill him with anything else, apparently flames are still his So, uh, that’s where Gert comes back in. And now it becomes a Gert and Frank thing. And Frank, uh, helps Gert with his boat. For, Gert is, is getting to his boat.

And, uh, Gert has, tells Frank that he knows how to lift the curse. Out of all of his research, he’s learned that if you blow up the boat that’s docked off into the, in the dock, then you can lift the curse. Uh, lift the curse, I guess, destroy Saint Nick and all of his followers once and for all. So, then it kind of becomes them.

Uh, it becomes them trying to get to the boat, and then them getting on the boat, them fixing the engine of the boat, Gert showing him the explosives, and there’s kind of a funny line in there about, uh, I actually kind of like that line about the detonator, which was, uh, he, what did he say? He said something about it was made in Chi uh, He said, don’t tell me this is made in China.

He says, no, it’s made. Don’t tell me the, the detonators made in China. He says, no, the. The detonator’s made in Taiwan. The explosions are made in China. Yeah. Which I guess is a dig on things that are made in China. I don’t know. It’s kind of a cheap shot. I guess. It’s kind of a cheap shot. But yeah, anyway, they get caught by the Coast Guard while they’re out there.

And so the Coast Guard’s got them on the boat and they’re not listening to them. And sure enough, they run across the big, uh, scary, evil pirate boat and, uh, get slaughtered there. But Frank, uh, manages to set the detonator while Gert dies. I guess they’re back on land at that point? I don’t know. 

Craig: Yeah. You know, I’m glad that you covered that part because I probably would have gone into too much detail and it’s not necessary because it just really felt like they were trying to stretch at this point.

Um, it, it felt like filler, like, okay, we found the boat. Oh, now we have to get killed by, or we have to get caught by the cops. Oh, okay. Well, now the cops have to get killed and we get away again. And then we get to shore and we’re setting up the bomb and we get caught by the cops again. And then the black Pete’s show up again and kill the cops again.

And I mean, it’s just. It’s it’s repetitive. There’s nothing new. Um, eventually you’re right. They’re back on the shore. Kurt is trying to set up somehow to get the boat off the shore and back to, um, the pirate ship before, uh, the detonator goes off. And this scene, God, it just bothers me. I hate timers. in movies.

I hate timers in movies because they’re never accurate. No, right. Like we look at the timer and he looks at the timer and we see that he’s got two minutes until it detonates. And then he goes and does all of these things that probably would have taken a good 10, 15 minutes. Like there’s no way that you got this whole bomb rigged up.

Like he has to carry like this whole big Um, one of those huge metal containers of gasoline, like he has to unload that from somewhere, carry it, get it set up on the boat, like, it’s, it’s just ridiculous. And like I said, then once he’s got it all set up, ready to go, um, the cops show up, but then Black Pete and, uh, the St.

Nick show up again, they, all the cops again get killed, but Frank doesn’t, and right before St. Nick is about to find Frank and expose him, he’s able to light. And again, I just thought that this was really dumb. Like he, all he has is the, the, the container of gasoline laying on its side with, a hole in it, like the opening, and he just lights that and we’re supposed to believe that that then acts as a jet that accurately propels this boat 300 yards out into the ocean and hits the ship.

And it explodes big, big stretch there, but I guess it appears to work because St. Nick and the black Pete’s all take off. Gert’s plan had been, this has to happen at a specific time. It has to happen exactly at midnight because that is when they will have reboarded the ship and they will all be on it and we’ll blow it up.

Well, that didn’t happen. They, you know, we saw them like, and another thing that was problematic with this for me is they, they know that these guys have stolen a bunch of kids. In fact, when they’re up close to the boat, they can hear the kids inside, but They just blow them all up. Like, okay, congratulations, you saved the day, you blew up all the kids.

Like, good job, hero. And then, uh, it’s, it’s the next day. Um, well, the, the goon, whatever you said his name, the big guy shows up and delivers this line that I thought was supposed to be clever. Is St. Nicholas Eve is nice, but you always get junk you don’t really need. Like, ugh. Really, one liners are just not going to do it for me at this point in this movie.

And then we cut to the next day where the police chief’s meeting with the mayor and he’s like debriefing him saying 300 have been killed and the mayor’s like, well, we can’t let them know that it’s that many. We’ve got to cover it up. And that’s when we see all the fake news stories that are covering up the disappearances.

They blamed a lot of the murders on Gert. Um, there was the, the fire at the children’s hospital. They explained that away. And, um, you know, it appears that. Amsterdam is just fooled and is gonna be pleased to go on their merry way. And the mayor says something like, There will be a day when this will come to an end, but I doubt we’ll see it in our lifetime.

And then it cuts to a hospital, um, where Frank is in the hospital, and the big goon visits him, and I thought for sure that he was there to kill him. Like tying up loose ends. And, and frankly, that would have made more sense. Um, but instead he gives him a check for like 50, 000 euros, I guess, as hush money.

And, and Frank takes it. Um, and then there’s a little jump scare where a black Pete attacks Frank, but it ends up being a nightmare. And it’s actually Lisa. And they kind of, you know, chit chat. And then for no apparent reason, she’s like, I got you a present. I’ll do the unwrapping. She takes his package. She takes her top off and straddles him

And then the camera pulls out of the hospital room and kind of scans around, uh, Amsterdam. And, and it starts to zoom in on this really tall cathedral and it, it goes all the way up to the very top spire. Um, and we see St. Nick just standing atop, uh, the cathedral. Um, and, and that’s where it ends. And it, it, it, it’s just so unsatisfying because like you said, from the very beginning, they don’t win.

Really. Yeah. I mean. All they succeeded in doing was blowing up the boat. Well, does that mean that St. Nick is just going to be hanging around all the time now? Is he going to, is he going to be like quasi moto ing it up in that cathedral for the next 32 years? Um, I don’t know. It was, I was just really, uh, disappointed overall because like you said, the.

The filmmaking itself, the technical, the technical aspect of the filmmaking is not bad at all. Um, and apparently this director is, is, uh, kind of a big deal, um, uh, over in his part of the world. Um, and so I just expected better quality, but I just didn’t, I, I just didn’t. I just didn’t like it. I just didn’t like the story.

I didn’t like the characters. Um, it was, it was a letdown. 

Todd: Yeah, I completely agree with you. And like you said earlier too, everybody dies, but really who cares? I mean, you don’t really like the characters who get it. And then what you’re seeing is people who you meet for about two minutes and then they get it too.

And they’re just your policemen, your SWAT team. Uh, the woman at the hospital was maybe the closest that they came to. trying to drum up a little bit of sympathy for this gal before she dies. There were these nice elements in there where they were always smelling burning before it happened, but after a while again, it stops being suspenseful and you really just don’t care.

Um, right. You know, and it’s a shame 

Craig: and it almost gets, it’s like they, they, they like, we don’t get it. Like they keep saying, Oh, I think. I feel like I smell smoke. Okay, we get it. You smell smoke when he’s going to show up. They, like the characters say it every single time. Yeah, we get it. They smell like smoke.

I got it. 

Todd: Yeah. And I liked, I like being able to peer into another culture’s Christmas celebrations through this kind of window. It’s neat in a way for me, the puzzle became to kind of put together, um, this, what the actual Dutch traditions are through the lens of this movie, which is skewering them a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. But. You’re right, it just doesn’t have a lot going for it otherwise, and that’s really a shame. You’re right, this director is apparently a big deal over there. He released a movie that was one of those where the box art had always intrigued me when I was growing up. Sometime in the early 80s called The Lift, and it has a, it has a, an image.

I don’t know if you’ve seen this one, Craig, but it’s, it’s a picture of a guy who’s got his head stuck in an elevator, and his hands are like he’s trying to open it, and the elevator’s glowing from inside, and it’s a real dramatic angle, and it’s just called The Lift. And this, the, the, the byline at the bottom is, Take the stairs.

Take the stairs. For God’s sake, take the stairs. 

Clip: Oh, that’s 

Todd: funny. No, I haven’t seen it. I don’t even remember that box art. I have always wanted to see that movie. Ha ha ha ha! Just from the box art and the idea, uh, and, and this guy directed that movie. So, and then that was back in the early 80s. And apparently he did an update to The Lift called The Box Art.

The shaft, which, which was done, which was done in, uh, I think the nineties or, or maybe even in the 2000 early, early aughts or whatnot. Maybe that’s something that I’m going to put on the list just because I’m curious to see if everything this director has done is kind of like this. 

Craig: I, me too. I am. I would be interested in seeing, because I don’t know, unless their sensibilities are just so different than ours, that this is what they view as being quality.

Um, there’s gotta be something. I mean, if, if he’s had this so much success, there’s gotta be something I would like, um, maybe not for a little while, but, uh, to, to watch another one of his films. Um, You know, as is often the case with, uh, foreign movies, it was kind of difficult for me to find any additional information other than, um, you know, just the technical aspects of who directed it and whatnot.

I, I, I didn’t find much interesting trivia. The only, um, thing that I did find interesting, you know, you and I are big fans of, um, poster art and, and, and, um, box art and, um, this, this movie, the, the, the film poster, It’s fairly simple, but really effective. It’s just, it’s, it’s this, it’s Saint Nick, the scary Saint Nick on the cover with his staff, um, with a dark sky behind him.

And I guess, much like what happened here with Silent Night, Deadly Night, there was kind of public outcry because, um, you know, these posters were displayed publicly, and people were afraid that it would be upsetting to children. You know, the director, uh, Addressed it publicly and, um, as it turned out, the controversy ended up stirring up a lot of publicity for the movie and arguably made it perform, um, better than it might have.

Um, which again, was also the case with Silent Night, Deadly Night. If it hadn’t been for the outcry from the public, that movie probably would have flown completely under the radar. Um, and we wouldn’t probably still be talking about it today, but, um, so I guess this movie kind of has its own, uh, little, Following as well.

Todd: Now, now you and I would still be talking about it today.

We find, we find, we go into the bowels of, uh, of film history here to find the, the, the hidden gems or not so gems as they were. Well, it’s a shame because the world needs another good, uh, quality killer St. Nick story. Something that isn’t just a guy dressed up as St. Nick doing the killing. And this one definitely falls pretty far, uh, short of.

Craig: Yeah. And I, I recently would just the day after Thanksgiving, um, rewatched Krampus. And so if you’re looking for a good, uh, evil Santa movie, I would recommend that one. Or like I mentioned before, uh, rare exports, uh, I also really liked. Um, so there are, if you want to see one, there are good ones out there.

If you’re looking for a bad one, You found it.

Todd: Well, that’s it for today. Thank you so much for listening. Uh, if you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes and on Stitcher and also on social media. We have a Facebook page out there and a Google plus page that is fairly active. Please write a comment there. Let us know what you thought of this film and any film you’d like us to watch in the future.

Until that time I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We kick off the 2016 holiday season with the 5th installment of the infamous killer Santa horror saga. Only this one doesn’t really contain a killer Santa. What it DOES have is something far more bizarre, and an ending that is well worth the (admittedly low) price of admission. It also has Mickey Rooney. Happy Holidays!

Episode 59, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: This kicks off our Christmas season of, podcasts. We are going to try to do 4 very Christmassy horror movies, over this month. You know, the longer we do this podcast, Craig, the more difficult it’s gonna be to find holiday horror movies, I think. The Pickens? 

Craig:  I was thinking the same thing, but I was thinking the same thing, but when I was looking around, there, you know, there are quite a few of them out there. I think we may run out of our favorites pretty soon, but, there’s still stuff to choose from. 

Todd:  Yeah. I guess that’s kinda what I was saying was, like, the pickings are slim as far as quality goes. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  I mean, you got that whole Die Hard thing where, well, this one takes place at Christmas time, so maybe we can justify that one. Otherwise, likely, the directly Christmas themed ones seem to be getting worse and worse now. 

Craig:  Yeah. That’s true. 

Todd:  This one might fall into that category. Although it it to be fair, is, is it a long line of, well, it’s part of it’s part of a series. We chose Silent Night, Deadly Night 5, the toymaker. And, I picked this one, and I I decided we should just jump straight to 5 because this one Todd me seemed the most interesting when I was reading, a lot of the information online as far as, the plot and whatnot. This one stars Andy Rooney, and it deals with toys. 

Craig:  Hold on, bro. It’s Mickey Rooney, isn’t it? 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You’re right. You’re right. This one stars Mickey yeah. What? Andy Rooney’s what? 60 minutes? Yeah. They’re both dead anyway.   Does it matter? Yeah. This one stars Mickey Rooney in, poor Mickey Rooney, by this point, has to be in Silent Night, deadly night 5, the toymaker. But at least he’s still working and doing stuff. And, it deals with toys, which is a Christmassy kind of thing. Aside from that, I was really sad to see that there wasn’t a lot of Christmas theming to this movie. They mentioned Christmas a couple times. I’m not even sure there’s a Christmas tree in their house, at least not one that’s visible for most of the movie. So aside from that and a quick visit to Santa and the idea that we’re dealing with toys and there’s a mention of Christmas every now and then, it didn’t really put me in the Christmas spirit.   How about you, Craig? 

Craig:  Yeah. Fair enough. I mean, there is a Christmas tree, and you can see it in the opening scene. And, really, the Christmas setting is just more for convenience, you know, because, we’ve got these interesting toys that are being given as gifts, and so it would only make sense that that would happen around, Christmas time. This, like you said, we decided to skip right to 5. Even last year, we talked about, doing Silent Night, Deadly Night, the original because it is it’s got a a big cult following, and it’s it’s pretty notorious. And, both of us kind of agreed that it’s just really not a movie we really wanna watch again. Like, it’s just not that, it’s it’s just not that great a movie.   And, the the sequels, I don’t even think I seen all the sequels. I know I saw the second one. It was awful. I don’t remember if I saw part 3 or 4. Reading online, there are some people out there who say part 4 was actually an improvement in quality. I think I’ll take their word for it at least until next year. And then there’s this one, which is kind of an anomaly because it’s really a standalone story. In fact, I wonder if this movie was originally just filmed under the title The Toymaker, and the Silent Night, Deadly Night, was was tagged on for name recognition at the end.   Part of the reason that I wonder that is because Mickey Rooney was very vocal in his protest of the first movie. He wrote a letter, an open letter of protest stating that the scum who made it should be run out of town for sullying the sacredness of Christmas. So the fact that he pops up in this one is kind of odd and I wonder if he went into it knowing that he was getting into this franchise. Either way, it’s it’s it’s kinda bizarre that he’s in it. But I’m glad that he is because there’s not a whole lot much more going for it.   What do you think? 

Todd:  You know, it’s funny that you mentioned, him because, honestly, he does dress as Santa at some point in the movie, so he had to he had to know he was in one way or another sullying the name of Christmas, whether or not it was it was in this franchise. But the other thing is it’s almost hard to imagine a time it’s hard to remember a time when Christmas was so sacred that we couldn’t do a horror movie about it. I guess, when anything was so sacred that we couldn’t make a horror movie about it. I I mean Yeah. It it’s hard to imagine that this really crappy low budget movie, Silent Night, Deadly Night, the first one, was so controversial because it portrayed Santa as a killer. And, you know, it’s just hard to believe now because we have Krampus, and we have Jack. We had that that Jack Frost movie. I mean, nobody cares anymore.   In fact, people kind of dig it. You know? Oh, let’s do something fun and different. And, and Yeah. So this maybe harkens back to an earlier time. What your question, whether or not it had a lot of stuff going for it, I really thought this movie would have a lot going for it even knowing that it would be crummy. And I have to say I was kinda bored by most of it. That’s the one word to kinda sum it up. It feels like a movie that was trying to build towards something, and then it putters out every single time.   It starts out with a kid, who is trying to sleep. His mom well, I I guess he just wakes straight up, and it’s it’s nighttime. And, he hears the doorbell ring, and it’s the middle of the night, apparently. And so he gets up, and he tries to get his parents, but his parents are having sex. And so he pokes his head in. And and, again, I thought we were gonna get that weird. Wasn’t it that one weird Christmas movie where the guy was traumatized by seeing his parents having sex? 

Craig:  I think it was. That’s right. We we did it last year. I don’t remember what it was called. Christmas evil, I think. Christmas evil. 

Todd:  That’s right. 

Craig:  Right. So I Well, and this is a pretty typical it’s a pretty typical setup. Well, I guess I shouldn’t say that because I haven’t seen all the sequels. But the first one and the second one both start out with a little kid seeing something traumatizing that has to do with Christmas. Now the the sex itself, I think, would have been plenty traumatized. I mean, it’s it’s these these, you know, these movies, I I think that the the somewhat graphic sex scenes, you know, that’s just a part of the franchise. Like they’ve gotta have it in there. In this movie it just seems, it’s pointless.   Aside and aside like, it doesn’t advance the plot really in any way, and, it’s just totally gratuitous, and kind of stupid. But, I I that’s exactly what I expected going into this, so it was no surprise at all. But, yes, you’re right. A traumatizing event early on dealing with Christmas, and that’s what’s about to happen. 

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. The kid goes downstairs, after kinda closing the door on his parents and, opens the door, and there is a present there. It’s it’s has his name on it. His name is Derek, and it says don’t open until Christmas. So he picks the present up, walks in the house, and the door ominously doesn’t get completely closed behind him. Like, we find out later that really doesn’t matter either. But, anyway, he sits down on the floor in the middle of the living room and starts to open the present when we get our 1st jump scare which is his dad’s hand coming down on his shoulder and says 

Clip:  What in Todd name are you doing up at this hour? And what is that?   He was on the porch. He near the bell.   Goddamn it, Derek. How many times do I have to tell you not to open the front door by yourself, especially at night. 

Todd:  The kid, goes back up to bed scolded, but then, as his dad examines the present, we see that the kid reappears on the stairway behind him. So he’s watching the proceedings, and his dad decides to go ahead after shutting the door to go ahead and open this this mysterious package anyway. So he opens it up, and inside is a Poke Ball. 

Craig:  Yeah. Right? Exactly what I thought. 

Todd:  It’s a big red ball, that’s some kind of Santa toy. When you press a button on it, the head pops out. And at first, it’s a slice cheerful head that makes a sound, and the head starts turning. And we get these shots of this guy from the perspective of this Todd, and this guy looks absolutely delighted. Way too delighted by this dumb little Santa ball Todd. But as the the Santa head turns around, there’s a mean Santa on the other side. His mouth opens and he has kind of fangs and starts chattering, and there’s a little electricity effect where you can tell this isn’t a simple little toy. There’s it’s definitely an electronic gadget and probably not a very safe one at that.   Right. Chattering inside his mouth. These legs spring out of it, and instead of just being these little legs that we’ve kind of see later in commercials that are just supposed to pop out and be cute, It’s these long legs that wrap around his head and instantly, yank this toy to his head kind of like an alien. And so the guy stumbles around the room for way too long, but it’s in slow motion. Maybe that’s why it’s too long with this Santa thing attached to his face, and the kids kind of looking in an expression that should sort of be horrifying, but looks more like a cross between horrifying and bewildered. All this kid can really ever do through this movie is just stare slack Todd, kind of dumbly Yeah. Shaking his head back and forth minutely, maybe his eyes moving left and right. I think there’s a reason why, after he witnesses this, he’s mute for the rest of the film. 

Craig:  Yep, yep. I think   you’re right. 

Todd:  But anyway, dad stumbles around, and lest we believe lest lest anyone else were to discover the evidence, that this toy caused this problem, the co the toy actually just causes an accident, which is the a very improbable accident where the dad stumbles across the poker and other items that are hanging up by the fireplace, which fall of course, it falls in a way that Wow. Okay. The poker is still sticking straight up in a way and the father falls down onto the poker and impales himself. Thus, our first kill of the film, which the kid witnesses, as you said, he is now traumatized. And as I said, he is now mute for the rest of the movie. And, of course, nobody knows that it’s the toy that caused this except for the child. 

Craig:  After this first death, I was like, I just thought that that was one of the dumbest death scenes I had ever seen. And I was like, oh my god. What have we gotten ourselves into? Like, it was so contrived. It it was like a a final destination trap or something. Like, first he had to knock over the things, then he had to hit his head on the mantle, then he had to fall. Meanwhile, if he would’ve just stood still, he probably could’ve gotten this stupid ball off his face. Like Yeah. There wasn’t any indication.   I don’t know. Was were we supposed to think that it was, like, shocking him or, like, biting him or something? It seemed like it was just literally like a mask clinging to his face, and he couldn’t get it off. Yeah. But but anyway, it was it was so dumb. 

Todd:  I agree. 

Craig:  It’s just so dumb. 

Todd:  Well, they don’t get much better, do they? I mean, it’s all kind of like this this contrived. This notion that these toys have some sentience and that they’re causing this to happen, but they’re causing it to happen in a way they couldn’t possibly, like this. Like, there’s no way that toy, even if it was smart, could have done anything except grab onto the guy’s face. It wasn’t pushing him around the room or anything. The guy was flailing like an idiot. 

Clip:  Yeah. Yeah. Stupid. 

Craig:  Well, we we cut then to 2 weeks later and, there’s some guy, like, stalking outside of their house. And and this guy, I he doesn’t get a name until, like, 3 quarters of the way through the movie, and then it’s so stupid and contrived when you figure when you find out who it is. But eventually, you find out his name is Noah. I just kept writing down stalker because he stalks them throughout   the whole   movie. Anyway, he’s stalking them. Derek is not talking. He hasn’t talked since the accident. He’s acting out like there’s a silly scene where his mom puts down food in front of him, and he, like, grabs the eggs and squishes them in his hand, which is totally out of character for him the rest of movie. Like 

Todd:  Exactly. 

Craig:  He, like, he never acts out again, so I don’t know what they were trying to do there. 

Todd:  It’s so contrived, and and the dialogue is so silly. It it sounds like dialogue ripped from a a worse movie because the mother sits down and hands him breakfast, and it’s like, I made you breakfast. Everything is just the way you like it. Nothing is rushing. And I’m thinking, who makes their kid breakfast the way they don’t like it? Really? I made you breakfast. I I tried to make the worst breakfast possible that you wouldn’t eat. Like what? What’d 

Clip:  you eat? 

Craig:  Well, so he’s acting out and so she has this idea that she’s gonna take him to the toy stop the toy shop, which is named Pedos, which is the worst name for a toy shop ever.   What? Pedo? Pedo? Let’s go to Pedos. Pedo’s photoshop. But, anyway,   it’s it’s a play on Jimeno. 

Todd:  Yeah. What? You’re right. You’re right. They had to get in at this I 

Craig:  mean, it it reference. It’s spelled p t t o, but it sell it sounds like p e d o, and that is not some place where you should be taking your kids. Right. But anyway so that she’s gonna take him there, to get him a toy to cheer him up. I think that he sees the killer toy on a commercial and kinda freaks out. Again, nothing comes of it. But mom, the mom, her name is Sarah. She’s played by Jane Higginson, who I think was, a soap opera actress back in the day.   I I she didn’t do a whole lot else, I don’t think. So they take her there, and they meet mister Joe Pedo, the toy shop owner played by Mickey Rooney. And she is, you know, he’s trying to show the kids some toys, but the kid doesn’t like anything. Meanwhile, his son, Pino I mean, they’re they’re really heavy handed here with the whole Pinocchio thing, played by a guy named Brian Bremmer. I don’t know anything about him. He’s up there and from the very beginning you can tell that he’s acting weird. And really, there’s it’s almost as though they wanted there to be a twist at the end, and there kind of is. There was, something that I didn’t really figure out.   But you’ve got a guy named Joe Pedo and his son, Pino. I mean, it’s pretty obvious what’s going on. Yeah. You know, that that this this guy is he’s Pinocchio, basically. He’s acting weird. He goes down to the basement, and he brings up this toy from the basement called Larry the larva, and it’s this ugly looking, like, centipede toy. But the kid doesn’t want it, and so the mama Sarah just leaves. All this time, their stalker has still been in there, and after they leave, Pedo gets angry.   And that’s what I liked. You know, Mickey Rooney is so, jovial and and grandfatherly. And here, not that it’s any kind of amazing performance, but to see him in these moments of anger where he lashes out at Pinot, it it was good and and I thought that he played it well because he’s he looks so innocent and grandfatherly, but he does come across as pretty menacing when he gets angry. 

Clip:  I ought to break you in half. What kind of a son are you? A real son would help his father, but don’t you? You keep undermining me. I’d rather have 

Craig:  a son like that stay away from me. 

Clip:  You know why people don’t wanna come in the 

Craig:  store no more? Do you? Because of you. No. Yes. Because of you. Woah. Woah. Woah.   But they don’t realize that Noah the stalker is still in there. So they, you know, they change and and act like everything’s normal. And and Noah buys a bunch of Todd, and Pedo says, man, you’ve been buying a lot of toys here lately. But then Noah just leaves, but not before out of his pocket, he drops a news article about Derek’s dad’s death. So obviously, he’s connected to all of this somehow, but we don’t know how. And then that leads up to what in, again, our our second kill, which is it’s like they just had to shoehorn things in, you know? You tell them about it. 

Todd:  Well, it it it really doesn’t even logically make sense because this Larry the larva toy that, that Pinot pulls out and tries to give to the boy, which the boy refuses. All this is in front of Peto, then gets picked up by the stalker guy, Noah, And it’s one of the items that Noah buys, and Peto doesn’t seem to care that he’s buying this particular toy. So even that doesn’t make sense in the motivations of, you know, what we’d later discover. But anyway, Noah the stalker guy is living in this motel and there’s some really truly horrible dialogue. He’s there with the toys and he’s got a screwdriver, he’s trying to take them apart. You’re meant to get this impression that Noah is the one who is modifying these toys or doing something to them, that’s causing the one problem that we saw and we assume is going to continue happening. So 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  He there’s this great scene where he opens the door because there’s a knock on it, and it’s the owner of the motel. And this guy starts tries to kick him out because he hasn’t paid. 

Clip:  There’s plenty of money left   in this account. Not according to that.   Then there’s been a mistake, and I’ll take care of it in the morning.   Uh-uh. You’re packing up and leaving right now.   Alright. Look. What about if I give you some cash?   Cash? Cash is good. I like cash.   Great. I get paid tomorrow.   Then you’re out of here tonight.   Look. What is it with you, man? You think I’m a 

Craig:  skip out on you? I paid you 

Clip:  for the last 2 weeks, didn’t I?   That was then. This is now. 

Todd:  And this guy’s really adamant. And at first, I thought, wow, finally we have some realistic dialogue here where this guy is not gonna take no for an answer. But then of course at the end You got 

Clip:  a kid? Yeah. What the   hell’s that got to do with it?   You give me till tomorrow and I’m gonna give you a nice little toy for your kid for Christmas.   Well, you don’t look like a deadbeat. I guess so. What? 

Todd:  You just you just spent the last 3 minutes accusing this guy of being a deadbeat, and now your justification is you’re gonna give my kid a toy, and well, anyway, you don’t look like 

Craig:  a deadbeat. 

Todd:  Yeah. Anyway, the toy that he ends up giving him for his kid is Larry the larva, which is in a box that looks like a Barbie doll box. It’s pink and stuff. But Mhmm. What kind of toy is this that you’re gonna just hand a man as the perfect gift for his, I don’t know, son and or daughter who you don’t even realize? Anyway, he hands him Larry the larva. The guy glances at it and is like, gee, thanks. This better be good. So the guy gets in the car and, has us in the back seat, and the box jostles a bit and falls on the ground, and Larry the Larva pops out of this box.   It’s not like Larry the Larva burrows out of this box. It’s like this box was so loosely closed that it happened to open just by falling off the seat behind him. 

Craig:  Right.   Right. 

Todd:  And the larva comes out. And you know the minute you see this larva, something’s gonna happen with it. And sure enough, it manages to work its way under the seat, and into the front seat. And the guy just looks down while he’s driving is like, oh, what is this? Oh, it’s the toy. And, again, is almost as delighted by this toy as the previous guy was delighted by Santa. At least the previous guy didn’t have driving to distract him. Right. It just it’s just so dumb.   So dumb. But anyway Well, 

Craig:  and these these toys are nothing to be impressed by. You know? They are they’re cheap looking, crappy looking toys. Nobody would be excited about these things. I mean, the effects the effects aren’t good. I mean, you know, it looks like, you know, when the larva’s crawling around, it looks like there’s probably just somebody below frame holding it, you know, like just scooting it up It’s it’s it’s it’s not good. Anyway, go ahead. 

Todd:  Well, I mean, there’s nothing much more to say. He, like, picks up the remote. It starts moving. It’s like no. It’s not even moving, and then he picks up the remote. It’s like it gets there, but it gets there without moving. So then he picks up the remote to it. It it’s got a remote attached, which is also, again, the first time we see it, and he starts to press it like he wants to play with it in the front seat while he’s driving.   And then the larva starts moving and inching towards him, and we see the little electricity sparks between the larva’s pinchers. He’s like, oh, cute. Blah, blah, blah. And so he keeps moving it, away from him, but it keeps moving forward. Oh, the sting must be broken. Then he tosses it in the back seat. And then, like you said, in a great effect, which looks like a guy in the back seat who is just sticking the larva over his shoulder, it comes back and just suddenly jumps straight into his mouth. Again, we don’t see the jump.   You just have to trust that it happened. And, it goes into his mouth and, oh, oh, oh, the guy grabs it and the car is weaving all over the Todd. Like, even though the guy has this in both hands, so he’s no longer touching the wheel, though the car is going left and it’s going right, it’s going left again, and it’s going right. I mean, the guy doesn’t know to take his foot off the pedal and something is steering this car. We have no idea what. Right. Anyway, it’s supposed to be cool because then it’s the idea is that it burrows into his skull and comes out his eye. And again, it’s a cheap looking effect, and there’s there’s really no blood to it.   It’s it’s really bizarre. Anyway, the car finally does its last veer off the road, hits one of those ramps that all these cars tend to hit in these movies, flies over and flips into a field and explodes. 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  Again, covers up the complete evidence that there was a toy involved in the death of this in the bizarre death of this man. So, yeah, very strange, contrived, silly death scene that probably looked really great on paper, but played out horrible on the screen. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I mean, I’ve seen worse effects. Not a lot, but I’ve seen some. There was some effort made, but it just didn’t it didn’t look good. And the whole scene is just I mean, it’s it’s irrelevant to the plot. I mean, you could take that whole scene out and it would have no impact on the narrative whatsoever. They just clearly needed to get another kill in there. After that, Noah, the stranger breaks into the toy shop at night, and there’s a scene where he’s looking around with a flashlight, and Hedo comes into the room and is, like, looking around the room.   And as far as I could tell, Noah was just standing there with the flashlight on and Pedo doesn’t see him somehow and goes up to bed. Noah goes down into the basement where we’ve seen Pino go down before. And and in the basement, there’s, like, a trap door for what I assume is like a sub basement. And he opens it up, and he starts to walk down there, but something grabs him by the legs and starts pulling him down. And so he’s struggling to try to stay up. He eventually gets out, and he runs away, and we get to see Pinot pop his head up just above the Craig just a little bit. So we know that it was him down there, and he must be pretty darn strong. There there’s a scene where Derek and Sarah, I think Sarah actually finds it, finds a new box on their porch, same kind of tag Todd Derek, don’t open till Christmas.   She puts it under the tree. And then we cut to a scene where Noah is apparently a mall Santa. That is his job. Yeah. Right. And he has a buddy who works there with him named Ricky played by Clint Howard. Clint Howard pops up in these cheap movies all the time. I actually really like the guy.   I think he’s pretty funny and charming and he brings something special to some of these bad movies.   Yeah.   And apparently, he and Sarah also has a friend named Kim who we’ve seen, but she’s Todd we haven’t mentioned her because she’s totally unimportant. But these 2, Clint, Howard, and the the gal that plays Kim, I don’t have her name written down, they’re actually reprising their roles from part 4. I haven’t seen part 4, so it doesn’t really mean a lot to me. But, but anyway, I mean, it’s just a it’s a little it’s a tiny little cameo by Clint Howard. 

Todd:  Uh-huh. Yeah. And and, again, he brings a little bit to the movie. Even though he has very little to do, he’s Right. He’s another small spark of, happiness in this otherwise, tire tiresome film. 

Craig:  Right. Right. And then we cut to a scene that was really confusing for me. I didn’t know what was going on. Pinot breaks into somebody’s house, and I didn’t realize at first, but it is Derek and Sarah’s house. But what threw me off was to break in, all he has to do is pick up a a brick, like, out of a flower bed near the back door, and underneath it’s a key. Okay. That makes sense.   But on the underside of the brick, it says Pinot, like 1970 something or something like that. And I was like, What is going on? He goes in there and he’s just very creepily looking around the house. Like he lays in, Derek’s bed and plays with some of his toys. He goes into Sarah’s room and he’s like looking at her clothes and it looks like he’s gonna maybe sniff her brassiere. Mhmm. But he doesn’t actually. Meanwhile, Sarah and Derek are at the mall to see Santa. And, Noah is the mall Santa.   He has taken an additional shift because he saw that Derek was gonna be there. And again, I’m wondering why is he what is his connection to these people? And he’s the mom sits Derek on his lap and they just kinda sit there and stare at each other awkwardly. And the mom’s like the mom’s like, well, do you wanna tell him what you want for Christmas? And the kid, like, shakes his head no. And she’s like, oh, okay. Well, let’s just go home then. At which point, Noah grabs onto him and won’t let go. And the mom is, like, just trying to pull him away and eventually does get him away, but then they’re on the escalator and she’s like, Oh, sorry. I guess even Santas have a bad day sometimes too.   What? This guy just, like, assaulted your kid. Like, what? Yeah. They shake that 

Todd:  off pretty quickly, and everybody shakes it off pretty quickly, including, apparently, the other kids in line, the woman take the the elf taking the picture, all of this. It’s really weird. I of course, you’re right. It becomes it this is, like, the creepiest department store Santa ever. He outright grabs the kid, and then you you you’re just I’m so confused by this point. We’re 30 minutes in. I’m still not sure what’s going on, but it’s not in an intriguing sort of way, you know. It’s not like I they’re building this suspense, like, oh my gosh.   What is this puzzle I need to unpack? It’s like somebody’s gotta throw me a bone here at some point because these scenes are silly, and they they’re so over dramatized. I Todd don’t know what’s going on, and I and I really wanted to know. And then and then as Pino’s going through the house, he’s going through this kid’s toys and you see that that killer Santa toy is up on his shelf still. Yeah. Right? Everything else. The this kid is fine with having this killer Santa toy up on his shelf. It makes absolutely no sense. It makes no sense that the kid doesn’t completely freak out about the new box being brought into the house.   It makes no sense that mom, is just writing off this department store Santa that assaulted his kid, and it absolutely makes no sense that Pinot is walking through here. At least it it doesn’t seem Todd, and that this kid’s got this toy on a shelf. It’s it’s it’s silly. Go ahead. 

Craig:  Well, like, with the toy on the shelf, like, did she, like, clean the blood and brains off of it and then put it back? Like, who would do that? Do you even make any sense? Yeah. Anyway, go ahead. 

Todd:  This kid’s gotta sleep with it every night, and and he’s okay with that? 

Craig:  Like, what?   No. He’s not sleeping in his room. That I mean, that was the thing that I thought was, you the mom can’t figure out why he won’t sleep in his room. He’s only sleeping in her room. It’s because he put the murder murder seats on his shelf, obviously. 

Todd:  That’s true. That’s true. That fact escaped me, but that’s true. Well, they come home, and they find Pinot there. And so Pinot runs out, and so she knows who Pinot is. Obviously, they they have a relationship. That’s the other thing is that they know Petto is, like, the neighborhood grandfatherly toymaker guy who, earlier, Sarah and Kim were talking about how their shot his shop used to be so successful and everybody loved it, and now it’s just kinda gone by the wayside and become this nothing place that nobody ever wants to go into. Petto even yells at Joe in the beginning, Pinot in the beginning saying, you’re the reason why nobody wants to come into the shop because you keep creeping everybody out.   So we have that. So she goes to confront Joe, and he explains, that we actually used to live in your house. 

Craig:  Right. It’s interesting that we have this relationship, but that’s never come up before. Yeah. Right? Like, they’re on a first name basis, but, you know, they’ve apparently known each other for a long time, but he never mentioned, oh, yeah. You live in my old house. I mean, that that would seem like a point of conversation that might just kinda come up casually, but apparently not. 

Todd:  You would think so. And and apparently, when this woman bought it and I I don’t know, probably didn’t go through too many generations, but she didn’t change the the key or on it either. Whatever. Okay. So he gets he goes he says, it will never happen again. And I’m thinking, what’s he gonna do? Is he gonna kill Pinot? Is he gonna try to kill Pinot? Pinot’s gonna kill him. So she leaves, and he goes back in, and he yells at Pinot through to the trap door on the floor for a while. And then that’s pretty much 

Craig:  it. Yeah.   You have to come   up sometime, Pinot. And when you do, I’ll be waiting for you. And to to to do what?   Like, to to, like, to to kill him? Like,   is he a prisoner in the basement? Like, I who knows? I had no idea   Yeah.   What was going on. In in in the end, it it doesn’t amount to anything. So 

Todd:  No. It really 

Craig:  they go back home. And again, immediately just get over what’s happened. Like, okay. Well, make sure it doesn’t happen again. If it does, I’ll call the police. Okay. She takes, Sarah takes Eric back home, and she tries to urge him to open the mystery gift, but he won’t. The friend that I mentioned before, Kim, comes over and, she tells Sarah Sarah’s like, oh, thank you for leaving that gift.   And Kim’s like, what gift? I didn’t leave any gift. And again, Sarah’s like, oh, that’s interesting, but not concerned at all. And then, so Derek, while they’re talking, goes and gets the box. It’s a big box, and he takes it out and he puts it on in the trash. I mean, he just sits on top. It’s a big box. Well, Lonnie, Kim’s kid, sees and runs over and gets it. And he opens them up on the street, and it’s a pair of roller blades.   And he puts them on, and then in a totally random scene, he taunts this rando couple on the street who are, like, making out. He’s taunting this couple. He’s on these roller blades. This is a small kid. I mean, it’s an adolescent looking kid, but it’s a small kid. And this guy that he’s picking a fight with is like this big guy. He must be a stupid kid, I don’t know. But anyway, of course, the roller blades malfunction, they start sparking up and they start flying him all over the street and the choreography is something special here.   But eventually it rolls him out into the street and he gets hit by a car. And I thought, Wow, These movies are pretty dark that they’re gonna even kill off kids. But they didn’t even they pulled the punch and that really kind of irritated me. We see, just a few minutes later, the kid in the hospital. I mean, he’s totally in traction. There’s blood on his bandages and stuff. He doesn’t look Todd. But I felt like that was just kinda pulling punches a little bit.   I mean, if you’re gonna go for if you’re gonna make a trash movie like this, just go for it. 

Todd:  Yeah. Right. Kid. 

Craig:  That was funny. Annoying kid anyway. I guess, eventually, we cut back to the toy shop, and I guess Pedo was right. Eventually, Pinot would have to come out, and he has, and they are fighting. And, Pedo is drunk. We’ve seen him drinking whiskey throughout the course of the movie. He’s fighting, and Pinot’s saying things like, you’re drunk. You’re always drunk.   Please don’t hurt me. And Petto breaks the bottle over Pinot’s head, the the liquor bottle. And Pinot falls into the basement and appears to be dead. Pedo goes down there. Pinot is motionless, and Pedo is saying, what have I done? What have I done? 

Todd:  Joe is so 

Craig:  hot. Then we cut sorry. Go ahead. 

Todd:  I said Joe is so hot and cold. He’s so bipolar. Yeah. 

Craig:  Gosh. I don’t know where we missed it. I guess when, the stalker broke into the the, store before, he found a photograph of Pedo and Pino that was from a long, long time ago, like not a long, long time ago, like the seventies. And, Hetto looks younger, but Pino looks exactly the same age. So if it hasn’t already been drilled into your mind what’s going on here, now we know that Pinot is some sort of Pinocchio, he doesn’t age. And they these guys have probably been going through this routine, fighting back and forth for probably many years as far as we know. Meanwhile, back at Sarah and Derek’s house, Sarah tells Derek that he needs to start sleeping in his own room again. So she takes him in there, and, he’s laying in bed when the Santa ball activates again.   So he breaks it with a bat. Again, Sarah, not particularly concerned. Like, because she comes in, like, what are you doing? And then that’s just the end of it. 

Todd:  Yeah. And it’s so funny that Derek is has no problem picking up the present, and he he didn’t just take it outside and throw it in the trash. He tried to throw it out the window first. He took it downstairs and threw it in the trash. Like, when in the past did he not just try to take the Santa ball and toss it out the window? 

Craig:  Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. But anyway, I guess then it’s the next Todd.   Oh my gosh. Stranger   the stranger shows up. This is my favorite part of the whole movie. This guy, Noah, who we still don’t know his name yet, he’s just been stalking them the whole movie. He shows up at the door, and Derek answers the door. Noah gets down on his hands and knees and he’s like, 

Clip:  hi, Derek. Hi. You don’t know me, but, let’s just say I wanna be your friend. Okay? Hey. Look what I brought for you, man. Look in there. You’ll find a very special toy in there. 

Craig:  Oh my god. Be any creepier or more suspicious? Like, that is the number one creepiest thing that you could possibly say to a little stranger kid. And and I know that the eighties weren’t that different a time. I remember very vividly being told not to talk to strangers and not to take gifts from strangers. And And then Derek’s like, oh, I just wanna give him a I just wanna give him a a present. Luckily, the babysitter steps in and clearly realizes what a creep this guy is and locks him out. 

Todd:  It’s hilarious that this babysitter has fended off this guy, is clearly scared, has locked the door. The guy is still pounding on it, trying to get in, insisting he’s a friend of the family. 

Clip:  Hey. What are you doing? Open the door. Go away. Look. I’m not gonna hurt you. I told you I’m a friend. Come on. Let me in.   I just wanna use the phone. I’m not told you I’m a friend. Come on. Let me in. I just 

Craig:  wanna use your phone. I’m not supposed to let anyone in. Come on. Just tell me where missus Quinn works. 

Clip:  I’ll go see you there. Okay? 1200 Market Street, 5th floor.   Thank you. 

Craig:  Not worried about her.   You   know? Just get rid of it. Oh my gosh. 

Todd:  So silly. 

Craig:  And then we cut to what has to be one of the most ridiculous scenes ever in the history of filmmaking. 

Todd:  You’re right. This next scene is super bizarre, though, it’s late at night, of course, and she’s working late. And so she, gets off, and she’s walking through the garage. So we get the creepy walking through the parking garage scene where you feel like you’re not alone. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  And so it’s it’s varied by the numbers, where she’s looking and she thinks she hears something and then you get the shot of her legs and then the shot of her looking over her shoulder and nothing behind her, but she panics, for no clear reason. I mean, it’s not like she sees anything that we can tell. Honestly, I’m not even sure if she hears anything that we can tell. It it’s really a strange scene. But, anyway, she starts running to her car because they’re supposed to do this in these kind of scenes and fumbles for her keys because they’re supposed to do this for these scenes. But but is clearly, there’s this unfortunate close-up of her trying to get the key in the door because it’s obvious she is intentionally fumbling the keys. Like, this woman cannot aim a key in a door to save her life even I mean, it’s so bad, and it falls on the ground and somehow rolls under the car far enough that she can’t reach it. And then when she kind of reaches it, it goes under what must be like a grate in the floor.   It’s so dark you can’t see it, but, apparently, it’s under grate in the floor. The sheep pops up and starts sees this man come into the light and it’s the stalker guy and she clearly sees who he is and starts taking off running and you’re like, oh my gosh, like, like, okay. And so he runs after he runs after. He catches up with her, grabs her, swings her around so they’re face to face. 

Craig:  Then they start making out. Totally start making out. 

Todd:  I was like, what in the hell? Like, I just Right. This movie can’t get any weirder. And it’s supposed to be this big dramatic twist, but it comes off as really dumb. And they try to explain this later with a little throwaway line that, I’m sorry, just doesn’t work. 

Clip:  Why did you run from me?   Oh, god. I don’t know. I guess I panicked. I couldn’t believe it was you. 

Todd:  But it turns out that they were lovers and that, oh, my gosh. Like, the dialogue is so bad. 

Clip:  Things have been pretty crazy around here lately, but I’m glad you’re here. I really am. It’s been 6 years since you left, and I guess I never thought I’d see you again.   Is that true? Or did you see me every time you looked at Derek? He’s my son, isn’t he? Yes. Damn it, Sarah. Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?   Would it have made any difference?   It was my child. I had a right to know.   I wanted to tell you, Noah. I really did. I I wanted to tell you. I did. I loved you so much. But you aren’t ready to settle down, Noah. You know that.   All I know is that you could have trusted me to do the right thing.   I did what I had to do. I wanted to finish college. I wanted a career, and I needed security for that. And you couldn’t give it to me, and Tom could.   Listen to me. I did a lot of growing up when I was in the army. I know it’s important now. 

Todd:  And so now we kind of know why he’s been stalking the family except why couldn’t this guy just flat out knock on the door and say, Hey, I wanna be in front of your life again. Why did he have to do all of this in the creepiest way possible? I mean it makes no sense. Even when you look back on the movie it makes less sense. Like, why was he creepy department store Santa latching onto this kid? Why was he coming to the door when mom wasn’t home trying to give him a present when he’s when we learn he’s had this idea that there are these killer presents being dropped around Todd. All of it is just it just doesn’t make any sense. It’s so contrived. No. 

Craig:  No. And then and then to tough it all off and again, I said that this really is part and parcel for these movies, but then they decided now would be a good time to have sex in the back of the car in this parking garage. What? Yeah. Oh, welcome back. You’re his father. Let’s get it on.   Exactly.   And and on top of that 

Todd:  Literally. Is 

Craig:  dual sex scenes. Dual sex scenes cutting back and forth because back at, Derek’s house, Derek is in bed and the baby the babysitter has her boyfriend over and they are getting it on in the, bed there. And so it just cuts back and forth between these two sex scenes. It’s so strange. And neither one of them are in any way sexy   at all. 

Todd:  No. They’re not any good. 

Craig:  I mean, the No.   There’s nothing titillating about them at all. The the 

Todd:  the filmmaker’s trying to be clever here, I think, in doing these supposed match cuts between the 2 sex scenes, but it’s it’s really clumsy. It’s not coming off well. And you’re right. It’s not titillating. No clothes are really coming off in any of these scenes into the point where you notice that no clothes are coming off. I mean, this is freaking Silent Night Deadly Night 5. Right. You would expect boobs and stuff in this kind of movie.   Not that I needed to see it, but come on. If you’re gonna 

Craig:  pull Right. 

Todd:  Again, like you said, if you’re gonna pull punches, why did you choose the sex scenes that you are so cleverly juxtaposing back and forth with each other and felt like you had to stick in this movie, to decide that you’re, you know, you’re not gonna go for as far as nudity. 

Craig:  Right. Yeah. And and the one at the house, the the the boyfriend or the babysitter and her boyfriend is so funny because, like, I guess I I guess that we’re just supposed to I mean, she’s kind of hesitant with them, so maybe their intention never was Todd have intercourse. Maybe they were just fooling around and that’s why only some clothes come off. But while they are, humping, for lack of a better word, Santa breaks into the basement of the house and comes up. And we know it’s Santa because he’s wearing a Santa suit, but we don’t at this point see his face. But as soon as he gets upstairs, we see and he’s standing outside the room where they are having sex with the door open in this kid’s house. It’s it’s Petto, dressed up as Santa.   And he takes all of these toys out of his bag and sets them on the floor. And we know, you know, of course, what’s gonna happen. They’re gonna attack these these kids who are having sex. And there’s one point even they they Todd for a second and the the girlfriend’s like, where did all those toys come from? And she’s like, oh, I don’t know. I guess they were there when we got here. And some of them are already on the bed with them and stuff, but I guess they just okay. Whatever. So they keep going.   And then this part, it’s so bad, but it’s so bad that it had me laughing out loud because there’s this toy I don’t even know what kind of toy it’s supposed to be because it just it’s a severed arm, basically. It’s a hand and an arm. And it crawls up onto the bed, and it crawls up on him, and then like, there’s, like, some some evil toy hand ass play.   Like like, it’s it’s, like, touching his butt. Like, we see his facial expression. He’s, like, oh.   Oh, you’ve never touched me there before. And, like, totally getting into it. And and even when it, like, when it crawls off of his buddies, like, oh, no. Wait. Don’t stop. Oh, god.   It’s so funny.   Put it back. Put it back. Well, it’d   be a fact.   And then the the the hands the hand continues to crawl around on them, and I couldn’t, for the life of   me, figure out how they couldn’t put together that there were too many hands.   Like, they’re kind of interacting. Like, they’re touching it and, like, moving it to   different places. I’m like, wait. 1, 2, 3, 4. Oh, there’s there’s   no there shouldn’t be this many hands when it’s happening.   That’s Oh, but it’s   kind of funny. 

Todd:  They, like, pick it up and move it somewhere else. Like, it’s clearly not attached to an arm. Right. Right. Like, did your arm just come did you become detached? And and so then these toys, attack. The the first thing that happens is the hand, strangles this guy, which is there there’s always this inherent problem with, with loose hands in horror movies. In in that, you know, there are certain things that loose hands just aren’t gonna be able to do. And at least in this movie, the the loose hand clenches around his neck.   And, okay, that is something a loose hand can do and that might be something depending on how tight it can clench that you will have trouble getting off. Right? So Mhmm. That’s the one thing I can say about this scene in this movie that after doing so much wrong, it’s doing right. So he gets up, and he’s struggling with this. In the meantime, all the rest of the toys are kinda like army men, basically. Mhmm. 

Craig:  And 

Todd:  so it there’s a tank that wheels in and starts shooting at, the woman the girl rolls off the bed and it starts to get kind of brutal. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  And, it’s shooting, into the wall behind her and it shoots her flat out in the chest. And there’s there’s like a squib. I mean, it blood bursts out. It looks like there’s shattered skin around her chest, and I’m thinking that must have killed her. But she’s still kinda screaming and flailing, and I’m thinking, man, that that looks like a really bad wound in your chest for you still to be screaming. Yeah. In the meantime, on the other side of the bed, the guy’s messing with his hand, and there’s a tank that has these buzz saw contraptions at the front of it, and it’s coming towards them. And the whole thing is filmed in a very low budget cheap way where, boy, they’re really trying with what they have and what they’ve got.   There’s some point of view shots of the tank. There are close-up shots of the tank and does not just the buzz saws, but it has some spikes on the on the back of it and some spikes on the underside of it. So the when the tank somehow jumps up on his chest, I guess the spikes embed in his chest so that it can’t move. It’s all just shot very clumsily so you get the impression of what’s supposed to be happening, but you don’t get the satisfaction of actually seeing it happen. Right. But, anyway, it’s supposed to be buzz sawing in his face. And so we leave them, and we get Noah and Sarah come home. And immediately the babysitter runs out, so she comes down out to the garage and runs toward their car.   And I’m like wasn’t this girl just inches away from death a second ago? Mhmm. Like how in the world did she get out of the toy massacre and she’s almost not the worst for wear? She’s Craig, and she’s got blood all over her, but that gaping hole in her chest is is gone as far as I can tell, or it seems to have not had a really bad effect. And she’s yelling that the boyfriend is dead upstairs. I was really kinda let down that it was just pussing out here. I mean, so anyway, she says it was the Todd. It was the toys. They took Derek. Who took Derek? How do we know that Derek is gone? 

Craig:  I don’t know how she would know. Todd doesn’t make any sense. I mean, well, I guess that maybe, 

Todd:  I don’t know. Had taken Derek. Sarah. I mean, yeah. Yeah, Petto had taken Derek because it was Petto. We have to say it was Petto in the Santa costume who unleashed the toys on the floor. And he had put Derek came in and, was going into the bedroom to see the couple, and and and Peto basically threw a huge bag over his head, a Santa bag, and took him out. So we know that Derek has been taken, but the 2 were making out and didn’t know that Derek would been taken as far as we can tell. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Or did Derek witness the carnage, and that’s what caused him to wake up and go in, and Petal put the bag over their head, and they kind of saw it maybe over the shoulder. I’m not real clear on that. 

Craig:  I I guess that must be what it is. And and we also I guess the way that Sarah and Noah put 2 and 2 together is because conveniently, right before this girl flails herself on their windshield, Noah had been telling Sarah that the reason that he had been buying so many toys from Pedo’s shop was because, he knew from a long time ago from when he was a kid that Pedo at some point had owned a different toy store, I think, and had lost his mind when his wife who was pregnant at the time was killed in a car accident, and after that he had booby trapped some toys and some kids had gotten hurt. So I don’t know. I guess so he just came back to town, was checking up on, Sarah and Noah and just happened to notice, oh, wait. Here’s this Todd store. I guess I better check it out. It it doesn’t really make much sense. 

Todd:  It doesn’t. And their, their conversation about it doesn’t make much sense either because he tells her all this, which is extremely implausible anyway. Then she go, like, no. He’s such a nice man. We’ve known him forever. He’s so great and whatnot. And he says, well 

Clip:  The moment I saw that toy store, it all came back to me. I got worried about you and Derek. So I did some snooping around, bought a bunch of toys from Pedal. Took them apart, checked them out, see what I could find. And? 

Craig:  Nothing. Yeah. Nothing. 

Todd:  That should kinda be the end of it right there. I mean Right. It’s supposed to be a sinister line in that he’s found nothing yet, but she didn’t believe him in the first place that that would be possible. So the fact that he found nothing should pretty much settle the matter, at least for in her mind. So she goes back to the shop. Right? And, 

Craig:  They both do, but she, like, runs ahead of him. So they’re kinda separate, which again is totally dumb. I mean, why do they why would they split up? Why wouldn’t he have caught her? He was right behind her. But I guess they wanted to get them both there, but in different places. 

Todd:  Yeah. So she goes back, and she kinda goes around the pee pounds on the door. Peto, I know you’re in there. You’ve got Derek. Blah blah blah. And then she runs to the back and finds another way in. So she gets to go upstairs. There’s a stairwell that leads up to the top, and Peto lives up in the the top of the toy shop.   Mhmm. So she goes in there. And, you know, this building doesn’t look very big, from the outside, but they sure try to make it look big, when they’re prowling and and sneaking through it. Mhmm. Again, it’s another one of those cases where even though things happen in the different parts of this rather small building, nobody hears it Right. On the other end or, you know, downstairs or even in the next room. 

Craig:  She looks around the apartment, and there’s all kinds of I mean, it’s typical. It’s creepy stuff. There’s some creepy looking toys, some creepy dolls. Nothing special. She doesn’t really find anything up there. Meanwhile, Noah comes, arrives, and this part just drove me absolutely crazy because like you said, Sarah had been pounding on the door. I know you’re in there. I know you’re in The door wasn’t locked.   She never even tried it. And so when Noah gets there, he just walks right in. So she’s up in the, in the attic or the upper room, and he goes down to the basement. And he looks around. He’s attacked by one of those toy planes, and then Pedo comes out from behind the door and shoots him with a squirt gun that we’re supposed to, I guess, assume has acid in it? Maybe. Or mace? Like because it works, like it it takes it it hurts, obviously, and it takes him out. But then when we see him again later, he’s fine. Fine.   So I I don’t know what I don’t know what that was supposed to be. So then but he’s out of commission. I guess whatever it was in the squirt gun also knocked him out. So Sarah goes down to the basement, and there’s all these creepy, like, boy sized mannequins, like, hanging on the body and stuff. And then the twist, she stumbles upon Pedo’s dead body. And this is the part that I didn’t really see coming even though I kinda should have. Santapedo then steps out and removes his face to reveal that he’s a robot, and he gets another face and puts it on, and it’s Pinot. And Pinot and Sarah have this conversation where he says things like, he always broke me.   I had to be sure he wouldn’t hurt me. And then for no apparent reason, he strips naked, and we see that he’s kinda put together like a puppet. I mean, it’s obviously a suit that this actor is wearing, but it it’s like it’s jointed. It’s segmented like a puppet, and he doesn’t have a wiener. So he says, my father could make everything, and then he looks down at his no wiener and says, well, almost everything. Oh oh my gosh. And then this this is a bad movie, but that can sometimes be fun. And I think that this movie is worth watching it for this ending because it’s the most bizarre one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen.   So now you’ve got naked Pinot advancing upon Sarah who’s, like, pushed up against a workbench, and he gets up in between her legs and, like, pushes her up up on the bench, and she’s wearing a skirt, so, like, he’s up in between her legs, and he starts saying as he thrusts between her legs,   I can love you like a real son. I can. I can.   I can. I can.   I can. I can. I love you, mommy. I love you. I love you. I want you. I love you.   It is the most bizarre thing I’ve maybe not the most, but really darn close. Top 5 for sure. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  So weird. 

Todd:  I mean, it would have been it would have been super creepy in a super creepy movie. In this movie Right. 

Craig:  I was just I was kinda just sitting there kind of wide eyed with this look of, like like, I was appalled. Like, what is happening? Like, that is just wrong. They It is just wrong. 

Todd:  They won’t kill a kid. Right? They won’t 

Craig:  show boobs.   They won’t   show boobs. 

Todd:  But they’ll have the mannequin humping, this woman as while he screams, I can love you like a real son, mommy. 

Craig:  Oh, jeez. So she grabs a screwdriver off the workbench and stabs him right down into the top of his head, and he starts to malfunction. These sparks start to shoot in his eyes and out of the top of his head and stuff. And, of course, this is all effects that don’t look all that great. But he’s not out for he’s not down for the count yet. He goes over to where all these bags are hung up, and we can see Derek, like, we get a peek inside one of the bags that Derek’s in there. And he takes this knife, and he’s gonna stab into the bags. Well, we don’t notice at first that there are all out actually multiple bags.   So when he goes to stab one of them, we think that he will have stabbed Derek, but he pulls the knife down and a bunch of toys just fall out. So now we know that Derek is in one of these bags and he continues to try to stab them while the mom pleads with him saying, It’s okay. You don’t have to hurt him. We can, you know, you can come home with me and be my son. And like it seems like he kinda contemplates it a couple of times, but he then he says, No, he has to die, and he just keeps stabbing. Eventually, he does get to the bag that Derek is in, but when he stabs into it, it just opens it up, and Derek jumps out and jumps onto his back and is kind of just holding on to his back while this robot is flailing around, and finally gets his voice back, I guess, and is saying, help me, mommy. Help me. Help me.   Noah comes in, with an ax and hacks at Pinot’s arm, and it looked to me like he cut his arm off. But then in the very next frame, he still got his arm. Did you notice that? 

Todd:  Yeah. That was that was that had to be a mistake because you’re right. It it was supposed to be his arm hacked off. It was clearly his arm hacked off because they’re in the foreground. You see the the little bits and pieces sticking out. 

Craig:  But then in the very next frame, he has both of his arms.   Yeah.   And and they fight. They struggle. Pinot and Noah struggle, and Pinot appears to be strong. You know, Noah’s not winning. But then Sarah steps in with an ax and chops Pinot in half, and the top half of Pino’s body crawls towards his dad’s body saying, father help me, father help me, which as crappy as this movie is, I actually felt a little bit sorry for him in that moment. It was a little bit sad. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And then and then he apparently dies. And, Derek says, mom, who is he? And I think she says he’s just a toy. And then we get one final jump scare where Pinot, of course isn’t dead yet and he pops back up for a second before then just dying again. And Derek says to his mom, don’t be Craig. It’s only a toy, mommy. And they all go out together and we the camera closes up on one of those, creepy mannequins that’s hanging on the wall, and we see the sparks kinda sparkle in its eye and we hear Pino’s laugh. The end Oh, boy. That’s it. 

Todd:  You know, you’re right. I I think this movie is worth watching for the ending alone. 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  So I I can’t say it’s as bad as some of the other movies we’ve seen, and we’ve seen some pretty bad movies in our day. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. 

Todd:  And it it’s tried really hard. It fails in so many levels, and it’s really a shame that, you know, this is a movie with Mickey Rooney and it’s like that. It the whole movie just begs the question. This is the problem you get into with these movie with these toy movies. And I think that’s why so many of these toy movies with the Todd are actually like demonic Todd. You know, they’re they’ve got some supernatural element to them because the elephant in the room is if this guy can make these sentient toys, if he can construct a whole person, with sentience and whatever, then why is he depressed, run in this rundown old toy shop just trying to peddle off crummy little toys to people, talking about how unsuccessful he is and how nobody wants to come in, and he’s apparently destitute. I mean, this guy should be making millions, right, if he has this Yeah. This ability. 

Craig:  And never even never even crossed my mind, and you’re absolutely right. I mean, this guy clearly has some untapped talent. Yeah. You’re right. 

Todd:  And so that becomes the the the big point at which the whole movie just is completely implausible. And, and it’s again it’s not played like this guy is a is a mysterious creepy guy who wishes evil upon the world. Right? And and that’s the other way you you have to go if you’re gonna do this. Okay. Well, he’s the mad scientist, but he’s not ready to let his inventions out on the world yet. Well, yeah. No. He’s just the neighborhood toy guy, and even though apparently he had some malice toward children in the past after his wife died, for apparently many years he’s been operating just fine and not sending out creepy Todd.   Unless we’re supposed to believe that he has been still sending out these creepy toys and that’s kind of what caused Noah’s dad to get killed. It’s all pretty murky for me where that first toy even came from, you know, and why. 

Craig:  Yeah. That I still have no I don’t understand that at all. I I why why were they why was he sending toys to this family? I think wasn’t upstairs in Pedo’s apartment. I think that one of the things that Sarah sees is a photograph with a knife in one of the faces. Was that a picture of of, Derek and his dad? 

Todd:  It’s possible, but I could not tell. And I even rewind it and paused the movie just to see what was in that photo, and I I couldn’t make it out. 

Craig:  If I had to piece it together, and it’s so tenuous I that I could be totally wrong, but well, first of all, when he’s telling the whole story, Noah says, well, at that time, he decided if he couldn’t have a family, then nobody else could either. Okay. That’s fine. But that was a long time ago, and he hasn’t been doing that for a long time. So why again now? So I’m wondering maybe, Peto knows that he can’t keep Pinot around because people will figure out that he’s not a real boy and he’s creeping people out and it’s bad for business. Maybe he was planning on replacing, Pinot with with, Derek, maybe?   Mhmm.   I don’t know. I I have no idea. 

Todd:  Like the opposite. Like, Pinot wanted to replace himself with Derek in that family. Peto was trying to do the opposite, was trying to get Derek and his family. 

Craig:  I I don’t know. I have no idea. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s all pretty well. 

Craig:  Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. You know, we’ve we’ve we’ve really ragged, on this movie, and it is bad. It is a bad movie. That doesn’t mean I didn’t kind of enjoy watching it. I mean, like, I can’t even really say that it had anything in particular going for it, but it was just so odd in places. And I’ve definitely seen more inept filmmaking too. I mean, it’s not great here, but I’ve definitely seen worse. So, I don’t think that it wasn’t at least a valiant effort.   And, you know, you and I watch all these movies, the good, the bad, all of them. And, I can even appreciate this one a little bit for what it is. I mean, it was different. I’m not saying that it was necessarily executed perfectly, but that whole idea of the Geppetto Pinocchio relationship, in a horror context, you know, that’s it’s a little bit different. I mean, it I guess you could say Frankenstein’s monster is kind of along the same lines, but, it’s it’s in many ways or at least in some ways, it’s unlike other movies that I’ve seen, and I can at least appreciate that. It’s not a good movie, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody unless they were specifically looking for a bad movie to goof on. But if that’s what you’re looking for, I think this could be a contender. 

Todd:  Oh, if that’s what you’re looking for, this movie fires on all cylinders. It really does. Yeah. And I have to say if memory serves me correctly, it’s still better than the original Silent Night, Deadly Night. 

Craig:  I think so. 

Todd:  Yeah. More watchable. 

Craig:  Yes. Agreed. 

Todd:  Thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share 

Craig:  it with a friend. 

Todd:  You can find us on Itunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. We’re also out on social media, so check out our Facebook page, like us there, and let us know what you thought of this episode as well as any films we should watch in the future. Until then, I’m Tod 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

This home invasion film puts a bit of a twist on the genre. We both enjoyed discussing this fast-paced gem.

You’re Next (2011)

Episode 58, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Today’s film is a fairly recent movie, 2011, so it’s about five years old, uh, by Adam Windguard, and it is called You’re Next. This one holds a little bit of significance for me and Craig, uh, simply because it was filmed not far from our hometown there in Kirksville.

Uh, the, the story takes place in a Missouri. Although I, I haven’t seen many of these kind of homes. This is probably a little off the beaten path, huh? Uh, down, uh, down in the Columbia, Missouri area. Um, we, I don’t think the filmmakers are really from there or anything. We just, they just chose that location, uh, to film.

And they did film the whole thing on location in this mansion, so it really does have that feel to it as well, that it’s not really a movie set, but it’s an actual place. I saw this movie a couple years ago, maybe, uh, maybe, maybe two years ago, or maybe last year, actually, when I was doing my Halloween reviews, where I would watch one horror movie a day.

And then review it online, which was a pretty grueling experience. But, I mean, you know, you could really love horror movies, and I do, but when you absolutely must watch one every single day, it really becomes a chore. 

Craig: Yeah, I bet. 

Todd: Anyway, um, I did have some things to say about this then, but I have to say I’d probably revise my review now.

I enjoyed it a lot more, I think, after I had seen it the first time. How about you, Craig? What’s your experience been with this film? 

Craig: Well, I saw it when it came out in the theaters, and I think I saw it in the theater. I don’t really even remember why, but I found the marketing campaign really intriguing.

You know, the trailer looked good. It looked scary. It looked violent. And plus, home invasion movies, I just find to be Pretty darn scary anyway, you know, monsters can be scary in their own right, but these types of things could potentially happen and that kind of ups the ante and, uh, I enjoyed it at the time.

I thought that it was clever, um, it didn’t, I mean, you know, home invasion movies often have a lot of things in common and this has a lot of things in common with some others, but, uh, it didn’t seem just like a carbon copy of something that I had already seen, um, and I, you know, I enjoyed the pacing of it.

It’s, you know, they, they give us a little bit of, uh, exposition in the beginning, but it, the action picks up really fast and it just, it never slows down until the end. And, and I appreciate that. It held my attention and It felt even shorter than it was, um, even though it’s, it’s really not a long movie.

It’s just a little over an hour and a half, but 

Todd: yeah, I liked it. So let’s, uh, let’s start out just by kind of setting the scene for everybody. So it starts out with a couple having sex and, uh, there’s, uh, an older man and a younger gal and you really don’t get to know these people too well before they’re murdered.

Uh, she goes downstairs afterwards, see some noises outside the back of her house or the back of his house. I guess some big windows in it, uh, face into the living room. So she puts a CD on repeat. And I only bring up this fact because I thought it was kind of a nice touch. Even though I’m not sure how many people just casually go down and put their CDs on disc repeat, it sure made for a nice way of bringing this catchy tune, I thought, into the movie over and over again.

It’s a song, I don’t have the name of the song here, but it sounds like something like maybe by The Cure or something like that, even though it’s not. And anyway, she pours herself a drink, and she sits there, she hears some noises in the back, and of course somebody kills her. And the guy comes downstairs and doesn’t notice that she’s not there, takes a sip from the drink that she left there, but then, um, sees on the window, written in what must be blood, is the words, You’re next.

And then he gets it as well. That, uh, comes into significance a little bit later, um, You could say. I felt it was more or less just a device to start the movie off with a kill. 

Craig: Yeah, well, it establishes tone, you know, I mean, we, we, we see that this is going to be the kind of brutal violence that we’re probably going to experience throughout the course of the movie and, and if anything, this first, uh, These first couple of kills are tamer than the ones that we see later.

Um, we don’t really, I mean, we, we don’t see the girl really get killed at all. We see a little bit of the aftermath and the guy, we see a machete being swung at him, but we really don’t see much of the impact. You know, there’s blood splatter and whatnot, but, um, it, it, it is very brutal and it’s violence, um, ramped up even more as we go on.

Um, I thought it was effective scene. I wonder. You know, I read that, um, after they first screened this at whatever film festival, they, they, it premiered it at, um, the, uh, producers based on audience response thought that it needed to be tightened up a little bit. And, and what they did was they tightened up the first half hour.

Uh, and, and I think that they cut out some of the exposition. with the family that we’re about to be introduced to. Um, and so I, I kind of wonder if maybe this was some, and I have no idea if this is the case or not, but I kind of wonder if maybe this was something that was put in After the fact to get to grab the audience’s attention and give them an indication.

Yes, this is going to be violent. It may take us the next 10 or 15 minutes to get there, but we are going to get there. Um, and I thought it worked, uh, pretty well. And then it just moves, you know, we move into the next scene, which is really where we start to meet this ensemble cast of characters, um, who make up this family.

Um, and that’s, that’s one of the reasons why we picked this movie. We, you know, thanksgiving is coming up. Um, we were thinking, you know, are there any good thanksgiving horror movies? And there are some out there, but they tend to lean towards the ridiculous and the comedy and that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that.

But I suggested this one because Even though it’s not set at Thanksgiving, it very well could be, because it’s this whole family coming together, um, to celebrate what it, what they are actually celebrating is the mom and dad’s 35th anniversary, but it’s the first time that they’ve all been together in a long time, and you very much get the vibe of this being like a family holiday, you know, once everybody arrives, there’s tension in the family.

I mean, of course, there’s also love and affection, but there’s also tension. Boy, there’s not a lot of 

Todd: that love and affection, is there? 

Craig: Not a whole lot. No. I mean, the first people we meet are the parents, Paul and Aubrey. Uh, Paul played by Rob Moran, who I don’t really know much about. But Aubrey played by here we go again.

Barbara Crampton, who we’ve reviewed like how many of her movies at this point? 

Todd: Oh, my gosh, three or four. It seems like 

Craig: Right. She’s from chopping mall. And what else? Uh, we are still here. So at least a couple. Um, and I think she’s great in this movie. Uh, she looks fantastic. Um, in fact, she really doesn’t look old enough to be the mother of these adult children that she has.

Um, she, she’s lovely. She’s beautiful woman. Um, but she, she plays in this movie very fragile and, and I don’t know if I missed something. I don’t think that we’re ever told exactly what her frailty is, but it seems like she has some frailty of mental character, like she, she’s, uh, fragile and, and they all are aware of that.

We, we find out that she takes medication. We don’t really know, um, what it is, but I thought that she played that really well, um, but they’re coming and they’re the first to arrive at this mansion. And, and like you said, it really is. I mean, it’s. It’s a really large house, um, and it’s, and it’s kind of rural.

It’s set kind of in the woods, so it’s isolated. It turns out that those people that we just saw getting killed, those were these people’s neighbors. And Paul and Aubrey, On their way to their house, drive by the neighbor’s house and, and comment that, um, it’s uncharacteristic for him to be home at this time of year, but the, the dad has heard that he’s recently left his wife for a student.

Um, and so we, all that does really is establish that the carnage that we’ve just witnessed is right next door to this house. And so, You know, we can anticipate that something bad is going to go down, but they get to, um, the house and they find that the door is already unlocked, which is kind of unsettling.

They assume that maybe the workmen who have been there and, you know, getting the house ready for them have left it open by mistake until Aubrey hears a noise. Um, and it’s a pretty substantial noise, you know, it sounds like something dropped or somebody falling. It even shakes the chandelier in the room where she is.

Um, but Paul, the husband had been in the basement and hadn’t heard it and seems to be very skeptical and thinking that It’s probably just in her head. 

Clip: Did you hear that? Just now. 

Craig: Hear what? 

Clip: I heard. Footsteps. I think someone’s in the house. You sure? Oh, we gotta get outta here. Aubrey. Hurry. Yeah, no, you go outside.

I’m gonna check the upstairs. You come outside with me. It’s just a creaky old house. Oh, there is someone up there.

I will take this with me. Okay. Are you happy? No. Alright. You wait outside. I’ll be on in a minute. Careful. I will. 

Todd: That, that’s a strange point for me. I would point that out as maybe a slight flaw. Just, not that the scene is bad, but I feel like it could have been written a little more realistically. If, if you came back to this big old house, and you even yourself had commented that the front door was open, then if your wife is convinced there might be somebody upstairs, I, even if, even if she’s got some mental issues, I wouldn’t dismiss her outright.

does. I mean, he is so thoroughly unconvinced. He’s almost putting her down before he, okay, I’ll go upstairs and check it out. But I guess since we don’t really, 

Craig: yeah, I guess since we don’t really know the nature of her problem, I don’t know. It really didn’t because he doesn’t dismiss her altogether. I mean, he does go up and look around and, and, and, I guess really it’s more to ease her fears.

He takes something with him. I don’t remember what it was. He grabbed something out of the hat stand or something and takes it with him. And so, no, you know, I didn’t see it as being particularly unbelievable also because these people don’t know that they’re living in a horror movie, you know, like we do, and, and we know that they should be practicing more caution, but they don’t know that.

And if I. I don’t know. I mean, we keep our doors locked. If I came home and the door was unlocked and then I thought I heard somebody in the house, I would probably be a little bit more panicked in the moment than he was, um, but I don’t know. I see what you’re saying. 

Todd: Yeah. I will say, though, that, and Adam Wingard comes from, I guess you could say a stable of filmmakers right now.

It’s like they’re all buddies and they all star in or act in or write for each other’s films. Ty West is one of those guys, and I feel like what he does really well Along with Ty West is, they really have a knack for this certain sense of dread and fear that can be slowly ratcheted up. They really know how to shoot a scene that may or may not have a jump scare coming, but you’re really a bit on edge.

And I felt that way with this guy walking around the upstairs. He lingers on, eventually the scene kind of starts to linger on this closet door that he’s about to open. And it’s Has even has an old fa I mean, this is the genius of this, actually, is that it even has a very distinctive doorknob. It has one of those glass, uh, doorknobs that you find in older houses instead of newer houses, and that had to be an intentional choice, because then you recognize it later.

Uh, but it’s it’s really a neat, uh, filmmaking point, in that he comes up to it, and he’s It’s, it’s a little bit ajar, and he’s coming up from behind, he starts to open it, and you’re expecting a kind of jump scare at this point, at least I was. And you get a jump scare, and that jump scare is the, the hand on his shoulder, which is a more terrifying jump scare than a cat, you know, springing out of it, or a lion or something.

But this hand comes from behind him in the hall, on his shoulder, and this figure, and very quickly from behind him. And he swings around, and man, you’d expect him to swing that. Whatever he’s got an umbrella or something in his hand at him, uh, but he doesn’t and it turns out to be his son Crispin Who we’d actually seen driving in a car a quick scene with him And uh his girlfriend Aaron, uh about a scene before this And uh, and so as soon as that’s over crispin says, uh, you know, are you okay dad?

And uh, he says oh, okay. Oh crispin. I’m, so glad it was you here and at first I thought oh You Crispin somehow got in the house and was there before them or he somehow snuck in, but it wasn’t. But Crispin says, uh, something about his mom about, uh, is there a reason mom is crying in the driveway? And so you go from this disoriented state, like, Oh, there’s something in the house.

Oh, it may be coming out of here. Oh, what’s that behind him? Oh, it’s just his son. And then why in the world is his son in the house? And what’s the timeline on all this until the son resolves it by. Saying that, oh, your mom is crying in the driveway, and that takes a couple beats before you realize, oh.

Since he’s been upstairs looking, the kids have arrived and the son came upstairs looking for dad when mom said that dad was upstairs looking for some unknown killer. I know I’m breaking this down maybe way too much, more than it needs, but it’s just the way that they set this up. He’s really skillful and really good about this tension and these scares.

And even when there’s a jump scare, somehow it’s just a little scarier than your classic jump scare in these other films. And then what What is the icing on the cake is when they, as they leave, the camera slowly pans just slightly to the left, back toward that open door, and it creaks open just slightly.

Craig: Uh, yeah, so, you know, it’s dark in there, we can’t see what’s going on, but the indication that, you know, Had the dad had the opportunity to actually open it, maybe there would have been something in there. And as it turns out, there probably was, but I liked this moment too. And I don’t think that you’re overanalyzing it too much.

I think that it’s important to mention because, um, in this, again, it shows us a certain tone. I mean, there’s, this is a brutal movie. It’s a violent movie. It’s pretty scary, I think, but there’s also some dark comedy too. Um, and it’s subtle, you know, it’s not, it’s not, Over the top. It’s not in your face, but you know, just lines like that.

Uh, is there a reason mom’s crying in the driveway? I mean, there’s a little bit of dark humor there and it kind of carries, um, throughout, um, in, in some of the dialogue, but you’re right. So, and, and Crispin is played by A. J. Bowen, who I think if I remember correctly, is also one of the filmmakers in that group that you mentioned.

Um, and his girlfriend, Erin, is played by Sharni Vinson, who I have never seen in anything before that I can think of in this movie. She has an Australian accent, but that’s part of her character. I don’t know if she’s actually an Australian actress. Um, but she’s this dark, complected, very beautiful girl.

And she ends up being really the central character of the movie. I mean, of course we don’t know that at this point. She’s just the son’s girlfriend. Um, but, but she ends up. Being, really, the heart of the movie, and I think she’s great, you know, I think, um, She is a beacon, and this, you know, I think this movie’s good anyway, but I think that her performance, and just the way she’s written, her character, um, I really, really like, and the actress pulled it off, uh, very well.

Would you agree? 

Todd: Oh yeah, and I think it was pretty smart writing, too. You know, she starts out being the outsider to this family, and most movies have to have this element to it. If you got, like, the big family gathering, you have to have an outsider there, so that Mm hmm. To kind of explain away things, and, oh, this is my brother.

So, first of all, you gotta have somebody to introduce everyone to, so that you get all their names real fast. fast. And then they’ve got to tell their relationships to them so that they, uh, you don’t, you don’t kind of get them confused and you don’t waste a lot of time trying to figure out who’s who and how they’re related.

Um, and then of course, you know, she’s someone that, that you can bounce off ideas and feelings about the family. Oh, your brother’s a little strange. Oh, so and so is like this. And, uh, it’s just a real economical way of taking what could be you. A really confusing first half of the movie to try to, when you, when you’re so concerned about just learning the characters and who they are and keeping them straight.

There are a lot of characters in this movie at the beginning. Uh, you know, you have a, you usually have a character like this as a device in there. But then they also gave her an Australian accent. Whether that was a real choice because the actress, because they wanted her to be, or just because the actress that they liked happened to have one and they decided to keep it, regardless, uh, it’s great because it also sets her apart from everybody else, so it sets her apart psychologically, it sets her apart in a way culturally, so you get this idea, well, maybe this woman is from another world, and so she, um, that helps a little bit later, I think, um, and then also, it sets her apart in that it just helps culturally.

keep everybody straight. I mean, there are times when you’re not, you can’t remember who looks like who, but you can, she opens her mouth and you always remember, oh yeah, this is Crispin’s girlfriend. And at least I appreciated that at the beginning. And you’re right, she’s written very well through this movie, and very believably, I thought.

She starts out as the outsider, as kind of, I guess what you would say the underdog to the family gathering, right? And then when things start to fall apart, she’s the one who jumps in and remarkably, Even to Crispin, who at one point even remarks, uh, It’s a very telling line later, where he says, I’ve never seen you act like this before.

Craig: Uh huh, uh huh. 

Todd: It really, uh, provides a believable transition, and it really drives the movie, because a Home Invasion movie could be a whole bunch of victims sitting in here, but this, her character becomes a very believable transition. Way to fight back and provide some pressure on the invaders themselves, which I think is one of those twists to this home invasion genre that maybe you were referencing earlier.

Craig: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, her outsider Ness really becomes highly significant. Um, and, and like you said, Crispin, who We would guess would know her better than anybody else. Um, it says, I’ve never seen this side of you. And it’s because there are things about her that he doesn’t know. Um, I think we should at least mention that at some point they get there, Crispin and Aaron get there.

They’re the first ones there. They arrive in the evening. Sometime in that evening, Aubrey gets up in the middle of the night, the mom, uh, to get a drink of water. Um, and she doesn’t see anything, but we see that these masked men, or at least one masked man in an animal, a white animal mask is, um, Uh, watching her from outside, nothing comes of it at that moment, but we are now aware probably that whoever those guys were that killed the people in the beginning have now, for whatever reason, whether it be random or whether it be not random, they are now, um, stalking this house, uh, as well, and, and danger is, um, right around the corner.

Um, but then, this is, you know, this is where I like. Up to that point, all of this, you know, it’s not like it’s boring. It’s not, it’s interesting. The, like you said, there’s some suspense built and whatnot, but then things really start to pick up when Crispin and Aaron wake up the next morning to find that, um, the brother Drake.

played by Joe Swanberg and his wife, Kelly, uh, played by Margaret Laney have already arrived and Aaron has already greeted them and is having what seems to be friendly conversation with them. But when Crispin comes in, um, there’s clearly tension between him and Drake. Um, and as it turns out, Drake is just an asshole.

He is such a jerk. Like several, several of the members of this family have questionable character, but this guy is just obnoxious and he’s rude and he’s all the time trying to pick at, you know, people’s sensitivities and, and put people down and make people feel low, and he’s just a jerk. 

Clip: Reminds me of when you were a kid.

You should’ve seen him. No, you shouldn’t have. Yeah. He’s like a little, like a little sleepy chubby angel. Really? Yeah. He’s always a little chubby. This is only a little chubby. I have a round face. It doesn’t mean I’m fat. That’s right. It doesn’t mean he’s fat. No, it means you’re beautiful. All the fat on him means he’s fat.

Okay. Don’t go just by his face. It’s not fat. 

Craig: Luckily, he gets what’s coming to him later on. But anyway, um, and, and then, you know, it’s not really significant, but Audrey sends Aaron to the neighbors for milk and that song is still playing. So she assumes somebody’s home, but nobody answers. And so she goes away from there.

And then I guess the day. You know, we, we see some scenes between Crispin and Drake and Paul, who is the dad. And, um, Paul asked Crispin questions about his career and, and Crispin has to admit that it’s not going very well. And his dad pretty blatantly shows his disappointment. So we see that there is tension in this family.

They are not the portrait of the family that hangs in their great room, you know, looking all prim and proper and happy that that’s not what they are. Um, that evening. Amy, the daughter, who seems to me maybe to be the youngest, uh, regardless, she’s the only girl and she’s definitely daddy’s girl. She’s played by Amy Simets and her boyfriend, Tariq, who is played by Ty West, the filmmaker that you had mentioned earlier, um, who’s kind of in this group of, of young directors right now.

Um, they arrive and right on their heels, um, The, what appears to be the youngest son, Felix, played by Nicholas Tucci, arrives with his girlfriend named Zee, Z E E, played by Wendy Glenn, and she, um, Felix seems to be kind of brooding, but Zee is straight up, like, not extreme goth, it’s not like she’s in, you know, white face paint or anything, but, you know, heavy, heavy eye makeup, all black clothes, black hair, everything you know, there’s this, you know, And, uh, they all arrive, and of course the parents are happy to see everybody.

At one point, the mother stops them all while they’re greeting one another and says, I’m just so happy that we’re all here. Thank you so much for coming. Um, and they sit down to this nice family meal. And that’s kind of where everything just goes to hell in the handbasket. 

Todd: And I love this, actually my favorite scene of the whole movie is this dinner scene with the family.

Because you didn’t realize you were watching a horror movie. This would be a domestic drama of a film where each member of the family is ribbing each other, but not in a good way. And it’s mostly because Drake is such a jerk. 

Clip: Um, so Tyreek, what do you do? I’m a filmmaker. Is that right? Wow. Yeah, he’s really good.

I don’t think I know any filmmakers. That’s exotic. There’s not a lot of this out there. Interesting. Have you been on TV? I’m not on TV. I’ve only made one documentary. It was at the Cleveland Underground Film Festival. What is an underground film festival? Do they show them movies underground? No, no, no.

They show them above ground. But they It’s really intellectual. They show intellectual films. Like an intellectual film festival. I just think, do you do commercials? Cause those are my favorite. No. No. No, you don’t do commercials. Really? I just think that is just the height of the art form these days. It is just short and punchy.

You really gotta just zing the ideas on in there. That’s why I watch TV these days. That’s why I watch, I mean it’s better than the shows now. Well, he makes documentaries, so It’s different. Yeah, but I mean, I think that I’ve seen documentary commercials. I don’t think they have to be limited to any particular thing.

It’s not a, you know, I mean, the starving artist thing just never made sense to me. I just think you should consider it, Tyree. Sure. 

Todd: It’s so satisfying. I don’t know, there’s something about it. And I think the first time I watched this movie, this scene actually put me off. I felt like it was a little forced.

Drake seemed almost so jerky as to be unbelievable. And I don’t know if it was just the mood I was in at the time, but this time around, it just felt a little more natural, a little better for me. So 

Craig: yeah, see, yeah, I would, I would disagree with you there and maybe you’re, you see it more like I do now, but it didn’t seem unrealistic to me at all.

Um, Yes, he’s, he’s, he’s over the, he’s an over the top jerk. And he’s clearly trying to bait people with these passive aggressive comments about their careers. And, you know, he’s just belittling and demeaning. But I’ve met people like that. You know, there really are those people out there who are just shit disturbers and want conflict and want argument intention and disagreement.

And, uh, And I thought, you know, the way that they respond to each other, it’s not like, it’s not a civilized argument. They’re just throwing barbs back and forth at one another to the point where we can’t even really understand what they’re saying. It’s just chaos. And I, I liked that. I thought that it, you know, it showed the, the very large chasms in this family.

Um, and, and you see the poor mother sitting there trying to get everybody to calm down. I mean, she’s fragile, everybody, and she’s trying to get To get people to just stop. I, I felt bad for her. It was difficult to find sympathy with the other characters. Even though Drake is the one who instigates things, Crispin is also very defensive.

And, and jumps to his own defense in a way that’s really kind of un It’s off putting it’s not somebody that you would you could really have an argument with in a rational way And so it’s it’s difficult to find sympathy for those characters But I did feel bad for the mom and I was thinking how awkward you know This is the first time that they’ve all met the others the kids significant others except for maybe kelly.

Um drake’s wife Um, and so I was thinking, you know, if I was one of their significant others This would be the most awkward thing ever in the world and um I, I, I think that it’s in part because it’s awkward, not entirely because I think he sees or hear something outside, but I think that it’s in part because it’s awkward that Amy’s, uh, boyfriend Tariq gets, stands up in the middle of all this, uh, chaos and without anybody noticing, walks to the window and is looking out the window clearly having seen something, but he doesn’t know what he’s looking at.

And, um, As all this commotion is still going on, we see the glass shatter and he just gets shot straight through the head with an arrow. And the only person who notices anything is Erin, who hears it. She hears the glass break and she looks around her to see shards of glass on the floor. But Tariq is directly behind her, so she doesn’t see him immediately.

Um, it’s, it’s, I believe, um, Drake, who finally sees him, and when he stops arguing, and they notice that his attention is focused elsewhere, everybody else turns, and they see Tariq standing there with this arrow through his head, bleeding from his wound, and he collapses, and then it just erupts into complete, Chaos.

Everybody’s freaking out. Nobody knows what’s happening. Nobody’s knowing what to do. And I felt that that was very believable too. I mean, it really felt like chaos. It really felt like panic. People were not taking measures for self preservation. Like, obviously this guy had just gotten shot through the window, and here they are standing, shrieking and sobbing right in front of these windows, except for Aaron, who immediately gets out of harm’s way and then starts to try to get other people out of harm’s way as well.

But I just, and it really feels like this is the beginning of a rollercoaster ride, and it kind of is. From this point, things happen so fast, and the pace really does not relent. And 

Todd: you know, you mentioned earlier about the humor, it, it’s also pretty funny that they’re having this dispute and nobody notices that a guy just got shot by an arrow through the, uh, through the window.

And then it’s funny too. It’s a very dark humor, but it’s really funny in their panic and that they’re still bickering and arguing like they were earlier. Yeah. Uh, Drake gets shot in the back at some point. They, they all grab a chair and try to, uh, and, and run out of the room. It’s very tense because that gives you the killer’s point of view through the window.

Even from behind the crossbow that they’re using, you know, you could see how everybody’s being targeted as they run by and you wonder if they’re going to get shot. It is. So it’s really well filmed in that way as well, I think. Um, but yeah, you’re right. It just runs really quickly. Uh, Aaron takes control.

At one point, and here’s another criticism I have of the movie, they end up in the of this large house, and they’ve, they’ve locked the door, and they’re kind of standing at the door, completely ignoring the, the windowed room now, just off to their right. And I think, of course, in their panic, and I, and I agree with you, Craig, that they are acting irrationally, so, and I don’t think any of us would be thinking too much about the windowed room.

We’d somehow get into the other room, We’re tending to Drake, and then we’re focused on how can we get out of there, and the answer to that seems to lie right in front of us, which is the door. And so then they have this, this hilarious argument, I think, about who’s going to run out the door, because they decide that maybe that’s the best thing, is that if they can run quick enough, they can get to one of the cars and past the assailants that are outside.

Yeah, it’s not a very rational argument. Um, and yeah, maybe irrational people would think along these lines as they’re going. And I think part of the comedy here is just that we want to set it up so they can argue about, uh, you know, who would be running the fastest and who can volunteer. We need to do something!

Clip: Somebody should make a run for the cars and try to go get help! No! No! We can’t go out there! Mom, it’s the only way! It’s the only way we’re out of this! Whoever’s the fastest runner. Who is that? I’m the fastest, but I got this fuckin arrow in my leg. What does your shoulder have to do with your legs? I’m the fastest.

He has a fuckin arrow in his back! Stop yelling at me, Kelly! You fuckin know what it has to do with your legs if you never run, you fat slut! I’m not fat! Shut the fuck up! I hate you! I will promise that you guys never give me any credit for anything! It’s not about that. Nobody needs to run. We need to all stay inside.

I don’t know how many people can make it. We believe in you. I can 

Craig: run 3 miles in 23 minutes. It’s silly and stupid, but it’s funny. And it doesn’t seem out of character for these people. I mean, they just seem that douchey that they would still be, even in this moment, they would be so self involved. Um, it’s, it’s ridiculous.

Uh, I, I, uh, I, I can’t really do it without being a little bit spoilery, but it’s significant to note that it’s Felix that says somebody needs to run out. Um, and I didn’t notice that the first time around watching it, and I don’t think that you would. There’s nothing that really calls any attention to it, but it is significant that he’s the one.

I guess eventually they agree, in part because of her pleading that nobody ever gives her a chance, that they’re gonna let Amy, um, make a run for the car. And there’s this kind of dramatic scene where it, it, um, Um, it goes into slow motion if I remember correctly, and she like cracks her necks and takes off her shoes, uh, in preparation, and then she just starts gearing up for a run at full speed, and, um, Felix says, Open the door at the very last second.

They won’t expect her to come barreling out of here full speed. And so that’s exactly what happens, but it plays out in slow motion. So we get her slowly running towards the door with her dad. And I think Aaron or maybe Felix at either side of this double door. And right as she gets close enough, they open it up.

And right as she’s going through the doorway, we see that. A piece of piano wire or razor wire has been strung in the doorway that hits her right smack in the neck and slits her throat, and she falls back, and of course everybody again just goes into panic, the mother is shrieking, everybody’s crying, and uh, she lays there in pain.

bleeds to death. And, you know, these deaths come at a pretty pace and this poor, fragile mother is just losing it like as I’m sure any mother would. But oh my God, she’s just in this emotional nightmare. And, um, uh, the actress, Barbara Crampton, I think, plays it very well. You know, she plays a woman who is losing her mind.

You know, it’s just been broken at these events and I thought it was good. 

Todd: Well, you know, this was a scene that Did bother me the first time I saw it and I guess like I said in seeing it again I I can give it a little I relaxed a little bit more I think but this is such a specific way for a person to go And it was such a very specific setup that when I first saw the movie I was like, oh, please give me a break and I can’t imagine that that most people wouldn’t feel that way even later on when you find out, um You You know, why Felix?

Well, I mean, we’re going to spoil it all anyway, that Felix is one of the people behind this, so that, and if you can piece together and remember that Felix was the one who suggested someone run out the door, then it makes more sense. But the problem is, is that, first of all, it doesn’t seem very significant at the time that he suggests it.

It’s not like he stands there and argues for it. It’s kind of a comment that he makes and everyone immediately goes along with it, so it passes you by pretty quickly. And then By the time you find out that Felix is one of the people behind this It’s so far removed from this scene, that even reflecting back on the scene, it still seems ridiculous.

So, that’s, that’s one of the things that really put me off, and I still think it’s kind of a cheap, um, silly way. It made for a great kill, but Right. It still seems to me one of the weakest of, of premises that this, that, that they would set up this very specific razor wire that he would so easily convince someone they need to run out and that, that, that that would happen.

It’s at the right height for her neck and all that. It’s just goof. Exactly. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah, it relies on a lot of, uh, coincidences, um, in order for it to work out, um, or very specific circumstances. Well, and not conventionally. Had it been. Go ahead. Go ahead. 

Todd: Well, I was going to say, not to mention the fact that the notion of running straight out the door into your assailants is, it’s not a plan that if I were concocting it in advance I would go, alright, they’ll totally go for this.

Yeah. No. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Anyway. 

Craig: Yeah, no, it doesn’t make a, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. As you said, it does make for an interesting scene, and I appreciate it for that reason. Here again, watching this movie, I’d say for a second time, but that’d be a lie. I’ve seen this movie several times. Um, but watching it and, and watching it carefully, um, I noticed that, um, the reactions to Amy’s death were somewhat questionable too.

The mother and Kelly were are both freaking out. Um, the dad is down, you know, with her on the floor. Uh, but Felix and Zoe, or Zee, Felix and Zee are just kind of standing back in the background, not really with much reaction at all. Now that’s not to say that that’s out of character for them, they’re kind of dark anyway, so maybe it wouldn’t be in character for them to be panicking in the same way.

Um, but it is significant. Um, and uh, another character reacts, uh, kind of oddly to, um, but anyway. Again, the, the, the things just keep happening. Um, at some point Aaron is with. Crispin and she gets out her phone. They’ve all tried their phones and they don’t work. Um, and the dad says, it doesn’t make any sense.

I was calling people today. There is service out here. And Felix says, Oh, well, somebody must be using a jammer. You can buy them on the internet. It jams all cell phone, uh, equipment. Again, another hint that he’s actually involved, um, for later on. But Aaron, um. In Crispin’s presence, she pulls out her phone and he’s like, there’s no service.

And she says, well, but in some places, even if there’s no service, if you text 9 1 1 at some point, if any glimmer of service comes around, it will go through and they can respond to you then. Um, but, uh, after directly after that, the dad takes, and here’s another thing that I thought was pretty. Unrealistic.

And this happens several times, but it always happens in these types of movies. The dad says, you know, I’ve got to take your mom upstairs. You know, she’s got to lay down. Um, and he takes her up there and she’s crying and he puts her in bed and he leaves her in there by herself. Now, of course they think that the threat is coming from the outside, but still, how good of an idea is it to separate each other?

You know, let’s take her up and leave her alone. That doesn’t make. Any kind of sense. And of course it doesn’t make any kind of sense because as she’s lying there crying, we see. One of the masked men crawl out from under her bed, um, and kill her in her bed. Uh, and she shrieks and everybody runs up there, finds her dead.

Again, they find your next written on the wall. Um, and, uh, I think everybody else leaves the room except for Kelly, uh, who is Drake’s wife. And she lingers and she’s kind of looking around and she, gets the idea to look under the bed, which makes sense. I don’t know why anybody else wasn’t looking for this killer.

Where else would he be? I mean, he’s got to be there somewhere, but now she’s alone. She looks down under the bed. Surprise, surprise, the killer is still under there. Um, and so she just takes off running. I just felt like she was kind of like, screw this. And she just takes off running through the woods. I mean, she, she runs past everybody in the house.

She’s screaming, she’s crying. Everybody’s like, what’s going on? Um, but she just takes off running through the woods. Um, and it cuts back and forth between her and the house. We, we see. That, uh, the, the bad guys outside do see her running, and, um, eventually they chase her to the neighbor’s house, where she finds the dead bodies, and, and she then is, uh, dispatched there.

Um, but these things, I mean, it just, it’s, it just moves, moves, moves. 

Todd: Yeah, and, uh, There’s also a moment in between there where, uh, Erin, Erin who again is taking control, and I think this is the line where Crispin says, I’ve never seen you act like this before, and she is also going around and locking all of the windows in the house, and uh, trying to grab, you know, trying to lock the doors, and she ends up, In, I believe, the kitchen, and, uh, a guy, I thought it was a very effective scare, smashes right through the window and grabs her by the head, but she’s able to swing around, and I guess she had grabbed an arrow?

Or was this the arrow from Drake’s back? Had he pulled it out by now? I don’t know. But she has something long and sharp in her hand already, and she just swings it around and stabs him. Stabs the, the mask in the face and you hear, you know, a man yell and, and stumble back into the darkness. This is the first point.

And I think there are a couple times when I, this, a couple reasons why I feel like this movie shows its cards just a little too early, and this is one of them. You know, even though it’s a home invasion movie, even though we know it’s people that are masked coming through, the creepiness of the masks and everything really still suggests that, that, a sinister aspect to it.

And when you, when you don’t know who the killers are, when you have no idea, when they’re not talking, right, uh, it’s, It’s just 10 times freakier because once you find out that they’re human, even though you know, they’re human, once you get that affirmation where somebody gets hurt and they go, Oh, uh, I think it loses a little bit of, of that.

First of all, you know, that they’re vulnerable. They’re not going to go through here and they’re not an unstoppable force. But then second of all, you hear a human voice kind of scream back in pain. Um, then you really know that they’re vulnerable and you know that they’re not monsters. They, they are. In a sense, just people to, I think that I always feel like that needs to happen later, you know, in the movie, it’s a small thing, but it somehow it, it drains it of just a little bit of suspense for me.

Craig: Okay, I am going to totally 100 percent disagree with you on this one because this is what I think sets this movie apart from these other home invasion movies. In these other home invasion movies, so rarely do the victims really fight back. I mean, it’s and again, you know, when it comes to fight or flight, I would probably choose flight also.

Um, and it’s not to say that they never fight back, but usually not very effectively. And I love that in this movie, because they didn’t know who they were messing with, they, they Become vulnerable and Aaron is just a badass and like she doesn’t she there’s no hesitation In fighting back none at all as soon as she was grabbed by that one person She didn’t pause to see who it was.

I mean, she just turned around and stabbed him um, and and then uh, like very soon after this Crispin has said that he’s going to go try to find, try to get one of the cars. He’s like, well, Kelly got out, maybe they’re distracted with her. And so he goes out to try one of the cars. Um, but Aaron, as she comes out of the kitchen, she’s got all of these weapons.

Like she’s bringing everybody else weapons. And as she walks in another one of the killers jumps through the window, knocks her onto the floor. She drops all of her weapons. But she just immediately and everybody else runs out of the room. Felix and Z run out of the room. Um, the dad is off, I think, you know, looking for bad guys on his own.

Cause he’s pissed off about his wife. Um, but she’s just left alone in there with him and immediately. from the floor. She grabs a meat mallet and she just turns around and destroys him with it. Just destroys him, takes out his knee. So he bends over, immediately just whacks him with this meat mallet in the back of the head.

And then after she’s done it once and he’s down, but he’s still conscious, she knocks him. It’s several more times with this meat mallet right in the head. I mean, she just obliterates him in a matter of seconds, and you just don’t usually see that in these types of movies. And I really liked that. I thought that it made it stand apart.

It gave us a hero to root for, and it gave us, you know, kind of a sense of these bad guys had no idea what they’re in for, and they better watch out because they picked a fight with the wrong girl. 

Todd: Oh, I won’t dispute that. I mean, I, I think that you’re right. It does set this movie apart and it does, uh, it is a nice welcome change, but it, at that point, it becomes a different kind of movie.

And not that that’s a problem. Uh, it just, uh, it ceases, I think, to be a horror film. I, I think it ceases at that point to be, let me just put it this way. I guess, from then on out, I felt like a little bit of the suspense was drained from it, and it became more of an action movie. It became more of the kind of suspense that you get from a Die Hard or something like that.

It’s not that it’s devoid of suspense, but it’s a different kind of suspense. It doesn’t have that element of the unknown behind it. Now we know. Okay. Erin, Erin can fend for herself, she’s probably going to be the one who beats these people back judging by the way she’s set apart here. And these people are super vulnerable, they’re just people coming into the home.

And now it’s just a puzzle for us to unpack. Who’s coming into the house? Why are they doing it? Who else could possibly be mixed up in it? And how is Erin going to dispatch them? And how many people are they going to kill before she dispatches them? You know? Uh. To me that, that’s, it just changes the tone of the movie that was set up so well beforehand.

And also, you know, there’s a little scene in here that’s a little off kilter, because you’re right, at that point, when Kelly runs out and goes to the neighbors with the glass and she’s killed there, they’re going almost for this little Michael Myers vibe there for a second. You notice when, after the, I guess it’s the guy and the lamb.

uh, mask or whatever, sits down after he kills her. It’s this creepy, creepy shot of him, like, just like sitting calmly on the sofa next to this dead body with, of the man with the Kelly in front of him. And he just sits there. And then he cocks his head to the side just a little bit. It was a direct nod to Michael Myers.

And again, Michael Myers is, is a guy, but he’s a really messed up guy and he doesn’t talk and he doesn’t make any sound. And that’s, what’s creepy. And it felt like that was the direction they were going. But it’s off kilter because we get the scene before that where the guy got stabbed in the eye So we heard him scream and yell and then of course immediately following that we get the scene of Aaron beating this guy up So we know that they’re just guys so That seemed a little lame 

Craig: I I get what you’re saying, you know, it didn’t destroy the tension for me because even though she’s tough she’s still up against like We don’t know how many.

I mean, we, at least two or three other guys, um, and we find out very soon because, um, after all this goes down, uh, Felix and Z go upstairs to look for the dad, and the dad has found, he’s opened that closet up that he was about to look in before, and it’s obvious that somebody had been living in that closet, like there’s water bottles with pee and stuff in there, and, um, He, he runs into Felix and Z in the hallway and he’s explaining to them, they’ve been here a long time.

They’ve been watching us. They’re targeting our family. And then this part really shocked me the first time I saw it. From behind him. Appears one of the bad guys with a big knife or a machete and slits his throat and the blood sprays on Felix and Z But they don’t immediately react at least not in the way that you would anticipate that they would react and after the dad falls down Dead the killer just very calmly walks up towards them and And Felix says really?

Did you have to do that right in front of me? And so we know now that Felix and Z are in on it. And I think that Felix even says something like, that’s not what I hired you for. That’s not what I’m paying you for. So we now know that this is an inside job. Some more other stuff happens. Um, Gosh, I, I feel like we talked about how fast it was and now we’re drawing it out.

Um, Aaron and Z make some nail boards like for booby traps to sit outside the window. And this is when Aaron confesses. 

Clip: Oh, I had kind of a weird childhood. I grew up on a survivalist compound. I haven’t even told Crispin that yet. Is 

Craig: that something that is convenient? Sure, but is it out of the realm of possibilities?

And out of the realm of possibility that she wouldn’t have told her fairly new boyfriend this because it’s kind of an odd part of her history? I don’t think it’s unbelievable. And I, I like it and it gives, you know, some credence to how she’s able to do all of these things and why she has been so on her toes all the time.

Um, but when she confesses that to Z, we know. now know that Z is in on it. And so we know that they are aware that she can potentially be a threat. In fact, at one point when they’re making those boards, Aaron turns her back and Z lifts it as though she’s going to hit her. But Aaron turns back around and she and Z puts it back down really quickly.

Todd: Yeah, I think, uh, I think Erin gets a pass on this just because she’s Australian. We know that Australians, you know, I mean, hey, she’s Australian. You could tell me that, you know, she’s scaled mountains and, uh, she’s a survivalist and all this stuff. And sure, I’ll believe it, right? What do we know about Australia?

It’s just a big, dangerous, uh, outback y place, uh, where, you know, Wolf Creek happened. Right, right, right. So, yeah, no, she totally gets a pass on that. And again, that I think part of the genius in casting her in that character is what, what should, what would be written any other way and seem like a really convenient thing, uh, becomes ah, alright.

I really didn’t give it much of a second thought. 

Craig: Yeah, I didn’t either. I, in fact, I liked it very much. Um, but Aaron then goes upstairs and finds the dead dad. And so then she knows there’s something shady with, uh, Felix and Z because they had said that he was upstairs and that he was fine, that he was just resting.

She is confronted by one of the other killers. There’s a chase where she goes through a window there. She’s chased through the forest a little bit, but she ends up getting back in the house. And that’s when she hears Felix and Z Speaking to the killers and the killers are angry because the guy who has gotten killed is one of the other killers brother and you know, this wasn’t all supposed to happen and um, Aaron gets, uh, a text.

She’s sitting in the same room where they are. She’s just concealed, but she gets a text saying that her emergency, uh, text had been received. Um, Which is great, you know, hopefully help is on the way, but they have heard this, and so one of the killers goes after her, um, there’s more chasing, uh, she, uh, she does something that I think is so clever, um, and I’ve never seen anybody in a movie do this before.

She, uh, When this guy is chasing her, she runs out the door, and then immediately takes a right turn and jumps right back in the window. So that when everybody comes chasing her out, they assume that she has run away, but in fact, she’s just ten feet away. She just got snuck back into the house. And I thought that was so smart!

You know, that would be the Usually, people are running up the stairs, or, you know, just running blindly, and, and I just thought that was so clever. It was such a good diversion. 

Todd: It was, and she takes out a guy through the window. One of the guys, like, kind of gets the idea, and he, uh, decides to go back around, and he pokes his head in through the window, and she takes care of him, dispatches him right there.

We’re, uh, completely unnoticed by everybody else, even when they come back, so, so that was a really nice touch. And then 

Craig: Yeah, and then When she’s back in there, there’s kind of this montage where she’s setting up booby traps, and it’s all set to this really kind of cool synth score that I really liked it, but she booby traps the door much in the way that Nancy did in A Nightmare on Elm Street, where she hangs up like a sledgehammer or an axe, maybe even, um, and, and so that when the front door opens, it will fall and get whoever, um, comes in.

But unfortunately for her, when the killer does come back, he comes in through the window. Um, and then there’s a cool scene where she leads, sorry, go ahead. 

Todd: You know, it sets up. I think where the filmmakers are toying with us a little bit because we’re waiting for people to go through that door and we’re seeing when they’re almost going to go through the door but they end up not going through the door.

However, um, the fact that she gets all home alone on this door is really pretty silly. Again, it’s a great device and it comes into play and it’s really satisfying to see it. She had to go get a brick from somewhere to weigh the thing down, she had to get all this string, she was like, screwing things into the wall with her fingers, uh, like, pulling off pieces of the banister and whatnot to hook these things to, I mean, it was really pretty crazy, this would take, even if you’re a survivalist, just to gather all the materials, design this thing and put it together, It’s a lot of work.

It would take a good couple of hours to do when you should really be more concerned about the big, open, broken window that one of the killers just tried to come through, you know, or the back door that they keep coming in through. Um, you’re, you’re, you’re really pinning a lot of hopes on this front door to spend so much time with it.

But yeah, you know, whatever, 

Craig: right. You know, just, I think generally speaking that you concern yourself more with believability than I do, um, even. Even in a movie like this, where it’s, it’s, it’s basically set in, in reality, I mean, there’s nothing supernatural going on here, you know, Erin is not some sort of superhero, she’s just a woman who is well prepared, um, and so, does it, is it, on a timeline, does it make sense that she would take the time to do this?

No, but it’s, it’s in character, and it doesn’t bother me, and it sets up for a nice, uh, shot at the end. But, 

Todd: but, you 

Craig: know, but 

Todd: what I’m saying is, you know, how it becomes a different movie. Once, you know, she starts fighting back, it almost demands more believability at that point. You know what I mean? I don’t know something about the suspension of disbelief that you have when you watch a horror movie or you you kind of there’s Supernatural crap happening.

Anyway, you kind of expect this sort of thing to happen now that it’s become diehard in a house Then, this, at least for me mentally, uh, I’m more attuned to those things, I’m less likely to give them a pass. And I don’t mean like I’m standing there thinking it, I guess it’s just like subconsciously it hits my brain and it doesn’t compute.

Craig: Right, I get what you’re saying, um, and, and that could be said of a lot of these things. I mean, she gets out of things, um, not easily, but luckily in a lot of things. Um, I, I, there’s, she ends up killing that guy and it’s a cool scene. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on it cause we’re running long, but, um, it involves a camera flash and blinding him and taking him out in that way.

But I want to go back just a little bit because right after she found out that Felix and Z were in on it, um, or right after we, the audience find that out, there’s a scene that may be my favorite scene in the whole movie where Felix and, Um, in the basement. Um, and, uh, Drake is saying something about I’ve got to go find Kelly and Felix says to her, didn’t anybody tell you Kelly’s dead?

She’s laying up there dead, which is a lie. He doesn’t even know that Kelly’s dead. So he’s tormenting his brother right before he kills him. And the way he kills them is he grabs a tool. They’ve been gathering tools for weapons. He grabs one off the, uh, The bench or whatever and and stabs his brother and the brother just stands there and looks at him in shock.

And so he grabs another one and stabs him and nothing happens and he grabs another one and stabs him. I think he ends up stabbing him like five times and leaving these instruments in his brother. And he says my favorite line in the whole movie. He says, 

Clip: Would you just die already? This is hard enough for me.

Craig: I laughed out loud when I saw that, uh, in the theater. Oh my gosh. I thought that was the. funniest line, which, and then after she kills the, uh, the bad guy who I, I think that was the last one. Then she’s just left to fight Z and Felix and they end up in a showdown in the kitchen. And it starts out with, um, Aaron and Z fighting.

It’s kind of classic girl fight hair pulling stuff. And, uh, but Felix comes in and shoots Aaron in the shoulder. Or no, she shoots at him. I’m sorry. That’s what happened. She shoots at him. Uh, he shoots at her with the bow and arrow, but misses. And that’s how they end up in the kitchen. Um, she is stabbed by Felix, but then she kills him.

And again, if you want to talk about suspension of disbelief, I think this is where you’re gonna really have to, uh, she, she kills him by breaking The blender over his head and then taking the sharp blending prongs of the blender and impaling them into the top of his head And then turning it on So it’s like drilling into his head and he’s screaming and the blood’s flowing down his face and it’s really stupid but It’s darkly comic and, and again, a good kill.

Realistic? No, surely not. Um, but I loved it. I loved it. Such comedy. 

Todd: I give this a pass for the comedic, for the comedy because you could tell they were just going to be silly. And there’s even, that’s the point at which she gets the text, right? Isn’t that the point? Um, oh no no, that’s when she gets the phone call, sorry.

Uh, Z comes running in. As well, and she quickly, uh, stabs, uh, she quickly stabs Z in the head after she blends, uh, her boyfriend. And there’s this great moment where she just slumps down between the two of them. It’s a great shot. Z’s off to the side. This guy’s got a blender stuck in his head and blood all, there’s just blood everywhere.

And she just sits down almost like she’s taking a breather. Right, right. It’s so good. And then she gets the phone call. And this is a phone call, but not to her. It’s a phone call to To, uh, Z’s phone. So she, I’m sorry, to Felix’s phone. Felix. So she picks it up and, uh, answers it, but doesn’t really say anything.

And it’s Crispin. It’s Crispin calling Z to basically ask, Is everything done in there yet? And Crispin, I thought that was pretty effective, Because we kind of forget about Crispin, uh, at this point. Mhm. She’s run out for help, but, We haven’t seen any flashbacks to him in the woods or what he’s doing or what not.

We totally forget about him because everything else has been going so gangbusters up until this point. And that’s when she depressingly along with the rest of us realizes that Crispin is in on it too. And that sets us up for the final confrontation. For 

Craig: the end, right. And he, you know, he, she doesn’t say anything, but he kind of confesses his whole thing, like, I’m sorry I had to leave, you know I can’t handle violence like that.

Like, what a douche. Um, but he, then he’s like, it’s really cold out here, I’m coming in. So he comes in, and eventually, um, she just kind of steps out of a door frame and he sees her and he’s like, Oh, hey Erin. And then, Where is everybody? She’s like, where’s Felix? And he’s like, I killed him with a blender.

And he’s like, okay, well, what about Z? I killed her too. I 

Todd: can understand 

Craig: that. Okay. 

Todd: I love, I love the dialogue in this. This is, this is like. It is 

Craig: really funny. He explained, she said, you were going to let me get killed. And he says, no, that was never the plan. You were supposed to live. We needed you to be the witness.

You are an outsider. You have no connection to anybody here except for me. You needed to be the one to say that these guys came in and slaughtered our family and that we had nothing to do with it. I don’t know if I buy that because he also says, uh, I mean, someone other than Z because Z was in on it too, and she could have played the exact same role.

So I don’t know. She’s a less credible witness, I suppose, based on her character, but I don’t know. Maybe if Aaron could get out of it alive, he would have been fine with that. I also have a feeling that if she didn’t, he would have been okay with that too. Um, and again, another one of my favorite lines. He just says, How are we supposed to know you were so good at killing people?

Which is kind of weird, actually. This dialogue is so funny. 

Todd: Oh, it, this is so hilarious. It’s so, and it’s delivered so well by the actor. It’s just this college professor, you know, really taking his professor toward his student tone again. And he’s just able to very coldly. And this is kind of why he’s such a.

You know, you kind of hate him too, is just able to coldly rationalize and talk his way out of it. And at one point he’s saying to her, uh, you know, we could run away, think about this, we could run away, we could have the money, um, we could go live on an island, an engagement possibly, or whatever. He’s kind of throwing that out, like the idea that he would even propose marriage to this woman in the midst of this is so hilarious.

Craig: You know, he’s trying to be soft with her, but he basically gives her an ultimatum. He basically says, you can go along with me and we can have all of this stuff and you’ll never have to worry about student loans again. You won’t have to work, blah, blah, blah. Or if I die. You get nothing and all of this was for nothing and she doesn’t even say anything to him She just stabs him in the neck and then stabs him also in the eye and before she stabs him in the eye I think he says why or something like that and she goes why not you know, like at this point She’s killed so many people, you know, why not?

And then the big surprise at the end is as soon as he is dead She is shot And we have no idea because we think everybody’s dead. We think all the killers are dead. We think we don’t know what’s going on. She shot and she goes down and the camera cuts to the window where this cop is, um, standing with his gun drawn.

And it would only make sense that he would shoot her. He had just witnessed her murder somebody. There are bodies everywhere. Um, but it’s just kind of a sad irony. Um, she’s not dead. However. Um, She starts to try to crawl, I guess, maybe towards the door, and she realizes that the cop is, and the cop calls for backup, so backup is coming, um, but then the cop starts to come into the front door, and she screams, no, but he opens the door, and it axes him right in the face, and that’s when it just cuts to, uh, a big animated blood splatter.

plot. You’re next. Um, and that’s the end, the credits and the credits. I really liked to because for each of the characters, they showed like a snapshot of them after they’d been murdered. So it’s all these almost like crime scene photos of these different bodies with the actor’s names next to it. Um, and I thought that was fun to, um, you know, overall I, I enjoyed this movie.

I think it’s a good popcorn movie. I think it’s, um, entertaining. It’s quick paced. There’s a little bit of, uh, dark humor. Um, it’s got, you know, pretty graphic violence and gore, which I don’t always need, but I like it every once in a while. Um, it’s clever in the kills. The characters are not you. flat. Um, they’re not likable most of them, but they’re not flat.

They’re interesting. It’s acted well. I thought it was shot well. I just think overall it’s a pretty solid film. What do you think? 

Todd: Yeah, as an entertaining flick, it really fires on almost all cylinders. I agree with you and I think that’s well acted and the writing is pretty skillful. It’s pretty skillfully plotted.

If you’re willing to overlook a few of the ridiculous moments that I mentioned and That’s what bothered me, I think, about it the first time around. Now that I knew the plot, I was able to enjoy it a little bit more, and I think I was just able to enjoy those other nuances a little better, because I wasn’t being distracted by the implausibility of so much of it.

And, which really comes down to the whole thing. I mean, the whole thing, is completely implausible if the goal of these brothers is for their parents to die so that they can get their inheritance. And maybe they want to pick off a couple of their siblings as well because they hate them so much so that they have more inheritance for themselves.

But right. You can get around this whole mess by just having these killers come in and kill their parents before anyone gets them. There, you know, or if you wanna take off your two siblings, then, uh, you know, have the siblings arrive first and then kill them too. It’s just unnecessarily complicated and convoluted, uh, for any of this to make any sense.

But again, uh, you know, it makes for a fun movie and, uh, and I did enjoy it. I, I would definitely recommend it. Like I said, I enjoyed it a lot better the second time around. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s I would recommend it to, um, like I said, there are so many things that are fairly typical of these types of movies. I mean, you can draw lots of parallels to the strangers, which is another great home invasion movie.

But with the masks are very similar. It’s The motivations are different, but there are definitely parallels. But I thought that this had enough different going for it, um, that it didn’t just seem like more of the same. Uh, and, and I really appreciate originality in general, um, and also specifically in the genre, because we do get a lot of the same sometimes.

And, uh, there’s a place for all of that too. Um, but, uh, this was refreshing. I really liked it. 

Todd: You know, there’s something that we didn’t mention that really bears saying is I thought the music was great. 

Craig: It 

Todd: was great, and it showed such restraint. Uh, not only did we get that song that came in, which is kind of a creepy song anyway, and every time you hear it on the repeat, it’s, I don’t know, it just sounds a little creepier, but it makes sense when it comes in.

But also, there’s a synth y like score behind it, but it only comes in at certain points, and it’s just very effective when it does. The music, um, is just so good. It doesn’t necessarily call attention to itself, but when you think about it, oh, it’s just, it’s just beautiful. It really melds with the movie well.

Very well edited in that respect. 

Craig: Yep. I agree. One hundred percent. 

Todd: Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend. Like us on Facebook. You can find our podcast on iTunes and Stitcher, and just get on that social media and let us know what you think about the movie, about this review, and any other films you’d like us to review in the future.

Until then, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Who doesn’t love a good movie about the horrors of a wax museum? Maybe Todd. At least, Waxwork didn’t rub him as well as it did Craig. But as an artifact of 80’s filmmaking and the lost art of practical monster effects, it survives to deliver to today’s audience a bit of fun and a lot of truly terrible dialogue.

Waxwork (1988)

Episode 57, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: Today’s film is the 1988 hit, horror comedy. Wax work. I’m sorry, man. This is this is gonna be an interesting one. I can’t wait to hear what you think about this movie. 

Craig:  This is a movie that I I don’t remember when I saw it, but when it was when I was a kid, and I remember really liking it when I was a kid. And our last video store finally closed its doors here in my, small town. And, so, you know, they liquidated all of their stuff. And, this one I got on sale for like a buck, double feature wax work and wax work Todd. And I hadn’t seen it in years years. And and going back and watching it again, having the memories of it as a kid was an interesting experience. 

Todd:  You know, I think I’d seen wax work too, on television. Maybe not the whole thing, but just little snippets of it. I remember one scene with Bruce Campbell being absolutely hilarious, and I was hoping against hope that maybe I was mistaken and that wax work the first actually had that scene with Bruce Campbell in Todd, but alas, no. This is a movie about a wax work. It’s not House of Wax, though. It’s nothing like it really, the classic with Vincent Price. This is a 1980s film, I think planted quite firmly in the eighties, and it opens up in a suburban Well, I guess it’s supposed to be kind of suburban. It’s a, I would say, McMansion type neighborhood, maybe is the best way to put it.   Yeah. With with a seed with a with a kid. And I’m sorry. Is he supposed to be in college or high school, Craig? College. 

Craig:  I couldn’t tell. I I I think I think they’re supposed to be in college, but he still lives with his mom, I guess. I don’t know. I couldn’t really tell. I mean, as usual, all of these actors look far Todd old to be even high or college kids really. Yeah. But I I do think it’s supposed to be college. 

Todd:  Yeah. Well, I don’t know. Actually, now that I think back on it, maybe it’s supposed to be a really big high school because of the scene that happens later. It’s just so weird. Alright. Anyways, so it opens with this kid and his mom, and, they’re at one of these really long tables, you know, that’s how you tell that they’re rich, is because Right. People dine at these really long tables and don’t really talk to each other. You know, there’s something about that.   Is that like a social thing? Is that like a commentary on the loneliness of being rich or the aloofness of the rich that they don’t even, like, enjoy dinner together? Is that 

Craig:  what that is? I I don’t know. I have no idea. I think it’s I   I think it’s just a convention to show us, hey. Look. They’re wealthy.   I don’t   think there is a whole lot more thought going into it than that. 

Todd:  Their dining room is bigger than your house. That’s what it’s supposed to mean. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and and it’s funny because it’s the fact that he’s wealthy is really completely insignificant. Like, this is just kind of a little I don’t even know why we get this little scene really. I mean, it comes at the very, very first scene. I think it’s that same mansion, but it’s like on a spooky stormy night, and this guy is murdered by this figure who we can’t see. You know, all we see is, like, gloved hands and things. But, this guy is, is thrown into the fire place virtually and his his head catches on fire and and he’s killed. And we see somebody, whoever this killer is, stealing all of these relics out of glass cases.   Of course, we have no idea what the relevance of that is, but, it comes up later. And then we get that that breakfast scene which really just introduces us to the main character, Mark, played by Zach Galligan, who I always I mean, he’s been in lots of stuff. He he still works, but, Gremlins was, his big movie. He was the main kid, in Gremlins. And, yeah, I mean, that that opening scene is just kind of odd, I guess. I think at some point, I don’t know if it’s on the news or or maybe the mom’s reading the newspaper, and and they discuss how there have been some disappearances in the town recently. And, I I guess that’s significant for us to know for later, but it just seems kind of a, I don’t know, a cheap way of delivering that exposition.   But Yeah.   I mean, it’s not like the scene it’s not like the scene lasts long. The kid gets up and goes to school, and and then we start to meet the other characters. 

Todd:  Well, it’s weird. Actually, it’s funny that you mentioned that opening scene, the guy getting getting his head getting his head thrust into the fireplace, which is which is unique. But also because you just reminded me of it because I think, like, its significance, like, totally passed by me. And and now that I’m going back and thinking about the movie, yeah, I guess it was a little significant, but it just Todd. It’s kind of incongruous with the rest of the film in that when when you see this hand breaking these glass cases, and you see it taking these artifacts, you really think, oh, this is gonna be about, this this particular magical gem or this particular artifact or whatnot. And it really doesn’t end up being like that at all. So I forgot about it. 

Craig:  No. I mean, all I all it turns out is that we’re gonna you know, the movie’s called Waxwork. We’re gonna eventually get to this Waxwork. There’s something spooky going on, and all it establishes later on is that we find out that this kid, Mark, his grandpa or somebody, is connected somehow to this guy who runs, the wax work. And all that comes up later. It’s really not all that important or significant anyway. But, after we meet Mark, then, we cut to a scene of 2 girls, walking to school together, and they are Sarah and China. Sarah is played by Deborah Forman, who I I really recognize.   She’s so familiar. She’s got this really, girl next door look, but she’s got these really stunning, like, pale blue eyes. I looked her up. The only thing that I really recognized on her, IMDB page was she was the main girl in April Fools’ Day, and I I did remember that when I saw that. And then there’s, Chyna, and I guess Sarah’s kind of the goody goody one, and then Chyna’s kind of the bad girl one. Beautiful girl played by Michelle Johnson doesn’t look anywhere near high school or college age, but pretty girl. And and they’re walking along, and they end up in front of this big man mansion. I mean, it just looks like a house, a really nice big stone house.   But there’s a sign on it that says waxwork, and they kinda comment to one another. It’s kinda weird that there would be a waxwork right here. Like, it seems like it’s just, like, plopped down right in the middle of suburbia. 

Todd:  And, yeah. 

Craig:  But as they’re as they’re standing there, a guy appears. And he’s wearing kind of a colorful suit, and, like, he he literally just kind of appears right next to them. This guy is the guy that runs the wax work. He’s played by David Warner. Again, another really familiar actor. That he was in The Omen. He’s been in lots of things. The thing that I remembered him from was that he was the villains Flunky and Titanic.   Mhmm. But you I mean, you’re you’re totally gonna know this guy from stuff.   I’m having a private showing tonight at midnight. 

Clip:  Good time. After dinner, but before breakfast. 

Craig:  You can bring some friends, of course. No more than 6, though. Bit full. Oh, you’re expecting a crowd. Like I 

Todd:  said, no more 

Clip:  than 6. And then, you know, 

Craig:  we meet these other young people, not young looking, but young nonetheless. And and the group, it ends up being 6 of them. There’s, Mark, Sarah, China, James, and Gemma who are a couple. And then there’s Tony who is this guy that’s always in, like, a suit and is always smoking cigarettes, and they’re gonna be the ones, that go. And, you know, the the funny thing is before I suggested that we watch this, I had already watched it. As soon as I bought it, I had already watched it. And when I watched it that time, I really enjoyed it. And then now, that’s probably been, I don’t know, a week, 2 weeks ago, I sat down to watch it again, and I realized that this opening part before they get to the wax work is really pretty bad.   And I can’t tell I can’t tell if it’s intentional or not. Like, the acting is really melodramatic and The writing. The characters are really stereotypical. And, like, with the cinematography, like, it’s all these really extreme close ups on their face for, like, reaction shots, and it plays super melodramatic and and soap opera y. And I couldn’t tell if that was on purpose, like it was supposed to be funny, or if it was just unintentionally bad. But the first, I would say, 10, 15 minutes where we’re just meeting the characters, not the greatest of quality. 

Todd:  Well, if even if you back up way back to when he’s talking with his mom, it is so the dialogue is so dumb. 

Clip:  Oh, isn’t it terrible, darling? 2 more people have disappeared. 

Craig:  Oh, really? Were they uses or thems? 

Clip:  Don’t be facetious darling. Now drink your milk. You’re late for college. 

Craig:  Mom, when are you going to let me have some coffee in the morning? 

Clip:  When? You’re a big boy. I mean, you know it’s bad for you. 

Craig:  But mom, I need the caffeine badly. Well, I’ll think about it. 

Clip:  Now run along, darling. 

Todd:  And then after he steps out, there’s Jeeves or whoever the butler is 

Craig:  who’s, 

Todd:  like, gives up your caffeine, sir, and he takes a shot of espresso. And and I’m, like, I thought at first, oh, they were trying to establish that he’s kind of a bad boy, or his mother, keeps him oppressed, but because he’s rich and he has a butler and he can kind of do what he wants, he just goes right over her head. But all about caffeine and coffee just seemed like a strange way to get that. And then I realized, no, I don’t think they were going for that either. I just think it was really dumb dialogue. And and then when the girls meet the guy in front of the house, are we supposed to believe that China was somewhat attracted to that guy? 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. Definitely. She definitely flirt sure. And the I mean, the conversation that they had just been having, you know, she, Chyna, I guess, is the girl that gets around, and and owns it. But, you know, she she had the night before went out on a date with this jock. I think his name was Jonathan or something. It doesn’t really matter. But we also find out that she had had been dating Mark, but she’s not anymore because he’s just not enough man for her.   And she even talks about how she’s interested in older men. So yeah, she’s definitely flirting with him. And you’re right, like the dialogue, I I really think that it was I want to believe that it was intentional because I I can’t imagine how it could happen by accident that it was really so over the top. I mean, there’s one point, because Chyna and Mark used to date, like, when they’re around each other, there’s all this tension. Like, he’s still into her, but she’s not into him, and he’s always kind of ribbing her.   We need to talk. 

Clip:  Yeah. About what? 

Craig:  About what? About us? 

Clip:  Us is over. You had your chance. You blew it. 

Craig:  Right. 

Clip:  I need it taken care of. Not, hey. How about a pizza after class, babe? I’m looking for something just a little more in a man. A little. 

Craig:  A little what? 

Clip:  See? You don’t even speak French. 

Craig:  Well, I’m sorry. I’m not that good at languages. Okay? 

Clip:  Well, why should I suffer for that? 

Craig:  Suffer? We’re living in America. Just   like these these these are really silly, silly lines. I don’t know. I mean, I guess if if you’re going into it, you know, not expecting a whole lot, you’re right. It’s very entrenched in the eighties. In fact, I was really kinda surprised that it was 88. I would have thought, you know, more early eighties. That’s the aesthetic that it has. It does.   And, you know, this kind especially in horror movies or b movies of the time, this it’s not like this is atypical. You know? It’s it’s pretty typical of of these types of movies that the writing is really kinda goofy, and and I don’t mind that. But as I was sitting here watching it the second time, I just kept thinking, Just get to the waxworks. Just get there. That’s when the movie starts getting good for me. And it really doesn’t take that long. You know, they assemble that group of friends and they do, 2 of them, James and Gemma, chicken out before they even get to the front door, and they leave. So now they’re down to 4. 

Todd:  And then that’s the last we see of them for, like, an hour and a half. 

Craig:  Right. Yeah. Yeah. And then they pop up very conveniently at the end. 

Todd:  I know. I kept waiting for them to come back. I’m like, wait a minute. What about these 2? Or or, like, are you gonna after your visit the wax works, are you gonna, like, confer back with them? Are they gonna go looking for you? There really wasn’t any of that. 

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, it seemed weird that they introduced them. You know, it seemed very much like, okay. Here’s our group of characters. Oh, no. Wait. Now these 2 are gonna leave, and we’re not gonna see them again for a long time. It was it it was kind of odd.   I mean, like I said, they do end up coming back. It’s all kind of clunky how they do end up coming back, but they do. But anyway, they get into the wax work. They’re greeted at the door by Hans, who is a little person, played by I don’t know how to pronounce his name, Mihaly. His nickname was Mico, I guess, Mizaros. And he’s this funny little guy. I think really that I recognize him from this. I think this is what I always think of him from, but he was also in Big Top Pee Wee, which I was a fan of when I was a kid.   Terrible movie. I loved it. And he was ALF. He was the little person who actually was in the ALF suit. No way. Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah.   Yeah. Cute little guy. And sadly, he just passed away this year. But he, you know, nice long life, long career. They’re greeted by him and he’s got this little squeaky voice.   We are at the door.   Just closes the door. And then, you know, he kind of seats them in this lobby. A butler comes in. He’s this great, big, huge, tall guy. He looks like, you know, Lurch. And eventually, the door to the wax works just swings open, and they go in. And that is when things really start getting cool in my opinion. I have always, you know, I don’t know that I’ve ever been to one of these like horror themed wax works, but in my humble opinion, all wax works are pretty freaking creepy.   Yeah. Well, it’s   And and this one yeah. 

Todd:  Go ahead. Just the idea, it’s it’s they’re almost like corpses. You know? It’s people, but and and it and the more real it is, the more effective it is, the more creepy it is even if it’s just a scene of, you know, Samuel Jackson standing there, you know, getting getting 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Picture taken by the paparazzi because your mind tells you that these should be alive, but they’re absolutely motionless, and you know they’re not. It’s it’s just the idea 

Craig:  of it 

Todd:  is really creepy. You’re right. You’re totally right. 

Craig:  Well, yeah. And and they do. I mean, they they look like corpses, but then there’s something just inherently unnatural about them too, and and that kinda creeps me out. But I would love, except for the whole supernatural getting killed part, I I would love to visit this particular wax work because, you know, it’s got lots of really cool, setups and and scenes. You know, I I was just kinda really trying this time to really pay close attention to what all was there. And I’m sure that I didn’t even see everything, but there’s a scene with like an axe killer, there’s Frankenstein’s monster, there’s a witch doctor, like a lizard man, there’s an invisible man scene, there’s the mummy, there’s Phantom of the Opera, a werewolf, a little evil baby like from the It’s Alive movie, and like a pod person or or they kinda make a little shop of horrors joke, with this pod at the end. So it’s kinda like that too. But they’re all really neat.   I mean, they’re neat scenes. And one of the things that I like about this movie that makes it even creepier is that all of these wax figures are clearly just actors. Doctor. Yes. Doctor. They’re just actors standing there as still as they can, but of course people can’t stand perfectly still. And you can see them moving. Doctor.   I know. Doctor. And that’s unsettling to me. 

Todd:  See, you you call it creepy. I was, like, so distracted by it. I was like, oh my gosh. Like, this movie, I would say, overall, is is over ambitious for its budget. I mean, bless their heart. They were really trying. You can tell the budget was limited, but it really tries to be this grand kind of movie. And I think it gets about halfway there in in spirit, but this is where the cracks start to show, I think, is when they’re walking through this waxworks and you know that they’re supposed to be still, but you can tell that they’re actors trying to stand still.   And there’s no cut that they can make that’s short enough. Right. Yeah. People are not moving slightly, and I thought it was distracting. I just felt like I was, you know, peeking behind the curtain of the filmmaking process and oh my gosh, really. So I didn’t find it as creepy as I felt it, kind of pathetic. 

Craig:  But I I I totally see where you’re coming from, and I think you’re right. I’m sure that it was all about budget, and had they been able to actually construct wax figures, they probably would have. But for me, the the unintentional effect is that it does add kind of another level of of creepy factor, to me because you know that these inanimate objects are eventually gonna be animated and and, I don’t know. I I think you’re right. I think it’s a flaw in the film making, but I actually think kinda cool. 

Todd:  Craig, has there ever been a movie about wax works? A horror movie about wax works where they are not eventually reanimated somehow? 

Craig:  Isn’t that just part part of the story? 

Todd:  I mean Yeah. No. I’m just teasing you. But but, you know, what you did point out, and this was impressive to me, and I didn’t even notice all those waxworks until the end, was the fact that, yes, they did actually have so many. I mean, a movie with this kind of budget, you would imagine, would just have 5 or 6 key scenes and then some indefinable stuff in the background. But, by golly, they really went all out, and they did actually have a there’s even a, like, a gangster scene where this woman is, I guess, being force fed gasoline or something, or they’re Mhmm. Clenching her in gasoline. It was it was so odd, but that’s a good thing for this kind of, you know, for a wax works display.   You want something odd and strange and different. Yeah. To look at. 

Craig:  Yeah. And the thing another thing that I really like about this movie is that this is a really, I think, very clever way to bring all of these classic villains and monsters into one movie where it really feels organic. You know, it makes sense because they’re wax works, that they would all be collected in this in this one place. It doesn’t to me, it doesn’t feel forced. I know that when we talked about Freddy versus Jason, you you talked about how you kinda don’t like those crossover movies because they seem forced and you kinda lose, something about the original characters. And I thought here, they did it it felt like homage. I mean, it felt like these were people who were big fans of of the old movie monsters and that type of thing, and and they’re kinda bringing them back to the screen, all in one place, and and I liked that. I thought that was cool. 

Todd:  Yeah. I agree with you. It it that was a nice part of it even though it was a little clunky at times. 

Craig:  Yeah. And it is. I I mean and then, you know, the what what’s going on here is these kids have obviously been lured here for a reason. And e they as soon as they get in there, they kind of start to separate, and they’re all interested in different, displays. And Tony, the tall guy who wears the suit and smokes all the time, he goes and stands in front of this werewolf display, and he goes to light his cigarette with his Zippo, but he flips his Zippo out of his hand and into the into the display. And he kinda looks around and he says, oh, I’m sure they won’t care if I just go in to get my lighter. But when he steps into it, you know, it’s kinda corny eighties effect, but you can there’s, like, clearly an invisible barrier. And when he goes through it, there’s, you know, kind of an effect.   I don’t know how to describe it, but you can tell that he’s going through this barrier, and he ends up like in a forest, like he’s actually in this scene. And that’s really, you know, the premise of the movie. That’s what happens for the rest of the time. They each individually go into or or are coerced or even pushed into one of these, exhibits, and they kind of have to live out, the scene. And the first one is the is, a werewolf scene, and I thought that, you know, it it felt very much like a typical werewolf scene, and I I enjoyed it. You know, you know, the kid when he first gets in there, he’s confused. One of my favorite lines in the whole movie. He he gets in there and he looks around and, like, his appearance has changed.   He’s got long hair now. He’s in period clothes. 

Clip:  Alright. Who put the acid in my drink Craig, China? 

Craig:  Oh, god. Which I thought was so funny. 

Todd:  It 

Craig:  and he doesn’t know how to explain it. He doesn’t know if it’s a hologram. He eventually convinces himself that it’s part of the deal that he’s just been hypnotized, and this is part of the experience, and he’s, you know, gonna play along. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s a weird I felt that to be very weird. Almost anytime a character starts chattering its thoughts out loud, you kinda wonder if the writer it seems to be a sign of lazy writing. And this, you know, at first, when he thinks he’s talking to somebody, he’s chattering out Todd. He thinks it’s a hologram or he’s accusing China. Yeah. I don’t know. He thinks he’s under, but he can still talk to people, but then it gets into silliness, I think, when he’s speaking all of his thoughts aloud to some unknown blankness? 

Clip:  Hologram? No. Hologram, right? 

Craig:  Hypnotism. 

Clip:  Hypnotism. That’s it. Alright. I’m hypnotized. Alright. Well, hope you guys can hear me because this is a hell of an illusion. 

Craig:  I mean, 

Clip:  I can smell the pine trees. 

Craig:  Okay. 

Clip:  We got we got house. We got house. Guess we’ll go to the house. Alright. 

Craig:  Away. 

Clip:  Hey, Kip, just make this guy a little more friendly. Okay? 

Todd:  I have to admit, like, the werewolf when it gets to the werewolf, it’s okay. But if I had been watching this movie not for a podcast, this is probably the scene where I would have said, okay, I’m turning the channel, because I I felt like his motivations there was no motivations for him here. It was all kind of dumb. Now, before he goes into the werewolf scene, and now correct me if I’m wrong, but we don’t actually see what kind of a scene it is. Right? Doesn’t he just stand in front of the barriers? We have kind of a side shot, and he goes, oh, this looks cool, and he walks into Yeah. I really don’t remember. 

Craig:  You you could be right. I don’t remember. 

Todd:  That was my recollection. So it kind of keeps a surprise for the audience as to what scene did he end up in. But, of course, we see that there’s Forrest and there’s a cabin, and so he talks to himself as he goes up and’s like, maybe I’ll check out this cabin. I’ll go inside. And he he goes inside, and he meets John Rhys Davies. And this is a guy I did not expect to see in this movie at all, but, because he’s a fantastic actor. But then again, he has played a wide range of things. Then he’s just going crazy in there.   He’s nuts and he’s like talking about it’s too late and and and you know, okay, they make a big deal out of the moon and the moon’s streaming in, but the reactions from Tony just don’t make sense. He’s like, okay, dude. Just chill. I mean, maybe we could just sit down and talk or something. And this guy’s going nuts at him. And then finally he’s like, you know what? Maybe I’ll just go outside and I’ll grab some wood and we could come in here, we could make a fire, we could sit down and talk, you know, we could be friends. 

Craig:  It’s like, what? First of all, 

Todd:  it’s dumb. Okay? Second of all, okay, you come across this crazy man who’s being a little threatening towards you. Alright, that’s also dumb, but then apparently, you saw this this, wax work that you stepped into, which would have shown you the scene of a werewolf, and if you are not smart enough to decode what’s happening in front of you looks a heck of a lot like the scene, and this guy’s gonna turn like a werewolf in any second, then yeah, then I guess you’re dumb enough to decide you want to come back in and make friends with him. And I I just felt like they were looking for motivation for this character. They were just trying to get this character into this cabin so the werewolf could go crazy and trying to keep him from running away, and it just didn’t work for me at all. I like the werewolf transformation. That was cool. I was really impressed that the werewolf, like ripped a guy up in half.   That was neat. Mhmm. But, yeah, dude. Like, man, was this bad. 

Craig:  Alright. Well, I I think I’m gonna disagree with you on this one because I actually thought that this one was the one where his reactions made the most sense. What? Because he he doesn’t think that there’s any danger. He thinks that this is all part of the show. And and he thinks that somehow whether it’s through hypnotism or whatever, he’s being manipulated to see these things, and the impression that I got was that he felt like he didn’t have any choice but to play it out. And so he was just kinda trying to wing it and and do what he could. Now, yeah, if he saw the werewolf before, one would think that that would give him pause. But still, 

Clip:  I mean, if he thought that 

Craig:  it was all illusion, he wouldn’t feel all that threatened, or at least I wouldn’t think he would. It was actually the other characters later in the movie, and and they go boom boom boom. But the other characters enter into these new worlds and act like they’re not in any way surprised or perplexed or confused. Like, they just 

Todd:  are Yep. Boom in 

Craig:  it, and, like, they play along with it. And I think that seems way more unnatural and, like, not convincing than than this first kid. But I 

Todd:  think that’s one way to read it, and I and I don’t think that that’s a bad reading, actually, now that you explain it that way. But you’re expecting 1 of 2 things. Right? Well, after the movie kind of gets going, you’re expecting 1 of 2 things. You’re expecting them to be confused and perplexed, and maybe scared. Alright, maybe 3 things. Confused or perplexed and maybe scared, you’re expecting or you’re expecting them to think it’s all an illusion, so they’re playing along with a gag, or then, as you say, you start expecting them Todd, it’s almost like they’re stepping into a character, it’s almost like they’re becoming a waxwork themself in this, right, in this scene. I, once you get to that point where it’s so weird that as soon as they step in there, it’s like they are now, I don’t wanna say possessed, but but yeah, possession is maybe kind of the way you would describe it, that they are possessed by the spirit of this scene, and so they are becoming part of it and they play along. Then this part, this first one makes even less sense because this is the one where they don’t do that, You know? So it’s kinda, it’s kind of uneven and weird. 

Craig:  You’re right. And it you know, that does seem to be suggested, especially later on, in in the scene with, Sarah and the Marquis de Sade. We’ll get to that. But you’re right. Like, it almost seems like some of the characters are almost under an enchantment, like, in some way, and and so that’s he gets he gets bitten by the werewolf and then he starts to transform into a werewolf, which I thought was good effects Yeah. For practical effects. And then, he gets killed in the scene by a werewolf hunter. And and we, you know, the camera comes back outside, so we just see the display and we see that now Tony is part of the display.   And in this one, I thought they did a a fairly good job because it would make sense that the friends wouldn’t recognize him because he was halfway transformed into a werewolf. Later on, some of them, when they die in the scene and then they become a wax figure, it’s clearly them. Like there would be no there would be no confusion as to, oh that that’s clearly my friend, in the scene. But, Chyna is the next one to go. She, finds herself in front of a vampire scene. I didn’t know if this was supposed to be Dracula. I mean, it I I don’t know. It seemed like Dracula, I guess.   And she’s kinda drawn in by his eyes in the wax work and so she walks in there. And again, she kind of on her face you can read that she’s 

Clip:  a little bit confused like 

Craig:  what’s going on here? But she immediately then just starts playing along. Mhmm. I don’t know. I, you know, I tried to read   as much as I could   about this. I don’t know where they shot this. I don’t know if it was in a studio. I I feel like it had I don’t know where they shot this. I don’t know if it was in a studio. I I feel like it had to have been some sort of studio because they’ve got these pretty grandiose set pieces. And this one in particular, this castle with, you know, high ceilings and walls, and there’s this big dining room where Dracula and his brides, I guess, and his son, are sitting and eating dinner, and they invite Chyna to sit and eat dinner with them. And they serve her raw meat, And Dracula’s like, Raw meat. 

Clip:  You do like raw meat. Please. If not, we can have   No. That’s fine. I haven’t had steak tartar in 

Craig:  a long time. Steak tartar? Oh, yes. Steak tartar.   So sully. And then the butler like pours blood as sauce all over it and she takes a bite and then they all start eating ravenously. And you know, it’s just this it it it’s a it’s a cool scene for what it is. Eventually, she’s led up to her bedroom. The sun comes up, tries to seduce her, but reveals himself as a vampire. He chases her down into the basement where she finds the guy who is supposedly in the scene, supposed to be her fiance, and he’s tied to, like, a a butcher’s block or something, and the whole bottom half of his leg, all the muscle and and skin has been stripped from it like they’ve been eating him slowly. And then there’s this whole showdown down there in the basement, which I thought, again, was was really fun. You know, first, the son finds her again, and she ends up using a a pair of knives to form a Craig, and and she burns his head and his head explodes and there’s blood everywhere.   And then the brides come in and she’s got a stake and she’s staking them left and right, and one of them gets impaled with with champagne bottles, and the champagne is shooting out of her body and the blood is spraying everywhere. It was a fun scene. Now I was, you know, clearly clearly you didn’t like this movie. These these little individual vignettes, I just thought they were fun, you know? And I like that that feel of getting placed into these very familiar films, really, and and just getting to watch them play out really quickly and and, you know, you’re in, you’re out, and let’s move on to the next one. I I kinda dug it. I gotta admit. 

Todd:  No. I can see I can see the appeal, and and it is fun. I feel like it’s more fun to make fun of, but, you know, this scene, I think again, was another case of where I felt like the budget was overstretched. Now, I know they had to cut a lot out of this. I was reading on IMDB, and I saw that it’s apparently when the crew was filming this scene, they were like, man, this is the bloodiest scene we’ve ever seen commit to film. And, and it is maybe a little choppy as a result, and it comes across then as we didn’t have the money necessarily for all of the detail and the effects, and so we cut around it when it maybe they just made them cut out the worst stuff. Because where the movie really does seem to spend a lot of money is on the gore effects, and that’s impressive, and that’s interesting. But I have to say, like, I was just waiting for that vampire dinner scene to be done because it lasted so long and he’s talking so slowly, and there are only so many slow furtive looks that everybody can give each other before it’s like, alright, let’s move on to the next thing.   And gosh, I hope they were really trying to play this as a soap opera because otherwise, that dialogue was really silly and dumb as well. But didn’t you find it a little jarring? And at first, I thought this was intentional when she’s in this big old castle and when she runs into the the what’s supposed to be a basement or a dungeon or something, it’s completely white tiled sterile. It almost looks like a hospital room or a mort morgue or something. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. It it was odd. It didn’t seem in keeping with the design of the rest of the set, but it was obvious why they did that. You know, they they wanted a canvas to splatter blood all over and and it looks good when they do it. 

Todd:  Yeah. But it threw me off because I’m thinking, oh, is she moving from one set to another? I thought within the wax, maybe she was leaving this scene and she was going into a completely different scene. But, like you said, it isn’t quite that way. And so, then I got the notion, well, this is just how they decided to build again, this was another point at which I felt like I was I was in the minds of the filmmakers again, and I hate to be there, you know. I hate to be going, oh okay, this is a different looking set. I wonder why they chose this set, and oh, okay. It’s so that they could splash blood all over it. Well, is it supposed to make sense? Is it supposed to not? Did they run out of money? I mean, it’s obvious that you could only see kind of one half of the set too.   It almost Right. To me, it it almost looked like they were filming a TV show. Like, you only see one half a Seinfeld apartment, you know, in this in this particular scene. Mhmm. And and I mean, because of it, they had so little space to work with that the encounters here are pretty silly. Like, this vampire has the hardest time getting around this table that this man is 

Craig:  Oh, Todd. Yeah. 

Todd:  To reach her. Right? 

Craig:  That was pretty painful. Yeah. 

Todd:  So, yeah. Again, it was, it was fun. Sure. It was fun for that reason, and it was definitely fun because everybody’s kind of getting slaughtered and the blood’s going everywhere, and it’s silly. But there are just parts of me that, by this point then, I start getting super critical, and I go, okay, well, this woman got impaled on the wine rack here, but why did the corks pop out? You know? Yeah. It looks cool, but it doesn’t even break it 

Craig:  down. That’s why. That’s why. See, yeah, You’re being too analytical about this and you’re forcing me to be too analytical about it. I mean, you’re sitting here you’re sitting here talking. It’s like it’s like they’re on a TV set and I’m sitting here thinking, well, yeah, that makes sense. They’re in a display, so there wouldn’t be a 4th wall. Oh Todd god.   I don’t think that there was that much thought put into it at all. Oh no. I think but I They were just making, you know, a fun, splatter movie. 

Todd:  But just to just I mean, just to say, for example, okay, the woman gets impaled on the wine bottles and you want, or champagne bottles, and you want champagne to come spurting out of there and make a big deal. Okay. You can do it where the corks inexplicably have popped, even though the force of your body going on there would almost do the opposite. But there are other choices, like, you could have the bottles like kind of break off in her Todd, so she slides down a little bit, you know, and the bottles snap. I mean, even that wouldn’t actually happen, but it makes a little more sense. I’m just saying that you have choices even when you’re facing limitations and you want to do something cool, and you just Todd you horn it in. You still have ways, I think, of making it a little more believable, and when you choose the ways that are less believable or call attention themselves as being silly, to me, it’s it’s either ineptness or it’s laziness, you know, and that just shows itself to me, and it bothers me. And it makes me it just makes me realize I’m watching a movie, and sometimes And again, with a movie like this, you know you’re watching a movie, but you want to be able to suspend a certain amount of disbelief and not see through to the process.   And to me, I felt like throughout this movie, I was seeing through to the process, and that and that took me out of it and made me more critical of it, I guess. 

Craig:  Yeah. And I don’t know. I just I can’t get on board with you because I just feel like we’re not I’m not I don’t have very high expectations. You know, like this is just, it’s episodic. It feels almost like a Scooby Doo cartoon or something. And I’m not, that’s all I’m looking for, and I’m okay with that. So I I don’t know. Overall, I find it to be a a cute little movie.   I you know, it’s not great, but I still like it. I I think it’s it’s pretty juvenile, and I’m alright with that. I like, that’s that’s why. It it’s by no stretch of the imagination any kind of masterpiece, but it’s a fun it’s a fun little movie, I guess. 

Todd:  Even for a god like me who’s gonna be critical of it, there were some shining moments. And I’ll say that the next scene, the Marquis de Sade scene was surprising. 

Craig:  You’re jumping pretty far ahead there. Well, 

Todd:  if you wanna go through go ahead. Let’s let’s keep going. 

Craig:  No. No. No. No. I don’t I don’t we don’t need to go through all of them. I just think, like, it keeps happening in the same way that we’ve we’ve mentioned. You know? These 2, you know, Mark and Sarah realized that the other 2 are missing, so they leave. Somehow the jock that China had dated gets lured in.   And there is a funny scene that’s really not all that interesting where he stands in front of a, scene depicting the Phantom of the Opera, and they have a conversation about that. The only thing that I found interesting about that was that it was supposed to be a scene of Jason Voorhees, but they couldn’t get the, the rights or the rights were too expensive for the image or something. And there were other ones that they wanted to have that were in the script like The Thing, and, the the village of the damned, and and for whatever reason, they couldn’t get the rights. And I it would have been I would have liked to have seen those things, but what they ended up with was fine too. Anyway, he gets pushed in there and killed. We don’t even get to see that one. Totally. Was And the next morning, Mark and I can’t tell you how happy I was.   Unnecessary. I Yeah. 

Todd:  I was like, oh, please. We’re not gonna have to see, like, some guy getting killed by the Phantom of the Opera. That’s that’s not gonna be interesting, but maybe you can explain something to me because that this brings up, this point. So, my understanding and what ends what it ends up being is that this guy has he has to create these scene. He’s created these scenes, but they’re somehow based in reality because he’s gathered all of this stuff together. Right? 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  So, there’s a lot of fiction thrust in here. Yeah. And and so, but he makes a comment here at the Phantom of the Opera scene where the guy says, Oh, yeah, that’s a classic movie. And then, the owner of the waxworks says, They made a movie about the Phantom of the Opera incident, And so his implication is that, no. This actually happened, but nobody really knows that it actually happened because they just think of it as a movie. Am I right? 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Okay. 

Craig:  And so   I think that’s the implication that it within the universe of the movie, all of these people at one point in time had been real. Okay. 

Todd:  So even the pod scene 

Craig:  That’s that’s my Even though. I think so. I think so. Like dead scene. And maybe not all of them. I I don’t know. We we get all that information. So Mark goes to the cops.   The cop go investigate, don’t find anything, but eventually the cop recognizes some of the, the wax figures look like these missing missing person’s ads. So he goes back. He gets, pushed into, a mummy scene. I really liked that scene. I thought it was good. Yeah. 

Todd:  That was a good scene. 

Craig:  Pretty pretty Yeah. Yeah. I like that one. And and that’s the thing. I mean, you’re right. We don’t need to go into detail on every single one. You you get the basic premise. You know, they go into this scene and it’s a typical scene from any of these old monster movies.   Just updated a little bit, I guess. But they stick pretty true to tradition. So, if you’ve seen a mummy movie, you know how these things play out. But it it was a good scene. But that backstory, they they go, I don’t even know where Mark and Sarah go visit this guy, Sir Wilfrich. Played by Patrick Mcnee who was in The Howling and the Avengers. And, I how do they know him? I don’t even I didn’t even get that. Like, was he supposedly a friend of the grand of the grandpa? 

Todd:  He’s his godfather. He is the godfather of, Mark. 

Craig:  Gotcha. Mhmm. Well and and so he tells us the whole story about what’s happened, and that’s that calls back to that opening scene where the guy was killed and all the artifacts were were stolen. This wax work guy apparently worked with, Mark’s grandfather, but he killed him and stole from him all of these artifacts that had belonged to these 18 terrible men throughout history. And what he’s trying to do through black magic is he has to set up facsimiles of them with an actual artifact, of theirs. And then if if the each one if a soul and and so that’s that’s the whole setup. And this sir Wilfred who’s, like I said, I think wheelchair bound, he sends Mark and Sarah off and says you have to have to burn it down. You have to burn it down before it, before it gets out of hand or or whatever.   So they do go there and that’s they’re in the wax work. They’re looking around and Sarah is obviously fascinated by this Marquis de Sade. And she kinda has been throughout the course of the movie. It seems like she’s been enthralled with it throughout the course of the movie. And even though now it appears they kinda know what’s going on, again, this is one of those things where is she under some sort of enchantment or thrall or I don’t know. But she goes in, and that’s the scene you were talking about. And I agree with you, an excellent scene, although I’m still a little bit confused as to her behavior. What were you gonna say? I mean, obviously, you thought this was a good scene.   So what’d you like about it? 

Todd:  Now this is where the confusion, about her behavior, I thought was played in her favour. Instead of, I felt like she was completely under enchantment, but you get these these tones and these themes of she’s the the virgin. Right? And and Right. Sadly, they hit you over the head with it 3 or 4 times, and everyone teases her about being a virgin and and all this stuff. So here, she becomes attracted to this scene of, you know, sexual pain, and this domineering figure. And I thought now, this is interesting. This is a weird. I felt like out of place in this movie really, that you’re exploring this idea of this girl who, has never experienced this before, but nevertheless, of course, thinks about it like any teenager does and probably has these fantasies and this seems to be her fantasy.   And so, when she steps into the scene, it’s like she can act out this fantasy. And some of it Todd might also be the lure of the Marquis de Sade, because he was, you know, again, there’s this I don’t know a lot about the Marquis de Sade, but I imagine there’s this casanova type element. If it didn’t actually exist, at least it’s something you can abuse upon him and that’s certainly what they have here. So, he she steps in and she becomes this willing willingly violated, I guess you could say. Mhmm. By him in a way that just was very unsettling. First of all, but unsettling in a very very satisfying way. And it it bothers you, to see this because of what it is, I think.   And to me, that’s pretty horrifying. It’s the horror without the blood and without the guts, but to see this girl step into this scene, willingly become seduced by this guy to fulfill this unfulfilled sexual pleasure, this desire, and get whipped by him several times. And then at one point, I guess it’s the prince or whatever that the Marquis works for suggests that she be killed instead. And so he says, well, I guess we’re going to have to do that. Real 50 shades of grey here. 

Craig:  You know? 

Todd:  So now she’s in mortal peril, and at some point she doesn’t even seem to mind that she’s in the mortal peril. Like, you don’t see her suddenly jolt to reality and try to yank the chains off. And, again, very unsettling. I thought this scene was skillfully done. 

Craig:  I think a lot of that is, should be attributed to the actors. I it it seemed like there was good chemistry, between the guy who played the Marquis and and the girl who played Sarah. Yes. And it I mean, it was it was very sensual, and it it is unsettling. You know, there are people who are into that weird shit, but, you know, it’s it’s it it was it is unsettling. And it’s even more unsettling because, Mark gets thrown into a Night of the Living Dead scene, and I thought that again, I really liked it. I thought that the cinematography was cool. It looked kind of old black and white, but not entirely.   And it was a scene, you know, it’s got all these zombies, the classic, Romero looking zombies. But he figures out in that scene that if they just acknowledge that these things aren’t real, then they can’t hurt them. And he’s able to escape the scene because of that. And when he escapes that scene what I’m sorry. Go ahead. 

Todd:  You say he figures it out. Alright? Now did how does he figure it out? Does he just come up with the idea and decide to try it out, or does does something happen? Because I didn’t catch the thing that happened that helped him to figure that out. 

Craig:  Well, the only I I think he kind of just figured it out, but I I the old guy, sir Wilfred, had told them that the whole ritual needed to be complete before any of them actually came back to life. So I guess the insinuation is that they’re not real, they’re not a real danger if you don’t allow them to be until they come to life, and then, you know, all all bets are off. But but, I don’t 

Todd:  They are a real danger. I mean, we’ve already seen 2 people succumb to, I mean, apparent death. The werewolf guy is not coming back, and the guy 

Craig:  with the family operator is not coming 

Todd:  back. And China and, so I mean, they are. So I I mean, I I guess, but it’s a matrix type situation where you can’t believe that they 

Craig:  It’s a it’s a it’s a Nancy and Freddy Krueger type situation. You know? Like, you don’t give them the power, then they can’t hurt you, I guess. I mean, it’s, I don’t know, Todd. He just figures it out. Alright. But it’s okay. So he figures it out and   But no. Don’t stop because he figures it out. 

Todd:  But the way he figures it out is he just has the idea. Like, he goes This isn’t real. 

Craig:  And if this is real, I was forced to. If I don’t believe in you, then you don’t exist. Shit. I hope I’m right.   And so he just I 

Todd:  mean, isn’t that how it plays out? 

Craig:  That he so he just stands there 

Todd:  and he says and he even says, gosh. I hope I’m right. 

Craig:  Right. Exactly. I hope I’m right. So it’s not like he knows, but it turns out that he is correct. I mean, he’s one 

Todd:  lucky dude. 

Craig:  And so he yeah. But what I was what I was saying about the unsettling thing is that he then goes to rescue Sarah, but she doesn’t wanna go. Yes. She she she she he unshackles her, and she throws herself at the Mars Key’s feet and and hugs his thigh. You know, it’s it’s pretty intimate. Intimate. And he has to convince her to go and and basically, you know, convince her this isn’t real. I I don’t even remember what he says.   They’re using you or something like that. And eventually, I guess he’s able to break the spell, and, they do leave. And and and the Marquis, like, tries to fight Mark, but he can’t, you know, he has no physical impact, like, he just when he swings his sword, it just goes right through him like an illusion. But as they leave, he says, I’ll I’ll be seeing you later. And so they exit the scene and they’re met by the people who run the wax work and they’re kind of detained or whatever, but, Mark’s like, we foiled your plan. The wax work guy basically says, no you didn’t. And this is where out of nowhere from an hour and a half ago, James and Gemma show back up. And apparently they’re not any longer scared of the wax work.   They’re totally into it. And they end up going into the two scenes that Mark and Sarah had just vacated. And again, we don’t see anything happen. We just see them appear dead in the scene. And that’s when, you know, the the ritual has been completed and all of these creatures start to come to life in their displays. And it’s not scary. I mean, there there’s nothing in this movie that’s scary. But I thought that this was was kind of cool and exciting, and it it leads to this battle, which again, I don’t think makes any sense, but it’s fun to watch.   It is. Apparently, yeah, apparently, sir Wilfred I I guess there’s a whole group of these people who are trying to stop black magic things from happening, and and he shows up, of course, you know, deus ex machina right at the perfect time, and all of these people come in and there’s this big battle in the wax work between the humans and the wax figures. And it goes on for quite a while. Yeah. And and and it’s it’s fun to watch. It it’s not the most amazingly choreographed thing I’ve ever seen. A lot of the times you can just kinda tell, especially in wide shots, they’re like, Okay, action. Just fight.   You know? And and you do. But there are some good gags in there. I like that scene. You know, there’s, again, not a whole lot, to it, but, Sarah and Mark, Mark ends up in this basement where there’s the big vat of melted wax, and and the Marquis follows him in there, and and they fight in what is one of the goofiest sword fights ever. And, again, doesn’t make any sense. If this guy if this guy was really the Marquis de Sade, I’m pretty sure that his sword fighting skills would be a little bit better than some preppy high school kid who’s never held a sword in his life. Yeah. But, they fight and, my to be fair, he loses.   The Marquis bests him, and and, the guy, Waxwork Man is in there and he tells the Marquis to kill him, but Sarah, of course, arrives and saves the day and throws a, hatchet into his back. And then there’s just kind of a confrontation between Mark and the wax work guy, but I don’t even really remember what happens. What’s what happens in this part? Do you remember? 

Todd:  I don’t. Somebody ends up falling off a ledge. Well, he ends up falling off a ledge into wax. And how that happens is yeah. I don’t really remember either. He kinda pushed him or Did got the upper hand. 

Craig:  Did sir Wilfred come in and shoot him? 

Clip:  Oh, not the last time. 

Todd:  Happened? Yeah. 

Craig:  It Anyway It’s really Yeah.   He disappointing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s not a big confrontation at the end. You know, I I I knew somebody was gonna end up in that vat of wax at some point, And he does, and he kind of, after, you know, they think they’ve won or whatever, he pops back up for one last jump scare and and says, would you like a closer look? Which is what he’s been saying throughout the whole, movie. But meanwhile, the the whole wax work is now on fire. And somehow, I sir Wilfred is sitting up there at the top of the stairs. He gets his head ripped off by the werewolf, which I thought was funny, and and confusing because I’m pretty sure he’s in the sequel, so I don’t really know how that works out.   But, basically, they get out. Mark and Sarah get out, but they’re the only ones apparently who get out, and they watch the house burn. And it’s the most terrible burn effect I’ve ever seen. But whatever. And, so, you know, they they stand there and watch it burn for a while, then they turn around and walk away, and the last thing we see is this severed hand very much in the vein of, Evil Dead 2 crawl out of the rubble. So some, at least one of the monstrous things, escaped. I don’t know what that means. And then it cuts to black to go to the credits and it starts playing It’s My Party, which I I have no I have no idea where that came from, but it’s almost fitting.   Like, it’s the movie is so silly and then to end it with that silly upbeat song. Right? It I it put a smile on my face. I thought it 

Todd:  was funny. Yeah. I I enjoyed that last final battle scene just because it was so goofball. Although Todd does really beg this question. Gosh, this plan of bringing all of these 12 horrifying creatures to life didn’t end up being so great. I mean, just a handful of people from outside put up a pretty good fight. 

Craig:  Yeah. Like old people. Yeah. Exactly. 

Todd:  Like, wouldn’t you feel bad if you had, you know, gone through the trouble of killing all these people and stealing all these artifacts and creating all these scenes and getting people in there to, go into the scenes and doing all that just to have them kinda beaten back in about 30 minutes by a bunch of old people. Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah.   They they didn’t end up as being as much of a threat as they had been played up to be. I don’t know. It doesn’t make any kind of sense that this group of old people, regardless of how agile or skilled they must be, could beat something like a werewolf or a lizard guy. And I guess the implication isn’t really so much that they physically defeated them is that they they just they they set the place on fire and locked the doors. Yeah. And so everything just and I I guess all the good people burned up in there too. They’re we certainly didn’t see them outside when Mark and Sarah came out. So, just just close the whole chapter. 

Todd:  There’s no good ending for anyone. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Well, it was a neat idea, and I and I like the notion. I wouldn’t say it’s a fresh take, but it’s a yeah. It’s a fresher take, I guess, on the House of Wax idea. Normally, these these wax movies are more about these actual wax figures being mystically brought to life, or they’re about actual people being killed so that they can be reshaped and dipped in wax and made into more realistic looking wax figures. So, this is a whole different supernatural take on and gave you a different reason for, which is appealing because you can walk through a wax museum and have that in the back of your mind, perhaps. And maybe these are mystical portals to these other worlds, and in a sense that they are portals to other worlds, You know, when you walk through a wax museum, you’re glimpsing in on on something else. So it all it all works out well on paper. I just felt like the execution of the movie was a little too ambitious for the skills of the writer.   Apparently, the movie was written in 3 days, and I didn’t learn that until after the fact, but I was absolutely not surprised. But, I felt like it was just a little beyond the skills of the writer and maybe beyond their budget, and despite a few really good actors in here who play some great turns, overall, I don’t I’m like you. I don’t expect a lot from these kind of movies, but I it just surpassed my level of tolerance in that way. And maybe not because of the goofy acting and because of the goofy stuff, but because there was enough good stuff in there that it threw it off kilter, and it made the bad stuff just a little more apparent. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I totally get what you’re saying, and and I agree with you. It’s not a good movie, but I enjoy it nonetheless. Like you said, there are enough good elements that I think it’s redeemed in some ways. For example, I love the effects. You know, all these practical effects, all of these different displays, I love it. I think that it’s a really fun aesthetic. The the guy who did the effects was, named Bob Keane, and apparently he spent 18 hours a day for 8 weeks creating all these different monsters and effects.   And, I liked them, a lot. I thought they were a lot of fun. And like you, I really like the concept. I think that this movie is one that would be perfect for a remake. Oh, yes. Give it give it to somebody, you know, fresh and clever. You know, I can almost see, like, if Joss Whedon would do something with this. I think it could be really clever and, Cabin in the Woods has has kinda got some shades of this movie in it.   And, I’d love to see somebody else’s take on it, maybe with a little bit bigger budget, a little better effects, but I love the concept. I think it’s such a cool concept. And if somebody were to remake it, of course, you know, they could stick with the idea of the classic movie monsters or there’s all kinds of possibilities with what they could do. You know, they could update it with more modern, scenes, and I think that that would be a lot of fun. So yeah. Overall, is it a great movie? No. Do I like it anyway? Yeah. I I wouldn’t if if I were approached by a horror skeptic who is like, I wanna get into horror, would this be the movie that I recommended? No.   Absolutely not. But, for fans like us, I I think it’s it’s it’s worth seeing. And if you’re, like I am, a fan of the eighties in general and eighties movies, it’s a fun little ride. Nothing spectacular, but, I I enjoyed it nonetheless. 

Todd:  Alright. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you like this podcast, please share it with a friend. You can find us on Itunes and Stitcher. You can also find our Facebook page out there. Like us there. And also let us know what you thought of this podcast and any other films that you’d like us to review in the future. Until then, I’m Todd 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

A group of women descend into a cave and receive more than they bargained for. Check out our take on this surprisingly original monster movie with a cast of strong women that relies on more than just a few pasty-white monsters to keep you on the edge of your seat.

The Descent (2005)

Episode 56, 2 Guys and Chainsaw

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

Craig:  I’m Craig. 

Todd:  Today’s movie is the 2005 film, The Descent. The Descent follows a group of women who go on a little bit of a vacation, kind of, I guess they’re into extreme sports. They get together different places around the world, it seems like a yearly type of event. This time they decide to go caving, and it does not go well for them. I saw The Descent in I saw The Descent in the movie theater, and absolutely loved it, when it came out. I just, fell in love with this film, and I actually had not seen it since. This is a really fun thing for me to revisit. What’s your history with this movie, Craig? 

Craig:  I saw the movie in the theater Todd. And, I I don’t remember if they just had a good marketing campaign or what, but I was really excited about it. And it was this one that I was able to convince my partner to go to with me. And we went, and we were the only ones in the theater, except for right before the movie started, this other lady came in by herself and sat about 6 rows behind us. And as we were watching it, this woman periodically got up and kept moving closer to us. I think that she was scared and wanted to be closer to other people. But, yeah, you know, I I’ve I’ve said before, my partner’s really not into the whole horror thing. It’s it’s just not his cup of tea.   But, he really liked this movie, and we both thought it was really scary. We we’ve really enjoyed it. 

Todd:  You know, the thing that I think is so scary about this movie is just its setting. I mean, more than anything else. I’ve actually, I’ve always wanted to go caving myself. I don’t really suffer from claustrophobia or anything like that. And I’ve been to a few caves, but I’ve never done what these gals do, which is, you know, strapping on a light on your helmet and getting rope and actually caving caving instead of just going on those walking tours in the safe parts of the cave. It’s it’s just something I’ve always wanted to do, and so I think that’s why this movie appealed to me at first. But then, as far as I’m concerned, the scariest parts of this movie, at least initially, are just being in this cave and all of the very natural dangers that exist when you’re caving. And I thought this movie did a fantastic job of really throwing you into that environment with these girls, and just the scariness of exploring a cave that we quickly find out, had never, according to the girls anyway, have been explored before. 

Craig:  Yeah. I agree 100%. Now this ends up being a monster movie, and the monsters are pretty cool and and scary Todd. But you’re absolutely right. What made my skin absolutely crawl, I am claustrophobic. I have absolutely no interest in doing what these ladies are doing at all. And and there are parts of this movie, you know, I can see, you know, there’s a part when they first ascend into the cave and it’s all very open and it’s very beautiful. That’s fine.   I can handle that. You know, I’ve I’ve had the same experience as you, you know, like the guided tours and stuff, and and I can do okay with that. But when they get really into the heart of this cave and they’re crawling through these passages that are just barely narrow enough or or barely wide enough for them to even squeeze through, and at times they’re not even wide enough Todd to squeeze through, It is so claustrophobic that I was literally squirming in my seat and, like, vocalizing, like, no. No. Stop. Don’t go there. I was freaking out, and I 100% agree that that is the scariest part. We’ll we’ll have to tell, a little bit of the backstory at some point.   But, the fact not only that it was so effective, it is made even more impressive by the fact that none of these sets were actual caves. The filmmakers, felt that it was too dangerous, to film in real caves. And so all of the sets were completely constructed from scratch and they look phenomenal. I mean, it looks so real. It’s completely believable. I guess if you watch more closely than I did, I was reading some, just comments from from people online. And there are some places where I guess if you’re watching carefully, you can see that, when one of the ladies maybe brushes up against a stalactite or stalagmite or whatever, you can see some movement. So obviously this wasn’t all constructed out of real stone.   Some of it, you know, moves around when they interact with it. But I didn’t notice that and and to me it felt really very real. I was actually surprised to find that, that all of these sets had been constructed. 

Todd:  Yeah. And I and I was actively looking for the seams. You know? I I was looking for, repetition. You know, in a lot of these kind of movies, if you know, it would be very expensive to do a a full on cave set, because these women explore quite a bit of caves. So you imagine that they’re gonna reuse parts of the set. You’re gonna maybe see rocks later on in the cave that you saw earlier. Maybe they’re trying to film it from a different angle just to make it look like a different part of the cave. I I couldn’t find any of that, you know.   I was really impressed. I guess they did, like, 21 cave sets, and they did do some creative reusing of some of the the pieces, but I couldn’t tell. I absolutely couldn’t tell. And, I mean, a lot of it too was shot in a lot of darkness, and that’s another thing Mhmm. That’s another place where I think the cinematography really excels. And that is Todd it’s not so dark that you can’t see anything. You know, sometimes movies can be so dark that you have a hard time 

Craig:  And that makes me so mad? 

Todd:  Yeah. Right? It’s really annoying. 

Craig:  It makes me so mad when you can’t even see what’s going on. It makes me it just infuriates me. And that’s not the case here. If anything, you know, they do a lot of really cool stuff with lighting. Like, the girls have various lighting instruments. Like, they have road flares and they have, like, these big, like, green luminescent light sticks. And, they have flashlights and they do different stuff with, like, they have a camcorder that they have night vision on. And so there’s various effects.   If anything, I felt that sometimes it was a little bit unrealistically bright for being supposedly 2 miles down in a cave. And it seemed like the lighting was sometimes coming from sources other than the light sources that they had with them. But I would much rather that than having it be so dark that I couldn’t tell what was going on. That infuriates me in movies, and it’s not the case here, fortunately. 

Todd:  Yeah. That’s right. The lighting was never really distracting, but it did, at the times when it needed to be, give you a very believable sense of what it might be like to be in a cave with limited lighting. 

Craig:  So the backstory is important. I mean, you’d already mentioned that, it appears that this is kind of maybe an annual thing that this group of girls gets together to do. And it seems like there’s kind of a core three of the girls. There’s Sarah who is our main character and then she has a friend Beth and they seem to be very tight. And then there’s a third of them or a third one, named Juno who, is of Eastern descent, it appears. And those 3 seem to be the core. And then it seems like maybe the other 3 girls that are with them, Rebecca and Sam, who are, sisters, and Holly, who is seemingly kind of a new friend of Juno’s. I don’t know if this whole group has been together before, but definitely those 3 have history.   Sarah, Juno, and Beth. And when we first meet them, it opens up, they’re whitewater rafting. And, this is apparently they’re reaching their destination. Sarah’s husband and daughter are there waiting for them. And they come through, you know, down this river in the white water and and all of that is done practically. Somebody pushes Juno in the water. It’s all in good fun. Everybody seems to be having a good time.   Somebody pushes Juno in the water. It’s all in good fun. Everybody seems to be having a great time. Sarah leaves with her husband Paul and their young daughter, who I would guess was maybe 4 or 5, she’s sitting in the car seat on their way home, she’s kind of sitting in the center in the back seat in her car seat. And Sarah’s talking to her and, she, seems a little bit distracted for some reason. And her husband Paul turns to look at her, to talk to her, and you see approaching them right away, this car coming right at them. And it seems like Paul is veering a little bit over into the wrong lane, and they crash. And it’s a terrible, terrible accident.   Sarah wakes up in the hospital. First, she has a little kind of dream, where she sees her daughter sitting with a birthday cake. But then she she fully wakes up and, she starts exploring the hospital kind of it it seems kind of desolate. I don’t know if this was still kind of her supposed to maybe still kind of be in a dream or she’s not fully, you know, conscious yet, but, there’s nobody else around and suddenly the lights start going off. And it’s kind of that classic horror movie shot where somebody’s running down a hallway and they’re just kind of trying to race the lights as they go off 1 by 1. But eventually, she runs into the arms of her friend Beth, and, Beth comforts her and tells her that her daughter is gone. And of course, she breaks down on the floor in the hospital, and and Juno is there Todd. And she’s clearly, very upset also.   And then we skip to a year later, and it’s, Sarah and Beth, and they are on their way to meet with Juno and some of these other girls to go on this caving trip. So then we’re introduced to the other characters. You know, they they’re converging in these cabins. Juno checks in with Beth and says, you know, how is Sarah doing? And Beth says, well she’s here so you know, it must be better. And then we just kind of have a little bit of exposition. It’s not very long where they basically just do kind of girly slumber party stuff. They drink and they, you know, talk and have a good time and it’s the next morning when they get up that they are gonna head into this cave. And and, they, drive out there.   It’s supposedly in Chattanooga State Park, I think, which is, if I remember correctly, it’s, a fictional park, but it was supposed to be based on the same forest that and river that, Deliverance was set in. Mhmm. And and and they find the cave. Right before they find the entrance to the cave, they find this big, huge dead deer, that they are curious about, but not much is made of it at that point. And then they get into the cave. They spelunk down into this huge hole, and, from there, the rest of the movie takes place in these caves and what they have to go through in there. 

Todd:  That’s right. And leading up to this, there are a couple small elements that, you know, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it first. I don’t know if you picked up on this at all, Craig, or if it’s just something I read into the movie, but during that opening sequence, when they get out of the water after white water rafting, Juno gets out, and I think she sees Sarah’s husband there really quick, and, she takes her helmet off, and it seems like they exchange some kind of look. And then when he goes over with his daughter to greet Sarah, she kind of looks after them. And I got this sense that maybe there was an affair or some kind of illicit relationship going on, or even just some jealousy between, Juno and Sarah’s husband. Did you did you pick up on that at all? 

Craig:  I did this time, but I don’t know if I picked up on it because I was looking for it. Because as   it turns out, that is the case.   Okay. Yeah. We don’t we don’t find out until much later in the movie, but it it is the case that, Juno has had some sort. We don’t know if it’s ongoing, we don’t know if it’s in the past, I don’t know. But she there was something going on. So this time I was specifically looking for it and yeah, there seemed to be maybe some little furtive glances, or whatnot. If you weren’t looking for it, I don’t know that you would notice, but, it’s subtle, but yes, I did pick up on it too. 

Todd:  Yeah. And and also, I think, Juno makes some kind of comment in the cabin too about how you’re not the only one who lost something that or we all lost something that day, which seems to be imbued with some meaning there. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s but that is about all of the character development that I think really happens in this film. Maybe my only criticism, and I actually it’s not really a criticism because I didn’t really miss it, is that you don’t get to know these characters too well on a deeply personal level before they go into the the cave and things start happening to them. You don’t get a lot of backstory. It’s more the backstory of events.   It seems to be, as far as I am concerned, more of a plot driven movie than a character driven movie. And that’s not a knock on it, it’s just, I think, the kind of movie it is. Except for this relationship between, Sarah and Juno, and the fact that, it’s pretty obvious that Holly, for example, is is kind of a headstrong, maybe one of the more reckless of the group, you don’t get those carbon copy type, you know, where each character here has their own particular personality quirk and their own particular issue that they have to solve or whatever. You just you don’t see that, which is actually, I think, a good thing. It it’s a little less formulaic in that way than another other movies might, you know, try to do. I I think particularly, like, of other films with large casts, ensemble casts that are thrown into messed up situations. Maybe the Saw franchise or something like that, where it seems like each person has their own quirk, and they have to work through it. Oh, Nightmare on Elm Street, it’s kinda the same way.   Right? Friday the 3rd definitely is not. Usually, those characters are pretty stock. These characters Right. Are seem like real people without coming across as stock, you know? 

Craig:  Yeah. I completely agree with that. I I I don’t think that they’re without character though. I just feel like there’s really no need for us to know a whole lot about their backstory. They seem like real people. And I think that because I was watching this one more closely than I did the first time around, I noticed little things. Like I hadn’t realized in the past that Rebecca and Sam were sisters. But paying close attention, seeing that dynamic, you really do see them interact like sisters.   You know, they’re really kind of primarily concerned about one another. And, you know, Sam is established early on as being a med student, and that kind of somewhat comes into play a little bit later. Like you said, Holly’s the more reckless one. That’s that’s kind of, significant later. So, right, they’re not given we we’re not given a complete character sketch of any of the characters, but they feel real. And it it feels like a real group of of women, who might find themselves in this situation, aside from mutant monster bat people. I don’t know how realistic that is. But like you said, you know, initially, what’s so scary about it is the actual dangers of cave diving.   You know, they, first of all, all of the girls think that this is a chartered cave system because Juno has told them that it is. And in fact, Juno has had Beth do some sort of call. I don’t know what it is. I’m not a caver, so I don’t know how this works. But apparently, they they they’ve spoken to park rangers or something so that if they weren’t to show up where they were supposed to be at a certain time, people would know to come look for them. As it turns out, that’s no good because Juno lied and they are actually in an unexplored system. But it’s when they start, you know, like I said, at first it’s kind of this big cavernous beautiful cave, but then they have to go down this really deep chute, to get more into the interior. And again, even once they’re down there, it’s still kind of big and open.   They they throw a flare, and the flare kind of illuminates red, this big open cave. And Sarah kind of feels like maybe she hears noises, but she’s kind of been having auditory hallucinations hearing her daughter laugh, ever since the accident. So she kind of it seems like she kind of brushes it aside initially. But when they actually start moving deeper into the cave, that is when I was just on the edge of my seat. They are crawling through these tiny, tiny crevices, passages into larger, areas of of the cave. And, it just made me so uncomfortable. Like I had a physical reaction in my body. My heart was Craig.   My I was tense. I was shaking. And and they do a really good job with that, to the point where I I think it’s the first passage they go through. It’s either the first or second, very narrow passage they go through. Sarah kinda has a panic attack. She gets stuck, and she panics.   Are you still behind me? Jess. Sarah. Guys, it’s Sarah. I think she might be stuck. I am stuck. Alright, Sarah. Calm down. Just relax.   And, before they had even gone down, Rebecca, on their as they were hiking towards the cave, had started listing all of these things that can potentially go wrong in caving expeditions. People can get paranoid. They can get disoriented. They can get claustrophobic. They can have hallucinations. And we start to see that, you know? Sarah starts to freak out, and, Beth has to go back into this narrow cave to kind of talk her down and to get her calmed down to the point where they can get her through. And finally, she does dislodge herself and she starts coming through, but then the earth starts grumbling and the rocks start shifting and the cave starts to cave in, and they have to really quickly get out of there, and the tunnel closes behind them. And at that point, this is when they realize, you know, Rebecca, who had studied the cave system that Juno had told her that they were going to be, she says, this just doesn’t seem right, but there’s there’s there’s several exits.   And Juno says, no, there’s not. This isn’t that cave system.   Come on, Rebecca. I didn’t know this was gonna happen. This is exactly hasn’t got a name It hasn’t got a name. It’s a new system. I wanted us all to discover it. No one’s ever been down here before.   And, of course, as I would be, they’re absolutely furious with her, but they’re in no position really to do anything but work together to try to find their way out. And so that in and of itself is scary, and then that’s kind of when the monster movie picks up. But the when they get into 1 chamber, Sarah is swiping her, flashlight around, and I noticed the first time in the theater, and maybe it was because it was in the theater and it was such a large screen, I noticed a man like silhouette up in one of the on one of the rocks in the cave. When she sweeps by it, it’s there. And when she sweeps back, it’s not. She doesn’t notice, but I definitely did. But it’s not until, like, this is, a movie that’s, I think, an hour and 35 minutes, hour and 40 minutes long, something like that. It’s not until 45 or 50 minutes into the movie that we even see one of these creatures who are the main protect or antagonist in the movie. 

Todd:  That’s true. Although if you are paying close attention in one of those larger scenes early on in the film when they first get down in the cave, it might be when they’re first in there or a couple minutes later, you do see another silhouette on the far left, which you could easily mistake for another person in the group, but it’s definitely there as well. I mean, if again, if you’re looking for it, you can see it. But you’re right. We it’s it’s very subtle that you get these hints that are so subtle, they’re easy to miss. That’s, again, one of the thrilling parts of this movie, is that even if you come into it knowing that it’s a monster movie, you’re pretty scared out of your mind just about them being in this unexplored cave. Now I thought that the idea that one of these groups of girls would be so reckless as to drop them into this place that it just raises a lot of odd believability questions. I mean, first off, how did she find this cave system then? 

Craig:  How far 

Todd:  deep did she go into it before she decided, yep, this is something we should explore? And also, what is the fun of throwing your friends unknowingly into this cave system? You go all the way through it, and then at the end you go, oh, hey, by the way, that cave system that you thought you were in, it really isn’t it. Isn’t it cool we just explored a cave that nobody’s ever been in before? I mean, the fun of doing something like that is knowing it from the beginning, right? Is going through it from the beginning and going, oh, we, you know, we’re the first humans through here. We’re the first humans through here. So the idea that she would just keep this a secret Todd to just bring it on them at some time later in the future just seemed like an odd thing for anybody Todd do. And I felt that was kind of a bit of a plot hole here. 

Craig:  You know what? I disagree with you on that because I think that what they’re trying to establish is that Juno is selfish. She doesn’t think about other people. She only thinks about herself. At some point, Sarah even kind of confronts her. I don’t remember if Sarah says anything or if she just gives Juno a look or something like that. And, Juno said, I did this for us. And Sarah says, Yeah. You did it for you.   And, Juno says, No. You know, I I did it for us. I thought we could name it. And and Sarah says, Yeah. Your name. So it seems like this is kind of a characteristic that they are aware of. You know, they’re friends, but I think that they are kind of aware that she’s selfish by nature, which is also you know, when we find out that she’s been having an affair with her friend’s husband, you know, that just goes to further show that she only she doesn’t think about other people. She doesn’t think about their feelings or their safety.   She’s only concerned about herself. And so it didn’t seem unrealistic to me. It just seemed like that was a flaw in her character, and and that she would do something dishonest in that way. 

Todd:  Yeah. Just boy, it’s an awfully big leap of dishonesty. You know? I mean, it’s and again Oh, 

Craig:  and it’s such a huge risk. Yeah. You know, supposedly supposedly, you know, she’s an experienced, explorer of caves. Anybody who is an experienced explorer of caves would know never to go down there with people who are unprepared, and never ever to go down there without letting somebody know where you are. And that that doesn’t make any sense at all. So so I I get where you’re going. 

Todd:  Yeah. I just feel like, you know, her own sense of self preservation is pretty warped, in order for that to to all kind of make sense. I don’t know. It bothered me, but I mean, I see exactly what you’re saying, and of course Todd does service that plot element and that character flaw, that they’re trying filmmakers are trying to point out. I I just thought it was just a little too much, for me to to swallow that this woman as selfish as she might be would throw all of her friends in danger for the thrill of exploring a new cave, and then withhold from them the very notion that they’re exploring a new cave, presumably until they’re done exploring it. But there’s other stuff for them to deal with as well. Now that they know they have to proceed through the cave, they’re a little more willing to go through more dangerous things because they have no choice now. They can’t turn back and go back out the way they came, and they come across this giant chasm that they have to cross.   I thought this scene was extremely tense and exciting as well. Mhmm. And I assume that even though they’re inexperienced cave cavers, it seems like the girls do these extreme sorts of sports, are into them. So at least 1 or 2 of them has done climbing, mountain climbing. And so Mhmm. I don’t remember who is it, Holly who goes across first? This cast 

Craig:  no. It’s it’s one of the sisters. It’s, oh, gosh. I don’t remember. 1 of the sisters. It’s either Rebecca or Sam. 

Todd:  Right. And so they have this really tense scene where they basically are climbing across, hanging from the ceiling, and putting in anchors into the rock above, string rope through it, both for safety and Todd be able to get another rope across there so that the other gals can get across. It’s a really intense scene, and one thing that makes it even more intense is when she’s almost all the way across and she sees what is obviously an anchor there an older style anchor, but somebody has been there before, which raises all these questions in your mind, like, what happened to them? This isn’t as unexplored after all. And also, like, there’s only one here. I wonder how successful they were at crossing the chasm. So it’s a bit spooky, and it’s a neat element, I thought, to throw into this movie. They do manage Todd, make it across, but it does injure, one of the girls’ hands. I believe it’s is it Becca who is holding the 

Craig:  girl’s foot? It’s Becca. I I found it in my notes. It’s Becca who sets the line. Mhmm. And then, yeah, it’s her hand that gets ripped because Juno falls. They’ve lost one of their in the cave in, one of their rope bags got left behind, and and they can’t get back to it. So they need all of the equipment they can get. So Juno is the last one who crosses over, but then she has to remove all of the anchors, so that they’ll and and the ropes so that they’ll have it for later if they need it.   And and she’s tied in, but she she falls. And and Becca is holding the rope, and, of course, it burns, and and cuts her hand. But, you know, they’re okay. They they pull Juno up, and, they keep going from there. And that’s when they go into another chamber where they find cave paintings.   Do not look at it. What do you see? But the mountain, the cave, and there’s 2 entrances. Miss, there’s another way out? Let’s find out.   So that gives them a little bit of hope that there may still be a way out of this, and Holly takes off running. As they, are are falling after Holly, the camera lingers back in that room, and we kind of see in silhouette one of these creatures. And it’s you know, we don’t see it in in light. It’s just in silhouette, but it’s clearly some kind of creature. It’s drooling onto the rocks. And she ends up falling down another shaft, and breaking her leg. Ugh.   They are able   to get down they’re able to get down to her yeah. And it’s really gross. It’s one of those deals where you see the bone jutting out. Ugh. Yeah. It gives you the heebie jeebies. But it’s down there while Sam, who’s the med student, while she is trying to set Holly’s leg, again, Sarah thinks she hears something. She hears some strange clicking sound, and she goes to explore, and she’s shining her light around, and she shines her light directly on one of these humanoid creatures.   There’s no question this time that she sees it. She sees it fully lit in the beam of her flashlight, and, this is the first one of the best looks that we get of the creatures. They’re obviously nocturnal. They’re all white, completely pale. And they were designed, I read, to look like Nosferatu from the old black and white movie. And they do. 

Todd:  Like a very juicy and gross Nosferatu. 

Craig:  And they, I think, are genuinely scary. You know, we’ve seen this idea many times before. You know, these underground dwellers, going, you know, all the way back to H. G. Wells and the time machine and that type of thing. But these have a really distinctive look. They have kind of a vampiric look about them, but it’s maybe even a little bit more bat like, more Gollum like. They’ve got kind of pointed ears, white dead eyes.   They’re hairless and slimy. They’ve got these, you know, incredibly sharp teeth. They appear to be some sort of humanoid, and they’ve definitely got human characteristics. You know, they have the physique of a human being, but they are certainly far from human. And I thought that the creature effects here were excellent. I found them to be genuinely scary. 

Todd:  Yeah. They really were. And also, when they film the creatures, moving around, they do some tricks with the camera where they’ll speed things up a little bit, or they’ll drop frames. So they also at first seem to have a kind of different way of moving. So even though they seem human and I don’t know about you, but I imagined, you know, after all was said and done, that maybe when you’re trying to think of an origin for these creatures, that maybe these are, like, earlier humans that just are in the process of evolving and never really did, and just ended up evolving into these night creatures inside this cave. They’ve got that human appearance, but then their muscles and you know, the way their movements and things really adapted to be able to scurry across the ceiling or to be able to, you know, climb around the rocks really quite easily. And of course, here’s one of those situations where you’re in their world. They have the distinct advantage over you, and that alone is scary, because not only are these women in a situation where one of them has a broken leg, and they’re inexperienced climbers, but they’re now in the den of this these monsters who know every corner and know every angle.   And even though the monsters clearly have, some limitations, obviously, they they they work out pretty quickly that they’re blind, and so they can only hear, and that works out to the women’s advantages at certain points. But, of course, the women can’t really see that well either in these dark caves, and their lights are gonna be going out. So they were relying on sound between the them in order to meet up and find each other, so they can’t help but call out at certain points in the movie just to be able to orient themselves and to find each other, which of course brings more monsters in. And you also never get a sense of how many monsters there are either. They do climb up over this ledge at one point and into a bunch of bones. And, they pull one of the cameras, the camera side that has the infrared on it, and they look out across it, and they can see that there is just 100 upon 1000 of bones from carcasses, long dead in there, which again is a good thing because it tells you that there must be a way out that’s near here because how do these bones get in here from the outside? But then it’s a very ominous and scary thing, like what is eating up all these creatures that we don’t know about? So Right. Yeah, it’s, it’s it’s really a neat setting, and for a monster movie, it’s really well played, I think. Just the whole creature design, the atmosphere, the place the creatures are, the fact that we don’t know how many there are, is this a clan of creatures? Is this one, that they have to overcome? All of those things become a little more clear, as they go on and and essentially battle these creatures throughout the cave Mhmm.   In their efforts to get out. Right. 

Craig:  And all from this point, everything happens really quickly. Well, Sarah sees it, and then she comes back to the other women and says, I for sure saw something this time. I can tell you exactly what it looked like. They think that she’s just paranoid, that she’s hallucinating. But it’s when they they get out the, infrared camera. One of them starts swinging it around, and she’s swinging it around, looking at the other women and the frame swings to 2 of the girls and one of the creatures is standing right behind them. 

Todd:  Oh man. 

Craig:  And so that’s I love oh my gosh. It’s there’s lots of jump scares in this movie, and I’m not usually a big huge fan of jump scares, but there are pretty effective ones in this one. And I remember literally jumping, in the theater at that one and and maybe screaming a little bit too. But from that point on, everything moves really quickly. Once they see that one, they really fall under attack right away, at least 2 or 3 of these creatures. And the creatures first go for Holly because she is injured. Somehow, Sarah gets separated. I feel like she falls somewhere and is unconscious for a minute.   Sam and Becca get separated off together by themselves. Juno is left Todd, try to defend Holly. She’s trying to protect Holly because Holly can’t protect herself, but she’s failing. You know, these creatures are eating Holly. They’re pulling her away, and they’re attacking her as well. And Juno puts up a really good fight. She takes a couple of them out. And then in in what is, you know, a very scary moment for her, she hears something behind her and presuming that it’s another one of the creatures, she swings around with her climbing pick and nails Becca right or no, not Beth Becca, excuse me, nails Beth, right through the neck.   I mean, it’s it’s clearly a a fatal blow. There’s not gonna be any recovering from that. And, there’s really nothing that she can do but to leave her there, and that’s what she does. But we see that after she leaves, we see that Becca had grabbed her necklace, off of her neck, grabbed Juno’s necklace off of her neck and is holding it. And that becomes important later. At this point, it’s difficult to even talk about what goes on next because everything happens so fast. You know? What what do you think? 

Todd:  Yeah, you’re right. It it really is. I mean, things happen quickly. Sarah ends up kind of watching the creatures descend and eat Holly because she’s got the camera, but she’s trying to be quiet. Juno, it seems like they have discovered the way out, but Juno says they’re not gonna leave without Sarah. And so there’s just a lot of stuff that goes on. And honestly, even for me watching the film, it was really hard to tell sometimes who was who and where they were at any given point. But Sarah finds Beth, and eventually, and you know that earlier scene you were mentioning where, where Juno ends up leaving Beth, it’s really quite sad.   Obviously, it’s sad because of what just happened, and it didn’t have to go that way, but also because Beth reaches out and in her gurgling keep in mind she can’t really say anything much, because of her throat, but she does say don’t leave me. And the fact that Juno ends up leaving her I know, you know, like you kind of said, there’s really nothing more she could do for her, and she’s just really putting herself in more danger by hanging out. What are you gonna do? But in the same sense it’s so tragic, that this girl’s going to have to die alone, that she pleads for her not Todd, and she leaves anyway. And I think the movie is trying to set us up here for this moral quandary of sorts. It’s not only is Juno a reckless person, but maybe she’s, not she’s well, again, she’s extremely selfish. She’s just looking out for number 1. Although I didn’t feel that that was a 100% true, that seems to be the brush that she gets painted by with her friends. Yes.   And when her other friends find out, that through the necklace, one of her who was it who comes in? It’s Sarah, who comes in and discovers Beth, as Beth is still not Todd. But Sarah’s holding the necklace and puts 2 and 2 together, that this was a mortal wound, and that maybe even Beth is able to kinda say some things to her. 

Craig:  I heard you not calling me. I’m gonna go and find it, and we’re gonna come back, and we wanna get there. What? What? She did this to me. What? What? She left me. No. She no. Sir, baby.   But then she shows her the necklace and she says, oh, yeah. That is Juno’s necklace. And she said, it’s from Paul, and Paul was her husband. Now this and and Sarah looks at the back of the necklace and it engrades with some romantic, message like love every day or something like that. And so Sarah comes to the realization now, that Juno had had an affair with her husband, and perhaps that’s why she was so upset, after the accident. But again, you had kind of a problem with the writing with with Juno getting them down in the cave. I kinda have a problem with the writing here. Why wouldn’t Beth have told Sarah this before? That doesn’t make any sense to 

Todd:  me. Yeah. 

Craig:  Why would she continue to be friends with Juno and allow Sarah to be friends with Juno if she knew that Juno was having an affair with Sarah’s husband? That doesn’t make sense to me, and I I don’t really know how to resolve that. 

Todd:  Yeah. It it that that I I agree with you. I feel like that was really shoehorned in, and her discovery of it’s really shoehorned in. And it’s all kind of a it’s all pretty convenient, you know, that she grabbed a necklace, and it happened to be a necklace with the thing, and that Sarah, even in her state of mind, is gonna put 2 and 2 together. And honestly, you’re in the caves and you’re struggling to live. At some point, I don’t feel like your brain is gonna let you dwell too hard on the fact on these these facts of events that happened in the past. You’re probably a lot more focused on getting out of there, and and I don’t want to say willing to let things slide, but you’re you’re not gonna sit and have an emotional moment. And although, you know, I get that Sarah’s coming unhinged here.   She’s been unhinged through this whole thing. Maybe she is just sort of slipping into her own, self, And Mhmm. That’s this just adds to that. 

Craig:  Well, they needed to get it in there to justify the ending, which I am excited to talk about. So I kinda wanna get there quickly. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Let’s do that. The, you know, other stuff happens. Like you said, Juno and and, Becca and Sam hook back up together. The 2 sisters wanna get out of there, but Juno says, No, I’m not leaving without Sarah. Eventually, their, Rebecca and Sam get killed. Sarah and Juno get hooked back up together. Sarah gives Juno an opportunity to tell her the truth about what happened with Beth, but Juno doesn’t. She just lets or or attempts to let Sarah go on believing that, that, Beth was killed by by the creatures.   And there’s some other cool scenes, you know, at some point there’s a battle. Sarah kills one of the creatures that appears to be a child creature and then what I presume is its mother comes and is angry, of course. And I thought that was kind of cool to give the creatures some kind of depth. They’re not just, killing machines, you know. Whatever their way of life is, they do have 1, and and a mother is so protective of her kid, and they end up fighting in this big blood pit. That’s kind of a cool scene. But what it comes down to is Sarah and Juno are together, and a bunch of these, creatures descend upon them, and they have this big battle. And it’s a really good scene, and both of these women really hold their own.   They’re both kicking some monster but But but they they basically win, and then they’re just standing there, face to face, Juno and Sarah. And Sarah has her pick or her pickaxe at the ready, and from her hand, the same hand that is holding, the pickaxe, she allows Juno’s necklace to fall and dangle. And Juno sees it, and they just share these this look, like Juno realizes that Sarah knows the truth. And then Sarah rears up her ax and puts it right through Juno’s knee and takes off, leaving Juno behind to be presumably devoured by these approaching creatures. What did you think there? 

Todd:  Ugh. I don’t know, man. Again, I feel like if these women just made it out of this battle, they’re not gonna stop and share this moment where now this woman is not at all worried about any more monsters coming to her, and worried about the cave thing, but is going to turn on her friend and try to resolve this at this moment. I still feel like it’s a little more realistic that their primary goal is to get out of the cave, and they’re gonna get out of the cave first and then have their moment. So again, you know, it was a cool scene. It added some drama to the film. I didn’t feel it was particularly realistic, And also, what, she she she whacked her leg. That’s pretty cruel that she didn’t just if she wanted to offer, she didn’t just offer.   It seems like she, in a sort of premeditated way, did something that the Sarah that we saw before she went in the cave wouldn’t have ever considered, which is not just off her friend, but do it in a very cruel manner. But it can be argued, obviously, look, this woman’s been through a lot. She’s been suffering for at least a year or 2, with this knowledge. She’s been unhinged for a while, and this is just what set her off. And then of course, the whole movie has these shades of deliverance where or, you know, the hills have eyes. It’s in fact, there are visual references to those movies, throughout the movie. Where it is, the fact that humans, when put in this situation that’s unfamiliar, really turn into survival mode and do become monsters in their own right. And so again, I can see where it’s going with it.   I just thought it was it was a kind of a convenient and sloppy way of doing it. 

Craig:  I think that I understand where they’re going with it too, and and I think that the title is suggestive of that. You know, it’s not just a descent into the caves, but it’s a descent into madness or a descent into kind of this primordial state, and and I get that. But it just bothers me, you know? It makes me lose sympathy for Sarah. And I think that, you know, why does she get her in the leg and not the head? Well, my feeling is maybe she wants it’s a tactic to slow the creatures down. If they have to stop and deal with Juno first, that maybe buys her a few extra seconds. That’s what I was thinking. But yeah, it does seem really cruel. And okay, I get Todd.   Juno killed, Beth, but it was an accident. And yes, Juno had an affair with her husband, but is that still something that she deserves to die for? I don’t know. I I think that, the filmmakers were were throughout the movie trying to really heavy hand it so that we wouldn’t feel as much sympathy for Juno. But I just ended up feeling really bad for her, you know, not even having an opportunity to try to make amends, especially since the 2 sisters had wanted to leave Sarah a long time ago and Juno wouldn’t leave. She wouldn’t leave without Sarah. Doctor. Yeah. Doctor.   And of course Sarah doesn’t know that, but it’s just you know, it’s it’s a sad irony. And I I don’t know. It it leaves me unsettled, but maybe that’s what they were going for. 

Todd:  Yeah. And and I know where you’re going with this. And I think that that maybe is intentional when you look at the ending that you and I saw in the theater. Now Right. Were you as shocked as I was when you saw this ending now in the home version that we watched? Because No. Because I’ve seen 

Craig:  it before. Oh, you have. Okay. Mhmm. Yeah. I had seen it before. 

Todd:  Now in the theater, I felt like the ending was really good. I really liked the ending, which apparently is not the ending that the rest of the world saw. And the ending was that of course Sarah climbs her way out of the cave, she runs to the car there, which she’s able to do. I mean, she goes through woods and woods and woods to to make it back. This is all compressed, of course, for time. Mhmm. She gets back to the car that’s still there, starts it up, and just starts driving away. And you’re thinking, oh, is there gonna be a creature in the car? Is she being pursued? What’s going on? But clearly, she gets far enough away that she just pulls over by the side of the road and just just has to take a moment.   Car comes up behind her, kind of honks, and kind of jolts her into, reality. Anyway, she kind of throws up out the window, sits there catching her breath, and turns around, and Juno is there in the seat next to her. Now I think it was pretty clear, at least this is the way I interpreted it in the film, when I saw it in the theater. This isn’t really Juno, but it’s a vision of Juno that now she is going to be haunted by Juno, by what she did, and by what’s happened there. It’s a really bleak kind of ending that again, shows what you just said, this descent into madness. And so even though she’s made it out, things are not all happy and rosy for her again. And I liked that ending because it kind of did what a lot of other horror movies don’t do, where you have all of these people who go through this horrible situation, most of them end up getting killed, one person comes out ahead, and then boom, we’re all happy and we all kind of walk away, and maybe me and my boyfriend got out at the same time, and so there’s no reflection upon the incredible loss that you have now endured and are gonna have to live with throughout the rest of life. I don’t expect that from a movie, but I’m just saying it’s it’s an obvious, you know, deficiency at the end of a lot of these movies, which I felt like that movie hit head on with that ending.   And then it ends abruptly and forces you to think about 

Craig:  it like, jeez, jeez, just Sarah’s screwed. You know? She’s still screwed. She’s just even more unhinged than 

Todd:  she was before, and this isn’t gonna end well for her. So I really dug that ending, but of course the ending that the director originally shot that was put out there is the one that we saw. And that in itself is very interesting, actually, but I didn’t feel like it was as powerful. 

Craig:  Well, so it leads up to, you know, right where you said the American version ended. But after you get that jump scare of Juno in the car, it cuts back to inside the cave and we see that Sarah is is still inside the cave. That all of that we had seen, her emerging out of the cave and everything that had happened in the car, all of that had been either a dream or hallucination. And she’s still in the exact same place in the cave that she was. And like earlier in the movie, after when she had had that dream or hallucination of her daughter and the birthday cake, again she sees her daughter sitting in front of her smiling with a birthday cake and the, the camera starts to, to pull back, and we see her looking as though her daughter is still there, like looking at something, but there’s nothing there. You know, it’s it’s it’s clear that she’s just imagining this, and we hear the creatures in the background and they’re getting louder and presumably closer, and so we presume and then it it it cuts to black, and that’s the end. So we presume that she never got out. I don’t know.   I don’t know which ending I like better. I like them both. I left feeling very satisfied, leaving the theater here in the States. I was very satisfied with that ending. And, when the home video release came out, I rented it and watched it not knowing that there was a different ending. And so when it happened, I was like, What? What’s happening? This isn’t how I remember it at all. But I do I have to both endings are bleak. But the idea that she never gets out, I almost feel like that’s I don’t know.   I I I kind of I kind of like it. It’s it feels more realistic that her descent into madness ends there, that it doesn’t continue on. And I almost wish that it had been that way because the American version gave way to a sequel, which is so below the quality of the original that it’s barely even worth seeing. Ugh. Have you seen the sequel? 

Todd:  No. I haven’t. I I imagined it probably wasn’t because I don’t think the original writer director was involved, Neil Marshall. Maybe he was a producer on it, but I don’t think he he was involved in the production of that film or the or the writing of it. Am I right about that? No. I haven’t seen it. I I haven’t seen it. 

Craig:  I don’t remember. All I know is they take away everything that’s good about the movie. The claustrophobia, the natural danger, the relationships between the women, the motivations of the women, and they just focus on the creatures and different ways that people can get killed by the creatures, and it’s far more gory. There’s lots more blood. There’s lots more violence. And there’s just there’s no heart to it at all. I mean, it feels like a cash grab, capitalizing on the first one. The premise doesn’t even make any sense.   Sarah gets rescued, and immediately there’s a police investigation because her friends didn’t come out. And this, like, big shot Texas cop is convinced that Sarah went down in that cave and killed all of her friends. So he’s going to lead a team to go down there to try to find the friends, and he makes Sarah come   with them, like the very next day.   Oh. And it it just doesn’t even make any sense. It doesn’t make sense that they would make her go down there, or it doesn’t make any sense that she would agree to go down there. And, it it’s I don’t know. They they play it on TV a lot and it’s just, I I wouldn’t even recommend it. I mean, if if you’re stuck somewhere where that’s the only thing that you have to watch, go for it. But if you have other choices, I would pass. 

Todd:  Well, you know, it you’re right. It it it clearly takes what makes this movie such a standout film. It takes all those elements and just trades them in for another typical monster movie, essentially. And and as part of that introduction of a man, I mean, what I really liked about this film was the all female cast. It’s just something 

Craig:  you do 

Todd:  not see very often. And, I mean, what a cool choice to do that. Then you don’t have these these you have strong women in here, you have leaders, you don’t have this trope that you get so much, where the man kind of has to save everybody, or the man should be able to save everybody, but he can’t because, you know, he’s impotent in some way, or the man, the big strong buddy gets his comeuppance and whatnot. You don’t have any of those dynamics in this film. You you don’t even it just makes it feel fresh. It makes it feel fresh for the horror genre. No love interest thing going on either. Right.   You know? These are just friends, and they’re relying on each other, and they have complicated friend relationships. Yeah. It’s just I’ve I’ve really dug that about this movie, and maybe that’s a good part of what draws me to it as well and makes it so different and unique. Of course, also, it it just has shades of of all these other movies that have come before it that are not necessarily horror films. I guess you could call Deliverance a horror film. It’s Mhmm. Kind of a survival movie. The hills have eyes, I kept thinking about that, where, again, just like Deliverance, it’s just the outsiders coming into a world where they really don’t belong.   And even APOCALYPSE NOW, I mean, there were some just straight out nods to Apocalypse Now. I’m thinking particularly, the scene when she’s wading through, I think it’s, Sarah at one point ends up wading through, almost swimming through blood, and as she comes up out of the water, you get this close-up on her face as she comes out, and her face is just covered in this this blood. And that is a direct copy off of a scene, similar scene, almost in the framing, and the lighting, and everything. I I just love this movie more the more I see it. Although I I guess I’ve seen a little more of its flaws as well this time around, that I I didn’t didn’t bother me so much on the first viewing, I guess, when I was in the theater, because you don’t know what’s coming up, so you’re not really looking at it with such a critical eye. 

Craig:  Yeah. I think I think it’s a really good, horror movie. Really, really solid. I think something else that I liked about it, you know, all of these actresses, they’re from different parts of the world, and some of them have success. Like, I I I looked up the the actress who plays Sarah, and she has lots and lots of acting credits. But I personally don’t recognize these these women from any other from anything, from anything else. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  So so you believe them as their characters. If this had been a bunch of young Hollywood actresses, don’t think it would have been as effective. These seemed like real people, like you said, with real personalities, complex relationships, and I think that is is one of the things that I appreciate about it most. 

Todd:  Yeah. And even today, like you said, you can go back and watch this movie that’s, over 10 years old, and you still don’t know any of the actresses, so it has that same effect on you. 

Craig:  It’s it’s pretty cool. 

Todd:  It’s pretty cool, that one. Neil Marshall, the director, cited Fulci and Argento as an inspiration. Did you did you read that? 

Craig:  No. I didn’t read it, but I can see it, especially with the use of color. There’s a lot of, shades of Argento there with the reds and greens and, that kind of imagery. So I I I hadn’t read it, but I definitely see it. 

Todd:  There’s also a really interesting moment in that movie where there’s almost an artsy point where they are under attack, but instead of all of the flailing and attacking, there’s almost this moment where we just get a few shots of the creature. Just a close-up of his face, and he looks gross, and then a shot from him from another angle where he’s glowing. It just seems like the camera, its sole purpose is to dwell on the grossness and the disgustingness of this feature. It’s this creature, and it’s a shocking moment, I thought, in the movie that just suddenly pulls you out of the action. And it’s like time stands still, and now we’re just gonna show you a bunch of gross shots of the creature. And I felt like that was totally 

Craig:  like something that these Hatakean directors would completely do. Almost a 

Todd:  Todd, to Fulci there. And, and I I appreciated that as well. I mean, Neil Marshall, he did dog soldiers before this. That’s something we should probably put on our list. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard really good things about it. 

Craig:  I know. That’s so funny. You know, I didn’t realize that. And that was his first movie, and this was his second. And just the whole notion of dog soldiers, and I’ve seen the cover art and stuff, it just seems so silly to me. But I Todd have heard really good things about it, from other horror fans. And, I I love this movie. So, yeah, we definitely should give it a shot. 

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 Stitcher. We’re also on social media. We have a Facebook page that you can like and follow. Also share with friends, and reach out to us. Let us know what you thought of this episode. Let us know what you thought of this film and any other films that you think we should see into the future. Until that time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. And with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Tonight, we bring you the last of our Halloween season episodes this year: A horror anthology with a whopping 10 stories. They run the gamut from funny to freaky, and we go through each one to let you know what we thought of this (we think) spiritual successor to Trick R Treat.

Tales of Halloween (2015)

Episode 55, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Todd:  And I’m Todd. 

Craig:  And for our last film of this year’s Halloween series season, we decided to go with the anthology film, Tales of Halloween. Now Todd and I, I believe, are both pretty big fans of these types of anthology horror movies. Last season, last year, we did Trick or Treat which both of us loved and raved about. So this week I thought we would try the most recent, anthology Halloween film that I’m aware of called Tales of Halloween from 2015. I heard about this when it came out. It had some pretty cool poster art that I saw on the Internet, but I didn’t know a whole lot about it going in and I hadn’t seen it. Today was the first time I had seen it. Had you heard anything about it, Todd? 

Todd:  No. I didn’t know a thing about it. Although, after I started looking it up, I did notice the poster art, and there was something about the poster art that, I don’t know if it came up in my feed at some point, or maybe that’s a famous painting and I don’t even know it. But, yeah, I recognize the poster, but I did not recognize the movie. So I’m glad you suggested it because you’re right, I am a big fan of these anthology kind of films, and I think they’re perfect for the season. Because, you get like, well in this case, you get like 10 movies for the price of 1. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I totally agree. And you know, we went on and on about how much we liked trick or treat, and, that’s one that anymore, if I don’t watch that during the Halloween season, I feel like the season is incomplete. And, the creator director of that movie has been promising a sequel for a long time, but Todd doesn’t seem like much is happening with that. Tales of Halloween, in my humble opinion, could almost serve as a spiritual sequel to that movie. They have a lot of things in common. One of the things that they have in common is just that we get, a collection of stories. In trick or treat, we only got 4 here.   Like you said, we get 10. But both of them are set on 1 Halloween night in this one small Todd, and you get some overlap, with the different stories. You see characters from different stories popping up in the different, vignettes. In this one in particular, you see a lot of the kids who are out trick or treating pop up in in a bunch of the different stories. And that’s always kind of neat to see how they interconnect. Each one of these stories was tackled by a different director, either a fairly new but established director or an up and coming director. And, I thought one of the things that I thought was the strength of the movie was that it seemed pretty seamless. Yeah.   They all had different styles, and and you could definitely identify some different characteristics of the different directors. But it still felt like a cohesive movie as well, and I thought that, was a positive thing about it. The movie opens up with kind of the connective tissue that’s gonna that hold it all together. There is it opens with this cool opening sequence that looks kinda like a spooky spooky pop up book, and these different locations that we’re gonna be seeing throughout the course of the movie. Of course, it’s animated. And then we’ve got, Adrienne Barbeau, the actress playing, a radio DJ, hosting, her show on Halloween night. Adrienne Barbeau is kind of paying tribute to herself here. She played a very similar role, in John Carpenter’s The Fog.   And she her narration, and it’s not really narration, she just has kind of some radio commentary that comes between some of the stories, but it was kind of a neat thing, to see her, not   necessarily reprising that role, but certainly   paying homage. Attention all you that role, but certainly paying   homage. Attention all you trick or treaters. It’s time to get your goo along. For tonight is All Hallows Eve, my favorite time of the year. Our little town really comes   and then we get right into the first story, which I’m glad they put this one first because I thought that it really set the pace and the mood for, the film. This first story was called Sweet Tooth, directed by Dave Parker. And what we have here basically is a young boy, Mikey, is home, after having finished his trick or treating, and he’s gorging himself on his candy. Meanwhile, his babysitter and her boyfriend are sitting on the couch, kind of flirting back and forth with one another and and teasing him. And the boyfriend warns Mikey that he needs to be careful not to eat all his candy because he needs to save some for sweet tooth. And the boyfriend goes into this story, which is very similar to any other kind of urban legend that you’re gonna hear around, centered around the holiday. Basically, the story goes there was a little boy named Timothy Blake who loved Halloween, but his parents were really strict. They would allow him to go out and collect all the candy trick or treating, but when he got home, they confiscated it and wouldn’t let him eat it, claiming that it would make him fat and lazy and, they didn’t want that out of their son.   So Mikey asked, Okay, well Todd did the parents do with the Halloween candy? And then we cut back to the story and we see little Timmy coming down the stairs and his parents are sitting on the couch eating all of his candy, and not only eating it, but kind of playing this seductive game with one another where they’re eating the candy out of one another’s mouths. It’s all very sensuous and something that a little kid definitely wouldn’t want see. Well, the story goes, that this, event kind of, broke little Timmy, I guess, and he went and got a meat cleaver and hacked his parents up, and ate all of the candy that they hadn’t eaten. But when he was done with that, he still wasn’t satisfied. Little Mikey listening to the story says, well, but all the candy was gone, and the boyfriend telling the story says, no, it wasn’t.   Timmy ate all the candy he could find inside his parents, but What? He wanted more. Now, every Halloween, every single Halloween since, his evil spirit comes back trick or treating. If you don’t share your candy with him, he will come and take it. All of it. Even the candy you’ve already eaten.   Of course, this freaks little Mikey out, and he runs up to his room, and out of fear, puts a candy bar down in front of his door. And the candy bar is a carpenter bar, obvious Todd to John Carpenter here. And then we cut back down to the babysitter and, the boyfriend, and the babysitter kind of gives the boyfriend a little bit of gruff saying, you know, maybe you went a little too far. You scared him. And the boyfriend says, ah, not. It’s a rite of passage. We all heard that story when we were kids. And they tease one another and they start eating, little Mikey’s Halloween candy.   Mikey hears something outside of his room, and when he looks out the window, he hears a ghostly trick or treat, and so he knows something’s going on. Meanwhile downstairs, the boyfriend and the, babysitter are lamenting the fact that they have eaten all the candy and now they’re feeling sick. The girlfriend goes to get them something to drink, and that is when sweet tooth arrives. And we’ve got the, we don’t get a much look at him, but what we get is pretty nightmarish, and he takes his hand, reaches down into the boyfriend’s gullet, and starts ripping out his, insides. When the babysitter comes back in, she finds the boyfriend dead, she screams and starts to run towards, Mikey’s room, but we see Sweet Tooth follow her as well, and then we assume that she has met her demise. Mikey is hiding under his bed, he hears something outside of his door, the door slowly opens, and in comes this monstrous hand, but it just grabs the candy bar. Apparently that was enough of a sacrifice, and so, Sweet Tooth presumably leaves him alone. A few minutes later, the boy’s parents come home, but they walk into the living room to find little Mikey standing in front of the boyfriend or the boyfriend and the babysitter eviscerated, and all he says is, They ate all of my candy.   And so it’s a nice little cap there where it seems like everybody’s going to assume that this kid was the one who actually did all of this. And the whole thing, plays out really dark and pretty frightening, good effects, and I thought it was just an excellent way to start this out. What did you think of this one? 

Todd:  Yeah. I think anytime, you know, with an anthology series like this, you wanna start and end with you some of your strongest stories, and this probably is one of the stronger stories in my opinion. I have to be honest, I don’t think that any of the stories are really, really wonderful. But as you said earlier, as far as consistency goes, they’re all pretty good. And so Av, this is maybe the goodest one of the goodest of the group, I would say. And and it’s, you know, it’s it’s it’s like most of the stories where they’re more based on urban legends. This is obviously not I think this is a pretty original kind of legend, but it is, it does fall into that category of urban legend. And that’s how I felt the whole film went, was it took these really, really short, very small stories, But, the stories definitely have that urban legend kind of feel to them.   So, yeah, I thought it was pretty solid and you’re right, the gore effects were good. It was pretty spooky, and it definitely set the tone for the rest of the movie. 

Craig:  Yeah. I thought it was pretty scary Todd. You know, what you just said, the fact that some of these seem like semi typical urban legends, that’s a lot of the criticism that I read online. This the whole movie has a, I think, like a 70 4, 75 percent, or no, 79% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which I agree with. I think it’s pretty solid. But if you go through and read message boards, people are pretty critical of it, and I didn’t really understand why because I thought, that it was fun. I agree with you that this one was one of my favorites, but the next one, I thought was just so much fun. I’ll let you tell them about, number 2. 

Todd:  Yeah. The next one was pretty interesting. It’s you know, actually, it’s called The Night Billy Raised Hell, and it’s really about a young boy who’s at trick or treating with what must be his sister and her boyfriend. 

Craig:  Billy, I am an idiot. I totally forgot to ask. Did your mother dress up this year? What? Is your mother in a slutty costume like your sister? Hey. What? You remember your mom brought you to school in that Catwoman outfit 1 year? We still talk about it. Touch up. 

Todd:  And, they are encouraging him to egg this old man’s house because he never gives out candy, and he’s really stingy. And they claim it’s a Halloween tradition to egg this guy’s house. He’s really a nice kid, so he’s reluctant to do it. But, they convince him anyway. He goes up to the steps. You know, you’re supposed to do this from far away. They should have at least told him that, but he goes right up to the steps like he’s just gonna smash it against the window or something. And the door opens and this man, pops out and grabs the kid and takes him inside.   And the man looks like, I don’t know, he’s kind of has a somewhat bony looking face and instantly, for me anyway, gave off this Jim Carrey type vibe. 

Craig:  You are going to learn 

Todd:  what a real Halloween 

Craig:  in his 

Clip:  by the way, Billy, is your mother dressing up again this year? 

Todd:  Later, I was really surprised to hear that this role was played by Barry Bostwick, who is Brad from Rocky Horror. And, you know, everybody in this movie, I don’t know if there’s a single actor in this movie who has not been in some horror film somewhere along the line, if not really well known for it. That was another really interesting touch. I think, if you wanted to play like 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon, like, this is the movie that you need that’s gonna connect all of these, all of the horror films that you know, and a bunch that you don’t know. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. Anyway, he pulls the kid in and, and he’s really playing with him. And again, like I said, he just has kind of a Jim Carrey esque type vibe to it, and he says, you want to do a prank? I’ll show you a prank. And so they go out, him with this masked kid, and run around and do all kinds of mayhem. And it’s, it’s not innocent Halloween mayhem, it’s the kind of Halloween mayhem that gets people injured or killed. Yeah. So it’s just this long running list of things and you’re going, oh my gosh, this is so horrible. And it’s interesting how he has suddenly convinced this kid who couldn’t even egg his house, to go out and do these terrible things with him.   Well, you can see little horns on this guy’s head, and you see them pretty early on, and so you figure this guy is a devil or he’s kind of a devilish trickster figure, and, when he comes, when they come back after this night of mayhem, which has made the news and everything, They’ve even tagged a neighbor’s garage with his name, so there’s no way this kid is getting out of this. When he comes home, you see that it hasn’t been the kid this whole time. The kid’s actually been tied up to a Craig, and this was one of the devil’s minions who takes off his devil mask that the kid was wearing and, takes off the devil mask and he looks like a devil himself underneath. And so, yeah, it was it was one of those interesting twist endings. A lot of these do have that twist ending. It’s very reminiscent of like an EC horror comic, Tales from the Crypt or Vault of Horror or something, where the bad guy gets his due at the end. Yeah. I thought this took an interesting turn from the pure almost real just pure horror that we had from the first one.   And immediately 180 into still horrible, but pretty much comedy. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I totally agree. I I loved this one, and I thought that there are several that employ comedy, and I don’t have any problem with that. Again, that’s something that people are kind of critical of online, but I like comedy, and you know, Stephen King says that horror and comedy are conjoined twins. They go right along with one another and I couldn’t agree more. But the comedy here and the comedy elsewhere, I think that it’s so effective because it’s so dark. Like it’s really, really dark comedy. You’ve got this little kid doing these outrageous things that, like you said, is completely out of character for him, and of course, as it turns out, it’s not really him doing it, they’re just setting him up to take the fall for it.   But, I just thought that it worked so well, and Barry Bostwick just seems to take so much joy in playing this impish, devilish role. There’s a hilarious cameo from Adrienne Curry, who is from America’s Next Top Model originally, but is a staple at Comic Con and is a huge Halloween fan herself, and that I thought was really funny. Overall, that one was one of my favorites, and that seems to kind of be a consensus, across the board at least based on the fan, message boards that I was reading. I liked it a lot. The third one is titled Trick, directed by Adam Girosh, I think maybe? And this one starts out simply enough with, 2 couples, middle aged couples, I would guess probably about our age, you know, mid late thirties probably. And they’re just sitting around watching, Night of the Living Dead. They’ve got their house all decked out with all the Halloween stuff. They’re drinking wine.   One of them is smoking a bong. It just looks, you know, and they’re drinking and laughing and having a good time. And, some trick or treaters come, and first the wife, one of the wives, I guess supposedly who lives in the house, goes to the door and hands out some candy. And then the next time the doorbell rings, she says, Okay, honey, it’s your turn. And the husband goes, and there’s this little girl standing there, dressed as a witch, very innocent looking. Trick treat.   Nelson, you’re drunk. She’s supposed to say that.   Stummy. And she whips out a big butcher knife from under her costume and says, Trick, and stabs him multiple times, in the abdomen. He closes the door and everybody kind of says, What’s wrong? Because they haven’t seen what’s happened, but he turns around and he’s bleeding and he collapses, and of course, as you would, they all start to panic. Somebody says, I think the wife says, Call 911, and the other woman, says, Are you crazy? I’ll go around back and get the car. So she goes out to get the car, but she’s besieged by another group of kids who hack her to pieces. Her husband sees this, but is then quickly attacked by some, but another kid who has gotten in the house, and that’s a pretty gruesome kill. All of these done with practical effects that I thought worked really well, and so we’re left with this last woman who goes off running, and she ends up in this garage, and we start to see some flashes of some really bizarre and violent imagery. And I think I’m not gonna quite spoil this one all the way, except for to say that these couples were not as innocent as they initially appeared to be, and that there’s probably reason and motivation for what these kids are doing.   But it was so much fun and it was so unexpected. I didn’t see it coming at all. I kinda wanna leave that one for you, listeners out there, if you haven’t seen the movie for it to kinda be a surprise. This one was one of the shorter ones, but I thought, I mean I enjoyed it. I think I’m gonna end up saying that for most of them. I think there was only 1 or 2 that I thought were just alright, but I I like this one. What about you? 

Todd:  Yeah. It was, it was weird. I thought it was kinda weird. I’m not sure I completely got, the motivation there, that you’re that that we’re not going to spoil for you, because Well, you 

Craig:  can if you want to. I was just trying to say 

Todd:  Well, no. No. I think that’s fine. I think that’s fine because it happens in flashes and things, and I think what made it creepy for me was I was a little unsure, and I think that’s okay. I’d rather be a little unsure. I thought that of all the stories, this one was maybe the most obtuse. I this one was maybe my least favorite, actually, just because it was rather simple and straightforward, except for that that bit where I wasn’t quite sure what they had done, but I could see that it was horrible, and so it left that sort of lingering feeling in my head that I thought kind of made up for the fact that otherwise it’s just these kids killing these people. So, yeah.   Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t my favorite of the group. Maybe I’d put it down at the very bottom, but one thing that you mentioned earlier that I think really carries through this and all the rest of them is just the consistency. I mean, to have all of these tales directed by different directors and written by different people, even down to the cinematography, the lighting choices and everything, it is so consistent. The whole movie seems like it’s directed by the same person, except for obviously the differences in tone between each of the stories, which you get anyway in an anthology series, at least you tend to. It’s so amazing how seamless, the movie feels. 

Craig:  Yeah. I think it feels, really seamless Todd, but I also liked, and I thought that this was a good example where there are little bits where you can see the director’s individual style. And up until the twist at the end of this one, it really just kind of felt like The Purge, but with kids, you know, like you didn’t know what was going on. The twist kind of put in a unique spin on it, so it didn’t just seem like a rip off. But the way that the cinematography worked, you kind of alluded to the fact that you’re getting things in flashes, and you’re not getting the complete picture. I thought that, you know, that’s something that’s unique to this one, and you get little, I don’t know, glimpses into the style of these various directors while it’s still consistent and still feels like a cohesive piece. I thought that was, something strong. 

Todd:  Yeah. It was. It was. Yeah. The next story takes us, a little bit out of, it’s one of the few actually that take us out of the suburban neighborhood and into what looks like more of an urban area, even though it could just be the the downtown of this, I guess, this small town, where, there’s an alley and there’s you hear the sounds of of and at first you think, oh my gosh, somebody’s eating something or somebody, but it’s just the sound of eating candy. Somebody’s just glorging on candy in the alley, and I guess it’s just the way that they really Todd this together with Halloween. And, you know, it seems like Todd, every time anybody eats candy in this movie, they do make it sound like like it’s they’re the sloppiest ears in the world. Like, bite into a chocolate bar, and it sounds like like they’re chopping into an apple.   It’s funny. So anyway, yeah, this guy’s eating this candy, and, somebody comes up from behind them and starts harassing him. And it turns out to be this gang, this very small gang of this girl and and I think 2 guys. 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  And they’re punked out. She’s got tattoos and all over and they’re sort of your stereotypical bad bad alley gang. Yeah. He’s gonna burn his feet with a cigar and they get interrupted, and from behind, what looks like this towering demon with big horns comes up. But as he steps into the light, it’s it’s clearly just a guy dressed up who apparently wants to just be a superhero, and, and he hands her this this piece of paper, and there’s a photo, kind of a blurry photo on the piece of paper, this demon that he’s supposed to be dressed up as, and the whole story is called The Weak and the Wicked. So, that is what’s what’s going on here. You’ve got the wicked people and the weak, victims. 

Craig:  It spills the blood of the wicked where the wicked have harmed the weak. Think you turned yourself into a monster with that soup boy. 

Todd:  And so they take off after him and he runs. So he gets, is on foot, and these 3 are not like, I thought they were gonna jump on a motorcycle or something, but they end up on bikes. So they’re like a bicycle gang. And, and but but, you know, it’s still the chase sequence is pretty intense, and it takes them through a park, and it takes them all over the place. Really quick cut, really nice little cinematography on this chase sequence. A really good example of how you can do a chase sequence on bicycles, with a guy running and still make it exciting and, do it on a lower budget, was was pretty good. Anyway, they end up, he ends up leading him to this alley where he faces a burned out looking trailer, and it’s a small trailer. I guess it’s supposed to be kind of a trailer home, but it would be something that you would definitely tow behind your car and and not the kind of trailer home people would normally go in.   And there’s a very quick, and very substantive flashback sequence where you immediately understand that this was the kids’ parents who got burned up in this trailer home, and you can see in the flashback that there are these 3 people who, even as children, were part of this, were in a gag and were terrorizing people in absolutely horrible ways, enough that they gleefully torched, this kid’s home and burned up his parents in them. So when they come and confront him there, she says, oh, look, you’re little Jimmy Henson. Okay, Jim Henson. And, and so, right, Not not not what I was expecting to have name dropped in this movie, but okay. And, anyway, so they are going to, basically do what Todd him, what they did to his parents years ago, and kick him, punch him quite a bit, he falls down, and then she douses him with alcohol. And before as she’s about to light him on fire, there’s a noise from behind them, and behind them is very much the same shadowy figure that he was dressed up as, but it turns out it is actually the demon, and he opens his big mouth like he’s going to kill them, and that’s the end of the story. So, as we see the back of this sheet of paper, it looks, I don’t know, it looks like something out of a comic book or something that’s advertising, maybe a way to summon a demon of the night, or maybe it’s a picture out of a spell book or something. It’s a little unclear, but, of course, the idea is that this kid summoned this demon to take revenge, and his whole plot all along was to lead them back to the scene of the crime to give them their comeuppance.   Again, very standard tales from the Craig desk, Craig show type of feel to it. 

Craig:  It definitely was, but I feel like and and this is common of those types of stories is that they usually have some sort of twist at the end. You could tell all throughout this that this kid was being very intentional on what he was doing. He had a watch that he kept looking at, like, he was trying to lead them to this particular place at the particular time. And then when, when they got there and the flashback happened, he took the mask off, and you see that he had something carved into his face. And I think there’s a little, voice over or maybe you just see this written on the piece of paper, but it says something like, when the word is carved in flesh, the invitation is sent. So at that point, you know, you kinda figure out that this kid has summoned this vengeance demon, And when it appears, again, they they don’t they don’t pull any punches on the effects. I mean, it Todd definitely looks like something that was kind of pieced together. And I mean, it’s clearly a costume, but it really seems like they took care with care with it, and I appreciated that.   And, you know, everybody loves a good revenge story, where the bad guys get what’s coming to them. This one, it wasn’t one of my favorites. But the next one, number 5 was called Grim Grinning Ghost, and it was, directed by Axel Carolyn. And the first thing, they had me on board with this one right away because it opens with Lin Shay, who I just absolutely adore. I just think that she is Your favorite. Fantastic. She’s she’s just so great. I mean, in everything she does.   And it’s not even like she has some sort of amazing range. You know? Like, she always kinda plays the same sort of characters, and I don’t care. I just love her. 

Todd:  You know, I’m actually kinda surprised that you love her so much because I don’t really find her a very good actress or or or even very compelling. I mean, I’ve I I think almost in every performance, she just, again, she seems to be the same character, and I don’t know. There’s just something about her style that Todd me screams I’m acting. I don’t know that 

Craig:  I I understand what no. I understand what you’re saying exactly. There’s just something about her presence. I think it’s because she’s got kind of an 8 typical look. She’s small. She’s not, you know, stereotypically movie star looking. She looks like a real woman. She’s got an interesting voice.   And you’re right. You’re right. She does always kinda play the same role, but I don’t care. Anytime she pops up, it’s just I get a huge smile on my face. She is apparently hosting this, Halloween party for adults and it seems pretty low key, but they’re all sitting around in costumes and they’re telling ghost stories. And Lynne Shea tells this story about, Mary Bailey who was laughed at her whole life because she had a disfigured face.   She comes back every Halloween to taunt the living and to laugh at them behind their backs. So just a word of warning tonight if you find yourself alone on the way back, and you hear an evil cackle and footsteps behind you. I wouldn’t turn around because if she finds you looking when you least expect Todd, She’s gonna take your eyes.   Then the party breaks up and everybody’s going home. And, Lin Shay sends her daughter off. You know, it seems like they have a warm relationship. And, the daughter’s driving home, and there’s a song playing on the radio that says, you you know, something like just turn around now. I’m always behind you. You know, it’s very suggestive. It it it almost feels I kind of thought that we were gonna get into that territory of somebody in the back seat. That’s what I was expecting.   But instead of that, somebody runs out in front of her car, and she slams on the brakes, which causes some sort of mechanical malfunction. I don’t know why. But the car breaks down, so she has to and and as she’s looking under the hood to see if she can see what’s wrong, when she closes the hood again, she closes it on her phone and breaks it. So she’s stranded and just has to walk home. As she’s walking home, she’s scared by a couple of things that she sees that just end up being, you know, decorations or or cats or something like that. But as she’s headed down her street, she’s kinda walking down the middle of the street, and behind her is the mist and the, the street lights illuminating the mist and she hears, some laughter behind her. And she’s spooked and she tells herself not to turn around and we can see behind her a figure emerging out of the mist. And it gets closer and closer to her as she gets home and the tension is building and of course, you know, she drops her keys trying to get into the house.   She finally gets the door open, and, at the very last minute before she steps in, she looks back, but she sees nobody there. So she starts to get ready. Her dog gives her another jump stare. But then she just sits down to watch some scary movies at the end of the night, and, her dog who is sitting next to her on the couch gets spooked and runs into the other room, and she looks after him. And when she looks back and when she sits back in her chair, we see a ghostly woman, gross looking figure sitting next to her on the couch, and it cuts to black and there’s a screen. I thought this was okay for what it was. Again, it was, one of the shorter ones, and, it, it Todd did play out very much like your standard urban legend. But I don’t know.   I just don’t have a problem with that. You know? I I it was it was spooky. It was fun. I I’m not looking for I don’t know. I’m not looking for great depth in this type of movie. You know, they’ve got 10 minutes approximately each of them, to set up a story, you know, establish some characters and give us some fun and some scares. And I thought that they all did that. Some, you know, with greater success than others, and I feel like this one was perhaps maybe not one of the most successful ones, but but fine nonetheless.   I I didn’t really have a problem with it. What did you think? 

Todd:  I’m with you on the whole. I I don’t see it as a criticism that this that this movie is based on urban legends and that most of them at least have that feel, if not are outright. Like, this one is outright an urban legend. I’ve heard it a dozen times before in different forms. And in fact, this kind of story exists across multiple cultures. A lot of cultures have a ghost story where there’s a ghost behind you or some spirit behind you, but you can’t look at it. And if you do look at it, something terrible is going to happen. But again, I don’t have a problem with it either.   I mean, that is the spirit of these kind of stories. It’s the spirit of this kind of movie, I think. And so no, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest that they’re urban legend y. They just need Todd, again, have their own little spin on them. And maybe you’re right, this one is a little weaker in that it it plays it pretty straightforward and doesn’t put too big of a spin on it. But I thought it was actually one of the freakiest ones because, the the appearance of the witch is just very skillfully done, and she just flashes there for just a couple seconds before black comes in. And I don’t know, it really creeped me out. The whole idea would creep anyone out too.   And of course, the witch is Barbara Crampton, which I, you know, I didn’t recognize, of course, but I looked up later. And Barbara Crampton, we’ve talked about her before. She was in We Are Still Here and goes all the way back to shopping mall. And it’s like I’ve said before, all roads seem to lead back to shopping mall for us. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s so funny. I didn’t know that. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s nuts. Again, like I said, if you go through anyone who’s interested could probably spend 2 hours going through the IMDB credits because there are a ton of them because there are a ton of characters in this movie. But every single one of them, it’s like they they put out this APB that says, we’re gonna get this, we’re gonna do this movie, and, anybody who’s anybody who’s ever been involved in a horror film, is welcome to come on board. And everyone just jumped in and said, yeah, let’s do it. That in itself is a pretty amazing, amazing, accomplishment, I think. And, Axel Carolyn, who or Excel, I don’t know how you how you pronounce it. I don’t know.   Who directed this one seems to have put the whole movie together. She wrote quite a few of them and, is pretty much credited, I think, with, with kind of being the brains behind this film. And I’d never heard of her before, And I got online, I looked, and she has a few other credits to her name, but she looks like my soul mate because, it looks like she was born exactly 1 year later than I was. So I feel like we must have some connection there. Oh, she was also born in in Belgium, which is where I was born. So there’s something going on. Really? Yeah. Something going on between me and this Axel Carolyn.   I’m very happy. 

Craig:  That’s funny. Well, that leads us up to number 6, which is the one that I can’t say necessarily that I didn’t like it, but I don’t I just didn’t know really what to think of this one. So I’ll let you I’ll let you lay it out there, then we could talk about it. 

Todd:  Oh, wow. You know what? This was my favorite of the bunch. No kidding. Maybe this is the only one that breaks that rule of consistency now that I think about it, because it’s very it’s not straightforward at all, and it’s a little strange. And I’m I’m really not even gonna talk too much about it. I’m just gonna say that, Jack and Bobby’s house first of all, you get subtitles with Jack and Bobby’s house last year at Halloween. It’s the first movie that actually starts out with a flashback and bothers to tell us in subtitles, that it was last Halloween. And it’s basically this couple, this kind of mousy guy, and quite mousy quiet guy, and this woman who is just wailing out the window at the trick or treaters. 

Craig:  Look at all those children out there. It’s not fair. I know, honey. 

Todd:  But look, 

Craig:  trick or treat. What are you doing, Jack? I don’t know. I thought dressing our dog up like Rapunzel would would make me forget that we don’t have a child. Gretel. But she’s supposed to be Gretel. You know? Like Hansel and Gretel. You’re mad. 

Todd:  She she lunges out at him at the end of this little bit, and her nails are long, and she’s got these long arms, and it just really takes you off guard. And you think, okay, something is definitely not right with this woman, or is this just a stylized representation of her maybe from his dream or his memory or something, it definitely starts to enter into kind of dreamy territory. Flash back to the current day, and they are handing out candy to trick or treaters, and, there’s an oven that that kind of pops in as imagery. She’s, oh, she’s making cookies that are shaped like kids. It’s all meant to evoke without actually saying and without flat out copying a kind of Hansel and Gretel story. Maybe that’s as far as I’m gonna go. And so you get the impression and the notion that this woman is a witch, and you get it in very bizarre ways. They’re they’re taking her to the inside of the oven.   They’re flashing over as she’s making the cookies, and the cookies are shaped like children, so there’s of course that idea of eating children there. And, you figure it out pretty quickly, but you figure it out on kind of a visceral level. It’s not like a direct flat out story told to you, I think. And again, the more and more we see of this woman, the more and more strange she is. At one point, it’s clear she has a third arm that that comes out and slaps him. At what I mean, there’s a little bit of comedy mixed in here with this just bizarre dreamlike kind of horror. And the ending was very weird, and I thought that just the feel of this story alone made it pretty terrifying. I thought it was the the one that reached me at the deepest level, just because, and again, I think it’s one of these cases where it wasn’t very straightforward, clear cut.   You couldn’t really follow it as a story that takes you from point a to point b. It just left me with this impression of this woman that was a pretty terrifying version of a witch that that could be in a neighborhood and could on one hand seem really, really normal, but then turn very bizarre, very quickly. 

Craig:  Yeah. This one, I I think that it stands out so much because it’s it’s so different. I mean, I don’t think that it feels out of place in the movie. It still feels in place, but but you really get a sense of the director Lucky McKee’s style. Now Lucky McKee has directed, several horror movies, and I think that he’s really good at what he does, but this guy seems like he’s messed up. Like like, the the movies the movies that he makes are are just really kinda, oh, man, they’re kinda messed up. Like, May, which I’ve been trying to get you to watch with me for a while. We’ll have to do that pretty soon.   The Woman, which is another, you know, dark really, really dark movie. And and this, while there is you know, there’s a Hansel and Gretel element, but it it just visually, it’s so bizarre. Like, it’s just it’s kinda bizarre to watch, but intriguing, as well. I think that I was just kinda left not knowing what to think of that one, and I I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It definitely stood out, from the others, and and, maybe that’s maybe that’s a compliment, I guess. 

Todd:  Yeah. And, again, it’s a little ambiguous because, the idea, I think, is that he’s he kind of the husband finally, I guess, is gonna try to put a stop to her, but I’m not sure he’s successful. It really just leaves you hanging there. And maybe it also goes against the grain with the others in that it’s it’s that most of these kind of stories that are in the EC horror vein, the bad person gets what’s coming to them, and in this case, it doesn’t really necessarily happen, which is fine. But yeah, it is a little it’s inconsistent in so many ways from the rest of the story. And, you know, one of the parents in this in this, in this bit was Angela from Sleepaway Camp. 

Craig:  Oh, really? I didn’t. Gosh. You let you clearly did more research than I did. 

Todd:  I’ve been I’m only touching on a few of them. It’s just nuts. I mean, Angela from sleepaway camp. I always kinda wonder what happened to her. She’s been doing stuff. 

Craig:  That’s funny. Alright. Well, that leads us to number 7, which is this means war. And I actually really liked this one, but it’s really easy to describe. All this is about is about a battle between neighbors for who can have the best Halloween display. You’ve got an older guy on one side who sets up a more traditional display. Great, excellent front yard display. And then on the other side, you’ve got this younger Hispanic couple, who seems to maybe be a little bit more rough, a little bit more edgy.   And and they hire, professionals to come in and dress up their yard. And their yard is, still conventional as far as Halloween, but it’s more modern. And the on Halloween night, you know, they’re they’re both trying to do their displays, but, the the younger couple have loud music conflict between conflict between different eras of horror. Whereas you’ve got, like, the old school films with the classic monsters like Frankenstein and the Wolfman and all and, you know, like, spooky graveyards and skeletons and that type of thing. And then you’ve got, on the other hand, the more modern elements of, like, dismembered bodies and gore and and those types of effects. And I’m the kind of horror fan who, enjoys both, of of those types. But you will find horror fans that that fall wholeheartedly on one side or the other. And I kinda liked that metaphor of the conflict between the 2.   And it played out really simply and really quick, and it was just it it was a fun one. I liked this one. 

Todd:  You know, as a metaphor, it’s making a very clear statement because the, new the new guys, if you will, are very chill and very cool and very accommodating, whereas it’s the old guy who seems to be getting, in such a, you know, seems to be getting so upset and so aggressive at first. So, yeah, that’s I mean, the metaphor is clear. It’s pretty night and day, and, it’s interesting that the side that they that they decided to take again, I’m like you. I like both of them. This one, I thought was had so much potential, for being, more than it ended up being. That’s all I’ll say about it. I thought it could have gone in some really cool directions. I thought the concept was really interesting.   I was a little let down, by the ending. But it did have one of my absolute favorite lines for the whole film, which is when the the the punk guy or whatever goes over to the old man’s house. 

Craig:  Do you know what would perk up this candy ass display? Some mother blood. 

Todd:  And he’s got a buck, and he just tosses blood all over everything. I’m sorry. That made me smile. But, anyway, yeah. No. It was good. It was good. The ending. 

Craig:  I and I think that where you think that there was a lot more potential, I actually appreciated how simple they kept it. It was it was I don’t know. I feel like if if they’d and I don’t know. I’m sure you’ve got ideas as to where they could have gone with it. I think that, it was nice in its simplicity, and and, I I actually kind of appreciated that they didn’t try to draw it out into more. But, enjoyable nonetheless. This next one, oh Todd, I’m so glad that you’re talking about this one because I I so badly wanna know what you 

Todd:  thought of this one. Oh, this is the one you didn’t like too much, I’ll bet. Is that right? 

Craig:  No. I’m not gonna say that. 

Todd:  Oh, okay. Okay. Alright. This one is so nuts. This is the craziest one. I mean, it just goes all over the place. There’s a girl being chased by a guy. It’s a very definite Texas chainsaw massacre thing.   You get some flashbacks into previous victims, and and and then when he finally corners her Wolf Creek style in a in a big, kind of his his shed, if you will. And it and you know, this is maybe one I’m not sure. I guess it took it was supposed to take place in this town, but it was kind of all over the map They’re coming out of the woods, but there’s a shed, and so it must be a fairly secluded place. And, anyway, he corners her in there and she knocks off his mask and he’s, he’s got, he’s totally deformed. I mean, he’s one of these, like I said, it’s very Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He’s a completely deformed kind of brute, if you will, probably inbred, and, chases her back outside and suddenly, a big light shines down on him, and it’s a UFO that is overhead. So now we’re getting into sci fi territory, which is totally appropriate for Halloween, and it beams down this tiny little creature, this cute little guy that go that looks up, and he’s he’s holding you gotta just see this alien. I’ll probably put a picture on our website, because he’s so darn cute. 

Craig:  It’s so 

Todd:  cute. He’s like 2 inches tall, and he holds up this tiny little, pumpkin trick or treat 

Craig:  I got all of you. 

Todd:  He kinda looks at him. So I guess the idea is that this little alien was beamed out to take advantage of the Halloween season and to experience it, but, the thing doesn’t know what to make of it, and so he just stomps on it and just smashes it into goo, and this goo then possesses the girl. And then again, it like it just borrows from so much. Now we’ve got what I thought was immediately evil dead. This girl looks like Ash from Evil Dead 2 when he gets possessed and then depossessed and then possessed again, with her glowing eyes and with the kind of a skeletal looking face that comes through the flesh. And so she starts chasing after him, and what we get is this this giant battle sequence between the 2 that is hilariously comical because, they end up just lopping limbs off of each other until they’re both reduced to nothing. But of course, the the little Martian can, can leave the body again and go back up into the spaceship afterwards. What a goofball type deal that was really just nothing more than an excuse to see 2 big 2 creatures battle it out and just, incredibly over the top gore.   It was it was funny, you know, supposed to be funny. I didn’t feel alright. So it was original in the sense that I’d never seen anything quite like it, but was it really an original idea? I don’t know. It seemed like like something maybe a 13 year old would have come up with. Wouldn’t it be cool if this and, put it together with a big budget and made it happen? It was goofball. I thought as, you know, with with these anthologies or story movies, you do want a bit of variety. You wanna bounce between something horrific and something a little comical, at least I do. I’d like to see that kind of variety.   This was maybe the most goofball straight out comedy of all of them, but again keeps that horror vibe because, of the subject matter. 

Craig:  I absolutely loved this one. It was it was ding dong, the one that was your favorite. That was the one that I was skeptical about. This one, I absolutely loved. And I we haven’t even said. It was called Friday 31st directed by Mike Mendez. And and and you kept saying it’s like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. No.   It’s not. It’s exactly Friday 13th. I mean, the guy looks exactly like Jason Voorhees. He’s not wearing a a hockey mask   Yes.   But it’s a mask. It’s a wooden mask that looks just like a hockey mask.   You’re right.   And the first part the first part is classic Friday the 13th where he’s just chasing down this big boob girl, and he finally gets her in the lair. And in the lair, there’s, what clearly looks like missus Voorhees head on on one of the tables, and and other victims and stuff in there. And then, when the the little alien thing I just thought was absolutely freaking adorable and so funny in the context of this. And then when the little alien possessed the the girl, it went totally, Evil Dead. I mean, she looked she couldn’t have looked more like a deadite, and so it was, let’s have Jason fight a deadite, and and they went at it. And if if you look closely, the Necronomicon is on one of the shelves in his, lair. I just thought this one was freaking hilarious, and I was laughing out loud the whole time. The look on not Jason’s face when confronted with this little alien, like, he’s just so so confused.   And then when the the the when the possessed thing starts chasing him, like he squeals like a little girl and runs away, and you have this total reversal where first it was him chasing the girl, now it’s the girl chasing him. Oh my Todd. I just thought it was, I was just gut laughing, at this one. Absolutely loved it. And I agree with you a 100%. I wanna see some variety. I wanna see some more straightforward hard hitting horror ones. I wanna see a little bit of comedy, where it’s appropriate.   And I I just thought this, I loved it. Absolutely loved it. 

Todd:  You noticed a lot more details in this one than I did, definitely. 

Craig:  Oh, gosh. I I think it’s just because I was enjoying it so much, and we’ve talked about this before. I enjoy that franchise more than you do.   Yes.   So maybe that’s why, I had an affinity for this one. 

Todd:  Well, you know, I I just felt like at the beginning, he he was unclear to kinda see him. You’re absolutely right. And I even thought that about halfway through. I was like, oh, yeah, he’s also like Jason. But, you know, chasing him through the woods into kind of a layer, to me, the layer itself reminded me a lot because they were like bones everywhere and it was, it was very industrial looking. It reminded me a lot of the house, in, in, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. 

Todd:  You know, with with that, it evoked a little bit of that imagery, but you’re absolutely right. It’s a total carbon. Now that I think about it, now that you describe it, it’s definitely Jason versus the deadites. But man Oh, Todd. All over the place. 

Craig:  And and what a funny concept that is. So funny. I don’t know. I don’t know. We’re we’re getting what? 

Todd:  It’s too easy. You know what I mean? It’s like Todd that’s that’s what I’m saying. Like, alright. You know, what if we put Jason up against a deadite and and then we’ll make that one of the stories like, I, you know, without the without the little Martian in there, which totally throws it into crazy bizarre territory, you know, they could be sued for copyright infringement. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Now I get what you’re saying with it’s too easy. I guess for me, it it works as fan service. You know, I wanna see that.   That’s and you’re right. It’s the 13 year old boy in me, you know, who loves those movies and would love to see that kind of crossover. And I don’t think that it would work in any sort of reality if we were talking about a feature film. But in this short, where they can just kinda have fun with it, I don’t know. I thought it worked. I get your criticism. I understand what you’re saying. I just I totally disagree.   I I loved it. I loved it. The next one I liked too. It was it was funny and and cute. It was called, The Ransom of Rusty Rex, directed by Ryan Shifrin. And what happens here is these 2 guys who usually, are bank robbers have decided that they’re gonna kidnap this kid on Halloween night, which makes perfect sense if you’re a kidnapper. Parents are sending their kids out by themselves or at least some are. And this guy, I guess, is the big rich guy in town.   They’re gonna kidnap his son and demand a ransom. So they do. The the little kid is dressed up as a devil, I think. No, he’s not. He’s some other kind of costume. He’s he’s just got like some kind of paper mask on. But they kidnap him. They take him to this little warehouse, and they call his dad. 

Clip:  Hey, listen to me very carefully, mister Rex. We have your son. If you ever wanna see him alive again, you’re gonna do exactly, as I say.   You have Rusty?   That’s right. For 5,000,000 Benjamins, you get your precious Rusty back.   You’ve made a terrible mistake.   You’re in no position to make threats, mister x.   You poor bastard. You have no idea what you’ve done. No.   I think I have what the hell of? What the did he just hang up 

Craig:  with me?   He calls him back, and he’s like, well, he’s your problem now. And meanwhile, I think they either take them the kid has been tied up on a a Craig, but after one of these phone calls, they look over and he is busted out of the chair. And when they locate him, he’s taken off his mask, and he’s this little demon, this like rat looking goblin or or something. And and I’m pretty sure that this character is played by Ben Wolf, and I think that, he also played the night Billy raised hell, I think that he played the little demon Billy too. Ben Wolfe is this little person, who, I think got his first, break in American Horror Story. In the first season of American Horror Story, he played the infantata, which is one of the scariest, parts of that season and then he was also in freak show. Sadly, he was killed in an auto accident. He was hit by a car and killed.   And it’s too bad because he was really kind of making a name for himself in the industry and and the movie is is, dedicated to his memory at the end. But basically what happens is they call the dad and say, you have to take him back. And the dad says, heck no. He showed up at our house 10 years ago, trick or treating, and he stayed with us ever since. We couldn’t get rid of him. He’s your problem now. So they take the kid and try to drop him off, at the front door. I I think they even well, and then that doesn’t work.   He shows back up. They tie him up in in chains and throw him into a swamp, and then they they get the heck out of Dodge, and they stop at this gas station, and one of them goes in for food. And when he comes back out, the other guy is missing, and he looks in the back seat, and there is the little demon kid eating, the other guy. And that’s just kinda where it ends. I just thought this one was such a clever, funny premise, and this one was unlike anything that I had seen before. And, just, you know, this little demon, he’s definitely scary, but there is also almost something a little bit cute and funny about him too.   Yeah.   And again, it was just one of those things like those comics that you talked about where the bad guys end up somehow ironically getting what they have coming to them. And and I thought I really liked this one. 

Todd:  Yeah. It was pitch perfect at that. It was like a ruthless people turned into a horror movie. Yeah. And, and a lot of the interesting name dropping Todd. One of the first things I noticed when I fired up this movie and we were going through the credit sequence was that the main title was direct was, composed by Lalo Shifrin, and I and I love, he’s iconic, you you know a lot of his stuff, probably most famous for the Mission Impossible theme song, but he always does these great jazzy type, intense type scores, and he’s just one of my favorite, composers for film. And then I saw that one of the one of the sit segments was was directed by a Ryan Shifrin, and I’m like, well, Shifrin is not a common last name, so that can’t be an accident. And sure enough, it turns out Ryan Shifrin is his son.   So this was directed by Lalo Shifrin’s son. A little bit of a trivia there for you. And then, of course, the dad that they call is John Landis, who did American Werewolf in London, directed Michael Jackson’s thriller, went on to you know, he’s just a big blockbuster director. One of the bigger, I guess, names that they got in this in this movie, I thought. You need to see him, have a cameo as well. Yeah. I’m with you. I I thought that it was a nice, solid little sequence.   It was funny, and, it it it was satisfying, yeah, at the end. 

Craig:  I I I agree, and I and I thought that it was good. You know, we’re we’re leading up to the end now, which is good because we’re getting long on time. But again, this last one, there are so many different, homages and things. You know, we’ve talked about, Friday 13th and Evil Dead and and just all over the place there are these little homages. And this last one was kind of a nice surprise for me because I felt like it was totally an homage to a movie that we just talked about. Right? 

Todd:  Yes. It’s very much an homage to Halloween 3 in many ways. It has the same pumpkin imagery, and it has it’s it’s a police procedural. I felt like I was watching an episode of Law and Order or CSI or Criminal Minds or something Todd, because, it, it basically opens up with a murder, and it’s this man who carves his pumpkin. And, actually, I thought that I thought the way this move this segment opened was really clever. It really hits home the violence and the brutality of carving a pumpkin if you were a pumpkin. Right? It’s just this and the knife knife knifing sounds and the guts, you know, kinda squishy sounds altogether. In fact, they probably got all of probably every movie gets their knifing sounds from somebody stabbing a pumpkin.   It’s it’s gotta be. Yeah. I’m convinced after watching this and it’s just slow mo, you know, these quick cuts of of of this guy carving this pumpkin, and he’s carved this evil face And, he turns around and his wife goes off to get something from the kitchen, and the pumpkin eats him. The pumpkin bites his head off. It’s great. I thought it was fantastic. 

Craig:  We 

Todd:  and I don’t and immediately, I’m thinking this is just hitting all the right notes, and why have I never seen anything quite like this before? Except, of course, Halloween 3. The pumpkin didn’t quite you know, the pumpkin mask didn’t quite bite people’s heads off, but it certainly Right. Right. Evokes that imagery when you’ve got this man there, and this pumpkin, biting down on him. So anyway, the pumpkin, as she comes into the room, the pumpkin runs off. It like sprouts green legs, green, vine type legs and scurries away. And so the cops are called in and it’s just this comedic, Craig, like this comedic procedural, I think, where the cops are running around town, chasing down this pumpkin. And finally, they corner it and the cop blows, ends up blowing it away.   And and there’s all this typical cop talk in too, which is real funny like 

Craig:  Oh, jeez. Might have the case of the man who stuck his head in a binder. I’m about making a meal with it. His friends are bossing this? He’s all over it. 

Todd:  And, when he picks up, a piece of the pumpkin, he notices where the pumpkin was made, and it’s a super pumpkin, a 100% organic, kind of like the Dole sticker that you’d find on a banana. And so they track, it down to a company, and of course, it’s this company that’s still got some scientists working in there late late at night who can answer the door. Anyway, they let him he lets them in, and it’s it’s a professor or whatever. And the professor is played by Joe Dante, who is another big name actor, you know, from Gremlins, from oh my gosh. Yeah. Director. Yes. From so many movies.   And he leads them in. And essentially, it has this, this the shock ending for this one is that they look in and this warehouse is absolutely filled with all of these pumpkins. So we we you know, this won’t be the end of the pumpkins terrorizing people. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Thanks to the genetically modified stuff of this company. So, yeah, it’s got, it’s got more of that corporate, corporate horror feel to it. 

Craig:  Well and did you catch the name of the company? 

Todd:  Oh, gosh. Was that a reference? What was that? It was Clovercore. No way. Yeah. You’re right. Clover Corporation. Oh, man. I was it was so late when I watched this film.   Yeah. 

Craig:  So, yeah, so it wasn’t silver Shamrock exactly, but definitely a shout out to, you know, this, corporation that’s developing these evil Halloween themed things. And and, you know, I we had just watched Halloween 3 last week, and that was the first time I had ever seen it. Had I seen this last week before we watched that, it would have totally gone over my head. But having just seen it, I I I just thought it was so funny and clever. The other thing that I liked about this one, was that, this it’s this female detective, detective McNally, who is doing the, investigation. And at some point, she goes in and she has to talk to her chief, and he plays it, you know, like any stereotypical gruff chief. 

Clip:  I mean, check these reports out. We’ve got hysterical blindness. We got neighbors attacking neighbors. Kids looting convenience stores. There’s even a report of a UFO. 

Craig:  And so it it kind of ties all the stories together, in a really clever way there at the end. And, I I appreciated that. I appreciated that effort to remind us at the end that all of this is set in the same place. But I really thought that they did a good job of of doing that throughout. Like I said, different characters and actors who appear in one, segment, you’ll find them in the background of other segments, and, a lot of the little kids, the, trick or treating kids, recur in several of the, segments, and I like that. I liked it about trick or treat. I liked it about this. Do I like this movie as well as trick or treat? No, I don’t.   But if and the 2 are are as far as I know, are not tied to one another directly in any way. But they’re so similar that it’s hard not to draw connections. And had this been, it’s not, but had this been the sequel to trick or treat we had been promised, I wouldn’t have been disappointed. I would have thought, not as good as the original, but how often are they? Hardly ever. And still a solid effort. And I found it to be really entertaining, a lot of fun, something that again, you know, I say this all the time. I guess maybe Halloween just lends itself to these types of parties. But sit down, you know, with some friends, have a couple beers, or or don’t even sit Todd, you know? Mingle around, come back to the TV every once in a while, and you get, you know, these short little stories that you can kinda, you know, they’re like hors d’oeuvres, they’re like little one bite things.   You don’t have to devote a full hour and a half or a full 2 hours to them in order to appreciate and enjoy them. And I thought it was great, you know. I I, rented this online, and I think that I’m gonna have to actually purchase it. Because I think that this is gonna be something that I’m gonna wanna revisit. 

Todd:  Yeah. You know, and I think it’s also partially because we’re so starved for these kind of movies. Like, we we like them and we want them and we really want them around Halloween. And I think that reason is because it’s these these anthology stories, being multiple stories back to back, very evocative of the kind of thing that you do traditionally around Halloween, and that is sit around a campfire or sit around and just tell, tell stories, tell spooky stories. And in that way, those stories end up being urban legend kind of things, which is why I do not criticize this movie at all for having an urban legend feel. To me, it just evokes more of that sitting by the campfire kind of vibe. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I couldn’t agree with you more. I I, like you said, you know, and we talk about this all the time, how we are big fans, how we hope that this will become a trend. And and I really think that it might. Know, I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’m knocking on wood. Supposedly we’re getting a return of Tales from the Crypt on network television, some or cable television sometime soon. So maybe we’re gonna see more of this and I I I I certainly hope so.   Alright, folks. Well, thanks for, tuning in today. Happy Happy Halloween. It’s kinda sad that we’re ending this season once again, but we’ve got a whole another year for, in store. So if you liked this episode, we’ve got a whole backlog of them now on Itunes and Stitcher. Talk to us on Facebook. Let us know what you think. Give us some suggestions for movies, that you’d like for us to talk about, or give us some feedback on what you think of the movies that we’ve seen.   We’d love to, have a conversation with you. But until we meet again, I’m Craig. And I’m Todd. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Fresh off the heels of two commercially successful films starring Michael Meyers, Team John Carpenter took a left turn and decided the Halloween series would be better as an annual holiday-themed horror anthology. And maybe it would have been, had they not led the charge with this turkey. As much as we wanted to, neither of us could muster up much enthusiasm for the absurd plot and boring pacing.

Halloween 3: Season of the Witch (1982)

Episode 54, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd:  Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys With A Chainsaw. I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. Today’s film, is Halloween 3. Halloween 3 is the 3rd episode in the Halloween franchise. The first two, of course, by John Carpenter and starring Michael Myers, the serial killer. That one is tangentially related to Halloween. I think, Michael Myers does his first killing on Halloween, and then he comes back, I think, the next Halloween, well, not the next Halloween.   He comes back in a future Halloween, to wreak his revenge. This film, by now, John Carpenter and his producer, Deborah Hill, were getting a little tired of doing Michael Myers. At least, he he wasn’t really interested in doing a third sequel with the serial killer. So, they thought they had a good thing going here. The Halloween franchise, the Halloween name. Why not develop a sort of series of films with the title Halloween that could come out every October that had some kind of Halloween theme to it. Something for the holidays. And so this was their first stab at that.   The subtitle is called season of the witch, and it didn’t do very well. In fact, it turns out that most of the public wanted to see more Michael Myers, and that may be one of the big reasons that this film was not critically received too well at the time. And so, of course, by the 4th Halloween, they were back to Michael Myers. So this is a bit of an outlier in the Halloween series of films from John Carpenter. Now again, all the future films were not even necessarily directed by John Carpenter or written by him, but of course, at least produced by him. So, Craig, I have seen this film 3 or 4 times before this. You’re the one who decided, who suggested it for this this October. Had you seen this film before, or what was what was kinda behind your your reasoning here? 

Craig:  Well, you know, we were talking about films that would be appropriate for the Halloween season, not that any horror film wouldn’t be. And you mentioned that maybe we would consider, tackling the first, Halloween, that that John Carpenter directed. But we kind of mutually agreed that that one’s kinda been talked about a lot, and this one hasn’t got as much, attention. And, no, I I had never seen it. I I knew about it, and I I knew that it was a standalone film, related really only by name and and with the holiday connection. But it wasn’t until I read up on it a little bit, it was my understanding that when they made the first Halloween, they always had in mind this idea of an anthology. They they thought that if they would make a sequel, that it would be a completely different story. It was just that the first one did so well, and people responded so well and responded the characters so well.   They thought, alright. Let’s go ahead and do, a second one with, Michael Myers, and they did. But then they had plans to go ahead with, the original concept and and make it an anthology thing. And like you said, it just didn’t do particularly well. And I think that part of the reason that it didn’t do well is because people were expecting more Myers. And, when they didn’t get it, they were disappointed, and maybe didn’t give this movie much of a chance. So I saw this movie for the first time today. I had a general idea of what it was about, but this, was my first time actually seeing it, and, it’s it’s interesting.   I mean, it it it certainly is a standalone film. There are some very brief connections, to the original only in that they reference the original as a movie, and we see, clips from, the original Halloween, on TVs, in the film a couple of times. But it appears that this film exists in a universe where though those movies are movies. They’re not, they don’t exist, in the same reality or the same universe. And this one, you know, takes a a completely different take. It’s not really a slasher film. It’s it’s got other stuff going on. And, I don’t know.   You know, had I seen it when it came out, my expectations probably would have been the same as other people’s, and I I I do think that I would have left puzzled not really understanding what they were going for or why this wasn’t just a standalone movie, why they would try to tie it to the original at all. But that being said, it it it does stand on its own, and it’s it’s interesting. I’ll say that much for it. 

Todd:  Yeah. It sounds like we’re going to agree on on a little bit of about this movie, unlike, some some episodes before where we’re where we’re a little bit of an Todd odds. Certainly not with last week’s episode Elvira where I think we’re also very much on the same page. Alright. Yeah. This movie came out in 1982, and it almost seems like a lower budget production, I think. There were times watching this film that I felt like almost like I was watching a TV movie. In fact, if it weren’t for the gore effects to come along later, it does seem almost a little sanitized in other elements of for like a TV market.   This is a this is a film that where if you just take out a few scenes, or shorten them, you could show it on TV no problem. Right. Now, it starts off with a man being pursued, kind of down the dark street by an overpass, and he ends up in cornered in some kind of, I don’t know, it’s like a trailer park or not not necessarily a trailer park, some kind of construction site, I think.   And,   and, he gets tripped up a little bit, and, the car that’s pursuing him stops, and it’s this dark like black sedan or something. This figure comes out of the car, he’s in a suit, the man gets tripped up, the guy in the suit comes after him, gets on top of him, starts to try to choke him, and this I think is the first point. You Todd disappointed almost right away, I think, in this movie with this little fight scene between these 2 guys, because what happens is, he’s down in front of 1 car. I think it was a car maybe he was trying to start, I don’t know, and the guy’s on top of him trying to choke him, and this man reaches out and there’s a chain laying there. And he reaches out, reaches out, manages to pull this chain that happens to be connected to a block that is holding another car and it’s being held by this block, and when he pulls this chain away, the other car starts to slowly roll towards them. And as the car slowly rolls towards them, what happens is it crushes the man who is kneeling on top of him. At least we think he’s a man at the time, and you could kind of look back on the scene and think, okay, well maybe that’s why this scene looks so dumb. But what happens is these 2 cars just kind of Craig this guy, and it looks really slow, and the man just sort of flops forward or flops backwards.   And I mean, man, does it look bad? 

Craig:  Yeah. It doesn’t look good. I mean, I don’t know about, you know, the physics and how much cars weigh or whatever, but like you said, it just rolls really slowly right into him. It doesn’t seem like it it may have made him uncomfortable. You know, it may have pinned him there, but, you know, we get, yeah, we get, like, a like, a crunching noise, and it seems like it just totally crushes this guy, which seems pretty unlikely. But anyway, the guy who was running away gets away, and, he it it it we get a a subtitle 1 hour later, which we get a lot of these all throughout. It it it starts on, October Saturday 23rd, and we keep getting updates of of how the time is progressing until we actually get to Halloween. But 1 hour later, we get to this gas station.   The attendant is watching television, and there’s a preview for, an upcoming horrorathon, on Thanksgiving night that is sponsored by Silver, Shamrock Novelties who have put out, new Halloween masks for the season. 

Todd:  Yes, kids. You too can own one of the big Halloween threes. That’s right. Three horrific masks to choose from. They’re fun, they’re frightening, and they glow in the dark. 

Craig:  It advertises the movie they’re they’re gonna play, which is original Halloween, and we see a little clip of that with Michael Myers. And and then apparently, there’s some sort of contest. If if the kids who have bought these masks put on their masks and and watch for this contest during the broadcast, then they can win some sort of prize. It’s it’s it’s kind of ambiguous. We don’t really know what’s gonna happen. But the attendant hears a noise outside. It turns out it’s the man who was being pursued before who comes in, and just kind of collapses. And I I I didn’t understand what was going on.   I didn’t know if he, like, had a heart attack, if he just dropped dead. The only thing he says is, They’re coming. And then we cut away from that scene, and we get to this domestic scene where there are these 2 little kids and they come to greet who we assume is their dad at the door, and he greets them. And the mother comes around the corner, and it’s apparent that the mother and the father have tension between them. And the the dad, who we find out is his name is Dan, and he’s a doctor. The dad has brought gifts for the kids, and he pulls them out in their masks. And and they look like the kind of masks that I remembered from when I was a really little kid when my parents didn’t have any money, and they were just those really, really flimsy plastic masks with the, like, tiny elastic string that you would put on your face, and they would break in 5 seconds. And the kids aren’t happy with those because their mom already got the masks, and she got them, the silver Shamrock masks.   So we know that his kids have these masks, but he immediately gets called back to the hospital, where the running man, the guy who was getting chased has been brought in. He’s kind of, catatonic, I guess, and they’re the doctors and nurses are talking over him. The gas station attendant is saying, you know, I don’t I don’t have any idea what’s going on. I just found him. And the guy lays there catatonic until on a TV in the background, the Silver Shamrock, commercial comes on again. And it’s this I don’t know. It’s not super annoying. It’s only annoying because they play it 14 times throughout the movie.   But Todd, did you count? This this no. I looked it up. Oh, jeez. But, it plays constantly, and it’s just kind of this high pitched fast, to the tune of, London Bridge Falling Down, I think. He see he hears that, and he turns and sees it, which kind of wakes him up. And he says to no one in particular, but the doctors are all standing along. He says, they’re going to kill us all. And at that point, they kind of wheel him away, and everybody else is, you know, goes about their business.   The doctor, Dan, is tired. He kind of flirts with his nurse, you know, a a friendly workplace flirtation. But he goes off to take a nap. She goes somewhere else leaving this chase guy alone, which we know isn’t a good thing because he’s still being pursued by these suits. 

Todd:  Yeah. And it’s, it’s interesting because there is a lot jam packed into the first, like, 5 or 10 minutes of this film. You just ran   through   it that what what what one thing you didn’t mention was before the gas station attendant sees the commercial for Silver Shamrock, there’s this brief news broadcast that I really, obviously goes goes by so quickly you could miss it, and I may have even missed it the first time I saw it where it says that a stone from Stonehenge has been found missing. Todd knows Right. Where it is, which is a very odd thing, But, you know, of course, in a movie, whenever you see news broadcast, that’s going to be significant. And let’s just talk for a second, Craig, because you breezed right past it, but I just can’t let up on how weak it is to start your movie with the lamest looking kill you could possibly imagine. I don’t care if it makes sense in the context of it. Later on, if you look back, you can kind of make excuses for it. It does not put you in the right frame of mind to enjoy what you were hoping is going to be an intense horror film. Right?   Are you talking about the car 

Craig:  thing still? 

Todd:  Yes. I’m still talking about the car thing. I mean, it is not just I mean, I can’t even. You’d have to see it to know how goofball it looks that this guy just just flops forward and flops back as this car slowly rolls towards him and, like, pins him in. It’s just bad. 

Craig:  Well and you said, you know, you can kinda put 2 and 2 together and figure out why they did that. Not really because Not even. There there’s not really any point in talking about this chronologically. There’s no sense in, like, saving big surprises or anything because they’re not all that shocking. You can kinda figure out things as you go along. Sure. It turns out that these guys, these suit guys are like henchmen, and they’re actually robots. And they’re supposed to be super, super strong.   So Yes. Why would this slow moving car crush it with with no problem at all? It really doesn’t make sense at all. 

Todd:  Yeah. There’s so much about this movie. There’s so much about this movie. Oh my gosh. 

Craig:  That be that being said, though, you know, I was trying to lead you up to the next kill, which I actually thought was pretty good. You know, there are some, of the the the practical gore effects where, you know, by today’s standards, they haven’t really aged all that well because you can clearly tell that, it’s masks and dummies and and, those types of things being used. It doesn’t really look real, but that doesn’t keep it from looking cool. And, this this second death in the hospital of the guy that got chased, I thought that was pretty awesome. 

Todd:  Yeah. It it was. It was different too, and that’s the thing that you’re looking for obviously in these kind of movies is is is uniqueness in the kills as just as as horrible as that sounds, we all know that’s what we want. So, yeah, the guys the guys laying in bed, and another one of these suited guys comes in and walks down the hall of this completely deserted hospital.   This is   That’s right. This is again, yeah, one of those points at which you do feel like the movie must be a low budget affair, or it looks like this. I mean, there’s no problem with this guy getting into the hospital walking down, and there’s no nurse, nobody around to confront him or say anything. And again, this might have been in an era when, you know, we weren’t so paranoid about people coming and going from hospitals as we are now, maybe an era with little less privacy or whatnot. But this has got to be a pretty darn sleepy town that could handle this guy kind of in the middle of the night, and then everybody kind of goes off to their corner to sleep. And as far as, we’ve really only seen like 2 people in this hospital is the doctor and this nurse. Anyway, a guy comes in, he comes in, and you know, he things aren’t good. He puts on gloves, I think, and then he goes up to the man, and you’re thinking, oh he’s gonna smother him with a pillow or something, but he he covers his mouth like he’s gonna suffocate him.   And then he picks up his hand and it looks like he’s gonna do something, but then he makes a pincher motion with his hand. It’s kind of neat actually how you’re wondering what he’s going to do, and that kind of builds and builds and builds with each shot. He comes down 

Craig:  I thought he was gonna pinch his nose. I thought he was gonna pinch his nose and suffocate him. 

Todd:  Yeah. I did Todd. And but he doesn’t. He actually gouges his fingers into this guy’s eyes, and then with using the leverage of his hand on his mouth, pulls up and I guess like sort of snaps his skull, doesn’t he? Like grabs that spot in your skull between your eyes, gets behind it, and then yanks up on it, which you know, would it bends your nose up and I guess would also sort of drive that bone maybe a little bit into your brain. Yeah, really unique kill, and he as he walks away, we see the aftermath. And it’s not as bloody as you would think it would be, but it’s certainly pretty gross looking, And just the idea of it is is kind of Craig worthy. So, yeah, that’s not a bad 

Craig:  deal. Yeah. I’ve I’ve never seen anything like that. I I mean, you know, you see eye gouging or whatnot, but that that Todd, like, put the fingers in and grab and pull, and and it did. I mean, it it kinda makes you it gives you the goosebumps, because that would certainly be an unpleasant way to go. 

Todd:  Yeah. But it it also shows you that unlike what you kind of expect at this point in the movie, which would be something like a suffocation or yanking out the IV, or something that would be a little undetectable as a murder, this guy doesn’t care about leaving a trail of what he’s done, and in fact, as he walks out and the nurse gets alerted and Doctor. Dan goes in pursuit of him, this man calmly walks out to a car in the parking lot, dumps, sits in the front seat, dumps a bunch of gasoline over himself and lights himself on fire right there, which of course makes the car explode as well. Why not throw in a car explosion? Sure. So yeah, so that’s all kind of a freaky type of deal, and then 4 days later, Doctor. Dan is still troubled by all of this. The police don’t really have anything to go on. It’s a little weird, like nobody notices that this guy’s carrying this mask around, at least up until the very end when one of the cops has it and kind of is tossing it around.   I think it ends up in evidence or something like that, But, yeah, he goes to visit the corner. Do we ever get a name on the corner? She has a name. Right? 

Craig:  Yeah. Her name is Teddy. Uh-huh. 

Todd:  And and I guess she’s not even corner, but, like, a corner’s assistant or something because she’s Or, 

Craig:  like, a lab tech. I don’t know. I couldn’t figure it out. She’s always just sitting at the same desk. Like, every scene that she’s in, it’s just her sitting at the same desk with various different things in front of her. And she’s in, like, she’s in pro she’s got her own, like, 4 or 5 scenes, and in every single one, she’s just sitting in this one same spot. Oh, yeah. That’s funny. 

Todd:  And the movie, like, takes place over the course of, like, a week, but, yeah, she is always there. I mean, I’m sure that they just called her and they filmed all of her scenes, like, in one day. Said, okay. Bye bye. 

Craig:  Oh, I’m sure. Right? And that’s like you said, it happens over several days, and, like, it doesn’t matter what you know, day or night. Yes. Over these the course of these days, you can call and Teddy’s gonna be there. 

Todd:  Sitting right there. 

Craig:  She lives at that desk. If yeah. 

Todd:  In front of the same three trays of ashes and stuff from this.   Right.   It it takes her that long, apparently, to pick through this wreckage. Well, she’s like, I don’t know, but you know what? I’ll see what I can do. It’s like he’s calling in a favor with her Todd let him know or to, I guess, up the bump up the priority of, investigating the ashes from this car wreck just to see what is all about this guy out in the in the alley who blew himself out in the car. So yeah, it jumps immediately to 4 days later. That’s when that happens, and immediately after that discussion, we’re at 2 days later, and they were at a bar. There’s another nice shout out to the Halloween movie that’s playing on the bar and a more of that annoying commercial. This commercial comes on, and you know, there’s another weird thing about this movie is that it really hammers you over the head with this silver Shamrock. It really doesn’t leave much up to your imagination, or leave much for later.   You really know that there’s something sinister about these Silver Shamrock masks, but you also know that apparently, the Silver Shamrock company and these masks are supremely popular this Halloween because they are spending a ton of money on advertising. It’s on every channel and on every TV anytime anyone turns 1 on or one happens to be in the background, always playing that annoying thing, and it’s advertising these 3 masks. And it gets to be, for me, a little silly just for the fact that Halloween’s not really Christmas. You know, it’s not like that one toy that every kid really has to have around Christmas time that everyone’s kind of going nuts for, and the parents are fighting each other to get to and it’s sold out in all the stores. These are Halloween masks, and they’re pretty basic Halloween masks with that. I mean, they’re Todd looking, you know. There’s this, but I’m saying it’s a witch, it’s a skeleton, and it’s a pumpkin. And the idea that these 3 Halloween masks are gonna be so popular that every kid is gonna want to go as one of 3 things for Halloween, that kind of misses what the holiday is all about.   It’s like in the alternate universe in which this movie exists, people celebrate Halloween in a different way. Like like later on, you see scenes when all the kids it’s Halloween night and all the kids are wearing masks, and they’re running around, and whether it’s a clown or a ballerina or like a legitimate skeleton or pumpkin, everyone is wearing a mask, Like, it’s a ballerina with a pumpkin head on. It’s, you know Right. It’s it’s it’s like a clown with the witch’s mask on. It’s it’s not at all like Halloween really is. 

Craig:  Yeah. I totally I totally agree with you there. I thought, the same thing. Why would every kid in America wanna wear the one of the 3 exact same masks? Like, it it really doesn’t make sense. But I will say that, the excitement around Halloween that they portray in the movie, I feel like that’s kind of true to the time period. Now maybe I’m just romanticizing our childhood, but it seemed to me that Halloween was much more of an event when we were kids. Like, there would be a big build up to it and, you know, on Halloween night you 

Todd:  would dress up in your costume whether your parents 

Craig:  could afford to buy you And you’d go out, into And you’d go out, into the street and the streets would just be lined with kids and parents going door to door. And and it was an exciting time, like it was a big, you know, it was maybe not as big as Christmas, but it was something that we anticipated and that we looked forward to. And I just don’t see that as much in our culture anymore. I think that we’re so concerned about safety. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but we’re so concerned about safety and protective of our children that I don’t even see many kids on the streets anymore for for Halloween. You know, there’s other things organized for them to do like, trunk or treats or or going Todd, dorms or apartment complexes where things are a little bit more controlled. But it was kind of nice, for nostalgic purposes to see that excitement in all these little kids surrounding the holiday. And and despite the fact that it was totally unbelievable that they would all be wearing the same masks, that really did kinda put me in the Halloween spirit. 

Todd:  Well and I I’ll give you that. And also, you know, I think television at the time had a lot to do with it too. You know, we didn’t have we had cable, but mostly everybody was still watching network TV, and and you had your Halloween specials. You would watch commercials all the time would be coming up about how McDonald’s would have their Halloween Happy Meal stuff and all these different food products. New Halloween cereals would come out, and so television, I think at the time, network television may have been that binding force that gave us that build up we were looking for. You get up for Saturday morning cartoons and this this, you know, for the for this week, it’s the Garfield Halloween special, which would have been played up for a week before. So like in that sense, having TV, even if it’s just this commercial, be a central folk part of that experience in this movie is also pretty accurate. I would say it would have been better if it had been, you know, maybe a movie or something like that instead of this commercial.   Even though I guess, right, you know, they’re advertising a movie. You’re right, it probably makes a little more sense for that time than it does for now. Sad to say. Sadness. Oh, I could go on and on about how, how crappy Halloween’s gotten, but, but it’s a movie 

Craig:  for us. I know. I I know. And I still get so excited about it and like, as I’ve said many many times, I teach school and and I try to get my kids pumped about it. And, you know, you you you give them a little bit of prodding and they will get, excited about it. But, anyway, the daughter of the man who was murdered, the guy who had them I I don’t think we even mentioned before that the guy who was running away had one of those masks on him the whole time, and, people at the hospital after he was dead finally noticed, but nobody put 2 and 2 together. I also thought that it didn’t really make any sense that the henchman robot didn’t take the mask. Yeah. 

Todd:  So 

Craig:  there wouldn’t but I don’t know. Maybe they weren’t concerned about evidence. But anyway, the daughter, of this guy, her name is Ellie, and she seeks out the doctor. 

Clip:  I saw you at the funeral. Thank you. 

Todd:  I’m sorry about your father. 

Craig:  35 to 30 to 25. Nobody’s close enough. 

Clip:  Did my father say anything to you the night he died? 

Todd:  Yeah. He, yeah. He said tell Ellie I love her. 

Clip:  A bad liar. Thank you anyway. 

Todd:  Wait a second. 

Craig:  Wait a second. It’s up, and it 

Todd:  keeps you good. I saw something that night. I don’t know. Your father came into the hospital, and he I thought he was crazy out of his mind. He’s hanging on to a Halloween mask. He wouldn’t let it go. And what he said was, they’re gonna kill us all. And in a little while, he was dead.   And I don’t know what the hell is going on. So the 

Craig:  2 of them kinda hook up, and then they’re playing detective for the rest of the movie. The first thing they do is they go to this shop. I couldn’t tell if it was just, like, a general store or if it was a toy store, but apparently Ellie’s dad, the guy that was killed, owns this store and really, reveled in, you know, making kids happy and and all that kind of stuff. But she goes to his records. Apparently, he kept very detailed notes of what he did on a day to day basis Then he was supposed Then he was supposed to go pick up these masks, and that was the last time anybody saw him. He didn’t meet any of his appointments after that. So it’s gotta have something to do with this place. And so the 2 of them travel to Santa Marra, which is the small town home of the Silver Shamrock, company, And it’s one of those company towns where the the town is populated by people who work in the factory.   The factory is really kind of the dominant force in the town. And they drive in there, and of course, we get the shot of the spooky locals looking at them, you know, from behind, closed doors and closed windows. 

Todd:  Which is so overblown. I mean, those are some cheesy shots too. 

Craig:  Right. And and again, it’s never really it’s never really capitalized on because I got the suggestion that all of the people in the town were kind of in on this. And I don’t know if that’s even the case because Todd doesn’t really play out. They they go scope out the factory first, but then they decide they’re gonna go get a motel room so it won’t so it’ll look more like they’re just, there as buyers, and it won’t be so suspicious. And they pose as husband and wife and, get this hotel room. And the guy that rents them, the motel room, he seems a little shady maybe. I mean, he’s very friendly, but you wonder if he’s kind of shady. And there’s suggestion later on that he kind of is in on what’s going on, but that’s the only, you know, local, that really is involved at all.   So all of those shots establishing the spooky locals are really kind of all for naught, I guess, unless you’re just trying to establish atmosphere. 

Todd:  And they really play up the Irishness of this town. It’s, like, you know, founded by Irish immigrants, this mister Cochrane who owns the factory, and the guy you just mentioned who owns the hotel or runs the hotel is like super Irish man. It’s like, who can give us the best thickest Irish accent, and that’s the guy that they cast here.   Good evening to you. 

Clip:  Say, partner, you happen to know, is there a vacancy here in this motel? My wife and I need a place to stay. 

Todd:  You’ve come to the right place. It’s cozy, it’s quiet, and the price is right.   Later on, and I’m I’m probably jumping ahead a little bit, but later on the doctor bumps into a bum who’s complaining about the fact that, mister Cochrane when he founded the factory didn’t hire any locals like him, brought in all outside people. So that is a little incongruous because if it’s a company town and there are all these people living there and they’re so proud of the town and proud of the factory, how is it? Because none of them are employed by the factory.   That’s right.   You know what I mean?   Yeah. It doesn’t really it 

Craig:  doesn’t really right. I know exactly what you mean. It doesn’t really make sense. And they’re, you know, there’s just these little things that I I feel like are supposed to be I don’t know if they’re supposed to be, red herrings or what, but like, well, at the hotel, they all they were introduced to some other ancillary characters that really aren’t all that important. They just kinda serve their role and are done. But there’s this annoying family, Buddy and Betty, Kupfer, and their son. And they Buddy is a a buyer and distributor of the masks that’s why his family is there. And then there’s another woman there, Marge, who’s a toy shop owner, and she’s there for stuff Todd, and we meet them.   But then right away, apparently it’s dusk and we hear this announcement that plays over these Todd speakers all throughout town. 

Clip:  It’s 6 o’clock. It’s 6 o’clock. Curfew. Curfew. All residents of Santa Mira, please clear the street. Curfew is now in effect. 

Craig:  Fun bit of trivia, the voice on the announcement is Jamie Lee Curtis who, of course, starred in the first two films. But then, like, they announced this 6 o’clock curfew. And then Dan is just wandering around town, and he runs into this bum who’s also running wandering around town. So it doesn’t seem like they enforce this curfew very well. Well, no. Like And I I 

Todd:  And he runs into the bum coming out of the shop. 

Craig:  Like, what is I don’t understand what the point of the curfew is. 

Todd:  Yeah. Right. This shop was open. I mean, he got something to drink. Yeah. Yeah. It’s weird. And again, what would be the point? Even looking back, what would be the point of this curfew? It’s all set up just to make this town seem very sinister.   It has these cameras that are mounted, they’re following everybody. Of course, the suspicious locals, it’s all, you know, obviously just laying it on super thick. I mean, so thick you can finish writing the movie yourself at this point. Right. That Right.   You   know, you’ve gotten so much information that honestly and again, one of the things I think is frustrating about this movie is by by now, you know something’s going on. You just don’t have the details, and frustratingly, the rest of the movie takes its time laying out the details. Most movies are more coy about these details or keep hold some things back, so that there’s a sense of discovery. So that when these people are going on their detective chase, you’re kind of going along it with them, but in this movie, you’re just kind of waiting and twiddling your thumbs for them to find out and get to the stuff that to get to that point where you don’t know anything. And so that’s why I felt like the movie really kind of slows down here a little bit. Even though stuff is going on and even though sinister stuff is going on and they’re clearly trying to create this tension of this tension, I didn’t feel it myself. 

Craig:  Well, you’re absolutely right. I thought that this movie was too long. I thought that it could have been, you know, it it was an interesting idea. I like the idea. I think it’s a really clever idea. I don’t think that it’s executed well even conceptually, but I do think that the idea is interesting. But, yeah, not only is all this stuff going on that really never pays off, but there’s stupid stuff going on too. Like, Dan and, Ellie just out of nowhere start making out.   Like, like, they have, like, 5 seconds of coy flirtation, and then they’re making out. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And then the very next time they’re together, they’re having sex. Like, what? These people just met. They don’t even know each other. 

Todd:  He’s married. Isn’t he? 

Craig:  Well, he’s not. He the the woman that we saw before is his ex wife. 

Todd:  Oh, that was 

Craig:  He’s not married. 

Todd:  Okay. 

Craig:  But that’s the but the other thing too is, you know, this actor, he’s really familiar. You’ve seen him in lots of things. His name’s Tom Atkins. He’s been in other carpenter things. He was in Escape from New York. He was in the fog. More recently now that he’s an older gentleman, he’s been on Criminal Minds and stuff. Very familiar.   And, you know, arguably a real man’s man, but he’s a little bit older and he’s significantly older than the actress that plays Ellie. And I don’t know, maybe standards are very different in the eighties, but he’s not very attractive. No. It’s just hard to believe that this young attractive girl would just throw herself at this guy that clearly is old enough to be her dad or maybe even her granddad. So that it just seemed dumb. Like why did 

Todd:  we need that? Doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t add anything to 

Craig:  the story. It just seems stupid. We do Todd, like you said, they start to kind of lay out the information what’s happening. Marge, this, other woman who’s staying at the hotel who also is a retailer, she says something to Ellie like, oh, yeah. I love these masks, but, you know, now that they’re selling a lot of them, they’re hard to deal with, and I had to come and pick up things on my own and blah blah blah. And and she says, and and plus, look, I don’t mean to criticize their quality, but the logo fell off of this one. I don’t think the logo should fall off. The logo is like this big metal, it looks like a big metal coin on the on just on the back of the mask with the big silver Shamrock on it.   And when it falls off, we see the back of it and it looks like a very, very old fashioned, computer chip on the other side. And then we cut to a scene where Dan and Ellie get it on for no apparent reason, and then we cut back to Marches and and it is. Well, I to be fair, I read that that was, like, one of the very first things that they shot. Like, they had barely met one another, and then they had to see film that bedroom scene. So I would imagine that it was awkward. But Marge, Marge, is reading. She’s bored. She grabs the thing and she looks at the back and she sees well, I don’t know if she knows what it is, but she sees that it’s something.   And she kinda starts poking at it, like with a pen or something, and something happens. I don’t know if it shorts out or what, but this big beam of light or electricity or something zaps her in the face. And, Dan and Ellie next door hear it, but they’re getting it on so they don’t care. They ignore it. But when we cut back to her, the whole front part of her face is severely burned. Like, it’s it’s almost like it’s burned a big hole in the front of her face around her mouth, and this big hornet, comes out. And the next day, these these suits, now in white coats, come for for her Todd. And, they’re taking her out, and Dan and Ellie come to see what’s going on.   And she’s all wrapped up like a corpse, but they’re like, is she okay? And 

Todd:  the people 

Craig:  are like, oh, yeah. She’s fine. We’re just gonna go get her fixed up. And Cochran, who is the owner and founder of the company and who is this mysterious figure that we’ve heard about but not seen yet, he shows up. He’s this dapper looking older man. 

Todd:  Mister Cochrane, good to see you, sir. Good evening, mister Rafferty. It’s all over, my friends. Just a small accident. The lady’s going to get the very best possible treatment. I promise you that. Where are they taking her? They’re taking her to the factory. So we have the most marvelous facility there for emergency treatment.   What happened? Misfire. 

Craig:  And so they know something is, going up, or going on. Excuse me. And then again, we get another Teddy scene. I guess, Dan calls Teddy to see if there’s been any, new developments in this autopsy, and she just says, no, it’s really weird. I think we got the wrong stuff because everything in the bag is like car parts. There’s no human, material. So already, big hint. They’re they’re robots as if we couldn’t have figured that out really at this point anyway.   And then, Dan and Ellie go to the factory, and I think that they are just going to kinda try to scope it out. But as it turns out, that other family that I had mentioned before, the, Kupfers are there. And because Mr. Kupfer, I guess, is one of the leading retailers in selling these masks, his family is being offered a tour of the ma of the factory, and, Ellie and Dan are able to kind of worm their way in, so that they get to go along. And then we kinda get a tour of the factory, but it’s not very exciting. 

Todd:  No. It’s not. It’s not a huge production either. I I mean, for the top selling Halloween masks, in the country, all being made by hand in this looks like a pretty laborious, fashion. In what is admittedly not even a very impressive factory, is another point at which the cracks kind of show, I think, in the production. Buddy and his son couldn’t be more happy about it. They’re pretty thrilled about the whole thing. His son gets a wants to get one of these masks, and he and and mister Cochran says, oh, I was going to give you one, but not one of these.   They haven’t been through final processing yet, and they’re like, oh okay, and so he pulls out a mask that is actually all wrapped up and ready to go and hands it to, his son. And suddenly, final processing becomes something that everybody’s curious about. Mhmm. You know, Buddy asked, well, well, tell me a little bit of, you know, what happens during final processing and and, cut mister Cochran’s very coy. Well, you know, it’s it’s a trade secret. And as they’re walking, they’re they’re they end up at the spot where there’s a door to the final processing, and it’s, clearly more guarded. It’s a little more secure. And, you know, Buddy’s like, well, can can you take me in? Can you show me some of that? And he’s like, oh, there are hazardous chemicals involved in doing that.   I I can’t take you in there. And you’re like, what? Final processing for Halloween, man? Right. Like like, first of all, I mean, why would that comment not just go right by you? You know? They haven’t been through final process. Okay. Yeah. Sure. You gotta, you know, bag them up or something. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  It’s just so goofball that they make such a big deal out of this. Just lays it on with a hammer, man. And of course, that gets, Dan, very interested in checking out final processing. 

Craig:  Yeah. He comes back later. Dan goes to try to call, Teddy again, I think, or for he has to run on some errand to get him away from Ellie, so that Ellie can be abducted. And then Ellie’s abducted, we assume by the suits, and and the suits are pursuing Dan, but he’s able to get away and he makes it back to the factory. And that’s really, where the 3rd act plays out, and it’s really just disappointing on every level. Like, I don’t know. I mean, it just feels contrived. I mean, he gets in there, and he looks around. 

Todd:  Doctor. Well, he comes he opens the door in what seems to be kind of a really it’s one of those it’s such a non sequitur that is extremely creepy when he slowly opens a door into like a closet and there’s a woman just sitting there knitting. You’re like woah. To me, actually, that was the creepiest part of this whole movie was when he opens that door, and, and but it turns out it’s it’s it’s a robot. This is the first automaton or whatever that we that we run across, and he knocks it over or something, and the head comes off, and he ends up in this giant warehouse area with this giant stone and a bunch of, it’s a it’s a big empty space filled by 2 things. 

Craig:  Well, that that’s after he’s captured. Is that after he’s captured? 

Todd:  I thought he’s 

Craig:  gonna go on to the first 

Todd:  and they they found him there. 

Craig:  I don’t think well, maybe. I I feel like it was right after he broke that one robot that he they another one of the suits finds him, and he fights, the suit. And, like, when he’s punching him in the face, there’s there’s, like, no reaction at all. Eventually, they get down on the ground and he’s punching him in the abdomen, and he notices stuff starting to come out of the guy’s mouth. It looks like egg yolk, is coming out of the guy’s mouth. And he looks down and realizes that he has actually punched into this guy’s abdomen and all that yellow stuff is oozing out like wires and short circuit things are coming out. And that’s when Cochrane and a couple of other henchmen get him, and I feel like they take him into the processing room. It’s it’s one of those things where, oh, okay.   Now we’ve got you, so let’s tell you the master plan. 

Todd:  Yeah. You know, like It’s   so dumb. It’s James Bond. It’s James Bond villain territory we’re getting into now. But the problem is Dan is not even James Todd, like, he’s just to them another guy who’s poking around who’s in their way. So unlike all of the other people who’ve been killed immediately, if just at the suggestion that they could find something, here’s the guy who actually broke into their factory, who’s looking at all this stuff and they’re not just gonna kill him Todd. They’re gonna they’re gonna hang out with them for a while. 

Craig:  Show them their tricks. 

Todd:  I mean, we’ve spent a lot of time with Dan, so we have kind of a connection with him, and we know where he comes from, but none of these guys should, except for maybe Cochran who there’s the idea that at least since they came into town, they’ve been monitored, and so he he calls him immediately by name and says, or should I say doctor or whatever. So he’s obviously done a little bit of digging on him, but yeah, why they don’t just kill him off right like they’ve been doing with everybody else is is pretty ridiculous. 

Craig:  Yeah. Instead instead, he just he he lays out the plan. There we see this huge stone, hinge stone. He’s like, it was kind of a it was kinda hard to steal it, but we managed. 

Todd:  Like, you know, like, this huge 

Craig:  5 ton thing that, you know, there’s no way anybody could just walk away with. And then, oh, yeah. We just shipped it over here. Okay. That that would have been a better story. 

Todd:  The movie I wanna see is the movie where they explain how somebody stole a stone from Stonehenge and shipped it across to America completely. 

Craig:  Right. Right. And and by this time, it is Halloween, And, of course, Dan inquires about Ellie, and and they show on, like, a security camera. They show him she’s there. She’s still alive. She’s strapped down to a table somewhere in that facility. But then he says, you need to see an illustration. That’s what you need to see.   And we cut to the scene where the the family, the cup first, father, son, and mother, are being, led into this room that’s just a room in this compound, but it’s mocked up to look like, a family room. And they’re locked in there, and, the dad thinks that he’s supposed to be, like, reviewing advertising or something, giving his advice for advertising. The television comes on, and it’s that commercial again, but this time it’s it’s it’s the, I guess, the demo of, what’s actually going to air later on this night because it’s already Halloween. 

Todd:  Halloween. It’s time. It’s time. Time for the No. This is just the same old style. In this car. All you lucky kids with silver Shamrock masks, gather round your TV set, put on your masks, and watch. Honey, 

Craig:  don’t get too close. You’ll throw in your eyes. 

Todd:  Jack o’-lantern. 

Craig:  At some point, little buddy grabs his face and starts kind of grabbing at his face and goes down to his knees to the floor, and we see that the mask is kind of deteriorating in some way. And when he falls all the way to the floor, it continues to deteriorate and bugs, tons and tons of bugs Todd pouring out from where his head should be, but presumably is no longer. And and the the parents, of course, freak out. The mother, I think we’re supposed to think that she just drops dead, I guess, Cause I didn’t see anything really happen to her. Doctor. Out of fright or something? Doctor. The dad, yeah, I guess. The dad, is bitten by a rattlesnake that has come out of the kid’s head.   So now we see what the big plan is, and then we get to this montage shot, which really, I think this was my favorite scene of the movie. Even though you’re right, I agree with you that it’s silly that all of these kids would be wearing the same masks. But it’s this scene of the masks just flying off the shelves and all the kids getting ready for Halloween and going out and trick or treating. And there’s just some interesting visuals with the kids’ silhouette set against the setting sun and, just the excitement of Halloween. And that was I I liked that scene, before we come back to the the factory for the for the final act. 

Todd:  Dan is captured. Ellie has been taken off to a room, which we can kind of see in a, like, a security camera around this. I guess the best thing I could say is it’s like a digital workstation that’s in the same area as the Stonehenge. Now, which really begs the question, what are they working on? Okay. They they’ve shipped all these masks. It’s Halloween night. They couldn’t possibly ship anymore because the broadcast is going on in a few hours. And at first when I watched this, I thought well maybe this is a they live kind of situation where maybe the actual Halloween broadcast is is beaming out from the factory, you know, to the networks or something.   So they’re they have ultimate control, or maybe their technology requires that, you know, to activate the the commercial and whatnot. But no, it’s just the networks that are playing what was sent to them. So what they’re doing at this workstation boggles my mind. Like what are what is the business they’re so involved in here, where Cochran’s still taking calls? You know, what is his endgame through this whole thing? You’re wondering what Todd he want to do? And so he says to Dan, he says, Halloween,   The festival of Samhain. The last great one took place 3000 years ago when the hills ran wrecked with the blood of animals and children. Sacrifices is a part of our world. Our craft, witchcraft. To us, it was a way of controlling our environment. It’s not so different now. It’s time again. So at   the end of the day, he has to, I guess, restore balance to the universe in some in some way shape 

Craig:  with the sacrifice 

Todd:  with the sacrifice of all the kids. Now this is still going to happen. Okay? So not every kid’s gonna throw on a mask. I mean, the plan just has a 1,000,000,000 holes in it. The kids have to watch the the TV thing while they’re doing the mask. I guess this is only taking place in North America right now in America, so the rest of the world 

Craig:  Here’s that. Right? 

Todd:  Yeah, is going to be is not going to be affected. So by the end of the day, it’s gonna be pretty obvious to the people who were not killed what’s going on, something with these masks. So if I were Mr. Cochrane, unless I had a death wish, I’d be getting the heck out of dodge by now. The factory would have been closed, we’d be gone, we wouldn’t be here fielding phone calls and doing some nebulous work because there’s nothing more to work on. There’s nothing to further here, right? Yeah. So he kills all these kids in this very odd and oblique way, may or may not get their adults, and now everyone’s gonna descend on this factory after that, and then what happens? Right? Who’s gonna be around to to do the sacrifice next time? It’s just it’s just a bizarre weird plan, and I like the idea. You know, I’ve always been a fan of Yeah.   Putting horror in a what what we think of as as a sanitized environment, you know, corporate culture. It seems very businesslike and stoic, and to have a horror come out of that, It’s why I really want to like this movie. I mean, I’ve seen it 3 or 4 times. Every time I turn it on I think, this is the time I’m gonna really enjoy it, and and it never happens. I I almost   Yeah.   Dislike it more every time I watch it. 

Craig:  That’s funny. Yeah. I I mean, I I I don’t know. I’ll I’ll tell you how I feel about it overall here at the end, but, basically 

Todd:  he even fields a phone call from one of the guys, and it sounds so Google.   Tonight’s just for fun, a way of saying thank you to all our good customers. 43 share. You think so? Good. And I hope the little ones will be watching.   The little ones, your broadcast goes on at 10 o’clock PM, and you’re showing Halloween. You’re showing Halloween a slasher film. How many little ones are gonna be are gonna be staying up to watch this film that they’re 

Craig:  That’s yeah. It’s a it’s a good point. It it doesn’t I don’t know. I mean, he’s mentioned, like, it was mentioned several times that he’s not taking any orders for next year. So apparently, he has no plans of still being around or being in business for next year. So maybe he’s planning on fleeing back to the old country or something. I don’t know. 

Todd:  Well, he better do it soon. 

Craig:  Doesn’t really make any sense. Yeah. Right. The the funny, the funny thing is when Cochran asks him why he’s doing it before he explains all that old world backstory, the first thing he says is, well, I have always liked a good prank. 

Todd:  Like Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  This is this is one heck of a prank you got going on here. 

Todd:  It’s a goofball. It’s it’s it’s yeah. Yeah. 

Craig:  It’s Robin Williams. The trickster are you 

Todd:  right there. 

Craig:  But, again, he makes the James Bond villain mistake of not just killing, Dan, but saying, I’ll set you up with a death trap and leave you alone. So he he ties him up and puts the TV on and puts a mask on him, which Dan immediately escapes from. And then Dan is, like, sneaking around, he tries to call his wife for his ex wife to tell her to not let the kids wear the masks, but she’s mad at him, so she just kinda hangs up on him. Then he finds Ellie, and the 2 of them are sneaking around undetected. They’re, like, crouching behind this box. And I guess sticking out of the box is one of those logos that are sewn onto the back of the masks, and he knows what those do. So he, in a really goofball scene that doesn’t make any sense, sneaks right into the middle of this workstation, this circle of computers, where everybody is standing right out in the open. You know, the the main bad guy is standing right there, all of the robot henchmen are standing right there, but nobody sees him as he goes up and puts in the correct code to start the sequence for this, video to play that’s supposed to trigger these these logos.   How did he know what the code was? It doesn’t even make any sense. 

Todd:  I think 

Craig:  I guess maybe he was paying really close attention when he got the demonstration. I think that whatever stupid. 

Todd:  No. It doesn’t make sense. Like, no. No. There are a 1000000000 buttons on that thing. 

Craig:  Right. So he he he sets the code in motion totally undetected, walks away totally undetected. He and Ellie go up into the scaffolding above all of this, and as the video starts playing and we see that trigger, you know, the flashing, pumpkin, he dumps all of these, metal, symbols into that workstation where all the henchmen are and it just works. Like they start going off and it kills all of the robots and they’re just kinda standing up there, and Cochran looks up at him. And does he 

Todd:  give him a thumbs up or, like, clap his hands 

Craig:  or something like, oh, you got me? Mhmm. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s like, well played, sir. 

Craig:  Right. Right. And then the the Stonehenge rock starts glowing like crazy, and it shoots out of, like, a beam between the workstation and Stonehenge, 

Todd:  goes into Cochrane, and he 

Craig:  is just totally disintegrated or transformed or something, but he’s out of the picture, which you would think would be the end of the movie, kind of, because I wasn’t thinking like you. You know, I wasn’t thinking about this in a historical context. When I saw them all around the, workstation, I was still in the mindset of our current day where they were preparing to broadcast themselves. But you’re absolutely right. That wouldn’t make any sense. They would have just sent a tape to the various news stations. And in fact, it appears that’s what they did because they get out of there and Dan’s like, oh my gosh, we have to call somebody, we have to get out of here. And, he looks over at Ellie and she’s sitting there blank faced, and it’s totally obvious before it’s even revealed that they have replaced her with a robot version of herself, presumably killed her and replaced her with the robot.   And she attacks Dan in the car. They get in a car wreck. There’s a really goofy scene where she keeps getting dismembered, and the dismembered parts of her body keep attacking in these really lame jump scares. But eventually, he gets to that same gas station where the original guy from the very beginning had ended up, and he calls. Like, I guess he’s just got the number of the network president. And he calls and he’s like, Take it off 

Todd:  the air, take it off the air. 

Craig:  I can’t explain but you have to take it off. And it starts playing and like just at that moment, these little kids in the masks pull up, like their family had just pulled in here. And they run up to the TV and they’re watching, And it starts, but then the the station goes out, and it says, we’re experiencing technical difficulties. But the kid just reaches out and turns to another network, and it’s still playing there. And, then it goes out and said, we’re experiencing technical difficulties. Kid turns the channel again, still playing on a different network, and this one doesn’t go out. And the movie ends with Dan shouting, stop it. Stop it.   Stop it. As we see the trigger, the the flashing jack o’-lantern on the screen, and then it just cuts to black and goes to the theme music. I read that originally, the ending that they recorded, when it went to black, it didn’t cut to the theme music. Instead, it was the sound of thousands of children screaming, indicating that they were dying these agonizing deaths, and that the plan had actually ultimately worked. They changed it and cut that and just went to the theme music to make it a little bit more ambiguous. Did it work? Did it not? I actually think I would have preferred the original way they went. Yeah. At least I you know, that that would have been really dark and unexpected, and I would’ve preferred that even though I still get the suggestion that ultimately it worked.   But that’s it. That’s the end. You know? I don’t know. I don’t know. You know, if this were a standalone movie, if it had nothing to do with, the Halloween franchise at all, And I was gonna say if it was just titled season of the witch, which still wouldn’t really make any sense because there’s so little about witchcraft in it. I don’t know. I might cut it a little bit more slack. But the first the first Halloween movie was quite good.   The second one, but I still kind of had an expectation that these were gonna be quality films with people like John Carpenter behind it. I I expected a certain level of quality, and I just really didn’t think that this delivered. I I think that my biggest problem was with the writing. I didn’t think that the performances were terrible. The cinematography was nothing special, but it wasn’t awful. Some of the effects were pretty good, but the story was just rambling and didn’t make much sense. I like the concept. I I found myself thinking at some point, you know, this might have made a really interesting episode of The X Files. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  It it’s a it’s a good concept, and if they paired it down to 50 minutes and cut out all of the extra unnecessary stuff that really doesn’t make any sense or add anything to the movie, then it could have been something cool. But I just feel like they missed the mark. 

Todd:  Well, it’s a good concept poorly executed, and I say good concept with the idea that if they had executed it properly, they would fix all of the real dumb problems with what ultimately ends up coming across as a very silly plot. It it would be suited to a cartoon or something, because it’s so Burnet 

Craig:  sort of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I feel like that would have been a good form for it. Yeah. Which I’m a huge Buffy fan, so that’s not, you know, it’s not saying anything negative. But anyway 

Todd:  Well, and you have to think that some scenes had to have been ins you know, obviously, there are other factors at work here. I know that the director, Todd Lee Wallace, complained that or no, actually there was an original screenwriter who complained that his script was He was a pretty I don’t know I can’t I don’t have the name with me right now, but it was pretty accomplished science fiction author, and I think honestly, this movie is planted a little more firmly in the science fiction category than it is Mhmm. In horror. But, he was originally hired to do the script, and he did the script, and apparently, it left out a few of the things that ended up working their way into the movie, and he actually asked for his name to be taken off of the script. And so and and success off of the credits and successfully got that because Tommy Lee Wallace came in and apparently rewrote a lot, and apparently at the insistence of Todd studio, added some of the gory kills that we see. So that kind of makes sense how some of these seem shoehorned in there, like the goriest deaths and even really all the deaths that we see, except for the implied deaths of of millions of children, are pretty far spaced out for a for a horror film, and although they’re creative, they’re they’re few and far between really. We didn’t even mention the coroner’s death, which made the least sense of all. Mhmm.   And you talked about   Yeah. 

Craig:  It’s like we gotta we gotta tie up this loose end that was never important to begin with. 

Todd:  Never important to begin with. And it’s funny because she’s been sitting in front of these 3 Craig for for weeks, you know, day and night. And Yeah. I don’t know. It was like nothing changes, but suddenly, she looks at an at a piece in a different light or something and is like, oh my Todd, like like suddenly everything has become clear to her, and picks up the phone, but not before the henchman comes in and grabs a drill and offs her, which again doesn’t make any sense because this is Halloween night already. Why are you out there bothering to tie up any loose ends? It’s all going to resolve itself in an hour, which would suggest to me that maybe even all of the corner scenes were something that Todd inserted later that the studio was like, we need one more brutal killing in here, and they’re like, alright. Let’s hire this woman. Let’s shoot a few scenes.   Let’s throw her in. That’s that’s the only I can I can grant a little leeway to poor mister Tommy Lee Wallace, who feels like his film has been supremely misunderstood Todd who feels that, if this hadn’t been associated with the Halloween franchise, it would have found an audience faster, and I’m I I know you you maybe you feel a bit that way? I I disagree. I completely feel like even as a standalone film, I don’t care if it has Michael Myers in it or not. I think it’s a lousy movie, but maybe it serves a good purpose of being something everybody can make fun of when you’re sitting around, on Halloween day because we need those movies too. 

Craig:  Yeah. We we definitely do. Yeah. I agree with you. I mean, I despite the fact and and I think you said something about the original screenwriter being disappointed. If I remember correctly, I think that I read that he had concede it and wrote it as a horror comedy, and, the studio eliminated all of the comedy and put in more gore. Maybe there would’ve maybe I don’t know. It’s one of those things where we’ll never know, you know, what it was originally conceived as.   And and if we did, maybe that would have been something different and special. But whether it be due to the original just not being up Todd par or whether it be the studio tampering, you know, murdered any potential that it had, I don’t know. But I agree with you. It’s it’s it’s not good, and it’s not anything that I would ever feel like I needed to see again. 

Todd:  But, you know, it’s a shame really because we need it’s a shame that this kind of put an end to that whole idea of an anthology, you know, every year hearing a different Halloween themed movie because we need those. We really don’t still don’t have those. I mean, except for the fact that some horror films with sequels such as Saw, you know, we’ve mentioned that before, tended to release around Halloween, or the newest Blair Witch, or the newest paranormal activity. They’re they’re just horror movies that are released around Halloween time. I just watched finished watching trick or treat last night and I remember how awesome that was and and we need more movies like that to put us in that spirit. And this movie could have done that and didn’t and maybe the subsequent movies apparently they had a lot more planned apparently they they had ideas left and right for future films in this kind of a series and they ended up going back to michael meyers because of the Mhmm. Because the failure of this one. It’s a it’s a shame. 

Craig:  Yeah. I agree. I I would have loved to have seen where it could have gone, And, you know, maybe someday we’ll get something like that. It seems like anthology horror is really coming back into the mainstream. It’s it’s it’s on TV a lot now. So maybe we’ll start to see that, in in film too, and I certainly hope so. 

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 Stitcher, also on Google Music now.   They are doing podcasts. You can   find us also online. Shoot us a podcasts. You can find us also online. Shoot us a message at our Facebook page, our social media. We’d love to hear your comments, what you thought of the film, and of course, any suggestions for future films. Until our future episodes, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Back in 1988, Halloween horror icon Elvira finally got her own movie. It didn’t make a big splash, but it did make a huge impression on both of us – and, we suspect, many likeminded souls of our generation. This movie celebrates all that is goofy and fun about this iconic character, and we had a blast revisiting the camp and the cheese this holiday season.

Elvira Mistress of the Dark (1988)

Episode 53, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  Today, we, cheated a little bit. It is, Halloween, time, and we were looking for good Halloween type films. And the one that really came to mind, you could call a horror film, but it’s maybe more of a comedy than a horror film. But it is a movie that is near and dear to both of our hearts, and that is Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, the 1988 feature film. The first feature film featuring Elvira, who we all know from Halloween time is pretty much an icon of the season. And I’ve been a pretty big Elvira fan for a very long time, for since I was a kid, basically. I even had Craig, I’ll admit, I had a one of those big stand up cutouts of Elvira in my room, like, when she was shilling for Coors back in the eighties. You know? Like Right? Yeah. 

Craig:  Oh, I’m super jealous. I always wished I had one. 

Todd:  Yeah. It was pretty awesome. It was my pride and joy until about, I don’t know, maybe about the time I got married, and Vic thought it was silly. So, I just I I got rid of it, and and now I kind of regret it. Yes. I don’t know as an adult what I would actually do with it in my apartment, but yeah. I was a huge fan. In fact, when this movie came out, it was in 1988, and a couple of my friends actually went to see it in the theater.   And I was super jealous, and they were quoting it all the time and stuff. And when it came out on video, we did end up with it on video. I don’t remember if it was one of those that we rented from the store and and videotaped like we would often do, or if we actually bought the video, but I saw this a lot growing up. And both I and my sisters, it was it was kind of a family favorite. Looking back on it today, I still love it, but we probably looking at it with a critical eye would have different feelings about it. I don’t know about you, Craig. How long had it been since you’d last seen this? 

Craig:  I don’t know. It can’t have been that long. I love this movie. Like like you said, when we were talking about movies, we wanted to do something fun around, Halloween time because it’s, you know, it’s my favorite time of the year, with horror movies playing on TV around the clock and, the fall coming in, and it’s just, you know, this nostalgic feeling that comes around every year. I just love it. And so I actually suggested this one thinking that you would roll your eyes at it, and was pleasantly surprised when you were enthusiastic about it too. I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve seen it. I probably watched it around this time last year at some point.   Like you, I grew up with it. And like you said, I I just feel like I was always aware of Elvira. She did so much, marketing, in the eighties, like you said, for for Coors, and and she had calendars and and Halloween costume line and and perfume. And, I mean, she was she was marketing like Craig, and so she was always very visible. And I don’t remember the first time I saw this movie. I know that it wasn’t in the theater. I don’t know if it was when it finally started rolling or or airing on, TV or like you said, if if we rented it from the video store. But like, we had very similar experiences.   My sister, who is not a huge horror fan, would never, be hesitant to watch this movie with me. We both enjoyed it. And when I talked to her today, she called me while I was watching it and she asked me what I was doing. And, I said, I’m watching Elvira, Mistress of the Dark for the podcast. And she goes, ah, it’s a casserole. Like, we we we were we were quoting, this movie all the time too. And, yeah, watching it with a more critical eye, this is not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination as far as tech as far as, you know, cinematography and and acting and and all that. It’s not.   And but I don’t think that it was ever intended to be. I I think that it was intended to be kind of in the vein of a B movie. It’s the humor is, low brow and but it’s hysterically funny. It is so funny. And I don’t think we’re cheating, you know? I think that Elvira is an icon in the horror industry. She has always stayed away from, the really hardcore intense stuff. That’s just not her her thing. Her thing has been more the Todd, old, 19 fifties and sixties b movies, other b movies from other generations.   But she’s always while she is serious about the industry, everything is is lighthearted and fun too. And, I think that’s what my sister appreciated about the movie and I still regardless of of if we wanna talk about how skilled these actors or filmmakers are. It doesn’t make any difference to me. I love this movie. It’s hilarious. I will watch it over and over again, well into the future. So I was really excited to do this because it is one of my favorites, from when I was a kid. 

Todd:  Well, I think we are clearly on the same page. You know, it’s funny you mentioned the Elvira calendars. As soon as those came out, that was my calendar for the year. And I probably for I don’t know how many years they were those those calendars were coming out. And after a while, I think even recycling some of the same photos. And it’s almost a miracle that my parents let me, like, have this big cutout and this, this calendar in my room of Elvira because it’s a little racy, but I think the real reason is because my dad enjoyed it just as much as I did. 

Craig:  That’s funny. You know, she is she is racy. You know, she’s it’s hard to just not believe that Elvira is a person that exists in the world because when she appears, she almost always appears in character. And she’s been playing this character since the early 19 eighties. She she’s got this, vampire kind of look, kind of a kind of a rocked out, Morticia Adams kinda look, with the sleek low cut black dress. And it’s iconic. She’s she’s been rocking the same look for 40 years. You know, this kind of big bouffant, but also long, black hair, the the the dark eye makeup, and just, you know, really over the top and heavy with the makeup, the big boobs.   And, she’s, you know, like I said, she’s an icon, and it’s just interesting that she started playing the, you know, this character is really, has been her career. She’s done a few other things here and there she actually started out doing what Elvira does at the beginning of this movie. Well, actually, that’s not fair. She she started out in, in comedy, in in improv comedy with the groundlings. And that’s where she began to develop this character with, you know, the the horror image, but then kind of the valley girl personality. But she moved her career into, hosting these late night film showings on, like, syndicated cable channels, and local channels. She became big in LA, and she did that for a long, long, long, long time, and and became, you know, nationally recognized for that. And eventually, that led to her making this first, full length film where basically she’s just playing the same Elvira character she’d been playing forever.   And when the movie begins, she’s doing what she does best, hosting one of these old b movies, at a local, tv station and it’s it’s just her standard brand of commentary it’s funny. It’s over the Todd. And I I am down with it. I just think she’s great. 

Todd:  Yeah. She does a real good job of riding the sexy but silly. It’s crazy how how she pulls that off, but, I think that’s also why my wife likes her so much. Like, normally, my wife would roll her eyes at this sort of thing, and roll her eyes at this kind of movie. But when she heard we were watching Elvira, she and I actually sat down and watched it together. She was super thrilled, and she was laughing just as much as I was through the whole thing. Because Elvira is kind of a you know, again, when you just look at a picture of her, you don’t imagine that she would be anything but this sexual kind of Todd type. Let me just put it that way, like, maybe a feminist looking at this would would think otherwise.   But when you see this movie and I think the great thing about this movie is this movie really put some more context to her character that we never had before. We really got to see different sides of Elvira, and it really rounded her out as a character. And the way that she did it was very Todd, in that I would say, and this is what my wife says, she is a you would call her a feminist icon in this film for the way that she acts. Yes. She does have the big boobs, and yes, there are lots of these big boob jokes. I mean, it starts out with boob jokes. She’s she’s saying what she would normally say in her television thing, which is, say, Maeve King’s self depreciating jokes, and a lot of them were about her figure and a lot of them about her sexiness. 

Clip:  Hello, darling. It’s me again, yours cruelly, Elvira. The gal with the enormous, ratings. Well, that’s our show. I hope you enjoyed watching it as much as I did. Oh, boy. I mean, could you believe that cheesy looking monster? Looked like Gumby on steroids. Hey, does anybody know what that movie was about? I’ll tell you what it was about It’s about an hour and a half too long Oh, and, don’t forget next week it’s the head with 2 things, I mean the thing with 2 heads.   And until then, this is Elvira, the gal who put the boob back in the boob tube, saying unpleasant dream. 

Todd:  But then down comes the, the set for the news program that needs to come. And she’s really just, like, pushed aside, like like, nobody really cares that much for her at this television station. Even the guys who are, running the behind the scenes stuff are eating sandwiches and talking with each other, and, like, barely even watching the screen. They carry her right off the set, and the producer of the show runs up to her and says, hey, there’s a new station manager here. And he’s this stereotypical big fat Texan guy, and he rolls up to her. He makes advances towards her, and you know right away that she is not this sleazy, slutty person, but she and but she could actually stand up for herself. So even though she wears this costume, doesn’t mean that, you know, she’s up for sale. And that’s kind of what sets her the tone, I think, for her character for the rest of the movie, and it’s really smart.   And again, this is, I think, a side of Elvira that we wouldn’t have seen had there not been a movie about her. 

Craig:  Right. I Yeah. I totally agree with you. I mean, she capitalizes on her sexuality, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. She’s a beautiful woman. I mean, my gosh. Now, I think she’s, like, 67 years old. She still looks fantastic. 

Todd:  She looks the same. 

Craig:  And and, yeah, she looks like almost exactly the same. And I’m sure that, you know, there’s a lot of support going on under that dress and there’s a lot of makeup going on, but whatever. She looks fantastic, But she is not a pushover by any means. Yeah. A lot of her jokes, like you said, are self deprecating. A lot of it is pretty adolescent sexual humor, but it’s funny in that context. And I agree with you entirely. And, you know, it’s it’s interesting that, this character evolved from this actress.   Because what I’ve read about Cassandra Peterson is that she grew up feeling very self conscious about herself, about her looks and about her body. And, when she was a very young girl, I think she was 5 years old, she was badly burnt and has, really bad scarring, on her neck and back and and that’s part of the reason that her costume is designed the way it is is to cover some of that But to see somebody who, you know, came from a place of insecurity really embrace, even if it’s just a character, even if it’s just an image, to really embrace that and present as this strong female character, I think it’s great. You know? I think she’s an excellent, Yeah. The the the the comedy is pretty low brow, but if I had a daughter, I think that I would be proud if if my daughter looked up to Elvira as as a a role Todd. Because she’s a tough lady, and she holds her own, and she doesn’t let these skeezy guys, which happens to her a lot, you know, she’s always getting ogled, she’s always getting manhandled, but she doesn’t let them take advantage of her. She she holds her own, and and I I think that’s that’s great. You know, you talked about that skeezy, lecherous TV guy. He basically, you know, he propositions basically says, if you don’t sleep with me I mean, he’s even more crass than that, but, if if you don’t, then, then 

Todd:  then you’re 

Craig:  you’re out of a job. And she doesn’t care. She tells him off and starts pushing him back, and it’s hilarious because she’s backing him right into the live news broadcast. And of course the people in the booth are freaking out. And she she decks him, and he goes flying into the news desk, bust the news desk all on live TV, and she does lose her job, but she doesn’t care. You know, she says, I I’d never stay in any job where I had to work for a guy like that. And, you know, that’s that’s admirable. You know, this movie was made in 1988.   A lot has changed, for women since then. Maybe not enough, but in 1988, Elvira and Cassandra Peterson were working in a very male dominated industry. And for her to even be even though it’s fiction, for her to stand up like that, I you know, it’s I I I’m cheering her on from my seat. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s it’s great. It really is. And then she goes into her dressing room, and she’s talking with her agent. And clearly, what what Elvira really really wants, and what she’s been pining for in this film, is a Las Vegas show act, which is actually where Cassandra Pieson started out. She did end up in Las Vegas Mhmm. As a showgirl. So some of this is actually based in reality, for her.   And, she just wants to be on Vegas and wants to be on the screen. I love this bit. You know what? This is a bit of humor that I didn’t even notice until this time. It’s funny how you can watch a movie like this and still discover things. She’s she’s standing behind this screen, and she’s changing her clothes, and she’s tossing out, like, undergarment after undergarment, over the edge, and all that. And when she comes out from behind it, she looks exactly the same. She’s wearing the same dress and everything and just sits down, and they’re chatting. And basically, her agent tells her that, yes, there is an availability.   Yes, they want to put together a show with her in Vegas, but she has to come up with some money. They want her to have some skin in the game, and she needs to come up with $50,000. And she’s like, where in the world am I gonna get $50,000 from? And as soon as she says that, a note gets delivered, and she opens it up, and it turns out that her great, aunt has died. 

Clip:  Oh, I didn’t even know I had a good aunt when she was a great one. 

Todd:  And she reads it, and decides that she needs to go for the reading of the will, and hopes that this great aunt has had lots of money and is going to leave her a huge fortune. So she drives from Kansas all the way to Massachusetts. And what’s great about it is she’s in this convertible top, this awesome, car. And, it’s decked out as you would imagine. Elvira’s car would be decked out. And I think the license plate on it says kick ass. 

Craig:  It’s it’s different on the front and the back. The front, I think, says kick ass, and the the back one says too macabre. Oh. But, yeah, it’s a it’s a fantastic car. And they they they built this car for this movie. And when the when shooting was done, she kept it, and she still drives it around whenever she goes, you know, to conventions or whatever appearing as Elvira, which is pretty fantastic. 

Todd:  It’s pretty awesome. And and the movie has this montage sequence of of just goofball jokes really all the way through when she’s driving across this the country. And again, another thing I didn’t quite realize until I’m older and I really wanted to pay attention to it was that she’s they they have her driving from Kansas to Massachusetts and it looks like it all just happens in a day. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  So anyway, she arrives at Massachusetts. And where she arrives couldn’t be much more different, from, where she wants to be, you know, in Vegas. It is a small sleepy Todd, very, as we find out, very concerned about its morality. And there’s even a town council here who is very, holds kind of, I guess, some odd sway over the town in trying to keep everything moral, and it’s led up by a woman named Chastity Pariah that we will meet here soon enough. Mhmm. Not only does she pull into town and everybody starts gawking at her, but immediately her car blows up. And so there’s a huge crowd around her, and especially some local guys who were very interested in helping this girl out. Some kids, basically teenagers.   Again, teenagers played by people who look like they’re in college. And, they decide to help her out, and she takes a room at the Cozy Cot Inn in town. 

Craig:  Right. But I mean, when she pulls into this town, it’s shot on the back lot of, is it Universal Studios? It’s one one of the big studios. And you’re gonna Todd okay. You’re gonna Warner Brothers, you’re totally gonna recognize this lot. I mean, it’s it’s so familiar. They’ve shot so many movies on it. It’s called miss Midwest Street, the street that they filled all this on, and it’s so wholesome. When she pulls in, the sign that she drives by says, welcome to Falwell, a decent community.   And, of course, as she drives by, the sign breaks and falls off. And, yeah, she she meets all these people, and, the first woman who who greets her is that woman that you named, Chastity Priatt, who’s played by Edie McClurg, who has been in so many things and is so funny in so many things, but you always remember her as the secretary from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Yeah. We come to find out later that she heads up this morality committee, and she’s gonna kinda be the bane of Elvira’s existence here in town. She come she she approaches Elvira and says something like 

Clip:  Listen, young lady. I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but you most certainly don’t fit in this town. Why, you don’t even fit in that dress.   Listen, sister. If I want your opinion, I’ll beat it out of   you. Anita. Anita.   It’s the antichrist. I can’t give you the antichrist. 

Craig:  I think it’s worth noting that the vast majority of the company that makes up these townspeople are recognizable faces. There are so many recognizable faces and it’s one of those things where you know that you’ve seen these people in dozens of things, but it’s difficult to pin down exactly what it is because they’ve been all over the place. They’re character actors They’ve played small roles in a 1000000 movies. And I would go, you know every time I would see somebody pop up I would go and find them on imdb and I would pull up their credits And, like, these people literally have 100 of credits apiece, and I just scrolling through, oh, yeah. That’s what they were from. But it’s fun. I mean, especially if you’re around our age, you know, if you were around in the eighties growing up watching these types of movies or even watching television in the eighties, you’re gonna recognize so many people and and that in itself is just kind of fun. Todd more of those people, you said she goes to stay at the Cozy Cot.   The, owners are mister and missus Meeker, both of whom you’ve seen in a million things, these little kind of meek old people, And they have a daughter named Robin, and she’s kind of this young pretty brunette. Missus Meeker obviously approves of Velvira right away and and at first tells her there aren’t any rooms available, but her husband who is clearly entranced says, oh, yeah. Don’t you remember that trucker with the bad skin left this morning? So and Elvira’s like, Well, I hope you change the sheets. I mean, it’s it’s little quips. I mean, it’s not I don’t know. It’s not like this is genius writing. Elvira or Elvira. Cassandra Peterson wrote it.   She or co wrote it. There was another guy that wrote it with her. And it was produced and directed by a man who has most of his work, has been with SNL, as a producer or a director. And it has that kind of vibe to it. It’s silly. It’s not high art at all, and yet I find myself laughing out loud all the time. You mentioned, the young guys we met, Randy, Sean, and Bo. Their names really aren’t significant.   They’re always together. They’re just kind of the group of young guys. And then Elvira, Robin, the the young girl tells her that really the only place to hang out in town is, the bowling alley. So she heads over there where we meet, Travis and Billy who are played by Jeff Conway, who I totally forgotten was in this movie. He was Kineke from Grease, and Frank Collision. And they’re kinda your typical small town I don’t know if rednecks is the right word, but good old boys. And the bowling alley is is run by this kind of tall Amazonian woman with these great big boobs named Patty. Elvira comes in and as she’s looking around, she has a seat and these these two rednecks come over, and start making really, really lewd, comments to her, which she just takes in stride and 

Todd:  Hey, baby. I got something to show you. 

Clip:  Sorry. I left my magnifying glass at home.   Hey. That’s pretty good. Billy, there’s no way to talk to a lady. So how about a blow job? 

Craig:  She grabs their beers and pours them on their, crotches, and they stand up like they’re gonna give her trouble, but she pulls out this knife and and stabs one of them. And he goes, oh, you stabbed me, and she shows that it’s just a trick knife, one of those that goes down in the shaft. And then this other guy, Bob, who is clearly the town hunk, comes over and, and and intervenes and, and and gets rid of those guys. And so then it’s obvious that she’s got a thing, for Bob. But Bob is apparently, Patty, the the barmaid, has her eyes on him too. And when Bob and Elvira walk out together, one of the redneck guys says to Patty, looks like you got trouble. And Patty says, trash does not compete with class. And it’s just so funny because she’s so trashy looking herself, and she’s got these great big huge boobs and this skin tight sweater.   And, it’s just, you know, these characters are silly and goofy and over the top, but they they fit perfectly in the world of the movie. And and it’s just it’s it’s fun to watch. 

Todd:  Bob is probably the guy that everybody in town wants to get with, but he is this 

Craig:  Oh, right. 

Todd:  Super sweet, really really overly nice guy who looks like a total stud, but, is Yeah. Is right in there with the with the upholding the town morals, just very inexperienced, doesn’t really know what to do. It’s it’s more Elvira’s making advances towards him. And throughout the film, he doesn’t know what to do with it, and she gets frustrated. I think that’s just an interesting reversal. Again, it’s more that self deprecating humor, where the one person Elvira wants to pursue, is so sweet and so nice and everything that he just doesn’t know. He’s interested, but he doesn’t know how to handle it. It’s it’s hilarious. 

Craig:  Right. It’s like yeah. I mean, he’s he’s like super innocent and naive and and obviously completely inexperienced. And he runs the local movie house, but the movie house is going out of business. 

Clip:  I, I can only play g rated movies.   Oh, well, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with g rated movies as long as there’s lots of sex and violence in him. 

Craig:  Which I thought was hilarious. Yeah. But you’re right. She makes all kinds of advances on him, but he just doesn’t get it. And and she ends up going in for a kiss with her eyes closed, and he takes off and just kinda leaves her hanging there. And then the next scene, that we’ve got is the reading of the will. And this is when we meet Vincent Talbot, who is played by William Morgan Shepherd, another actor. He’s very kind of sinister looking.   He’s an older gentleman. You’re totally gonna recognize him from things. I don’t I I can’t name anything in particular, but he’s been in a million things. He was Morgana Talbot’s, brother, and and Morgana Talbot was Elvira’s aunt. And he is anxious to get the reading of the will underway, but the lawyer, says, well, she really wanted her whole family to be here. And he says, well, I am her whole family. It’s just me. And she tells him, no.   Apparently, she’s got this, niece and and pops Elvira. And of course, she’s totally inappropriate and and she’s only concerned about what she’s gonna get. And what Elvira gets is the aunt’s house, her dog whose name is Algonquin, and her beloved recipe book. And Elvira’s upset because there’s no money there. Vincent wants to know what he’s gonna get, and as it turns out, he ends up getting nothing. And he’s clearly not happy about that. 

Todd:  He’s pretty upset, and, so was Elvira. So as Elvira goes to check out the house, I think the next scene we see is Vincent driving home with those 2 goons from the bowling alley. They’re driving him. So clearly, there’s they they call him Boss. So he is they’re they’re his minions, I guess, set up Right. Right. The 3 bad people in this town, basically. And, Right.   And they are like, well, what what do you what’s going on there? Why are you so upset, boss? And he says, I really want that recipe book. And they’re like, what are you what are you interested in an old recipe book for? And he says, that recipe book contains more power than you can ever imagine. So, really, the recipe book is a spell book. And Elvira is completely unaware of this, for quite a while. When she gets to her house, the lawyer shows her in. It’s funny because they stand up in front of a really nice looking house, and she says, oh, that one’s not too bad. He says, yes, it isn’t, but your house is over there. And it’s the one next door, which is basically, I think the Munsters house.   Isn’t it? It it just 

Craig:  It is. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s run down. 

Craig:  I mean, it literally is. Yeah. 

Todd:  It is like on the like they use the same set or whatever. Right? So Uh-huh. She goes in, and, of course, it’s this old gothic type mansion. Everything’s covered. All the old furniture is covered in white sheets, and it’s all dusty and and cobwebby. She’s walking around, and there’s a floorboard, that’s loose that kicks her in the butt when she makes a crack about her aunt. And so she looks up and goes, oh, sorry. Sorry, auntie.   And that that there’s also a poodle. Her her her beloved dog is a poodle. So she names him she shortens it to Gonk. I guess I I forgot to mention a scene shortly before this where she encounters the, her uncle out in the street. And he drives up in a car next to her as she’s walking towards the house. And, pull he rolls down the window, and she leans in, and they have a conversation. 

Clip:  As you may have surmised, my sister and I, well, let’s just say we had our differences.   Yeah. I guess. You really got shafted. Look. I’ll tell you what, uncle Vinny. I’ll share my inheritance with you. You can have the dog.   No. Thank you. But I would be interested in acquiring that book, you know, for sentimental reasons. I’d be willing to pay you, say, $50.   Yeah. Sure. I’ll do it for $50. 

Todd:  As she says that, Chastity Pariah is walking by, and that’s all she hears. She goes, oh. And this is like a running gag through the whole movie is that Elvira says something that gets taken the wrong way by Chastity Pariah. She’s walking by, which just gets her more and more upset about Elvira’s supposedly loose morals. So anyway, as she’s in the house, looking through it, she does find the recipe book. She drops it on the couch, but Gonk, the dog, runs by and grabs the book as Elvira goes to answer the door, and the uncle is indeed at the door. And while she’s answering the door, the dog grabs the book and tucks it under the cushions of the sofa so that it’s hidden. So when the uncle comes in and, looks around and she and Elvira are talking, all he’s interested in at all is the recipe book that he wants out of that house, and he gets more and more furious when Elvira goes to get it, and it’s not there.   So we instantly know, okay, this dog has, some intelligence here. And of course, in this old Right. House, and with the uncle, and with Elvira being how she is, it becomes very clear that her aunt isn’t just an old lady, but there’s some significance to all of this that and some some significance to Elvira’s background that she’s completely unaware of. 

Craig:  Right. And we can figure that out, but it’s funny because she is just completely oblivious. Like, she has no idea anything is going on. She’s not She’s not reading much into the uncle’s aggression and anger. I love this scene. It’s so funny. Again, she goes on this whole spiel about trying to sell him the house, and she does this whole used car car salesman spiel. And it’s just hilarious.   And like you said, it ends up just making him angry, and he kinda blows up at her. But then he backs off, and, she tries she was gonna give him the book. She just can’t find it. But, so he ends up leaving, and she says, oh, don’t worry. It’ll turn up. I’ll get it to you when it turns up. And she, goes up to go to bed, and there’s this hilarious scene where she’s undressing. And it is.   I mean, it’s almost like a peep show. It’s it’s like, oh, what’s that called? Burlesque. It’s almost like burlesque, the way that she’s undressing and getting, ready for bed. And those 3 teen boys who is seen earlier are gathered down at by her house, and they’re climbing up the trellis to to peep at her. And they do and and they kinda get an eyeful. But eventually she leaves the room, and as they’re kinda struggling to see in the window, she pops back into the frame of the window, wearing like a mud mask, and she’s got her hair all up, and it looks I mean, she looks totally different and unappealing. And of course she’s caught them, but she doesn’t really chastise them or anything. She just says, don’t you boys have anywhere better to hang out? And they say, well, we just figured you might need some help, with with the house and all.   And she says, well, why did you come back when the light’s a little better? And she slams the window on their fingers, and they go falling down. And, 

Todd:  they got 

Craig:  their picture. A funny scene and they got their picture. Right? And and it’s just a funny scene because it’s, you know, she doesn’t care that they were peeping at her. You know, it’s it’s funny. She just takes it in stride, and I think it’s hilarious. That night she has a weird dream where she feels like she hears somebody, a woman calling her name and and this person, whoever it is, calls her up to, the attic and there’s a little bit of a jump scare where she sees like this old, I don’t know. I I assume it’s supposed to be her aunt, but it’s like, you know, a decrepit kind of ghost, and that just that wakes her up. And, the next day, first thing in the morning, these kids show back up, and they say, we meant it.   We wanna help you out. And and so and so’s dad owns the hardware store. We’ve got all this free paint. We’re here to help you out. And then, there’s this whole montage scene set to the song Shout, with all these kids fixing up her house, and it’s it’s it’s hilarious. You know, more and more kids keep showing up, mostly boys, but Robin, the girl, and her friend show up to help too. Hey, Elvira. You got us a couple more volunteers. 

Clip:  Great. Just grab a tool and start banging. 

Craig:  It’s just a fun it’s a it’s totally eighties. It’s a fun eighties montage with, you know, music in the background, and it culminates with, all of the kids standing out in front of the house and we’re seeing it as though we’re like standing on the porch looking at them in the street and they’re all looking up at the house and they have kind of worried looks on their faces. And Elvira walks down towards them with a tray of lemonade. She notices that they’re looking at the house. She turns around and drops the tray of lemonade, and it all breaks. And she kinda has this look of shock on her face, and we see the house, and it’s painted in all of these Craig, garish colors and different parts of it in different colors. And of course, they’re all worried that she’s gonna hate it, but she just goes, it’s fabulous. And then her house stays like that for the rest of the time.   And of course it would be a nightmare if you were on a conservative street and your neighbor painted their house that way. But it actually looks pretty cool. I mean, it’s it’s Yeah. It’s, it’s fun and neat. 

Todd:  Well, it’s a complete transformation. That’s for sure. And she thinks that it’s enough. She thinks that it’s enough to get the house sold, so she has a realtor over, to look at. He’s going to give her advice. Now, he’s totally volunteered to do this. And the realtor makes advances on her as well, and that she also rebuffs and kicks him out. And it’s a bit of a sad scene where she sits sitting there.   She’s got an open house scheduled for that day. There’s a big sign on the front that says open house Todd. And she just sits on the porch with Gonk, and, nobody nobody is showing up, because the town council has really, basically spread the word that, this woman is trouble, and nobody is to get her out, get, you know, is to pay her any mind. So she’s a a fish out of water here for sure. And even though the local kids are very much interested in her, unbeknownst to her, the town council meets again and decides to pass a bizarre sort of sort of rule, that none of the kids can be seen cavorting for her. It’s the principal of the school who who is on the council who says, I found this in my regular rounds of the boys’ locker rooms. And he pulls out the Polaroid that the kids had taken, which is hilarious because then it gets passed around the council and all the women are showing shock. And a couple of the guys are trying to tuck it into their the 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  Is trying to tuck it into his, his his coat. And so he said that, any kid who is found cavorting with her, spending any time with her at all is gonna face immediate expulsion from school. So, Elvira, the next day is, out walking, and she comes to Bob. 

Craig:  After that day, where she couldn’t where nobody came to see her house, she gets a call, from her manager who is saying, you know, we gotta have this money. You’re gonna lose your spot if we don’t get this money. And so, the reason that she goes out walking, which is the part you were just talking about, is because she’s gonna go out and look for a job. Oh, that’s right. And again, it’s another it’s another montage, with music set behind it of her going from place to place and getting rejected at every place. And the song that’s playing in the background on this town without pity, it’s just, you know, it’s it’s it’s really good. And that’s when she meets up, with Bob who is changing the Marquis and he’s changing it. The movie that’s gonna be showing at the matinee is How Todd Duck Call.   And so far, he’s gotten how to duck up there. And, he’s complaining that, you know, nobody ever comes. And she’s like, well, obviously, you know, you’re showing these stupid duck movies or whatever. And she says, plus you have an extra e in matinee. And he says, no. I’m pretty sure that’s how matinee is spelled. And she’s like, Bob, seriously, I work in the industry. I think I know how to spell matinee.   So she climbs up there and she grabs the e, and she grabs it by the bottom part, so that sticking up out of her hand, it looks like a f. And and the whole reason she had stopped there was because Bob was putting up the letters, and the d from duck had fallen and hit her on the head. And so when he had come down, he said, 

Clip:  Oh my gosh. Elvira, I’m sorry. Are you alright?   Yeah. I think so.   How’s your head?   I haven’t had any complaints yet. 

Craig:  I mean, it’s just these stupid jokes that are like, you know, I probably they’re they’re gonna make 13 and 14 year olds laugh. And I guess that I’m at heart still a 13 or 14 year old boy because I just find them freaking hilarious too. But anyway, she when she climbs up there, she she grabs that e and then she slips and falls and catches herself so that the e that she’s holding is right in the place where the d that fell was. And of course, Chastity Pariah is on the street and looks up and sees Elvira holding up the sign putting up the sign so that now it appears to say how to f u c k instead of d u c k. And of course, it’s another one of those outrageous moments. And she she hates Elvira already. You know, we saw at that meeting, that they held really specifically about Elvira. She says something about, oh, now let’s not resort to name calling, and then she goes off on this whole stream of of calling her names, that’s just hilarious.   So it’s it’s obvious that these people want her out of town and they’re gonna do whatever they can take, to get her out of town. Meanwhile, uncle Vincent, who I think, like, runs the bank or some big business Yeah. 

Todd:  It seems weird. Yeah. 

Craig:  He’s watching her from behind his shutters from his his business, and he steps up onto his bookshelf and, like, pulls a book or something, and the bookshelf slides open and he goes into it and we see that somewhere in the bowels of his office he’s got like this evil lair. And he’s appeared to be very, you know, shady and mean up until this point, but there’s nothing really to suggest that it’s anything more than that. But now we realize that there is something more to it. He puts on, like, this kind of, like, priest looking I mean not like Catholic priest but like, you know, evil satanic priest looking thing. And he talks about the book of sight, and he’s got this whole thing where he says something like 

Clip:  He who holds the book of sight when the moon is drained of all its light will then be ruler of the night, master of the dark. The lunar eclipse, Morgana, is less than a week away. 

Craig:  And so that’s now we know that’s why he’s so gung ho, about, getting this book. And so that gives him motivation, and we know that there’s gonna be conflict there. And then, we cut back to Elvira who finds all of the high school kids at the bowling alley and she’s excited to find them because she has made a deal with Bob. She has an idea for how she can make some money, and these kids play into that plan. 

Todd:  That’s right. She went she rolled into apparently brought a bunch of her b movies with her in the trunk of the car. And she said said to Bob, you know, you’re not gonna make any money showing all these turkeys. I have a great idea. Why don’t we do a midnight showing of one of the worst movies ever made? And she’s gonna host it and all that, and make a big performance deal out of it. And so she goes and, says, well, the kids will all show up. And so she goes to the bowling alley to find the kids, but the kids themselves, are kind of ignoring her. She’s like, what’s the what’s the deal? Just just minutes before, we were all bosom buddies.   And, she says that she leads into one of the boys and her bosoms are in his face. And, and, they’re like, well, you know, we’ve all been forbidden to to talking with you. And she goes on this this I think it’s this hilarious little spiel. 

Clip:  Oh. I see. Well, last thing I would do is get you guys in any trouble. I mean, so what if it blows my only chance at taking a living? I mean, that’s not your problem. And if I get so depressed, I wind up hanging myself in the oven. Hey. Those are the breaks. But if they ever ask about me, tell them I was more than just a great set of boobs.   I was also an incredible pair of legs. And tell them tell them that I never turned out a friend, that I never turned out a stranger for that matter. And tell them tell them that when all is said and done, I only ask the people remember me by 2 simple words. Any twos, long as they’re simple. 

Todd:  All the kids start standing up and walk towards her, like, oh, that’s okay, Elvira. Don’t worry. We’ll come to your show. So she just springs right up. Great, see you then, and walks out. 

Craig:  Oh, Todd. It is such a funny scene. I just absolutely love it. 

Todd:  But, so the kids confer really quickly, about what they’re going to do, and you see Patty, the owner of the bowling alley, the the woman we were talking about earlier, peeks her head, over from the kitchen is overhearing them a little bit. They notice her overhearing them, so they skedaddle, and the camera zooms in on Patty. And we now know that Patty also knows about this plan, and, is probably going to interfere with it somehow. So the next bit is a whole montage of all the kids sneaking out and, coming to the the theater. And the meantime, Elvira is setting things up in the theater, and, they’ve really gone all out. It’s kind of silly because because she she’s planned this huge production number. Bob comes to her and is like, what’s that up there? And she says, oh, haven’t you seen this? It’s gonna be my great finale. I still I ripped this off.   I mean, I it’s inspired by Flashdance. And when I’m done dancing, I’m gonna sit on this chair, and I’m gonna pull this cord, and this huge bucket of glitter is gonna come down on me. And so she set these, this bucket of glitter is set up in the, the the grid up above. So sure enough, there’s there’s they’re playing this movie. It’s this horrible b movie, but the theater is packed full of kids who are really enjoying it, who I guess stole enough money along the way too that they could pay for entrance. I I you know, it’s it’s a little tenuous how this little midnight movie 

Craig:  Yeah. That 

Todd:  only the kids from town are is going to help pay for her for 50 grand, but who who cares? So at the end of the movie that she goes through this like flash dance type dance number. And it’s funny too because she’s doing these back flips and she’s doing this spinning and she’s doing all this dancing. And at the end, she pulls the Todd, and instead online that, it wasn’t actually tar that they filmed with. It was black paint. Online that, it wasn’t actually tar that they filmed with. It was black paint. And they only shot the scene once because it was such a pain to get the paint, out of her costume and out of her hair. And Patty is up at the top shaking out feathers then over her.   So she gets tarred and feathered at the show and and humiliated. Todd, the next scene is of her cursing and swearing, but not really cursing, but basically cursing out Patty and the rest of the town as she’s bathing in gasoline. Right. It’s a star offer. And they a couple of the kids, are out and along with Bob, sitting down in the sofa watching TV in the other room while they’re awkwardly listening to her going off on the whole town. And she comes out. Bob’s like, what is that perfume you’re wearing? She’s like, super unleaded. Don’t smoke.   And they sit down and watch television, and after a while, she suggests that Robin and the other boy maybe have some other place to be, and they’re like, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll we’ll get out we’ll get out of here. And so, she and, the boy disappear leaving Elvira and Bob there alone, on the sofa, watching these movies. And the next shot is of what used to happen, when networks would shut down for the day before they were 24 hours is the Todd Spangled Banner playing, and the television quitting. And you see Elvira and Bob, and instead of sitting next to each other, they are totally opposite ends the sofa. And Bob’s just kind of looking over awkwardly, and Elvira’s looking over in a very sultry way.   And Bob’s like, again, in this situation where he has no idea what to do. He’s clearly never been with a woman romantically, and has no idea how to proceed. So she starts itching closer and closer and closer to him. And finally, he gets so uncomfortable that he says, you know what? I’m hungry. Let’s go get something to eat. And she says, well, no. We don’t need to go out and get anything to eat. My aunt Morgatta has this cookbook, which she immediately discovers because as she’s inching closer to him on the sofa, she, she sits on on it in a certain way and goes, ow, what is this? And pulls it out from the cushions.   So she’s now discovered the cookbook again, and she decides to whip something up in the kitchen. And this is the best scene in the whole movie as far as I’m concerned. 

Craig:  Oh, it’s hilarious. She goes in, and she’s like, my aunt had terrible penmanship. Like, I can’t read any of this. It seems like it’s in a different language. 

Clip:  Hey. Wait. Look at this. Andraca Kosarole. Kosarole. Oh, casserole. That sounds good. Okay.   Let’s see. What does it say here? 1edraziba. Wonder where she keeps edraziba around here. 

Craig:  But she looks in the kitchen cabinets, and it’s obvious that this is, like, you know, the witch’s ingredients for her potions or whatnot, but, of course, she doesn’t edraziba are actually earthworms, and she puts one in, and she’s like, oh, what the heck? She just dumps them all in. Then she just dumps in all of these ingredients, and she’s boiling in this pot this thing that just looks like it just looks awful. This is absolutely awful. And she takes it out to serve to Bob, and they’re both sitting at the table. And when she opens it up, this monster jumps out of the pot, and it’s all slimy and gross. It’s kind of reptilian. I mean, it’s obviously like a puppet, but I think it looks great. I mean, it’s super fun, super slimy, and, you know, they’re kind of freaking out.   It it’s just such a funny scene. She’s bashing it in the head with the lid, trying to get back in the pot. Bob is just standing there with his fork just, like, poking at it. Like like like, he doesn’t know what else to do. But they get it back in the pot, and they take it in the, kitchen and put it down the, garbage disposal. And, and he’s like, where did you learn to cook? And I didn’t. I just made a recipe out of my aunt’s recipe book. At which point, Gonk grabs the recipe book and and runs it upstairs, to the attic, and they figure out that Gonk is trying to show them this, like, crate or or or trunk, chest.   And they open it, and they find all of Morgana’s stuff, like witchy stuff. And they also find a letter that on the envelope, it says Elvira. And Elvira says, you think it’s for me? And so they so they read the letter, and that’s where we get the backstory. The letter says, your mother, Davona, was the true mistress of the dark. She had all of this power, but, her uncle Vincent was always jealous and wanted to have her power. And eventually, I guess, Vincent got to her and she wasn’t able to protect herself, but, but the baby got away and, was taken, I guess, to an orphanage or something. And it says in the letter, remember, protect the book, but remember you carry the power with you. But at least now she knows why, Vincent wants the book.   She knows that she shouldn’t let him have it, and she’s got kind of some ammunition now against this morality, committee. And this this next scene was what I thought was one of the funniest scenes in the whole movie. 

Todd:  Oh, man. This scene, like, bounces between funny and kind of disgusting for me. Yeah. But, of course, it’s 

Craig:  I remember thinking how hilarious it was when I was a kid, and then watching it this time, I’m like, oh, that’s gross. 

Todd:  That’s right. This was the Anyway. That my friends and I would quote a lot by the way. With the she there’s of course the morality club picnic is, the next day and Elvira has made a casserole. So she sneaks her casserole onto the table. And what she’s clearly done is she’s try she’s tried to make the same thing that she made before that that, produced the monster. So all the all the people are going through the table, and Chastity Pariah is leading them up. And And another thing I just noticed this first time that I hadn’t caught the, you know, before was that all the kids rushed to the table first, and Chastity Pariah is like, no, don’t you? You guys are you guys are pigs.   You get to the end of the line. So it’s interesting how the movie kind of shows that the kids never get any of this stuff. Right. Again, totally went over my head before. But, as as they’re going through, Chastity’s remarking on all the dishes. And one of the things she see see see’s is and she turns to her, friend next to her, she is 

Clip:  Melody, I see you’ve made your famous Tic Tac pie. 

Todd:  And it’s just pie with just a bunch of Tic Tacs on it. I’m sorry to 

Craig:  It is hilarious. It’s so stupid. Oh, and so 

Todd:  funny. Anyway, when they get to the, the casserole dish, Elvira and Bob are in the bushes. She’s like, alright. This is the moment. This is the moment. I can’t wait to see him get it. She opened the lid and nothing happens. It’s just the casserole.   So Chaz, she’s like, what’s this? And just like, digs her finger right through the middle of the casserole. 

Craig:  I know it’s so gross. 

Todd:  It’s so disgusting. And she licks it. It’s like, that’s pretty good. I think I’m gonna have some. And she piles a whole bunch on her plate. Everybody else comes through the line, and they’re piling a whole bunch of this on their plate until it’s gone, presumably before the kids get to it. Right. And and then, they’re sitting down and Chastity is like, whoo whoo, I’m feeling feel a little hot right here.   And and she turns, how about you? And it turns out that this is is the love potion that Elvira’s like, man, I maybe I shouldn’t have substituted at the at edrazeba with Hamburger Helper. And suddenly, everybody’s just, like, they’re starting to, like, take their clothes off, and all these old people are making suggestive looks at each other. The real estate agent picks up a hot Todd and looks at Patty across the table and waves and says, remind you of anything? And she picks up a taco shell and goes, remind you of anything? And they put the hotdog in the taco shell and she bites on it. I mean, it’s so goofball. 

Craig:  Oh, it’s hilarious. And and they all start taking off their clothes, and they’re dancing it with one another and grinding on one another. One of the old women is like eating mustard off the old man’s ear. It’s just all these totally gross things. At one point, Chastity, there’s this old man laying down on the ground and she, like, gets this happy look on her face and then she goes and stands. She’s she’s wearing a dress and she straddles over his head. And I don’t think I noticed this when I was a kid. She lifts her, her skirt up and says, is this face taken? And sits on his face.   Oh, god. And, of course, you don’t see it in all that graphic. You know, I mean, it’s it’s PG 13. It’s it’s totally safe, but, it’s hilarious. Patty puts the moves on Bob, and and she and Elvira kinda get into it. There’s a funny line where Patty says, do you always wear the same dress? And Elvira says, no. Sometimes I like to wear something low cut and sleazy or something like that. But, Patty tries to to fight with her, and Elvira grabs her by the front of her sweater and punches her out.   And then her sweater rips off to reveal the fact that her great big boobs are in fact just falsies, and she’s actually totally false, flat chested. And that’s pretty much the end of it. We cut immediately then to, the morality council who is just outraged that all this has happened, and they’re all pointing fingers at one another, until Vincent comes in and says, you have to know that this was all Elvira’s doing. And of course, Chastity’s like, of course it is. I knew she was trouble from the beginning. And Vincent says, well, there is something we can do. And he throws down this law book, And he says, there’s this law on the books from back, from the Salem trials that says, a person can be charged and arrested for witchcraft. And so that’s what they do.   They they arrest her and put her in jail, and they’re gonna burn her at the stake. They are they’re building these big pyres right outside the courthouse, which she can see from her jail cell. And, Gonk is in the, cell with her and Gonk is whining. She’s like, Todd are you worried about? I’m the one that’s gonna get burnt up. And he winds again and she looks outside and sees that there’s a little pyre for the dog too. And she’s like, oh, sorry. But then, Bob comes and visits her, and she’s like, you’ve gotta get the book. And she tells him where it is at her house, and he goes off.   Gonk turns into a rat, and he’s a little punk rat just like the dog’s little punk dog, and he escapes and and heads, to her house too. When Bob gets to the house, he finds the book, but Vincent and his goons are there waiting for him. They knock him out. They get the book. And then, the kids, the young kids are trying to break Elvira out, but it doesn’t work. They they try to cut through the ceiling, but they end up cutting into the cell next door and they all fall. So they’re all in jail now. And it looks like Elvira is gonna be, burned at the stake.   They take her out, and they tie her up to the pole. 

Todd:  And Chastity Pariah comes over with, or no. The policeman, somebody comes over with a big, Yeah. Big torch, and is about to light the fire. He says something like, Elvira, you are official you are hereby charged with witchcraft. Do you have any final words? She says, yes. Help. And, then Patty comes up and runs up to him and grabs the the flaming torch and said, officer officer, this is wrong. We’re like, what? And she says, it’ll burn faster if you light it in several places here.   And so she lights the the flyer on, lights it, on fire. 

Craig:  Gonk goes and freeze Bob, and then they come back and Gonk is there, and Gonk is barking at her and she looks like, oh, the dog’s trying to sell me something, which triggers this memory of when she read the letter, it said you carry the power with you. And we see something from that same flashback that we hadn’t seen before. We see little baby Elvira in a bassinet, ruby or garnet ring, this big red stone, and she’s holding this ruby or garnet ring, this big red stone. And she realizes, oh, I’ve had this my whole life. This must be the power that I carry with me. So she gets her hands free and she raises her fist to the sky and lightning shoots out of the ring and causes this big thunderstorm which makes it rain and puts the fire out. So she’s out of that predicament. But Vincent But it, you know, it’s it’s like yeah.   It’s out of the frying pan into the fire. 

Todd:  Yeah. Vincent has gotten the book, and now he is increasingly turning into this pretty, monstrous looking warlock. And you can just tell his face is getting a little bonier, and his hair is getting a little scragglier. And he’s wearing Got 

Craig:  his fangs. 

Todd:  Yeah. And he’s wearing his robe, and he’s walking down the street just basically taking everything out on the town. And so they’re all running basically from the site of where they were burning Elvira at the stake, and so there’s mass chaos in the town. And as he runs across people, like, he he aims his, his his fingers at Chassis Price and her friends, and they turn into pigs. And, he goes around. He’s shooting lightning back and forth and everywhere, but he’s, of course, trying to get to Elvira. And so there’s this chase scene, basically, where, he’s running after Elvira. Elvira, and he finally he corners her in a cemetery, and she runs and trips, and she falls, and he’s coming over her, and he she grabs her one of her heels, which she’s been running in this whole time for her.   She yanks off her high heels and throws it at him, and the heel embeds in his forehead. He’s like, which my wife found hysterically funny. 

Craig:  Yeah. Very funny. 

Todd:  So she gets away, and of course the way she gets out of this locked graveyard, which is where the front, door of it is chained, is she uses her boobs to break the chains. Yeah. Runs down the street, he gets out Todd, he comes around the corner, and suddenly faces her, and you see this slow pan up from below to up. And Elvira has come out of the military surplus store with, like, a bazooka or something. 

Clip:  You looking for me? 

Todd:  Big puff of smoke which clears away and hasn’t done a bit of damage to the uncle. And he says, Right. Did you think that that would work against me? She says, no, but I figured it’d be worth a shot, and tosses it down and runs away some more. Eventually, he’s got her cornered in an alley. There’s nowhere for her to go, and they have kind of a dueling battle where he’s using his power, and she is using her ring to deflect it until, she says, Take this. And she extends her hand like she’s going to use the power of a ring at him, but the ring flies off her finger through the air, and ends up on the uncle’s finger. He says, why thank you very much. 

Craig:  Right. But eventually, they end up back, at the house, at at, her aunt’s house. And she’s, walking through the house. She doesn’t know where he is or if he’s there, and he punches through a wall and grabs her and is pulling her towards the wall. But the shaking of the wall causes this big battle axe that’s hanging on the wall to fall and it cuts his arm off. So she’s able to get away a little bit, but he comes around the corner and he’s shooting fire out of his hands. The house is on fire. It looks like she’s met her match.   She’s on the floor. He is looking more demonic than ever. The eclipse has happened, and he’s got the book, so we know he’s got all this power. But in classic horror movie form, the hand that has been severed is not Todd, and it’s crawling towards Elvira, and eventually grabs her, which startles her. She grabs a Todd of it, gets something like a letter opener or something, pins it down to the ground, gets the ring back, and then when he goes to deliver what is supposed to be, I assume, the, fatal blow with his magic, she uses the ring to deflect it, and it goes back on him, and he is destroyed and just goes up through the ceiling in this, like, burst of misty energy. And so she’s she’s won. She still has her ring, but the house is on fire and the fire is burning all around the book. She tries to get to it, but she can’t.   And so we cut then to the next day where it’s Elvira and Bob sitting on the porch of the burned out house. 

Clip:  So what did the insurance guy say?   My policy doesn’t cover acts of demons.   Well, at least you still got the ring.   Yeah. But the only thing I can get it to do anymore is look cheap. 

Craig:  And then here comes the whole 

Clip:  town 

Craig:  marching down the street towards them with shovels and axes and all kinds of other things. And she says, oh, great. Here comes the lynch mob. But when they show up, they surprise her by telling her that they are there to help. She saved the town. They’re so grateful for that, and they’re she’s welcome there, they wanna do anything they can to help. Patty apologizes to her, and the lawyer shows up and tells her that because she was Vincent’s last remaining heir, she’s going to inherit his estate, which is extensive. So then she gets to live her Las Vegas dream, and that’s the last scene we see in the movie is this big, I wouldn’t say big, it’s actually pretty tame for a Vegas number.   They are, in fact, the studio didn’t even wanna spend the money to do this number. It was in the original shooting script and and Cassandra or Elvira wanted to do it so so badly. But they took it out of the shooting script because of budget and they waited until the rest of the movie had been filmed and edited and then, they screened it for the producers and the producers liked the movie enough that they felt like it was worth spending the little bit of extra money to let her have this last number. And so they did and they filmed it, in a warehouse. And it’s this campy Vegas number with Elvira dancing and singing in her sexy costume and there’s scantily clad men dressed as devils dancing all around her, and it’s just so much fun. I’m so glad that they put it in. It’s it’s an excellent cap, for the movie, and she just does her thing. And at the very end, it, it it pans close up on her face, and she looks directly into the camera and says her catchphrase. 

Clip:  Unpleasant dream. 

Craig:  And that’s it. That’s the end of the movie. And I just am elated. You know, by the You get to the end of the movie and I just have a smile on my face from ear to ear. It’s so much fun. It’s silly. You don’t have to put any thought into it whatsoever. If you’ve seen the movie before, you could pick it up at any spot in the movie and just watch whatever part and you’re gonna get laughs.   You’re gonna it’s it’s just so much fun. And especially at this time of the year, I love all horror movies, but they’re, you know, I’ve been watching sci fi network, you know, all day every day, on the weekends, since October started. And and I’ve seen lots of good movies, but so many of them are really gory or really, you know, they’re serious, in some way. And this is just light and fun, and it’s a nice break from that. I feel like it’s something that you could watch with your kids pretty safely. There’s a lot of innuendo, which is why I think that it gets, the PG 13 rating. But there’s really not a lot of overtly bad language. It is innuendo, and it’s stuff that I really think would go over the heads of younger kids.   I would show this. You know, my my niece and nephew are 57, I believe. I’d watch it with them. You know, especially if you could find the TV edit, which you can find because they do show it on, network television, or they used to when I was a kid. So there is edited version, of it out there. I think it’s something that you could watch, you know, at a party with friends. It’s something that you could watch with your kids or your nieces and nephews or whoever. And and it’s just it’s just a blast, and I I can’t wait to watch it again. 

Todd:  No. I couldn’t agree with you more. I I all I I would love to, hear, what it’s like to show this to a person who who didn’t grow up with it, who hadn’t seen it. Because, I mean, as much as we are gushing over it right now, and as much as I agree with you a 100%, I do wonder I mean, the movie is the kind of movie that they don’t really make so much now. The comedy in it is That’s true. Is very goofball. It’s very cheesy in many moments. The one liners are silly.   And it’s not what I’m trying to say is it’s not very sophisticated, 

Craig:  but and it’s also Absolutely. 

Todd:  It’s also not super lewd and crude like people tend to like to. You know, it’s not like The Hangover type stuff either. So it kind of falls into this this period of time where comedy could be goofball and silly and and innocent, At the same time, have a sort of innocence about it. I did not do well in the theaters. In fact, even right now, I think if you go on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s maybe like 5050. I think audiences liked it a lot more than the critics did, but it still didn’t make a ton of money. And I think it was Right. It was a little sad for, Cassandra Peterson because she really wanted to do a sequel.   She was fighting Mhmm. For a long time to do a sequel for this movie. And, people just weren’t that interested, oddly enough. I don’t know why. At one time, even Roger Corman, she she was gonna do one called Elvira versus the Vampire Women with him, and I don’t know how far along into preproduction that was, or how far if they even had a script for it, but that kind of fell flat. Eventually, in the early 2000, she did do a film called Elvira’s Haunted Hills. I’ve seen it. I have it on DVD.   I thought it was a solid movie. It’s not at all like this one, and it just kind of fell through the cracks way more than this movie ever did. 

Craig:  I’ve seen it too, and and I remember being really excited about it. And I remember being kind of disappointed, not because I didn’t enjoy it, but just because I didn’t really and again, I think you’re right. I think that our fondness of it from childhood really colors our feelings about it today. And if even if I were to see it for the first time today, I don’t know how. I have no idea how I would respond to it, and and maybe that was my problem with Haunted Hills. You know, I was older when I saw it, and I I just didn’t think that it was as funny. Maybe it is, and it’s just that I I didn’t have that nostalgia for it. Yeah, it it is kind of unfortunate for her because she wanted it so badly and had to wait for so long and eventually she had to fund it herself she she she put in the funding to have the movie made, and it it didn’t do very well, which I don’t think is very surprising.   But, if you like this movie, certainly worth checking out if if for no other reason than to, to support. Ira. 

Todd:  Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Now there was even that reality show, Look The Search for the Next Delvira. Did you ever watch that? 

Craig:  No. I don’t even think I knew about that. 

Todd:  I saw a couple episodes of it, and I was, like, really? This it doesn’t work without her, you know? And I think No. As it turns out, even the show itself was kind of a not not really a sham. But it’s not like the person was going to be the next Elvira. But they were going Todd kind of like represent her at events, or or just kind of do certain things. You know, it was really kind of a silly idea in the first place. So, you know, she’s still in the public consciousness, especially around Halloween. I think you still see Elvira quite, Maybe not as much as you used to, but she’s still very popular with people like us. She’s doing a lot of things right now.   She’s at Knott’s Berry Farm doing, doing a stage show. And if you go online, you can see clips from that. She’s been doing this for years, actually. So you can see her in person pretty easily if you live out in California. And I you know, it’s cut one of my life goals is to be able to meet her in person someday, and I don’t know if that’ll ever happen, before she, you know, finally retires. But I sure hope it does because I have so many fond memories of her. I I love her. I love the character, and so much of that is almost exclusively stems from this film. 

Craig:  Absolutely. I am I’m in the exact same boat. I’m a huge fan, a huge, huge fan. It would be an honor and a privilege, to meet her. I doubt I’ll ever have the opportunity, but it’s certainly a bucket list kinda thing. 

Todd:  Well, thank you so much for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend. You could find us on iTunes and on Stitcher. You can also find us on social media. We have a Facebook page, where we are very happy to receive your film request, anything you want us to do, or any comments that you have about the films that you’ve done so far, please start a dialogue with us there. We do enjoy hearing your feedback. Until next time. I’m Todd 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Whew…where to begin with this mishmash of horror tropes? With everything but the kitchen sink thrown into the plot, we were left confused and a bit let down by 2016’s Bleed.

Special thanks to longtime listener Karthik Rao for suggesting this week’s pick!

Bleed (2016)

Episode 52, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Today’s film was a suggestion by one of our listeners. It is the 2016 film, bleed, not to be confused with the 2,002 horror film, Bleed. This one just came out obviously this year by director, writer and editor, Tripp Raim. This is one of his first films. He’s done a couple other things before this, but not too much.   So, this appears to be his first venture out into the horror genre. So, Craig, had you heard of this movie before? I sure hadn’t. 

Craig:  No. I hadn’t heard anything about it, and I knew very little about it. And, other than, you know, what I saw on the screen, I still know very little about it because as hard as I tried to find info about it on the Internet, I came up pretty short. Like you said, the director is, fairly new, in the entertainment industry, I guess. And some of these actors were mildly done anything major that, our listeners would be familiar with. With that being said, with with, I don’t wanna say amateur actors. That’s not fair. All of them had credits.   But with fairly unknown actors and a a relatively new director, The the quality of the movie is is I I went in with fairly low expectations, and I think that’s a good thing. I I I I didn’t it was better than I expected it to be. Let’s just say that. 

Todd:  Well, you know, sometimes it’s good to come into a movie when you know anything about it. Right? And, then you can form your complete then you can completely form your own opinion, and you’re not influenced by anything else. And just like for the same reason, sometimes it’s good to see a movie with actors you don’t recognize, because then your vision of their character isn’t really tainted by anything that they’ve done in the past, or your preconceived notion of their personality and the kind of roles that they play. Right? That is absolutely true. And Todd be fair, some of these actors, I mean, they’ve been in things that you would recognize, just not maybe recognizable people. I think the only one who kinda jumped out to me was this Riley Smith, who played, Eric in this movie. Uh-huh. The sort of the the brother.   He has that, like you said, he has that kind of familiar looking face. And when I was going down through his profile, I realized he’s been in things that I’ve seen. Although, I I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that, you know, before or after this movie without actually looking it up. But, yeah. I mean, I thought more than anything, that the acting in this movie was pretty solid. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. You know, I I we’ll we’ll get into talking about the plot and things, and I I definitely have some complaints about the movie. But, I would say that it it’s it’s pretty competent on a lot of levels. You know? I thought the the cinematography was pretty competent. I mean, sometimes, it felt a little bit like it could have been maybe a made for TV, made for sci fi, as far as quality goes. Sometimes. But other times, I thought that it was was was pretty good.   Like you said, the acting, is not bad. I mean, we’ve we’ve watched some movies with some bad performances in them before, and and that can be fun sometimes too, but that’s that’s not really the case here. I mean, the the acting is competent. I think that where most of my complaint with this movie lies with the script and the storytelling. It felt a lot all over the place to me. To me, it kinda felt like, oh, we found this abandoned structure. Let’s film lots of creepy shots, and then we’ll figure out a story later. But, I don’t know.   May maybe you’ll disagree. 

Todd:  No. I would I would actually agree with that assessment completely. You know, it’s the the cinematography really pulled me in and the acting didn’t take me out of it. So Right. It was, ultimately ultimately, it was the plot that had me scratching my head, especially by the end. And you’re right, it did feel like a little bit of everything thrown in there. Well, the plot starts out with kind of a flashback sequence to December 5, 1979, where we have a couple guys talking in what appears to be a very old backwaters town. Another thing this movie does really well, I thought, was give us a sense of place.   We did feel like we were out kind of in the boonies, out in maybe the mountains, the Ozarks, someplace like that, West Virginia, someplace where it’s not real hillbilly hickish, but there’s that element around. And it sounds like they’re talking I don’t know. You kinda have to decode and pick apart what they’re saying. I’m not really clear, but a little girl walks in and buys some candy while they’re chatting. And one of them notices a birthmark or some kind of mark. I actually thought it was a tattoo. I guess we later find out it it it’s in fact a birthmark on her arm. Mhmm.   And it’s shaped like a moon. And that is supposed to be sinister. It piques their interest. And after she leaves, the younger of the guys goes after her in a 

Craig:  truck. She says something that upsets them. It was it was difficult   for me to the accents were so thick that   it was difficult for me Todd accents time, and and then, you know, that’s not so much of an issue. But, yeah, the 2 guys, it sounded like they were just talking about rabbit hunting. I don’t know if there was supposed to be something significant about that. But the girl comes in, and I had the subtitles on, but this was on YouTube, and the subtitles are so unreliable. I mean, they just didn’t make any sense at all. So I’m really still not exactly sure what she said, but it sounded something like, Ruth is my friend. You’re gonna pay for your sinning. Yep.   She told me she wasn’t your first. And the guy says, who’s been talking these lies? The preacher? And she says, the angels. And this clearly upsets them, and and the guy won’t give her the candy that she has already paid for. So she snatches it away and runs away, and he sends the younger the guy who was upset sends the younger of the 2 after her. And and that’s just kind of the end of that flashback scene until we jump into contemporary time. And I wasn’t really sure what was going on, and I I don’t think we’re supposed to be sure what’s going on. I think it’s supposed to be mysterious, and then it’s supposed to kinda be resolved later on. But, even though there is some resolution, you know, that that char those characters pop back up, we we come back, you know, we flash back in time later in the movie.   I was never entirely clear what was going on. So maybe you’ll be able to help me out in that regard. 

Todd:  I’m not sure I’m going Todd. But you’re right. It is it is an effective, entrance because right off the bat does establish a sense of mystery, and clearly something’s not right about these guys. And of course, anytime you’re talking with a little kid in this general sense, especially when she makes a comment like that, then obviously this is some violence being directed towards children, which is always kind of creepy and you always wanna know where it’s gonna end up. So, yeah. Between the moon shaped birthmark and what she says to them and again, even them talking about rabbit hunting sounded a little brutal, in a sense. They talked about how you’re gonna corner them. And then the movie kicks off into the present day, where we have a couple, Sarah and Matt, who have moved into a new house.   Isn’t this how so many horror movies start out. Right? 

Craig:  Mhmm. When they moved out 

Todd:  of the city and into the old house in the country, to get away from it all. And things are going to turn sinister, of course. It 

Craig:  Right. Right. And Sarah, the the very I think the first time that we’re introduced to Sarah, she’s driving or she’s not even driving. I think she’s just pulled over on the side of the road, and she has a flat tire. And she’s pregnant, like, clearly in her 3rd trimester, probably going to be giving birth soon, very pregnant. And, she can’t get her tire changed, and then this local deputy pulls up, and he looks, you know, like the locals in these movies always look kinda backwoods. But he appears friendly, and he, changes her tire for her. But after he has done that, they’re talking, and he notices that she has the same birthmark, that that half moon birthmark on her neck.   And he asked her about it, and she says, well, it’s just a birthmark. And then he says something to her along the lines of, you gotta be careful around here because there’s some strange folk or something like that. Of course, you know, very ominous, you know, the warning from the locals, it’s pretty typical fair. And then she goes home, and that’s when we start getting introduced to all of the core characters. 

Todd:  That’s right. We have her husband, Matt. We have Dave and Sabrina who come in a little later. There are obviously some friends who they’ve invited over as kind of a housewarming thing, I think. And while they’re getting set up, while they’re going through their motions, ominous music comes in every now and then. It’s one of the criticisms I have of this film at the beginning, particularly, is that I think too much of it, of what we’re supposed to find scary, or supposed to find sinister, sinister foreshadowing by Mhmm. Ominous music, that just kind of slips in in the middle of these domestic scenes. Yeah.   Anyway, I think that’s a little bit of cheating because I certainly didn’t feel like there was anything ominous going on a lot of the time. Mhmm. It’s really about half an hour of just domestic type banter. When we learned that each one of these characters has some kind of special problem, they’re eventually joined by Skye, and Eric. Sky, we learn, is Sarah’s brother. I’m sorry. Eric is Sarah’s brother. Sky is a is a woman, and it’s Eric’s sort of basically Eric’s latest fling, it sounds like.   And when they come in, they are very, boisterous and happy and there seems to be some tension between Sarah and Eric. 

Clip:  When are you planning on getting home? 

Craig:  Well, this is it. Oh, come on. Don’t don’t give me that look. All right? I’m not trying to move into your big house with too many rooms. Our home is the slab that we rolled in on. That’s our home now. 

Clip:  You are gonna live in the van? 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, besides, we can’t really, we can’t really go back to the apartment. You know, we haven’t paid rent since, like, November. But, no. But it the walls were getting small, and it was it was, like, it was really, like 

Clip:  Jesus, it was it 

Craig:  was like wasn’t there, you know? 

Clip:  Okay. Have you thought about getting a job? 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. You know, it’s like life is about living, you know? Living. 

Clip:  Yeah. Living takes money, Eric. Food, gas. 

Craig:  Will be alright. I’ll always, you know that. 

Todd:  Later, Sarah gives him some cash. Matt is a doctor, which will come in handy later, of course. So they’re pretty well-to-do. Yeah, sort of. Right? They’re pretty well-to-do, and Eric is the guy who’s flouncing around. He’s the lost brother trope, again, that we find in these movies who’s come back and is going to be a burden and cause some tension between Sarah and Matt because Sarah is going to help her, and Matt is going to be angry and say, why can’t you, you know, cut loose your younger, wilder brother and help him to be more responsible? So Right. We have this cast of 6 characters who stand around and just start chatting. And Skye, at one point, takes a bath and sees a guy.   From under her water, it looks like kind of a tall bearded old pie pirate. I was thinking an old pirate guy. Ghost. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s kind of a kind of a cross between, like, the lead singer in a heavy metal band in a hillbilly or something. Like Rock star. Like, long black hair. And and, of course, he’s he’s, like, ghostly, so he he’s got kind of this gothy makeup. I mean, I don’t think it’s intended to look like goth makeup, but that’s kind of the effect, which, I don’t know. Not terribly scary. I mean, the effect, we just see the outside of the, the the tub, and then he kind of appears out of nowhere, you know, just kind of this gaseous appearance.   And then she sees him standing over, and it’s kinda scary and, like, blood’s dripping off of him into the water. But of course, when she comes up out of the water, he’s not there. So we assume that this guy is going to be our antagonist or at least one of our antagonists that this is gonna be kind of a haunting thing, which it ends up being kind of. But again, like I said, it’s such a hodgepodge of different ideas. Like, already, we’re what? Like, maybe, I don’t know, 20 minutes into this very short movie, by the way. It’s only, like, 72 minutes or something like that. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And we’ve already got, like, creepy hillbillies, this potentially crazy ghost. It’s already been suggested that one of the girls, Bree, is schizophrenic, and so if she’s gonna be seeing things, we don’t know if they’re gonna be, you know, real or her hallucinations. I mean, just so many things and that’s just the beginning. Like, there’s so much more to be thrown into the mix later on, and I think it was just a little bit too much. I I really think that if they could’ve focused the story a little bit, it would’ve been a better movie. It it just seems like there’s so many things going on that by the end when there’s supposed to be a twist, it doesn’t even really feel like a twist because there’s been so much craziness happening that you expect something unexpected. But anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. Well yes.   So so we see that ghost in the bathtub. 

Todd:  It’s hard not to bring up constantly because you are confused. And I think that’s the way I felt kind of throughout this movie is a little bit of confusion and you expect a certain amount of confusion, especially in a movie where there’s gonna be a twist at the end. There are going to be things that aren’t revealed to you, and so that’s not an unusual feeling. But you really can’t make heads or tails of it for a long time, and by the end of it, I was kind of like, Oh, so that’s it? Still with some unresolved questions. And you’re right. It’s kinda funny that you get the schizophrenic in here, then there’s tension between Sarah and Matt, which I thought was a little forced. They seem to be pretty loving towards each other and very understanding to each other otherwise. But then the script throws in these kind of weird, silly moments, like when Skye gets excited in the bathtub and starts screaming.   Matt runs in, to see if she’s okay. And that upsets Sarah. 

Clip:  Hey. Hey. Hey. I I heard her scream. I went to help. I didn’t think she was gonna be half naked. I didn’t seem to mind either. Well, I was checking on our guest.   What’s your deal? I don’t know. I’m sorry. I haven’t even been really weird with the huts lately about us and the move and the baby and It’s okay. 

Craig:  And and she’s she goes off on this this monologue about seeing things in nature, and everything seems to be going by so fast, and life is so precious and fragile. It’s gone so quickly, and it’s like this moment. And I’m like, I don’t understand. Like, is she supposed to be haunted? Is she supposed to be having weird feelings? Is it just because she’s pregnant and she’s, you know, worried? And and there’s never really any answer to a lot of these questions. Yeah. You know? She appears to be having these ominous feelings, and as it turns out, she should be because bad things are gonna start happening, but why? Why is she inspired to have these feelings? And then right after that, like, she’s just looking around in this house that they have just unpacked, like, they’ve gotten there, and she finds mysterious old   book.   And, like, she opens the book and reads it, and it says, the angels came again last night. They they talked to me. I wasn’t scared. And all of these things, you know, these they’re so typical in in horror movies, but they don’t necessarily all work at the same time. And I feel like the creators, the director of the movie just thought, well, this has worked and been cool in other movies, so let’s just put it in there. It’ll be awesome. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And it it it just seems it it falls a little flat, and it seems a little cheap and and unoriginal, sadly. 

Todd:  Well, it’s not long after the diary, which doesn’t ever come into play again at all, and Sarah never makes mention of and apparently doesn’t read anything beyond that first page, that they’re out playing playing Frisbee in the backyard. And, oh, the Frisbee gets tossed a little too far into the woods, and in goes, Dave to retrieve it, and he runs across a grave. Anna Harris. Right. Grave of Anna Harris, dated from 1970 to 1979. And so we pretty quickly put together that this is the grave of that little girl. And it’s weird. It’s it’s if you talk about things being thrown in, the fact that there’s a grave marked with a gravestone in the back of this house that apparently belonged to this little girl who was talking with this very strong hillbilly accent, who came in looking rather dirty and disheveled when she did, buying a small handful of candy.   Are we supposed to believe that, she lived in this house? This monstrous, really nice multi storied McMansion, kind of out in the and I would think, Oh, well maybe there was another house there before, and this house was built on its land. That’s why there’s a grave kind of out in the woods because it was a little more backwater before somebody moved in and put in a newer house, except we find a diary in the closet of this house. So, you know, that can’t really be easily explained away either. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s pretty clunky and contrived, and it just keeps going, like, there’s there’s just no there’s no flow to the to the Todd the script, to the storytelling. I mean, right from there, they’re like, oh, we found a Craig. And Eric’s like, oh, well, big deal. Who cares? Let’s go sit down around the table. So they do, like, oh, big deal. We find graves all the time. Whatever.   And then, they sit down around the table, and Eric and Skye are like, oh, by the way, we’re ghost hunters. And we’ve been to all these places all over the country, and we’ve been hunting ghosts. And like, what? Okay. And they And they’ve got, you know, like, the the voice recorder where they can record supernatural voices, and Eric has this strange, like, bracelet that has this weird symbol on it that he got somewhere else that later on is somehow supposed to be connected, and I don’t really have under any understanding of why. It’s just so much that you’re trying to unpack and process, and there’s really not much point because it in the end, it’s just it doesn’t really matter. 

Todd:  Yeah. Eric has kind of a throwaway line where he says something about how the bracelet called to him and it brought him here or something. It seemed to be a real quick easy way to shoehorn in this idea that this symbol had some power or brought them together. But again, it was so shoehorned in, and it was so throwaway that it just seemed completely contrived. And again, he doesn’t mention it again into the future. Later on, we see that symbol again a couple more times, but the connection is very tenuous. 

Craig:  He also tells this story out of nowhere. He just says that when he and Sarah were kids, there were ghosts in their house, And we get a flashback to this scene that looks very much like poltergeist with Eric, the brother, like, huddled in a corner while Sarah, presumably the sister, is being pulled under the bed by some strange force that we don’t see and we don’t know what it is. And, he says, but at the last second, we were saved. And Matt’s like, what saved you? And they’re like, butterflies. And it’s Okay. Todd story. 

Todd:  It’s still chilly. I I I came through the whole movie not really understanding that part. Did the butterflies burst out of the closet and distract the ghost or something so they could get out. 

Craig:  No idea. You know, there’s there’s a there’s a tie at the end to this story, but it’s so tenuous that, like 

Todd:  It doesn’t even make sense. 

Craig:  I don’t know. Anyway, we’ll get there. 

Todd:  Well, thanks, Sajid. 

Craig:  Oh, and then okay. The the very next thing, then Dave’s like, 

Clip:  there was a serial killer back in the seventies. Who? Newspapers called him Cannibal Craig, said he mutilated his victims 

Craig:  then ate 

Clip:  them. Some weird, satanic something or other. They caught him. Right? 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Clip:  Yeah. Creepy to know that there’s people like that in jail getting old like the rest of us. Well, not anymore. What? He got out? 

Craig:  No. No. No. No. No. 

Clip:  He died. The prison burnt down back in the eighties. It was like it was a big story around here. Something like a 100 people were trapped inside and died in their cell. We 

Craig:  need to   check that out. Yeah. We do. 

Clip:  What? Yeah. It’s a perfect night. Full moon? 

Craig:  Like, it’s just one clunky plot device after another. And, like, they literally just come one right on top of another. 

Todd:  They do. 

Craig:  And I’m at this point, I’m like, are you serious? Like, what what is this movie trying to be? Well, 

Todd:  the the hilarious 

Craig:  said that 

Todd:  the the hilarious thing is that Matt seems seems to think this is a good idea too. Matt who’s been like critical and nasty and kind of mean to Eric this whole time just is like, yeah, I’m down for it if you guys are. Yeah. And later on, that tries to get explained away by Matt and, Sarah have a little conference in the bedroom while they’re packing for this this this spur of the moment trip to the abandoned, burned down prison in the middle of the woods. And, she’s like, I don’t even know why you’re going, And he says something like, Well, I’m gonna go. I guess his idea is I’m gonna go, and I’m gonna show them that it’s nothing, and then that’s going to make Eric mature or something. He’s he’s gotta grow up sometime. And so if I go and and indulge him in this, then I’m gonna be able to prove that that he can’t see ghosts or something.   I don’t know. It it’s it’s very tenuous. Mhmm. And it’s so out of character for him. You know, he’s supposed to be the doctor, rational mind, who’s kind of upset for him, and now he seems all too eager to go on this ghost honey expedition and leave his pregnant wife behind, because she’s not at all interested in going. But but he’s gonna go anyway. So they all end up going ghost hunting, so they get out to the middle of the woods and there is this cool set piece, which, from what I gather is was an actual place. I mean, I don’t think this movie has the budget to build something like that, But, yeah, clearly, it’s it’s a real place that I’d like to see sometime.   And looks like an old burned out prison. It even has a downstairs area under the ground. And so when they get there, the first thing is, well, I say we all split up. Right. Uh-huh. And so everybody splits up and goes their separate ways, and this place didn’t look that big, but apparently it is big enough. And of course it has that underground section. So everybody’s going off in their different areas, And immediately, Sky and Eric do what Sky and Eric do best, which is start kissing and making out and flirting with each other and lighting up a joint.   While the rest of them go running around, is it Sabrina who actually walks into a room and sees a vision of, again, Rob Zombie sitting on a chair Right. With long hair. Yeah. Blood comes out of his mouth. 

Craig:  She does. Yeah. You know, we see we see that guy, like, as soon as they Sarah drops him off and as soon as they go in well, not before she doesn’t leave before Eric stops her and says, Sarah, we have a gift. Like, okay. I I don’t have any idea what that’s supposed to be about, but, we see Sarah driving away, and she’s just kinda driving along the road. She gets distracted by the, radio and sees the little ghost girl I think in the car with her or something like that. And so she flips her car. And then we cut back to, the prison, and yes, Bree and Dave are walking around, and Bree sees this guy, like you said, sitting in a chair, but she assumes that it’s her schizophrenic hallucinist hallucinations coming back, which also doesn’t make any sense because she had said earlier when she was talking about her hallucinations that she had had these people in her life up until she was this certain age, and then when she started taking medication, they went away.   So there’s no indication that she was just seeing randos all the time. Like, it seems like 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  You know, she had these particular visions. But she blames it on her schizophrenia and starts popping Thorazine like it’s Tic Tacs.   Yeah. That’s 

Todd:  Mean meanwhile 

Craig:  She’s What? Go ahead. 

Todd:  Every every time she sees a hallucination, she, like, frantically grabs for a pill bottle and pops another pill. It’s like, I don’t think that’s how medicine works. 

Craig:  Right. And if you’ve been taking Thorazine for schizophrenia since you were 8 years old, I think that you would know that. But then so Sky and Eric, like you said, are doing their thing, smoking weed, making out, and they find this weird kind of place down underground that has candles. I mean, it kinda looks like a shrine. We find several other shrines throughout. This one’s kind of mild. But they find a scary book and they read from it out Todd, which you should always do. Wait.   Just listeners, if you’re out there, if you find yourself in a really scary place, in a really scary situation, and you find a really super old scary book with, like, cult illustrations in it and stuff, Read out loud from it because nothing bad will happen. 

Todd:  Nothing bad. 

Craig:  We we haven’t seen that in a 1000000 movies before, and that’s exactly what happens. He reads something out of it.   The lost return, awakening the dead, and the end begins, drawing the devil from out of the cycle.   Hello? And it seems like something is awoken in the prison, and they all hear some big loud noise, and there’s a rush of wind. And and so Skye, when that happens, is all freaked out, and she wants to get out of there. But Eric, with his sexy eyes, is able to seduce her into having sex right there in that room. But while they’re having sex, he apparently turns into this Rob Zombie ghost that we’ve seen, and it’s this kind of violent rapey scene. And she grabs something. I don’t know what it was. She grabs something and stabs him in the neck with it. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And then he falls back, and he’s bleeding, bleeding, bleeding, and everybody else comes in, and Matt, the doctor, is trying to help him. And then all of a sudden, he Eric’s just fine. His whole shirt is covered in blood. And the note that I wrote down was, like, Matt just magically heals him, but appear Matt finally just Matt finally just says, it just stopped bleeding. I don’t understand. 

Todd:  Oh. And that 

Craig:  that’s just it. I mean, oh, okay. Good enough explanation. And Eric, who has just been stabbed in the neck and has been bleeding from the throat, is the only one who wants to stay and continue to look around. I mean, it’s just Well It’s it’s frustratingly nonsensical. 

Todd:  Nobody’s freaked out that she stabbed him. It’s I mean, they just pardon that. It it’s yeah. You’re right. It it’s weird. It’s weird. In the meantime, Sarah, has been picked up by a scarred cop. This is a guy who we if I think you can recognize him.   Isn’t he the same guy from the beginning? Isn’t he supposed to be the young person, the young person who went after the girl, but a little older? 

Craig:  I’m not sure. It could very well. Who knows? 

Todd:  Yeah. Maybe not. But but he’s got a whole half of his face is burned up, which is sinister, of course, because we know that they’re in a breakup, place. And they have some very, spooky dialogue back and forth. I think it keeps cutting back and forth to to Sarah and this, person. Right? But eventually, Sarah, convinces him to pull over because she faints, that she’s sick, that she’s sufficiently creeped out by him, and she runs off into the woods. And he go ahead. 

Craig:  There’s also this creepy guy sitting in the back seat. It’s a total jump stare, and it’s this guy who’s, like, they all just called the captain. And he’s very creepy and ominous Todd, and he says, like, oh, yeah. They let me ride around with them for nostalgia or something. But Oh, 

Todd:  so he 

Craig:  was real. All very yeah. I think, yeah, he was real. 

Todd:  I don’t you know, it’s so funny that that came so out of nowhere, and the driver seemed to completely not acknowledge him at all that I assumed he was a vision she kept having, that she knew was a vision because she has this gift. And he because he even had, like, this the way he was lit, you know, was kind of a glow from behind and but and in front. And at first, I thought, well, maybe he’s the vision of this preacher that, you know, they keep talking about. But you’re right. I guess he was just a guy. Actually, that makes more sense. Mhmm. Yeah.   But but less. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and yeah. Right. I mean, as sensible as this movie gets, meanwhile, the group is still back at the so you’re right. She eventually gets creeped out enough that she gets out and starts running through the woods. But the group is back at, the jail. They’ve tried to leave, but as always happens in these types of movies, somehow they’ve gotten turned around in the woods, and they just end right back where they were. And once again, they find a scary book, and, they open it up, and and it says, on seducing the soul of the newborn, the vessel will deliver the chosen.   And it’s got a picture of an infant in there and all these ceremonial symbols and whatnot. And so, obviously, Sarah’s baby is gonna play an integral part in this last you know, that’s something that’s going on, and and that’s gonna be a danger. And Eric very cryptically says, we were brought here for a reason. I can just feel it. Yeah. I don’t know. It’s it’s all it’s it’s crazy. 

Todd:  He starts lighting candles. And for a while, I thought, well, he was possessed or something, and he’s gonna start some ritual. But but that gets dropped immediately because the next time somebody runs across him, he’s somewhere else. Yeah. And then, I can’t remember who says this, but at some point, I think it’s when maybe Sky finds Eric or Sabrina finds Eric, she they run across something. Was it some bones or oh, it’s like some skin hanging from the ceiling and maybe some body parts? 

Craig:  They come across so many different things. I don’t remember what order it is, but, yeah, you know, at at one point, you know, Eric, who is the one who is so gung ho about staying there, he runs down in there. Sky runs off into the forest where she encounters all of these men with flashlights. We can’t really see them because they’re in in darkness, but, they are very ominous and threatening. So she comes running back, and because they’re now being pursued by these people who they don’t know and don’t know what they want, Matt says, Dave, you take the girls down into the cellar or into the the prison and and find a place to hide, and I’m gonna try to divert these guys. And then we just have Eric, Dave, and the Skye and Bree running around down there in the prison, and it makes no sense. They split up off from each other all the time for no good reason so that they’re on their own. And, you know, sometimes they’ll be together when they’ll see something, and that’s what will, you know, motivate one of the girls to be scared and run off.   But you’re right. They see there’s one room that has, like, a big, some sort of bone sculpture. Again, you know, very stereotypical for these types of movies. Looks like some sort of sort of satanic, ritual or something. 

Clip:  It’s like hell. 

Craig:  And then, yes, there’s another one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then there’s another room, you’re right, that had, like, what looked like human hides. Like like people had been skinned and their skin had been hung up on hooks and there were some heads in there. Sarah eventually makes her way to the prison. She gets down in there too.   She finds a room full of skulls. And none of the you know, it’s it’s all just for atmosphere. Like, there’s there’s really no point to any of these things except for, okay. We get it. It’s some sort of cult or something, but that’s it. It’s really just, oh, look what we made. It’s scary. You know? If there were purpose to it, if the story was better, those because they’re actually pretty cool set pieces.   Yeah. But it’s just like walking through a haunted it’s just like walking through a haunted house. Like, you take a look in there, and you’re like, oh, yeah. That’s scary. And then you walk on to the next room. Like, that’s you know, that might be fun for a haunted house. But for a movie, it it it feels pretty thin. 

Todd:  Yeah. And and I wanna say that it’s even before the locals come that Sarah not Sarah. I think it’s Sabrina or Sky makes a comment that says after they encounter one of these rooms and says, this is a trap. It’s the locals. This is exactly what they wanted. And I’m thinking, what trap you guys on a on a whim decided to come out here. Nobody could join you out here. It it doesn’t make sense as a trap.   Maybe it’s maybe it’s the bear trap you set in the woods hoping that in, you know, years from now, somebody will stumble upon it. But it’s definitely not exactly what the locals wanted. It’s what you wanted. You guys are the ones who chose to come out here in the first place. Right. So yeah, it’s it’s very tenuous, and I don’t know, you know, of course, Sarah gets dropped, you know, Sarah leaves that car and magic finds her way back in there, so she’s with the mix Todd. And Sarah is having these visions down there as well, and sadly, this is the only way that we really get any more backstory on this little girl thing that pops back in. Because Sarah has this gift, I guess, or is being given these visions, and we get to see like a movie played out in front of her.   We get more of the backstory of this girl, and apparently what happened with this little girl is after she was chased down, they grabbed her. The villagers grabbed her. I guess because she had this birthmark, she was significant, she was important. And they take her this cult takes her into, a barn, and, I guess they’re probably gonna have their way with her. Mhmm. Basically, impregnate her, and it’s pretty creepy. One guy says, hey, you might get lucky too. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s super creepy, especially since she’s she looks like she’s maybe 8 or 9. Like Yeah. I don’t know if these people understand how human reproduction works, but, I think it would be fairly unlikely that a child that young would become pregnant. However, we’re dealing with supernatural satanists, so what I guess anything’s possible. The important thing that we see there in that flashback is that, Cain, this guy, we find, you know, this supposedly this mass murderer who killed all these people and ate them. This is the guy that we assume we’ve been seeing, the big scary heavy metal guy. Kane actually tries to help the little girl escape.   He’s not successful because she takes off running and ends up running out of of a window that’s, like, on the second floor, and she falls and dies. But I guess what this is supposed to be the twist, I think, is that we have thought that this ghost that has been appearing all along was malevolent and was evil and was trying to, you know, kill all these people or whatever. As it turns out, he wasn’t the malevolent one. It’s the townspeople who are the villains, and the the ghost is actually trying to help these people. But there are some things that are just completely nonsensical if that’s the case because before this, Dave, is it Dave? Yeah. Dave runs into a room and finds Kane chained to a wall, and Cain kills him, like, sends out this big burst of flame from his chest or something and kills Dave. It makes no sense with the rest of the narrative. Yeah.   If this ghost is supposed to be trying to help these people, why would he kill one of them? It doesn’t make any sense. 

Todd:  Yes. Yes. Exactly. It’s it’s it’s one of these cases of the ghost appears, and I think you’re right about what’s supposed to be the twist, and you’re absolutely right that it also makes no sense. You can sometimes forgive the idea that, well, when a ghost appears to somebody, it’s naturally going to be scary. The ghost can’t help that it’s scary because it’s dead, or it looks gross, or whatever. So it’s trying to be benevolent and helpful, but it’s being mistaken for something odd and terrifying. Except this guy really is, like, intentionally terrifying.   He kills this guy. 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  And so he’s not really helping anything. Sarah Okay, so Sarah coughs up the Todd. Dave is dead. What? 

Craig:  Everybody gets picked off. Yeah. Everybody gets picked off in a matter of, like, a few minutes. No. But I love 

Todd:  Except for Sarah. I love the bit where, where Eric comes across the file that Dave had. Or is it a separate file? I guess it’s a separate file. The the important part 

Craig:  is 

Todd:  that these locals have scattered, police files of, Kane throughout throughout this abandoned prison, in the whole as one character says, I think we were supposed to find this. For whatever reason, I I couldn’t fathom. But anyway 

Craig:  He says it’s almost like someone left this here for us to find. Yeah. Yeah. It does kinda seem like that. 

Todd:  It does. Like, I don’t know, the prop guy? Yes. But but anyway, Skye, I think it was Skye who runs across Dave and finds that he’s dead, and so she runs back off and, encounters Eric has this file and she says, Dave is dead. And he goes, What? And she says like, he’s dead. He died. And Eric’s like, okay, but check out this file. Yeah. They just Todd reading from the file and the fact, poor Dave, poor Dave in this movie becomes you you talk about a movie littered with just tropes from other films.   He becomes that poor stereotypical black guy who you know is gonna die Mhmm. And nobody gives a crap. So you’re right. Everybody kinda starts, getting picked off. 

Craig:  The scene that you were just talking about, that was actually Sarah. Sarah and Eric peruse the file, then the locals all come in and they take off running. Eric just immediately gets shot in the head and he’s dead. So now everybody’s dead that we know of, except for Sarah, and we don’t know where Matt is because we haven’t seen him in a really long time. But, Sarah ends up back in that room, the first room where Skye and Eric had sex and and all that went Todd, and both Craig and the little girl appear to her. And Cain opens his hands and has a butterfly in it. And and he says to her, Anna had the mark. I failed her in the barn.   It ain’t happening again. So apparently, he’s gonna try to protect Sarah, and I guess what we’re supposed to believe is that somehow he he was the one that protected her when she was a kid. Like, I don’t even understand what the ghosts were that were after them when they were kids. I I I have no idea what that was all about. Yeah. But here you have the, you know, the image of the butterfly again. So I guess that was him protecting her even then. Whatever.   Makes no sense. Fine. So, Sarah so, Kane runs out like he’s gonna go fight with the the locals and and Sarah, runs out, but they get it they get her. The locals get her, and they tie her up on some sort of altar or something outside. And the captain, who we saw from the back seat of the squad car is, like, you know, drawing in blood these symbols on her belly, and it looks like, he’s gonna cut, the the child out of her womb is what it looks like is going to happen. Todd, dun, ta da, here come Matt and Kane who both come in and start fighting off the locals. Matt has like a scythe or something, and Kane can apparently shoot fire out of himself. So they’re doing all that, fighting all the people.   I I think Matt eventually gets taken down. I don’t remember if we actually see him saw him get killed, but it seemed like the implication was that he got killed. And Sarah runs off and gets to the road and this, this car pulls over and picks her up, and it’s this creepy woman who we had seen before. Again, I have no idea what her significance was supposed to be. When Sarah had had her car accident right before that, she had driven by this woman on the side of the Todd, and after she had driven by, the woman turned around and, like, howled into the woods. So we recognize her from earlier, so we know she’s probably not good. They she takes Sarah to a barn, and the original deputy from the very beginning who helped Sarah with her car is there, And Sarah’s in labor, and she’s giving birth. And the baby is born, but it’s stillborn.   And the woman says, do you want your baby to live? And Sarah has a flashback to a conversation that she and Matt had earlier on, which really has no bearing on the situation at all. 

Todd:  No. 

Craig:  And then and right. And then she says, yes. I do. And the deputy cuts her throat. She dies. We get an exterior shot of this barn that we’re in, and that’s it, right? 

Todd:  I guess was the idea that only one of them could live so the baby was born stillborn, but if they killed Sarah, then the baby would live because then the baby kinda wakes up and starts crying. And I wasn’t sure if we’re supposed to believe that was Sarah’s spirit in there or what. Yeah. You’re right. It so anyway 

Craig:  I think that we were I think that we were supposed to believe that this cult ultimately was successful in what they wanted to do. It will. Yeah. That they that they did, you know, that this baby now is whatever being they needed to have delivered from the vessel. And so it’s one of those movies where, oh, bad guys won. The end. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s Rosemary’s baby, basically. You guys go through this movie. Oh, it’s Poltergeist. It’s Rosemary’s Baby. Oh, it’s, it’s every haunted house movie I’ve ever seen. It’s, Excess Chainsaw Massacre, Wrong Turn, 

Craig:  the Hills Have Eyes. Yeah. All of them. Yeah. So many things just thrown into a blender. 

Todd:  Well, and, you know, it’s weak. Obviously, it’s weak because it’s hard to follow. It’s weak because it doesn’t make sense because the whole Craig thing. The thing I don’t get, if it’s supposed to be Cain who visited them as kids, and Cain ultimately just wants these villagers dead, but he’s unsuccessful. Where did Cain go? Right? He’s not confined to the prison because he apparently saved Sarah and Matt when they were younger, right? And he doesn’t need to be woken up by a spell in a book to have any power because he’s been appearing to them in all these different places outside of the prison and also released some butterflies to him and Matt when some other unknown ghost was getting at them. So where has he been all this time? Why hasn’t he taken care of the villagers earlier if he could do that? Right. Okay. Maybe in order I have no idea.   Maybe in order to wake him up, and give him the ultimate power, you need to read from the spell book in that room. Okay. Fine. So that’s been done. He kills the villagers in that room, but then when the hillbillies pick up Sara outside this whole event and take her back to the barn and do this last ending scene, where is Kain now to decide decide she doesn’t need protecting anymore? Right? I mean, it just it just it just doesn’t make there’s no internal coherence to the plot. There just isn’t. Mhmm. The first half was a pretty good setup, and then it just devolved into, I felt. 

Craig:  Yeah. And, you know, like like I’ve said, you know, in terms of acting, in terms of cinematography, I’ve certainly seen worse. I’ve definitely seen worse. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the worst horror film I’ve ever seen. Would I watch it again? No. I could see how maybe this might be something that and we’ve said this before. We’re probably getting a little old saying it, but, like, if you were having a Halloween party and you just wanted scary movies running in the background all the time. There’s some interesting visual stuff going on here, and it it’s short, and it moves at a pretty quick pace.   So for that purpose, it it it might be effective. But the the narrative is is weak Todd say the least. 

Todd:  Well, you bring up a good point. It is short, and that is that is pretty nice. It does move. Todd doesn’t get boring. It gets confusing, but it doesn’t Mhmm. Really get boring. And it moves quick enough and, you know, if you’ve only spent 70 minutes on it and you’re disappointed at the end, at least it wasn’t 2 hours. Right? 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  It it wasn’t even an hour and a half. We’ve seen much worse movies Right. That we’ve had to sit through for for that long. And this wasn’t Definitely. A horrible movie to sit through. The acting was pretty competent. The cinematography was very good. Even the effects, which in a movie like this can tend to be on the cheesy side or clearly computer generated, I thought were pretty effective. 

Craig:  It just They did some interesting things. That that scene that you were talking about when Sarah had the flashback and it appears almost like a movie projection, that was kinda cool. And there were other cool things too. There were a couple of effects that were a little cheesy. The initial butterfly explosion, early in the movie seemed kinda cheap, but other other than that, yeah, I I agree with you. 

Todd:  Yep. It’s just a kitchen sink kinda movie, and it didn’t have a satisfying story to it. That was, I guess, the most disappointing. And honestly, that’s really what matters whenever you’re watching anything. You can put up with bad effects or cheesy acting or whatever if the story is good. And here’s one of those clear examples of you can have everything else right, but if you don’t have a good coherent, story, it just all seems to waste. 

Craig:  Couldn’t say it better myself, my friend. 

Todd:  Well, thank you for joining us, for this episode. If you enjoyed it, please check us out on iTunes and Stitcher. Share it with a friend. Also, check us out on social media, Facebook. Our Facebook page is a good place to let us know what other films you would like us to see, and let us know what you thought of this film or any of the other films that we’ve reviewed. Until next time. I’m Todd. And I’m Craig.   With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

It’s the Linnea Quigley’s breakout role (and what a role it is). And it’s responsible for the idea that zombies eat brains. But when it came to whether this zom-com was a winner or a dud, we were miles apart. We’re rarely this split when discussing a film, so give this episode a listen and tell us what YOU thought of The Return of the Living Dead!

The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Episode 51, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  And Todd, we’re talking about the 1985 film, Return of the Living Dead. This is a movie made it sounds like it’s a sequel to Night of the Living Dead, and it actually is based on a script, that was out there floating around by John Russo who did write the original Night of the Living Dead. But, it was picked up by a different producer and, given to a guy named Dan O’Bannon. Dan O’Bannon is actually one of the screenwriters responsible for Alien, and Total Recall in a couple of those movies, and, this is one of his first directorial efforts. Now, he didn’t really want to shoot a script that was so close to the original. He really just didn’t want to invade on George Romero’s turf because he he, appreciated him so much. So he rewrote most of the script. In fact, from what I read online, the script that you see now with this movie has bears no resemblance really to what, John Russo had come up with, and then directed it.   And so, what you get here, instead of a sequel to Night of the Living Dead, is really more, a spiritual, I suppose, sequel to Night of the Living Dead. It deals with zombies. It takes that name and it references actually the original movie and becomes more of a comedy. It was it was written more as a comedy than a straight horror film and and that really comes through. So, Craig, had you ever seen this movie before? 

Craig:  I had seen it. You know, I don’t remember if I’ve told this story before. I probably have. But, when I was doing my internship fresh out of college, I was in a different city, and, I was only gonna be there for 6 months and and finances were really tight. So, I didn’t get cable. And so my mom gifted me a gift card to movie gallery with, like, $200 on it. And every single day, I would go to movie gallery and rent, a movie usually out of their horror section. And I think that I went through every film that they had available, and this was one of them.   You know, it was one that I had seen on the shelves forever, but these Night of the Living Dead movies had really never really been my cup of tea. I didn’t even see the original until I was an adult. And I I couldn’t remember. I thought that I had seen it, but I couldn’t remember. And when it got started, I was like, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve seen this. 

Todd:  Now I remember seeing the poster for this movie in the theaters. I mean, as a kid, I I I don’t know. We probably wanted to see Ghostbusters or something like that, but, obviously, I never saw this in the theater because I would have been, like, 7 and my parents wouldn’t have taken me to something like this. But, right, the poster and the bot, which is also the box art for the video, is really distinct. You’ve got this tombstone that says return of living dead on it and then these zombified kind of skeletal looking guys, but they’re green and they’re punked out. They’ve got like punk styles and stuff like that And it just was always a very appealing looking movie to me just from the box art alone. And so I can imagine 

Craig:  And it was really colorful. That’s what always stuck out to me. It was really colorful, and that was in such stark contrast to the original, you know, night of the living dead, which was shot and presented in black and white. And so I always just assumed that it was a sequel. In fact, I don’t know, that when the first time I saw it, that I that I I don’t know if I knew that it wasn’t. I I think that I thought that it was. And it wasn’t until I was reading, about it this time around that I found that really it’s it’s not. And it’s actually kind of interesting that the movie is set in a universe where Night of the Living Dead is an existing movie that the characters are aware of and have seen.   And so when things start going down here, you know, they make reference. And, I thought that was, kinda clever, actually. I like that. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s really a neat idea, and, it works. It works really well, actually, I think. It opens up with a really great disclaimer. 

Craig:  It’s pretty funny. Yeah. It up on the screen and, you know, very, serious lettering. It says, the events portrayed in this film are all true. The names are real names of real people and real organizations. And it presents it, you know, as though they’re being serious, but with all of the emphasis on it’s real, it’s real, it’s real. I mean, you go in knowing this is absolutely not real, and you kinda get a a sense of the tongue and cheek tone just from that going in. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. Because the very next shot is a shot of a big, sign on a building that is you need a medical supplies. 

Craig:  Yeah. That’s 

Todd:  cool. So you’d know right away that this is gonna be a goofball movie, and it really is, there’s a Frank and Freddie. Frank is the older basically Freddie’s boss. Freddie’s a younger kid. He’s just started this medical supply store and, Frank is there mentoring him on his first day and and Frank is a is an actor that you would totally recognize. He is James Karen. 

Craig:  James Karen? 

Todd:  Yeah. And I mean, you recognized him. Right? I mean, he’s been in a ton of movies, been on TV, all that stuff, especially around this time. 

Craig:  I did. I I couldn’t place him anything particular. I don’t remember if I went and looked at his his credentials or or not, but, he was certainly familiar. Absolutely. 

Todd:  Yeah. He’s one of these guys where the minute you see him, you’re like, oh, I know I’ve seen this guy. I just don’t remember in what, but I know I’ve seen him in a bunch of stuff. Right. And he’s walking Freddie through the process of the job and he’s showing him how to pick up skeletons for order and talking about how they’re real skeletons and how in the world do they get, you know, where do they get these skeletons from. It’s just this jovial kind of laughing about this sort of gruesome job that they have and he he takes them through it, he shows them the the half dogs, which are these these dogs that have been split down the middle, lengthwise for, I guess med school students or veterinarians and, they’re on the shelf and then he just sits them down and at one point, Freddie says to him, he says, so what is the weirdest thing that you’ve ever encountered in your job? And then it gets real serious and mysterious as the camera slowly zooms in on Frank as he relates his story and what he basically says is 

Clip:  Did you see that movie Night of the Living Dead.   Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s someone where the corpse started eating the pupil. Right? Sure. What what about it?   Did you know that movie was based on a true case?   That’s not possible. I mean, they showed zombies taking over the world.   Well, they changed it all around. What really happened was, back in 1969 in Pittsburgh at the VA hospital, there was a chemical spill, and all that stuff kinda leaked down into the morgue, and it made all the dead bodies kinda jump around as I was alive. What chemical? 2, 4, 5 triads and it’s called. It was to kinda spray on marijuana or something. And the Darrow Chemical Company was trying to develop it for the army. And they told the guy who made the movie that if he told the true story, they’d just sue his ass off. So he changed all the facts around. 

Todd:  And the army and this army mix up once they had contained the situation, had had contained the bodies. Well, they were gonna send them away and it ended up, the orders getting mixed and they got them there instead at this medical supply place. And, Frank says, you wanna see him? And Freddy’s like, what are you talking about? He’s like, they’re downstairs. And he gives us really goofball like look. And I think that’s what I like the most about this Frank character is, he just he just really hams this guy up, but he never goes so over the top that you don’t believe that this guy could actually exist. He just seems like this goofball guy who just has this really, utterly boring job, but he’s trying to make it sound really interesting, and he’s just happy to have another person along, you know, to keep his evenings and his days for, you know, interesting. I don’t know. He he’s just this old grandfatherly guy who seems to be, happy to show Freddie around and and use all these cornball jokes on him. 

Craig:  Yeah. I have a feeling that you and I are gonna disagree to some extent on this movie because, I I think that most of the acting was very much over the top. Like, you know, some of these characters, this one in particular, the actors really chewing up the scenery in in, in in a lot of these places. And, I think it was probably intentional because I think that they were going for the humor, but, I don’t know. Oh, man. You know, like you said, we’ve seen this guy in so many things. So we know that he’s successful and that he’s talented. So I can only imagine that this over the top thing was a directorial and actor choice that they were making.   And if that’s the case, more power to them. But to me, it came across as pretty darn goofy. 

Todd:  It it is goofy, but I don’t know, man. I feel like I’ve seen guys like this before. You know? And, and, actually, he was my favorite character in in the whole film. I I just I just I couldn’t see enough of this guy on the screen. We’re we’re totally gonna disagree on this, but that is absolutely okay. In the meantime, it’s really cutting for no apparent reason back and forth between them, and this group of basically totally punked out eighties punks, essentially. This ragtag group of people, Tina, who is the straight laced girl who makes reference to Freddie, so you know that they’re dating or something, and and she’s like the Sandra Dee of the group. She’s dressed in all the Girl Next Door attire, and then there’s a guy named Chuck who is maybe the guy who’s kinda like that.   He’s he’s dressed pretty normal, but then you have Casey who’s a girl’s got this big like mohawk and the outfit to match and a guy named Spider, a dude named Suicide who’s totally punked out and he’s in leather and he’s got this goofball chain that goes from his ear to a piercing in his lip. A gal named Trash who is Lenea Quigley, who this was actually Lenea Quigley’s breakout role, and Quigley since here, this has has been in so many of these. People call her America’s scream queen. She’s been in so many of these b movies throughout the eighties nineties, that you’d recognize her instantly. 

Craig:  And Yeah. She has so many credits. You know, I looked her up just because her character was so absurd, and I wondered what she had done after this. And she has so many credits. I mean, she’s she’s been working and is still working steadily, almost exclusively in the genre. But, you know, more power to her. She’s she’s had a really, long and successful career. 

Todd:  Okay. So you’re telling me you didn’t really recognize her? 

Craig:  I didn’t. What would I I I I recognize some of the titles of things that she was in, but even now thinking I can’t I can’t place her. What were some of the other things that she was in? 

Todd:  Oh, man. You know, this is so funny because this just reveals, I think, like, a gap between the the kinds of horror movies that you were into, the kinds of horror movies that I’m into. But then again, we’ve both watched, like, USA Up All Night. Right? 

Craig:  And so many Yeah. 

Todd:  Quigley movies, showed up on USA Up All Night. I mean, I’m thinking of I don’t know why this would immediately comes to mind just maybe because the title so absurd, but like Sorority Babes and the Slimeball Bowl O Rama. She was in even some non, horror movies that were, that just required nudity like vice squad and things like that, that were made kinda by the same type of production houses. But there’s also night of the demons. Have you seen night of 

Craig:  the demons? Yeah. Yes. I have and she not only was she in that but she was also in the remake that’s what I remembered her from. 

Todd:  Yeah. And she has a very memorable role at Night of the Demons. 

Craig:  Yes. Oh, okay. Is she the lipstick girl? 

Todd:  She’s the lipstick girl. Yeah. 

Craig:  Okay. Alright. Then I definitely know who she is. 

Todd:  And I know we’re gonna do that movie on this show one of these days. 

Craig:  Oh, absolutely. 

Todd:  Yeah. So yeah, man. Lilia Quigley is like one of my favorites. But she was first out in this movie, and I guess she had been working as a model before this, and had been slowly encouraged to go out and do film, and this is one of her first films, and this really, after this, she really never went without work again. She has a very memorable role on this one too. Yeah. So, anyway, you 

Craig:  know, you’re talking about this group of students, you know, or kids, whatever they are. That was just something else that I just couldn’t wrap my head around. Like, they were such a hodgepodge group of kids. Like, it didn’t seem to make any sense to me why this group of kids would be hanging out together. You know, like, you’ve got a couple named Suicide and Trash, and then you’ve got this other girl. I don’t remember. You said her name. Tina.   The one who, like yeah. Tina who wears, like, culottes and sweaters. Like, why would these people be hanging out together? It didn’t make any sense to me. But that’s okay because a lot of the movie didn’t make any sense to me. 

Todd:  Well, you’re right. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but I’ll tell you what. You know, this movie totally reminded me of, and that was a trauma film. Like, this movie starts out just like a trauma movie would, and it starts out it has the same kind of characters. You know, if you’ve ever seen like The Toxic Avenger or Surf Nazis Must Die or Troma’s War, any of those films, they always have this punk sensibility to them. And this movie definitely has a punk sensibility from the very beginning and it just goes over the top with it with all these characters and you’re right there every single one of them is playing them to the hilt. 

Clip:  Are we gonna party tonight or what? Yeah. We are gonna party. Well, where? Where we gonna party? 

Craig:  I don’t know. Somewhere. 

Clip:  K. We could go to the park. Oh, no. 

Craig:  We can’t. The cops said they’d shoot us if we go back in the park. Yeah. And I ain’t in no mood to die tonight. 

Clip:  I like death. 

Craig:  I like death with sex. How about you, Casey? You like sex with death? 

Clip:  Yeah. So fuck up and die. 

Craig:  So when we’re gonna party tonight, Tina? 

Clip:  Oh, you guys, that’d be really rad. We’re not supposed meet Freddie when he gets off work. Yeah. Where are you supposed to meet him? At this medical supply warehouse where he’s working. 

Craig:  Oh, no. He got a job. What a dick. Holy shit. 

Clip:  Why did you say so? Why do we all go pick Freddy up? Freddy always knows where there’s a place to party. 

Todd:  You know, I mean, I’m not gonna say it’s realistic, but I’m just, it just occupies a certain place in my heart. A certain charm and aesthetic that I just sometimes wanna pop some popcorn in and sit in front of. It’s like if you took a trauma movie and cast slightly better actors in it, gave it a bigger budget and a more sensible script. 

Craig:  I don’t know that I’ve seen any trauma movies now that you mentioned it. I mean, I’m very familiar with what they are, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen any. We should watch one. But, yeah, I mean, the characters I mean, everybody just plays their part so over the Todd. And and the the oh, Todd. I feel like I hate to be, you know, because I have a feeling that you really appreciate this and I I I always hate to be critical because, you know, taste is so subjective and I don’t want to offend anybody who, like, treasures this as a part of their childhood or something. But, like, the writing is so bad. Like, these kids, they go to, the medical supply store, all these kids, because they’re waiting for Frank to get off.   But they realize when he get they get there that he’s not gonna be off for a couple of hours. So what should we do? Oh, let’s go hang out in this decrepit cemetery right here, and we’ll spend a couple hours there. 

Todd:  Resurrection cemetery. Yeah. 

Craig:  And so they resurrection cemetery. Right? Okay. So then they they go in there and they’re just like hanging out and trash, Linnea Quigley’s character just goes off on this monologue like 

Clip:  Do you ever wonder about all the different ways of dying, you know, violently? And wonder, like, what would be the most horrible way to die? 

Craig:  Try not to think about dying too much. 

Clip:  With me, the worst way would be for a bunch of old men to get around me and start fighting and eating 

Craig:  clothes. Let’s get some light over here. She’s taking off her clothes again. And then just out of nowhere, there’s music playing, and she just starts dancing and just takes off all of her clothes except for except for these stockings, these blue stockings that come up, you know, like, to mid thigh. She’s completely nude. There’s a bunch of people there. And, you know, the people are almost just rolling their eyes like, oh, here she goes again. And she’s dancing on the on this, like, on a big gravestone.   And, one of the things that I did like or or at least appreciated about the movie was that the score was kind of fun. You know, it had this kind of punk metal. It seemed like most, if not all of the songs were written for the movie. I mean, some of them even reference events in the movie and stuff. So I liked that. But, you know, you know, 

Todd:  it it was it’s just so bizarre. 

Craig:  Like, I’m sitting here watching this. What is she doing? And why are people just acting like this is normal for her to take off all her clothes and dance strange? 

Todd:  Dude, I I I thought that was hilarious. I mean, did even when she after she takes off her clothes, you hear in the background, let’s get some light over here. Trash is taking off her clothes again. 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh my gosh. 

Todd:  Dude, I thought it was so funny. And, again, it’s it’s it’s totally trauma. It really is even though Yeah. 

Craig:  And then and then she’s naked for the rest of the movie. And, like, this is, like, this is, like, maybe 15 minutes in that she takes her clothes off. And then she is naked for the rest of the movie. There’s one scene that I noticed that she had kinda like thrown a shirt on or something. But for the rest of the movie, she is just butt naked except for these stockings, which, you know, I guess that appeals to certain audiences. 

Todd:  Man, I I’m sorry. I think it’s so funny. I think her monologue is so funny because you’re right. It’s so over the top and it’s so ridiculous, but it’s I don’t know, man. It’s like so tongue in cheek and and after and I guess this scene actually was a little controversial while they were producing it, while they were making it because they had to go back and reshoot it like 2 or 3 times because first they, you know, of course she’s you’re right. She’s completely nude. And I guess they were showing pubic hair in the beginning which isn’t uncommon Mhmm. For this era.   But one of the producers came on set and said, you can’t do that. You can’t do that. And so they had her shave and then apparently that made it worse. God. I could see more. So then they created this little kind of like flesh colored appliance to go down there, so it kind of covered it up. I guess it was like something that they really went back and forth on, but I watched 

Craig:  Well, it’s, like, I I feel for this act, like, for, you know, first of all, okay, get totally nude. Alright. Alright. Well, we don’t like your bush, so shave. Okay. Then come back. Oh, we don’t like that either, so let us glue some latex onto your labia. And then she had to wear that for the rest of the filming.   I mean, oh, man. I guess, you know, if you want the work, you do what you gotta do. 

Todd:  This poor girl is naked for the rest of the movie. It I don’t know man, and and and when I when I used to watch this, you know, I saw it maybe once on video, and the rest was basically when it would come on cable because this movie does play like on cable TV, but of course most of that stuff even on cable gets cut out. And so Yeah. Actually wasn’t until, you know, we watched we went back and watched it again that I realized just how much nudity was in this film. Mhmm. And it’s all her. It’s all her. 

Craig:  Yeah. I I also read that, at at one of the initial screenings, the director that you mentioned was, surprised to see how many women were in the audience. And he said that if he had known that there would be such a prominent female audience, he would have shown some of the dudes naked too. But, he just wasn’t anticipating that anyway. 

Todd:  That’s great, man. This is Todd totally totally you can tell that director’s sensibility. And remember, this is the guy who wrote Alien. Okay? Just remember. Yeah. That’s crazy. 

Craig:  I I didn’t know that. Honestly, I’ve been sick all day, so I didn’t do as much research as I usually do. So I didn’t know that, and it shocks me. It shocks me that the same man wrote those 2 movies because Alien is, you know, a classic. It’s it’s a masterpiece. You know, this it is what it is. You know, I get it. I get what they were going for, and it is what it is.   So I’m I’m not gonna come down on it too hard. 

Todd:  Unlike a lot of films from this era that are almost unintentionally cheesy or or cheese ball because, they can’t afford to not be, because the acting is just going to be bad and things like this. This has some a couple accomplished actors in it and then, of course, all these people and only really one of them went on to to do a lot of of other stuff, but they’re intentionally playing it up, and the script is intentionally humorous, intentionally tongue in cheek. I mean, it’s it’s meant as a horror comedy, and it’s, I guess it’s just it’s not super smart about it. It just goes for the goofball, in so many ways. And and I just I really like that. I liked it. 

Craig:  I think I would have appreciated it a lot more if I’d had a few drinks. I I think that would have enhanced my experience quite a bit. But, anyway. So we’re introduced to those kids. And like you said, it kinda cuts back and forth, between them and and the store the medical supply store. This medical supply store is, by the way, just like the most bizarre medical supply store I’ve ever seen in my life. Like, they have skeletons. They have those bisected animals like you said.   They’ve got, you know, like, a a board with pins, moths and butterflies. They’ve got a room for cadavers, and the cadavers are just hanging up in this meat locker through spikes in their heads. Like, that surely is not how cadavers are stored for research. And then, you then, the whole idea, Do you want to go down to the basement? We still have them. Like, why? That doesn’t make any sense. Like, if the military accidentally sends you some strange mysterious merchandise, send that stuff back. Like, why would you be hanging on to it? It doesn’t make any sense. 

Todd:  Oh, 

Craig:  but they go down, Frank takes Freddy down there and they look and they’re like these, Todd, I guess, is from the supposedly from the original incident are in like these metal, I don’t know, pods or canisters for lack of a better word. And they’re looking at them and you can see the face of one of the like it looks like a zombie, you know, it’s a decomposed corpse. The the the younger kid, Freddy says, these these things can’t leak, could they? And, Frank goes, no. There there’s these are military grade. There’s no way they leak. And he taps it on the side and, of course, it just it gas explodes out of it. And it it fills the room and knocks them out. And then we cut back to, I think, the scene that we already talked about with the kids in the graveyard and the naked dance and stuff.   And when it comes back, to Freddie and Frank, they wake up, and they go upstairs and they hear barking. And they find what looks like a dog laying on the ground. When they pick it up, they realize it’s one of the bisected dogs that has been reanimated. So they try to kill it, and then they hear pounding from the cadaver room, and they don’t know what to do. And your guy, James Karen, just starts freaking out. Like, there are so many there are so many I don’t know, at least 2 or 3. There comes a point where he just kind of retreats into himself in the second half of the movie. But there are several times in the first half of the movie where he just utterly panics and he’s like screaming and whimpering and freaking out.   And they don’t know what to do. They can’t 

Todd:  He’s a total baby. He’s a total baby. He goes from being this kid in the know boss who just, you know, is, like, so full of himself walking around showing this guy the ropes to being utterly uncapable of even handling his own emotions. 

Craig:  Right. Right. And it’s it’s funny, you know, and and the scene that scene actually plays really funny because, you know, Frank is freaking out. But then as soon as Freddie starts to panic a little bit, Frank, like, drastically calms himself down and, you know, they’re gonna figure out what to do. And, they decide, that they need to call their boss, Bert and bring him in, and and they’ll figure it out from there. 

Todd:  That’s right. And Bert comes, and Bert is, is he’s also hamming it up. He’s almost like that. Man, he’s got a voice to him and a mannerism about him that almost doesn’t even fit this movie. It you know what I mean? It’s like that 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  I think it works. Like, he kinda plays the straight man. Like, he he kinda just remains calm and everything and takes everything very seriously. 

Clip:  Oh, now listen to me both of you very carefully. Freddy, you gotta open that door. Come here. You stand right over here. Frank, right here, and when it comes out, you brain it with that ax. Oh, Jesus. Now we’re gonna stop it from lying. What’s the matter with you, Frank? Fred, come here.   Get down there. Please, stand by the door. It’s gonna be alright, son. Alright. I don’t think I can do this, Fred. Well, you’re damn well, Betty. You got us into this. 

Craig:  Oh, Jesus. He’s definitely making strong character choices, but his character choices are more about being calm, being rational, trying to think, you know, how rationally are we gonna solve this problem. And I liked him too. You know, he was also, a really familiar actor. I did but I didn’t, really recognize anything that he was from. That part was originally, they they wanted Leslie Nielsen for it, but they couldn’t get him. And and they went through a few other actors before they landed on this guy. But I think, Klug, Gulager, or something like that.   But he’s good. I I agree with you. I would say that he’s one of the stronger parts of the movie. 

Todd:  Could you could you imagine this movie with Leslie Nielsen in there? I mean, wouldn’t that change the tone? Would would you have found the movie a little more acceptable if you went in there knowing that Leslie Nielsen was one of the main guys? 

Craig:  You know, if you’d asked me that a year ago, I would have said yes. But now that we’ve seen Leslie Nielsen in at least one other horror movie where he kinda plays it straight, I could almost see him in this role. I don’t know. You know? Coulda, woulda, shoulda. I don’t know. But this guy’s this guy’s good. 

Todd:  Oh, I could’ve I totally could’ve seen him in this role. I’m just wondering if that wouldn’t have just clued you clued clued, you know, you as an audience memory into the fact that this is gonna be almost like an the naked gun of horror movies in some ways. I mean, it’s not, but it’s in that Right. 

Craig:  Right. You know. Right. Yeah. Message me. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s really I I think this this this scene is so funny because he’s talking about what to do, and as soon as Freddie opens the door, which is just locked with this, like, combination lock like you’d have on your locker. The Right. The body runs out. It just immediately dives for Bert, Tackles them down. They get him off of him. And then, Frank can’t even do it. Isn’t it Bert who actually swings the pickaxe and gets him down in there? 

Craig:  Yeah. I think that they, Freddy and Frank hold the cadaver down. And another thing that I liked about this movie was that there are varying degrees of decay in the zombies, and I like that. This guy, you know, is is a cadaver that supposedly is for medical research, so he doesn’t really look much like a zombie. Aside from being somewhat discolored. You know, he kinda just looks like a guy, except for the fact that he’s nude and, you know, tackling them and whatnot. But they hold him down, and he, Bert uses the pickaxe and goes straight straight through his brain, but it doesn’t work. And that was something else that I liked about this movie.   Where it is kind of a spiritual sequel, the idea that, yeah, the movie exists, but it was only based on the experience and they changed things so that, you know, the rule in the movie that you just have to destroy their brain, that doesn’t apply here. It doesn’t work. These things, continue to be animated. Bert, says, well, you know, after after that doesn’t work, he says, the guy across the street, who works at the mortuary sometimes, works late. Let me go check and see if he’s over there. And the guy at the mortuary is Ernie, which is I thought, oh my gosh, that’s hilarious, Bert and Ernie. And apparently that was totally a coincidence. The the director didn’t even realize that he had done that.   I thought it had to be intentional. But he says he’s got a crematorium. We’ll we’ll take the guy over there and and burn him up, and that’ll solve it. But they can’t, the, you know, one of them, Freddie or Frank’s like, well, how are we gonna get him over there? So they get, a bone saw and hack him up. And, this was probably the I thought the funniest part of the movie. They go over to Ernie’s mortuary and and, Bert goes in first to kinda, you know, say, you know, chum around with him a little bit before he asks him for a favor. But then he calls Freddie and Frank in, and they come in holding, like, a gurney, with all of these trash bags in it, you know, like a bunch of, tied up trash bags, and all of them are moving. 

Clip:  What the hell is in those bags?   Rabbit weasels. 

Craig:  What? What the hell are you 

Clip:  doing with a bunch of rabbit weasels? I had to   explain it to you, Ernie. You know, they came in as part of a shipment. Of course, they weren’t supposed to be rabbit, you know, but you know how these things happen.   I don’t. How do they happen? Well, watch out, Arteta Ernie. Don’t get bit. 

Craig:  Oh my Todd. Which I just thought was the funniest thing. There were other rabbit weasels. We gotta get rid of them. It’s like And, 

Clip:  you know, 

Craig:  I read you know, it it it’s it’s kinda cool looking, you know, all these things moving underneath, the the plastic. I I read that the way that they accomplished that was they just took a bunch of those wind up monkeys with the cymbals, and they removed the cymbals and then just started them all and put them in those, bags. And so there’s this movement, and it it it was it was kinda cool and creepy. But rabbit weasels, man, that got me. 

Todd:  That’s hilarious. And Ernie’s the other straight guy, and he’s the other one who can kinda stay cool and calm and collected throughout all this. And when they come in, of course, he’s talking about, or Bert is just trying to make small talk with him before he leads him into what he wants him to do, the favor he wants to ask. And, Ernie’s, in the middle of embalming this Todd. He’s talking about rigor mortis and about how rigor mortis starts in the brain, and then it goes down and eventually goes into the muscles. But if you exercise the muscles enough, you can work it back out. That’s just one of those one of those secrets they don’t teach in school, you just learn on the job. And, and, yeah.   Eventually, he, Bert, has to come clean with him as to what these things are because Ernie’s not gonna burn up a bunch of live weasels in his crematorium. And, so they toss all these in the crematorium, and then the smoke, of course, from the crematorium comes out the chimney, and you see it go into the sky, and you think, oh, this can’t be good. Because this kind of mirrors, actually, the earlier scene, after they had tapped the side of the canister and all that gas that was keeping that corpse inside spilled out, you get what was what was the credit sequence. And, you see the gas go through the pipes and you see it go through and then throughout the the site there. And I don’t know about you Craig, but didn’t that title sequence kinda get you going? The music? 

Craig:  Yeah. I thought Yeah. I liked the music throughout. You know, it’s it’s it’s seriously dated. I mean, it totally sets it in the world of the eighties, but I’m cool with that. I love the eighties. Yeah. I yeah.   I like the music a lot, every time they use it. And anytime there is a big action sequence, it was almost always scored, by some sort of rock or punk, song, and I really liked that. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And then I I feel like that happens here too. You know? The the gas comes out of the chimney, and then all of a sudden, the storm rolls in and, the Craig, you know, I guess the gas or whatever chemical is in the gas gets into the Craig, and it starts raining on the cemetery and all these kids who are still there, and they especially trash who is naked says it burns. It burns. It’s like acid rain. So they all get into, suicide’s car and, I guess, are just gonna kinda try to wait it out. But meanwhile, we see that, you know, it’s it’s seeping into the graves and, of course, we know what what’s coming next. 

Todd:  Yeah. And in the meantime, Tina has broken off from the group and she decides she’s gonna go and see what’s keeping, Freddie. Their whole idea was they were gonna go see Freddie because Freddie knows how to party, and he just got this job and and was working late at the medical store. I’m not sure Freddie does know how to party. He’s he’s kind of like the dumb jock of the group, but in any way, Tina’s investigating. So she’s actually back over at the medical supply place, and she manages to get in out of the rain, and she comes across, as she’s walking through, goes downstairs and comes across the first zombie that we see. And I love this scene. It is so 

Craig:  This is my favorite part of the movie. Yeah. My favorite part of the movie is, yes, the scene, but really this creature effect. I love this zombie. It’s it’s it’s exactly, you know, what the zombie of my nightmare would be, you know, just all just barely even human anymore, you know, all wet and and rotten and, you know, big and lumbering. And another difference, you know, that distinguishes this from the actual movies in the Living Dead series is that these zombies talk, and this this zombie down there in the basement just goes, Craig. Live brains. And it’s goofy, but it is scary at the same time because the effect is so Todd.   And, you know, he’s chasing her on the basement. Yeah. I loved it. That was my favorite part of the movie. And I was just kinda giddy anytime that zombie would pop back up. 

Todd:  And and that’s really, like, one of those things that never really showed up in any of the other, like the Night of the Living Dead movies or whatever, but we always say, oh, you know, zombies, brains, you know, they eat brains. That came from this movie. This movie set up that idea that zombies eat Craig, and, and that lie, brains. It it’s so funny, and that that creature’s got like that skeletal face and just a jaw full of teeth as he opens up. He almost looks endearing, doesn’t he? 

Craig:  Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s kinda scary, but yeah. I mean, as as kind of as a yeah. I see what you mean. 

Todd:  He’s got kind of a cuteness Todd. The the Jim Henson, one of Jim Henson’s puppeteers actually, operated him was I was in the suit and whatever. A really cool look. 

Craig:  Oh, it’s really good. Yeah. Another another thing, that we find out, you know, through this sequence is that, these zombies are also not just brainless, you know, walking corpses. You know, they they have thought and reason, because this, she she falls through a broken stair, and then I think she’s, like, under the staircase, and and there’s a door that’s that’s locked, but the the zombie sets up like a winch to get the door open and is successful. Now her friends show up and and get her out of there. But, I I like that Todd. You know, it’s just a little bit different. I like the idea that the zombies talk and that they have motivation and that they can reason and and, you know, are are they’re tricky.   You know, I like they’re really tricky in this movie, and I I I like that. It’s funny. 

Todd:  It’s great. In the meantime, we find over in the store that even though, Bert and Ernie think that they have, fixed the the problem of the bodies, their new problem is that Frank and Freddie are feeling very ill, and they’re looking pretty ghastly themselves. And so, Frank’s wailing about what are we gonna do because Frank’s wailing about himself, And so they call some paramedics over, and the paramedics come, and after they examine them, they’re like, they have no pulse, and they’re really really cold, and they’re conferring about what they’re going to do. In the meantime, this is where we see skeletons and things bursting through the ground in the cemetery. Trash, I guess, she is out and about. The kids, they get out of the car because they can’t start the car. Is that what it is? 

Craig:  I guess so. You know, there’s this big siege, and, again, it’s set, you know, against this great song. It’s like it it’s party time, I think, is the name of the song that’s really funny. They they got the girl out of the basement, some of them, And they kinda got split up, and that was another thing that I couldn’t follow. I couldn’t follow how or why they got split up. And ultimately, it doesn’t really matter. But, suicide gets killed by that cool zombie in the basement, but the other kids get out. And then, yeah, when we see trash in the, cemetery, and it’s, you know, very reminiscent of thriller or or some where lots of different corpses, varying degrees of, decomposition, are coming out.   And, yeah, they, they they take they get trashed, and she’s, apparently dead too. And then the the the thing with the ambulance, I thought it was so funny, and it was a running gag. Like, it was funny the first time, and then they kept doing it. It was so funny. The paramedics came, and they get out, and they’re kinda looking around. And then they are just sieged by these zombies, and they are totally getting eaten. And one of the zombies goes to the to the ambulance and picks up the radio and says 

Clip:  I mean, this dash send 4 of their bitch. 

Craig:  And they do. Several times throughout the movie, I think 2 more sets of paramedics come and they just kinda hide and lay and wait. And then as soon as they get out, they attack them and eat them. And eventually, the police come. They do the same. They get on the the walkie talkie, send more cops. And it’s just it’s so every single time, the cops never catch on. Nobody ever catches on.   They just wait for them to send more, then they just keep eating them. That was so funny to me. 

Todd:  It’s totally unlike any of the other zombie movies where these zombies have, motivations, and they can think, and they can talk, and it allows them to set up these goofball scenarios. It is really funny. Neil, Tina, and Spider end up at the mortuary, and they end up inside there. Ernie lets them in and they quickly spout out, hey, there are a bunch of guys outside, and instantly the mortuary becomes the place where they’re holed up because the zombies are trying to break in. And so they pull out furniture, and they, you know, it’s your typical suddenly they all have hammers and nails and access to wood and are able to have, you know, nail up the the walls and things. But these these zombies, again, are just arms trying to come through the the windows. It’s very reminiscent of night of the of the living dead at this point. Mhmm. 

Craig:  And again, set against a really good song, you know. I I think this song is actually it’s it talks about the living dead. I feel like there’s mention of events from the movie in the song. And just those little, you know, little details, little winks, I I I thought those were fun. 

Todd:  Yeah. Again, I really like the punk music in there because it’s it’s like you can do in a movie like this. You can set it, you can score it with some spooky score to try to amp up the the scariness of it, or they choose to do that use this these punk songs that even have lyrics that reference what’s going on. And it it really adds to that light atmosphere of the movie, you know, that helps you kinda not take it so seriously, but keeps it kind of exciting at the same time. 

Craig:  Mhmm. I mean, I felt like 

Todd:  all of these action sequences were really well filmed and really well staged, and the gore effects are are great. I mean, this isn’t a low budget film in those in those terms at all. It has this like low budget sensibility, but it’s got great effects and obviously has a a pretty, I think, a pretty strong budget behind it. 

Craig:  The one that I remember is that they I I don’t even remember how they got her in there. I don’t remember if they, you know, picked her up when they were running back inside or what, but they get this, female go ahead. 

Todd:  I think she bit spider’s head. I think this is where spider bites it. And, she bites his head, and they are pulling him away, you know, kinda through the window, and they’re pulling him away and she comes out with his head, and it turns out she’s not a whole body at all, but she’s just kind of a half a body of a or they’ve maybe they’ve torn off half her body is what happened in the Right. Pulling her through. 

Craig:  Yeah. She’s almost entirely decomposed. I mean, she’s almost entirely skeleton, and and her spine just kind of ends, you know, like she’s been snapped in half. But they tie her down, and they talk to her. And, like, I thought that and I I, you know, again, I didn’t look into it as much as I should have. So I don’t know if this was some sort of ask, you know, why do you want to eat, ask, you know, why do you want to eat brains? The pain. 

Clip:  What about the pain? The pain of being dead. Hurts to be dead. I can feel myself rot. Eating Craig, how does that make you feel? It makes the pain go away. 

Craig:  Which, again, you know, with zombie movies, it’s not like I’m looking for the zombies to have motivation, but I thought it was kind of an interesting thing to throw in there that, you know, it’s not just violence or or madness for madness’ sake. It’s, you know, they are in pain, and this is the only way they can relieve themselves. And so that, you know, in the context of the movie, it makes sense, and, I I appreciated that too. Plus, I loved that effect. I loved that zombie too. 

Todd:  Oh, it was great. And and it’s just how many zombie movies do you see where they capture a zombie, then they basically trash, who 

Craig:  who died 

Todd:  the way she didn’t wanna die anyway, trash, who who died the way she didn’t wanna die anyway, has come to life and she goes after this homeless guy. And it’s funny because she doesn’t really play a major role like I thought she would in the movie. She just sort of pops in every now and then as part of the crowd. 

Craig:  And they do something with her face. You know, they do some kind of prosthetic with her face or I don’t know what it’s supposed to imply that maybe her jaw got ripped down and broke, but she’s got, like, this big mawing mouth that she can, like, kinda take big bites out of people’s heads and stuff. And, you’re right. She’s she’s just kind of around for the rest of the time. She’s really just kinda one of the horde. But, of course, you always notice her when she’s on screen because she’s completely nude. But, yeah, I I I liked that too. 

Todd:  And Todd be to be fair, in pretty good condition for the fact that she was just beset by a hoard of zombies who were intent on eating. 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  They kinda gloss over that fact. 

Craig:  Yeah. Well, I mean, they still wanna see a hot naked girl running around. No. 

Todd:  That’s true. That’s true. I didn’t I didn’t mind that one bit. Let’s see. So basically, Frank and Freddie, we know that they’re I mean, we can see it, and they can see it Todd, that these guys are dead. The gas killed them at some point, but is keeping them alive and reanimated, so you know they’re going to turn. Rigor Mortis is set again, as Ernie is saying. Ernie turns, actually, I thought it was kind of a neat touch when at one point, Ernie turns Freddy over and looks at the bruising underneath his body and says, you see that bruising? That’s where the blood’s pulled up.   You know, obviously, because the heart’s not beating anymore, so they’re totally like dead Todd. And and I thought that honestly, I thought this part of the movie was a little sad. I mean, as goofy as the movie is, I felt these characters just seemed in such pain and agony that I really fell for them. And they know that they’re gone, and all they can do is suffer through this, and nobody takes that moment where they say they’re gonna put them out of their misery or anything like that. And what can you do besides chop them into a bunch of little pieces? 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  They eventually Craig them to the chapel of this mortuary, which is kind of funny, but I guess it provided a nice little set piece for them. And Freddy completely turns and he immediately goes after Tina, and again, just like you said, these zombies are pretty fierce, and here is the zombies the zombie in maybe the best condition of all of them is freshly dead, young, sporty jock type character who’s completely going after Tina now. And I love the whole bit of him going after Tina because he he throughout all of the scenes where he’s pursuing her, he’s at once fiercely trying to kill her, and at the same time, kind of trying to sweet talk her. 

Clip:  Buddy. See? And now you made me hurt myself again. You made me break my hand completely off this, Martina. But I don’t care, darling, because I love you. Oh. And you’ve got to let me eat your rum. 

Craig:  Bert Burt rescues the he rescues Tina from Freddy, and they they lock him in, the chapel, but we can tell he’s gonna be getting out. Like, he’s breaking down the door. At some point, Ernie throws acid in Freddie’s face. And then I I think that it was Bert and I don’t remember which one it was. One of the guys. Yeah. 

Clip:  Bert and 

Craig:  Neil. Yeah. They’re they’re just gonna fight their way through the horde and get to, a police car because the the the police car is is still running because because the police had just gotten out and had immediately been eaten. So they do. They run out there, and the dead are everywhere. And, you know, they think that it’s just limited to where they are, but as they drive down street, they see more hoards of dead people coming, and they end up crashing and getting out and running back into the medical supply place, so they didn’t get very far. Meanwhile, back at the mortuary, Frank, I guess, decides that he doesn’t want to be a zombie, so he, cremates himself. He fires up the crematorium and then, crawls in there. 

Todd:  Did you I don’t know, man. 

Craig:  And everybody’s just Yeah. Go ahead. 

Todd:  Did you find that, like, a supremely sad kind of scene, or was it just just too goofy of a movie for you to take it seriously? 

Craig:  Yeah. No. When you said it was kind of a sad part a minute ago, I just let it go because I didn’t think it was sad at all. I didn’t care. I didn’t I didn’t care about any of these characters. I you know? And honestly, the way that the 2 guys, you know, Fred and and Frank, the way that they are agonizing when all this is happening is probably pretty true to life that if you were in that kind of agony, you really would be crying and screaming and moaning in the way that they are. But in the context of the movie, it plays so over the top that, no, I didn’t feel bad for them and I didn’t you know, I I feel like we were supposed to feel bad for, Frank in this moment or or see what he’s doing as some sort of noble thing, taking himself out. But, no.   I didn’t. You know? It was it’s just too goofy for me to have any kind of real feeling in in that way. 

Todd:  Alright. Fair enough. Alright. 

Craig:  At this point, they’re really just kind of all stuck. Yeah. Ernie and Tina? Is that Ernie? Yeah. Ernie and Tina have gone up into the attic, but, Freddie knows they’re there, and it’s just a matter before he’s gonna get up there. And there’s even a moment where it looks like Ernie is if Freddie’s gonna get up there, he’s going to shoot Tina to keep her from, being torn apart, I guess, which I I thought was kind of an interesting touch. They didn’t really go very far with it. But Bert finally calls the number on the, side of those canisters that the bodies were in. And and he calls, and the military is like, oh, thank you.   Thank you for, for for alerting us. We we have a contingency plan. And Bert gets off the phone, and he’s like, oh, it’s okay. They have a contingency plan. But I I can’t imagine that they would have expected what the contingency plan was. 

Todd:  Yeah. There’s a colonel who just has this very short bid in here, and it’s it’s pretty goofball. But the the notion is is that there’s almost like a whole guy whose sole job is to be up 247 and come home, and he has he has communication equipment and stuff at home, secret army military stuff, just expecting for the call, about these missing corpses that from this 800 number that’s on the side of the 

Craig:  canister. Right. 

Todd:  In case of emergency, call 1800 blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And he basically calls in the nukes. Yeah. There’s this whole sequence, and they nuke they nuke, Louisville, Kentucky. 

Craig:  And they’re like And that’s just it. End end of movie, except for that we see that from the rubble, you know, so all of the characters are dead. You know, the whole town has been nuked. But from the rubble, we see the gas rising and the rain falling again, and we see it again dripping down into graves. So, I guess the, the premise is that this is not over. It’s only just begun, and it’s just gonna continue to spread. And I guess that it must have because there were, at least 2 sequels, to this movie that I’m aware of. 

Todd:  Oh, man. I I got to say, Craig, we we’re so polar opposites about this film. I love this movie to death, and every time I see it, I love it even more. And I would even say that the first time I saw it, I was like, what the hell is this? And but I was I was so much younger, and I don’t know now through the filter of so many of these horror comedies, I look at this movie and I go, jeez, this is just refreshingly different, you know, even for its time, even for today. It’s just it’s goofball, but it’s got great special effects. It has a neat and interesting plot, like I was never bored throughout the entire movie. It never feels like they’re just trying to chew through time. There’s always something exciting going on.   It seems like there’s some cool gore effect or some cool zombie, to see just around the corner every time, And then there are these just laugh out loud moments, like the San Mor police, San Mor paramedics, the guys getting ambushed, and even the absurdity of of interviewing this half zombie woman to ask her why she wants Craig so much. It’s just, I don’t know, man. It just had me laughing so much and, and appreciating it on that level and also appreciating it on a strict horror level of, not that it was scary, but that, just the gore effects and and I don’t know, man. I I just really like this movie. I just enjoy it so much. 

Craig:  Well, kudos for you, but you’re right. We totally disagree. I don’t like it at all. It it was kinda one of those movies where I was sitting there kind of angry that I had to watch it because I could have thought of a 1000000 better things to do with my time. Now some of the things that you said I did appreciate, I appreciated the creature effects. I did like those. I did like some of those clever moments with the ambulance drivers and and the, the half zombie that they interview. I did appreciate some of those things.   I just thought that the writing was bad. I I I didn’t think it was funny at all. I like I I don’t recall laughing once. I thought that the acting, whether it was intentional or unintentional, was bad, and I I didn’t care for any of the characters. I felt like there were too many characters. I couldn’t keep track of who they were or what their relationships were, and I didn’t care. Ultimately, you know and one of the things that I another thing that I appreciated about it was how it bent the conventions of the typical zombie film. And I did like that, because really with these zombie films, most of the time if you’ve seen one, you’ve kinda seen them all.   And this one is different and I do appreciate that. But overall, this is not one that I would recommend to somebody unless they really were just kind of a horror completest, in which case I would say, yeah. It’s worth seeing for that reason. But again, you know, taste is so subjective. I’m I’m glad you enjoyed it, and I’m sure that 

Clip:  there are listeners of ours out there who would enjoy it too. So don’t 

Craig:  take my word for it, folks. Todd it a shot. I mean, it’s it’s worth a shot, but, it’s you’re not gonna get a strong recommendation from this guy. 

Todd:  Fair enough, man. Fair enough. Alright. Well, thank you 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. You can also find us on social media. Check out our Facebook page, like us there and leave us a comment, and let us know what you thought of the episode, what you think of this movie, if you’re on if you’re in team Craig or you’re in team Todd.   And and also, ask for some other movies that we’d like, that you’d like us to review in the future. Until that time, I’m Cotton 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.