2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

Today’s film is like the Airplane of horror films – a long-forgotten gem from the UK boasting Vincent Price as the leader of a satanic cult terrorizing a group of scientists investigating strange goings-on at Headstone Manor.

To experience this rare film for yourself, download the mp4 or watch it now:

Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984)

Episode 10, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Welcome to another edition of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. I’m Craig. And today we watched Bloodbath at the House of Death. Craig, have you ever heard of this?

Craig: Never, never in my life. This 

Todd: was my choice because last week we did one from Craig’s childhood that I’d never heard before. This one. In my defense.I think you can probably find Clownhouse 

Craig: DVD, right? Well, I did. I think it’s kind of hard to find, but I think it’s up on YouTube too. So, you know, it’s out there 

Todd: now. I had a really hard time tracking this one down. I managed to find it again, but I’ll tell you it’s pretty much impossible. It really hasn’t been rereleased in the U S since it was released on VHS, which was how I saw it.

I must have been. Interestingly enough, fourth or fifth grade when my dad rented this video from the video store and took it home. Cause he knows, I liked to watch horror movies and we would kind of watch that together. I think because Vincent Price was on the cover, he thought, okay, well this will be good.

This will be fun. And it built itself as sort of a horror comedy. And at the time actually there weren’t really many horror comedies. There wasn’t a lot to choose from anyway. And so he brought it home and we watch it. And that was the only time until today that I had seen it, but it made such an impression on me and watching this movie and seeing some of these scenes that I distinctly remember.

It might be the most remembered film from my childhood that I have. 

Craig: That’s funny. It is memorable. I will say that. I mean, it’s. There are things that you’re not going to forget. 

Todd: Uh, the movie starts out. Um, it was a British film. Okay. And it’s a, from 1984. 

Craig: Okay. Yeah. It’s I was gonna say it’s very British, very British film and a horror comedy for sure.

Heavy on the comedy, uh, and that kind of British comedy. That you come to expect from like Mr. Bean or, gosh, I don’t even know what else, but it’s very distinctly British feels like 

Todd: with a little bit of like airplane 

Craig: mixed in. Oh yeah, 

Todd: absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it was clearly inspired by that type of thing, but not as wacky over the top zany all the way through that movie.

I don’t know. Disagree. 

Craig: It’s pretty wacky and zany, I would say, well, it is a very, very tongue in cheek, which there’s nothing wrong with that. I thought it was funny. I was laughing out loud, pretty consistently throughout most of the film. Do you think the humor 

Todd: holds up? 

Craig: I do. I mean, it’s funny. It’s funny.

Stupid movie, but that’s okay. I mean, I like stupid movies sometimes, and it’s fun, you know, it’s, you know, it’s not a think piece. It’s fart jokes and boobies and, and, you know, lots of a silly word play and innuendo, but it’s funny, 

Todd: it works, but it starts out kind of brutal. Yeah, I guess. So it doesn’t really pull the punches in the, in the Gore department too much, not too much, you know, it starts out with this, uh, manner, headstone manner, everything, and here’s a word play or a bond or something, and they’re a bunch of people in their, uh, what it’s headstone manner.

And then there’s a sign hanging. From a businessman’s retreat and girls summer camp. Businessmen’s a 

Craig: weekend retreat and girls 

Todd: summer camp, but there are these hooded robed figures. It’s one of those movies where there’s this creepy cult who starts coming into the house. One has an ax. One has a rifle.

One has a noose, like he has a machete. It’s like the monopoly pieces or they’ve all come in here and, uh, they just kill everybody in the house and it’s pretty gross. I mean, they shoot some people in their beds. They skewer some people through that. One’s kind of silly. They skewer some people through with a big spear.

Apparently they wrap a bunch of people up in a freezer in the basement and cling wrap and stuff like that. Yeah. Now 

Craig: that you say so, I mean, it really was pretty violent in those first few minutes, a whole hour and a half later, I had kind of forgotten about that because of all of the silliness that ensues later.

But it’s true. That opening scene is pretty brutal. You’re right. Light on the Gore, but, uh, still violence. Well, 

Todd: if you don’t know you’re in for a, a S uh, comedy that would throw you off right in the beginning. And maybe that was the intent, maybe. Yeah. It starts off with that. And then that was like 1975 or thereabouts.

Right. And then it jumps to day 1984, when a bunch of people are driving to the Manor. In order to investigate it. And boy, they don’t waste any time with exposition to do that.

Craig: you get the first, the very first two scientists, uh, Dr. Mandeville and Dr. Barbara, Dr. Lucas, I think. Dr. Mandeville’s first name, Dr. Lucas is driving and he’s talking to the passenger, Dr. Barbara. And so he just turns to look at her and directly into camera, basically, just a lady, well dedicated scientists, and there have been strange inexplicably radioactive readings picked up in this area, which have been traced to a particular house.

And we are on a secret government mission that other scientists to investigate this bizarre phenomenon to simple as that. And it is funny. I mean, we were cracking up, 

Todd: so they’re driving along and of course the other scientists are coming through. We have other characters here too. There’s a couple that are gay and again, a little dated in the fact that they’re, you know, it’s played for laughs Oh ha ha.

Gay people. 

Craig: Yeah. Honestly, I thought it was kind of fun. I thought, wow, you didn’t really see gay people represented in and it is played for laughs. It’s stereotypical, but it’s not. Insulting, you know, it’s just a joke. It’s, it’s 

Todd: funny. And it sort of starts out like they cast it with these two hard looking guys, right.

These hard, like ma like prototypical, masculine looking guys, and they’re having this conversation and, and it slowly becomes this, uh, So who cares if I like to stay home and, you know, and curtains

Craig: yeah. Was pretty, it’s funny you bring it. The characters, there are eight of these scientists in total, and I was trying to like write down their names, but they barely even mentioned their names because it’s really nice. Just got these eight weirdo scientists, each one with their various quirks, you know, Dr.

Mandeville, the main kind of one, the guy who’s brought them all together has. A prosthetic leg, I guess. Yeah. I mean, he looks like he’s the tin man from, you know, that, that one leg down. 

Todd: Yeah. He looks like the tin man, but, and he walks like the tin man, but it’s around, but his leg is like Robocop it like wax doors and it like breaks things.

It’s, as it’s flipping around, it’s, it’s almost has a life of its own in this movie, 

Craig: slapstick and, and much of it is, but there’s him. And then he’s got the assistant and she’s kind of the. Sexy blonde one who, you know, wear sensible glasses. So she’s smart, you know, and then the other ones are really almost so nondescript.

I don’t even know what to say about them. It’s just a gathering. It reminded me actually very much of clue. Yeah, these people all coming together into this spooky mansion and, you know, trying to, trying to figure out what was going on. Very reminiscent of clue, even in the humor department. And you have your, 

Todd: um, the American guy, the stereotypical, like the hunky guy, chiseled kind of dude who looked really familiar to me.

He did to 

Craig: me too, but I have no idea. He’s only 

Todd: been in like three other movies. He must look a lot like another actor, 

Craig: I guess, or maybe he’s just so stereotypical that he looks like. Every hunky guy from those eighties movies. And then he, his, they all come in pairs and the girl he comes with is the slut.

And that’s. Yeah. Like, I don’t know anything about her. I don’t even understand why she was there. Was she a scientist? 

Todd: She presumably she 

Craig: was assigned to, like he said that he was. A paranormal investigator. He says that once, and then that’s it. Then he just serves the role of the hunk throughout the rest of the thing.

And he’s with this girl who’s kind of done up like an eighties, glam rock kind of girl, kind of porn star looking thing. And, and that’s it, you know, she’s, she’s the slut and that’s it. 

That’s 

Todd: right. But that’s pretty much it. And then, uh, and then we have a drunk guy and then that. Is that it, 

Craig: well, then there’s the weird redhead lady who seems very stiff, but then also sometimes goes in.

Sometimes one time goes into like a weird hysterical, laughing fit. Who’s being killed, who, Oh my God.

The house the bar made at the local pub was found, dangling upside down from a tree with red cat.

You see when she’s unpacking her things that she has, like all of this, like whips, whips, and dildos and all kinds of stuff. There’s no depth of character. Of course a movie is just a series of gags. Throughout really. Yeah. 

Todd: And as they arrive and they talk about how they’re going to investigate this house, as the night goes on, we get to see a little bit of almost everybody’s backstory or at least a few of them, a 

Craig: few of them.

And even before they get there, I mean, it’s. It follows, you know, so many horror stereotypes they’re going to this old spooky mansion, but before they go into the mansion, they stop at the local pub where, you know, one of the scientists mentioned, Oh, can anybody tell us how to get to this mansion? And of course, everybody turns in stares and, uh, gives very ominous looks and, uh, in the pub.

Uh, hanging on the wall. There’s this strange symbol. It looks like kind of a pagan symbol, kind of like the Illuminati symbol, like an eye, like in a triangle or whatever. And, uh, the guy Dr. Mandeville says, I feel like I’ve seen that before. And then they look around and every single person in the bar has it tattooed somewhere on their bodies 

Todd: or hands, including the black guy who has a tattooed in white and the dog 

Craig: who has it.

Stamped on his head. That’s so funny. So obviously there’s something sinister going on with the townspeople. 

Todd: Yeah, that brings up one of my, one of the scenes that I remember the most and just busted me out. Laughing as a kid was when they’re sitting around arguing about how many. How the murders went down and, Oh, there were two people in the base.

No, I thought there were three. No, there were five and pretty soon one guy is breaking out a calculator trying to figure out exactly who many. And then by the end of it, they’re all singing it like the 12 days of Christmas. Yeah.

Craig: That’s pretty hilarious. 

Todd: Uh, in that group, 

Craig: two of the towns, people, towns, and they, they definitely take every advantage with the blind jokes and the guy stumbling around, walking off, you know, walking backwards, knocking things over it’s 

Todd: you tell him to go one way. He goes the other way. It’s slapstick stuff.

You don’t see this stuff anymore, but not really. You gotta, you gotta love a great blind joke. Right? 

Craig: Right. I kept trying to think of, you know, like how do you classify this movie? Because it’s really not horror. It’s not scary in any way. I don’t know. I mean, I guess there are some parts that are mildly creepy, but, uh, really it’s, it’s not so much played for the scares it’s played for the comedy.

It’s it’s reminiscent of like Monty Python or. Or the Mel Brooks films like, um, Spaceballs or no, what’s, uh, what’s the Western, uh, blazing saddles, that kind of thing. Those kinds of gags. 

Todd: And there was a film before this, uh, called student bodies. I think it was a year or two before this. Do, do you remember that?

Craig: I’ve heard of it, but I haven’t 

Todd: seen it. I don’t think that’s another horror comedy that kind of came out around the same time that slasher movies were really in a, maybe it was a year or two ago. After this one, but it sure seems from the same era, it’s funny that you mentioned Mel Brooks, because I don’t know if you realize this, but the woman who played Barbara is Pamela Stevenson who actually started not started, but she was one of the actresses in history of the world.

Oh, I didn’t know that. And she was in Superman three and she’s married to Billy Connolly. Billy 

Craig: Connolly. Who’s that? 

Todd: Uh, he’s the, uh, Irish or Scott. He’s a comedian he’s been in films and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So there is a bit of a connection there, uh, even, even with the actors. It’s cool. Yeah. It’s funny. 

Craig: Yeah.

So, I mean, if you want to talk about there, there’s really very little reason to discuss plot and it’s, it’s so convoluted. I mean, okay. So they’re, they’re investigating, they don’t really know what the towns people put on these robes. They seem like, you know, kind of. Sinister monks. Uh, and then. The amazing Vincent Price appears.

Um, and, uh, he is kind of the cult leader. He has been serving Lucifer for 700 years, protecting this manner. What, whatever from intruders and that’s their job there. Lord Lucifer, I guess, is going to be rising that night. And they’ve got to clear out the Manor and that’s, uh, their, their whole purpose. And that’s kind of, you know, how the plot develops.

It’s, it’s slowly, I’m kind of picking them off, but, uh, Vincent Price, you know, Vincent, Price’s an icon, just an absolute icon. I’m in this film, you know this, you said what? 1984, he’s already, you know, definitely starting to show his age, you know, he’s, he’s looking more like the, uh, The, uh, Edward Scissorhands Vincent Price than, than in his earlier career.

And I am just wondering. Who on this production knew him and got him to do this because I hope, you know, in the, in the first scene he’s acting and it’s very silly, but this guy is a pro you know, I can only imagine that he came, he could have filmed his entire role for this movie in an hour. I knew certain of it.

You know, he, he’s only in like four scenes. Yeah. Four or five scenes, not very much at all. And he, he plays it for the last. Two, but you still that voice and, and his delivery is so amazing. 

Todd: You think it is stupid. You say 

Craig: that to me, the arch disciple of Lucifer himself, you about a grain of sand, the muse spec in the cosmos.

And you did venture into opinion regarding that rate design of our master. They are blessed to Paramus. So think that I don’t right hand the bails about themselves should be subjected to the opinions of turtles. And  bow the knee if you wish to even speak in my presence out. But you know, after the first scene, I just kinda, I was like, man, just give the man his check and let him go home.

Todd: This is really in the name role for him. I, you know, you do, but, but he. He tends to elevate almost anything he’s in. He does. I mean, he’s been in a lot of schlock. Yeah. You know, and this is schlocky too, but have you ever heard Vincent Price curse? I don’t know. He says quite a few words in this film that it’s just kind of funny.

Craig: Well, and he CA I’ve never seen him play to this type. Like he kind of plays the, uh, The spooky scary thing sometimes, but then that drops and he kind of plays this kind of dandy character, you know, almost a little feminine, which, um, he kind of has that in his air in general, but it’s kind of up played here and I’ve never really seen him play that before.

I mean, it was interesting. I’m glad to have seen it. Uh, I don’t know. I doubt he would count it among his. Finest work, but, um, he’s a cool guy. There’s no 

Todd: getting around that. I think he could do comedy. You know, we never really got a chance to see him do much comedy. Uh, if, if much at all, I don’t recall ever seeing him.

He was in a couple of comedic roles, but, but that was pretty early in his career before he got solidified into this. And of course, that’s why he’s in this movie. This movie really is iconic. It just throws back to a lot. Oh yeah. It really 

Craig: is. It really pays homage to a lot of films and it’s all tongue in cheek, wink, wink, but at the same time, for me, that gives a little bit of, uh, of gravity, I guess.

Uh, the, you know, these people. They, I guess they knew what they were doing. You know, they, they knew the genre, they were intentionally playing with it. They were, they were going for the comedy. Um, but they were really kind of giving little winks and nods and tributes to other, uh, horror films. Um, there’s a very deliberate Carey, uh, spin in, in one of the flashbacks.

That’s really funny, 

Todd: which eventually turns into a star Wars, uh, thing, 

Craig: the lightsabers. So random. Um, there was a little shining tribute there, alien puppet master. One of the guys gets, or any of that genre films, dolls, or demonic wise, right? Um, with a there’s a Teddy bear that just sprouts a knife out of it.

Pawn and kills a guy, um, some evil, dead stuff going on with that, you know, fast motion through the woods kind of thing, all kinds of 

Todd: Omar. There was a jaws one in there. They didn’t, they didn’t limit themselves strictly to horror. Right. Uh, then, you know, with the star Wars, there was E T and, uh, I don’t know if you cut the fury, have you ever seen the fury or 

Craig: Firestarter so 

Todd: similar?

I would think Firestarter maybe was. A little later than this film, but the fury was, was what they were paying homage to, I think when, when they were zooming in, on their eyes and they were staring at people. Oh 

Craig: yeah, yeah. I know what you’re talking 

Todd: about. A lot of that, which was fun and, and it’s kind of interesting.

I don’t know if it’s more reflective of the time or if this was just. Pure lucky, happenstance that all those films we named off pretty much are films that you can still reference today and know what it is. They’re all still iconic, you know, jaws, alien, ITI carry, all those films are still iconic enough that luckily this, it makes us still not quite show its age as much.

That’s true. True. And then of course, the whole notion that they’re going into this haunted house. In order to investigate, it is very much like Amityville or any one of those films from that era, you know, where you’d set up this fancy scientific equipment and there, of course there’s almost no investigation actually going on.

No, 

Craig: I mean, it’s, it’s just mad cap hilarity, you know, they’ve got, okay. So they go there and they say, we’ve already got all the equipment set up. Well, apparently the equipment is this big machine that just. Flashes like carnival lights and makes me bloop noises. And they just, they don’t do anything to it.

They just all huddle around it. Look at it. Something must be going 

Todd: on because this machine’s making noise, 

Craig: flashing, colorful lights, clearly 

Todd: there’s something going on, looking more like the cockpit of an airliner or, you know, 

Craig: Or a carnival game or something. I mean, it was just really silly. It reminds me a lot of clue, but it also seemed to have a lot of really direct parallels to Rocky horror, uh, as well, especially in the end.

I mean, as it turns out, as it turns out the, the, okay, so it is Lucifer who is in control of this house, but. Some ancient aliens also use the house to like give them power to do evil works on earth. And in the end, these, how do you even describe it? So in the end, the aliens come to the mansion as doppelgangers of all of the scientists.

One by one, kill off the scientists and then take off in a space ship the end, what 

Todd: is going on? Yeah, super convoluted. And I felt like maybe the only way that, that was shoehorned into what. Seems to be a satanic cult movie, uh, was just to get all those extra references in, you know, was the only thing that made sense to 

Craig: me.

Yeah. I mean, I, it didn’t seem like they were particularly concerned storytelling. It didn’t seem like they were particularly concerned with continuity. Uh there’s at one point, the, the one scientist, the main guy, Dr. Mandeville is the first one to get dispatched, but then it’s almost like they ignore that scene because all of the other doppelgangers.

Only behave in this very kind of stoic way. Um, but then the doctor Mandeville’s doppelganger kills him, but then the character Dr. Mandeville is still in later scenes and they kind of try to explain that like, Oh, it was just the doppelganger playing along. It seems to me like, just. Shoddy editing. In fact, I read something, I don’t remember where it was, maybe Wikipedia or something that said that, um, the filmmakers screened this.

I don’t know if it was for the producer or the distributor or what they, they screened it for him and he liked it. He thought it was funny. Um, but he was absolutely certain that the projectionist had played the reels in the wrong order. It didn’t make any 

Todd: sense. It doesn’t 

Craig: and I had at one point, uh, one of the scientists says, ah, all the pieces are falling together and both of us are like, no, they’re not, 

Todd: not at all.

Well, it’s you had a movie that sort of starts out with just a whole bunch of exposition to catch you up. Sort of ends with a whole bunch of exposition where they just find this room. They pull out this book, he reads and says, Oh, here’s what it says in this book. And then he proceeds to explain the entire film to you by reading it to her in this book before the final ending, 

Craig: this headstone manner was built on the site of a burial ground of an ancient order of monks who once ruled the area by terror and torture.

Folklore has it that the month regularly returned to the site to perform pagan ceremonies. When headstone manna was built, many workers died. Mysteriously stories were rife of monks with appeared in the night and took on the form of any inhabitants of the Manor who met with violent deaths. The MK some say the monks are extraterrestrial visitors from an alien planet.

Emissaries of Lucifer, the Prince of darkness who used the banner as an instrument for that evil powers are there. Right. And that’s maybe two minutes before the end. Let me just explain what was happening the end. I don’t know. It’s a weird movie, but, uh, I liked it. Did you might. Yeah. I might even watch it again, you know, and it’s one of those movies where you could flip to it.

In the middle and you didn’t really miss anything 

Todd: it’s like watching naked God or something like that. Yeah. The point of it is not to follow the story because there is none. No, 

Craig: I mean, it’s, it’s just, you know, slapstick comedy gags, lots and lots of wordplay. That really is pretty low. I mean, it’s kind of the lowest level of comedy, but it’s funny, you know, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s fart jokes, it’s sexual innuendo, it’s panty sniffing ghosts, and go sex and stuff.

Like it’s silly, silly stuff. But it seems like that was what they were going for. It, it’s not one of those movies that. Funny, just because it’s so bad, you know, like, um, uh, the, the kind of infamous troll to, uh, that you laugh at because they’re taking themselves seriously and it’s just so bad, you know, here they are clearly playing it for the comedy.

It’s clearly, you know, that’s the intent and, and, uh, 

Todd: I thought it was funny. They’re actually doing a good job with the comedy. I mean, it really is a root, the guy who played. Uh, Lucas Ray Everett. I, uh, I believe is actually I believe a comedian. Um, and around this time period, he was mostly known for a television show that he had, uh, and a series of, uh, videotapes that he put out that were kind of comedy.

I think this was his first foray into feature film and it, and that was really the last, uh, I don’t think he did anything more film wise, uh, after this movie, but he’s funny. He’s a funny guy. He does a pretty good job with this role. I thought, and again, it’s that slapsticky kind of humor that either looks really, really bad or.

When you can’t pull it off or you pull it off and it’s, you know, it’s 

Craig: goofy. Yeah. And it’s, it’s something you either appreciate or you don’t, you know, if you’re into, uh, Mel Brooks, if you’re into Monte Python, that kind of thing. This is not really even exactly in the same vein, but it kind of was reminiscent to me of, um, haunted honeymoon with Gilda Radner.

Um, it reminded me quite a bit, uh, gene Wilder, remind me quite a bit of that. If that’s what you’re looking for. If you enjoy that kind of comedy, you will enjoy this movie, I 

Todd: think. And what’s nice about it too, is it doesn’t do like what some of those other films often do and they, they referenced. The older film, you know, like it’s you got your Frankensteiny guy and you have your Dracula kind of guy.

I mean, this movie doesn’t really delve into that. It really seems to be a little more contemporary too. It’s even too it’s. Totally. 

Craig: Yeah. I see what you’re saying. And in fact, I think you could even kind of draw a parallel to like the scary movie franchise. I think that this movie. Is better made than those, but it’s the same kind of thing, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a horse spoof, uh, and, and they do make reference to lots of other movies, but like you said, Fortunately, you know, these movies are ones that have kind of remained iconic.

So you get the jokes. I don’t think that something like scary movie four is going to last as long as this, because they’re only referencing super, super contemporary stuff. That’s come out in the last couple of years stuff. That’s probably largely forgettable. Um, but the, the references here, you know, have, have kind of stood the test of time.

They 

Todd: have, whether they realized it or not, they certainly did. The soundtrack was very aggressive. 

Craig: Yeah. You know, we talked about this last week, there is a lot of synthesizer. I think that’s just kind of a product of the time. Um, and it’s played, you know, to effect, you know, it’s, it’s supposed to be that kind of over the top creepiness.

I thought it was kind of weird. I don’t know when it happened, but it seemed like about halfway through the film. This score turned to like this, like this loot kind of instrument, like a flute or a, uh, uh, a recorder or something. Did you notice that it was, it was weird. I just, cause there had been lots of the dark.

Uh, you know, kind of drawn out synth kind of stuff. And then, yeah. And then all of a sudden in the second, second half, there’s a lot of this kind of light, airy whistling kind of music. 

Todd: I don’t know it was inconsistency in 

Craig: this movie. Right. I, I, I wasn’t really looking for consistency, so it didn’t bother me.

I just. It was kind of, I thought all of a sudden we’re like, you know, among the Woodland elves, like I’ve seen this soundtrack coming from and they do funny things with the soundtrack, like in the ghost sex scene, there’s almost, uh, like a circusy type music going on, um, with all of the commotion, you know, things are flying about the room and, and whatnot.

And then after the ghosts, Sex, uh, the, the girl says, and I thought the music was a nice touch. 

Todd: Just, just little things like acknowledges it. Yeah. And, and, and the special effects were actually pretty good. I mean, for their time, you know, again, they seem to take pains to, they did Gore, but not too much. Um, but then, you know, there’s a little sort of a breathing, uh, meat pie thing.

That’s glowing. There’s a. The sort of floating things around that are fairly well done. There’s a bit of animation in there where people are struck by lightning or get zapped or something like 

Craig: that. Yeah. Some of the effects are fine. Some of them, you know, there was one instance early on in the movie where a pair of the scientists walked down the hall and they walk out of frame.

And then even though it’s still, the camera is still focused in the exact same place. It’s clearly a cut shot before. This like wind and fog blows in the window. It was like they didn’t have the time or the budget to actually coordinate that effect. They had to do two separate shots and cut them together.

And then there were. Some effects that I can only imagine were intended to be silly, like the house glowing red and, you know, it’s clearly, I don’t know how they do that, but it was, you know, animated and post it wasn’t, you know, the house wasn’t actually lit up in any way. And, um, the, the space ship flying off at the end, uh, you know, almost looks like, you know, kind of a, uh, an aluminum foil spaceship on a Popsicle stick going across the screen, you know, but I think that those.

Budget concerns may have been an issue, but I imagine again, it was more just of a tongue in cheek kind of thing. 

Todd: I’m really surprised that this movie hasn’t lasted in anyone’s memory. There are just so many really bad movies that have stuck around and this one. Isn’t really a bad movie. Not really, you know, it’s, it’s corny, it’s cheesy, but it’s trying to be as well.

And again, all the references and things in it, you will get today. And the performances are funny. I mean, it’s almost like the naked gun, you know, of horror and. Those movies are still around. And why isn’t this one? I don’t know, 

Craig: especially, you know, with the cloud that Vincent Price carries. I I’m surprised.

I’m really surprised I hadn’t heard of it before. It would be 

Todd: interesting if we have any listeners in England, our best audience, I mean, it is still available on DVD in the UK. It would be interesting to know if maybe this film does have a bit of a following in the UK and it’s just. Overseas just been completely forgotten about, and maybe that has something to do with it 

Craig: know maybe.

And like I said, I mean, it is very distinctly British. In fact, um, it took me a little while to get acclimated to the accents. I, I almost had a little bit of difficulty, uh, understanding what they were saying initially, but I did, you know, I got. Used to it. And, uh, yeah, but you know, maybe, I don’t know, you know, there’s other slapstick British stuff that is been very, very popular over here.

So I agree. I’m not sure. I’m not sure why it’s so obscure. 

Todd: Well, this movie is so hard to find, um, that I may just make it available. On our website, uh, until it gets released in the U S for any of our listeners who might want to check this out, otherwise you don’t get to watch 

Craig: it. You just get to hear us talk about it, which really isn’t good enough because, you know, we talk about how cheesy and corny it is, but I think you really need to see it.

I don’t want to make it seem like it’s, it’s not worthy of watching. I really think it isn’t. In fact, you know, I, I, I could foresee it. See myself watching it again. Uh, sometime in the future it’s light, you know, it’s lighthearted entertainment. It’s fun. 

Todd: Yeah. If you like airplane, if you like the naked gun, you know, Kentucky fried movie, you like those kinds of films.

I think you’re going to like this film. Me too. Yup. Thank you once again for listening. If you liked this podcast, please share it with a friend. Also check out our website and like us on Facebook as well until next week. I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

One of Craig’s most vivid memories from childhood involves stumbling across this chiller on late night TV. Clownhouse isn’t going to win any awards for the best film around, but it’s Sam Rockwell’s very first feature, and it provides some decent scares if clowns freak you out.

Clownhouse (1989)

Episode 9, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Welcome to another edition of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd

Craig: I’m Craig.

Todd: And today we watched the 1989 film Clownhouse. Craig, this was your pick. You must have it. It’s 

Craig: true with this model. I do. And I don’t know if I need to apologize, uh, for picking this in advance. I hope not. Um, I do, I, I picked this one, not because I think it’s a classic film, but this is a movie that I saw.

As a kid. And I say that I re I, I, in my memory, I was really young, but the movie came out in 1989 and I saw it on cable. So I had to at least have been 10 or 11 years old, but my, I was on a vacation with my family. When we were young, we used to visit family a lot. And the grownups sometimes would go out at night and leave us kids at home.

Um, which was fine. You know, they left us pizza money and stuff. It was all good. We were old enough, but, uh, my sister and I. We’re just, you know, watching TV late night and this movie came on Showtime or HBO or something, and we caught it from the very beginning and we sat and watched it the whole way through and we were terrified, terrified, and that was the only time I had seen it until I was an adult.

And I think that I just was, you know, trying to figure out what that movie was and I eventually tracked it down and I found it on Amazon or something and I ordered it and watched it again. And it hasn’t aged as well as I would have thought from my memory. 

Todd: Well, this is not the movie to watch when you’re a kid and you’re being left at home alone.

Right. It’s essentially a home invasion film. 

Craig: And I don’t know, scary clowns, you know, that’s a, it’s kind of a thing now. I, I, I don’t remember it being so much of a thing when I was a kid kind of, when I was a little kid, you know, clowns were fun and Ronald McDonald and the circus was fun. Um, and then. I am certain that I saw this movie before I’d even heard of Stephen, King’s it.

But of course, eventually. That came around and I think ruined clowns for everybody 

Todd: forever. Yeah. Yeah. That was the turning point. Before that clowns, the whole freaky clown thing is really just the last few decades growing up. Ronald McDonald was specially nobody. Nobody was really that afraid. I mean, probably there were people Aggrey whatever who were afraid of clowns, but it just wasn’t a thing.

And then I think it was the one you’re right that came along and that many series on TV terrified all of us. And then. Nah, then you started seeing all these scary clown movies coming out and it’s just been a total pop culture thing where horror films have pretty much been responsible, absolutely part and parcel for Oh yeah.

Craig: Yeah. They’ve destroyed it for kids. I don’t know any kids who were into clowns anymore, but you know, we were sitting here watching this movie and, uh, I, you know, I was kind of gauging your reactions and whatnot, but I have really just been. Really interested to hear your take what’d you 

Todd: think? Oh, altogether.

Yeah. You know, honestly, it wasn’t a bad movie. I’ve seen, I’ve seen worse films. I’ve seen cheesier films, I think more than anything. This was your sort of paint by numbers. Horror movie. Yeah. Like pretty much every. Thing that you would expect to happen happens. Right, right. From the beginning to the end, I don’t think there really weren’t any surprises except it did still keep me kind of on the edge of my seat.

Wondering what was going to happen to these kids. Right. I mean, it falls the three brothers. Sam Riley, very young Sam Rockwell and his 

Craig: first film ever. 

Todd: Is that right? Oh my gosh. He is quite a character in here. He’s the oldest of these three brothers. His name is Randy. And then there’s Jeffrey. Who’s a little younger.

Who has the glasses on like your typical middle brother? And then you have the youngest kid whose name is Casey. And he’s the one who’s terrified of clowns, which is 

Craig: established right from the very beginning. Casey. Didn’t like the circus last year. It scared him. 

Todd: Yeah. And their relationship with each other is pretty interesting.

Like we’ve talked about in previous podcasts, w neither of us had brothers, but we both had younger sisters. And so we don’t probably get the whole relationship between the boys at home. That, that it, it seems more. More rambunctious to me. 

Craig: And you know, the funny thing is this is kind of what I’ve expected having brothers would be like, you know, it’s kind of a neat, you know, it’s antagonistic, you know, they’re always picking on each other, calling each other names, uh, smacking each other around.

Yeah. But there are moments in the film too, where they’re kind of like little tender moments between them. They are brothers, they, you know, they care about each other. Even if you know, the big brother is really kind of the big jerk, uh, of the group and, and Jeffrey, the middle one is kind of the sensitive one.

Who’s looking out for everybody. And Casey’s the little innocent one who needs looking out for, and it is 

Todd: like your stereotypical oldest, middle child, youngest child. Right? The oldest guy, Randy is like, Intensely brutal. He’s just the biggest jerk. Oh yeah. He’s a total jerk, 

Craig: but that’s kind of like, I imagined if I had an older brother, that’s what he would have been like, you know, especially in those adolescent, like high school years where they’re totally into girls and the little kid stuff is, you know, little kid stuff now.

And, uh, it’s, it’s a burden to have to kind of take your brothers around to things when you’ve got other things, you’d be more interested in really, you know, the quality as far as production and stuff of this film is, is not really great. The acting is, is really uneven. I mean, good parts. The three boys hold their own.

I think very well, but I mean, even then, you know, there, there’s still some times where it’s maybe a little cheesy, a little bit laughable. It can all sit together. We can all hold aunts. I bet you’ll need someone to hold your hands. Not afraid of the stupid circuit. So shut off all 

Todd: of them 

Craig: lightened up.

Maybe not the lion. Sankeys the elephants or the fat lady strong 

Todd: man. Shut up chase. Go ahead. What about 

Craig: toes clowns? You think of ever gonna forget you running from that stupid clown? 10 ones ever knock it off. I get invested in the kids. Like you said, you know, I want to see what’s, what’s going to happen.

And there are moments in the movie that I find still really creepy and spooky. 

Todd: No I’m with you. I was sort of expecting to be kind of laughing throughout the whole thing, you know, just kind of making fun of it most of the time. And of course there are plenty of models for that, but I was emotionally invested.

I wasn’t taken completely out of it. I was really curious to see who is going to live, who is going to die. And maybe cared more so than most, because really there really are only three characters in this film. There’s the mother who’s acting absolutely horrible. Yeah. We 

Craig: fortunately she’s gone after the first five minutes.

Todd: Oh my gosh. She’s gone real quick. And then they go to that. The Jonesborough. Is it the 

Craig: Jones? No, the jolly 

Todd: brothers circus circus. And it’s a small town circus. It looks like it’s set up in their park, this little tent. I mean, the production value of this movie really shows in that they’re trying to make this small circus seem 

Craig: like a big deal.

And the production value shows throughout, throughout. I mean, this had to have been shot on a shoestring budget. It just had to, and we were making fun of the, uh, uh, the logo for the production company. What was it like commercial productions or something? Um, it’s really low 

Todd: budget that I’ve never seen, uh, outside of horror movie.

But, 

Craig: you know, you accept that and you try to look 

Todd: past it. Well, we’ve seen worse, we’ve seen much worse. Um, he goes into this fortune tellers thing at the carnival. She looks at his Palm into something that ends up becoming sort of a recurring theme, which is this fortune teller this again, paint by numbers, fortune teller.

What arise is like is like cloudy. She speaks in this horrible accent, right. You know, she walks in and the whole tent is filled with. Animals and dead animals and things hanging and whatnot. It looks at his lifeline and says, uh, suddenly is it’s sort of freaked out by his lifeline and starts reciting something and rhyme to him about how his line is broken and he needs to be careful or what 

Craig: you must take.

Great care. Let’s go with

Todd: those, the flushes and the hot 

Craig: strong. Precious, like cannot enter the home when dad gets 

Todd: mad, go on, get out of here. And so that freaks them out. The fact that even has to be here. This carnival freaks him out because he’s freaked out by the clowns. And that gets established by a dream about clouds earlier on, I mean, this kid is obsessed with this clown problem right now.

Craig: And I asked to go, I mean, they, they forced him to go. I mean, this is like traumatized. He’s begging not to go. The mom has to go visit an old aunt or something. He begs to go with her. Oh no, that’d be super boring. Go to the circus. Mortified. It’ll be fine. They do. They go to the circus and whereas, you know, the production is low and you can tell there’s still, I thought atmospherically, it was pretty good.

And part of that was kind of the lighting and the way that it was shot, I guess. And you know, more about that than I do. But as, as you may laugh at this, but I thought that the music was a. Was kind of effective in places. I mean, it’s this very eighties synth music, which 

Todd: I have soft spot in my heart. Oh, big time.

Yes. No, I do. I like, I hear that as soon as that soundtrack fired up. Um, and I think it just kicked right in at the beginning when he was in his bedroom, having that dream, I was like, Uh, at least I’m going to enjoy the music. 

Craig: Good. I’m glad we agree on that because I did think that for whatever reason, it’s just kind of a screechy kind of long a natural sound, and it really does kind of establish it.

It’s it it’s spooky. It makes shivers run up and down. 

Todd: And they’re interesting moments in the, in the score too, like, well, when they go into the circus and, uh, He has this sort of run in with a clown that tries to pull him out of the audience for some act and he doesn’t want to. And so he in front of the whole town, embarrasses himself by tearing out of there in the meantime, there’s a point where the clowns are taking off their makeup.

And there are some guys outside of the tent. And the clowns are in there. Again, these horrible accents that are trying to sound French or foreign or something like that, and are obviously totally put on, there are some people outside the clown tent, as the clowns are taking off their makeup who are peeking in and, uh, you know, doing that horror movie villain kind of thing, right.

There’s noise outside. Who’s that 

Craig: right. And there had been some really clunky exposition leading up to this, like when the boys are on their way to the circus, they happened to. Pass by the loony bin. And that’s, I guess, just in there and the crazy house, the crazy house, they see a police car speed by with its sirens on, and they have this little brief conversation who I wonder, what’s going, maybe they’re trying to break out, you know, like woo.

Foreshadowing. 

Todd: It’s not obvious at 

Craig: all. And then, uh, after, you know, the Casey, the little boy, his first run in with the clowns, I mean, these are just the regular circus clowns, but even when the regular circus clowns are introduced, I mean, this first clown kind of. Appears from out from behind like a post or something.

And first you just see his white glove kind of come around the post and then his face slowly emerges up above it. And yeah, it’s 

Todd: scary. It is scary. And he starts making faces, Adam, and he’s doing the clown thing, the peek-a-boo. And of course, he’s just doing it for this kid because everybody is turned looking the opposite direction at the three ring circus.

And this clown is on the wings. Sort of doing all this goofy stuff for him who can take his eyes off of him the opposite way. And then of course, Casey turns around and it’s like, wait a minute. Am I the only guy? And it turns out there’s a little kid behind her that the guy’s actually miming with. And 

Craig: so, but even.

Though it’s supposed to be innocent. I mean, these are just the real clowns are just doing their job. Even when they go to try to grab Casey to pull them out, you know, they, they, they’re looking for a volunteer. I mean, this is supposed to be fun. It freaks them out, even though it’s supposed to be innocent.

I was sitting here thinking it really is not hard to make a circus. Nightmarish. Yeah. 

Todd: And, you know, as a person who’s never been afraid of clowns. Who’s never really bought into that fear. And I, and it terrified me, but it didn’t really turn me against it. And I’ve always thought it was kind of, I don’t want to offend anybody, but I always felt it was kind of silly to sort of be afraid of clowns.

Okay. Yeah. Clowns can be demonic, blah, blah, blah. But generally they’re not. Yeah, you’re right. It takes this typical clown in the circus smiley face on his face. Uh, bright lights, everything action going on. And does find a way to twist it into that spookiness and it sets you off guard, right? Because you think, Oh, this is the clown that we’re going to be afraid of.

These are the clowns that are going to be messing with us. And it’s not, till later when those clowns get jumped, the guys who escaped exactly the 

Craig: crazy, the crazy folks who made their way to the circus. Kill the performance clowns, um, 

Todd: their next around, right. That seems to be the app. Yeah, 

Craig: absolutely. And, uh, you know, the, the clown’s very clever, you know, it’s, it’s these interesting shots of just these, the hands, you know, rummaging through all the clown’s makeup and whatnot, but.

Eventually they land on this white pancake makeup that they kind of become fascinated with and you see them start to apply or, or the central one CISO, uh, the clown, you see him start to apply it. And it’s all, uh, you know, in a big close-up on his eyes and he’s got these kind of big. You know, wide, crazy eyes and him smearing the grease paint underneath his eye.

So it was a spooky image to me. Yeah. And, 

Todd: and, and they did a really good job too, of not showing you very much of their faces before they put on the makeup. Right. So they were very sort of mysterious guys and putting on this mask became their character. You didn’t see that full on transformation of here are these guys who escaped from the mental hospital.

Now they’re clowns. All you see is this sort of. Sinister in the shadows figure. And now they’re clowns. Right? Which I think just that little bit of not showing you all that psychologically, I 

Craig: think has an effect. Yeah. And you know, you said you didn’t want to offend anybody. I am kind of afraid of clowns.

I mean, not, you know, it’s not a rational fear. I don’t really think clowns are gonna come get me, but the image of them is spooky and, and, and Casey, the, the boy even kind of talks about that. He says that the reason that he doesn’t like clowns two faces with big happy eyes, Smiles

for know what they really are. And by having these three escapes, lunatics, you know, they don’t have any backstory. They, we don’t know anything about them. They don’t have names, even aside from the clown names that they stole from the circus performers. They really just are. A menace, you know, they are, they are evil, they are danger.

One of the things that I think that the film does well is have them always kind of lurking where you wouldn’t expect them to be lurking or maybe lurking where you would expect them to be lurking, but kind of in the background. And it’s just a, yeah. Yeah. 

Todd: And it’s not psychopaths that put on makeup. I mean, it is, but it’s not presented that way.

It’s evil personified, right? They’re not talking. No, they don’t no dialogue. They don’t make a sound. They don’t stream. They don’t screech and we’re out or anything. It’s completely silent. Just like a clown, right. They really take on that clown persona full and foremost in the sense that even throughout the movie, they’re toying with these kids, like a clan would toy with you.

And so you forget that they are lunatics escape from an asylum. They are. Evil clown. Right. 

Craig: And they’re toying with them and they’re taking great joy in it. You know, like they’re, they’re smiling and kind of rubbing their fingers together. Menacingly, like they’re really enjoying, messing with these kids, but we, you know, we’ve seen them kill three people.

And then I feel like they, they felt like they had to throw in another murder for some reason once they were in clown makeup, there’s just kind of this random store guy that, uh, gets. Offed by the clowns too. 

Todd: Again, I just had to say just like hilarious portrayals. I mean, this was, I don’t know, probably shot in LA.

It’s sort of your standard low budget portrayal of some country folk, you know, like people who have never actually been South or been to the Midwest, overplay the sort of, uh, accent, the country store, and they have a bar and out the back and this barn. Clearly serves no purpose because all that’s in this barn is stack upon stack of empty crates from floor to ceiling.

I mean, it’s 

Craig: obviously a set dressing, you know, they had to work with what they, they, they had, uh, apparently, and it’s kind of goofy in moments. But again, I think that the clowns did a good job of being missing, especially the central one. There’s three of them.  and then there’s  CISO is. Genuinely frightening.

I think now a bit Bo and depo kind of just play his henchmen. They’re not as in the forefront. And I was noticing, I had never noticed this before, but as we were watching the, as the credits were rolling, I said, it said that a psycho CISO was played by tree. I don’t know what that means, but I would guess that this.

Guy, whoever it was that played that central clown CISO was some sort of performance or cloud, right. Be a clown in real life because he, he captured 

Todd: it really well using the classic clown named tree. 

Craig: Right. Maybe it’s just because he’s really tall. I don’t know. Maybe that exists. That’s his nickname. I don’t know.

But 

Todd: the startup just like the Tim Curry clown, you know, there’s sort of those clown styles. There’s the hobo clown. There’s the sad clown. There’s the bozo, the clown look, which is kind of what he had the hair that kind of comes around the side up and, you know, the high arched eyebrows and stuff. And then, um, Beepo and Depot kind of looks similar in that they have those more of the traditional triangular clown hats, and just to kind of a small button nose and you know, that, 

Craig: that right.

Yeah. And, and, and all three of them are, you know, they’re kind of a scary little group and, and what happens is after they, the boys come back from the circus, then they basically just have a night at home. Uh, you know, they, they’re gonna. Tell ghost stories after they all bathed together. 

Todd: Again, it was a very odd scene in the bathroom where the one kid is just taking a bath and the other one’s sitting on the toilet.

And then the older kid, Randy is standing there and just basically insulting them all the whole time. 

Craig: I’m trying to figure it out. This is a whisker or a zit. You guys want to show you really got some air 

Todd: Casey. 

Craig: You don’t want to show you really got here where Kevin I’ll actually have more to say on that later, but let’s, uh, but as far as plot is concerned, they’re in the house and they’re telling ghost stories and, and of course the ghost story surrounds clowns, but you know, Casey’s kind of getting into it too.

They’re playing around, uh, and at the climax of the ghost story, they’re flipping the lights on and off to make it look like. Uh, a storm and that’s what draws the attention of the psycho clowns. And from that point on the clowns are around. Casey sees them first, but he’s been so freaked out throughout the whole day.

I guess he kind of thinks maybe he’s imagining 

Todd: it. He’s not sure. Right? Because there are moments throughout the movie where he closes his eyes. He’s just faced head on with one of these clowns. Either they’re standing in the path or they’re poking out from around the corner. They’re looking through the window.

He just closes his eyes tight for like a few seconds. Way too many seconds. Right. And it opens them. And of course the cloud still it’s like, sort of like his test, 

Craig: but yeah. Yeah. I guess like he’s trying to and overcome his fears, you know, he’s trying to grow up, you know, he doesn’t want to be a little kid anymore and be afraid of these things and, and the clowns, you know, I’m sure that it’s all in the cinematography, how it’s shot, but they do a really good job of, you know, being sneaky, you know, being somewhere where it seems like they’re going to be revealed and they’re going to be found by the other brothers, but then the camera will pan and they’ll all of a sudden.

Be gone, you know, they’ve, they’ve quietly and quickly hidden and now they’re concealed. And that goes on really for kind of a long time. I could see how, if you were trying to be critical of the film, you might say that there’s a little bit of a lag there. Um, in the second half, when it kind of seems, I still find it atmospheric and spooky because I still find the, you know, the lingering creeping clown spooky, but it’s kind of the same shtick for a while.

Yeah, 

Todd: it really is. Um, they’re poking in the window. They’re kind of peeking around. And then there are these moments, which actually I think were executed very well. Uh, these moments where it’s the standard horror movie moment, where you see the person and they’re sort of, you know, with their back to a window when you see the clown behind, right.

And then as soon as they turn around, the clown has just sort of disappeared. There’s another really interesting bit where Randy runs across the windows and the clown mirrors, the clown, which is outside the window, just mirrors his run across almost like a reflection. And even he sort of stops. And kind of backs up and looks wondering, was that my reflection or not, and that’s what he gets it.

Right. But what a cool moment. Yeah. 

Craig: Oh, I really liked that shot. I mean, it was, I’m sure they had takes to choose from, but it was just timed really well. It was surprising to me the viewer too. Uh, and you know, I kind of would, I think in the same situation like Randy, I would have paused, but. What the hell is that, you know, he kind of goes to the window to look.

And that, that really is the first time. See one of the things that I was wondering the whole time I was watching this movie is it kind of has a feel to it. And we’ve talked about this before, where it almost seems like it’s a movie made for kids. And, you know, and we talked about this before in the eighties, there were these movies that really were legitimately frightening.

But you kind of got the sense that they were for kids. I mean, this one almost kind of has like a spooky after-school special. It really does feel to it. And maybe that has something to do with the production, but throughout the whole thing, I kept thinking, you know, what is going to happen? Or are these boys really endangered?

Like, is the film going to go there? Is it gonna, is it going to kill one of these boys or all of them or any of them? Wow. And there are parts where it’s 

Todd: suggested it is. And I mean, it kills two people already. Um, so you’re right there. That question is always there. It’s not like it’s been a safe ramp up until right until now we’ve got two people dead with their next or four people that I guess with their necks twisted around, but still not bloody.

All the violence either happens like in a shadow or sort of offscreen, or, you know, somebody gets thrown out of a window and you don’t see them land. Right. You just see them fly. Even as far as blood, uh, very little like a drop of blood comes on somebody’s hand or something 

Craig: like that. Very fine. Spray of missed blood in the, in the clown.

When the psycho people kill the real clowns, there’s a tiny little spray. Um, but very little Gore and, and 

Todd: that I think was co was clearly a conscientious choice. I mean, even if for a low budget film, Especially in 1989, even if you don’t have a ton of money to do crazy Gore effects, you can squirt blood everywhere.

And people did that a lot and it would look, you know, sometimes find it was sometimes it would look cheesy, but clearly they were going for a bit of a Tamer rating. 

Craig: It seems that way. I don’t even know. I assume it’s rated PG 13 because the boys are kind of potty mouth. Um, that’s about it. 

Todd: Yeah. But other than that, even the Goonies.

You ever watched the goonie? Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean everything, but the F-word I think in the Goonies all the time, those kids are swearing and cursing, and this is about the same time a couple of years later, but it was just a D 

Craig: you know, it was a different time. 

Todd: Isn’t that true? That back in the good old days back when, back when they actually made movies with kids talking the way they actually it.

Right. Exactly. 

Craig: But we were talking about how, you know, that scene, where the clown and Randy run across, and then Randy kind of looks out the window. And the clown busts his hand through and grabs Randy. And you don’t see what happens, but you know that, you know, you see the clown, pull him through the window, you know, his face bust through the window and he gets pulled through.

And that was kind of jarring to me because I thought, wow, maybe they are going to go there. And, uh, maybe these kids didn’t know who was, I mean, 

Todd: it was kind of, again, you didn’t really see it, but it was a brutal thing. Like to get broken, pulled through a broken glass window basically is what happened. And I thought, wow, that was a bold choice.

Randy’s gonna. Randy’s dead. And it was exactly what I was thinking. 

Craig: And then, you know, the other boys, first of all, they don’t, you know, they think Randy’s playing a joke. You know, they hear the con the commotion downstairs and really Grandy was trying to scare them. He was, you know, setting them up for a dressed himself as a clown.

Um, but that’s when he, uh, got pulled through. And then, so Jeffrey and Casey kind of look around a little bit. And the clowns appear behind them. Casey turns around and sees them, but kind of tries to pull that close my eyes, make them go away thing. And, uh, Jeff turns and sees them and is kind of frozen in fear for a minute.

Okay.

then it’s the chase for the rest of the firm. And we don’t have much left at that point, but it’s a chasing. 

Todd: Yeah. It just sort of becomes your home invasion film where they’re chasing them through the house, the kids. And again, it hits all the beats. The kids are making all the wrong moves. They’re going upstairs when they should be going there, they go to the front door.

And for some reason, the front door is lockable from the outside. Somehow it’s one of those silly things. Oh, they did something we can’t get out, you know, and they kind of run back and then there’s sort of a scene where they get out of the house finally, and they’re standing there. And one of the things that we’ve sort of seen throughout the movie was this sort of running thing about this Halloween decoration, apparently it’s two weeks before Halloween, right?

A giant new sat in the front that, uh, in the very beginning of the movie, Randy had set up with a dummy and mom said, take that down. It’s not Halloween yet. And so he took it down, but the news was still there. And then we see the dummy back, but it’s really a dummy and it’s. Uh, you know, earlier was Geoffrey scaring, Randy, and then there’ll be, he’s gone.

And then now they walk outside and they, they see something again in that noose and they think it’s Randy 

Craig: and he’s supposed to, I thought it was Randy two. And this is really funny time because before I saw this again for the second time, when I was just my memory from when I was a kid, I remembered that it was like, I, that was the image that stuck with me, that that was their brother hanging there in the tree.

And that really got to me as a kid. And I remembered in my mind that it was him. In fact, it’s not when, uh, when I watched it again, the second time I was like, Oh yeah, there it is. They, they hung Randy. And in fact they didn’t, which introduces 

Todd: the mystery. Oh, maybe Randy is alive. And then they go back inside against all reason.

Right. And save 

Craig: their brother. Casey wants to save his 

Todd: brother and they, and that’s the point at which Casey really turns around and starts to get brave. 

Craig: Casey, what the hell are you crazy? You can’t go back into that house. We’re going to get out. Okay. Listening to me. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s interesting that it’s at that moment where he’s suddenly concerned for his brother, the same brother that has been basically picking on him and beating him down and teasing him this entire time.

Obviously he still doesn’t want to see him brutally marae by clouds and he gets some guts and he runs inside against Jeffrey’s wishes. Jeffrey’s like, dude, we need to run. Yeah, he’s the practical, he’s the smart one. And they go inside. Sure enough. They find him. I thought he would be dead there too, but apparently he’s still a little 

Craig: alive.

Well, it’s left ambiguous, and I kind of wonder, you know, they, that he falls out and I mean, it’s Sam Rockwell. It’s the actor. It’s not like it’s a dummy or anything. I mean, you can tell the kids alive, but they don’t win. When he falls out. What they say is, I think he’s dead. But then they say, let’s get him to a safe place.

And then Jeffrey pulls him into the din, which is black. He pulls him into this, you know, this darkness and here Jeffrey and a low tone say he’s locked, but then that’s it. We never see Randy again. So, 

Todd: you know, hearing that, it made me wonder if that wasn’t added in post. 

Craig: Yes. It made me wonder that too. And this I, it was killing me the whole time.

I wanted to ask you. Was all of the audio in this movie? 

Todd: I think a lot of it was, Oh, clearly a lot of it was, um, the, the, the part where they’re toward the beginning, where the three of them are walking along just before they see the police cars that was clearly dubbed and they did a decent job of it. But you can tell.

The audio that is clearly recorded in a studio when it’s a lower budget production like this. Cause it’s just a little too clean. Everybody sort of is about the same volume. Whereas if you’d had a mic there and these three kids, they’d be sort of, some would be a little quieter and a little bit louder than others and it wouldn’t be as clean you’re right.

It, it got a little distracting were certainly 

Craig: times where the audio didn’t match up with the video too. You know, somebody would be talking and it wouldn’t match up altogether. Yeah, or there, right. Or there was one time that, uh, Randy and Casey go to this store. That’s where the other guy that we talked about gets murdered eventually.

But, um, there’s one point. This store lady, the lady who’s running the store says something. I don’t think her mouth moved at all.

And there were, you know, And it seemed like it seemed like the three kids, it seemed like the actors who portrayed the kids did their voiceovers too, but I didn’t get that sense necessarily from the other actors. Like the, especially the people in the store. I don’t know that I was convinced that those were those, their voices at all.

It seemed like it was something that got added in post. I’ll be heading out at home then LA go on then night boys. JCL man, slow down. You’re 

Todd: here. You’re probably right. And honestly, that would make sense. A movie with this low budget, so much care was paid to the visuals. You would think that the audio would be as good, but quite frankly, there’s a lot of interesting camera angles.

There’s a lot of movement going on. There’s a lot of no extra noise and stuff that could get in there. Could, they could just ruin that audio or make it difficult for you. Find a good place to break, to put a mic. And so. I wouldn’t doubt if a good majority of the audio was ADR totally 

Craig: after the fact and the video, like you said, there some really interesting, I think there are some really interesting shots, you know, interesting uses of color, really kind of haunting imagery, kind of some interesting, um, like there was one part where, uh, Randy is in the attic and he’s sweet.

He’s changing. Fuse. And when he’s changes the fuse, the light flickers and there’s this strobe effect, and one of the clowns moves quickly across the frame in the background. And, you know, just kind of, that was a little stuff like that 

Todd: brilliant moment. That was very, very cool. 

Craig: And there are moments throughout like that, but there are also moments where the video quality gets a little bit low, you know, Focus sometimes.

Um, so you’re not going to go into this movie and see a cinematic 

Todd: masterpiece. No, but you’re not going to see a total hack job either. I mean, it was well lit and like you said, they were great moments. There was a lot of care done to this movie script wise. I say it’s and I think you agree, it was, it’s very much a paint by numbers kind of story.

Yeah. The, the, the plot is paper thin. It really is. And it’s, again, it’s very predictable up to the point where there’s just some really, there’s some silly laugh out loud silliness in here. Like when they go out to get popcorn and they go, Oh, why don’t we, you go that whole Jones row. 

Craig: And then they pay into old Jones road and it’s this dirt road with a wooden 

Todd: sign, post old Jones.

It’s like, like a signpost that doesn’t exist in any, any city. I don’t care how small it is since 1932. Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, of course I’ve mentioned the country store people and stuff, and being a little too bumpkiny for the, uh, for, for what it really is. And then at one point the kid says, uh, uh, suggest calling the police and he says co-ops are friendly.

Yeah, 

Craig: and he keeps it, he keeps saying it over and over and it just doesn’t get any less funny. Eventually he does. He calls on the 

Todd: phone officer friendly and you hear somebody 

Craig: kind of mumbling on the other end. Is this officer friendly? Oh gosh. Yeah, definitely. And some real, some funny lines that I think they were trying to be intentionally funny.

I don’t know if they hit their Mark exactly as much as they wanted to, but, um, when, uh, Casey and Jeff they’ve seen the clowns, the clowns are after them. One of the clowns gets a hold of Jeff and is like throttling him on the ground. Casey grabs a lamp and smashes it over the clown’s head and they get up and they’re running away.

And as they’re running up the stairs, Jeffrey says that was favorite lamp. Casey,

I recreated some silly stuff like that the whole time. Uh, you know, a lot of the lines are a little bit corny like that. I don’t know for me, maybe it’s nostalgia. Uh, it’s. It’s a little bit precious to me. 

Todd: Sure. How about when the clown? I can’t remember which, which of the brothers he has, but I think it’s even CISO has got a hold of one of the brothers.

And it was either Jeffrey or it was a Casey who grabs a frying pan, like a literal, like cast iron frying pan hits the clamp on the head twice clown routine, you know, and, and that was, it was, uh, a Testament actually to the w it was a rare moment of subtlety where that was a joke, but they didn’t make it a huge joke.

You know, they just kind of threw that out. That was kind of funny. 

Craig: Well, you said about the script, the script was written by Victor salvage, who was also the director. This was his second feature. The other, uh, film that he had done was called something in the basement. And actually there’s in Casey’s room.

There’s a poster for something in the basement, um, which I’ve never seen. I don’t even know if it’s available on video. I think it was, you know, some real low budget deal, but Victor salvo went on to do some big stuff. I mean, he, uh, his big. Come back and I’ll explain why I had to come back in a second, but it’s come back with powder.

Oh yeah. And then he also directed the both jeepers creepers films and wrote those as well. Uh, which, you know, you haven’t seen the jeepers. I have not. I’ve heard good things about, well, the first one’s really good. The second one’s a, uh, a decent, solid sequel. But Salba had to take a break. And, you know, we were talking earlier about how these boys, um, you know, modesty is not an issue for them.

The three boys, you know, were in the bathroom together. The one is in the bathtub, the other’s kind of drying off. Right? 

Todd: Well, in earlier there was a whole bit of deal of him peeing himself. And the kids are walking around in their underwear quite a bit, and he’s like changing and he’s pulling up and you see his bare button, 

Craig: all.

Ha. Okay. Now we’ll, we’ll bring it to a, uh, a downer. I wanted to get through the fun talk first after the movie was wrapped, it was discovered that Salba had been molesting the young actor who played Casey through your production. Are you kidding me? No, in fact, uh, it, it, it gives me the willies, just even say it out loud, but, uh, salvia, videotaped himself, performing a sex act on the kid.

Um, And it came to light. I think that the, the actor eventually told his parents and, uh, salver um, was tried and convicted and did time in prison, um, for this. Whoa. So I didn’t, I asked Todd not to read anything about this movie before we watched it, because I, I just knew that going in knowing that would leave a bad taste.

In one’s mouth. So yeah, you know, this is something, uh, yeah, I, uh, I teach, uh, literature and this is something that we were just talking about in, in my AP lit class, uh, heart of darkness, um, you know, a classic piece of literature, but it’s been criticized a lot because of its racist portrayal of native Africans.

And some have suggested that because of that, it shouldn’t be taught now that that made me think about this movie. Because I guess my question is kind of a philosophical question for a horror movie podcast, but, you know, does that, you know, what, what impact does that have? I mean, can we still appreciate the movie for Liz without consideration of the ugliness behind 

Todd: it?

And that’s a good question. I mean, Art ideally would stand apart from the artist wouldn’t that most artists want its art to speak for itself. Uh, and even when you know, teaching literature, you have the whole concept and literature of the unreliable Marriott, right. Even though the person telling the story is ostensibly the person writing the story.

That is actually not the person writing the story, the views of the narrator, the views expressed in a story, know where a story goes and what it portrays. Does not at all necessarily reflect the views of the person doing it. They’re putting a piece out there. 

Craig: You can’t make that assumption. And that’s kind of how I feel about literature.

And it’s kind, kinda how I feel about this film. I’m sure that this was, you know, a terrible, uh, trauma for this young actor. And I, I don’t think that he did anything else after this. And so that’s, that’s, that’s sad and I don’t want to downplay that in any way, but yeah. You know, if you don’t know that, or if you can just kind of, uh, appreciate the movie for what it is, salvia did his time, you know, and, and he came back and, uh, he’s had a pretty successful career since then.

I don’t know. It’s just, uh, an interesting bit of context. And now do you see now, I didn’t want you to know going in, 

Todd: you know, it does color it. I mean, it just colors you, it’s hard to get that out of your head. You know, don’t think of a white elephant, you know, good luck with that, but yeah. It is hard to get that out of your head, especially just seeing that the whole movie.

And he, I think he wrote it to today. He wrote it. He edited, I mean, the movie, it was clearly a passion project for him focusing on these three young boys, um, a very good portrayal of three young boys, but then it’s especially sad to think that the one that even in the story is so troubled and tormented and you spend most of the movie watching this kid with this troubled tormented, look on your face.

Craig: Well, and this actor has, he has a youthfulness about him that I think is even, I think that chronologically he’s older than he seems. Um, he seems very kind of vulnerable and innocent and you know, I, I maybe, maybe that’s acting, I don’t know. It makes you wonder. Wow. 

Todd: Well, thank you, Craig. 

Craig: That’s why I saved it for the, 

Todd: Oh, what else do I say now?

Right. I 

Craig: wanted to make everybody listen to the whole thing before we got to the troubling part, but really, 

Todd: I mean, let’s laugh more better, officer friendly. 

Craig: And, and I know that there are people out there who will not see this movie just for that reason. And I, I respect that. I understand it. Um, of course I didn’t know anything about it when I first saw it.

I don’t know if it would have changed anything if I had, but, uh, you know, if you’re a horse enthusiast, this is. It’s an obscure movie. Had you ever heard of it before? 

Todd: I’d never heard of it. No, I 

Craig: don’t think a lot people have. And funnily enough, you know, I was reading on IMD. IFDB a lot of people have the same experience that I did.

They saw it randomly when they were kids. It terrified them. They sought it out as adults. You know, if you look at the comment boards, uh, on IMDV, um, you’ll see, you know, the, the topic threads will be, this is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen in my life. It had some impact on some people. If, if. You’re interested in seeing something that’s a little bit more obscure and maybe a little hard to 

Todd: find.

No, we said it’s, it seems to be somewhat geared towards kids if you were not as jaded, I guess, as we are, if you haven’t seen as many horror films as I have, and we’re seeing this for the first time and you still get kind of freaked out by those moments of, you know, the jump scares and the people looking in the windows and stuff.

I think you would find this movie pretty scary. Yeah. 

Craig: I think, you know, we sat here and watched cause we take notes and whatnot. We’re sitting here watching it in a well lit room. I think if you turn off the lights and snuggle up with somebody and you go in with that attitude, that that’s what you’re looking for.

You want fun scares? I think you’ll get it. I think you’ll be satisfied 

Todd: here. We should get a couple lamps in here. Shouldn’t we? Maybe one last thing I did want to mention is that I think there is a sort of. When you read a script, you can often get a different impression of the, of the film or the play or whatever.

Then when you watch the end product and sometimes. A film can sort of transcend a scrappy script because of the acting and things like that. And sometimes the reverse happens. You see a film that’s clearly kind of low budget clearly by numbers, but you get this sense that behind it, inside that script, even if it never came out on screen, there was a certain level of thought, a certain level of philosophy and a certain care that was put into it that.

Sadly is going to be lost to us because we didn’t show through in the final product. And sometimes it’s just pure pretentiousness. And sometimes I think it is, uh, it isn’t. And in this particular case, I was a little taken by the fact that the movie started with this quote and it ended with a quote and it about fear.

And then there were a couple interesting lines in the film. The film, the line that you referenced earlier, where the kid is outside crying. And it’s a pretty important moment. It’s a real, it’s a movie. It’s a moment that the movie really focuses in on and he talks about why he’s afraid of clowns. And he says, well, they’re fake.

You know, they’re big, happy smiles painted faces, but you never know. What’s really inside. That’s a really profound statement for a film like this. It is. And 

Craig: you know, when the film ends somewhat dramatically, I guess, I mean, it’s left on kind of, it’s not left really on a light note. I mean, you don’t know what happened to Randy and Jeffrey and Casey appear to be out of danger.

You know, they’ve killed the clowns, but you know, that’s it Jeffrey kind of rescues, uh, Casey, and then it just pans out to them outside of the house. And we get another quote. Did you write that 

Todd: one? I did. It said the quote is, and it’s not attributed to anybody. So, you know, who knows where it came from or if they just made it up, but it said, no man can hide from his fears as they are a part of him.

They’ll always know where he’s hiding 

Craig: and you know, it’s kind of a silly movie, but it, it seemed fitting. It didn’t seem like they were trying to knock you over the head with some kind of moral. It was more just kind of this general statement that I think. Most of us can probably agree with. 

Todd: Yeah. And it fits in with the theme.

You know, the clowns are putting on the masks. It’s not just being afraid of our fears, but it’s also, you know, talking about hiding from our fears and that we put on these masks to hide from our fears. And maybe that I think is what the kid has sort of positing is maybe that’s what clowns do. These people are people like you and me and they’re afraid, but they put on this happy face.

In order to protect themselves from that in order to sort of shield that to the world yet you can’t escape those fears because they’re a part of you and they’ll always seek you out, which is sort of, again, that then invasion part of the movie. And then I guess now, knowing what you told me, Piling another sort of layer on top of that, knowing a little bit now about the background of, uh, the director, probably not being who he said he would 

Craig: be and who clearly is battling inner demons of his own.

Yeah. 

Todd: It really throws a very interesting twist on this, knowing that he wrote the script and probably put those words in the mouth of the boy and on the screen a before and after. Wow. 

Craig: Yup, but it’s a bet. You didn’t expect it to get that deep. 

Todd: Did Jen? I sure did. Well, 1989, check it out. It is a movie we’re seeing, I think, uh, thank you so much for listening to us.

Another podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please share this podcast with a friend. Check out our Facebook page, like us there, or go to our podcast and check out our many other episodes and, and further episodes to come once again. This is Todd and I’m Craig, and this is Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Todd & Craig review a deeply unsettling new Swedish film that just came across the border. For a story with very little dialogue, it turns out we had a lot to say about it. But we found this foreign thriller one of the spookier and unusual movies to come out recently.

Goodnight Mommy (2014)

Episode 8, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Welcome to another edition of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: I’m Craig.

Todd: And, uh, today we decided to watch a Swedish film. This was my suggestion. I, after having some friends over for Halloween night, watched a trailer for a film that a few friends had brought up to me that piqued my interest to called Goodnight Mommy. It was a little different from what the trailer sort of promised.

I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. Uh, you didn’t know anything 

Craig: about this. And I was really kind of surprised because I’ve told you before that I, you know, I, I. I’m kind of a completist I’ll watch just about anything. Good, bad. Regardless. I read up a lot on horror films and I don’t recall ever having heard of this one and yeah, it w it certainly different than, uh, a lot of the movies that we’ve talked about in the past.

I don’t even, I don’t even know how I would categorize this film really to 

Todd: you. It’s hard to call it a straight out horror film because a good majority of the running time, it kind of goes through and it’s a drama. In a way, um, there is a sense of unease. Oh, definitely throughout it, uh, where you’re not quite sure what’s going on, but you think you sort of have it figured out.

And then it’s about the last 30 minutes, 20 to 30 minutes or so that suddenly things get pretty intense. Yeah. 

Craig: I mean, it’s unsettling from the beginning, but honestly, I guess there’s a certain mystery to it in the beginning. I really kind of felt like I had the mystery figured out pretty early on. I mean, it, it, it seemed fairly obvious and I kept waiting for maybe there to be some sort of twist that would throw me off my game and the twist didn’t really come.

I mean, kind of what I thought was going on is what was going on, but it did keep me on my seat the whole time. And it certainly was unsettling, especially in those last, uh, 30 minutes. I mean, really, really 

Todd: unsettling stuff. Yeah, it’s it starts out. Uh, we’re basically in a very beautiful countryside area, very interesting European style house, a house it’s really too big for its 

Craig: inhabitants.

Right. And it isn’t, it’s like a modern style house with, uh, you know, those, those hanging globe chairs and kind of really interesting artwork all over the place. Pretty extravagant, you know, house and, uh, just this. It’s like a 

Todd: Kia meets MoMA. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And, and they’re in this house and it’s, it’s two brothers.

Um, they’re playing through the countryside, Lucas and ileus and they are, we get quite a bit of just them playing around with each other. Um, going through these fields, it’s clear that the house is pretty secluded. Yes, definitely. And, uh, wandering around inside, and then their mother comes 

Craig: home. Right. And the boys are twins.

I didn’t pick up on that immediately, but it became pretty clear pretty soon. And throughout the movie, they were. Almost identical clothing in the first half of the movie, their clothing is identical except for they would wear different color shirts. So, but B and then towards the end of the movie, they started dressing, uh, even more alike.

And, and these boys, these actors are clearly, obviously. Identical twins. And, uh, that in itself is a little bit unsettling. Yeah. I don’t know why, but there’s something kind of creepy about kids in general in, in scary movies. And then you throw in the whole twin aspect and they clearly have a very tight bond as you know, Twins do I guess?

Uh, it 

Todd: is it’s and they’re very quiet and they don’t really leave each other’s side. It’s almost like if you’re watching the shining through the eyes of the two girls, just watching them the whole time. 

Craig: I was very much reminded of the two little girls in the shining. It was very evocative of that. 

Todd: If there’s a silence through most of this film, there’s probably maybe six pages of 

Craig: dialogue.

Yeah, maybe not very much. And, and it’s really limited in scope as far as character is concerned too. We’ve really just got three principal actors. Um, the two boys, uh, who apparent in real life are, are named the same names that they have in the film. Uh, and then their mother. And then there are few characters who enter for no more than a minute or two, but beyond that, it is focused solely on this small family.

Yeah. 

Todd: Mom comes home. She’s clearly had some kind of surgery done. Uh, you’re not sure if it’s from an accident or, but, but then you kind of get a closer look at the bandages and you realize it must have been some kind of plastic surgery. 

Craig: It looks like cosmetic surgery, and it’s suggested that she’s in television, she’s, uh, a television host or something, uh, a moderate celebrity, uh, at least that’s what the boys suggest.

So maybe her appearances. Is important. You know, if there has been some kind of accident, maybe it’s reconstructive or, you know, maybe she’s just in the entertainment industry and she’s had some pretty extensive work. 

Todd: You don’t know, getting a little nip and tuck there. Um, and she comes home and she’s speaking with them and right off the bat, she gives them instructions.

Um, you know, the doctor said that I’m, uh, I’m supposed to take it easy. I need to be in bed a lot of the day. Let’s not open the blinds because I need sunlight. I don’t want a lot of sunlight. Don’t bring any animals into the house. And then it’s just kind of a somber attitude. As the boys in this quiet home with their mother are.

Walking around and they get this feeling, at least from talking to each other that she’s not really their mother. 

Craig: Yeah. And it’s really bizarre. I mean, it’s obvious that something is going on from the beginning. First of all, the mother seems very sinister. Uh, at the beginning, she’s very short with the boys.

Now, I suppose if you’re looking at this from a rational perspective, she just had surgery. So, you know, she’s, she’s recovering. I mean, maybe she’s in pain, maybe she’s, you know, not feeling well. And she’s really just trying to get them to take care of themselves so she doesn’t have to worry about it, but there’s a coldness between her and the boys.

And very early on, it’s established. That she’s not communicating with both boys. She refuses to acknowledge one of them. Uh, she will only acknowledge Les, which upsets the boys clearly. And, and you’re wondering from the beginning, you know, what is going on here? And, and like I said, knowing what, well, generally speaking, knowing what kind of movie we were getting into, I immediately had questions.

That ended up being right. I mean, you lay it out 

Todd: right here, I guess. So you sort of do, because you’re not going to watch this and get 10 minutes in without coming to the same conclusion that Lucas is a ghost. Yeah. Or, 

Craig: or, or he doesn’t exist  or something. Um, she she’s clearly not acknowledging him. Lucas never speaks directly to her.

He always relays his messages through, uh, Aliyah. When he does respond to the mother, if he does, she seemingly ignores it, but it becomes pretty apparent that. He’s not there. She can, she can only communicate with Alius. 

Todd: Yeah. She communicates with him. Um, whenever Lucas says something, she doesn’t really respond, uh, and then Eli ileus will repeat it.

And then she’ll sort of respond to that. And I think it’s Lucas that sort of plants, the idea, and Aaliyah says had that maybe this isn’t our 

Craig: mother. It seems that way. And at first I couldn’t tell, I thought his, he did. And then I thought. Are they all dead? I didn’t know what was going on. I thought, you know, especially since they were, you know, dressed identically, except one of them was typically in a light colored shirt and the other one was dark.

I’m like, are they trying to throw symbolism at us? Here? Is this like his dark side manifesting or something like an imaginary friend or something, but it seems pretty apparent from the beginning. That there’s only one boy and the conflict then arises with, uh, the two boys trying to get the mother to recognize them both.

Uh, and then they also have this lurking suspicion that she’s not who she says she is. She’s not their mother. 

Todd: And the mother is acting strangely too. That’s what really throws you off. You’re trying to puzzle this together and you sort of think, like Craig said, you sort of feel like you’ve got it figured out.

And then the mother starts doing weird things. She seems to be hiding her face from the boys. The boys are out playing. And as soon as they come in the house, we go back to the mother upstairs. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed and she kind of bolts to attention the back of her head towards us and quickly puts on the bandages that she had off.

Right. Like she’s wrapping them back up the 

Craig: boys. Yeah. And it does when she finally, when she takes off the mask, I mean, when she’s got the full mask on you’re, you’re thinking that her injuries or. W w the results of her surgeries must be pretty grotesque. And, and that’s why she’s trying to keep it covered.

But when she finally takes it off, she appears to be entirely healed. So it it’s, it’s a mystery, you know, what is going, what 

Todd: is going on? What did you think was going on? Coming from what we know about the end. And let’s just say for sake of argument, that there’s nothing wrong with the mother, except that maybe she’s sort of troubled.

I’m thinking of a, the Babadook, for example, you know, a mother who’s kind of dealing with a very difficult home situation and maybe that’s a focus of this. She stands in front of the mirror and her robe and just kind of stares at herself for awhile. Then there’s that very strange moment. We’re in the middle of the night, she goes out into the woods.

It’s basically drops all our clothing along the way, takes off her bandages and just sort of screams 

Craig: well, and it’s that really, it’s a commonly used effect that really, you know, fast head shaking, blurry, head shaking thing going on in the forest. And yeah, it’s very weird, you know, is, is she possessed? Is she a witch?

Um, that was the part really that I had big time questions about. So yeah. Before we started talking, I snuck onto some meshes message boards and you know, these aren’t experts, these are just guys like us talking on message boards, but one person suggested that that whole sequence was a dream. That it was, it was a, the boys dreaming or the alive boy dreaming.

Uh, and they backed that up by saying the very next shot is the boys sitting startled upright in bed. I didn’t even remember that. I guess I was just still trying to figure out what was going on. I mean, it was all happening in the nighttime, so it didn’t seem odd to me that the boys would be waking up. I thought maybe something that she was doing in the woods startled them, or they had some sense of it or something.

I don’t know. I think I’m going with that dream theory. Yeah, because it, it seems like it’s yes, it at the end that there’s really not anything wrong with the mother. In fact, when it comes right down to it, The movie is really just about a family in crisis. There apparently. I mean, we never know filled in with exactly what happened, but there was some sort of accident and the mother mentions a separation.

So we guess the dad is out of the picture and in just these really brief clips of conversation that they hear her speaking over the phone, she says things like, you know, it’s really hard, but I can’t play along anymore. So it seems like they have been dealing with the aftermath of some sort of catastrophe.

And I guess that would kind of explain her behavior too. She’s really struggling. I mean, if, if it is the case that she lost a son, I mean, obviously that’s something that she’s struggling with processing and if her living son. Is having some kind of psychotic episode, you know, it would make sense that she would be a little bit off her game.

Todd: Yeah. It’s, it’s it’s as though the living son is maybe imagining his brother. Uh, and then, but they’re little things that are just a little off about it that unsettle you, even when you’re trying to unpack this as a puzzle. And I think what we’re kind of saying here is there’s really maybe no puzzle to unpack and maybe that’s part of what makes it so unsettling is it’s so straight forward.

In a sense, the, the plots paper thin, um, the characters are they’re pretty well developed, but we only see this, the slice of their life. Right. We don’t really, there’s not a lot for them to play against in order for them to open up different aspects of their personnel. Right. 

Craig: We’re just thrown into their situation.

We get no context and we’re really never provided with the context other than just accident separation. That’s it. That’s all we get. I don’t know anything about psychology, but you know, maybe he’s just. Processing his grief and he can’t let go. Um, so maybe his mind is playing tricks on him. I guess there’s the possibility that there’s something supernatural going on, but I didn’t really get that feeling.

Todd: No, you, uh, well you always wonder, but you’re right. Uh, you don’t ever get that feel because everything that Lucas does get can be explained by Aelius as imagination and Elian himself doing it, or at least himself saying it right there. And then in that 

Craig: scene. Right. And I was trying to play really. To pay really close attention, because I wanted to, you know, as soon as I suspected that Lucas was dead, I wanted to see if anybody ever acknowledged him.

I wanted to see if he ever physically did anything that actually manifested in reality. And I don’t think it did. I think that, you know, he never directly communicates with anybody except alias. And although you kind of see, Oh gosh, Lucas, you see him doing things. It’s easy to believe either those things just really aren’t happening or that Lucas did it himself.

I mean, it’s, it’s not right. Right, right. It’s not difficult to, it’s not difficult to explain if that’s the theory you’re going 

Todd: with. It gets, um, strange about the point where they bring a cat in the house. At first, I was thinking, is this meant to throw us off? Is something weird or going on here, or this is the sort of theory I’m going with.

Is this. A really good job on the part of the filmmakers to bring us into the mind of a trouble. You know, you all know about that. Kids who are troubled. My mother worked at a psychiatric facility with pre-adolescence and there’s a whole laundry list of things that a troubled child will do. Um, that are sort of signs and, and part of the survey when they admit people is to kind of go through this list of things such as it has he or she, uh, tortured animals.

Uh, and has he, or she played, do they play with fire as this film was going off? I was almost checking them off. Obviously fire plays into it a big time. Yeah. He’s really into these cockroaches in these insects, he brings a cat into the house at. Specifically when the mother asked him not to hides the cat under the bed, mothers kind of looking for something and he manages to keep the cat hidden, but in the same way, the cat escapes, when they go and they are looking for the cat.

They find the cat dead down the basement, uh, behind the hot water heater. And I believe it’s Lucas who suggests maybe mom did this. Yeah, yeah. 

Craig: He’s I’m sure mom did it. And I was really curious about that scene too, because I thought that it was it what it said to me. Was that Lucas, whatever he is, whether he’s a projection, a manifestation, whatever he is, he’s taking every opportunity to turn alias against the mother.

Um, and there are even moments when Eliya is kind of, has. Remorse or, or, you know, he starts to feel a connection to his mother. Again, he starts to believe that she is who she says she is, but Lucas always steps in at the last minute to remind him know, you know, we knew she’d tried to trick us. And I wondered if that, you know, I, I don’t know.

I, I definitely know what you’re talking about with like the mutilation of animals and whatnot, but I almost wonder, you know, they find this cat. Like in a catacomb around their house or something, which is kind of weird, but you know, neat set piece. That’s true. Um, and they find the cat and the cat is really docile.

Like it’s kind of like mewling and, um, you know, they go over and they pet it and it doesn’t run away. No. And so they, you know, they take it home and, you know, the, the cat appears to be okay, but it never really comes out of this box. Now I know you’ve got cats. Cats really aren’t that dormant, at least not all the time.

So I kind of wondered if maybe when they found the cat, it was already sick and dying anyway, and then it escaped as animals will do to try to go find a place to die on their own. And then when they found it dead again, Lucas, whether he’s a darker side of, of aliases mind or whatever, he is use that as an opportunity to provide further suggestion against the mother.

Todd: It’s very possible. But then what they ended up doing with the cat is kind of sick and twisted. They’re kind of frustrated at mom. Well, well, let’s back up for a second. They’re playing with the cockroaches with her as well. They sneak into her room and, uh, drop a cockroach onto her chest while she’s sleeping.

She doesn’t wake up, but her mouth is slightly ajar. It’s more like one of those beautiful. 

Craig: Oh yeah. It’s one of the, no, it’s not Chinle Cochran, giant hissing cockroaches.  full of them, which is just kind of creepy. So maybe I should have been tipped off earlier that this kid was a little off, but I don’t know.

I mean, he’s a boy, I wasn’t that kind of boy, but he’s a boy, you know, maybe he just 

Todd: likes bugs or whatever. There’s sort of a slight explanation for all of it. And again, like what I come back to that theory of, of him being troubled is. That’s how it always seems to start, you know? Oh, well, he’s a boy he likes playing with with creepy, weird things.

Oh, he’s a boy. He’s a little aggressive and he’s too small. And he didn’t realize that he’d hurt such and such animal. You’d never really meant to do it. And then before, you know, it, all these signs are piling up together and it’s strange. The cockroach goes into the mom’s mouth and then nothing happens.

She doesn’t wake up that we know of. Right. And 

Craig: folks we’re talking about giant hissing cockroach, the horse thing, right. You know, this is some fear factor stuff going on. So it’s not just a little bug that you might not notice. Uh, so it’s very odd. And again, did this, you know, this happened, they kind of snuck into her room after she had angrily searched their room for the cat and she didn’t find it, but she had an altercation with alias.

Uh, a little bit of a physical altercation. She didn’t strike him or anything, but she kind of struggled with them on the bed. So they were angry with her and then snuck into her room and in the middle of the night and put this Roach in here, again, maybe a dream, I guess, I or not. 

Todd: I don’t know. It, it seemed, it was almost played as a sort of retaliation in a way, but then also this sort of sense of curiosity, but the fact that the seed.

Ends. It goes into her mouth, the scene ends and it’s the next day. Yeah. And that’s it. There’s no shot back to their surprised faces. It’s not played up like a horror movie would play up a scene like that. No, 

Craig: it’s, it’s almost surreal. You, you really can’t or I can’t. Locate the line between fantasy and reality.

Uh, a lot of the time, uh, throughout this movie, um, and going, you know, going back to what you were saying about maybe this boy being troubled anyway, even the interactions between the brothers, you know, the, the, the games that they play are violent games, you know, they hit each other and shove each other and, you know, they’ll smack one another and say, does that hurt?

No smack, does that hurt? No. You know, I don’t know. I’d never. I had a brother I’ve never been a twin. So maybe this is a kind of a common thing, but it’s, it’s, it’s odd and unsettling and it makes you question, you know, what’s, what’s going on here and what’s going on in these kids’ minds. And I 

Todd: think it was in retaliation for something else.

Then they dump out the tour. They take all the bugs out of the terrarium. They put the dead cat in there and they fill it up with water and you have this. Was it water? I, well, I 

Craig: think it was initially, it was initially. Okay. Yeah. Or maybe it wasn’t because at the end they settled on fire. Maybe it was like alcohol or something.

I mean, they were, they were pouring it out of this big plastic jug. I just assumed it was water, but maybe in the end, whatever it is is flammable. I just, I kind of assumed maybe they had added something, but. I guess it would make more sense if it was the same formaldehyde 

Todd: preserved thing 

Craig: and yeah. And they put the cat in there and then they leave it clearly so that the mom will find it.

And she 

Todd: does it almost as a decoration in the house. Right. And I have to say it fit in perfectly with that. Like if you didn’t know, it was a dead cat, the movie had kicked off with that thing in the middle of the, of the, uh, of the table. Oh yeah. Well, that’s kind of quirky, but deco kind of weird. That’s the, well, that was part of what I think also made the movie on settling was the design of the house.

The fact that a dead cat floating in a thing almost looks like another art piece along with the house. And then one thing that I noticed early on that just sort of keeps coming in, especially before we see mom’s bandages. Is there all these, these pieces of art on the wall and whenever there’s a human figure in them, there it’s like a blurry out of focus, kind of.

Craig: They’re either in silhouette or like, you know, shadow silhouette or right. Their faces are obscured and blurry. I noticed that too. And it’s odd. I want, because the mother seems to be so kind of invested in her looks, um, and maybe she’s a TV personality or something. I wondered there’s one really large, full length portrait of a woman.

That again, her, her face is obscured. But it was reminiscent of the mother. It was a blonde haired woman. Um, I don’t know if that was meant to be her. I don’t know. 

Todd: There were, to me, you know, that go all the way up to as far as like, is this just sort of a ghost house, you know, is this the sort of blurry memory of the mother and of the different things that happen throughout their lives that are sort of decorating the house?

I don’t think that’s what it is, but it just was a Testament, I think, to the design of the show. That I think those things were meant to play with you on a subconscious. 

Craig: Oh yeah, absolutely. I think so too. It 

Todd: plays into the mystery of who the mother is because you’re not seeing any faces on the wall to clue you in then later, the boys are staring at the pictures on the wall and there are many nail nails jutting out where clearly picture frames had been removed and had been removed.

And all the pictures are of them and their mom. So there’s no man in there or whatever. And they start going through the photo album and lots of photos have been removed, including one of the pages that says our wedding day, which is completely blank. And then. They come across that photo of the only other photo in the house of somebody else.

And it’s their mother and a girl, or like a friend, somebody about her same age, um, sort of 

Craig: what’s odd about it is in the picture, both women, the mother and the other woman. Are dressed in identical clothing and they’re very similar and feature. I mean, my first thought was, Oh, the mom has a twin too. You know, twins do kind of run in families.

So I thought that wouldn’t be that out there, but that was one of those things that I kind of thought. Was kind of a red herring and I don’t really know what we were supposed to think about what was going on there because they keep, they keep saying, you’re not our mother. You’re not, our mother proved that you are like, they want to sh they want her to, uh, show them her birthmark, um, that she has on her face, but it’s under her bandages and she refuses to do that.

They look at a photograph. Or no, no. A video online that she had posted online and they pause on a closeup of her face and her eyes and the picture are Brown, and then they go examine her eyes. And they’re blue and she just says, well, it’s contacts. I don’t know. I mean, I, okay. 

Todd: I guess I kind of know what color eyes, your mom, one thing, you know, unless you were so young, you didn’t realize she wore contacts all the time.

And then 

Craig: to explain the picture, they say who’s that, and she’s kind of evasive about it. That was one of the things I didn’t really understand the whole time. I mean, it seemed like they were asking her questions. They were asking to prove things that would really not be all that difficult to answer or to prove.

And she’s really evasive. So I thought. Maybe there is something going on with her, like about the picture they say, who is this woman? And she, she won’t say anything at first. And then they’re like, who is it? And she says, a friend. We always dress just to like, what? I mean, 

Todd: it seemed like really convenient things.

And then, um, when they do finally get mom in a compromising situation and tire up to the bed, Uh, which they do, which is where the movie really starts to 

Craig: get really kind of dark. And I was kind of crawling in my skin a little bit from that point on. Yeah. 

Todd: There’s all kinds of, well, we can go into that, but in any way they tire up.

And, uh, then I think it’s it’s Lucas who points out the beauty Mark and Les goes and wipes it away. Basically. It’s 

Craig: makeup it’s it’s just painted 

Todd: on. And of course that’s to that. Oh, this proves you’re not my mom. She’s like, no, during the surgery, they had to remove it. 

Craig: And we’ve been already given the suggestion that one or both of the boys plays with fire, and that plays into the ending of the film also.

So maybe whatever the end, again, playing into the end of the film, the mother says to Elias it, wasn’t your fault. Uh, it wasn’t your fault that he died. So I wonder. If maybe one or both of the boys was playing with fire and there was a fire and that is the cause of her injuries. And that would kind of make sense if she had extensive burns on her face, that they would kind of have to reconstruct and it would be consistent with the bandages that she was wearing.

And it would make sense that if she had a birthmark or a mole on her face, if she had been badly burned, that’s likely something that they would just remove. So that’s 

Todd: possible except there’s that shot that pans across the wall. Where there are those two bulletin boards and it looks like, uh, there’s some photos of her marked up for the surgery.

That’s right. So it looks more, very much like a nip and tuck type kind of markings on there. You’re right. I had forgotten about that. I wondered if it wasn’t the opening sequence that was showing us up sort of up to the point that Lucas had died, uh, whether it was. Entering that tunnel. Yeah. Or whether it was floating, drowned, 

Craig: drowning.

Right. In the beginning. Um, the two boys are just playing and they’re kinda just playing in the area around the house and there’s a Lake and there’s like this, I don’t know. It looked like a mineshaft or something. It wasn’t a cave. It was manmade. Lucas walks in first and is just engulfed in black. And then Elian kind of stands back and calls his name several times for following him in.

And then we cut away from that. And then we cut to a scene on a Lake where Aelius is floating on some kind of raft or float on his belly. Um, and he keeps calling out Lucas’s name and you see some kind of rumbling under the water, but the boy never surfaces. And then it cuts into the beginning of the film when they’re together and they’re going home.

So maybe, maybe he a guide accidentally in their adventure 

Todd: it’s possible. And then perhaps, uh, this moment where the mother is sort of going through this rebirth, I guess. My theory. My theory is okay, the boy died. It caused a rift in the separation, in the family, the guy, whoever he was, the man didn’t want anything to do with it.

And so he took off mother, got super angry, tore up all their wedding photos took everything else. It’s just me and the boy and the boy now, except the boy is insisting that his brother is still alive. Uh, so she’s sort of dealing with this by playing along with it, thinking it’s going to go away and then.

I don’t think maybe, maybe as a part of a feeling of rebirth or maybe it’s just something she’s always wanted to do. She has the plastic surgery done, which means that she has to leave for a little while. And I guess she can just leave the boy at home alone. And then when she comes back, she sort of made this decision.

Now that I’m back, I’m not going to play along anymore. Which is an unfortunate decision for her to make at that particular time when she’s all bandaged up. Cause that leads Lucas to think that she is refusing to I’m sorry, leads, ileus to believe, to think that she’s refusing to serve Lucas. Or she doesn’t know about Lucas, so she’s not their mother and she’s been replaced.

Right. You know what I’m saying? That was sort of that sort of the running theory I kind of have, I have 

Craig: a feeling you’re probably onto something there that, that seems the most reasonable explanation I can think, 

Todd: but there’s a lot of room for her. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s ambiguous. I mean, I, they’re not just gonna hand you the answer on a silver platter at the end.

You’re going to be left with questions. There’s no question about that. 

Todd: Where there they’ve tied mom up in bed. We’re probably the most, well, clearly the most unsettling in the film and that’s kind of where the film was going and you didn’t expect it to go there. 

Craig: I. No, I didn’t really expect it to go there.

She’s medicated. So she, in first I was like, how was this one boy going to tie up his mom in the night? But she takes a pill right before she goes to sleep. So I guess we’re led to believe that she’s taking sedatives or whatever. Um, and they tied her up to the bed. And I wasn’t expecting it to go where it went like that part.

I mean, it’s, it’s unsettling to have an adult of parents, you know, tied up to the bed by their child. But at that point I was still thinking that may be their suspicions of her religious summit. I thought maybe that they were going to get her to confess that something else was going on, especially since she was being so elusive.

But then as they, you know, as they go about trying to get her to confess, it becomes. I don’t know, I mean, becomes disturbing it’s disturbing and because it becomes violent and, 

Todd: and, and you never would imagined this, these kids would. Would be that kind of kid. Yeah, 

Craig: I guess. I mean, there’s little suggestions.

I mean, you folks spoilers, uh, we’ve already, we’ve already done it, but uh, more specifically, you know, one of the, one of the things that they do to try to torture, I guess that’s the only word you can use, torture her into confessing, who she is and where their mother is, is, uh, they. Take a magnifying glass and magnified the sunlight and burn her skin.

Her face know, like you’d burn an ant. Right. And we had seen one of the boys doing that earlier in the film with a, some sort of bug with a foreshadow. So, yeah. So I guess there was some suggestion that they might be capable of something, but I don’t think that I ever expected them. To turn that violent towards the mother.

I thought they would chicken out. I, I thought maybe the mother would end up being sinister. And so then it would feel justified that they were doing the things that they were doing, but really. It’s just their mom and, uh, the, the boy Aelius apparently is just really troubled. 

Todd: There’s a lot of tension in there too, where you see the interplay, whether it’s his other, another part of his psyche or it’s, you know, a ghost or whatever.

You see the interplay between Lucas and ileus. You see ileus sort of continue to surface up to this level of sanity, almost like, Oh my gosh, what am I doing? Oh, she, of course, she’s our mom tears coming to us eyes at points. And then Lucas sort of is like, no, trust me. 

Craig: Right. And in those moments, in those moments, when, uh, Eliya starts to show some emotion, show some remorse, Lucas isn’t there.

Like every once in a while, Lucas will just not be present and an alias will kind of call for him and get no response. And that’s when alias will kind of start to show a little bit more sympathy, a little bit more warmth. He starts to believe his mother. And then right at the moment where. You think maybe he’s going to turn to her and, and things are going to be okay then Lucas shows back up.

No, she’s just tricking us. It’s it’s it’s spooky. I mean, it could all, I, I, I guess I think that whatever accident, this, that happened caused a psychotic break in alias and he is not. You know, he’s messed up. Yeah. 

Todd: And her refusing to acknowledge Lucas is what sort of broke was that last straw that broke him, that sort of last tenuous bit to sanity causing him to himself to question Lucas’s continued existence as sort of invisible playmate, you know, dead brother.

He had a mask of his own too. Right. You know, and I thought that was interesting at the point where the mother is unmasked. That’s when, you know, they tie her up and Lucas puts on his own mask, uh, as he’s approaching her. Well, I wonder what, you know, it happens at that scene. It happens early in the very beginning of the film, when we see the two of them playing in those green masks.

And then it happens at the very end when he, you know, when basically the mother, we think she’s escaped, she falls hits her head. Ends up tied up in the basement, uh, in the, on the floor, in the living room. And he just starts lighting everything on fire. He circling her almost as kind of a 

Craig: ritualistic kind of thing.

Got candles set up all around her. She’s I think he’s got her super glued to the floor. Is that earlier in the movie, they had super glued her mouth together, which was a really, really unsettling. Scene. And then the visual 

Todd: fortress scene where they’re cutting it back open to very slowly. Oh my own. You’re just like, you know, they’re going to cut her, you know, they’re going to pet her and then they do, Oh, I honestly I’ve seen a lot of these sort of torture films, films with torture in them.

I don’t think I’d ever seen those particular methods. 

Craig: And you know, it reminded me. I, if you have seen this movie, I’ll be so impressed. There was a bad movie from the eighties called Witchery, starring David Hasselhoff and Linda Blair. I have 

Todd: not. 

Craig: Oh, interesting is probably the 

Todd: word. I have a thing for Linda Blair, the 

Craig: older, this exercise, this is her as an adult.

And, uh, it’s it’s about, uh, which, and who lives in this, uh, castle or something. I don’t know. But anyway, people end up there and, uh, this which kind of dispatches them and in one scene, The scene that was seared into my brain. When I saw it, when I was a little kid, was one of the women, um, gets bound and hung upside down in the chimney and the witch sews her lips together.

And you, you know, you see it, it’s a practical effect. It’s a slow thing where you see it all happening. And this reminded me very much of that. And it made me really uncomfortable. I don’t know if it was because of my memory of that or just because it’s a really uncomfortable image, but you know, you and I even.

You and I together have watched some pretty graphic stuff. I mean, we just watched saw a couple of weeks ago and this evoked responses for me that are uncommon for me, we were both 

Todd: squirming quite a bit here score. 

Craig: I think on more than one occasion, I had an audible reaction. I mean, it was, it was really unsettling, 

Todd: you know, the mouth to anytime.

Nothing bad usually ever happens to your mouth. And when it does, it hurts so bad. You bite your tongue, you bite your lip and you’re reminded of it. You bang your tooth against something. I mean, that’s pain. And of course everybody’s got that. Not everybody, but a lot of people have that fear of the dentist.

You know, it’s just so ingrained in our 

Craig: culture. Just you talking about it’s given me the willies, 

Todd: all they’re doing is stuffed to her mouth and they’re jamming it open and doing something in there with the flaw. I wouldn’t know what they were doing. I didn’t want to know what they were doing. I might’ve turned away at that point.

It 

Craig: sounded like they were trying to. Saw her teeth out or something. But I think that they were just like using the floss, like saw into her gums. I mean, it’s it’s and they put a dowel rod in her mouth to keep it open as they do. It’s it’s really, 

Todd: really unsettling at any time. It happens with your mouth, the blood mixes with that saliva, that seems like, you know, 15 times more blood than it actually is.

And that’s exactly what happened when she opened her mouth after they cut her off. Cut her when they were cutting her back open from them. 

Craig: And that’s really as gory as it gets. And, and yeah, honestly, the Gore is not that intense. In fact, the blood didn’t even really look like blood to me. I mean, I know it was intended to be blood, but it wasn’t of that bright red color that you would expect.

It was more of a muted kind of Brown. I don’t know if that was intentional or what, but, um, it didn’t. Change the effect. Uh, it was still really disturbing to see, even though we’ve seen far more graphic, I’m sure. For whatever reason, this was just really 

Todd: troubling. I mean, You can do that. I mean, in a film like this, I think it also sort of takes you off guard.

One thing that I really like about it was the melancholy style that it just kept throughout. Absolutely. And it had beautiful 

Craig: wide shots. Yeah. Yes it did. And, and they, they would, uh, it was, it was spooky because there would be these wide shots and they would linger on them for a really long time, too long, 

Todd: just a little too long on 

Craig: each one you mentioned before.

For the mother standing in front of, uh, her mirror and she’s got all of her mask on and she’s wearing this gossamer gown and the wind is kind of blowing at her feet. And we just freeze on this moment for what had to have been a minute or two. I don’t know. I mean, it seemed like a long time and it was, I mean, it was effective.

It was, it was unsettling. 

Todd: And the movie is full of those shots. Just a little too long. I’m very static camera. I really like that. Actually. I get really tired of the shaky cam all the time. They were a couple moments in there and it was always, it was toward the end when there’s a little bit of unstability instability in the camera.

And at times it did seem to mirror what I interpreted as a little bit of instability in the boy. I’d have to go back and watch it. I don’t know that for sure. But it was really well done. It was very subtle. 

Craig: Yeah. I thought the cinematography was really artful, you know, I don’t know. When I go talk to other people about this movie?

I don’t know. I don’t know if I can say I liked it, but I think that it was, you know, it was, it was artfully done and it was definitely unsettling, but yeah, like you said, you know, the camera work was nice. The pictures were beautiful. The color was really effective. Um, so on that front, I think it was a well-made film.

Todd: Mm Oh yeah. Undoubtedly, um, and use a lot of natural light, you know, very much so we’re, we’re seeing. The sun kind of go down and things are getting dim in the house and it’s just is what it is. Uh, there aren’t lamps filling in spaces and filling in the shadows. It’s just a, it’s just like your house would be at night, maybe even darker than your house would be.

Man. If I had that many windows in my 

Craig: house, I’d never turned on a light. Right. I mean, and that’s the thing. They do a lot of cool stuff with backlighting, you know, the, the interior of the houses is really dark, but they have these. Big windows. Uh, and so there’s artificial light coming from behind. So you kind of get people in silhouette and it’s also really cool looking because, uh, the, the windows are blinded.

So you’ve got kind of this striped background that then the, the silhouettes move around in front of, uh it’s it’s neat. I thought it was, it was cool. Look 

Todd: at one thing missing from it that you find in a lot of horror, uh, any real element of comedy. No, I don’t think no dark humor, nothing in this. And that’s really pretty uncommon.

It is even your most horror graphic, horror films, brutal horror films. Generally have these moments of dark comedy. Or even if you’re sick and twisted enough, you’re going to laugh a little bit. This movie seemed utterly devoid of that. It did, 

Craig: it seemed to be taking itself really seriously. And sometimes when that happens, it can come off as pretentious.

I didn’t really think this came off as pretentious. I felt like they had a purpose and they were establishing a tone and they. They wrote it throughout. It came off as very 

Todd: slice of life in that regard, the closest thing to comedy we had, and it wasn’t, the red cross comes to the door when she’s tied up.

And all the only thing going through my mind after they left without ever discovering her, uh, was boy, even the red cross. Come and see this woman, the literal red cross coming to her door. This woman still had no hope 

Craig: at that point. It had already turned so dark that, uh, you know, they had the mother tied up in the bed.

They had already been doing things to her. And then these red cross people show up. I was convinced they were going to kill these people. I thought that they, you know, they had fashioned weapons earlier on, um, I thought, you know, these red cross people are gonna find the mother and these boys are going to dispatch them.

It didn’t happen, not at all. Um, but, uh, yeah, I it’s, it’s, it’s a serious, uh, movie it’s more dramatic than anything. And I think that that’s part of where I don’t know that I would classify it as typical horror at all, but I think what becomes so horrifying at the end is you kind of come to the realization.

That this is just a human drama, you know, there, it, I’m not convinced that there’s anything supernatural going on. I’m convinced that this is a psychological thing that this boy has snapped as a result of, of tragedy. So there’s nothing, you know, you can’t blame it on the ghost. You can’t blame it on this, the haunted house.

These are real people, you know, interacting with one another in a really upsetting 

Todd: way. I a hundred percent agree with you. I don’t think there was anything supernatural going on. In fact, this movie. If you were to find its closest cousin. I would say, have you ever seen Roman Polanski’s repulsion? I haven’t.

You need to, it’s great. It sort of seems like it should be a horror movie. It’s about a woman, uh, who sort of by herself, uh, in, in a European apartment and is a little bit threatened by people and things like that. And just slowly starts to come on hinge and you’re never quite sure what’s real and what’s not, and you’re never quite sure if she is coming on hinged or if people are actually threatening her and she’s really in danger.

That was exactly the same sort of feeling I got after we were done with this film and me too, the ending, the very ending shot thoughts on that, 

Craig: you know, sadly, it’s one of those endings, you know, we watched, uh, the woman in black, um, recently, and it’s reminiscent of that ending because you kind of have.

Death, uh, when it comes right down to it, folks, they kill the mom. Um, they, they are not convinced that she is who she says she is and they kill her. And, uh, the last scene we returned to the cornfield where we started. We were kind of looking from the boy’s perspective. We’re kind of looking through their eyes and they’re walking to this clearing in the corn.

And through this clearing comes walking their mother and they walk up to her. They turn around and face camera almost as though they are posing for a family portrait and. Again, it’s one of those shots that lingers for a long time, they just stand there and look at you and smile for a good minute or so, and then cut to black.

And that’s it. Um, sadly I think that I was disappointed in the ending with the woman in black, but I think that the you’re supposed to walk away thinking, Oh, well, at least they’re all together. I don’t, I don’t know that I got that sense. I think I got the sense here that alias is a survivor, but is now projecting.

Both his brother and his mother. And I don’t know how, you know, he’s a kid alone in a court, you know what what’s going to happen to this poor kid? I don’t know. I mean, what did you 

Todd: think early possible? I bet I’ve accoladed between that and the fact that they were all ghosts and stuff, but again, that last shot lingered way too long.

The pose was super strange. It was just as unsettling as the rest of the movie has been. Not that sort of happy ending, which I’ve always hated anyway, that I’m leaning more towards what you said, uh, that he is now posing happily with his family. Just like in that picture. 

Craig: And it’s sad. 

Todd: It’s sad, super sad that this is the one, the way that this kid now finally can find some closure and enjoy life is, is if his mother is also dead a lot with his brother right now, everything’s in his head.

Um, what’s going to happen to him who knows, you know, and are they gonna, are they gonna find him, you know, do they know are they can to suspect that he was killed in the fire? It’s it’s, it’s messed up about halfway through this film. I thought, I think I’m going to be really disappointed in this. It moved along so slowly and I seemed, I felt like I had sort of figured it out.

Yeah. And I was trying to unravel a puzzle that I just was not there. And once that sort of hit me that there was no puzzle and things. In that last half hour got crazy. I really liked the movie. Yeah. 

Craig: I don’t know that I was ever afraid that I was going to be disappointed because I could tell that it was a well-crafted film.

So I knew, well, I suspected that leaving it. I would at least be able to say that I appreciate it for what it was and that’s kind of where I still stand on it now. I don’t know. I don’t know if I can say that I liked it. I don’t know if it’s something that I would even be invested enough to watch again, to see if I could figure more stuff out.

I don’t know. I do however, appreciate what they were trying to do. And I think that they were successful in what they were trying to do, but. If you are somebody who is troubled by loose ends, um, and ambiguous plot and questions, uh, you’re going to be frustrated by this movie. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s a 90 minute movie that sort of feels like two and a half 

Craig: hours.

It feels a little longer. I, you know, I don’t know the pacing was all right. I was on the edge of my seat for most of the time, but it is just these three actors for, you know, a good hour and a half plus, and really. Not a lot happens. Yes. 

Todd: So yeah. Did a great job acting though. Yeah, they did really carried them to carry the movie.

That was 

Craig: impressive. The boys, I thought in the beginning were very innocent. You didn’t really have any kind of, well, and you talked about watching the trailer. The trailer is really misleading. Totally not the movie you’re going to snow. And the trailer really plays on the early part of the movie where the mother seems really sinister and they even suggest things in the trailer that are not true in the 

Todd: movie.

Yeah. There’s some creative editing there where they actually edit a scene together that doesn’t exist quite that way. Right, 

Craig: right. Um, and, and it, it, it ends up not being about that at all. So I feel like it’s a great trailer. Cause it it’s, it’s. Uh, an unsettling thing. That’s gonna make you wanna watch the movie, but you’re getting into a different movie and those boys in the beginning, they, you know, they seem just like very normal boys.

And you, I think from the beginning, You just automatically are on their side. And then towards the middle, you start to question that and the boys play it really well. You know, it’s not abrupt shifts, it’s not, you know, an, uh, a crazy change in character where all of a sudden they go crazy. It feels very natural.

And, and maybe that’s part of what makes it so spooky. Yeah. 

Todd: Spooky not scary. Yes. I agree. Well, thank you, Craig. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. Subscribe to us like us on Facebook. We will see you again next week with two guys and a chainsaw until then.

I’m Todd and I’m Craig.

What begins as a heist film quickly descends into hilarious chaos as a group of wanna-be criminals run afoul of a coven of witches at the most inopportune time.

Witching and Bitching (2013)

Episode 7, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

welcome to another edition of two guys and a chainsaw. I’m Todd. I’m Craig. And today we watched witching and bitching. This was a Spanish film. Craig, you recommended it today. You had seen it before. I hadn’t seen it at all. Did you stumble across this? I don’t remember. I think that I had read about it on a finger area or, or something.

Uh, and then as soon as it popped up on Netflix, the, uh, cover image. Is a pretty eye catching, but I put off watching it for a while just because it’s subtitled it often when I, you know, put on these Netflix movies, I’m kind of doing other things, but this one, you know, requires your full attention unless you’re fluent in Spanish.

Um, so when I finally got around to it, I, uh, Was was really pleasantly surprised. It is an eye-catching title. It’s got that a woman on the front end. Uh, I hadn’t heard of it ever before. Um, it’s what, a two year old film, I think that it started, uh, circulating around 2013 and it did some festivals. It was one of the midnight selections at the Toronto film festival and it ended up actually winning an award, uh, there.

And then I think it still kinda went around festivals for awhile before it got kind of a wide video distribution here in the States. Well, I got to say it was crazy film. Yeah. It just, I mean, fun though. These are the kinds of films that sometimes only a foreign film will go this far. You know, I was actually thinking of that.

A Norwegian film about the evil Santa Claus. W what was that one at St uh, St. Nick? Was that what it was? Yeah, it was saying, I think it was actually St. Nick in English, obviously in Norwegian, it was something different. Right. It had a similar feel to it in that it was kind of crazy, kind of mad cap. Uh, really well, um, filmed, well lit I mean, great makeup, great acting like everything about it, but it just went all over the place and it was unabashedly sort of in a zaniness.

Yeah, absolutely. And that’s what I liked about it. It’s crazy. And it’s. You know, we’ve watched so many horror movies together. The both of us individually have seen so many, it’s kind of rare that you find something that stands out as being truly unique. I mean, of course, which is, you know, that’s, that’s not anything new, but, uh, this takes just a really fun, interesting spin on it.

And it goes lots of places. It’s almost a full two hours, but it doesn’t feel like it’s. Fast paced. There’s always stuff going on. Like you said, uh, the production value is great. I have no idea what the budget for this was, but it seemed like it must’ve been pretty big. It had to be huge. I think the locations were great.

Um, the, the actors and the, the scenery, uh, and some of it had to be, I mean, we’re talking countryside, we’re talking large caves, um, clearly stuff that probably wasn’t as well. I don’t know. I can’t assume that it wasn’t built in sound studio, but like the cave scene at the end. Right. Insane. I’m looking at all those steps and I’m thinking somebody had to build those that has to be some kind of landmark or something that they were allowed to film it or something, because it’s just such, you know, so large in scope and it looked real, it didn’t look like a set.

Um, so I w and, and like you said, there’s. Uh, a big kind of spooky mansion that seems to go on forever. I mean, there’s just these huge, amazing set pieces. The lighting is cool, all kinds of different tones of warm and cold. And we paused at one point to take a potty break. And, uh, just the image on the screen was, was a really.

Cool image to see. I, you know, even pause. I mean, the, the cinematography is, is really strong. Yeah. This is the kind of, um, film where it does, it feels like you could take any frame from it and it’s just beautifully composed. Oh yeah. You can hang it on your wall. Like, it’s a really cool picture. The movie started out in an, in a familiar place for me because a couple of years ago I actually got to go to Spain and we went to Madrid and, uh, there’s a very famous statue in a particular Plaza toward the center of Madrid and it’s of a bear.

Eating strawberries from, uh, a strawberry Bush. I don’t know. It was it’s interesting. And it starts out right there and then Plaza with a woman sort of talking about the end of the world and the apocalypse in front of this thing. Right, right. One of those doomsday preacher kind of ladies and yeah.

Meantime walking around her again, just totally brought back memories, all these different characters, sort of like. New York times square where people dress up as Mickey. Right. And the Las Vegas strip where you’ve got all those sad, like street performers, like drunk on the corner, you know, that’s right.

And you’re supposed to like pay the money to take picture with like this SpongeBob or something like this off brands. But yeah, it was, was it Plaza Del Sol? Is that, was that I believe so. Yes. Um, yeah. And, uh, you know, it’s this really crowded, uh, Plaza and the movie starts out kind of like a heist. Uh, film and it, you know, plays that really well.

I mean, it’s a good heist scene there in the beginning, as it turns out, you know, you’ve got, we don’t find this out immediately, of course, but you’ve got a Jesus street performer completely, you know, uh, spray painted, head to toe and silver. You’ve got a, the green plastic army man head to toe green, uh, SpongeBob square pants, Minnie mouse.

Uh, gosh, I don’t even remember. Several of an invisible man guy. And as it turns out, these are all guys who have conspired to Rob this store in this, uh, Plaza, because they all have financial problems stemming largely from their trouble with women. And so it’s this big heist. And the funny thing I was telling you earlier was that, uh, this, this whole Plaza is so crowded.

They, there was no way the in production, they could clear it. I mean, I imagine they had to get permits to shoot there, but the, the people, the bustling people you see around are just. Citizens and, and they kind of just filmed it, guerrilla style. I mean, that, that store, the store that they actually buy or, uh, Rob is a, an actual store that they just use the storefront and they asked permission to use the interior and, wow.

Um, so, uh, I can only imagine the technically that would have been a nightmare, but it came off so good. I mean, it’s really exciting. It’s like goofy from the beginning. It’s like, anytime you take all these characters, really, they just seem like characters that are robbing the store. It kind of sets the tone without a word being spoken.

Absolutely. I mean, there’s some really funny moments in there. Of course, Jesus is the one who’s holding up the gun only out of his crucifix and telling everybody to clear out. I’m blasting them away. And then of course they robbed this gold store and in the process of the police, uh, things don’t go well.

And the police kind of show up on the scene with guns and they end up shooting SpongeBob’s you see, SpongeBob is more advanced, like getting riddled with bullets. And then, and then as the other characters are running by, you see Patrick SpongeBob’s friend, like leaning over him. Just really funny and really it does, it sets it up from the beginning it’s it’s cartoon-like and it’s cartoon like throughout the rest of the film, but in a great way.

Yeah. Yes. And it doesn’t really let up. And sometimes those movies that don’t really let up are exhausting to watch. And somehow this one just had the right amount of pacing when I was listening. And after a while I realized, is there a second in this movie without music behind it? I don’t know that there’s a, there’s a lot of music.

Uh, and it’s good. It’s really atmospheric. I was thinking, you know, this, there are so many different scenes. I mean, it’s going to be difficult for us to do any kind of recap that will do it justice, because it just moves from one. Uh, scenes the next, but there’s, um, a big feast scene with the witches, uh, in, in this big spooky mansion.

And there’s a lot of cool atmospheric stuff going on there. And then at the end, where’s, there’s this big witches Sabbath in the cave that we were talking about. There’s this kind of primal, rhythmic music. Um, and it really sets the atmosphere and I was thinking, you know, this would be great. That’d be a great soundtrack to have you pop this in on Halloween night and just let it roll for your, for your trick-or-treaters without any of the, the, the dialogue or anything over it.

It would just, it would just roll. Yeah. Well, they, they ended up, um, one of the funnier parts I thought was this, uh, sort of comic relief. Of course, when they start out it, it’s got this witty banter back and forth. There it’s one of those movies where people are joking with each other, even in the midst. Of pure chaos and running from the cops and guns and things being done.

There’s a lot of back and forth, a lot of really fast talking about Woody banter about it, about, um, pedestrian type thing in the midst of all this chaos. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it seems to be really aware of what it is. Wanting to be, I mean, it’s as much a comedy as anything else. I mean, it’s laugh out loud, funny, and, and there’s jokes.

There’s just witty banter. Sometimes it’s just the juxtaposition of these kinds of mundane things that they’re talking about in these extreme circumstances. That just it’s so out of place, uh, that it’s just funny, that’s own when they hijack the taxi cab, which unbeknownst to them until, you know, they’re going down the road has a passenger in it as well.

And they’re going along. This passenger just keeps saying, I want to go to what where’s the place he wants to go, but no Haas, but no hos, something like that. So go to  that’s where he wants to go. And that keeps coming up through that bill to an almost comic extent, to the point where at the end of this poor guy, it’s so funny, you know, they, they, the guys who are, who hijack this store there.

Their getaway car doesn’t work out. So they hijack this a taxi cab and eventually, you know, the taxi cab driver kind of joins their little group, but this passenger guy just goes through all of this terrible beating. I mean, they, they strip him down, they tie him up, they put him in there. You’re tired of hearing a bitch, just put it in the truck and from the trunk he’s, you know, chef you mother.

You bastards. Uh, and then as soon as they open. Oh, thank you. Thank you, please. I’m so sorry. Let me out, let me just shut it down, shut it back down again. It’s hilarious. And then when, so they, you know, they’re trying to flee, they want to get to the border, uh, France, but on the way there, they, uh, have to cross through this village and I know I’m going to butcher this, uh, whereas it, as

Is that going to remove her D let’s just call it the village from now on the village, right? Yeah. And, uh, one, the cats, the taxi cab driver doesn’t want to go through there because he has read that this is, you know, like kind of the central locale for witchcraft in Europe and maybe even the world. And, uh, he’s heard all kinds of scary things.

And of course that sets it up as soon as they get there, it’s this creepy European village. Um, and, uh, they stopped to get something to eat and obviously the citizens, they are very shady. The woman behind the bar is very witchy looking. Um, they, they run into all kinds of strange stuff in here. And then it’s just total mad cat from then on.

I mean, they, they, they are, they end up somehow going to this big mansion, uh, where the central, which family lives. And like I said, that set pieces is awesome. And then it’s just, it’s kind of a cat and mouse kind of a. I don’t even know how to explain it. You know, just this chase through a haunted house for the next 45 minutes or so.

It really is. And on their way there, they bond over their mutual trouble with women basically. And that really sets up. One of the themes of the film is when they’re going and the taxi driver is sort of like, you know what? I kind of respect you guys. Cause you’re kind of doing what you want to do. And, and, and they’re talking about, he sees the problem between the son and I believe his name was Sergio.

Yeah, we forgot to mention that, Oh, that’s a big deal. The main guy, the Jesus guy has his son with him on this heist, which obviously, you know, seems very much out of place, but he explained to us because he only has joint custody and he’s not going to miss his day, even if it’s this day and the whole thing.

Every man in the movie bitches and complains about the problems with women. And then, so obviously the witches are kind of established as kind of a metaphor for women in general, which is, you know, a totally man kind of perspective on things. It’s funny. Well, it’s very, you know, it’s that macho, the Spain macho, it’s sort of like taking that and throwing it on its head.

It’s bringing some macho women into the mix. Saying, Oh, you have trouble with these women. Well, let’s get some women in here who really, you know, can do their stuff when they’re talking in the car and they finally could have drivers, like, you know what, consider me part of your gang, uh, because I’m darn it.

I’m gonna have trouble with my woman too and all this. And they talk about the rings that they stole from the. Gold plate. Yeah. It was like a, we buy gold place that they robbed and what they, their stash is this whole big duffel bag full of wedding rings, wedding rings. Yeah. And it’s a, again, part of that deal they’re saying, and somebody brings it up and says, well, these rings are sort of representative of all of these broken marriages, all of these broken relationships and promises not kept.

Isn’t that bad luck. Yeah, bad mojo. Right. And as it turns out, it is, the witches are actually able to draw from that power from all the misery, from these failed relationships and whatnot. So it’s just kind of a, a nice coincidence for the, the, which Kevin. Yeah. And so they go, they, they, they, they leave this in.

And try to drive through this town and ended up accidentally hitting one of the witches in the road. And then she sort of flies off. Right. And they don’t really see it happen. And so they continue and they meet hers, hers, um, daughter, daughter later down the road and tries to convince them to come out to this mansion.

And again, they were playing with this feminine, feminine thing, which was like, Oh, well, would you, would you let me come? It’s only so far. They’re like, no, no, we really need to go. They’re kind of creeped out by her too. Like, Oh no, I think we really need to go. And she’s like, okay, well that’s fine. She kind of turns around and wait.

And then the next moment slyly smiles at the camera. Right? And then the next moment, of course, there she is in the car. They’re taking her to this mansion and. Um, she brings them in and the mansion itself has sort of, I said, while we were watching it almost like Scooby-Doo Oh, definitely, absolutely. All these long corridors and all these passages, it’s secret passages, secret doors, you know, bookshelves swinging out to reveal, secret passageways and stuff.

Every room is like in a different style. There’s like a Renaissance room. There’s a really long dining room with the big chandelier’s and then the whole part of it almost looks like it. Thedral has an alter in it and stuff like that. And then you’re right then you’re going through like the study and stuff.

It’s, it’s sort of your prototypical haunted house. Mansion that all these witches live in and they’re inviting all of their, which friends over to have a feast. And the feast is of course, these guys, right? And it’s it’s, uh, which is Sabbath and, and their goal is that they want to resurrect this ancient witch goddess, who then they will make a sacrifice to in the form of the son, the young boy, Sergio.

And then that’s. Sun is supposed to be reborn of this, uh, Messiah, which, and then the tides are gonna turn, it’s no longer going to be a man’s world. It’s going to be a woman’s world. They’re going to take it back. Um, and it was always supposed to be the way it was always supposed to be. Right, right. And so they’re all tied up to those chairs, which to me was one of the funniest sequences.

In the dining room, right? It’s this beautiful dining room, this huge long table chandelier’s above and all of these, you know, our, our taxi cab guys, the driver, the dad, whose name is Jose. Um, the guy who was the, uh, green soldier, uh, who his name was Tony and the driver, Manuel, and then also the body host guy, the inadvertent passenger, you know, they’re all tied up there waiting for these witches to come and the poor passengers across the, sitting across from them.

And of course these witches are. It has to be said, they’ve sort of taken the storybook witches and they have said, this is, they’ve just committed to that fully. These are witches who like put kids in ovens and have a jars full of snakes and bat, you know, drink frogs, blood and that kind of stuff. Yeah.

And so they’re, they’re just casually talking. One of them is walking on the ceiling, talking on her cell phone, talking to the other, which is, you know, what are they going to bring to the feces? You bring ice very casually, you know, come on over the key characters that they meet here is, uh, Oh, the young thing.

That’s Eva. Eva Eva. And she is okay. So you’ve got kind of these three generations of witches. The one, the one that they ran into at the bar ends up being the grandmother. And she looks kind of stereotypical witchy with kind of the rough long gray hair and the wrinkled face. Um, but I really like the way they did the look of the rest of the witches.

You know, they were more kind of like society ladies, um, for the most part, but then you have Eva, so then you’ve got the grandmother. And then, uh, the mother who is now kind of, um, the, I guess the head witch and her name’s grassy, uh, and then her daughter is Eva. And she’s kind of like the hot punk, uh, which like half of her head is shaved on the side.

She’s got that long hair. It’s very beautiful. I, I read that this, uh, this woman is, is the filmmaker, the directors muse actress, uh, and he’s used her before and is inspired by her. I’m not surprised. She’s gorgeous. She’s beautiful. She’s beautiful. And she’s fantastic. Yeah. Really dynamic full of energy. And she can play both that really, but she has that look and of course, probably part, part of it’s makeup and everything like that.

But she has that look where she’s kind of scary. Oh yeah, absolutely. And I think she’s got kind of like some violet contacts in really intense, uh, and she plays it. I mean, she just goes for it, you know, there’s no reservation, there’s no holding back. Um, and it’s funny because she she’s a witch and you know, she’s got witchy powers and whatnot, but she kind of becomes.

Smitten with, um, our main character Jose, and then immediately turns into that crazy stalker girlfriend who you just met and is desperately in love with you and wants every minute of your attention. And it’s like, it is hilarious, um, that the, the scenes where suddenly they end up breaking free. And they’re going through the mansion and she suddenly diverts him through a secret passage and says, uh, and the witches are chasing everybody.

She diverts a Jose through a secret passage and says, all right, you go down the hall here, take a bunch of lefts, then take a right and go down, blah, blah, blah. I’ll meet you there. And then they have really in the mix, it’s this mad cap, but chasing this very domestic argument, uh, this little, this like girlfriend boyfriend sort of thing where he’s like, but what about the others?

And she says, well, You’d rather be with your friends than me.

And then he’s like, well, okay, maybe I can do without the friends, but what about my son? Wait a second. Are you saying you’re not, I’m not the most important thing in your life turns around and she’s angry and of course she’s stirring up all kinds of leaves and things, right? The winter and the hair is blowing in the wind and her eyes are really intense.

Which is funny, cause he’s being completely rational and you could tell and try it. Not even rational, but trying to appease her. Oh no, sweetie. I love you, but don’t you understand how I might want my son? Yeah. So that doesn’t end up working too well. Um, and, but she in anger just sort of, um, Flips back and convulses.

Oh, he kisses her. Yeah. He kisses her and that causes her to convulse and fall back. And it gives him an opportunity to escape and run around and get chased around a little bit more and meet, you know, some more interesting characters. Um, she has a brother who is from the sister, Eva from her first introduction.

You know, she’s just kind of casually talking about her home and the family she’s showing the guys around this is before they know that they’re witches. And she says something about her brother and, and one of the characters says, Oh, you have a brother. And, and, uh, She says, yeah, mom has him locked up and in chains, uh, and Jose, the dad says, well, that’s the only way and get them to do your homework and do their whole work.

I totally understand. Yeah. As it turns out, of course, this poor brother is actually locked up in like these catacombs underneath. Uh, and he just, he’s a funny character. He’s played for comic relief, but he’s just grotesque. He’s been in these catacombs for like 15 years. Skin is literally like flee, uh, hanging off, like it’s flayed off.

It’s gross. It’s disgusting. But then he’s going to have this cute simpleton kind of character. Very nice, really friendly and helpful. That’s right. He’s kind of like, Oh, okay. Yeah. You know, um, eventually Jose did manage to get all these keys off of the mother, which, and, uh, he finds one of them to unlock, uh, Jose’s shackles and he just sorta falls on me.

He’s like, okay, I’ll show you the way. Under the cemetery to this cave where this ritual is going to take place. He’s exposition man tells them about the sun, uh, that they’re gonna, they’re gonna sacrifice the sun and he’s going to get eaten. And he’s like, well, Won’t that kill him. And he says, well, you know, it had same thing happened to me and I’m all right.

I just got to look at them. Yeah. If that’s a picture of all right. Really skinny guy, skinny arms and stuff, pretty grotesque, but super friendly. Right. Funny stuff. And then they get, you know, it all culminates at this big, uh, which is Sabbath. And it really is large. I mean, it’s large scale. You’ve got tons of extras in a, you know, different kinds of which attire.

You see some Catholic nun, witches and, um, some kind of biker, which is, and then you’ve just got your kind of ladies who, who lunch, which is, and, but they’re all together in this place, in this huge cave. Uh, and they’re, they’re preparing for their ritual and they’re going to summon this. Got it. Yeah. And, and I mean, the borderline, the ridiculous we’re talking about is, you know, they have a giant table set and this huge plate, and this guy is carrying in a giant fork and a giant spoon up to this giant plate, you know?

And finally they bring the little boy in. It actually reminded me a lot of those I’m old school. I don’t mean, um, seventies, I mean like twenties and thirties sort of, uh, Cannibal movies, you know, or the woman’s going to be sacrificed into the lava. Yeah. I know what you mean. Almost like a Indiana Jones, temple of doom kind of thing.

Exactly. They’re all sort of chanting and there’s a big fire going and there’s this sort of almost comically giant. Like you might see in one of those old movies, a giant pot that the two explorers are cooking in, you know, and, and things. Right. All the other guys, these unfortunate guys who ended up there, they’re all tied up on these big posts around a fire, I guess, maybe to be sacrificed later.

Uh, but then, you know, they’re all tied to these stakes around a fire and they’re having. Silly silly banter between one another. Of course, you know, for them it’s very serious. They’re in their last moments. But for us as viewers, the things that they’re talking about are, are just. Yeah, again, it’s incongruous to the situation.

They should be screaming and moaning, and instead they’re having these sort of domestic disputes again, it’s really funny. And that to me actually was a point. It was well paced in that moment because as soon as that scene is sort of set, we get almost a musical number. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

where there’s chanting going on. And it’s an a, it’s not in Spanish, it’s not in English, it’s just totally, you know, which language or whatever. And, uh, we’re getting sweeping views of the witches and, uh, things going on. And it actually does a really good job. I thought of bringing the movie back down to earth.

And setting a sinister tone. Again, it takes a good five minutes or so. Um, but it’s enthralling and it suddenly you do start to feel, okay, this is creepy again, this is weird and someone’s going to get sacrificed and, uh, you know, the silliness fades wait for a little bit. And I thought, yeah, I thought that was a really good moment, you know, on the part of the filmmakers to actually give you a break.

And bring it down to scary. Otherwise, you know, you just get so wrapped up in the action that nothing you pay those to sort of go, you know, and this D I thought did a really good job of setting that pathos again, it was very creepy. It was. And, and, and the, the main, uh, which grassy and she’s, I guess, kind of the coven leader having taken over for her mom, um, she’s very well put together.

She’s kind of in a nice, kind of. Uh, business casual suit with her hair, very, you know, quaffed and done. And then in this scene, she takes off her wig to reveal her long witchy hair. Um, and she’s in, you know, kind of a priestess robes and it does become, you know, that they’re planning on sacrificing this little boy who is, you know, he’s this kind of cute little rambunctious, little boy throughout kind of maybe a little obnoxious from time to time, but I think he’s supposed to be, but, you know, You don’t want them to die.

So it does kind of bring the tone back to kind of a dark place again, and then, um, outcomes after all this chanting and stuff. Um, we finally see this goddess figure comes stomping in a very large CGI creature. Uh, and, uh, I said to Craig, uh, this is like the world’s nastiest stay Puft marshmallow, man. Yeah.

It is pretty nasty to look at. I mean, it’s, it’s this very large rotund naked, dirty, which, and of course it’s CGI and she’s, she’s wearing, um, some kind of woven basket on her head, like a mask of, of like a blinding mask or something. I dunno. And you mentioned the CGI, they do make. Fairly ample use of CGI in here, but I, I felt like it w it didn’t pull me out.

Uh, the, the thing with this big, which at the end, It could have very easily played silly and fake, and it is silly in that it’s supposed to be, but it’s also grotesque. Yeah. And then the, uh, the other CGI it’s there. But I think that it’s fairly limited and it’s executed really well. I’m thinking of, um, at that dinner scene that we were talking about before eventually, uh, the guys kind of get free and then they battle these witches and they’re, they’re hitting them with chairs and, and guns and all kinds of things.

And you see these sprays of blood and it’s clearly CGI, but it’s. Fairly minimal. And I thought it was good. I mean, I see so many CGI movies that it just seems cheap and fake and pulling up, not at all. And even the giant goddess, which didn’t look cheesy and fake, it was obviously CGI, but it was well done.

It was well done. And I thought that they integrated the CGI with the live action really well. Um, she, you know, she comes in, she comes and sits down at this. Ludicrously oversized. And when we say giant and we mean giant as she comes in, she’s blindfolded, she’s stepping on some of these witches. She lifts up her foot to take her next step.

And you see the witch squished in the bottom of her, her foot. Um, so she sits down at the table, uh, or her meal and, uh, and she picks up the boy. And the idea was that basically the boy experiences a rebirth. Yeah, she swallows them whole and then just gets crapped out the bottom almost immediately. They pull him out.

He’s all red and disgusting, and this, his boy is going to be sort of their, their Trojan horse as they call him. He’s gone, he’s now androgynous. And he has these powers and he is going to. Be the man, I guess that rises up in a man’s world to lead them. Yeah. So, uh, of course, uh, at this point, Eva decides that she is going to help Jose after all, for reasons I’m not entirely clear of.

Is it just her sort of love for Jose and the fact that the witches ended up tying her up and putting her away once they found that out, that she decides she wants to turn on basically her whole reason for existence, that it was both. I thought that, you know, she immediately had this attraction for this guy.

And from the very beginning, you know, she, at first she’s kind of playing with him, toying with him, cat and mouse, but then she becomes really kind of obsessive really, you know, attached to him. Um, and, uh, her mom and the other witches don’t like that, they say, girls, your age should be out. Doing drugs, getting fisted, you know,

um, but she, you know, she confesses that she has fallen in love with this guy and, and the mom says with all the money we spent to send you to the worst schools. And now, now you tell us you’re in love with this guy, cause he’s a good person. Um, and I guess as punishment, they chained her up and put her in a coffin in the catacombs from which she eventually escapes.

Uh, thanks to Jose, thanks to Jose. And so I think that she is attached to him. As is evidenced by the last scene, which we’ll talk about, but also she was established from the beginning as kind of being a rebellious daughter. That’s true. Um, and so, uh, I think that part of it was rebelling against the authority of her mother as well.

Maybe part of it too, was a love for her brother, perhaps, because she did seem very distraught when he was taken by the big, which that kind of, that happens. And, uh, uh, attempted to swallow him yet again. Uh, and, uh, yeah, so she did as decides to, and then there’s a big battle between her and her mother who was like the coven leader and it’s, it’s all very matrix style flying around, running up and down on walls, which again, I thought looked as real as I’ve seen it elsewhere.

Um, it was good. There were, you know, there were lots of flying effects I could tell, but some of them were done using wires. Some of them were done, uh, with CGI and other effects, but regardless of how it was accomplished, it looked good. It brings to mind a point that I think a lot of the characters in this movie were really throwaway characters.

A lot of them turned out not to be very integral to the plot, the companions, you know, Tony. Uh, we didn’t even mention Alfonso and Heimaey who were the two cops that sort of following them. It’s kind of a side story going on. The, the, the little boy, uh, Sergio, his mom is kind of this shrewish it’s Jose’s ex-wife and, uh, she uses her cell phone to track Jose cell phone.

So she follows them to the village and the detectives who are looking for Jose follow her, uh, and they’ve kind of got their own little side story going on, which is goofy and ties into the other thing, but you’re right. I mean, it’s, it’s. It’s it’s very much on the side. It probably could be excised from the film entirely and wouldn’t really change it that much.

But it’s funny. I mean, they’ve got winning moments. You were wrong with that, you know, they’re definitely there mostly as comic relief or just to have those moments, Tony, even, and Muriel, you know, the same way the driver and, uh, the guy who was the green army man, none of them really. None of them really end up helping out to do the escape.

It’s all Jose, uh, with the help of, uh, Eva, you know, at the end. And then after all of this, uh, you know, the endings kind of abrupt Eva says that she knows them. Weakness of this large beast, which is basically to take that basket thing off of her head, I guess. And apparently that’s enough and the thing sort of falls down and stands up and it’s really stumbles away and just disappears has gone.

Yeah. And then the other witches start running, but I think it’s when she breaks her, mother’s stab and kill essentially killing her mother, I believe, or depriving her of her power or something. You’re led to believe in, in those climactic scenes that both the grandmother and the mother are killed, the grandmother gets stepped on by the giant, the mother, Eva takes her staff and breaks it and it seemingly deprives over power.

You know, they’re up in the air, fighting Eva breaks a staff, the mother falls to the ground and it pans in on her she’s bleeding from the nose. It looks like she’s dead. Yeah. She’s not, she’s not. Yeah. And, and if I have any fault with this film, it is that the ending is a little unsatisfying and abrupt, not to say it.

Wasn’t funny. And not to say that, you know, I didn’t leave pretty happy with having watched it, but they just run out of the cave and they’re pursued by all the witches running out. And these witches with powers to fly and all this stuff, they just run. And then as they’re running across the field blackout one month later, And here we are suddenly again, uh, just in a simple auditorium, all the witches are kind of, they’re like they’ve all made up or something.

Um, Jose and Eva are, they’re sitting down. They’re clearly a couple minutes. Well, she’s, she’s kind of scrubbed some of her bad girl image away. She’s looking more domestic, like, you know, the, the. Step-mom kind of figure Jaime and, uh, Alfonso have gotten together. Uh, you can see these other witches, all, you know, sitting around, uh, watching amongst.

Normal people apparently. Yeah, it, this is, it looks like a school talent show or something. It’s Sergio is a school talent show. And, uh, it’s, it’s funny. His, his talent is that, uh, he puts a girl in one of those boxes that you’ve seen a million times that they then shove the blades through. Uh, and the dad kind of says, I don’t know if we should let them.

Him do this. And Eva says, Oh, he’s not hurting anybody. And then you see Sergio push these blades through and you hear the little girl inside screaming and you see blood squirting out. And the kid opens the case and pulls out this torso. And it’s like squirting blood all over the audience. People are screaming, getting up, running out of their seats.

Meanwhile, uh, even Jose are sitting there proudly the doting parents. And, uh, the kids Sergio puts the girl back in the box, pulls the blades out and she steps out still bloodied on her clothes from the experience. But. Seemingly mostly, mostly whole, she kind of stumbles out like pukes on the floor and kind of stumbles away.

That was a, it was a real Adams family moment there. It was the very dark humor that the family sees us sort of normal. Oh, that’s all right. Yeah. Kind of thing. And then the way that we know that the mother and the grandmother aren’t. Dead. Is it, uh, pans to the back of the theater? Um, in a scene that kind of reminded me of the end of, um, death becomes her, do remember that, uh, Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn are sitting in the back kind of veiled in dark glasses and whatnot.

Um, that’s what the, uh, Sergio his mom who has been, uh, converted to a witch and as part of the coven now is sitting there with, um, the, the grandmother and, uh, the mom, the, the main witch. And, um, they’re just kind of watching from the back and saying, They’ll come back to us. Eventually, all this happiness will, will destroy them eventually and they’ll be back.

And then they cackle wildly. And the end. Yeah, it’s maybe one of the first movies in a while since, uh, the witches, the roll doll based movie. Angelica Houston. Great movie. Yeah, that just sort of treats the Witchery sort of like the classic Witchery and, uh, introduces the humor. Like I said, kind of has that Adams family slash Scooby-Doo vibe to it, um, is very comical.

And, uh, I enjoyed it. It was very different, again, very different, very different. And that’s, like I said, you know, it’s, it’s nice when you come by, it’s kind of like, you know, finding a diamond in the rough it’s, uh, you kind of have to Wade through. Some muck, uh, every once in a while to find them. But when you do, or when I do, I get really excited to share them with other people.

Uh, cause I it’s fun for me to see how other people respond. I was really a little bit nervous that you might not like it. And yeah, well, I couldn’t imagine why you wouldn’t, but at the same time, like if he doesn’t want to be so disappointed, I don’t know what we’re going to talk about. Her I’m ready to gush and I thought it was stupid.

It is kind of stupid, but it embraces that. And I just, I think it’s so much fun. I’ll I’ll watch it again. I know, you know, this is a, this is a, definitely a repeat. It is one it’s one you can definitely watch again. It’s also another one you can sort of it’s one of those movies you can kind of pick up anywhere in the middle.

Pretty much and not feel like you’ve missed anything. It just is not very serious. Oh no, not at all. You know, it’s very tongue in cheek and intentionally, so, but it has those interesting relationship themes. And of course it plays that for laughs it plays it for less and many of the usual ways where we talk, where we see people bitching at each other and having these feuds over nothing.

And in some sexist ways, you know where women are, are the ones who are sort of unreasonable. But at the same time, I, you know, I couldn’t tell, I couldn’t tell if it was trying to make a feminist statement or if it was, you know, the opposite because all of the men in the movie talk about the troubles, their troubles with the women.

And of course it’s always the woman’s fault. You know, the women are controlling their manipulative, uh, et cetera, et cetera. But all of the men characters are oats. You know, like they, they, they just blunder through their entire existence. Um, the women are the ones who exhibit power and force and, you know, maybe they’re seen as manipulative and, uh, controlling because they are smart and tough.

And I couldn’t tell what. The intended message was, I didn’t really care. I think more than anything, maybe knocking the men down a few pigs. I’m thinking about that scene where they’re sort of split up and they’re going through the catacombs and Tony and Muriel, um, are walking through and, uh, They have just escaped this huge chasing and they’re really patting each other on the back.

Well, man, I feel so great. Don’t you feel? Yeah, man, that’s the kind of stuff we need to be doing all the time. You know, it’s kind of like show those women, you know, how we are we’re men, blah, blah, blah, then yeah. They ended up at this dark spot and they flip on their lights and to see where they’re going and comes across a whole lineup of the witches facing them.

And, uh, the guy immediately is like, Please don’t hurt me. Sorry. Well, and, and ultimately it’s Eva who has to save the day. Jose can’t do it on his own. I mean, he. He AIDS her, but really, you know, she’s the one that takes the reins and, and, and saves, you know, saves everybody’s behind. Yep. So there’s a message in there somewhere, maybe.

Yeah. If you’re really looking for one, I guess it didn’t need it, but you know, this is one of those things where you’re going to have to, uh, be committed to, to paying attention. Cause you’re going to have to read the subtitles unless. There’s probably a dub out there, but I hate dubs. And these, these actors, their performances are strong.

I can barely understand them with my, you know, elementary, Spanish from college 15 years ago, but they’re still, their performance is strong. I mean, you can see the emotion and what they’re playing. So I would really recommend watching it with the subtitles. Um, it’s worth it. It is. And you know, that’s one thing that w when you’ve watched enough movies with subtitles, It’s interesting how you can take the words that are coming out of their mouth.

And even though you don’t understand them, you put the words at the bottom of the screen, mentally in their mouth, and it’s funnier because their performance adds a tone to what you’re reading at the bottom that you can totally get. And so, yeah, you absolutely need to watch this with the subtitles. It’s a good one.

That’s good. Glad you liked it. Thank you, sir. Well, thank you again for joining us. If you enjoy this podcast, please share it with your friends. Please check out our other ones on our website. And, uh, we will see you again next week. This is Todd, and this is Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We revisit Saw with our first guest, Kristin Sorhus-Hafen – who doesn’t normally do horror, and is watching it for the first time. Wheee!

Saw (2004)

Episode 6, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd:  And welcome to another edition of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. I’m Craig. And Todd, for the very first time here in the 2 Guys in a Chainsaw Studios, we are joined by a guest, Kristin Soreshafen. Kristin, say hi to everybody.   Hello.   And, Kristin, you were the one who asked to be our 1st guest. 

Kristin:  I did. I did. 

Todd:  Did did you hear our previous podcasts? Or 

Kristin:  Nope. I just didn’t Just put it on just put it on loud. And I feel real real dumb about it. I should have. 

Todd:  How flattering. 

Kristin:  Thank you. Thank you, Kristen. We’re glad you’re 

Craig:  a fan. 

Todd:  We we are. This is this is a great choice. 

Kristin:  I figured it had to be great. 

Todd:  No. That’s good. 

Kristin:  I’ll tell you. Right. And it had to be great. 

Todd:  Great. I guess our reputation precedes us. 

Kristin:  Absolutely. Now, Kristen, you also chose 

Todd:  the movie for today, which is Saw, the 2004 film by James Wan and Lee Whannel. Why did first of all, let me ask you. Have you watched many horror movies yourself? 

Kristin:  No. I haven’t. 

Todd:  Okay. So when I came to you and I said, what movie do you wanna watch on this podcast you’ve never heard? And you said Saw, I my mouth kind of hit the floor, and I’m kinda curious why. Why did you choose Saw? 

Kristin:  Well, honestly, it’s because I heard Cary Elwes is in it and he was my 1st celebrity Craig, and I thought, man, I really I have to see his complete body of work. 

Craig:  Gooder reason as any. Sure. 

Kristin:  I hadn’t seen this yet, so I thought that kind of fits in horror. Right? I think. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Kristin:  I hadn’t seen it, so I wasn’t sure. 

Craig:  Have you seen any horror movies? Do you have any basis for comparison? 

Kristin:  I have seen The Ring. 

Todd:  K. Oh, that’s not bad. 

Kristin:  I’ve seen, that want skeleton key, I think, like, can I 

Todd:  That was a good one? Yep. Yep. Okay. That’s it. 

Kristin:  That’s about it. I can’t really I can’t think of another horror film that I’ve seen. 

Todd:  So we go from sort of supernatural ghost thrillers right into the torture porn genre, 

Kristin:  don’t we? You know what? It’s been a 

Todd:  while since I’ve seen this. Craig, when did did you see this when it came out? 

Craig:  I think I did. I’m pretty sure I saw it in the theater. You know, you said torture porn, and I was, reading that when, 1 l and Juan went Todd, make this movie, they didn’t set out to make a torture porn film, but they kind of define the genre. I don’t recall hearing those words before this movie came out. And, I think I saw it in the theater because at the time, it seems somewhat unique, a different spin on things. Now we’ve been so inundated not only with the sequels, but also the crappy copycats that, it’s it’s getting a little bit old. But 

Todd:  It almost seems quaint, doesn’t it? Yeah. I mean 

Craig:  I it wasn’t nearly as gory as I remember. 

Todd:  No. Now I first saw this. I have a bit of a storied history with this one because I first saw it in the theater. I went my wife doesn’t like horror films. I couldn’t really get anybody to go with me, so I watched in the theater and I was really blown away. I was blown away because, you know, you’re right. The torture porn thing really started getting attached to films like Saw after Saw. Mhmm.   Saw came, then Saw 2, then sort of hostile, and and but Saw really sort of kicked it off. But up to that point, I never really seen a movie like this that was so grimy   Mhmm.   And so dirty and just so kind of unrelentlessly at the time brutal. Yeah. Almost nihilistic, you know? And it’s not that those movies haven’t existed or that I probably hadn’t seen them, but just this whole sort of everything at once Mhmm. With the modern style really hit me. On top of that, the puzzle aspect of it.   Yeah.   I mean, it is at its heart, I think, a mystery. Right? 

Craig:  Yeah. It is. And I think as the series went on, and I don’t even remember if I’ve seen them all, I I feel like I got lost in the plot. The the plot becomes so convoluted. I mean, I guess somebody could say Todd for them for being able to sustain a plot from the 1st movie and still have tie ins back to the 1st movie. But for me, I just I couldn’t follow it. I got completely lost. I didn’t know, where it was going.   But, yeah, the first1, I mean, is kinda set up as a mystery. It’s almost got, like, a a crime show feel to it, like CSI Yes. 

Todd:  Or 

Craig:  something like those murder shows that my folks are, you know, huge fans of. And and maybe those, you know, maybe those shows, owe a little bit of inspiration to this. 

Todd:  I think you’re kinda right. You know, when I when I watched this this time around, I was impressed with how slow it went. I mean it really took its time it was really pretty methodical from what I remember. I I saw the first saw, I was so taken by it that when I said when I saw that they were doing a Saw II, the next Halloween, I had to go out and see it. I went to the theater. I still couldn’t convince anybody to go with me, so I watched it by myself. And Saw 2 really ups the ante. Yeah.   I mean, Kristen, as far as this goes, it’s a way more convoluted plot. It goes a lot more fast paced, and you talk about gore and disgusting situations these people are put in. That’s when it starts really hitting hard. 

Craig:  Well and they kind of fell into a trap too because with the, with the second movie, they were really trying to up the ante on all of the traps and and the gore and all of that stuff. And so then every year after that, as these, you you know, would come out around Halloween time, they were huge blockbusters. They made huge money. Nobody wanted to go up against Saw in the Halloween season. And but they then had to keep upping it. You know, they had to try to keep it fresh and interesting. And eventually, I mean, it was, you know, just brutal. Just absolutely brutal. 

Todd:  Yeah. Almost unbelievable. And and and the thing that I liked about it as a guy who watches a lot of horror films, once I, you know, got into the second one, it became a Halloween tradition for me.   Mhmm.   And I I would Todd asking people to go because I kind of enjoyed going by myself. And the reason I did was up until these films I’d really never seen a movie since I was a kid that made me cringe turn my eyes away from the screen. They would kind of bother me at that visceral level, the terrible traps these guys get put in   Mhmm. And the   things that happen to their bodies, and it just pretty much zooms in on it and shows it in all of its explicit detail. I mean, as much as they can get away up with 

Craig:  with an r rating, it’s insane. Right. And they had to cut quite a bit to get the r rating. It’s I I’d be really interested to see what they had to cut because in comparison to the sequels, this one is pretty tame. Now I think it should also be said that if you’ve not seen the movie and you’re not a fan of gore, it’s certainly not tame in and of itself. It is gory. It’s just as an entry in the series, it’s probably the least so. 

Todd:  It’s probably the goriest thing, Craig. Is it the goriest thing you’ve ever seen, Kristen? 

Kristin:  I mean, on a screen probably. 

Craig:  You’ve been through childbirth. So 

Kristin:  I have. I’ve seen some pretty gorgeous stuff. Well, then I do, you know, makeup and stuff. So I I’ve seen the I’ve done a lot of real research on real things. But as far as on a screen all at one time, yeah, that’s probably the the goriest stuff. Now I feel like are there a lot in the sequels, are there a lot of, like, kind of machine, the hooked into your upper and lower 

Clip:  jaws. When the timer in the back goes off, your mouth will be permanently ripped open. Think of it like a reverse bear 

Craig:  trap. Yeah. The reverse bear trap. That was one of their first. This was, Lee Whannell is the screenwriter, and he developed the story with James Wan, who was the director, and they kinda started out just, throwing a story together based on nightmares that they had had, you know, these, really scary traps and and whatnot. They put the the script together, and, you know, they were both of them, you know, brand new, in the industry. And, you know, somebody in Hollywood read it and just the the traps get more and more intricate and violent and scary and 

Todd:  Complicated. Mhmm. And and and I think the reverse bear trap scene was the scene that they shot kind of as a speck. It was. They took around to so before they’d shot anything in the movie, they shot that that scene. I don’t know if it’s the actual scene that ended up in the movie. It wasn’t. They shot a version of it, and then they shopped it around to get financing and and 

Kristin:  you know? So they they 

Todd:  were really selling the look and the feel of the movie just as much as the script. You know? And it has that. You’re right. The mechanical element that   you’re trying 

Kristin:  to like that was way scarier than the other parts. Just I mean, with a machine, there’s nothing you can do. It’s all it just happens. 

Todd:  Well, it’s so 

Kristin:  thing goes. It happens. 

Todd:  It’s true. 

Craig:  And the way it’s presented, it’s so visceral. It’s it’s it’s scary to look at, let alone think of yourself in that situate. Yeah. 

Kristin:  Can feel the metal in my mouth. Oh, it’s terrifying. 

Todd:  Yeah. You’re right. And it’s interesting what you said. I mean, it’s one thing to be up against a person Yeah. Who you can convince, who’s a human, who you can kinda maybe psychologically get through Todd, or you can, like, hope to leap across the room at them or something like that. Right. But when a person is just set in motion a machine that’s gonna do its thing and has left the room, and it’s all up to you. 

Craig:  Right. And and, you know, the clock is is ticking, and I think that that was a a good device. I mean, not only do you see the clock constantly, but you’re also hearing the 

Todd:  tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick 

Clip:  tick tick tick tick tick tick 

Todd:  tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick 

Craig:  tick tick tick tick tick 

Todd:  tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick 

Clip:  tick tick tick tick tick tick tick 

Craig:  tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick. Oh, 

Todd:  yourself too. I think all of these traps and all of these films sort of ask the quet really have you asking yourself the question what would I do in that circumstance? Would I have the guts to be able to do what I have to do? And I mean, this was nothing compared to what came later   Right.   But, you know, the guts to literally go into this guy’s guts, you know, that’s still alive across the room. Dig through them for that key that’s gonna let you out of the trap. 

Kristin:  I know. I kind of oh, I was tell it when she was about to cut into him, I was like, what are you waiting for? He’s dead. It’s not a problem. Just do it. And then he started to move, and I thought, crap. I thought I could do it. 

Craig:  You’re like, oh, 

Todd:  it’s this kind of thing. 

Kristin:  I know. Well and I thought if she had just done it, she would have never known that he was still feel guilty about it. I just she just just jumped on it. 

Todd:  Yeah. But but it changed her life. 

Craig:  It did. 

Kristin:  Oh, it changed her life. I I had a note about that too. Go ahead. 

Craig:  She becomes a key player, in the sequels. As it turns out, we find out that she actually becomes an assistant, basically, to the killer later on because she’s so grateful to him for having turned her life around. You know? I don’t know. You know? On one hand, drug deal or drug addict on the other, serial killer. 

Todd:  You know? You gotta balance 

Craig:  it out, wait out, I guess, but she sees it as an improvement. And I really like that actress, Todd. Shawnee Smith. Is that her name? She was in a she was in a lot of stuff from the eighties. She was in eighties four, and she was in you’re probably too young. Todd, do you remember summer school? Yes. She 

Todd:  was one of the students in summer school. Yeah. Oh my gosh. 

Kristin:  Remember that movie. Yeah. Wow. 

Craig:  So she’s been around, and she, they asked. I I don’t remember if it was Lee 1 l or or or James 1. They asked, you know, is there anybody that you have in mind for this part? And then whoever it was just kind of off handedly said, I wonder what Shawnee Smith is doing. And, the next day, the the casting director came and said, we got her. Wow. 

Todd:  Well, she wasn’t doing much. 

Craig:  No. She didn’t have a whole lot to do, and she was apparently deathly ill for all of her scenes. 

Todd:  Which worked out well. 

Craig:  Yeah. She She she had a, like, she had a fever, like, a 104 through the whole thing, but she also didn’t have to do a lot of shooting. They filmed this really quickly in just a matter of, I don’t remember exactly how many weeks, but, you know, just a few weeks. Danny Glover did all of his stuff in just a couple days, I think. 

Kristin:  Well, yeah. 

Todd:  That’s the only way you could probably afford Danny Glover in Birmingham with this kind of production. 

Kristin:  I think that was kind of an odd choice personally 

Todd:  to 

Kristin:  have Don Danny Glover there as a cop and then, you know, the bad guy chaser. 

Craig:  Well, I mean, it it kinda played against type for him because he’s so well known for the lethal weapon series. Mhmm. And then here, I don’t know if he’s supposed to come across this way, but he comes across as so bumbling. Like, Kristen, you commented on it several times. Been. Yeah. No cop would ever do that. That’s just, like, the craziest thing. 

Kristin:  It was. 

Craig:  I was surprised too. And the 1st time that it seems that he gets killed, which happens a couple of times. 

Kristin:  Right. 

Craig:  The 1st time, I I, was thinking, don’t worry, Danny Glover. At least now you don’t have to be in any 

Kristin:  of the sequel. But, 

Todd:  that’s right. 

Craig:  But then he apparently got killed again towards the end, but I think I don’t even know if he is really dead. I think in the universe of the film, he’s not. I think that he survived it and, like, he appeared in the Saw video game, which the the director and producers consider canon. It’s so convoluted. It will 

Todd:  it it is super convoluted because they didn’t realize that this was gonna be such a big hit that it would demand sequels. And so the writer, Lee Wenzel, who also, plays in it, he’s opposite, Carrie Elway’s in the room. 

Craig:  Yeah. He’s one of those main guys. He’s the guy 

Todd:  that wrote it. He’s Adam. Yeah. Adam is the one who wrote the horrible dialogue that he can’t even deliver. Right. I 

Kristin:  have right here so much writer driven dialogue that somebody in some room thought this is what he would say. And then you get out there as an actor and you’re like, I can’t make this make sense. But you have to say it. 

Todd:  It’s so true. Right? Yeah. I mean, there were there were horrible lines in there. Horribly obvious like 

Clip:  1st dead body I’ve ever seen. 

Craig:  Looked different in real life. They don’t move. 

Todd:  They don’t move? 

Kristin:  What was it about? You’re dead. I there was one too about, this is as much fun as I’ve had without lubricant. It came out of nowhere, and he just said it super fast. I mean, maybe if he had coined it in the moment, like, oh, this is as much fun as I’ve had without lubricant. You know? That makes sense. Like, he came up with it. He said it. Like it was in his back pocket the whole time waiting to use it in this horrible dirty bathroom.   Right. Right. 

Craig:  Well, this is kinda his first effort. You know? He they he and Juan have both gone on to have, you know, major success with I know, Todd, you recently reviewed Dead Silence. Right? Mhmm. That was them, wasn’t it? 

Todd:  That was them. 

Craig:  Yeah. And, the Insidious, series, which is still, you know, a pretty hot ticket right now. And he’s in that too. I mean, he’s, he plays, one of the paranormal, investigators. And in those movies, he’s kind of a comic relief kind of thing, and I think that kinda works for him. 

Todd:  It works a lot better than him trying to play the serious guy. Right.   Yeah.   It just comes across real Annoying. Annoying and not realistic. It comes across as a guy acting. Yeah. That is really what it is.   Yeah. 

Craig:  Well and I guess in in some regards, that can work because he is I mean, he’s lying, you know, from the beginning. Both of the guys are. Both of the guys, are are concealing things. So maybe that maybe it was somewhat intentional. Let’s give him the credit and say that he was doing it for 

Kristin:  benefit of the doubt. 

Todd:  Well, let’s give him the credit too for writing even if his dialogue kinda sucks. Like, the plot is pretty pretty solid. 

Craig:  Yeah. Good storyteller. Definitely. 

Kristin:  Did you I mean, 

Todd:  Kristen, were you kind of on the edge? Edge? Were you back and forth as far as who wait. Is it not this guy? 

Kristin:  Doing it. Yeah. Of course. In fact, at the very beginning, the first scene, I I wrote down stuff about Carrie Ellis looking like he wasn’t telling the truth all the way, that there was some sort of concealment going on. 

Todd:  What 

Clip:  about you? There’s there’s not much to tell. I I was on my way home from work, and, I don’t remember anything else. 

Kristin:  I also wrote down, it could have been bad acting or disguising an accent, but let’s hope not. 

Todd:  Maybe a little bit of both. 

Kristin:  That might have been part of it. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Kristin:  But, you know, they maybe were playing that did he do it angle because you find out later that he was a suspect. So they could have been playing that angle a little, intensely maybe. 

Todd:  Well well, who at any point in this movie is not a suspect? Right. You know? I mean, even the people in peril, that’s part of the genius of it, I think. Obviously, Adam, Lee Wenzel’s character has something to hide. Cary Elway’s character, what his name was, Larry. Yeah. He has something to hide, not related to the game, but the fact that, you know, Cary Elway is a surgeon, and he’s obviously almost apparently cheated on his wife. Right. And, Adam takes, you know, pictures.   He’s kinda one of these surveillance He was paid to private investigator kind 

Craig:  of, you know. Yeah. And and knowing what’s going on. Right. But I I think that that’s, you know, know, kind of part we didn’t even set up. I I I guess we don’t have to. This movie came out in 2004. If you’re listening to this podcast, we assume you 

Todd:  probably see see that. But go ahead. But that’s well, no. 

Craig:  I mean, that’s kinda part of the premise is that all of the characters are flawed in some way. I mean, that’s that’s the the killer’s whole shtick is that he’s trying to punish these people for wrongdoing or make them see the error of their ways. Mhmm. So all of the characters are are flawed. All of them have some kind of shady secret or past. Even, Danny Glover, the the cop, the investigator is is kind of, unhinged by the end. You wonder if maybe he’s got something to do with it. So, the fact that, you know, there’s so many red herrings.   Everybody’s a suspect. I think that adds to the suspense and the mystery. And the 1st time I saw it, I was absolutely blown away by the end. I had no idea. I didn’t see it coming from a mile away, so they got me. 

Todd:  Yeah. Me too. I was I had chills. The the end scene when the guy gets up and goes and says, game over and shuts that door. Game over. 

Craig:  I know. And what an excellent conceit that is Todd have the killer in the room the whole time and, you know, right there in the middle. It’s 

Kristin:  So many 

Craig:  not concealed, in any way. So clever. Now I don’t know how realistic that is. I don’t know how still somebody could lay for for 6 hours and No. Why wouldn’t they see him breathing, etcetera, etcetera. But, I don’t know. 

Kristin:  Maybe they do move when they’re dead. 

Todd:  Maybe they   do. That’s right. You know? 

Kristin:  Did did it take you by surprise, Kristen? Or Of course. I didn’t see it coming at at all. But it was really interesting the aspect that you they played about each of these victims having something that was wrong with their life, either they were doing bad things or or or whatever. It kind of sometimes, you know, you watch shows and you just hope the bad guy gets it. You know what I mean? But then starting with a guy who you don’t know is bad, seeing him get it, and then realize that this is what he had done wrong, he almost cheated on his wife, or what all these things you think, man, really Todd deserves that. No matter what it is they’re doing, nobody. 

Craig:  Yeah. That’s the thing. Like, I I think that there’s part of me that wants to be like, oh, he’s kind of this moral crusader, but then at the other time on the other hand, I’m like, it’s kind of a prick move. Like, you know? Yeah. 

Kristin:  Who are 

Craig:  you to judge these folks? 

Todd:  You know? 

Craig:  Well, like, I’m sorry you have cancer and you’re dying, but Todd doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be afraid. 

Todd:  Well and then that is Jigsaw’s fatal flaw, really. I mean, that is his problem is Mhmm. This sort of, punishment does not at all fit the crime. But but that also overlooks a little bit more of his motivation, which is not just that you did something wrong, but that you don’t appreciate life. 

Kristin:  Right. 

Todd:  You don’t appreciate what you have. And so I’m gonna push you to the extreme to where you have to take some action on your own, to save your life. And after you do that, you’re going to appreciate it, and you’re you know, it’s gonna be the best kind of therapy you can do. 

Kristin:  Right. 

Todd:  You know, presumably. 

Kristin:  Expect that you’ll need therapy after for the rest of 

Todd:  the day. You are. And, again, if you lose, it was really not fair. 

Kristin:  Right. Right. 

Craig:  And and but the only survivor that we know of came out feeling like she had learned something, like she had been helped. Yeah. I mean, it’s sick and twisted, but I guess she just gets him. Yeah. 

Kristin:  Well, I kinda feel grateful that I’m not in those situations. So it hurts me a little, I suppose. Nice. 

Todd:  Well, you know, so it starts out with these 2 guys in the room, and it reminded me a lot of these locked room mysteries, you know, that are Yes. Really popular right now. Yeah. 

Kristin:  Those are my favorite games on my phone, Awesome. Escape the Room ones. 

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Kristin:  I was hoping for more of an element of that, really. Well, didn’t you feel like there was some other reason to some there. I mean, the kind of the mystery, the the x and the heart and where are the keys and but I wish it was kind of a little more centered on that. Does that make sense? I don’t know. 

Todd:  Well, it is sort of the grounding of the film. The whole film is kinda told around those 2 characters, but you’re right. It’s not really all about them getting out of the room. 

Craig:  No. There’s only only a couple of clues. I mean and it starts out that way, you know, with, them having to decipher the messages and then just little symbols and things in the room being clues that they can then, you know, find things behind. 

Clip:  X marks the spot. Sometimes, you see more with your eyes shut. 

Craig:  But that kind of peters off after the first 40 minutes or so. 

Todd:  Yeah. And it peters off. I mean, it’s not really the same thing going into the rest of the series. No. 

Craig:  It’s not. 

Todd:  But   I think part 2 has him trying to get out of a house Yeah. That’s all boarded up. That’s maybe the closest it comes. And then from there on out, it’s just people caught in traps. 

Kristin:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  Pretty much trying to get   out of them.   Started. Just a parade of traps loosely connected with, like, some kind of unbelievably complicated story of people investigating and trying to find Jigsaw. 

Craig:  I think I remember liking part 2. Was part 2 the one where the girl had to put her hands up in the box and, like, the razors? The razors. 

Clip:  That that image. 

Kristin:  Is that like poking your finger through the straw hole in a 

Todd:  Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. It’s like it’s razor blades. 

Craig:  Like a Chinese finger trap. Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. You you try to pull them out, and that’s when you start having problems. Yeah. Yeah. It’s got a lot of really, really demented traps like that. And then, of course, obviously, as they go on through, what, 6 more movies or 5 more movies? 

Craig:  At least 5. I think 6. I think there were 7 altogether. 

Todd:  Yeah. I mean, obviously, you know, the well you gotta you gotta really dig the bottom of the barrel to come up with brand new interesting things. Right.   Mhmm. And and   that’s why it gets so gross and strange.   Yeah.   But but it also gets extremely convoluted. And, I mean, I don’t know. We’re talking about this movie. We’re not really talking about the rest of them, but let me just tell you. I mean, you have to watch them from beginning to end. You have to start with 1 and go all the way through to 7 if you wanna have make any sense of parts 2 on. 

Craig:  Right. You’ll have no idea. They’re not self contained. People come back from the day or or not or not back from the dead, but, like, people you think are dead come back. 

Todd:  And People who seem to be okay. It’s similar kind of deals where people who escapes saw his tortures turn out to then be working for him or that maybe they were working for him all along and they were in the trap as a decoy. I mean, all kinds of strange things, but that’s what you do when you when you didn’t expect this film to go to to spawn somebody. 

Kristin:  Going. Right. 

Craig:  And so far, you know that they’ll come back to this series eventually. It was too profitable for them not to. They said the last one was the last one, but they lie. They’ll wait they’ll wait a handful of years and look at it. Yeah. 

Kristin:  Actors maybe. 

Todd:  Saw a   reboot. You’re absolutely. Well, they kinda have to once they run out of a few more, series to a reboot. Right. You know? We’re on our, what, 3rd reboot of, Texas chainsaw or no. 3rd reboot of Halloween. Right? 2nd reboot of Halloween. I mean 

Kristin:  Well, I mean, they have to. That cell phone is a flip phone. In 10 years, they’re not even gonna know it. That’s true. 

Todd:  How much of this wouldn’t have been an today’s, society? I don’t 

Kristin:  know. Yeah. 

Todd:  Well, his wife probably would have been tracking him. Oh, yeah. You know, knowing where he going. From a filmmaking perspective, I thought I was really quite impressed. And I was impressed when I first saw it, but I was really overcome by the stylishness of it, you know, that I’d never seen before. Now like you said, Craig, that I’ve seen a 1,000 movies like this. I kinda come back and compare it. Right.   And as we said before, it’s almost quaint. It’s almost like going back and watching Pulp Fiction. 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  Because now you’ve seen so many Quentin Tarantino esks that the original that started Todd all just it’s quieter. It’s not as over the top. And so it just really kind of exposed to me some of the interesting I mean, James Wan is a pretty talented director, I think. This being his 1st big movie, the way that he uses sequences I really liked. I liked sequence the sequence with the camera, the flash bulbs Oh, spooky. Yeah. In the apartment, and I’ve seen that in before. Yeah.   He is not original to that, but it was very well done.   Yeah. 

Craig:  It was very creepy. Yeah. Kristen, you were I could tell you were very tense. You were. 

Todd:  You 

Kristin:  were. Well, it’s just so I know. It so emphasizes that somebody’s watching. So who else could be watching? And it’s scary. 

Craig:  I thought it was funny when he found the the doll in there, and then he, like, beat beat it with with a bass on that. Like, dude, it’s a doll. Yeah. I was like, you Maybe be a little bit more concerned about whoever put 

Todd:  it there.   That’s the bigger news. 

Kristin:  Turn on a light instead of walking around in the dark for 10 minutes. 

Craig:  That was a good that was a good sequence. And I know what you mean. I feel like now it feels a little bit dated. It’s almost got kind of a a late nineties, early 2000s kind of music video feel to it. And I’m thinking especially of the places where they do, oh my gosh. Here’s a big revelation. Let’s flashback to all of those little things that you should have picked up along the way that you didn’t. And, when there would be, you know, some real real I don’t even know what they call it, Todd.   What do they call that when it’s, like, the real super fast 

Todd:  Oh, just like when they over Craig the camera. So it’s like so everything’s like super fast motion. Right. And and but also with that jerkiness added to 

Kristin:  it. Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. Like, it’s a handheld camera 

Kristin:  Like a hand that’s getting played through super fast. Running around. Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. That again, that was really stylish at the time, and now, you know, you don’t really see it that much. It’s kind of overplayed. 

Craig:  Well, and you probably noticed things, you know, I I I never would have noticed. I read this, on IMDB or somewhere, but, he was very conscious of of the hit the style. And and, when it was filmed from Carrie Alway’s perspective, looking at Adam, it was very steady cam. And then when it was from Adam’s perspective, it was more handheld shaky to kinda try to play into their different characters, which if you notice, those things are are interesting. I I I don’t know if I would have picked up on it. 

Todd:  Well, it’s the kind of thing that you’re supposed to subconsciously take in. I don’t really notice outright. I certainly didn’t notice that.   Mm-mm.   But you’re right. I mean, Adam was the guy who was immature. I mean, he’s flat out Carrie Elway’s, you know, a character. Juvenile, flat out. It’s like you’re immature, and you can see that. 

Craig:  You know? Right. 

Todd:  Whereas he seemed to be the more calm and collected. I’m a surgeon, but then breaks down. 

Craig:  Right. Up until the end. Right. When things go terribly wrong. Something that’s interesting about the production is they they did have to cut. I don’t think that they had to cut any complete scenes. They had to trim it down. They had to trim down some of the gore.   I know that they trimmed down some of the scene with, the overweight guy in the razor wire. They had to cut some of that out. They had to cut some other stuff. But once they had done that, I don’t know how they determine this, but they decided that they didn’t have adequate footage. So they actually went back and did a lot of, reshoots, but the cast had already gone. I mean, they were they were gone. So a lot of it it when you see people from behind, like, walking into and out of buildings, it’s just Leigh Whannell in, in other people’s costumes. 

Todd:  Woman’s wig and Right. Todd. He’s got a hood on. 

Craig:  Yeah. There’s, and there are also and and I only noticed this because I had read about it, but there are also lots of different places, especially where things are being revealed or whatever, where you just see hands working. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  Leigh Whannell’s hands. Like, when, Amanda, the the girl we were talking about before, when she’s digging through the guts, those are L1L’s hands. Oh. So, they flesh it all out and just kinda cut and pasted things together. And that may have some impact on the final. You know? Maybe that’s why we get those choppy scenes. I don’t know. 

Todd:  That’s true. Well, you know, no better way to sort of disguise the fact that maybe you’ve shot these weird than to give it sort of a gritty look and be flicking and flickering, you know, the images fast you patch you so quick that you only get a sense of it. And what a happy accident that was then. Yeah. You know? That, it’s again that’s that’s sort of Spielberg and Jaws type thing where the less you see of it, sort of the better it is. I I also thought of another film that did that really well. What’s the one that takes place in space, where they they they basically find a portal to hell? 

Craig:  Oh, event horizon. Event horizon 

Todd:  does that very effectively where this little portal and what you see through the hellish portal is just nothing but almost subconscious flashes of things past you, but it is absolutely terrifying. 

Craig:  Oh, gosh. Yeah. 

Todd:  Because your brain just fills in those blanks, and it’s gross. Yeah. 

Craig:  And that’s another example of them having to cut. Yeah. They there were far there were more extended. Talking about a different movie now. Sorry. Anyway, wrapping up, there were a lot more extended scenes in that that ended up getting no way cutting room floor too. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s worse almost to not see it. Yeah. It really is. Leave something 

Craig:  to the imagination. I mean, that’s not a big surprise. 

Kristin:  We use that as parents all the time. Oh, yeah? Yeah. You say stuff like go to bed or you’re not gonna like what happened, and let them fill 

Todd:  in the blanks. Right. That’s good. That’s good.   And she   might cut my stomach open 

Craig:  as well. 

Kristin:  I might. 

Craig:  You never know. 

Todd:  I guess it depends 

Kristin:  on the child. Yeah. They’re not gonna like 

Todd:  it, though.   But it is funny how in retrospect slow paced this film is. It really takes its time. It is a 11 year old film, and it didn’t feel like it at the time I saw it. But now within the context of what’s coming out now, it really does take its time. 

Craig:  Yeah. I think that people in general are are getting a little bit, tired with with this style. You’re not seeing it as much, and the stuff that you do see is typically direct to video. We seem to be kind of on a trend back towards paranormal suspense type things, which, you know, is is all well and good. I I’m sure, you know, as trends do, this one will come back around, after a while. But I can’t really think of anything that’s come out in this type of genre that has been of the kind of cinematic quality that this movie is. I mean, this movie it’s well made whether you’re into this this genre or not. It’s it’s it’s a well made movie.   And the only one that I can really think of that I thought was a pretty good variant on the idea is hostel 2. Not even hostel 1. I think hostel 2 is a a really good 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. More so than hostel 1. 

Craig:  I think so. Yeah. Have you seen it? 

Todd:  I have. Yeah. I I I get them both confused in my head. 

Craig:  So The hostel 2 is the one that had the Lady Bathory scene and girls girls were the the Yes. Main characters, which I I thought was interesting. That’s true. And, again, I think it was a legitimately good movie, but I’ve seen so many of these just really gory, you know, going over the Todd, trying to make an impact, that that are are just bad. You know? Yeah. Bad effects, stupid stories. 

Kristin:  There is 1 there’s you reach a point where it’s guts. Yeah. You can’t get worse than it. It. So what do you do? 

Todd:  Do you 

Kristin:  know what I mean? If you’ve turned the body inside out, that’s as worse as it could be. Yeah. Then what? 

Todd:  Well and and this film and the films that followed it really stuck with the puzzle aspect. Uh-huh. To me, that was what got me about these films. Yes. As I said, the visceral aspect of it, the fact that I’m watching a movie that’s difficult for me to watch and it’s hard for me to find was one part of it. But the other part of it was really I just like the mystery 

Craig:  Yeah. Of who’s 

Todd:  it gonna be? There’s always a twist at the end of all these films, and so it becomes like you know, it’s like reading an O. Henry story every time. Part of the fun of it is to try to figure out and then experience the twist at the end. And a lot of the movies you’re describing, Craig, you know, are are just they’re not like that.   Yeah.   They’re just gross and gory. It’s like Friday 13th, but we’ve added the torture porn aspect, you know, the torture aspect to it, and a lot more blood and guts, but it’s really hollow and empty.   Mhmm.   The worst one for me was Wolf Creek. I saw Wolf Creek, and I was pissed off. 

Craig:  Which one was that? Is that the the 

Todd:  In Australia where the girls exploitation. Yeah. And all it is is that there’s some girls camping, our people camping, and there’s a crazy guy, and he grabs them and tames them up and 1 by 1 brutally murders them until 1 of them gets away. I mean, it’s it’s what sort of everything I think devolved Todd. 

Craig:  Yeah. They seem you know, the those were like like that. I watched it. I thought it was alright. I even watched the sequel. It was not alright. But some of them seem mean spirited. You know what I mean? Like, it’s like violence for violence sake, and and they they’re light on storytelling.   I mean, okay. Oh, there’s a big scary guy in the desert who’s gonna chop us up. You know? Okay. That’s it. You know? That’s the whole plot. I mean, here there was intricacy of plot. Mhmm. And and that it it just demonstrates more skill from everybody involved. 

Kristin:  Well and it’s fun to watch, and 

Todd:  a film’s gotta be kind of fun to watch even, you know, despite the subject matter. And at some point, it ceases to be fun to watch somebody in pain and in horror, so sort of never ending and to even know in the back of your mind, you may just end up with them dying too. Right. Right. You know, like, there’s no point to it. It gets so nihilistic. 

Craig:  See and I think that the sequels kinda fell into that. I think that the further along they went, it it kinda became less I mean, they they still were very intricate with the storytelling, but it almost felt forced. It seemed just like, how are we gonna keep this going so we can keep coming up with these interesting kills? And people wanted it. You know? They were making tons of money in the theater, so it’s not you know, they were meeting a demand, but, it just they kind of devolved, I think, over the course of the series. 

Todd:  I think you’re right about that. If it hadn’t been for my Halloween tradition, you know, I I, you know, I would have stopped at some point. 

Craig:  Did you see them all? 

Todd:  I did. I saw every single one of them in the theater, including the last 1 in 3 d. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. And I I just I was sad. I’ve I’ve got Todd admit, I was really sad. I was sad at the loss of that tradition. Like, there was no movie every Halloween after that that I could just, alright, honey, I’m going by myself to the theater. I’m gonna get my bag of popcorn. I’m gonna sit. I’m gonna watch this, and I’m gonna come out, and I’m gonna, you know, kind of kind of enjoy. 

Craig:  I don’t think you were alone at all. I think a lot of people felt that way. You know? It it was kind of a way to celebrate the season, which is is nice. Paranormal activity kinda took over. 

Todd:  Yeah. And I And 

Craig:  I I think I think that didn’t it it kinda came out against Saw there for a little while and then 

Todd:  it. And overtook. And you’re right. And now we’re seeing a swing toward that direction of film. 

Craig:  Right. Yeah. I I I don’t know if I saw them all or not, but I do remember that I saw the 7th one, and I felt like the 7th one I’m sorry for your loss, but I felt like the 7th one It’s okay. I’m over it. I felt like they did a good job of wrapping up the story and in a really unexpected way. I’m just gonna spoil it for you. Carrie Elsway. Carrie always pops back up, in in the 7th one. 

Kristin:  Yay. You could go 

Craig:  see the 7th one. And and But 

Todd:  you gotta see the other 5 in between. 

Craig:  And you find out that he’s kind of been behind the scenes throughout the whole series, and we just never knew it. No. He’s back. And and it was it was kind of a fun way to check it. 

Kristin:  How was he behind the scenes in this one? 

Craig:  Todd doesn’t he ends up working for Jigsaw. Isn’t he? Or carrying on Jigsaw’s I’m pretty sure. Work after he after he Jigsaw dies. 

Todd:  Which in retrospect makes kind of sense because it’s the doctor and the patient. You know, it’s the doctor’s been reformed, and so he’s kind of seen it. So now he’s gonna take a surgical precision to, taking his, his patients, you know, saving people like a doctor supposed to, but not like a doctor 

Kristin:  supposed to. Giving them a quality of life afterwards. 

Craig:  Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention, but I think I feel like in the marketing for that last movie, they did a really good job of concealing the fact that Carrie always was gonna be a part of it again. Yeah. And, I don’t remember when he pops up in the movie, but when he popped up, I felt it was like a gift or a reward like, oh yes I knew I watched all these movies for some reason. 

Kristin:  The twist and all twist. 

Todd:  Yeah it’s it’s interesting I mean despite its flaws I mean there are a lot of things that don’t make sense in this film Things always work out a little too perfectly for Jigsaw, especially as the sequels go. But in this one, it’s it’s it’s a simple enough plot that it wasn’t quite so bad. The fact that he’s there the whole time, he could really put an end to everything whenever he wanted   Right.   You know, by electrocuting them both to death no matter whether the the girls get away or whether, you know, the cops start barreling down the door or whatever. As it goes, it gets so convoluted that it would be, you know, it’s ridiculous that he that he was such a good student of psychology to predict what people are gonna do at any given time. But, like, there’s stuff like the cops going through by themselves into the lair. What kind of a photographer, surveillance, you know, type photographer is using a flash? Right. You know? Like, there’s just, there’s there’s silly stuff in there that didn’t need to be in there, but what what are you gonna say? I mean, again, the dialogue was kind of poor. The yeah. 

Craig:  I I don’t mean to be critical of anybody’s acting, but, both main gentlemen were clearly trying to mask accents and not doing a terribly good job. Oh, no. That’s really nitpicky, but you you notice. If you notice, it kinda pulls you out. 

Kristin:  Yeah. It really does. 

Todd:  Even if you didn’t know their backgrounds, you would think something is wrong with them Something’s   wrong.   Their way speaking. 

Kristin:  Yeah. Well, I will give, what’s the the guy’s name? The title. Adam again, Lee. I will give Lee some credit. I didn’t pick up it until, you know, at least halfway through, I think. And I thought, wait a second, something’s off. But Carrie, my homeboy Carrie, I he needs to just decide what he is. He did 

Craig:  he did slip quite a bit, especially American. Yeah. Especially in in times of heightened emotion, he would really kinda slip up. And, frankly, at the end of the movie, when he kind of goes off the ledge, I thought his performance was pretty over the top. It was bad. 

Clip:  You’re gonna be alright. Wounded wounded in the shoulder. I have to go and get help. 

Craig:  Now how who’s to say I I’m sure it would be a blubbering mess in anything resembling that situation, but, you know, he’s kinda level headed all the way through. And then by the end, you know, he’s just simmering and crying on the floor. 

Kristin:  And I just feel like a phone call was not enough motivation to just lose it all and cut off your foot at that moment after everything had already happened. You know? Your time was already up. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Kristin:  Just figure it out from here. 

Todd:  Salvage the situation. 

Kristin:  I guess. 

Craig:  I think what we were supposed to take away from it is that he had literally lost it. 

Kristin:  Like, he had 

Todd:  been pushed over 

Craig:  the edge. I mean, the man’s supposed to be a surgeon, and he saws off his foot with a hacksaw that he’s been doling on a steel chain throughout the course 

Todd:  of the entire movie, which came out of a 

Kristin:  rusty toilet. 

Todd:  Toilet. I mean, honestly, I’m not sure. Even if he stops the bleeding, he’s gonna live after that.   Right. That’s 

Kristin:  right. They again, they have they 

Craig:  have no idea where they are. I mean, I guess, what’s the alternative? Stay in there forever. Right? I guess he had to do what he had to do, but there’s no way he’s getting 

Todd:  out of there. There are no way he’s gonna crawl his way out of there as slow as he was going. But then as slow as he was leaving, he when he turned around 2 more times. 

Craig:  Yeah. I’m back. I’m back. I promise 

Kristin:  I’ll be back. Turns back around. 

Todd:  I’m I’m not lying to you. I said, I will go back. 

Kristin:  I wouldn’t lie to you. 

Todd:  Stay strong or whatever. 

Kristin:  Yes. What if he got all the way out and then came back? 

Todd:  Are you still okay. Good. 

Kristin:  Oh goodness. 

Todd:  Well, this is the 1st time I’d seen it since the 1st time I’d seen it. Yeah. I’d honestly not come back to see it, and I was pleasantly surprised. It was just a slightly different movie in retrospect than I remembered it being, and I think that’s a testament to its originality. I agree. At the time, but again I felt that same feeling whereas if I were now coming to this film and never having seen it, but having seen all the horror films I’ve seen in the in the midst that were inspired by it it would seem a little maybe lame. 

Craig:  Yeah. At least middle of the pack. 

Todd:  You know? 

Craig:  I I don’t think that it would necessarily stand out the way that it did at the time, but, you know, obviously, it did. It it hit the right notes for the time. Yeah. Like, I don’t know if I’ve ever sat down and watched the whole thing, but they around Halloween, they play all these movies all the time. I catch little snippets of them here and there. It’s a fun popcorn movie. You know? It’s it’s you’re not gonna, I don’t think, walk away from it with any kind of profound catharsis. But, 

Kristin:  Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I do feel more grateful for my life. 

Craig:  Well, good. 

Kristin:  Yeah? I 

Todd:  mean, well, I’m curious as to your final thoughts, Kristen. 

Kristin:  My final thoughts. 

Todd:  Never having seen many horror films. There’s certainly nothing like this I’ve 

Kristin:  seen a lot of horror films. 

Todd:  Mother of of small children. 

Kristin:  Right. You know, I do feel like, it was a little cheesy. I feel like, throughout most of the whole middle part and into the end, it kind of was almost going for this psychological which is disappointing. 

Todd:  The sophistication you’d expect to see 

Kristin:  in Right. In the characters. 

Todd:  Well, it 

Kristin:  sounds silly, but it seems like there was so much time where it really was character driven, at least for the, you know, the plot to progress and and it it wasn’t happening a lot. Do you know what I’m saying there? I liked it. I don’t know that I’d watch it again, but I’m glad for the experience. There were a lot of moments where I just it got to chuckle at things and I thought that was great. I really like the, the moment where Zeb calls out for the doctor’s wife. Yeah. 

Craig:  The murder the murder. The wife has escaped and the murderer. 

Kristin:  Where are you? 

Todd:  I’m like, she’s gonna pop out and go, I’m over here. 

Craig:  Yeah. There were funny little parts like that. Would you say that you thought that it was scary or just gross? Because I don’t know. I don’t know the, you know, the I I guess the idea of finding yourself in that circumstance is unsettling, but I can’t you know, it seems so implausible. Right. I don’t know I don’t know if I would say it was really a scary film. Really, I mean, without all the gore, it it plays more 

Todd:  like a suspense movie, really. Like a mystery. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  With Columbo. 

Kristin:  With not enough suspense. But yeah. Yeah. I think that I I think that I would I was wanting them to be more level headed. They were making choices and I thought, well, that’s just stupid. I always try that. 

Todd:  Welcome to horror. That’s right. That’s what I said. You always run up the stairs. 

Kristin:  Yes. We’re always right. 

Todd:  That’s generally what happens. 

Kristin:  That’s true. But, yeah, I think I don’t know if that’s a writing thing, but I would love to see a horror film where they make all the right choices and it’s still scary. Do you know what I mean? 

Craig:  The interesting thing is they 

Kristin:  just put themselves there because they made dumb choices. 

Craig:  There are the ones where sometimes the characters are very self aware and, you know, say, I feel like I’m in a horror movie and then, like, cabinet in the woods does a good job of playing really tongue in cheek Yeah. With that. And there are some others like that, but this is pretty standard as far as the 

Todd:  It is. 

Craig:  Decision making and skills of horror characters. 

Todd:  Well and part of that Todd, though, is that horror as a genre, and a lot of people don’t realize this, especially if they if they only know it from afar, has a pretty strong morality behind it. I mean, it’s a twisted morality, and again, it’s it’s sometimes not the justice that you deserve, but the the girls who have sex get it, the people who make poor choices are getting it, and it’s unfair sometimes because, you know, when you’re in the moment, of course, you’re gonna make poor choices. Mhmm. But, because of that, it may be rare to see a horror film sort of like this one where everyone’s doing the the right thing and still getting screwed.   Mhmm.   That slips to me into the bothersome section. That’s when it starts to feel more nihilistic for me. 

Kristin:  This this certain genre of of film is interesting to me. This sort of torture porn type of horror because I feel like it’s just pain. You know? Once you feel the pain, then that then what? 

Craig:  But You know what I mean? Right. But it appeals to that basic human fear. You know what I mean? We all we all do whatever we can to avoid pain, especially, you know, as gruesome, as terrible as some of these things are. 

Todd:  Well, I’ve never broken a leg. You know? Right. And if and if somebody were to say, break your leg and then, you know, you will continue to live 

Craig:  or something 

Todd:  like that is as bizarre as that is, that is a tough call. Yeah. You know? It is a strange, strange, tough call. 

Craig:  It was interesting to hear your perspective, Kristen, being a kind of a a novice in in the genre. I’m glad you liked it. 

Kristin:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. Thank you for coming and joining us. Appreciate it. You know, it was a great idea. And and I think, 

Kristin:  actually, in retrospect, a pretty good film to to bring you in on. Cool. Not bad. 

Craig:  Get to sit next to you and and see when you were tensing up and talking nervously. Todd boring. 

Todd:  Craig and I just sit and take notes. We’re so jaded by now. Well, thank you so much for listening to this edition of 2 guys in a chainsaw. Kristen, thank you so much for coming along. 

Kristin:  Thanks for having me. 

Todd:  No. It’s been wonderful having you. If you enjoyed this podcast, please, share it with your friends. Check out our website. I’m still doing my 31 days of horrors. You can go to toddcoons.com, where I have a review a new horror movie every day. We’re coming to the close of the of the month. Once again, this is Todd And Craig. 

Kristin:  And Kristen. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and A Chainsaw.

We were less-than-impressed with Daniel Radcliffe’s first film after the Harry Potter series, but it may be good for those who prefer the gothic and predictable.

The Woman In Black (2012)

Episode 5, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Welcome to another edition of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. I’m Craig. And today we are on our third week of a Halloween horror and we kicked it off with a woman in black. Let’s say 2012, Daniel 

Craig: Craig film, Daniel Radcliffe. Get your Daniels straight.

Todd: That’d be a whole different movie. I think that’s a good point. All right, this is a 2012 Daniel Radcliffe movie. Um, the first one that he did since Harry Potter. So this was kind of a, an interesting choice, a foray out of, uh, sort of the kid soup. Well, I guess from one type of supernatural fantasy into another kind of supernatural horror, I’m still taking place in Britain, still taking place in the Misty Moore’s of, uh, of castles or houses up on Hills and things like that.

So I guess it’s not too far out of his, uh, Ballywick after 

Craig: all at that point, you know, there’s a lot going on that is actually really reminiscent of Harry Potter. Uh, you’ve got, uh, a train ride in the beginning to a remote location. You’ve got a, a big mansion covered in old timey portraits that I expected to start talking or moving about at any moment.

Um, so not too big of a leap, really, as far as. Tone is concerned, I guess, 

Todd: I guess you got to play it safe when you’re taking your step out into the, into the real world. Again, it’s, it’s interesting. And, you know, um, when the credits came up, I didn’t know much about this film beforehand. When the credits came up, I noticed that it was a hammer horror production, right.

You know, hammer being the sort of quintessential British horror production studio that started out in the sixties, maybe even late fifties and then brought us. Great classics of Dracula with, with, with Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing. Um, some of actually my favorite movies, just because they would come on on Saturday afternoons, you know, after the, during MUN cartoons were done or something like that.

And that was really how I got my horror 

Craig: fix. Yeah. And you can see, I mean, I can see similarities between those kind of old-school films and this, I mean, it’s, it’s. Uh, very Gothic, a little bit slow paced. Uh, it’s a slow build. It focuses more on the suspense. You can see that in some of the earlier humor pictures 

Todd: too.

Yeah. The slow pace of it was definitely something. Again, one of those things you don’t find as much there often. It’s not, it’s not really a modern movie. Uh, this movie. Reminded me a lot of the movies. My wife really likes the Vincent Price films, like the ed ground Poe movies that Roger Corman did, uh, the fall of the house of the usher, the pit and the pendulum especially reminded me of the terror.

Craig: I’m not familiar with it. 

Todd: The terror was one that he shot after they had shot another one. You know, Roger Corman was really good about delivering movies under budget and under time. And he would often slap together a script real quick and take the actors that he already had under contract and the sets that he already had built and the crew that was still under contract and, and, and could be paid for another few weeks and he quickly whipped together another movie.

And sometimes that second movie would actually do better than the movie they were shooting before. Interesting. The terror was one that was actually Jack Nicholson. It was one of his first large film roles, um, that he cast him in. And it started out very much like this, uh, where this guy leaves his family and goes to this far off.

A place where there’s by the ocean, a large mansion of sorts that nobody goes up to. And whatever, of course, in his case, I think there actually was somebody living there in this case, Daniel Radcliffe’s character is coming in and there’s nobody living there. He’s actually settling the estate of a woman.

But you know, it was, it was with, with the water surrounding it, it just had the feel of about 15 either hammer, horror films or, um, AIP pictures. Roger Corman, AIP, 

Craig: pictures that I’ve seen. Well, yeah, no. It’s as far as set pieces go, I mean, you were talking about, uh, the marshlands and whatnot. The film is beautiful to look at in that respect, the set pieces are gorgeous.

You know, you’ve got this big Gothic mansion. That is just your very typical haunted house. It’s got everything you could want in a haunted house there. Uh, it’s remote it’s on these very creepy. Moore’s all surrounded by. Fog things are going bump in the night, all over the place, as far as atmosphere and, and, and sets and cinematography.

I thought that it was a pretty beautiful film to look at. I don’t know 

Todd: how much more I have to say. I, as far as positives are concerned, you know, when after we finished the movie, we kind of looked at each other. Didn’t we, we know how we’re going to feel about this. I think I can read, read you right here.

Well, I think the slow burn, um, has a lot to do with it again, it’s very classic. The other thing about it is this has been done. 15 times before. Yes. 

Craig: Yes. You’ve seen this movie and it’s not, you know, there’s not much to make it stand out from your typical haunted house movie, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I love a good haunted house. I love a good haunted house movie. I, I just think, and, and maybe it’s just my modern sensibilities. Um, maybe I’m. Uh, I don’t know. Maybe I want too much. Maybe I don’t appreciate the slow burn so much, but the whole time I was watching it, especially for the first hour, which felt longer than an hour for the first hour.

I was really thinking that this would have been more aptly titled Harry Potter and the spooky walking tour, because. That’s really all that happened for the first hour. Harry Potter walked from one location through a spooky hallway to another spooky location where something spooky would happen. There would be a jump scare.

He wouldn’t react at all. And then he would creepily walk somewhere else. And. I, it just, it got to be a little bit much for me after a while I thought, nah, we could have, if we took all the spooky walking around out, I think the movie would have been probably more about 30, 45 minutes, which may have been a more suitable runtime in my opinion.

Todd: Yeah. Um, a lot of people aren’t going to have a lot of patients for this I myself was, you know, could have been falling asleep. If I had been more tired, it starts again, starts off like so many of these real sad guy. Um, he’s clearly, you know, you learned that his wife, his wife had died in childbirth with his only son.

Um, he’s not smiling. His son draws a picture of him and he’s like, why do I look so sad? 

Craig: That’s me. That’s nanny not smarmy. Let’s see. What about look so sad. That’s all your face looks like. 

Todd: Oh, that’s how you are, daddy. Your face is set all the time and he’s going to go away to prove himself. And he can’t bring his son with him, uh, because the, uh, The firm, uh, looks like it must be a legal firm legal firm that sends him along, uh, to settle up the papers of this widow who left this large mansion 

Craig: across England.

And his boss sends him off and says, this is your life. Last warning. I have no idea what he did wrong in the past, but apparently he’s walking on thin ice here. And this is it. If he doesn’t take care of this, then 

Todd: the S the, the sort of lucky gave him almost make you think that he was wondering that too.

Of course. He just spends most of the movie just sort of staring off into space, but like, uh, okay. What did I do? Alright, I guess I’ll go. And he goes, and this town is his soup, you know, it’s the same sort of deal. Um, everybody’s trying to sorta keep him from going to the house. Um, the guy has contacted there, tries to usher him away, says here I grabbed the papers.

Here you go. Uh, take off. I made a, catch-all found that there was no need for you to make the Chinese. Could have sent all the relevant documents to London in any event, you’ll find all the legal papers in here. It’s official 

Craig: tells me you’re leaving today. Not and just taking care of all, Mrs. Grapplers paperwork, all in there.

As I said no at the house until there’s quite a substantial amount, I don’t expect to be finished until 

Todd: Friday, at least. And he finagles away based on this kind person that he met on the train, um, named Sam daily. Um, he and his wife sort of take him in when the end won’t and when this guy won’t take him to the demand, to the mansion, he drives him across the more, which it must be said that this mansion is only accessible at certain times of day, because the water is so high that it basically the tide washes 

Craig: out the road.

Yeah. And it is really cool to look at it. I mean, that, that marshland, that surrounds you. It almost looks like an Island, you know, in, in this Marsh and it’s, it’s the estate, you’ve got the big mansion, you’ve got a family graveyard plot. The, uh, Marsh provides an excellent atmosphere. There’s always fog, you know, it’s often dark and stormy.

Um, so it’s very typical, spooky Halloween kind of fair. 

Todd: And, um, you know, it, didn’t it remind you a little bit, uh, I was thinking about, I think it was young Frankenstein. One of the movies where they just make fun of the fact that everywhere you go, everybody’s freaked out and everybody’s scared and doesn’t want, Oh, the haunting by Steven Spielberg kind of started out that way too, where they kind of made fun of everybody, except this movie was playing it totally straight.

And so it did get old after a while 

Craig: the, you know, the townspeople don’t want him there, they want him to leave and trying to keep him from going to the house. Please don’t go back to El Nash house. Y camps. 

Todd: You said tap is sewn

Craig: to him. They’re all but hostile towards him. Um, but of course, you know, it’s his last chance he’s got to take this job. So he’s determined to get out there. And one of the things that I was kind of impressed with and that I thought was a good indicator that this was going to be, you know, we’re going to keep things moving is as soon as he gets there, The lady in black or the woman in black appears.

I mean, it’s not like there’s some big buildups to her appearance you see, or right away. And then, uh, they hit you with a jump scare right away and I’m thinking, okay, good. We’re going to get right into the action. And then it’s another 45 minutes of that. Like every five minutes you see something spooky and then there’s a jump scare.

And then, uh, the, the main guy Arthur, the whole time, all the way up and through to the end, it’s not like it was just little things. Kind of bumping around the house. It was stuff that was obviously supernatural and haunted. It’s not like he was just kind of catching little glimpses of the ghost. He full out, sees her several times.

There’s all these weird things happen around the house and he just kind of. It happens. And he just kinda shrugs his shoulders and keeps looking around. I’m like, what is it going to 

Todd: take? You know, I didn’t get it. This guy has a stomach of steel. He could just walk around with this candle and investigate and crazy things happened to him.

Mean we’ll keep investigating crazy things will happen. He’s not running screaming. I actually started to make a list. I do too. You really have all of the cliche. Oh my God. I do exact same thing. Yes. All right. So, uh, we got a rocking chair that rocks and then stops. Um, we have hand prints, uh, appearing on the window, twisting doorknobs that, uh, stop, and then start again, uh, the dog barking at something that’s not there, a music box playing with the music that happened a couple of times.

And I called that denied. They call that creepy. 

Craig: That’s the thing like, as I was making this list, I was like, Oh my God, if there was just a creepy clown in here, every horrible. Or every horror cliche would be covered. And then there it is. Creepy clown creepy. Okay, good. You got it 

Todd: along with the creepy monkeys.

So it was a little monkey shines in there too. And the footprints 

Craig: bloody footprints or wet footprints or whatever. What else did I miss? Anything that you got about all of mine? Uh, spooky ghost kids. Yes. Um, do people appearing in the window? Slimy door handles. Yeah, I think, uh, you know, and then just of course your, your candles getting blown out on out strange bumps, uh, strange noises, et cetera, but yeah, you got it all.

I mean, if that’s. I, it, it almost felt as though they had a checklist and kind of checking them off. Got it, got it. All right. What’s next. You have Harry Potter walk down that hall and we’ll see what we can do down there. And this was 

Todd: sort of the, the family friendly horror movie, maybe. I mean, there’s no blood really.

There’s no Gore, it’s all ghost. It’s, it’s a classic ghost story and that’s probably the problem. 

Craig: Well, and, and maybe that’s very much what they were going for. And I guess if they were going for, they succeeded on some level, it didn’t do it for me. I, I think you’re right. Uh, you know, it’s a PG 13 movie. If you were looking for something to watch with your family, I mean there some kind of spooky stuff, kids might get kinda scared by a few things, but overall it’s, it’s a very safe.

Horror 

Todd: film and it’s unfortunately rather predictable. Yeah. You know, I mean, all the cliches aside, it starts out and then make a big deal of him with his kid. Um, and that he loves his kid. His kid is clearly the only thing he has left in the world and he can’t bring him along. You know, that we’re going to be seeing some of this kid eventually, and that this is going to sort of play into it very shortly.

Craig: Well, and that’s another thing, like his kid was supposed to be meeting him there afterwards. One of the things that we haven’t really said. Okay. So the ghost. She’s this, uh, woman in black and, um, the whole premise and it’s, it’s kind of set up as a mystery. But it wasn’t really all that mysterious. It was pretty easy to figure out what was going on.

Um, but you find out that she lost a child tragically and she feels that, uh, somebody else was to blame. And, and because her child was taken away from her, she is now taking away children from the village. This is why the villagers didn’t want Harry. I keep calling  and Arthur. He didn’t want Arthur. Uh, around because they have stayed away from the house because every time somebody sees this ghost, one of their kids dies in some tragic and violent way.

Uh, and we see that happen a couple of times. So knowing, you know, one little girl dies in Arthur’s arms and another little girl dies very violently right in front of his face. Kids are dropping right and left and it never occurs to him. To send like a telegram and say, don’t bring my kids to this village where kids are dropping like flies.

Todd: That’s right. And then of course the, the couple that he gets taken in by the dailies, um, you don’t, what is it? Two, is it. Was it a thing to bury your family, like right in your backyard or right in the family plot? 

Craig: I don’t think that was uncommon, especially in rural areas like that. And especially on as large of an estate as that was, I don’t think it would have been uncommon.

Of course I’m basing my knowledge on 

Todd: horror movies. That’s true. I don’t know every horror movie I’ve ever seen, so it must be right. All I learned about the world I learned from horror films. Well, the dailies, you know, they have this little mazal Liam, uh, on their property and, uh, Daly’s wife is considerably disturbed.

Um, they go to sit down and have the meal after, uh, you know, basically, uh, Arthur says I don’t have a room. And he says, don’t worry, I’ll take you up. But nicest guy in the world, 

Craig: the benevolent rich folks in town, the only ones who are welcoming Arthur at all. Yeah. 

Todd: And he’s the one who says, uh, he’s pretty much says superstition is nonsense.

Um, he, of course he doesn’t go into what the town’s people were superstitious of, which is something that you would think a skeptical person would do. Look, everyone’s going to tell you, there’s this woman in black don’t believe at blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He just kind of withholds that information and ends up being, you know, creating creepy circumstances himself.

Uh, they have dinner over at the house, uh, and the woman’s like, can I, Oh, we know. And he says, don’t bring up children, whatever you do, don’t bring up children. And of course they’re walking through the house and they’re paintings of their son and he’s showing him a picture of his son and stuff. Um, the woman comes in and w one of the first few things out of her mouth is about, you know, her son.

Uh, who’s dead. Yeah. Obviously one of the victims who in the mausoleum? In the back. Yeah. It says, can you, Oh, can we bring the twins in? No, the twins won’t be eating with us tonight. Oh, Arthur doesn’t mind, does he? No, that’s fine. And the twins are of course, a couple of dogs, couple 

Craig: little, a little white lies, Jack Russell terrier or something.

I think that will remain my favorite part of it. 

Todd: Dogs are safe from a woman in black. Your, your, your puppies are okay, it’s your children and they get ya. She has an episode and she kind of carves something into the thing. Did he tell you about Nicholas that’s him? I painted that myself. I love to paint and sketch.

So it’s lovely. Nicholas Love to sketch too.

He still does.

He wants to draw you a picture and there’s

no.

The Medicaid. It’s just funny that this really skeptical guy would see all this stuff happening around him would see the stuff happening to Daniel would say he, before he even knew about the woman in black is telling him on the car ride back. I saw this woman, I saw it, whatever. And still the super skeptical guys.

Isn’t really forthcoming with information and not believing it. 

Craig: Yeah. Kind of explain that a little bit. And I guess I kind of get it, but it seems like this, you know, if there were even the slightest possibility that this was true, which there seems to be lots of evidence that it is because kids keep dying.

Um, you would think that he would tell, I mean, the way that he explains it is. I had two options of things to believe. I could believe that my kid was at peace in heaven, or I could believe that he was lost out there at that spooky mansion. You know, which, what would you choose to believe? So, I mean, I guess, you know, Yeah, he’s, he’s trying as much as he can not to believe the things, but, uh, 

Todd: but it’s just more that withholding of information, you know, is sort of the thing that got me when I watched lost.

Did you ever, did you see, you know, it’s like if people would just be upfront with each other about what they’re seeing and what they’re doing, like the plot would move along a whole lot 

Craig: faster. I it’s definitely a device to keep the, the, the tension going. I mean, if we were let in on the whole story right away, I don’t know if it would have made that much of a difference.

Like I said, you get kind of these little clues like Arthur, the main guy is at the mansion. All these mysterious things are happening. Meanwhile, he continues doing his work and he uncovers all of these artifacts, documents, photographs, et cetera, that kind of slowly build the picture. I mean, it. It’s laid out there for you pretty well.

Yeah. 

Todd: And at the end of the day comes to that conclusion. Well, the way to bring her to rest is to unite her with a son who died, um, which is why she’s angry. And of course the body was never recovered. And this to me was a really weak point in the movie. Obviously it’s another trope. You dig up the body and then you bury it back with the button, with the body of the mother and that’s supposed to make the, make everything.

Okay. But apparently the spot in the more where this car sank with the kid in it, who died is clearly marked with a cross. Right. And has been probably since it happened, but they could never recover the body. So he turns to Arthur turns to Sam and says, I know what to do. We’ve got to reunite them, but, but you’ve never found, we never found the body while you have something that nobody else does.

And that’s something is apparently a car. Um, What 

Craig: I, and so then, so that’s they’re okay. So I guess it was like a horse-drawn carriage. It must’ve been if there weren’t cars back then. Um, so it it’s sunk and they weren’t able to rescue the kid. Everybody else got up, they went into the rest of the kid and, uh, he’s still down there and they were never able to retrieve his body, but then.

Arthur just wades in there for a couple seconds. Like I found it it’s right here, 

Todd: pull it out and then pull it out with no trouble. And it was clearly just, just below the 

Craig: surface. Right, right. You know, Rachleff is not a tall man. It’s not like this thing was way down there and okay, fine. They didn’t have cars.

I would imagine they had horses or winches or something. It was, it was a week. Plot point. And not only that, but then they pull out the corpse. Now this is supposed to have happened years ago, right. And this is a swamp. I mean, we are talking thick, viscous, slimy mud, and Daniel Radcliffe Radcliffe says, I found the boy and he pulls out this almost perfectly preserved 

Todd: corpse 

Craig: and just kind of carries it out and they.

Clean it up and lay it out. It’s, it’s kind of bizarre. 

Todd: It’s weird. And of course, you know, the, they lay it out. The sponge of spooky stuff. I think about half of the spooky stuff that happens pretty much go down the list in that next 10 minutes. And of course that aren’t Sam also sees the dead children and all that.

So we kind of wrap everything up there. And 

Craig: well, and, and Arthur thinks we did it. You know, the, the, the ghost lady, the woman in black shows up, she clearly acknowledges that she sees the body has been laid out. Um, so, uh, Arthur says we did it, you know, she’s gone hooray. And they, uh, take the body out and bury it with the mother, which is, you know, nice effort.

Right. Um, and, uh, then everything’s supposed to be okay, but it’s not. 

Todd: Yeah, there’s a twist. Now, did you think there’d be a twist ending? Oh 

Craig: yeah. Yeah. I figured there was, I don’t even consider it a, a twist. Really? This happens all the time. Anytime you have a haunting movie, they always say, Oh, we did it. We, it worked w w you know, one of my favorite ones where they do it really well.

Is Poltergeist when Tangina says this house is clean, uh, and then everybody thinks everything’s fine. And then of course, all of the spirits come back and it’s way worse than ever. So I knew she’d be back plus it’s not like it was a big surprise. They, uh, after, uh, salmon Arthur leave, they do a slow. Walk through the corridor towards the mother’s room, uh, in the house.

And you hear her saying, I’ll never forget. I’ll never forget. And so then you want to 

Todd: wrap it up. Yeah. It’s pretty much setting it up for SQL. So, so then of course, uh, his, uh, nanny and a son do end up coming back and that night and the minute they step off the train, he says to them, he knows like the first words out of his mouth.

Got it. Change of plans. 

Craig: We’re not staying at the night. We’re going straight back to London. Can you purchase some tickets? I’ll explain on the way. 

Todd: So while he’s holding the son’s hand and talking with his, a friend, uh, Sam, and saying goodbye, the kid sees the woman in black and just like all the other children to sort of lure towards her, goes down into the train tracks, into the path of an oncoming train and Arthur leaps in after him.

They both get hit by the train and they’re ghosts now. And 

Craig: they’re ghosts now, which I guess we’re supposed to kind of be happy about because they’re reunited with the deceased’s wife, mother, you know, Arthur’s wife is there and they kind of walk off down the train tracks together. Well,

that’s it, that’s it credits the end. Um, I don’t know. I feel like we’re being really hard on the sound. I just didn’t care for it. And you know, that’s not, like I said, I think the cinematography was good. It was pretty look at, I didn’t think, you know, the costuming was good. There, there are lots of things you could say that are good about it.

The set pieces were spooky. One of the things that I, one of the few things I read, I, I know now I couldn’t find a lot of information about this film. One of the few things I read is that all of those windup toys in the nursery were not. Props and they were, they were actually antique windup toys and that’s kind of cool cause they were, they were pretty creepy.

Um, so that was cool. I didn’t think that there was anything wrong with the acting. Not necessarily. I mean, I think that Arthur’s character was kind of flattened. Unbelievable, but I don’t think that was. A result of the acting. I think it was the script and the direction and the pacing and the pacing it’s it just didn’t work for me.

It, you know, 

Todd: you and I probably seen so many movies and so many movies like this, that we were never going to be wowed by it. Probably not. If you were a teenager, if you had kids and you kind of wanted to watch a fun Halloween movie with your kids, this would probably freak you out. Yeah. I can 

Craig: see this being kind of a slumber party favorite maybe for, you know, Uh, adolescent girls, maybe the Harry Potter fans might enjoy it for Daniel Radcliffe alone.

But like you said, you said, you know, if we hadn’t been doing this, you might have nodded off. I would have turned it off. I would’ve have turned it off. After the first half hour I was bored. And you know, that’s, in my opinion, the worst sin, a horror film can commit is being boring. And I was bored by this movie.

Just didn’t do it 

Todd: for me. No, you’re absolutely right. Um, It just didn’t happen, but it was apparently wildly 

Craig: successful really well. That has to be because of Daniel Radcliffe. Right. That 

Todd: was it. You know, everybody wanted to know what he was going to do next. And of course it’s a creepy horror movie and you’re wondering what’s going to happen.

Craig: Harry Potter books and movies. I mean, they made good jillions of dollars. So anything that these kids were tied to immediately after that, I’m not at all 

Todd: surprised. Oh, it blew up every, even their expectations away. I think it made 127 million worldwide and almost like a $20 million budget or less. And, um, Best grossing hammer movie ever, or an, and also best grossing British horror film in 20 years when it came out.

So again, probably the star power that was leading people. I think so otherwise it’s quite forgettable and it’s not like his performance was fantastic. 

Craig: No, not bad. I mean, I don’t think that he’s a bad actor. It wasn’t a very good movie, so they didn’t have much to do with it, I guess. I don’t know. Maybe you’ll watch it and totally disagree with us.

Maybe we’re cynical. Maybe we’ve seen too many horror movies, but, you know, I was, I was thinking we’ve, we’ve only been doing this for a little while now. And, uh, we’ve watched movies that we have known and loved for the most part. And so we were already coming in. Ready to gush about some of these things, this one you hadn’t seen it, it had, you know, I hadn’t seen it either.

I knew nothing about it. I really didn’t have any expectations. So I guess my expectations weren’t high, then I wasn’t disappointed in that regard, but I don’t know. I just like. Didn’t find myself coming away with much to say, yeah, 

Todd: I’m with you, but you know, a creepy story if you’re into that sort of thing.

Yeah. 

Craig: If you’re into Gothic, haunted houses, I mean, 

Todd: it may be your thing. Yeah. You you’re just, you know, if you are, you’re just sort of into the same stuff over and over again, I guess. I mean, to be honest, uh, it really is, uh, all of these movies tend to be like this. It’s hard to find one that’s different.

Craig: Right. That’s really unique. That really does something different with the genre and. You know, people, it’s not like this is a new type of movie or even storytelling. I mean, Gothic novels. I’m thinking of like, um, uh, Hawthorne’s the house of the seven Gables, you know, that kind of thing. It’s obviously a genre that people continue to be interested in.

Otherwise, why would we keep seeing them? So maybe it was just not our niche. 

Todd: Probably not. Well next week, we’ll try to find something that’s a little more interesting that we can talk 

Craig: about. I’m still glad to have seen it. I guess, you know, I’m kind of a completist in, in the horror genre. I kind of like to see everything I can get my hands on and now I can say I’ve seen it.

People ask for recommendations. I can say this would not be one of them for me. Well, 

Todd: there’s a sequel out there. It’s on Netflix. Maybe it’s better. Um, I’m not going to go ready to any anytime. Thank you again for listening. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please check out our other podcasts at, uh, two guys.read forty.net.

Also check us out on Facebook. Like our page, share us with your friends. If you like what you hear. Also be sure to check out my reviews still going [email protected] one horror movie a day. I’ll put a review of this one up there as well. And then till next week, this has been Todd and Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Trick or Treat is the Halloween movie to end all Halloween movies, and we had a ball discussing it this month.

See the short Craig mentions during the podcast here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=7&v=czlSc6kYegg

Trick R Treat (2007)

Episode 4, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another edition of two guys and a chainsaw. Todd I’m Craig, and it is Halloween time. We’re in the middle of the month. And, uh, starting off with another Halloween movie again. 

Craig: Yeah. We, uh, decided in the spirit of this. We would give a watch to Trick R Treat.

Todd: Now I saw Trick R Treat last year or the year before on this time during my 31 days of horror where I review, 

Craig: I think, yeah, I think it was the year before because I went and looked for your review and I couldn’t find it right away.

So I think it must’ve been a couple of years 

Todd: ago. It must’ve been a couple of years ago, but I do remember the one I watched it. It was the highlight of my year and I think. He might’ve even been you who recommended 

Craig: it to me? It wouldn’t surprise me. I stumbled upon this movie. I don’t remember where I don’t remember if I rented it from a video store or if it happened, maybe be on Netflix for a little while.

I don’t remember, but I loved it from the first viewing. I mean, this is just such a fun. Movie. 

Todd: Oh my gosh. Like as a Halloween film, this is the quintessential Halloween 

Craig: film. Great. And you know, I just love, you know, uh, well, horror in general, uh, Halloween themed movies are always fun. It’s, it’s great to pop them in this time of year.

And, and this one just delivers on pretty much every front. I mean, it’s. Uh, got it’s darkly comedic moments. It’s a, it’s got your adequate amount of Gore for those who are, uh, the Gore hounds out there. Um, it’s genuinely frightening in places, but it’s not the kind of scary that you’re probably gonna lose.

The sleepover. It’s fun. I mean, it’s, uh, I can imagine, unfortunately, nobody got to do this. Um, but I can imagine, uh, you know, sitting in a crowded theater with a lot of pumped up people who are really just in for a ride. Um, so this wasn’t a big 

Todd: movie 

Craig: when it came out. No, I read a little bit about the production history and it was kind of troubled, I think, uh, on IMDBs.

It says that this is a 2007 film, but I think it was actually supposed to come out at least a year before. Uh, and it was scheduled for a Halloween release. And I guess just without any explanation for why. It got pulled from, uh, its release date and, and no new release date was ever scheduled. Uh, there was, I read some speculation.

Uh, Bryan singer was Brian singer, the director here, who was the producer producer. He had, uh, also, uh, his production team had also worked on the Superman reboot that did not perform well in theaters at all. Um, and so there’s some speculation that maybe they were worried about. It’s a, this having a similar, uh, reception also, it was initially slated to come out against a soft four.

And those movies were huge Halloween draws at the time, and they may not have wanted to compete, but the sad part of the story is it just never ended up getting released and it ended up just going straight to video and, you know, based on the quality. This is definitely, you know, a theater worthy film.

This is, this isn’t a low budget, uh, 

Todd: hack job, no, by any stretch of the imagination, I mean, it is beautifully shot. Uh, it is colorful. Um, it is well acted, actually a whole bunch of unknowns in here. Although some people work, some character actors, you kind of recognize, but you’re not sure from where, um, and widescreen total widescreen, um, it’s not 16 by nine it’s anamorphic wide screen.

Right. It’s gorgeous. It’s beautifully shot the transitions. Well, it’s an anthology. Yeah. 

Craig: And I feel like we’ve talked about this before we, that maybe we should do spoiler alerts. Um, if you haven’t seen this movie, I don’t know if I would listen to this, if you plan to, because part of the fun of this movie is it is an anthology film.

Kind of in the same vein as like creep show or something, you know, like that from the dark side. Right, exactly. But, uh, it’s a little bit atypical in the way that the stories are all woven together. It’s it, they’re not, uh, presented as kind of their own episodic. Pieces they’re all interwoven and kind of seeing how they all come together as part of the fun.

Todd: Yeah. Your, your standard anthology movie has kind of a wraparound story. Right. And you got your bit at the beginning. Um, and then, you know, it kind of starts off one story after a time. And then the beginning part kind of. There’s an end. The book ends essentially. The first story has its conclusion. After the last story, it’s sort of bookend it, you know, like tales from the dark side has the, the kid who was trapped by the, which I think in, in her house type thing.

And then there’s that twist there at the end. And, um, but this one you’re right. It, the whole, the stories wrapped around each other. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And, and, you know, the, they. Work well, you know, on their own little individual stories, but it’s kind of fun to see characters from one story pop up in another, even if it’s only briefly and some of them are more interwoven than other others.

Uh, it’s, it’s really a neat concept. It’s just, you know, it’s, it’s one Halloween night, the timeline kind of jumps around, but really all of the stories are happening, happening concurrently on this one night. Uh, and it’s, it’s really cool. I mean, it’s, it’s really well written and well done. Cause, you know, contrive, it’s 

Todd: like the pulp fiction, Halloween movies like that.

I hadn’t thought about that about halfway through when you realize that, Oh, I’m seeing a character from another or, Oh, this happened before. The part of the fun of watching it is, is figuring out how they interconnect or kind of, you know, seeing it, and then towards the end it becomes. It becomes actually a part of the plot.

Sure. Yeah. And again, as Craig said, if you have not seen us, you really need to stop this podcast and go, wow. Gore level is pretty high it’s mid-level for Gore. If you were to take out the goriness though, this would, you could watch us with your kids 

Craig: almost. Yeah, yeah. With, yeah. But the Gore that is there is, is, is pretty graphic.

Yeah. There’s, there’s quite a lot of blood and the content is, is pretty dark in places. I mean, you got. Children being brutally murdered, um, unapologetically. And you get to see some of that and it’s it’s graphic detail. But I think that the reason that you say that, you know, it’s something you could share with your kids, because I think that it celebrates that, that spirit, you know, that fun of Halloween, um, that I, you know, Christmas is great, you know, fun times, but Halloween has always been the really exciting holiday for me.

And, um, it seems like everybody involved with this. Felt the same way. You know, it really feels like a celebration of the season and the holiday and it’s, they had a lot of fun with it and it reads perfectly. 

Todd: Oh yeah. And it’s your, um, being a wraparound story, of course, uh, being a, sort of a, um, anthology tale and, uh, starting off with sort of the comic book, it’s very evocative of creep show, which itself was very evocative of the ISI horror comics in the fifties tales from the crypt and those sorts of things, which are very high in, um, they have a morality.

Of themselves, right? Usually the bad guy gets it at the end. Right. Or there is some twist in there where, who you thought was the good guys, not actually the good guy and they end up getting it in the end. And this plays with that in a lot of different ways. And that’s what makes it sort of like the kind of movie that, like I say, you could kind of watch with your kids, if it weren’t for the Gore, in that it has that, those sort of folk tale, fairy tale type qualities to them, that those comic books had, um, with that strong kind of moral message in the end and that this movie hasn’t 

Craig: spades and yeah, absolutely.

It goes in unexpected places and that’s part of the fun. And that’s part of the reason why, if you haven’t seen it, turn it off. Um, but, uh, like for example, one of the stories kind of establishes the central character as a little red riding hood figure. I mean, she’s, she’s dressed as little red riding hood, Danielle.

I look like I’m five. Shut up. You, you look great. 

Todd: It’s tradition. Great. 

Craig: What does tradition say we do now? We meet our dates and she’s kind of. Built up as this vulnerable, innocent. And then when we actually get the pay off of the story, it just completely flips it on its head. Uh, and uh, in, in a really clever way, 

Todd: do you want to dive into the stories, talk about them a little bit?

Craig: Well, I, it’s hard. It’s hard to do it because of the way that they’re interwoven. Uh, it’s, it’s hard to even know where to start because really the, the first scene in the movie. Chronologically happens at the end of the night. Um, but that’s also something that’s fun about. Uh, the movie is because you can see the conclusion of one of the individual stories.

And in that conclusion, somebody likely dies. But then they can still pop back up later on in the movie because the chronology, uh, you know, they, they, we flash back to earlier in the night and it’s kind of fun, you know, to know what these people’s fates are gonna get. Especially there are going to be, especially since some of them you’re really hoping they get it in the end.

Uh, and so to get to see that, and then still have them playing little parts kind of in the, uh, is a lot of fun. But yeah, we, I mean, we probably should at least give some, uh, Uh, idea of what these stories are, I guess. Well, I mean, 

Todd: speaking of what you said, especially that first story, that sort of the first bit of the story, actually, you know, where it starts out with the woman and her husband coming home from hallow, this Halloween party.

Oh. And it must be said that this town, this town of, uh, Warren Valley it’s Warren Valley, Ohio. Yeah. Is the most awesome little town in the world for their Halloween celebration, 

Craig: this big. So, you know, everybody attends this big celebration in the square. The whole town, you know, is totally decked out in, in, uh, Halloween decorations.

Um, it’s clearly a big celebration. They’re even doing a feature story on the news. Uh, that we get glimpses of. So yeah, I would love to visit this town at Halloween time and just the atmosphere is perfect. You know, you’ve got this perfect fall evening with the leaves littered along the streets and a little bit of fog in places.

It’s just, it couldn’t be better as far as atmosphere everybody’s 

Todd: costumed up. And they’re almost like very much traditional style, Halloween costumes, you know, and, and of course, You can’t really do it in the movie. You can’t bring in a whole bunch of licensed characters, but it’s not like you’re seeing the Freddie and the Jason’s and things like that.

It’s almost like the old fashioned Halloween atmosphere where somebody is a robot and somebody is a pumpkin and somebody is, uh, a ghost. Right. And 

Craig: get the princesses and the little red riding hood. Yeah. Yeah, and just kind of typical stuff, but, uh, also really fun, fun images, homemade costumes. 

Todd: The girl comes, comes back to her house with her boyfriend and she, you know, she’s this robot, she takes it off and she says, Oh, you go inside, go upstairs.

You know? And she goes in there and she she’s one of the first victims.

And, you know, when you talk about the wraparound nature of it and sort of the waiting for the payoff, that’s the closest thing we have to book end because that story, like it’s the tail end of the story that begins it. And we don’t really see the full version of the beginning of her tail until the very end.

And what’s what you’re sort of left with is, especially as you realize, this is one of those anthology tails was sort of the morality behind us. What was her sin, you know, what did she do? 

Craig: She didn’t respect the traditions of Halloween. Todd, you weren’t 

Todd: paying. Oh, I paid, I saw I got it. No, I got it at the end.

I got at the end, but when you’re first watching it, you don’t know that. Right. And at the end, of course, though, she blew out the pumpkin. She wasn’t supposed to 

Craig: no way wait. No. Yes.

He’s supposed to keep it land. Why? 

Todd: Henry it’s Halloween not hung up. So that happens and 

Craig: yeah, I, and that’s where it kicks off. And at the end, when we return to that story, like Todd said, we, we kind of returned to it just a few moments before it picks up in the beginning. Um, and in those few moments, we see almost all of the main players intersect on this little patch of street.

That’s right. You kind of see at the end, how, from the very beginning, everything has been tied together. The other stories, you know, there’s, there’s, like I said, the little red riding hood story where you’ve got these, I guess, sorority sisters, beautiful girls, all of them, the mild meek one played by Anna Paquin of, of a true blood fame.

Um, and, and she’s kind of the innocent where the other girls are kind of. Slut it up and their princess costumes she’s, you know, very modest in her red riding hood. And it establishes her as the inexperienced one. And the whole goal for the night, I guess, is to get her late. Cause she’s the last Virgin among them.

And they, uh, so when we’re first introduced to them, they’re trying to pick up guys to go to this party and. You know, we cut back and forth kind of between the different stories, but eventually we get to the party. And again, I just, I hate to give away too much because you know, it’s a twist and it’s such a fun one.

If you go in knowing what it is, uh, I feel like I’d be spoiling something 

Todd: for you and it plays with that feminist trope. Yeah. Oh, you know, the, is the, the girls, uh, it really takes your expectations. Oh, we’ve seen this story a million times. Here’s the girl, who’s the meek one. The other girls are the sort of the trashy slutty girls who are going to get her late and what’s going to happen here.

And then it sort of flips that on its head. Uh, by the end when you realize, Oh, who’s, who’s actually the vulnerable one 

Craig: here. Exactly. Yeah. So there’s that one, there’s another, and all of the stories really are, are pretty simple. You know, this is they’re what, three or four of the main stories and the whole, you know, the whole movie only has a runtime of like 82 minutes.

So it’s really pretty compact. The stories are told pretty quickly. Um, another one we’ve got, we’ve got a principal. Who, uh, it has a very dark side. 

Todd: Um, yeah, his was very interesting. I thought, you know, he’s a high school principal, this town you’d never want to be your high school principal, but just seems to be the most mild-mannered meek.

And at the same time, he’s sort of doing these dastardly things. He does them with sort of a casual aloofness, like, like nobody’s going to spec them suspect a note. He’s not even really cleaning up after himself. No, 

Craig: no. Yeah. I mean, there’s. Carnage that he, you know, doesn’t really go out of his way to, to hide or 

Todd: anything.

But one of the things he does that comes in to play later on in the show is the whole, um, razorblades and the candy bit. Right. 

Craig: You know, one of the rules of Halloween always check your kids, wait. 

Todd: That’s right. There’s another 

Craig: tradition. 

Todd: Very important.

Craig: Always check your candy. 

Todd: And that’s really funny. I don’t know. Have you ever seen a movie that played with the whole Razorback, that urban legend of people putting razorblades 

Craig: and candy? I don’t know if I have or not, but I remember being scared of that when I was a kid, you know, that was something that we really were concerned about.

I. Who knows if that’s ever really happening. 

Todd: When you think about it, it’s insane. Like how would you get, and it was always like the razorblades in the apples, right? How would you possibly, could you get a razor blade in an Apple where nobody would notice? I mean, I 

Craig: don’t know, but I remember that being a genuine fear when I was a 

Todd: kid, it was, and they play with that.

And that’s, that’s, what’s neat about this movie. It’s a movie. It’s not just a Halloween movie. Like it’s a movie about it Halloween. 

Craig: Absolutely. And that’s the thing, you know, one of the things, yeah. There’s lots of stuff going on on this night, you know, there’s a, in one of, there’s a, there’s another story about a group of little kids that centers around an urban legend, which I actually thought was one of the.

Strongest, uh, of the stories. But during that story, you just casually hear in the background. And one of the, uh, one of the kids in the story comments on it, you hear a Wolf howl and he says, Oh, werewolves. And one of the other kids is all you’re stupid or something, but of course, you know, we, that does tie in later, you know, something else is going on in another part of town, it really does celebrate Halloween.

And one of the things that I thought was a really fun that they played with was. You know, this is a night where if you wanted to get away with mayhem, you probably could. Yeah. You know, some of these characters are doing really violent dastardly things right out in the open, but they’re surrounded by the grotesque.

You know, you’ve got all these costumes with people, with blood and. Guts and all this stuff. And so a lot of it just goes unnoticed. Yeah. That blood is really thought 

Todd: of that, that blood is really blood, right. That girl who looks like, you know, she’s passed out and she’s just got a bloody thing is really dead.

And she was bloody. And in this town, especially at getaway with that, I guess, so. Oh, you don’t in that one, you were just talking about, you said it was the strongest with the 

Craig: kids. The reason that I liked that one that focused on the group of kids was because they establish in this really cool shot, this urban legend about a bus driver who was paid by a group of parents to dispose of their different children.

There were eight of them and they were different trouble disturb. Every day, parents put their dirty secrets on this bus to be driven to a school miles outside of town. Sorry, these kinds of odd children. So you’ve got this bus driver who has all of these. Kids in, um, masks and costumes. So you can’t really see their faces.

There’s in these kind of old fashioned, uh, Halloween masks, they’re chained to their seats. And, and according to this legend, the bus driver was paid by the parents to dispose of them and on Halloween. Right. And on Halloween. And I just, I mean, you’re the technical guy, but I just loved, you know, the, for the, for the majority of the movie, It’s nighttime, we’re in dark, it’s this, you know, great spooky atmospheric thing.

And then when we go to this urban legends, everything’s in kind of these gold sepia tones. Um, and it it’s, it was just kind of a really neat thing to watch. And, and plus the, the urban legend is kind of sad, uh, in and of itself, but it really felt like. A real urban legend. You know, it felt like something that you would have heard maybe more, maybe more appropriately a suburban legend.

Yeah. And then, and then of course, you know, uh, It plays, uh, on that, uh, in the payoff. Um, but I just, that one for whatever reason, just stood out to me as being particularly strong. 

Todd: No, I agree with you, the tr you know, you were talking about how it goes from dark to light the transitions in this film, and that’s why, I mean, such a high budget, high quality, just, well put together film.

The transitions were awesome, you know, to go from that dark night to suddenly this really bright CEPI tone, we came through the window of the back of the bus, I think, you know, and then lit up on this, this really bright street. Um, interesting that the whole movie takes place at night and the flashback is bright and, and, uh, and almost devoid of color really, which is it’s it’s again, it’s kind of a flip, you know, usually your flashbacks.

Uh, well, I dunno, sometimes they can be black and white or something like that, but. Um, it’s, it’s the horrible things that are happening, that happens in such a colorful world. And then when you go to sort of the reality of what was supposed to have happened in this, in this past time, you get this very, a washed out, uh, kind of a look to it.

That’s bright, but it’s. It’s devoid of that 

Craig: color colorful. And it just, it stands in really stark contrast. You know, when we come back, we’ve got this group of kids and, and so the premise is that they are, they go out to the site where this urban legend is supposedly took place. And in the legend, of course, these, these kids died.

And so what they’re doing is they’re setting out, uh, jack-o-lanterns uh, uh, in honor of the dead eight victims, eight jack-o-lanterns each one representing a lost soul. So we’re going to leave them by the side of the Lake, as an offering to those who died. And again, there, you know, twists and surprises.

It’s not exactly what you expect, but the contrast between, um, the lightness, when they’re doing the flashback or the urban legend or whatever in the next shot or the next scene, there’s just kind of a really, I mean, it’s not really long, but for a shot of a girl’s feet, just walking along the ground, it seems kind of long, but I was just like, man, This is such a cool shot.

You know, you’ve got this, this girl is dressed in a witch’s costume, so she’s got which boots on and the which dress. And it’s just her feet walking along the ground with the leaves rustling and the fog just kind of barely lingering. And it’s just one shot. It’s not even really pivotal to the plot in any way.

Um, but just those little details just had me giddy throughout 

Todd: it. It takes a lot of care. A lot of care went into making this film and. Another thing that, that, uh, kind of jumped out at me, this, the transformation scene. So there’s a transformation, um, in one of the stories and it was a, well, it’s like a werewolf, but I’ve never seen a werewolf transformation quite 

Craig: like that before.

Yeah. Uh, very, I don’t know if unique is the right word because it pulled from, I mean, there’s obviously inspiration from others, you know, uh, American werewolf in London, of course. A bit of me kind of the master rights still. And you kind of, you know, you kind of see some of that, but you’re right. It has its own uniqueness to it too.

That makes it a lot of fun and, and it’s kinda, it’s gross and scary at the same time. Yeah. I thought it was excellent. The effects for that I read were done by the same special effects company that did the liken effects for sure. The underworld series. Oh, really? Which I’ve only seen the first entry, but, um, yeah, so they had some experience in that 

Todd: area, that whole scene, you know, kind of as a bit of a back, uh, for me to blade and it was a bit of a throwback for me to, from dusk till Dawn.

Yeah, it definitely sort of those two elements in there. 

Craig: I’m glad you said throwbacks. Cause that was something else that I was noticing. There were nice little nods to other horror movies. Uh, you can tell that the filmmakers were horror fans because they gave us these little, uh, tip of the hat. Did you catch any of 

Todd: those?

I caught a pet cemetery. Yeah. 

Craig: Great pet cemetery. 

Todd: One at the end out from under the bed. I’m trying to think of others. You must have caught some. I did. Uh, 

Craig: I was so excited. There’s an Allie chase scene that, uh, reminded me a lot of the excellent alley scene at chase scene. And I know what you did last summer with Sarah Michelle Gellar.

That’s very reminiscent. I liked that a lot. Yeah. Um, at there’s a bonfire party in, in the werewolf scene. And, uh, if you listen carefully, the song playing in the background is cry. Little sister, the, the theme song from, uh, the lost boys, right? Oh yeah, yeah. Uh, a big time. Favorite from my childhood. You said the pet cemetery one, there’s a severed zombie hand, little nod there.

In the very beginning, like in the opening scene, there’s a, an ominous figure and a white mask standing across the street, staring ominously, very reminiscent of Michael Myers. It’s just these little knots and I’m sure I missed others. There was popping 

Todd: up all over the place. There was another musical one.

Um, at some point I’m trying to remember where it was a sweet dreams. Of made of this were, were, was playing in the background. It was a, it was like yet a third remake of it. It wasn’t the original, the fast tempo. It wasn’t the slow one, the Marilyn Manson one that was in scream, but it was a, it was almost a third one I’m kinda curious to look at.

Yeah, 

Craig: but it was fun. I mean, as a, as a fan of horror. And if you are a fan for, why would you be listening to this if you’re not, but if you are again, it’s just those little payoffs, the little details that really show that, you know, these folks. We’re making a movie for fans. Oh yeah. 

Todd: Oh, and they beginning, uh, just the, um, the way that the credit sequence went, it was a total takeoff of a creep show and credit sequence there where they kind of had the 

Craig: comic books in there.

Previews all of the stories introduces you to the main characters. It’s it’s, it’s pretty to look at. It’s good stuff. Just great. Did we cover all the stories we had? Um, the little red riding hood. We had the principal, we had the urban legend one. Oh. And then there’s a, kind of the final story deals with this old grumpy guy I on, on the street who, you know, hates Halloween and hates kids.

And, uh, his house is the only one on the street that’s not lit up. And then he, you know, kinda. Pays the price for, again, I guess not honoring Halloween, but also he’s tied into another story in a way that you probably don’t see coming until it kind of a little bit later on. So you find out that he’s actually paying for other sins, right.

As well, and shown 

Todd: a little bit of mercy, this, uh, interestingly enough. And that was what made that story unique. And I like that. I like that. Even in this anthology, not only are you shaking it up a little bit by weaving them together and. And doing that and finding little ways to twist and take on other things.

You’re also getting a tale that ends with sort of a happyish ending in a sense, in a way that he’s sort of shown the error of his way. So he’s given a sort of penance for his earlier sins. And that also is so reminiscent of the ISI comics, you know, the fifties, they would occasionally have those stories where it was less about killing somebody who killed somebody else and more about, um, in a very sinister way, sort of reforming a person if you will.

And he certainly gets reformed by the 

Craig: end of it. Right. And then still kind of gets his come up and say anyway, a little bit. 

Todd: Now, now one part I didn’t quite catch, and maybe you can explain this to me is, um, his house was the one that the girl dresses of which Rhonda from the other one actually is coming from.

Yeah. 

Craig: Is it? I know, I remember when, um, they pick Rhonda up and this is in the urban legend story. The girl that these kids are playing a trick on is, uh, They, they refer to her as an idiot savant. I don’t know. She just seems a little different. Um, yeah, that was totally unfair 

Todd: by the way, right? 

Craig: Yeah. But she, yeah, she comes out of this house when we first meet her in this house is completely, you know, decked out in, uh, tons and tons of, uh jack-o-lanterns.

And then at the end of the film, uh, the old guy, his house is completely devoid of any kind of decorations, but then he hears a knock at the door and it’s those darn kids. And he goes to the door and somehow. Seemingly miraculously, all of a sudden his lawn is completely decked out. Were they the same house?

I thought 

Todd: it was, maybe they were. I thought that was part of the, of the 

Craig: deal. Maybe they were, if 

Todd: they, I don’t know if they were though, how would she have ended up there? But it was to me, it’s too fine of a point though, to, uh, To be similar between the two. 

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, she kind of ends up being the hero, I guess, of, of her story.

And, uh, the heroes in this movie are certainly kind of, you know, dark anti-heroes. So maybe, uh, uh, maybe there’s more going on with her than I originally 

Todd: thought. Well, it’s interesting because I wondered if she wasn’t associated with the old man in some way, shape or form, just because her story and his story.

You know, have that, that crossover 

Craig: point. Yeah, they do. Maybe we’ll shoot. Maybe we’ll have to watch it again. It wouldn’t be a bad thing. No. Uh, the other thing, I mean, it’s just, it’s a, it’s a clever movie. It’s so much fun. If you can get your hands on it for Halloween and you really want to get in the spirit, I would recommend this.

To anybody who was looking for, you know, a Halloween movie, it just doesn’t get much, much better. And it’s, there are just so many little it’s funny. There are clever little ones. I don’t even know what that was. Coach Taylor was in a hardcore costume, but in a pig, I think that’s just not, I mean, you don’t get lines like that very often.

Um, and just a little. Just little jokes that they laugh at you every once in a while that don’t come across as corny. It’s funny, it plays well, it’s it fits with the tone of the 

Todd: movie. And you know, it, that’s funny you bring up that, cause that came in a scene where the kids are trick or treating and they go to what’s a very adult Halloween, Halloween party going on.

It’s neat how the movie does sort of honor the spirit of the holiday. It touches on almost every little Halloween sort of tradition that you can think of. The jack-o-lanterns of the street parties, uh, the costume kind of masquerade kind of aspect with the bonfire party out at night, the trick or treating.

Everything. I mean, all you’re missing is bobbing for apples and really who does that? Right. So you pretty much got it all in there. And that’s what makes this movie so much fun. And I mean, this is the time of year to watch it. Absolutely. Now they’ve been threatening to make a SQL 

Craig: list for some time now.

And I so hope they do, you know, if they can maintain the spirit and tone of this one, I w I watch, you know, a whole series of these things. It was so well crafted, but they’ve, you know, they’ve been talking about doing it for years. Um, but everybody involved is still saying it’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen.

We don’t know when, but it is going to happen. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Yeah. Um, one thing I don’t think we can not talk about. Um, one of the other pieces of connective tissue throughout the whole movie is, uh, I don’t know how to pronounce it. S uh, Sam Haim, one character in the, in the film pronounced it once.

And it sounded like she said, saw one, saw one, but there’s this, this character, this, uh, kind of mysterious character, seemingly a child, the size of a child, but in this. Really really old fashioned. I mean, we’re not talking like fifties and sixties, we’re talking like depression, era, Halloween costume, which by the way, I’m sure you’ve seen those pictures of the depression era.

Halloween costumes are, they’re pretty terrifying and creepy. And so he’s in this kind of weird, old fashion. He’s dirty, he’s scruffy and he just pops up everywhere. He pops up in every single story. He’s silent. He’s just kind of this looming presence. He even pops up in the, uh, the urban legend story, which supposedly was supposed to take in place decades ago.

Um, and then he plays more of a central role, uh, in, in one of the final scenes, but this spooky little guy and he’s kind of become. An icon in his own. Right. You know, when you see, I, you know, I look at a lot of horror websites and things, and a lot of people put up their artwork and, um, he is now kind of appearing in all of those collages with all the other great movie monsters and villains and just a spooky, uh, uh, little element to the, to the story.

But yeah. Kind of central. I mean, I guess that he’s supposed to be representative of kind of the spirit of the 

Todd: holiday. Yes. Well, exactly what they’re going for, especially because he, you know, showed up in that, in that flashback or it’s Halloween, they’re driving by and he’s kind of out in the field, stabbing a bat or something, but, but silent and quiet and, and has that sort of, uh, guardian aspect, like I’m just watching you from afar.

I’m making sure that you’re following the rules. Yeah. And if you don’t follow the rules, maybe I, myself, I’m going to come after. 

Craig: Right. And you do get the sense that he’s definitely taking sides in these stories, you know, uh, uh, you, you find in the, in the final act that he really can pose a threat. In and of himself, but the characters who behave accordingly, I guess he just leaves them alone.

It’s almost like he kind of gives them a little, a little nod, a little 

Todd: nod and a pass and walks 

Craig: right by, uh, interesting. And, and, uh, fear net, I guess, which I don’t get does a 24 hour marathon of this, every Halloween. And they do little spots, advertisement spots with, uh, Sam, the little character. If you haven’t seen him, you should take a look.

There’s some pretty cute ones. Uh, in fact, the whole movie is based on a short called seasons greetings and, and the short, uh, introduces th this, this character, the character of Sam, uh, it’s a little animated short. It’s really brief. It’s cute. I just watched it for the first time today. They were initially planning on calling the film seasons greetings, which is what the original short was called.

Uh, but they were worried that it sounded too Christmasy. So they went through, they went through some other stuff and landed on trigger tree. Is that available 

Todd: online? Yeah, it’s on YouTube. We’ll put a link to that. We’ll put a link to that town or website. Yeah, it’s fun. Yeah. Well, once again, thank you so much, Craig, for, uh, for recommending just a fantastic Halloween movie.

We’re going to be on here again for two more weeks. We’re redoing a couple more Halloween movies. If you liked this podcast, please share with your friends. If you are interested in reading a few more, uh, movie reviews, I have my 31 days of horror going on. We’re watching one horror movie at one horror movie a day and writing a review about it.

And we will be back to you next week with Two Guys and a Chainsaw. This is Todd and Craig season’s greetings .

Todd & Craig discuss last year’s surprisingly novel found footage flick, Creep. Let’s just say it lives up to its name.

*Note: very sorry about the poor audio quality on this one.

Creep (2014)

Episode 3, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd:  Hello, and welcome again to 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. I’m Craig. And, today is October 1st. 

Craig:  October 1st, Halloween season. 

Todd:  Yeah. It is a very special day for me today, Craig. Yeah. Because, as you know, and if maybe some listeners of our podcast know, this is the 1st day of my 31 days of horror. Yes. My annual tradition of trying my best to watch 1 horror movie every single night at Halloween and then find something, clever and creative to say about it. Right? So I watch a horror movie, I write a review, I put it up on my website which is toddcoons.com in case anybody’s interested. I’ll put a link on there for you too.   And, normally when I select movies, I try to find some, some films that I have never seen before. Uh-huh. And today was was one of those days. 

Craig:  Yes. 

Todd:  And even more so, Craig challenged me. He said, alright. I know you haven’t seen this, but I tell you what, it’s better if you go into this not knowing anything about it. So don’t don’t even read about it. 

Craig:  Right. That’s right. You know, this is one of those, Netflix finds. It it popped up as a suggestion, and, I stuck it on, kind of in the background while I was doing something else. I don’t remember if I was working or or working out or what. But it, grabbed my attention pretty early on. And by the end, I had finished whatever it was that I was doing. And I found myself sitting like a little kid down right in front of the TV because I wanted to see what was gonna happen.   I thought it was, unique, interesting little film. I thought it would be a good way to kick off your 

Todd:  your month. Well, it was a good choice. I mean, honestly, this put me in that mood. I don’t know what it is but sometimes these sort of found footage type films which I get pretty tired of. Yeah. But there are times when I’m kind of in the mood for something that’s a little more creative, a little different. I mean, I was watching this. I was thinking a little bit of the VHS series.   Yeah. Uh-huh. Definitely. And I wholly expected because I kid you not, I did not read a thing about this. I believe you. I didn’t even read the Netflix description as I was going through there. And I when I got you know, after we were done watching this movie, I got on and I thought, oh, maybe this is a Ty West movie or, you know, produced by no, not at all. Right.   It’s really just 2 guys for the whole thing. 

Craig:  It is. You’ve got, and and the 2 guys developed this concept together, and then they went through a writing process where they kinda just let it develop organically through conversations that they had, you know, different scenarios that they imagined in this kind of, creepy circumstance. And the, director, Patrick Bryce, and and the other the co writer, Mark Duplass. They they star in the movie and really they are are quite literally the only actors throughout 

Todd:  the whole thing. Yes. 

Craig:  So you’ve got 80 minutes, that you are just with these 2 guys. And so it it it sets itself apart a little bit from some of the found footage stuff. I too, you know, get a little bit tired of, the the found footage conceit. But, you know, there’s something to be said for just kind of sitting a couple of guys sitting down and making a movie. It’s fun to watch. Yeah. 

Todd:  And there’s kind of an intensity about it. I think now, I’ll betray myself a little bit here, I haven’t seen paranormal activity yet. Wow. You know, but I’ve seen the previews, I kinda know what it’s all about, in fact, that’s probably on my list for this month. The intensity where you have a camera just set up in a corner and you know you’re watching a horror movie and you’re waiting for things to happen. Right. And it feels like this movie plays with you a lot in that regard. For comedy you know it builds attention it actually does a really good job I think of building attention through playing with your expectations of what should be happening in this kind of film.   Yeah. 

Craig:  I think you’re absolutely right. You know, with those found footage things, a lot of the time, you you said you haven’t seen Paranormal Activity. I’ve seen them all. And they, they vary in quality. But, you know, a lot of, the footage, in those films is from security cameras. So there’s constant, you know, it’s like a constant eye that can catch kind of anything that goes on. And there’s a lot of cutting and editing to kind of piece the story together. And that’s kind of the case, in a lot of these found footage movies.   This one, for some reason, feels different to me because it’s just the 2 characters and one of them is usually behind the camera while the other one is addressing the cam addressing the camera directly, it it kind of draws you in. I mean, it feels intimate. Like, it feels like you’re kind of privy to a private conversation. Yes. And I I think that does a lot to establish the tone and also, that suspense that that you were talking about. It kind of defies expectations in some way, and so that builds the suspense even more. 

Todd:  Yeah. This is definitely one of the better ones. And, I think, you know the way it starts off you you always have to suspend your disbelief a little bit with these films, you just have to understand that in real life people are not running around recording themselves all the time. Right. Even when they’re intense scary moments. They’re putting a camera down Yeah. And more concerned for their safety. But, you know, this starts off with, the main character well, one of the 2 main characters, His name is Aaron, and he’s videotaping himself driving down the road to this gig.   I think this was shot in Florida. 

Craig:  Yeah. Which I was that’s you told me that. It kinda surprised me because I had kind of a New England kind of feel to it to me. And, you know, the the characters are are in coats and and heavy hats and things throughout. So I was kinda surprised that that was the location. But it is. I mean, it’s a beautiful kind of outdoor setting and and not threatening. He drives up to, this cabin where he’s supposed to meet the guy who has contacted him for this work.   Aaron, our the 1st character who we encounter is, apparently a freelance videographer Yeah. If nothing else. And, he’s been contacted by, a man, Joseph. That’s that’s kind of all he knows about him. And he’s meeting him here for for a job, for work. And that’s kind of where we pick up. 

Todd:  Yeah, like he answered a Craigslist ad or something. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. And, he’s not there and he kind of rings the doorbell. He looks around. He goes back down. He waits for a little while, and then, 

Craig:  Joseph appears. Yeah. He, he pops up, quickly. And this, you know 

Todd:  It scares him. Yeah. 

Craig:  Scares him, as, as Aaron’s waiting in his car. 

Todd:  Hi. Oh, I’m sorry. I think he scared you. Oh, it’s okay. It’s okay. I’m assuming you’re Aaron. Yeah. Alright, Aaron.   Joseph. Oh my god. 

Craig:  And then profusely apologizes for having scared him, but the the the gag of of these jump scares, comes up over and over again. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s the first of many jump scares that aren’t really jump yeah. It’s 

Craig:  It you know, jump scares, I think, in general in horror movies are typically kind of a cheap way, to engage your audience. But here, they worked for me because it was, I think, a use of dark humor. At some point, you know, Joseph keeps doing this over and over and over again to Aaron, popping out from, you know, hiding places. It’s something that I love to do, and that I’ve probably lost a lot of friendships over. Hiding around corners and waiting for somebody to walk by so you can just jump out at them. And you get that several times throughout, and he explains it. Joseph explains it and said, oh, I’ve got kind of a weird sense of humor. 

Todd:  Oh, and does he? He’s just weird all around. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and 

Todd:  and so it’s it’s you know he he’s also kind of that guy that all of us sort of kind of know this guy, he’s just a little off, but you know that it’s just their personality, at least that’s how it comes across at first. 

Craig:  Right. That’s exactly it. I mean, he does seem there’s something, I don’t know. Just something kind of innately creepy about him. But in in the beginning, you know, he comes off as just being really a genuinely nice guy. Like maybe a little overly friendly if if anything. But you kind of or or I did, you know, you you kind of question with a movie with the title Craig. You know something’s going to be going on.   But I’m asking myself, am I trying to read too much into this? And maybe he’s just a friendly guy, you know, who knows, what’s gonna happen. But throughout the progress of the movie, there’s something there’s something else going on. Yeah. 

Todd:  But the first half, you know, you’re really kind of wondering what’s going on. I mean, the first thing you’re wondering is what is this film project all about? Yeah. He takes him into the house and Joseph says, please keep foaming me. Alright. Just turn the camera on me. And he says, tells a story about how he had cancer and then he got over the cancer but then he started to feel ill and he found out he had a huge brain tumor. 

Craig:  Right. So And 

Todd:  he has a wife and a kid and they’re gone for some reason or they’re around not around. No no he has a pregnant wife. Yes. And his what was he calling? 

Craig:  His baby daddy? Buddy. Yeah. He he he talk what he wants to do is, at least this is, you know, what he tells, Aaron. He he tells him, you know, I want the doctor has given me 2 to 3 months to live. I’m hoping to beat it. But, you know, it’s it’s this brain tumor. It’s the size of a baseball. The chances aren’t good.   So what I want to do is kind of make a record or a documentation of me, of who I am, of my personality so that I can leave that then for my unborn son. So it’s kind of a, a passion project kind of thing. And it’s, you know, if you take it at face value, it’s it’s kind of a sweet notion for this guy to leave something behind for his unborn kid. And so, Aaron agrees. You know, there’s money exchange. It’s a job. He’s getting paid. But right off the bat, you 

Todd:  get yeah. It gets weird. Well, it’s funny because you do, as you said earlier, you kinda go back and forth here where you think, oh, this is weird. And then you go, oh, well, maybe there’s an excuse for it. Oh, maybe this guy’s, you know, it’s probably what’s the same thing that’s going on in Aaron’s head. Aaron doesn’t talk a lot for this first, you know, actually throughout the whole movie really. He just kinda takes it face value. Like I’m thinking when he greets him at the door, he gives him he says, you have a nice kind face.   Uh-huh. This is gonna be good and we’re gonna are you ready for this? And he gives him a hug, and he says, oh, yeah. Go ahead. Give me a hug. We’re gonna get a lot deeper, you know, than this as we go on. And and then he kinda says gives him the money and says I think he says, this is a partnership, and this is a journey into the heart. And, I’m real glad that you come with me. I think we’re gonna do great.   And just stares at him. And, Aaron, from behind the camera, you can’t see him, but you can just imagine, like, okay. Cool. Whatever you say. And he goes upstairs, and he says, I’m gonna I’m gonna we’re gonna I’m gonna get the tub. Yeah. Okay. Follows him upstairs.   And this is where it gets weird. He’s stripping down in front of the tub. 

Craig:  Right. Immediately. I mean, this is the very first scene that he wants to film. And he goes upstairs and, invites Aaron to follow him up there. And Aaron comes around the corner into the bathroom to find Joseph. He’s already stripped to the waist, and now he is in the process of taking his pants off. And, Aaron apologizes and starts to back away. And he says, oh, no.   No. This this is it. You know? This is what I want you to film. He says, we’re gonna get a lot more intimate than this. And out of the whole time, I’m thinking, that’s pretty intimate. 

Todd:  I was like, where is this movie? Right. If 

Craig:  if if if this guy were telling me, that it’s gonna get way more intimate than this, that would raise some red flags. That was another thing that I was thinking, you know, throughout. Again, I don’t know if I were in the circumstance. I guess you just don’t expect people to be crazy, like, literally insane crazy. So if if people are a little quirky or or whatever, I guess, you kinda just try to roll with it. But red flags, you know, immediately stripping naked and getting into the tub, you know, not even 5 minutes after they’ve met. He he talks about how he’s got all this limited time, and he wants to do this for his son, and he’s got this wife that he loves very much, he’s been married for 6 years, where are they? You know, I would think I would think if somebody if I were dying, I would wanna be near, you know, my loved ones. I wouldn’t wanna be off somewhere else preparing something for them. 

Todd:  With a stranger when you could have prepared this with your wife. Yeah. You know? It could have been a moment you guys could have shared with your limited time on earth. 

Craig:  Yeah. So, you know, just I I don’t know if you could even consider those little things. I mean, those seem like some kind of big red flags, but then again, it’s a job. As we were watching this, Todd, you wear lots of hats and, you know, you’ve done a lot of videography work. 

Todd:  I I 

Craig:  and I’m I’m saying a good thing, you know, is this is that just kinda part of the trade? Like, it’s gonna have to roll, you know, and, you know, the guy paid him. He just wants him to kinda document his day or whatever. Guess you just roll with 

Todd:  it? I’ve never gotten a gig like this. I’ll tell you that. Well, on something like this, it also doesn’t seem to require a lot of skill. Yeah. You know, he’s not asking him to set up really great shots and he’s not shooting if I mean this is clearly shot with a cheap camera. Yeah. The film’s really pretty grainy in the dark spots, you know, the whole movie again, it’s a found footage film so you don’t mind that production value. But, he clearly wanted a companion for the day.   Yes. And so that is sort of your 1st, you know, your 2nd or 3rd red flag there. Right. But then when he gets in the tub and this is the point where it switches back Todd, oh, maybe this is just a really sad man. He gets in the tub and he starts talking to his son, you know his future son on the camera and he says well you know my dad and I one of the one of the earliest memories I have of him was taking tubbies. Mhmm. And so this is gonna be, you know I don’t know if you’re gonna live, if I’m gonna be around when you’re here so I I wanna do a tubby with you right now. And he kinda goes through the motions with his invisible child who would ostensibly be watching this later.   Right. Of all these cute little things and his feed and his, washing him and pouring, and it’s, and you watch it and at least I was thinking, this is really sad or is it? Right. I mean, I mean, at 

Craig:  the same time, again, you kinda have to check your skepticism. Like, it it the whole time, it seems a little strange. It seems a little off and and bizarre. But, you know, maybe that’s just my cold dead heart. You know, may maybe this guy really sincerely wants to you know, he he regrets that he’s not gonna be able to share these moments with his child and and, maybe it is a sentimental thing. It just it keeps you questioning. I I think in the back of your mind, there’s always the notion that something just isn’t right. And you get the sense that, Aaron feels the same way.   You know? He’s he’s he’s kind of uncomfortable throughout the course of the day, but he just keeps kinda trying to roll with it. And, I think in a similar situation, I think that would be my instinct Todd, would be to try to roll with it as long as possible. I mean, he doesn’t seem, Joseph doesn’t seem really threatening or or dangerous initially. And it’s bright lights 

Todd:  Yeah. Except for the time when they’re in the you know, they’re kind of out in the middle of the day, in public places. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  After the after the bath scene or whatever is done, they immediately he says, let’s go to this park. Yeah. There’s a there’s a Hispanic lady at the Todd cart down the way who told me about this river El Corazon de something or whatever, they hop in the car and they’re gonna drive to this location where there’s supposedly these healing waters and he’s gonna have kind of a moment I guess at the healing waters. So he says are you up for it? You know? Yeah. And he said and and he keeps asking creepy questions too. Anybody you need to make peace with in this world before you go? Can I ask you a question and you answer me honestly? Sure. When you saw that axe up front of the house, was there a small part of you that thought I might kill you with it? 

Craig:  It’s just weird. He’s such a weird guy. 

Todd:  There is an interesting animal element. Well, it’s pretty obvious. Animal element that’s throughout this. Yeah. That’s what we missed was we just before they left the house, he asked them to go down to the closet and get something. So Aaron with his camera goes down to the closet. You get yet another jump scare as he pulls away the curtain and suddenly there’s this like big demon dog like looking thing in your face. 

Craig:  Yeah. A very frightening, werewolf mask. I mean, we’re not talking some, you know, something for for little kids. I mean, this is a a pretty scary looking mask. 

Todd:  And it was not a dollar store. 

Craig:  No. Yeah. I wrote that down too. 

Todd:  In terms of imagination. 

Craig:  Yeah. Joseph says that, he late says later that he got it at the dollar store, which is clearly not true. But, the way that he explains this mask the first time is that it was, it was his father’s, and his father, you know, used it to play with him. And, that it was totally innocent and fun, you know, this this, character’s name is Peach Fuzz. And he even has a little song that he’d a little song and dance about how he looks scary, but he’s really friendly. And, it’s just bizarre. I mean, I I’m the another effect of of having it from the found footage or from, you know, Aaron behind the camera is you really feel like you’re in his shoes. Like, you feel like you’re behind the camera watching this.   And just like him, you know, Aaron standing there watching this guy in this very scary mask, you know, dancing around singing this cutesy little song, and he just stands there and films. Like, you know, what else are you gonna do? Like, what is happening in front of me? 

Todd:  It really is a nice device in this case Todd put you into Aaron’s shoes and, feel probably feel very similar emotions to what he’s feeling here. Constantly question, would I be leaving at this point? Would I be putting the camera down? But again there’s no music, it’s not produced, there’s sort of long shots of this stuff, it really lays bare sort of the reality of that situation. And it kind of looks pathetic, you know, this poor guy then you start coming back around again, this poor guy is dying of cancer and he’s quirky and not in very socially acceptable ways and how pathetic and here I’ve got to spend a day with him at least I need to be polite. And you kind of as the viewer go along with that. Even as you’re questioning, you imaginary question, you’re still gonna go along with it. 

Craig:  Yeah. I think that was really effective. The day, 

Todd:  while there are these little 

Craig:  kind of odd moments, I mean, it’s just kind of, you know, it’s it’s not really anything beyond what, Joseph said he wanted after they, you know, have their thing in the woods, then they go out for breakfast. And Pancakes. Pancakes. Yeah. And and pancake place. And and Joseph asks, Aaron, have you ever done anything that you’re really ashamed of? And Aaron says, yeah. Sure. I have.   And and Joseph asked if he will share, and Joseph takes the camera. And, we get a little bit of, you know, just Story from childhood. Yeah. It was simple, innocent story, wet your pants story. No big deal. And then Joseph says that he has something that he needs to share and confess to, and he pulls out his phone. And he shows Aaron that he had taken a bunch of pictures of him. When when Aaron arrived at the apartment and thought that Joseph wasn’t there, apparently, he was lurking, elsewhere and was taking photographs.   And he apologized. He said, you know, I just I wanted this day to go so well, but I didn’t know what to expect. And, I mean, if I had known you then, like, I know you now. Here we are, what, 3 or 4 hours later. If I’d known you then, like, I know you now, I I wouldn’t have done this and 

Todd:  I don’t know. It was it was a weird thing. And, of course, Aaron is silent. Yeah. And just like, are you mad? And he’s like, well, it’s a little weird. 

Craig:  But it it’s like you said, it’s you’ve I I feel like it’s not such an odd experience that I would never experience that. It doesn’t seem so out of the realm of normalcy that if I were in the position, I would think this guy is clearly insane. 

Todd:  Well You 

Craig:  know, it’s he’s he’s a little weird. He’s quirky. He’s eccentric, And things just keep kinda piling up. 

Todd:  But By that point, you have the context of the previous part of the movie ahead of you. So you’ve seen this guy is a quirky guy and he goes to pretty far extreme of quirky but you don’t feel like except for the fact, you know, you’re watching a horror movie. You don’t feel like he’s ultimately a threat. And so if he had whipped out I think if he had whipped out the photos at the beginning and kinda took us to that, it would have been a little weirder. But by then, he sort of built up this persona Yeah. With, Aaron that Aaron’s more willing, I think, to forgive it. 

Craig:  Right. And so, you know, that that’s pretty much the end of the day, at least as far as, Aaron is concerned, he’s ready to go. But, Joseph wants him to stick around, and have a drink to kinda cap off their day. And and plus he wants to film a kind of a final, good night. Scene. Yeah. For for his kid. And so he convinces Aaron, you know, Aaron’s not too thrilled about it, but he he sticks around and they have a drink. 

Todd:  You know, before that, I want I think that scene, to me was one of the more iconic scenes in the movie. When Aaron is following Joseph off the steps. Mhmm. Aaron stops at the bottom of the steps. Mhmm. They’re outside. These are the exterior steps. Right.   And Joseph stops at the top. Mhmm. And because there’s sort of an outdoor light, a porch light behind Joseph, you see him in shadow. Right. He’s at the top of the step. He’s kind of in a position of of, power or darkness. So, yeah, it was completely in shadow. And Aaron, as in us sort of looking up at him with the camera is we we kind of get this sense that this is this is the defining moment right here.   Aaron’s like, I just wanna go. And Joseph says, oh, no, man. You you don’t wanna go yet. I was gonna, you know, bring you in for another drink or, you know, shot of whiskey. And he’s like, no, it’s getting late. I really need to get home. Well, you know, the roads are are winding, you know, it’s it’s it’s dark. It’d take you about 20 minutes to get down.   He finally convinces Aaron to do it. And and that’s that Todd me was one of the most sinister parts of the movie. 

Craig:  It was. I’m glad you brought it up because I hadn’t really thought about it that much. I mean, that’s the image that’s used, for the the title card on on Netflix. Is that just, Joseph in, in silhouette. And it is creepy because you because of the way that he’s backlit, you can’t see his facial expression at all. You can’t see so you really can’t read him 

Todd:  at all. 

Craig:  And it it it, it kind of makes you realize, you know, could you ever? You know? He’s kind of an enigma, and this is just kind of a visual representation of that. You really don’t know what’s going on there. I guess, you know, you’re kind of take like Aaron does, you’re kind of taking things at face value. I mean, what are you going to do? He’s telling you all these things. You believe him or you don’t, but that’s, there’s not much more you can do with it. And then here with that visual, I think that you do start to get the sense that this is maybe something more sinister, something potentially threatening and dangerous. 

Todd:  Yeah. This man is truly a shadow through and through, you know, and, and and if you’ve been making excuses for him up until now, here’s one more point. Rhino? And that 

Craig:  at that point, that’s when things really start, to kind of unravel. They sit and and have their drink and then, Aaron’s ready to go. And, it seems like in an effort to get Aaron to say, Joseph says I lied to you. And Aaron says, oh, really? What about? And he says, peach fuzz. And then he, yeah, he he says, you know, I I I need to get something off my chest. I I need to relieve myself of something before I I die. Would and if if I tell you this, will you promise to never tell anybody else? And and Aaron kind of, you know, what do you say? 

Todd:  That would be me leaving the room. 

Craig:  I really gotta go. I’m pretty sure 

Todd:  in that circumstance, by that point, 

Craig:  I would have been gone. Yeah. I think so too. But then at the same I was thinking that, and at the same time, I was thinking, I would also really wanna know what he was gonna say. Oh, that’s cute. You know, like, I I felt like if if if I were Aaron and I had just left, I would always wonder, oh my god. What was this freaky guy gonna confess to me? As it turns out, he probably would have been happier if he had decided to leave. But he does he doesn’t.   He he stays, and, 

Todd:  They do they use a really interesting filmmaking trick. Yeah. He asked him to turn off the camera because he doesn’t want his son to hear. And and that was the first thing I was thinking, are we really gonna record this deep confession? Right. So the guy doesn’t turn off his camera, but he tucks it away in his bag. Right. So all we see is darkness and all we hear is 

Craig:  the story. Exactly. And and so Joseph doesn’t know that he’s being recorded. I think that Aaron is probably fully aware. You know, he’s he’s keeping it rolling for a reason. But Joseph tells this really uncomfortable story. And I I, looked at my watch when the lights went out, you know, when it went when the screen went to black because I was I’ve seen this before. But I was and I remembered this scene, but I was curious how long it was going to go on because the whole conversation is in blackness.   It’s just black screen. And you you get the audio and, you get subtitles of what’s going on. And it lasted for 4 minutes. I mean, this is only an 80 minute film and 4 minutes is is, you know, completely devoid of any image at all. But I think that that makes it even scarier when he’s telling this story. 

Todd:  It’s a pretty interesting 4 minutes. 

Craig:  Yeah. Do you do you want the honor? 

Todd:  Yeah. I mean, to wrap it up, but essentially, he says, he comes home. Joseph says, there was a day when he came home, from work and his Internet was was just getting slower and slower and slower. So he called a friend or he talked to a friend who said well you should maybe your history is getting full Mhmm. On your computer which is kind 

Craig:  of a BS thing. 

Todd:  Right. But anyway, okay. So he goes in and he checks the history on his computer. And what does he find? But really sick pornography. Yeah. Like, animal Mostly animal porn. I don’t know if I’ve ever even heard 

Craig:  somebody say that before. Mostly animal porn. 

Todd:  Probably the first time I’ve heard that. Movie. Yeah. It’s not a topic that comes up for me. Right. And he says the only other and I’m not looking at animal porn, so the only one who is looking at animal porn is my wife. Mhmm. So I planned this whole day with her. 

Craig:  What his story is they came out to this cabin where Aaron and Joseph are now where they’re having this conversation. They came out there for a weekend and he claims he he he tells his wife that, he got called back, into, you know, their home city or whatever for work. But the truth was he wasn’t called back. He just left and went to the 99¢ store where he found a mask that we, you know, figure out right away is the peach fuzz mask, which again, clearly did not come from a 

Todd:  dollar store. 

Craig:  But he he buys this mask and he goes back and his wife is sleeping and as she sleeps he ties her up and in the process she wakes up And he’s got this mask on, so presumably she doesn’t know it’s him. And at first, he says we had really ruckus animalistic sex. And he says, you know, she seemed to enjoy it, and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it either. But when it’s over, he leaves her tied up. And he he never unmasks himself, and and he leaves. He comes back. Yeah. He comes back the next day and asks her, how was your night? And she just answers fine.   But he and he says they never spoke of it again, but that after they got back home, the, Internet sped back up. It’s a really bizarre story. It’s really weird. And, obviously, this is something that, is disturbing. And and once 

Todd:  he’s ready to go. He’s ready to get the hell out of 

Craig:  there, but he can’t find his car keys. All of a sudden, suddenly his car keys have gone missing. And it’s a this is one of my favorite, shots was the cameras kind of set back, where Joseph had been doing like his, confessional style interview. But now it’s just rolling. And you see Aaron bustling around frantically searching for his keys. And Joseph is just kind of lingering, you know, saying, I don’t know. We need to look in the kitchen or 

Todd:  or whatever. Well, the house is dark. 

Craig:  Yeah. And then, Aaron walks out of frame. He goes downstairs or something, and Joseph’s just standing there looking after him, and he says, did I freak you out with my rape story? Which I just thought was hilarious and 

Todd:  Aaron’s like no I I just gotta go. You know, this is one of those rape stories you hear, I get. Well, the the movie was full of these moments where I was chuckling and and I was more overt of them, but, there was a lot of dark humor in it. And and that was and I think it’s that same shot where he says, well, why don’t you just stay? 

Craig:  Clearly, Joseph has hidden the keys. He’s doing whatever he can to keep him there. Clearly, Aaron is on to him, knows that something’s going on. But, you know, what do you do? You’re in the house with a guy who just confessed to a a a heinous act. And then there’s a scuffle, and it goes to black. And the 1st time that I saw this movie, I thought, is that it? Is it over? Yeah. And, the the next time that, you know, we get an image on screen, it’s, a still shot of Joseph walk it’s in the woods. And Joseph is walking into frame dragging these trash bags behind him, and then he starts digging. 

Todd:  Yeah. This is where the movie gets very interesting, and starts to play with us even more. Yeah. He’s digging, in the in the dark. And suddenly the free the frame stops in mid dig. And I’m looking and I’m thinking, oh, is is is something wrong with my Netflix game? Like that? And then you hear a voice. It was it’s Aaron coming back in. And then he turns a camera around and it turns out he has been recording the screen.   Mhmm. And what we just saw of the digging is actually up a a DVD that Joseph sent him afterwards. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  And Aaron says, you know, this basically after the scuffle, I went home. So everything was cool. Right. He went home. He was able to sort of escape. But now suddenly, Joseph knows his address and is sending him these tapes. 

Craig:  Sending him stuff. He sends him this tape, and and and Aaron says, you know, I don’t really know how to interpret it. I don’t know. Is he supposed to be bearing a body? Is that supposed to be me? I you know, I don’t 

Todd:  None of us know how to interpret it. Right. He’s speaking for us there. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and, he says, but it means he has my address, which is kind of disconcerting, and it it certainly is. And then it becomes more of your typical stalker, movie. I mean, it it’s it’s obvious that, that there Joseph, if that’s even his name, we don’t know. 

Todd:  He starts hearing noises in the house, and he walks around, flips on the lights and walks around and we see we we wonder is Aaron there and then sure enough I’m I’m sorry. Is Joseph there and sure enough he’s in the window behind him, but he doesn’t see him. Kinda one of those deals. 

Craig:  That’s another another problem that I have with these, movies, paranormal activities like this too. They’re all the time filming and especially, you know, they’re they’re kind of expecting, odd things have been happening anyway. But they never review the film. Like, I don’t understand, like, what is the point in having this film running all the time? Aaron could have clearly seen that while he was up looking around to see if anybody was in the house, Joseph is standing right there in the doorway very menacingly. But apparently, you know, he Yeah. Reviewing the tape wasn’t on his Todd do list. I guess. 

Todd:  I mean, the fact that you got freaking, you know so every time he wakes up, he turns his camera on. Mhmm. This is just whoever does this stuff, you know? But okay. You gotta just gotta roll with it. 1 night, I think it was after the last video. And it was before right before the last video he gets. Right. The camera turns on and it’s clear that, Aaron did not turn the 

Craig:  No. He’s sleeping. And, you 

Todd:  can see what is clearly Joseph’s hands reaching down in over and cutting a lock of his hair off of his head. Then in the morning, Aaron’s like, okay, this is messed up. The door I woke up, this window’s open. I see, somebody cut a slit in the screen and then stuffed in what says my last video. 

Craig:  Mhmm. And it’s right there by the head of his bed right where he sleeps me. He’s he’s clearly you know, he realizes it. He’s probably realized before that. You know, this guy is potentially dangerous. He’s coming to my home. He’s stalking around my home. So he pops in this last video.   And then all of a sudden we get sad, sincere Joseph back. He apologizes profusely for everything he’s done. But you start you kinda start you know, he he says, I’ve always been like this. You know? A sick person. Yeah. 

Todd:  I need help. But my big problem is I’m I’m lonely. Yeah. 

Craig:  And I have nobody to talk to. I burned every bridge. My family won’t talk to me. I don’t have any friends. You’re kind of my last shot. Will you please please just meet me One last time. One last time so I can explain myself. And if we never see each other again, that’s fine.   But at least I’ll have closure and, 

Todd:  we’ll do it here in this public place. And he’s swing you know, he’s sitting on a bench in, in front of a lake. I don’t know. You know, on the turns the camera around, sure enough. Well, man, I mean, who’s gonna, like, turn down? Well, I would. 

Craig:  Yeah. Sure. Oh, I know. Aaron turns the camera back on himself after he’s videotaped, you know, this this video and and he it’s a close pan on his face and it says, what am I supposed to do with this? And I’m thinking you throw it away just like you threw the other one. 

Todd:  I mean, that’s right. 

Craig:  Todd don’t want anything to do with this guy. But apparently, you know, he’s he’s a compassionate guy and he feels bad, for this guy. So, he decides to go and he does. And the next shot that we get is from the interior of his car. And he has positioned the camera so that it is, filming this park bench right along the lakeside. And he says, alright, Joseph. I’m here. But, I’m filming and I’ve got my phone on speed dial for 911.   So he gets out of the car and he goes and waits on the bench. And, I hadn’t noticed your sound system is better than mine. You hear a chainsaw roar, and Aaron kind of looks around and, to see what’s going on, but apparently sees nothing. And so he turns back towards the lake, and he just sits there very relaxed and casually. 

Todd:  Joseph walks up very quietly behind him. He’s got a big trench coat on. And he’s probably about, I don’t know, 15 feet behind him. And, Aaron doesn’t notice. He’s kinda checking his phone or whatever. Joseph pulls out his mask again and puts it on, and then he takes a step closer to him, and then he kinda reaches behind him and he pulls out. This is a very, very intense Todd good sequence. 

Craig:  Yeah. It it’s it’s virtually silent. I mean, it’s just total stillness. It’s it’s it’s slow in pace. It’s very suspenseful. Yeah. 

Todd:  He pulls out an 

Craig:  ax. Mhmm. 

Todd:  And at first, you’re thinking is he gonna scare him? What the what is going on here? Is he gonna frighten him? Because he’s in the middle of broad daylight. Right. And, he kinda gets the ax up in front of him and starts, like, inching towards him from behind. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s almost comical. It’s it’s that, you know, that cartoon. Then you’re right. Exactly. Right. Slowly creeping up behind him, wielding an ax. And and what 

Todd:  does he do? He pulls that ax right up and thunk right in the top of his head. Right in his head. And you don’t see you know, it’s from far away. It’s not bloody. It’s not gross or anything. In fact, it’s probably pretty realistic, I guess. There’s just kind of a little thump. There’s a thud.   The guy falls right over. He pulls the axe out. Maybe takes another guac 

Craig:  at it. Right. 

Todd:  And then we’re done. Right. We we see, him, we see Joseph now recording. 

Craig:  Yeah. And still, talking to Aaron through the camera. And, you know, he he kinda says, I’m not surprised that you filmed it. You know? That was really smart to do, and I I’m not surprised you had your phone on a speed dial for 911. That was really smart of you, but I just don’t get why you didn’t turn around. And he says, but then I figured it out. It’s because you’re the best human being who’s ever lived. And he says, and that’s why I love you, and that’s why I always love you the best of all of them.   Yeah. So you you get the, it’s kinda confirmed that this is not the 1st time this has happened. 

Todd:  You know, all altogether, that this film really creeped me out. Yeah. 

Craig:  It it stuck with me too. You know, this is the 3rd time I’ve seen it because as soon as I saw I I watched it by myself, which which is pretty typical of me in horror movies. But I watched it by myself, and then I immediately wanted to watch it with other people. I wanted to see how other people would react because I thought that it was it stands out. It’s not typical. It’s not, you know, what you would expect from a low budget film that you would find on Netflix that you’ve never heard of before. You know? This is, the director, Patrick Reiss, who played Aaron. You know, this is his 1st feature film.   Apparently, he’s kind of an up and coming director now, and he’s doing pretty well. But this was his 1st feature. And I I don’t know. It’s it’s kind of like a little gem, a little diamond in the row. 

Todd:  It is. The whole the filmmaker in me, the whole time I was watching this was thinking this movie cost like $50. Yeah. You know? Uh-huh. A couple people’s homes, the the mask and that wolf doll were the biggest expenses in the whole thing, and yet it didn’t feel like it. It was captured my interest. The characters were very interesting. It was well acted, you know? And it had that creepy sense where again, it was a unique take on this because it toyed with you in ways that these that I’ve yet to find movies, the found footage movies toying with you.   Mhmm. You know, it’s not just about, oh, what’s around the corner? Oh, you know, what what are we gonna find? We’ll leave the camera running and then something creepy is gonna happen. It actually places you as maybe better than any of those films as a participant. Yeah. In this, as the victim in this in this thing. And then at the end, where you watch helplessly. Mhmm. Still hoping that this guy is just a creepy guy, but ultimately harmless as he goes through that long process of readying that axe and then finally putting in his head.   Again, crazily enough in the middle 

Craig:  of broad daylight. Well, I think the fact that there are really only 2 players in the whole, film, adds to the intimacy of it. And you can tell or I I feel like I I’m not a filmmaker, so I don’t know what I’m talking about. It feels like a filmmaker’s movie. It didn’t feel like he felt forced to include any particular conventions. You know? The runtime is only about 80 minutes. You know? It didn’t feel like it was stretched, you know, for time. You know? They they Todd the story.   It was effective, and and and got out. And and, I think that shows. I I think that you can tell that this was kind of a passion project for a young filmmaker as opposed to some big budget studio. Yeah. 

Todd:  There wasn’t a lot of junk in there. It was all pretty it was all pretty gritty and raw. 

Craig:  Yeah. And it was funny, but it’s not played for laughs. You know? And I I think that the humor, is in part due. It it’s like uncomfortable humor. Like, it it comes across as funny because it’s so bizarre, but you kind of laugh nervously. Like, that that that’s funny, but it’s really creepy too. And I I thought it was, a good balance, you know. In the beginning, Joseph’s antics, are are are funny.   You know? We were laughing, and then it becomes, far more sinister in the end. And I think effectively so. It it’s it’s, it’s a spooky film. 

Todd:  And that just you know, it’s it’s kind of in the tradition of all your kind of bad villains is that, that they’re very underestimated. Uh-huh. And you realize by the end, you’ve severely underestimated this guy even more than you realize. Yep. 

Craig:  Yeah. And, you know, we were, doing a little bit of research, afterwards. And, apparently, the plan both guys involved, their their plan was to make this the first of a trilogy. I don’t know how I think that I read somewhere that it’s not going to necessarily be direct sequels but rather something, in a similar vein. You know, different creeps, different types of creeps. And I and I did also read that, you know, both the director and, the actor Du plus since the release of this film, they’re both doing pretty well. And so I I think that, you know, if we do see any, sequels, to this film, it may be a while because I think both of these guys can have a lot on their plates. 

Todd:  I can see why it’s a success. I can see why it really really is a standout. It was a great movie to start off October with. Good. 

Craig:  I’m glad you liked it. It was fun to watch it with you. I was sitting over here kind of quietly, kind of trying to gauge your reactions. I’m I’m I’m glad you enjoyed it. I would have hated to start you off on something crappy. 

Todd:  No. It took me all over the map, and it was great. Good. And then yeah. And and we got, 30 more days of this to go for me. Yeah. If you’re interested in reading my reviews, check out my website, toddcoons.com. Yeah.   He writes a pretty good review, folks. 

Craig:  I’ve been reading them for a couple years. It’s it’s good stuff, entertaining stuff. 

Todd:  You’re too kind. Thank you. And, also, we’ve got, through October, 3 more of these to go. Yeah. So, we’ll have some great movies. Maybe you throw a couple classic horror films in there. Yeah. Maybe. 

Craig:  And I I really do like kind of doing some of these, you know, a little bit lesser known things too, I you know? Yeah. Well, as always, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  And you’ve been listening to 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Todd & Craig continue their tribute to Wes Craven with another look at the classic that made Freddy Krueger a household name: A Nightmare on Elm Street.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

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

Todd:  Okay. Welcome to another edition of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I am Todd Kuhns,

Craig:  and I am Craig Higgins. 

Todd:  Here we are. Today, as promised, we are watching another one of Wes Clay Wes Craven’s flicks, called A Nightmare on Elm Street. Probably his, the one that really shot him into the stratosphere. Yeah. 

Craig:  That’s right. A modern classic of sorts. 

Todd:  Yeah. How long had it been since you’d seen this? 

Craig:  Since I seen this? You know, I don’t Oh, when we sat down to watch it on on DVD, I thought, you know, I I don’t know if I’ve ever sat down and and popped in the DVD and watched it from start to finish. It’s one of those things you catch on TV once in a while, and it’s so familiar to me. I’ve seen it, I don’t even know, probably hundreds literally hundreds of time, at this point. But it’s been a while, and to sit down and watch it from start to finish was kinda nice. I’d kinda forgotten that I really appreciated the the Whole film in its entirety. 

Todd:  This movie was like a cultural touchstone. I mean, when it came off, it was it was huge. I mean, I think it made back its budget, which is relatively modest, like we did in the 1st weekend. And it’s known as, the that’s basically the movie that put new line on this. Right? Right? 

Craig:  Yeah. The House of the Prebuilt. Yeah. 

Todd:  They were they were basically getting ready to declare bankruptcy right when this movie came out. They’d only made 1 other movie before. 

Craig:  Yep. So it 

Todd:  was, you know, Robert Jay, the producer, and his wife is actually in the movie. He’s a school teacher. And then this movie came out, and it just it was a huge hit. And, I mean, I remember I don’t remember when this movie came out, but I was old enough to remember when the 2nd movie was being advertised. I would go My dad at the video store, and we’d see these big posters for Freddie, Fred for Freddie’s revenge. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Todd:  You know, he’s he’s a scarred guy and all that, and I was really curious about it. But it was when the dream master came out, The third one that was just huge. It was all over the place. 

Craig:  I just remember that this was one of those movies that I was young enough. My parents were pretty liberal on letting us whatever we wanted to. I mean, we were little kids watching, you know, like, Best Little Horror House in Texas and stuff, so they weren’t real, strict about what we could watch. But this was one of those that I wasn’t supposed to watch. Uh-huh. But my dad had it, on VHS somehow. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah? 

Clip:  And 

Craig:  it was one of those that I remember, you know, sneaking around and watching kind of in clips. And, watching it again, there were these iconic scenes that I remember, and and maybe not so much iconic, But I I I remember vividly being a kid and that scene where, early in the film where where we really kind of first see Freddie for the first time, and, he just does this gag where he he chops a couple of his fingers off and this I don’t know what it is. I mean, it doesn’t look like blood. It looks, you know, very much like a practical effect, but that just stuck with me as a little kid. That was something that really creeped me out. 

Clip:  Watch this. 

Craig:  And there are so many of those moments throughout that just have stayed with me till now. Yeah. 

Todd:  It was really weird. You know? We should get into that because I I noticed that was this sort of this weird theme of this self mutilation. I don’t know what to make of it, But, you know, obviously, Nancy is this girl who’s, what it starts out with this great intro where her her friend, Tina 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Actually is is Clearly going through this dream. This is right after we see the glove being put together over in his hands. And then, and then it really just jumps right into it. Tina has this dream. She’s cornered by Freddie. She meets up with her friend, Nancy, who’s really the star of the film played by Heather Langenkamp. And, and her friends, I mean, just really establishes immediately this Sort of force them, with these 2, Tina’s boyfriend, Rod. Right? 

Craig:  Something like that. And he would yeah. 

Todd:  Rod who comes and goes pretty quickly, Who’s kind of the jerk of the group? 

Craig:  The tough guy, you know, kind of the bad boy of the of the group. 

Todd:  I had a heart on this morning when 

Clip:  I woke up, Tina. Had your Your name written all over it.   There’s 4 letters in my name, Rod. How could there be room on your joint for 4 letters? 

Todd:  And then, Glenn, who is, sort of, the guy who lives across the street from 

Craig:  the movie. The nice boy. Yeah. A nice, young, pretty Johnny Depp. 

Todd:  You know what’s interesting? What I what I remembered about this movie and what I What I saw again now seeing it, even it’s been a while since I’ve seen it too, were different. Nancy is not She’s not the Jamie Lee Curtis of this film. You know what I mean? Like, when you look at Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, she’s sort of the sweet innocent girl. She’s sort of You you imagine she’s not gonna curse. You know? She’s not gonna whatever. The Nancy in this movie is like she’s a spunky gal. Sure. Yeah.   She’s got an to her. I mean, 

Craig:  she, you know, she wears the pretty pink cardigans, and, she’s got her hair, you know, nicely permed and whatnot, but, she’s got an edge to her too. She’s not afraid to tell Freddie to fuck off or her mom or whoever else might need being told that. 

Todd:  Yeah. And I guess Wes Craven, is this something he does often take this female. It’s not really his signature, is it? Sort of taking out strong female protagonist? 

Craig:  I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean, obviously, you know, there was The the trend of the final girl with, Jamie Lee Curtis and and the other slashers that followed this. And to some extent, it, you know, it it follows that same formula. It’s a pretty simple formula, really. It’s it’s the boogeyman. Mhmm. And and that’s something else that I have to think about when watching the the first film again is this was before we knew.   You know, Freddy’s so iconic now. I mean, he’s a character in his own right. You know, he exists as a character really outside of these films. You know, a lot of Kids these days probably know the character. Maybe you’ve never seen any of the movies. Mhmm. But when this movie came out, you know, we didn’t know who this character was. We didn’t know what the rules were.   And I think that that probably made it a lot scarier. You know? As as the sequels went along, Freddy Became more kind of a clown of of sorts, which which was still fun, in its own way, but, here, he’s really, you know, got that dark edge. You don’t you don’t know what expect, and he poses a real threat. 

Todd:  And that’s sort of the Freddy I grew up with was that clownish Freddy Freddy. You know? He’s always making these cute cracks and funny things. You get a couple cracks in this movie, but by and large, this is a pretty terrifying guy. 

Craig:  Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I read that, initially, Craven’s idea for Freddy was was Pretty standard. I mean, he wanted him to be the kind of silent killer, in the same vein as Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees. And, really, if you pay attention first of all, Freddie only gets about 7 minutes, I think, I read of screen time in the whole film. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  He he doesn’t say much. I mean, he’s really quippy, in the sequels, but that’s really a product of the sequels, and Craven really didn’t very much to do with that. So Yeah. The character kinda took on a life of his own even beyond what Craven had envisioned. 

Todd:  Yeah. The seeds of that of that humorous guy are Still there, definitely. Yeah. 

Clip:  Hey, Nancy. 

Craig:  No running in the hallway. 

Todd:  Mhmm. In fact, I think he really wanted this movie to end differently. I think 

Craig:  He did. 

Todd:  He wanted to have a happy ending. 

Craig:  That’s right. Yeah. I, he wanted it to, You know, with with at the end of the film, you know, Nancy realizes what it’s gonna take to deprive Freddie of his power, and and she does that. And That’s kinda where, Craven wanted it to end on on a happy note. Robert Shea, thinking of, of of money and and all that The produce. Wanted, yeah, wanted the potential were sequels, and so he wanted a more ambiguous ending. And, apparently, they shot several endings. They shot, Craven’s vision.   They shot vision, and then they shot a couple of scenes that were kind of a compromise. And one of those is what we ended up with. And I guess, I’ve I’ve heard that those alternate, endings are available. You can watch them on YouTube. I haven’t seen them. No. But, yeah. So it yeah.   He Craven was actually very much against the idea of any sequels at all, and wasn’t pleased that they decided to continue on with the franchise, and really distanced himself from it a lot until new nightmare. 

Todd:  Yeah. Which which was a great take on it. He gets very meta. Can really kinda t talk about 

Clip:  Right. 

Craig:  About that. Well and people really kind of, credit Craven with the whole meta horror phenomenon with with Scream. But, really, he had kind of dabbled in that with new nightmare just a couple of years before. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  New nightmare is is one of my, It may be my favorite in the franchise. I just think it’s so creative. Oh, yeah. It’s such a great return to its roots, and and really made Freddie Scary again, which was a nice way to kinda cap off the series. 

Todd:  You know, we’re gonna have to watch new nightmare again because I I agree. I I would almost put new nightmare above this movie. You know, this movie, as far as modern sensibilities go, again, I don’t think kind of like we said about, about the Wes Craven we watched last 

Craig:  Right. People Under the Stairs. 

Todd:  It wouldn’t really be made today in the same way. You mentioned Freddie only had, like, 7 minutes of screen time. You know? And the other thing that was really interesting to me is is once a couple people get killed off, Rod well, of course, Tina gets killed Right. In that really iconic scene where she’s dragged up the wall on a Yeah. 

Craig:  Amazing scene with the the rotating room, and it’s 

Todd:  it’s Awesome. And that was the that was the scene that scared the heck out of me as a kid. I mean, that was the one that had the most impact on me. It was it was just horrible. Of course, it has that sort of sexual overtone to it Do you know? And when you talk about rules, that’s you know, they’re the ones who have sex for the 1st time. Right. I actually thought it was really interesting as, Tina and her boyfriend Rod are having sex upstairs and Johnny Depp’s character, Glenn. Right? He’s downstairs, and he’s kinda having to hear it and listen to it because Heather’s care, Heather Lang comes from Nancy.   Yeah. She doesn’t wanna have anything to do you know, she’s clearly got the that’s that morality part of her. 

Craig:  Right. I think, Johnny Deppie, his line is Morality Sucks. Morality sucks. Right? Isn’t that Yeah. 

Todd:  It it was, like, so blatant and obvious that you have to forget. I mean, If this had been made after Scream, that kind of line would never have felt because it’s like, oh, come on. That’s so silly. But in that case, you know, it was really setting up the rules as you said. The the she dies, and, of course, they think that it’s Rod who killed her. So Rod gets put into jail and Rod gets strung up. Right? Then after about that point, the movie really, I hesitate to say, kind of has a lull. There’s a lot of sort of tense stuff, but not a lot of reality happening.   Nancy has her dreams in the school, and she’s kind of tormented a little bit by Freddie. So there’s that, But then I would say for a good may maybe 20 minutes. It’s it’s a lot of just the drama. Yeah. The family and her trying to stay awake and what that entails and the mother saying, oh, you shouldn’t be doing this and father coming in and her meeting in the park with her friend. I mean Yeah. And you and and 

Craig:  they’ve gotta build in the Position so that we know the backstory of what’s going on, which just is very convenient. You know? The the the story is, easily told by by her mother the backstory. You know, she saved these artifacts from this horrifying moment in her life so that she can kinda have a show and tell and tell Nancy what’s going on. 

Clip:  You wanna know who Fred Kruger was? He was a filthy child murderer who killed at least 20 kids in the neighborhood. 

Craig:  And as we were watching, you know, the 2nd death, a boyfriend, did that jail cell? Yeah. In the jail cell. When that happened, I was thinking, man, this is the 2nd death in the whole thing. And and at the time, I I I didn’t remember Glenn, getting killed later on. Like, this you know, for a slasher film, the body Count here is really low. I mean, it it’s only 3, which, you know, 3 people murdered is nothing to, You know? Bad an eye at. Right. But still But as far as the slasher genre is concerned, that’s relatively mild. 

Todd:  No. I mean, it’s not like, you know, a lot movies today where you sort of feel like there there’s like a quota. You know? Every 5 pages, there’s gotta be somebody dying in some way. Here, you really only have 4 people you’re focusing on, and then the parents as ancillary characters, and 3 of them die, and that’s it. You know? The mother dies, you know, toward The end. You know, you brought up that murder that was kind of interesting because I’m trying to I’m watching this, and I’m sort of trying to figure out the rules in a way, kinda trying to remind myself of the coherency. Mhmm. And and it’s it’s interesting, like, okay.   Something can happen in the dream, and then they’ll wake up and it’s happened to them in real life. Right? So, like, she burns herself. On the dream she wakes up, she’s burned. Somebody gets sort of cut or slashed in the dream, they wake up and they’re cut too or even even Their clothes are cut. Yeah. You know? But and so you you can see that happening, but the sense is that this stuff sort of has to happen in the dream, And it only kinda manifests itself in the real world in that way when they wake up, but then you have that scene where the hanging, Uh-huh. Where it’s like in the real world, that sheet of pay that sheet, presumably is dreaming it. Right? Yeah. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  But it’s it’s actually itself in the real world to the point where the sheet is wrapping around his neck. It’s dragging him across the room. It’s pulling him up, and it’s tying itself up to the top. Mhmm. You know? I don’t know. Did that seem to you like I don’t know. Inconsistent with Sort of what I would imagine the rules to be of sort of what happens in the dream or what happens in reality and how they can reflect each other. 

Craig:  Being familiar with, the whole series, I think that it does Seem a little bit odd, you know, that that scene in particular. But looking at it as a stand alone film, you know, if I wasn’t familiar with the whole thing, that’s one the things that I think is so genius about you know, he takes this kind of standard formula of the slasher. You know? High school kids being stalked by some ominous presence, whatever. But by throwing it into the realm of dreams, he opens up the realm of possibilities for anything. Anything can happen. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  So I didn’t question it all that much. I mean, now that, you know, if we wanna sit and talk about it, it it may seem like kind of a stretch, but If you give yourself over to that that notion that really kind of anything is possible, then I true. 

Todd:  Yeah. It kinda prevents you from picking the movie apart too. Right. It really does. You’re right. Yeah. And that’s kind of what’s so terrifying about it too is this idea. I mean, we all dream.   We dream every night. And whether we remember them or not, something’s going on. We’ve all had nightmares. We can all kind of and we’ve probably all had that experience once or twice where you you think something’s real and it turns out to be a dream and you, you know, you wake up. It’s just a really neat world to be playing between, you know, for a for horror movie, and I really believe he’s the 1st person to really do that in horror. Am I wrong? 

Craig:  You know, I can remember a movie. I wanna say dreamscape. Is that what it was 

Todd:  called? That’s correct. 

Craig:  That came before this. Dennis Quaid, I think was in that film. Yep. And and they that was more of a a psychological bent where scientists were kind of syncing up with people and entering into their dreams to kinda do therapeutic things, and there was kind of a you know, it was a horror film too, and there’s a nightmarish thing going on there. I think that was before. But as far as I can remember, that was the only One that had really kind of explored this to this nature. And and and you’re right. You know? It’s really relatable.   We’ve all had nightmares. We’ve all had dreams, and and sleep is something that you can’t escape. You know? You can stay awake for as as long as, you know, you physically can keep your eyes open, but eventually, it’s gonna catch up to you. There’s no escape. Mhmm. And I think that that, You know, adds to kind of the ominous nature of of the whole situation. 

Todd:  Yeah. There’s no escape from Freddie because you’re going to sleep at some point. Right. And it’s so funny how she goes all these processes to stay awake. Yes. You got the stay awake pills. 

Craig:  Right. She’s got the pill. She’s got the the secret coffee pot on there. 

Todd:  The secret coffee pot was hilarious. There’s these little moments of, like, comedy in there, which I think are kind of cute that he entered. I I thought that was one of those funny moments where the mother comes in to to pat Nancy down. Good night. Nancy’s eyes are closed. She’s pretending she’s sleeping, and her mom is, like, quietly collecting the cup and this coffee cup And this coffee pot and her no dose pills go in the and she walks out. Nancy just wakes up immediately, goes down, pulls out Plugged in 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Turned on. Coffee pun sets it on the top. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and I think Nancy at one point says that she, has been awake for for 7 full days that she she read somewhere that the record was 11. Now I’m no scientist, but I’m thinking that 7 days with no sleep is is probably not a healthy thing. But, you know, that also kind of adds to the mystique. Zeke, you know, all along the way, people are kind of telling Nancy she’s crazy. She starts to question it herself. I I guess as a first time viewer, some people might be wondering, is this really going on? Is something really happening or is this girl just losing it? Is this how she’s processing these tragic losses of her friends? 

Todd:  That’s true. At some level, you wonder I think you wonder, is it all a dream? Alright. Is it is it a dream from beginning to end? And I know that’s one direction that that they talked about taking it by the end. But then again, the fact that it manifests itself so physically in the real world Right. You know, is what continually shocks you out of that sort of feeling, You know, that, oh, no. This is actually happening. This is really real. 

Craig:  Right. 

Clip:  What I 

Todd:  think is kind of not as believable is sort of the parents’ reactions throughout all this. 

Craig:  Well, we talked about this last week. I don’t know if if Craven himself had mommy, daddy issues, but the parents and people under the stairs that we looked at last week, the parents in In this film, not really role models as as far as parenting is concerned, so I don’t know what’s going on there. Maybe that’s Typical teenage perspective of your parents that they just have no idea what’s going on. They’re off in their own little world. There’s no way they could relate to you. So maybe that’s kind of thing. I don’t know. 

Todd:  Well yeah. And then this one almost even sets them against the kids. I I’m thinking about when when the first murder happens of Tina, and, of course, it happens when Nancy over at Tina’s house. And she walks in, and they discover the body. And it actually, Craven’s really good about just jumping into the store getting as much information as possible in such a short period of time. Yeah. Like, through that whole sequence, what does she do? They immediately the next scene is at the police station, and we see the police chief, and he comes in, and he says, what was she doing over there? And, you know, somebody says something about, and he says, no. I mean, you, and he turns and looks at Nancy, and instantly you realize, oh, that’s his her dad.   And then she he turns and he looks at the mother. 

Clip:  Alright. Look, I don’t wanna get into this now. God knows you need time. But I sure would like to know what the hell you were doing shacking up with 3 other kids in the middle of the night, Especially a lunatic delinquent like Lane.   Rod is not a lunatic, dad.   Do you have a sane explanation for what he 

Todd:  And there’s a look there, and he starts accusing her, like, what was she doing over there? Right. And immediately, you you surmise. Okay. They’re not together. They’re clearly divorced. There clearly some tension between mom and dad here, and it it’s so neat how that scene just does that with with just a few lines in about 20 seconds. Right. But but but the thing is, here’s what they do.   They just sort of start berating her. You know? What were you doing over there? What are you doing? He killed This guy and and instead of like this I’m sorry, honey. Are you okay? Yeah. You just witnessed this terrible trauma. Your really good friend just died. Maybe we should, you know, set aside for a moment the fact that you, you know, neglected your curfew and lied to us and take care of that matter. They don’t care. 

Craig:  Well yeah. And and apart from that, I mean, over the course of time, as as she’s realizing more about what’s going as Nancy’s realizing more about what’s going on, it’s not like she’s not communicating this to her parents. You know? She’s telling them exactly what’s going on, and they know. You know? They know the backstory. They know she’s not just making this up, but they let her go on thinking that she’s Crazy that she’s just losing her mind 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Until, you know, the the last you know, the introduction to the last act of the film when the mom finally says, oh, well, yeah. You’re right. There was this child killer, and we killed him, but he’s gone now. You know? 

Todd:  So don’t worry. Don’t worry 

Craig:  about it. 

Todd:  Don’t worry about it. Just, you know, everything’s Clearly, this is not really related to what’s going on. 

Clip:  Yeah. But   he can’t get you now. He’s dead, honey, because mommy killed 

Todd:  By the way, in our basement, I have a souvenir. 

Craig:  Yeah. Great. And I kept it. Yeah. We burned him alive, but I I sifted through the rubble and found this glove just so that I would have the opportunity to share this with you later. Nice bonding moment, mother daughter moment. 

Todd:  You know what’s funny? It was actually kind of an interesting, I was getting a little deja vu with the people under the stairs because you remember that point, when she sort of I think it was kind of a turning point in the movie where, Roach Has, the main, guy in a little boiler, kind of like a little furnace. Remember? Uh-huh. And he takes him in there, and that’s when he pulls out this Sort of rag wrapped book, right, that he hands him and says and then here’s the way out. 

Craig:  I had forgotten about that. 

Todd:  It was just like the same shot, really. You know? She goes downstairs. She Pulls out this rag wrapped claw claw and that that’s sort of the turning point of the film. 

Craig:  Yeah. We talked about last week, and, you know, you can see definite ties Between people under the stairs and and the nightmare on Elm Street, you know, you’ve got the creepy boiler room, the scene that you just described. Just the general atmosphere is is very similar and 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s just not as madcap as Right. People up to the stairs was. 

Craig:  Oh, and the one I was going for, you know, we talked last week about how Home alone really kinda seemed to rip off 

Clip:  a lot 

Craig:  of, what was going on there. We’ve got the same thing in the final act of Nightmare on Elm Street. You know, Nancy, all of a sudden, she checks a book out from the library, I guess, about the And the days of violence. Yeah. And, at the very end of the film leading right up into the final scene, she She calls her dad and says, you know, dad, please come over in exactly 20 minutes. I’m gonna go get this guy and bring him out of my dream. And then We get a nice montage of her setting up these elaborate kill devices in her house. 

Todd:  Like she’s been doing it forever. Right. Yeah. Like you said, maybe she did a test run before this. Sure. Yeah. She’s she’s got a lot accomplished in her 20 minutes. 

Craig:  But very effective. I mean, it it it works. 

Todd:  It was, but you’re right. It’s a very home alone type deal, which is exactly what we saw in people under the stairs, which is really kind of funny when you Think about it. Actually, it reminded me a little bit too of Phantasm. 

Clip:  Have you 

Todd:  ever seen you you remember Phantasm? 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s been a long time. Yeah. 

Todd:  The way the kid gets out of the room, does sort of this elaborate there’s a sort of this scene where he just sits there and starts to put together a a shotgun shell with a pin and a hammer and duct Tapes it all together to sort of stuff. He’s all kind of found in his, in his, desk and then uses that to hit the door to to get the lock open, you know, to escape. 

Craig:  Yeah. These characters are far more resourceful than I would be in these circumstances. 

Todd:  Well, that was the the neat thing about Nancy, period. Like like we were saying, she’s not She’s not sort of the run and hide final girl. Yeah. She’s not the I’m I’m lasting not so much because of my wits, but because I I’m a virgin and because I can outrun and outlast and I’m maybe a little more cautious than everybody else. I mean, she’s taking agency here. 

Craig:  You know? And I don’t know what it is about Heather Langenkamp. I just really like her. You know, I I would never go so far to say is that she she gives an outstanding acting performance in this film. There are some other, actors. Like the mother? Yeah. 

Todd:  Who definitely does not give an outstanding 

Craig:  Is, Ronnie Blakely, and I’ve read you know, I I I’m fascinated with with horror movies in general, so I read up as much as I can. There’s actually a a documentary. I think it’s called never sleep again, the nightmare on Elm Street legacy or something. 

Todd:  I’ve heard of that. 

Craig:  It’s it’s long. I think it’s, like, 3 hours long, and it’s really extensive. It the whole series, but they kinda give you a lot of just neat little trivia things. I guess Ronnie Blakely, who played the mother, was just really difficult to work with. And they and I guess Craven really kinda butted heads with her. One of the anecdotes that they said was that, she would come in for makeup every day, and she would get her makeup put on. But as soon as it would as soon as the makeup would leave. She would immediately take it all off and reapply her own makeup. 

Todd:  Well, no wonder her makeup was so horrible. Right. Wasn’t it terrible? 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it was totally a vanity thing. You I I I’ve never seen her in anything else. Apparently, she had had a big role in a movie prior to this, so I guess she must have thought she was something. Jeez. 

Todd:  It was horrible. Every every every line she was delivering was, like, deliberate and almost, I mean, over expressive, and she’s moving her head, and it was like the sort of prima donna. When you you could almost see it right through there. 

Clip:  I’ve got something better. I’m going to get her some help. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and you can tell in her makeup, she almost looks, you know, like a cadaver. It’s It’s a this shake pancake shiny makeup. My god. But Heather Langenkamp, you know, I I knew her. I think you know, I don’t know if this came before or after nightmare, but she was on a sitcom, a very family sitcom, Just the 10 of us. Do you remember this show? I do. It was a it was a spin off of, You’re right.   Of, that The oh, gosh. Growing Pains. I’ve been off of Growing Pains, and and Heather Langenkamp played one of, I think, 6 or 7 daughters in this large family, and She was the uber conservative, very religious daughter, and so I knew her from that. So I was already a fan, and so then and like I said, the movie may have come before, but not for me. You know? I saw the movie afterwards. And so I really liked her. I thought that she was believable. I mean, she seemed Mhmm.   If her acting wasn’t amazing. I mean, she seemed like a girl you would know. She she wasn’t as flat of a character as some of these typical final girls are. 

Todd:  Yes. No. You’re absolutely right. And and the fact that she looks plain 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  You know, she’s got those pretty girl, but she’s breedable. 

Craig:  She’s a she’s a girl kinda look. 

Todd:  Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Sort of in contrast to Tina who’s sort of the blonde and maybe a little more attractive, you know, in that way. She looked dumbfounded a lot. Was and I think a lot of it too had to do with the pacing of the performances, you know? Interestingly enough, I mean, he really takes his time. And in this case, I was really Getting flashes back to the original Last House on the Left. Mhmm.   I was getting flashes back to the domestic scenes when, toward the end of the film, when the killers end up at the the parent’s Yes. House of the girl. And I remember how slow paced those were, you know? Yep. And it it was almost just like somebody set up a camera in the corner of the room and was recording this conversation as it happened. And I looked at and and I was getting those feelings like these conversations between, Heather and her mom in the kitchen. Mhmm. They they were long. They were very believable dialogue.   Yeah. You know? At the same time, her mom’s trying to hide her alcoholism. You know? Almost another Another bit of comedy there I thought too, but part of that also was just the ineffective performance of the mother. Yeah. But, yeah, that that just stretches out, and it’s interesting because the mother’s sort of hiding the alcohol, and they’re having their talk, which gets more and more heated. I don’t think the camera cuts away at all. I I’m if I Recall correctly, it seemed like it was it probably wasn’t, but it seemed it had the effect of being done in all one whole take. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  And and it really kinda goes the roller coaster where she comes down and mom’s like, how are you doing? And she’s like, I’m fine. She’s like, you’re not sleeping. I I know I’m not sleeping. And then she Pulls out the the hat that she’s pulled, from the dream and says, I know his name, mom. It’s Fred Kruger, you know, and you know more about this than I do, and she Kind of, goes back and forth, and then she makes a comment about the alcohol. You know? I don’t know about you, but I’m kinda watching the scene. I’m wondering. I mean, she’s not pointing out the alcohol.   Does she know her mom’s hiding it? I mean, it looks obvious to me, but maybe she’s got other stuff in her mind, but yet it’s later on. Maybe if that bottle would have some more answers or whatever she said. 

Craig:  Yeah. Well, it, it becomes almost a a a role reversal. You know? By the end of The mom is is very much the one who needs coddling and needs protected. And in fact, Nancy, you know, you know, tucks her mother into bed and and kind of eases her off to sleep before she, Nancy, has to go into this final battle. I think it it kind of sets it up, that she’s on her own, and I think that that adds to the tension. You know? You you you feel the the pressure that there’s there’s helps not coming from the outside. 

Todd:  Oh, that’s true. 

Craig:  You know, her her mom is, passed out drunk in the bedroom. Her dad is across the street, And, the watchmen that her dad has set up apparently thinks that there’s nothing particularly out of the ordinary about a teenage Still breaking out windows and screaming for help. No. 

Todd:  Who are you? Everything’s gonna be alright. Everything’s Under control. Especially considering there was a murder down across the street. Sure. Earlier across the street. Sure. 

Craig:  So she’s you know, it’s it comes down to it’s it’s her Facing the boogeyman. It’s her facing her fear, and and that’s, what she comes to realize throughout the course of the movie that she has to do. Some might argue that the film is actually kind of anticlimactic in the final battle because you’ve got Freddy chasing this girl around throughout this whole movie, and there’s Intense threat of of violence and and, you know, disfigurement. And then at the end, to defeat him, all she has to do is turn her back and, take his power away. Yeah. 

Todd:  It’s a really weird and I still not sure I’ve unpacked it, you know? It’s just a very ambiguous kind of Strange ending. I mean, when you talk about, like, what what I was saying earlier about rules being broken, okay. So she pulls him into the into the real world from her dream by grabbing onto him and by being woken up at that particular time and then takes him through this house where he’s got all the where she has all the booby traps, which actually affecting him. You know? Like, they’d affect a real person. Takes him downstairs, you know, throws the fire on him, deja vu for this poor guy, you know, and she runs The stairs and and they have that whole incredible stunt sequence, on the staircase, which I’m I believe the stuntman actually won an award for. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. He did. And I I I would I had had in my mind that it was all in 1 shot, which obviously it wasn’t, but, I guess they did that whole sequence in one take. I mean, that guy was lit up one time, and they did that entire sequence. And and you’re right. He won, stunt of the year, I think, for And it it is very impressive. 

Todd:  I mean, to to be on fire that long. Oh my gosh. Yeah. He he didn’t come away from that with Burns Looking like Freddie. Who knows? You know? So anyway so that happens. The dad, across the street finally get they give gotten her at his attention. He breaks in with his buddies. They turn around.   He’s not on the stairs. He’s done a loop around them apparently, and he’s climbed up the stairs. And he’s jumped on her mother’s bed, and he’s now after the mother. And the first thing I thought of was, okay. So so he’s on the bed. He’s getting the mother. They break into the room. They see this happen.   Father throws, the blanket over to douse it, And when he pulls the blanket away, now it’s kind of supernatural Right. Weird again. Yeah. I see what you’re saying about 

Craig:  the rules. There is kind of a gray area. I mean, it’s not, Strictly, you know, free for all in the dream world and then the the constraints of reality in in the real world. I mean, when when Freddy gets pulled over, there’s still a supernatural element to it. And I and I don’t really know how to 

Todd:  And and I guess it’s just troubling to me because how can the hammers and the trip wires and the fire and stuff affect him When he can sort of disappear into the bed over the charred corpse of the mother and that just all kind of goes in there, it just Then then you really wonder what is going on. Is this a dream? 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Todd:  You know? And that was when that starts to come into play. But then I thought, well, maybe it’s because the mother’s asleep. Alright. She’s passed out. Maybe she’s having this dream, and it’s sort of a reverse effect 

Craig:  where she She’s kind of a conduit to get him back Back into the dream world. 

Todd:  And then, you know, kind of like we’ve seen with everything else, you know, the weirdness of the dream world can be reflected in the in the real world in in that sense if that person is dreaming their death, You know? Essentially. But then, of course, you know, there’s nothing. And and, after witnessing what has to be the strangest thing anybody has ever seen, the her policeman father and, and her just walks around. She’s like, I need a moment, dad, or something. He’s like, okay. Alright. We’ll leave the room. She closes the door behind her, and suddenly Freddie comes up out of the bed.   And that’s the thing. Okay. So I guess he’s come back into to the real world again. 

Craig:  Who knows? Her back’s 

Todd:  on them, but now she knows just like the Balinese do that if you know that they’re not real, they’re they don’t have power over you anymore, and that’s when he lunges at her and just sort of disappears into nothingness. 

Clip:  Oh, you die.   It’s too late, Kruger. I know the secret now. This is just a dream. You’re not alive. This whole thing is just a dream. 

Craig:  Yeah. You know, I I and I think We’re probably being overanalytical. Yeah. And as as the series went on, you know, they played with these rules. They changed the rules Yeah. Back and forth all the time. I I don’t think that anything is necessarily set in stone. I think you just kinda have to roll with it, which I’m willing to do.   The image at the end, when When the the dad pulls the blanket off, and Freddie has now disappeared, but it’s just kind of this glowing ethereal pit where, the skeleton of the mother is slowly descending. That’s worth it to me to get to get over to get over 

Todd:  Fair enough. 

Craig:  The reality of of what’s going on, know, that image. And that’s another thing. You know? You said this kind of movie probably wouldn’t be made, at least not in the same way. I think you’re absolutely right. The I don’t think the ending would ever fly today, especially the Turning your back to defeat the big monster. You know? That’s, I I like the concept of it. I think it’s a really interesting concept, and I think that it there’s message there. You know, if you don’t give your fears power over you, then they really don’t have power over you.   And I like that message, but I don’t think it would fly today. We would need a a much bigger final battle. 

Todd:  Yeah. I mean, it’s sort of a matrix y thing. Like, if you can convince and trick your mind not to be afraid because it’s all an illusion, then suddenly, you know, it doesn’t have that power over you. Yeah. It’s it’s almost akin to the, it was all a dream kind of ending. Know? We don’t give that 1. We we’ve seen it once, maybe twice. We’ll give it something, but, you know, nowadays, that seems like a cop out. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Well and and and you can See, I mean, you can see the age of the film. A lot of that, you know, is is just with the practical effects. But, again, maybe it’s just my nostalgia, but I so appreciate those things. You know, we’ve we’ve gotten to where we’re so used to, CGI. And when CGI first came around, I think we were all so awed by, oh, Look how real it looks. They can really make that look real. 

Todd:  Yeah. The abyss and and, the Terminator 2 and those kind of things where 

Craig:  And now it’s it’s so common. We See it so often that I don’t know if if, it’s just a matter of of budget constraints or laziness. You know? A lot of CGI looks far less real than some of these practical effects. I mean, these practical effects don’t necessarily look realistic in the way that if they were happening in the real world, But because they are practical, there’s a realism to them there that I think is lacking in, in CGI. Like like I said, you know, when he cuts off his fingers there in the beginning. I mean, it’s clearly there’s, you know, there’s a hose in there. It’s it’s it’s pumping something out, and it’s doing it in spurts. I mean, you can You can imagine the mechanism working underneath.   Same thing with, the first scene where we really get a full shot of of Freddie. It’s it’s in silhouette, but he’s walking down The alley with his arms far, you know, overextended way stretched out. I mean, you can tell that there’s a practical effect going on there. Obviously, you can’t see the 2 guys on either side with fishing poles, you know, holding up the arms, but it seems more grounded in reality somehow, and and I feel like that’s lacking in a lot of pictures. 

Todd:  Well yeah. And, I mean, this is something horror aficionados argue about all the time. Right? You know, what’s better? Movie movie people in particular. But it also the having the practical effects, I think, kind of forces a certain filmmaking aesthetic. 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  Right? Because you can’t linger Too long Right? On that scene, lest you see the wires or less it starts to look a little cheesy or fake. And so you you know, that scene with him and his arms coming towards her in my mind’s eye was much longer and much more terrifying than actually it is. It’s a pretty quick shot of him. It’s a close-up shot of of, you know, him sparking up, well, you know, scraping his claws across the walls there. And then, you know, it’s a shot of her running away, and then you sort of see him back to chasing her. It it allows some space in your head, you know, to fill in the gaps. Another spot where they had that too, is when she’s out exploring. She, tries to get Glenn to wake her up, and, of course, he falls asleep.   But she goes out to the jail, and she’s looking in the window and sees, you know, the guy Freddie coming in to Odds. Cell. Cell. Yeah. And then when she turns around, she again has a vision of Tina. Uh-huh. And there’s that close-up shot on Tina’s mouth where What’s up? Centipede Centipede comes out of his her mouth. And then the next shot is a shot of just This looks like slimy slugs or snakes just sort of slid sligering away back at her feet.   Uh-huh. But the effect is that she sort of dissolved Into, you know, insects and and creatures. 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  But I never showed her dissolving into these and creatures, but your mind sort of fills it in in a sense that makes it a little less cheesy than it would have been if we’d gotten this nice long shot of her slowly Dissolving into insects and creatures. Yeah. 

Craig:  You know? I agree. I I wonder how young people who are so accustomed to the effects of today, you know, how they would respond to I still find this to be a really effectively scary movie Mhmm. Despite, you know, some of those issues. To me, I can only imagine that this For me, it’s like the classic MGM monsters were like for our parents and our grandparents. You know? Freddy has really established himself kind of in that canon of classic movie monsters, Dracula, the wolf man, Frankenstein. And now, Temporary. You know? It shows our age, but, Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, they’ve really established themselves. And, You know, the the franchise ended in, what, 96, 97, is that even something like that? 

Todd:  Quite a ways ago, actually. 

Craig:  But kids still know who Freddy Krueger is. They may never seen the movies, but, he’s still very much a horror icon. I think that’s that says something. You know? That says something about Craven’s vision. It says something about the longevity of the movies. 

Todd:  It’s it’s pretty it was great, and I’m with you. I thought it was a scary movie still today. I don’t think it would have been, I think it would have been even much more fast paced if it had done today. 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  But sort of the slowness of discovering if I had been seeing this for the 1st time, it would have been especially Dispenseful trying to figure out, are they dreaming right now? Are they not? What’s going on, in any particular time? And is Nancy gonna be able to stay away? Right. Are her Friends gonna be able to stay away. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s it’s it’s one of my favorites. And and, you know, another thing we were talking about, leaving things to the imagination. After this film, Freddie really became the face of the franchise. And, you know, his you know, there were The big, life size cutouts of him in the video stores. You know, he featured very prominently on the front of every you know, from the second one on. But in this one, you really don’t even get to see very much of him. I mean, he doesn’t get very much screen time, and when you do see him, he’s very much in shadows.   I mean, you get Some, angles of his face, and you kinda can see some of, the the makeup design and whatnot. But he’s really kept very much in the dark. So he’s more of an ominous presence as opposed to something that, you know, we as an audience are familiar with and kind of know what to expect. And, I think that that probably was very effective, for first time viewers. 

Todd:  Yeah. And, and now he’s in your face. Yeah. Yeah. You go to part 3, part 4, especially part 5. You know? It it’s it’s definitely he’s cemented himself. He’s able to step out of the shadows and kind of be crazy. 

Craig:  Yeah. And I like those movies. You know? I don’t wanna I don’t wanna talk trash about those movies. I enjoy them. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. 

Craig:  I think, you know, there are some there are better entries in the franchise than others. You know? My, part 3, I think, is amazing. Dream warriors, I think, Amazing. And then there are some some duds. Part 2, Freddy’s revenge. I didn’t think it was particularly No. That great. And then 

Todd:  5 was weird with the Yeah. 

Craig:  Is that the dream child? The dream child. Yeah. 

Todd:  I kinda like 44. 

Clip:  I 

Craig:  have a special dream master, I think, was that 1. And then Yeah. Freddy’s dead didn’t really do it for me. But, it was almost An appropriate setup then for new nightmare. 

Todd:  Yes. 

Craig:  You needed Freddy to kind of become that joke So that he could come back and and really scare the shit out of you. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s a good way of putting it. You know? And and I think happens to every horror icon. Right? You first do have Dracula, and you have Frankenstein, these people, and eventually, you got the monster mash. 

Craig:  Right. Right? Yeah. You got Laurel and Hardy, meet Frankenstein and Whatnot? 

Todd:  So he’s definitely, it’s proof positive, cemented himself in the cannon there. Well, Craig, what do you what do you wanna see next week? 

Craig:  Man, I don’t know. You got any ideas? 

Todd:  Have you ever seen deadly friend? I have not. I have not either. Nice. So maybe we’ll keep the Craven thing going. 

Craig:  Let’s do it. Let’s do it for 1 more week Least. Alright. I’ve never seen it. I would love to see it. 

Todd:  Okay. Alright. So catch us next week on 2 guys in a chainsaw. We’re gonna watch deadly friend. Once again, this has been Todd. This is Craig. If you like this podcast, Please spread the word. Like us on Facebook.   Check out our page, and, thank you for listening.

For our inaugural episode, in honor of horror icon Wes Craven’s recent passing, we take a look at 1991’s The People Under The Stairs.

The People Under The Stairs (1991)

Episode 1, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Okay, welcome to the inaugural episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: I’m Craig.

Todd: And, uh, for today’s first movie, we decided to go with something in memory of a West Craven. Yep. Gone too soon that man, but we thought we would look at some West Craven classics choose one or two to go with, um, maybe for our first couple episodes.

And today’s choice was the people under the stairs. And Craig, you kind of suggested this one. Why 

Craig: were you? I did, you know, this is a movie I’ve seen many, many times, uh, from the time that I was a little kid and that’s one of the reasons that I like this one so much is because it is so nostalgic. I mean, a while we were watching the movie, we were talking about how classically eighties it is.

And as a kid of the eighties, uh, that’s something that still appeals to me today. So I thought we’d 

Todd: give it a shot. You know, there’s a certain vibe about those eighties horror movies. You know, like when I was watching this one at the beginning, I was noticing how great the lighting was. Right. You know, like, like I’d say about the first half of the movie kind of takes place in the daylight, which is also kind of neat when you find a horror movie like that, he’s going through the house and he’s kind of in these creepy scenarios in these creepy settings, but.

He’s well back lit and he’s got kind of a Glint office face here, you know, he’s, he’s walking through the downstairs basement with, uh, with, uh, just a little lighter, lighter. Yeah. Yeah. You can clearly see the background behind him and he’s so super well lit. I mean, you can tell it’s, it’s not, um, I mean, West Craven is a far now beyond, uh, his roots as a, uh, indie film director.

He’s got the big budget, he’s got the big stuff and this movie is a little different from his others in that I think that there. It has a little more, I don’t want to say more of a mainstream appeal because it’s clearly a true a horror movie, but it’s not as gross. It’s not as gritty in many ways. It’s not as dirty in the cinematography.

Do you know what? Yeah, 

Craig: I know what you’re saying. I mean, there’s a little bit of innuendo here and there. That may be a little bit mature, but this is the kind of movie that I really liked when I was a kid, because I felt like times are so different. Nowadays kids are, ah, you know, it makes me sound old.

Kids are so sheltered these days, but when I was a kid growing up. There were these horror movies that I think were intended for a wide audience, you know, horror fans, but they were also accessible to kids. Um, their horror movies about kids, kind of for kids. It kind of in the vein of like the monster squad, um, or even something like the Goonies, it kind of has that vibe to it towards the end.

It starts to get a little bit darker, but, uh, there’s still a lot of fun, you know, it seems like a fun. Uh, kind of intent there. 

Todd: Yeah. Kind of an adventure aspect to it. Almost like the gate. Yeah, sure. Another one of my favorites. Yeah, this is, well, I mean, it starts out, you’ve got this boy, um, and his name is fool.

Right. And he’s introduced to us through this sort of tarot card reading where they bring up the fool card and it’s his sister. Yeah. It’s his sister, his sister, Ruby. Who’s doing it. And, and it’s really a neat the way that it starts. It just, um, You don’t see any actors, you see the credits and then you see them kind of doing the tarot cards, getting laid down.

And she’s talking about 

Craig: the fool. Sure. And there’s some pretty heavy handed, a foreshadowing going on there, but I think that’s probably intentional. I don’t think that’s meant to sneak by us. Uh, he kind of lays out the plot there in the very beginning with this, this terrible tough road you got this year judgment.

Mr. Devil. Glad it’s your birthday reading it. So I didn’t have an idea of what to expect. You know, this kid’s going to be thrown into the fire. Uh, but still there are enough twists and turns that, uh, it’s, it’s kind of a roller coaster ride a little bit crazy 

Todd: sometimes. Yeah, he’s sort of setting out on the journey.

Isn’t he? I mean, it’s, it seems almost like the hero’s journey in many ways. Um, well he lives in the ghetto, right? We don’t know it could be New York. It could be anywhere, but I think the point it’s funny, there’s a part of me that thought, okay, well, the movie’s really dated. The way that they’re talking about the ghetto, right.

They’re calling it like a place, like it’s the name of the place, like, like in a little shop of horrors when they’re living on skid row, like it’s the name of their city. And, um, but in a sense, you know, with that introduction of the fool, and they’re sort of talking about the ghetto as sort of this place, it sort of makes it abstract.

This abstract idea that here’s this young boy who’s in a bad spot, in a bad neighborhood and area who needs to grow up. You know, he’s literally, his name is pointed out. Right. Which is sort of that name that you give to people who are like super smart. Right. But nerds that’s right. But they call him fool.

He’s going to be a Poindexter one day when he becomes a man. But right now he’s a fool and he’s got to go on this journey. In order to sort of like get his manhood. 

Craig: Yeah. He’s a character that you empathize with right away. I mean, all this stuff is thrown in his face, you know, you’ve got the Ving Rhames character.

Is that right? Um, who is constantly egging him on trying to get him? Leroy Leroy. There you go. Uh, Always reminding him that, uh, the weight of the world falls on his shoulders. No, your mama got a cancer in her. She can’t afford to have taken out. Yeah. The thing, any doctor to take out just like that, but you ain’t got no money and you ain’t gonna have no money.

Do you know his mom’s got cancer and she’s going to die? If they don’t have money, they’ve got, uh, they they’re three days behind on their rent, which apparently in the contract. Means that they now have to pay triple otherwise they’re going to be immediately evicted. Um, uh, and, uh, so you know, this kid, his sister, you know, is a hooker apparently.

And, you know, uh, so everybody’s kind of counting on this kid. Um, and it almost becomes, I noticed about halfway three-quarters of the way through, it’s almost kind of a Jack in the Beanstalk story, uh, where he has to climb into this dangerous world and face all these, uh, obstacles and scary. Folks and whatnot, and then, uh, comes back with a reward, but just like in Jack and the Beanstalk, he has to go back or feels like he has to go back for some reason.

And then you have the climax where he defeats the giant, you know, you’re 

Todd: exactly right. Right. I mean, it’s almost literally that because what is the thing that, um, that Leroy tells him? He says, well, if you wanna, if you wanna save your family, basically you’re so destitute, if you want to save your family, I have a treasure map with some goals, right.

That he found in the basement. I had the back of a liquor store at the store. It was a, it’s basically the address isn’t it. To, um, to the landlord’s house. Right, 

Craig: right. And the social commentary here, I think is not a two. Uh, hidden as well. You’ve got the ghetto and these downtrodden people, and then you’ve got the evil, uh, Caucasian, uh, kind of ruling overlords with these malevolent intentions.

One last family and the Lenox Avenue building. Then it’s clear to tear down. We build a nice, neat condominium. We get clean people in there. Lots of nice wood for my fireplace. Lots of nice money. From the beginning, you’re rooting for this kid. You’re rooting for fool. You want him to stick it to the man you want, especially these folks who are pretty twisted in their own.

Right. I think kids would find that storyline appealing and adults do too, which is why I think I still enjoy it. For it’s nostalgia, even though you’re right. It does seem data. There’s a lot about it. That’s very entrenched in the eighties. That kind of universality of that fairy tale story too, is still, it still works.

I think it still works. It’s entertaining. Yeah. 

Todd: Well, we can all kind of put ourselves if we weren’t kids when we watched it and I was, you know, and you were too, um, if we weren’t kids, we watch it. You can put yourself back into that mindset like you do with any fairytale. Oh, I remember when I was that young and I was that naive and the world was a big, scary place and, um, Thank goodness.

I was never put in that position where I had to somehow go on this quest, you know, to sort of save my family. It’s a terrifying thing for a child. It is a 

Craig: terrifying thing, but don’t, and maybe this is just the horror fan in me, but I think as a kid, as scared as I would have been to be thrown in those situations, It was fun to live vicariously through these characters.

You know, you want to be brave. You want to stand up and face the bad guy as this kid eventually does. Uh, and, and you want the good guy to win and you, you know, you’ve got that kind of hero fantasy thing going on. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a, it’s 

Todd: very much like a fantasy movie, even more so than a horror movie.

Really? Yeah. It kind of gets pigeonholed as a horror movie because West Craven was such a horror director, but. This is one of his, that kind of branches out of that becomes a sort of child adventure story. That’s kind of enough gross in the Senate that gets the 

R 

Craig: rating. Right. And, and, you know, you’ve got the language there and stuff too.

I don’t think that it’s something that would appeal to a wide market of young people, really young people today. Um, but I miss that. I miss that in movies. I feel like you don’t see that very often mean, I’m sure there are a few examples, but, 

Todd: um, you know, that’s a really good point. I mean, when this movie opened, um, I think it did like something like 55 million and it was, it opened it the number one spot and believe it or not, it lasted for, I think, 10 weeks at number one in the theaters, this kind of movie, if made today would be made in a very niche way.

Yeah, it would be made to appeal to a teenage audience exclusively, or it would be made to sort of appeal to the gross out crowd. You know, what it wants to see that, or, or whatever, or it would be so tamed down and lame that it could, you know, constantly get that PG 13 rating so that families could kind of go out and see it and be a little more gooney ass.

Right. You know, this one sort of has a little bit of all of that, you know, in it. And as a result, I don’t know, it’s got a little staying power. It’s kind of 

Craig: strange. I think so. Yeah. Uh, I dunno. I, you know, we were talking before we watched, uh, you said you hadn’t seen this since around the time that it came out, this is one of those movies that can come on and it just entertains me, you know, whether I catch it from the beginning or whether I catch it in the middle, I always find myself watching it.

When, and when you said let’s do it today, I was like, yeah, I haven’t seen that in a while. It’ll be, it’ll be fun to revisit. Well, 

Todd: so it starts out and a fool is, uh, basically Leroy decides, uh, to convince him that the best way to save his family is to go into this house where the landlords live and the landlords are twisted.

Um, there’s mommy and daddy. I don’t know if they’re ever given a name. Are they? 

Craig: I think I read somewhere that at some point, uh, the mom says the dad’s name. I think it’s Elvin, something like that.

My little girl again, but for the most part, yeah. They call each other mommy and daddy, which is sick in its own. Right. Considering the fact that it’s revealed later on in the plot that they are in fact brother and sister. Yeah. 

Todd: Majorly, dysfunctional family. Um, so they go in and this, the way they live in, it’s like a funeral home.

It is an old 

Craig: funeral. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like their fame, their family legacy. Uh, apparently they’ve been running this funeral home for generations and apparently the, the hood, you know, the, the ghetto has known that this is a place to stay away from. Um, for, for quite some time fool’s grandfather remembers being a child being warned away from this place, all sorts of rumors about what’s going on in that place.

Never proved it because the police didn’t take it serious. But believe me, when I was a kid, none of us ever walk past that 

Todd: house. And so he goes in, um, with, uh, with Ving Rhames, his character was Leroy. And then this other guy, Spencer. Right. Who’s who’s, who’s like the gang banger white guy. And, uh, the two of them are, uh, convinced him to dress up in this.

Um, was it like bear Scouts? Go up to the, go up to the house. He’s unsuccessful at getting in the mommy basically fenced him off. But then, uh, uh, he goes back and, uh, and Spencer says, well, let me give it a shot. Sure. 

Craig: And then Spencer, you know, the, the mastermind, uh, does make his way into the house. And that’s the last we see of him for awhile.

Uh, and he’s gone. So Leroy is convinced that Spencer is a pull in the highest on his own. I’m going to cut these guys out. So yeah. Also a criminal mastermind, Leroy decides to ditch the plan right away and just resort to just breaking a 

Todd: window. Yeah. It’s funny how they had this whole elaborate thing with these costumes and everything they’re going to get in and they send the boy in and then there’s this ploy.

It takes them about five minutes to decide, get the crowbar. We’re going to break the back window over the, and it’s remarkably easy for him to get in. It is. 

Craig: And then from the time they’re inside there, it’s like a game of mousetrap. Uh, you know, there’s these devices all over the place, doors are swinging and closing, locking on their own.

Um, I actually think, you know, watching this again this time, I think that, uh, uh, Chris Columbus may owe a lot, uh, It is a bit of a home 

Todd: alone atmosphere to this, right? I mean, there’s the dog, right? There’s the dog. Well, the minute he breaks, open the door. Some there’s like a shelving that slides it’s 

Craig: all rigged up.

I mean, it’s, it’s got all kinds of machines. You’ve got the scene towards the end where. Fool is, um, kind of taunting, uh, the parents and he, uh, lures the evil dad into the fireplace so that he can Chuck bricks down into his face. I think I hear something

I mean, it’s straight out of her, right? 

Todd: Exactly. That and the front 

Craig: door. Yeah, all the electrified front door. I forgot all about that, man. He 

Todd: grabs the, he grabs the, and this is how they get rid of the dog. Is the grass, the fool, when he first tries the front door from the inside, um, it’s electrified. Um, the NABI is, and so, uh, when the dog starts attacking Leroy fools, us, hurry up, bring, bring the drag, the dog over here.

And they get this sort of chain where he CR he grabs the front door and, uh, he electrocutes himself through Leroy through the dog. And I guess it’s. Not powerful enough to kill two people, but enough to, but it’s done the dog. Yeah. 

Craig: Can you conveniently for awhile? We should talk about this dog a little bit too.

Okay. Now this dog, this poor dog is, uh, owned by these sadomasochists and is used to guard, uh, their treasures and their home. And they put this dog through a hell of a lot. I mean, he’s chasing people through the walls. He’s getting electrocuted. Uh, he comes to a pretty gruesome demise at the end. Oh shit.

Yeah. And in addition to that, you have all of these scenes where the dog is attacking people.  the dog is a Rottweiler course in classic fashion. The whole time. I’m thinking, especially when this dog is on top of the kid, I’m like, Willing suspension of disbelief is one thing, but I have rottweilers. If that sucker was going to town, I questioned whether or not they would have gotten out with his few scratches 

Todd: as they did.

Rottweiler was, it was so easy for them to eventually, like, I don’t know, knock it off their arms or. Habit fighting them on the floor for a while, or just good 

Craig: long while they’d wrestle around with that dog for 

Todd: awhile. Oh yeah. They’re in the walls, which are, you know, the walls of this house are almost like small rooms and hallways of their own.

And the dogs like chasing them down the, the walls, which have to be like. Yeah, each hallway and each turn is like six feet. Sure. But somehow this dog is running slower than these people that were making their way through the dark, through this cavernous 

Craig: house. We never could figure out the geography of the house and these kids are crawling up and through the walls and through the vents and, uh, going in one hallway, coming out another hallway that looks surprisingly like the first hallway, but apparently is different.

Right. 

Todd: And you know, it’s part of the fantasy though, right? I mean, it’s, it’s like the Jack and the Beanstalk story. You have the, like the King and the queen and I mean, their dog’s name is. Prints. Yeah. Right. You know, and, and he’s got his own room and, uh, they have this huge cavernous castle of a house. You could see Lacy’s with an army and never find, you know, half of it.

Um, and then there’s a girl, there’s a girl princess. Right. Um, and her name was Alice. 

Craig: That’s right. Another kind of loaded name there. My name is Fu what’s yours, Alice. And don’t be scared. He never said a brother before never had a brother, you know, I was trying to make connections to other Craven films.

And I remembered that one, the heroin from, uh, Elm street, three and four maybe, uh, is named Alison. Then I remembered that Craven didn’t really have anything to do with all the sequels, et cetera, new nightmare. So my theory went out the window, but, um, there were definitely other. Craven isms in there that I saw.

Did you notice any of them well, 

Todd: such as his propensity for like using dysfunctional families, right. 

Craig: Social families. I wonder if he had some kind of mommy complex because, uh, you know, I’m thinking of Nancy’s mom in nightmare on Elm street. Oh, that just horrible. And then, uh, here, we’ve got both. Horrible parent figures, but the mom’s got this very mommy dearest vibe going on, you know, with, with her look, uh, the makeup and the hair and, and the complete control over her daughter.

Um, so, 

Todd: uh, yeah, there’s that, there’s the shade sort of shades of the Hills have eyes. Yeah, no, in that majorly messed up dysfunctional family of mutants or whatever. Um, and in this case you’ve got mother and brother sleep, uh, brother and sister, sleeping with each other and you have all of these sort of mutant.

Um, they’re supposed to be there. They’re boys once, um, fool runs into Alice. One of the first things she tells him is, Oh, kind of gives him the exposition on what the house is. Everybody’s locked in. Nobody can comes out, nobody can come out. Um, and, uh, the, the basement, the people under the stairs under the title are supposedly basically her brothers.

Yeah. 

Craig: And they’re, they’re rejected children, you know, they they’ve been collecting children. Uh, apparently from the ghetto we find out later, um, 

Todd: they’re not, they’re literal children at all. Right. 

Craig: Uh, and when they prove on satisfactory, when they. See evil or speak evil or hear evil, then they are disfigured, uh, to, to suit their crime and are locked in the basement where, uh, Alice tells fool they are given some sort of food and they should be happy in their own way.

Right. I guess, I guess Alice kind of trying to dilute herself. She’s really? Yeah. 

Todd: That’s a lot of wish. Hope. Well, she’s had a lot of time. She being the only person who is more or less. You know, let run free in the house and has as normal of a life as you can with these people. You know, she’s like the princess in the tower where they’re keeping under lock and key.

Um, except from the guy in the walls who is not in the stairs is apparently one of the brothers who sort of broke free, 

Craig: free. And I guess he analysis kind of established this relationship, uh, that the parents know about. Um, but try to keep from happening, but Roche, right. And he’s in the walls. And his, his tongue is cut out because he tried to call the police when, when he was being tested as, as a potential child.

No, just my friend wrote Poindexter. Everybody calls me for. You should get the names and he proves very helpful in, in guiding Alison fool around. Uh, at first he seems kind of menacing, but, uh, you come to find that he’s really a, uh, a hero in his own, right? Yeah. 

Todd: That was one of those sort of, um, horror tropes where at first, when fool’s exploring the basement, when he discovers, Oh, something is wrong because here’s a dead, uh, Spencer.

A hand reaches over and grabs him. And, uh, you know, he wrestles with this guy for a while who we later find out is Roche. And, you know, later on when he’s, you know, kind of around it’s it’s roaches, who’s kind of unbeknownst to him, guiding him around the house almost by scaring him into the right places.

And so you think, Oh, there’s this evil demon. It turns out to be the nice guy. The nice. 

Craig: Yeah. Uh, and unfortunately those. Those characters tend to not last very long and poor roads kind of yeah, he gets it. Uh, it’s it’s unfortunate, but you know, he dies a hero’s death. Yeah. Uh, I kind of wonder if, if that’s not maybe the best thing that could happen for him, you know, maybe I’m jumping a little bit ahead, but, um, at the end, these people under the stairs apparently are liberated and you kind of see them walking off, down the street.

Uh, and I, I find myself wondering, you know, what kind of life is this? 

Todd: Yeah. Very different. They’ve not seen the sunlight. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And the, and there, you know, we haven’t really said what they look like. They’re quite ghoulish. You know, we, we, the practical makeup, I actually really enjoy that. Um, it was, uh, You know, again, it, it shows its age, but, um, there’s something to be said for real practical makeup effects.

And, and you could tell that there was no, I mean, obviously CGI wasn’t even around, so everything had to be practical, but they’re, they’re kind of ghoulish and, uh, we made jokes. Who did you say? They reminds you, uh, eighties punk band for 

Todd: me. Yeah. It looked like a Motley crew there for a little bit. Or you said it was thriller was pretty much like thriller.

Yeah. Especially there 

Craig: on the assemble.

And all of this stuff serves to be, you know, really pretty scary, I think even, uh, not just for kids, but for horror fans in general. I don’t think it’s necessarily, I guess it depends on what scares you. It, it’s not, uh, torture porn and, you know, it’s a very different kind of thing. You’re 

Todd: right. And it’s not as gross.

In fact, the only aside from, you know, like gunshots going off, somebody getting their hand bit or something like that, and just sort of a little bit of blood here and there, the grossest, it really gets. Um, is when Leroy finally bites it. Um, when, uh, I think he’s learned down to the basement, the guy shoots him with the, uh, several times, Oh, he shoots him several times at the top of the stairs with his shotgun, which is where he’s just blasting holes in everything left and right with the shotgun.

Um, and then they take him down. Uh, and, uh, Mo and father basically strings them up downstairs and starts tearing his body apart. Clearly he’s eating some of them and then he’s feeding the scraps and, uh, to the, uh,

getting back to what you were saying about Roche and some of these isms of West Craven. Yeah. You know, another thing is sort of this, um, fundamentalists. Um, religious kind of like religious fundamentalism kind of gone awry. These parents who, you know, every time they’re their main exclamation has all they 

Craig: can, right?

Yeah. Burn in hell. You know, we could count how many times I have no idea how many times, but it was a pretty regular, it, you know, they weren’t, they didn’t come across as being particularly religious, but you certainly got that vibe. Yeah, you got that vibe that they, you know, in their dress, particularly the mom, it was, you know, a very old fashioned old style, almost 1950s, uh, conservative kind of look made to look grotesque through her makeup and, and, uh, the lighting and whatnot.

But, um, yeah, you, you certainly got that then. Of course they break that mold too by that. Well, I hope it’s, it’s a broken mold by, you know, being incestuous brother and sister, and that’s true. Well, and the dad, you know, uh, makes, gets himself up in this. What a gimp outfit, I guess, is that what 

Todd: it was the creepy, you know, I was a kid and that is the only thing I remember about this movie, because it’s been decades since I’d seen it.

But once, once he came out in that gimp outfit, in that whole sort of SNM kind of studied black leather head to toe with the face mask and everything thing, it took me right back and I remembered, Oh, that is what freaked me out about this movie so much. It was this crazy weird SNM, like get up his hunting outfit almost.

Yeah. 

Craig: And I had to, you know, really give kudos to those actors. They were very effectively creepy. I mean, they were, they were scary. Um, and you know, I, I, you asked me when we were watching, if I recognized, uh, the actor who played the dad and I, I don’t, but I remember reading that, um, Craven saw them. They played husband and wife on twin peaks apparently.

Oh really? And he saw them their performance there. Uh, and, and one of them for this movie and got them, and I think he cast well because they were, they were freaky. Oh, 

Todd: they were freaky. I mean, and then there was also that bit where, um, it’s toward the end, but he’s, um, you know, hunting them through the walls.

And I think he breaks into a room that’s filled with candles and there is some religious paraphernalia on the wall, but you’re right. It’s not explicit. It’s not like in Carey, you know, where they make the girl bent down in front and pray or anything like that. It’s always very implied. Um, and I know that was one thing that West Craven comes from a fundamentalist background.

And I know that when he, um, one of the stories that he tells was when, uh, or maybe Sean Cunningham tells, um, Sean Cunningham who went on to do the Friday, the 13th movie is the guy who was friends with West, who kind of got him into horror. And I believe they went together on, um, the last house on the left really.

And he asked West to write this, uh, and West was like, geez, I don’t know if I can write horror. And his response to him was well, You’re from this, um, oppressive sort of fundamentalist religious background. So you got all the tools you need to be able to, you like, you’ve got this sort of repressed dark side, you know, what’s going to be scary.

So just unleash that. And it seems like some of that 

Craig: comes through. Interesting. I didn’t know that, um, the only thing that I had read was, and I think that Craven did this a lot, and I know that he was. Inspired, uh, for nightmare on Elm street, by news reports that he had read, uh, about, uh, young people who had, um, had such severe night terrors, that they had died in their sleep.

This, uh, apparently, and I don’t know the specifics, I don’t remember, but he saw some sort of news piece, uh, about a police rate of a home that was for something unrelated. I don’t know if it was a drug raid or whatever, but when the police raided this house, they found behind locked doors. These children who had been.

Kept in this house for presumably years and hadn’t been allowed out and hadn’t, you know, been socialized in any way. And he was inspired to write this daddy cut out the bad parts and put the 

Todd: boys in the Salar. It isn’t that weird. Like, I mean now. In the years since we’ve had a few high profile news reports with these strange cases, the one guy in Sweden, the one guy here in America where people have done like, like exactly this, where they have locked up their kids, um, and never let them see the light of day.

And their house is like a fortress and booby trapped and all that stuff. And sometimes just under the nose of the neighbors. Sure. No. 

Craig: Yeah. Remember anything like that from when we were kids, I mean, this seemed like a nightmare scenario. Not that the real life scenario wouldn’t be a nightmare, obviously it would be, but this seemed more like, uh, a nightmare fantasy, something that, you know, you would come up with in your imagination is kind of the worst case scenario being trapped by these tyrannous parents, uh, who took every opportunity to punish you for the slightest, uh, crime.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah, it was great. Any other Craven 

Craig: isms that you, well, you already mentioned the Hills had eyes. Uh, I was reminded of that too. When a fool first descends into the cellar, you hear these kind of ghostly voices from the shadows. What kind of calling to him? Taunting him.

It reminded me a lot of the Hills have eyes in the early part before, uh, the family is really. Seen the, the mutant cannibals in the Hills, but they’re, they’re hearing these kinds of creepy things. Definitely reminiscent. I mean, you can definitely see his signature on this. It’s different than the other stuff he’s done.

This is post nightmare, right? The first one. Oh yeah. Which is, which is almost kind of bizarre because it’s seems almost, gosh, I don’t know what I want to say. It seems more youthful. It seems like a younger filmmaker to me for some reason. 

Todd: Oh yeah. Well, and, and maybe it’s the. Subject matter too. Maybe it’s the story.

I mean, it is kind of like a fairy tale. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I was thinking of the gate while I was watching this. Right. You know? And maybe that’s what it is. Um, he’s kinda dialing himself back a little bit. Yeah, there was, there was one shot in there in particular, which jumped out at me specifically as a, as referencing one of his earlier ones.

And that is, um, there’s a shot toward the end of the movie when the people under the stairs get their comeuppance. And even though they’ve been in the basement, held back by just a bunch of boards nailed up. Um, that they can’t seem to break out of. They end up being able to like burst through the staircases and the walls.

I guess all they really needed was the proper motivation to do it again. Well, it’s, I guess maybe it’s more that hero’s journey, you know, you got your guy coming in, he’s rallied the troops up and now he’s taught you in your. Village your downtrodden village that you can stand up and fight for.

Craig: Absolutely. And then there’s a huge celebration in the street. Everybody’s happy.

Just go on their Merry way and pay their rent 

Todd: with the, with all the money that explodes out of the house 

Craig: is right at the end, we forgot to mention that it was a literal, hidden treasure in the basement. It was, it was old coins, one eyed Willy stash, apparently. So it seemed like, yeah, 

Todd: that’s, that’s what happens.

Um, um, Roach basically leads him to the, the room where almost Scrooge McDuck, like he’s, as it’s not just, you know, money in a safe, it’s just money all over the floor and coins everywhere. And for some reason they’re lit candles in there all the time or whatever. Um, and then, um, of course, uh, it’s just him now and father, um, because the mother has been killed.

Yeah. The mother was killed earlier just before Alice 

Craig: gets her revenge on the mother. And it’s very satisfying because she’s been pretty horribly. Treated and abused throughout. So it’s nice to kind of see them of what’s coming to her at Alice’s hands 

Todd: that’s rewarding. Yep, yep. Yep. That’s right. And, um, fool leads the father downstairs into this money room, uh, and uh, basically blows them up.

Yeah. But 

Craig: first he traps him with this ingenious trick. Uh, he knows that the dad is coming and he’s, you know, in this vault or whatever it is, that’s holding all this stuff. Um, so as a distraction, He takes a candelabra and somehow manages to insert coins into the candles, the lit candles of the candelabra, so that as the candles burned down, down periodically, the coins will drop and make a noise.

Now, this is amazing. This kid is supposed to be white, like maybe 12 maybe. And he comes up with this brilliant idea and not only comes up with it with it, you know, a split second, but also executes it. You know, I think in this would take me some time and some study. Uh, hands to do, but 

Todd: this is like nineties adventure game, kind of like solving.

This is like King’s quest type, you know? Oh, what inventory do I have here? I have a candle life of magic and light the candle with an, I have a bunch of coins. And we’re supposed to figure out that you jam the coins into the, I mean, and it works and it works. I mean, those canvas must burn really fast.

Yeah. Cause they’re releasing coins at a rate of like one every 10 seconds. But you know, it’s funny, you mentioned his age because I took special note of that. Um, he mentioned that early on. Um, when he says, uh, when they were first breaking into the house with Leroy, he says, uh, 

Craig: what’s the lead boy does breaking it in, or it might not be so SWAT, at least the first day of my 13th birthday.

Could be a 

Todd: lucky, in one sense, it’s like, well, this poor kid has no party. You know, that nobody’s paid any attention to the fact that he has his birthday because he such a destitute, you know, thing. But in another sense, it’s the first day as a teenager. 

Craig: Yeah. Age kind of thing. You know, it’s becoming a man standing up being the man of the house, taking care of business.

And he does. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s crazy. I thought that a lot of the, um, the, the battle scenes, I call them battle scenes, you know, when they’re kind of mano a mano with the, with the parents. Sure. We’re kind of, and this is maybe where you, when you were talking earlier about how you felt like this was maybe a little more dialed back almost.

Three Stooges. S definitely, you know, you talked about home alone and they’re dropping the things down. And these people have just rubber faces and rubber bodies and stuff. It’s like, bricks can bounce off of them and iron pokers can bounce off of them and they kind of ooze and get up and almost like, look around with their eyes.

Like they’re in some cartoons. Yeah. 

Craig: The, I mean, and the parents are very sinister. I mean, I think they, you get the sense that they pose a real threat, that they are a real danger, but when it comes right down to it, They seem to be pretty easily foiled. Uh, it’s it’s, it’s kind of convenient at times. I remember one time the dad goes lunging for fool and fool simply steps out of the way.

And the dad just nails his face right into the wall and flounders over backwards and is incapacitated for a good 15 seconds while the kids have time to crawl through a hole in the wall and get away. So there’s some convenience there, but. But, but 

Todd: that is tempered with the fact that we’re dealing with some really nasty subject matter.

Right. I mean, there’s implications that the father is molesting the girls. 

Craig: Yeah. He went there a little bit, you know, we were talking about that. It’s. Early on there’s, you know, maybe some subtle suggestion, maybe it’s just because it’s so uncomfortable between the father and the daughter, but later on, uh, there’s a scene where it becomes pretty parents.

Todd: Yeah. That’s kind of at the apex of the movie where they’re sort of in their girl, the tower moment, because fool actually gets out of the house. Right. He rolls down the roof and he falls into what looked like. It was only a couple of feet of water, but must’ve been more than that, um, and runs out. And again like that hero, he’s got to go back in, like you said, Jack and the Beanstalk, he’s got to go back in and save the princess.

In the meantime, they have the princess chained up in the attic. I E the tower, you know, they got her tied up and fool finds a way back into the house and back up through a chimney that comes up the brick wall right behind her, where she’s chained. And that’s the moment in which the father comes in and his total getup.

And she’s like, let me out of here, please. And he kind of stands there and he just sorta massages his crotch for just a second 

Craig: creepy and pretty subtle. I mean, the he’s an all black and he’s lit mostly from the back. So if you aren’t paying close attention, you might miss it. And it’s not something that’s really lingered on.

It kind of happens quickly. And then it goes on know after that immediately, the conclusion that he jumps to is that fool and Alice are. Doing it. Yeah. For lack of a better word. Um, and, and you can tell that then he’s fueled not only by his insanity, but by jealousy too. And he’s kind of out to get both of them at that point.

She did it with him. I know it, not my little girl. She’s a more, uh, so it doesn’t really pull any punches, you know? I mean, it’s, it’s sick and twisted and its own way, but. Still, you know, it 

Todd: still lacks the grit and sort of the brutality. Yeah. I agree. Of, of a lot of his other films. You’re absolutely right.

It’s an interesting 

Craig: departure. The kid actors, I thought did a great job. Um, I didn’t recognize the kid who played fool and I don’t know his name. Um, but the, the girl who plays Alice, I don’t know. This may have been. Yeah, after your time, but she that’s AIG Langer. She went on to be ran on my so-called life.

Oh really? Yeah. Which, you know, I was a teenager at the time and very angsty. So I, I was totally into that show. Um, and I loved her. She was great on that show. Uh, I was reading, um, that she plays. Very convincingly. I think a child around 12 years old, she was actually 17 when they filmed this really. Um, and the, the boy who plays Roche, who I assume was meant to be somewhere in his mid to late teens was actually 27, no way.

Yeah, 27 when they filmed it. And it was all three of their first films. And I don’t even know the. The kid who played fool. I don’t know if he went on to do anything, but AIG Langer went on to have a relatively successful career. I just read the other day randomly that she’s now married to like a Duke or something she’s royalty now.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Um, and, and I know that I recognize the guy who played Roach. He’s gone on to do lots of other stuff too. He’s got a really recognizable face. Think of anything. Yeah. 

Todd: He looked really familiar to me. I just couldn’t place it. You know, that’s funny you, as an actress, She had probably one of the most difficult roles in the movie.

I mean, her job was, was, was to look scared. Yeah. Um, to look, um, brutalized. Yeah. And to 

Craig: be brutalized. I mean, she was getting thrown around, thrown on beds, thrown against walls. There’s one scene where, uh, the, the mom. Some of the carnage is around on the floor. And as punishment, the mom makes Alice clean it up.

And in this shot, I, you know, I assume this was just a lucky shot. The mom pushes her into this puddle and AGA langurs slips and falls. It’s a pretty nasty 

Todd: right into it. And she’s wearing that white dress. It’s even more. Yeah. And it’s very Cinderella. Like she’s like down there on the Florida  yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s a tricky thing to pull off and her transformation at the end where she does finally get revenge on her mom, they burst through the stairs.

Um, they grabbed the mother that gives her the opportunity to grab, uh, the mother’s knife and, uh, and ends up knifing her. Um, But Don not in this way of, uh, that you’ll sometimes see where it’s like, she suddenly wakes up and suddenly turns and suddenly gets us some agency. She still that damaged girl, you know, who is still very unsure of herself, but is starting to take some agency for her life.

And she just pulls it off marvelously. Yeah. I 

Craig: thought she did an excellent job. I thought, you know, overhaul for it being kind of a. Uh, cheesy in a way, kind of a little horror film, I felt like it felt like they were taking it seriously, not too serious. So they were having fun and it is a fun movie.

There’s a lot of comedy going on. You know, we were laughing at several parts throughout, um, sometimes just because things seemed a little dated, but you know, there, there are jokes. There’s definitely dark comedy in there too, which I think is. Is really challenging to do so that, that impresses me 

Todd: yeah. To take that really dark subject matter and find some humor in it when you’re, you know, you’re making implications of, of, of rape.

And you’re talking about incest and this guy in this sort of sexually, there’s a lot of sexual kind of stuff in there, but, um, yeah, it is, it is interesting in that way. Um, The kind of movie, I don’t know. Do you think a movie like this would be made now? 

Craig: You know, I don’t know, like you said before, I think that it would, no, not just like this.

I think that this movie were made again today that it would be either for the PG 13 crowd. Um, I’ve been trying to think, uh, of, uh, Similar things like, have you ever seen it’s relatively recent, the whole, where these kids find a hole in their basement? Very much like the whole, that kind of thing. And I feel like those movies are throwbacks to this kind of movie, but you don’t see him very much.

And we’re kind of in an interesting position, you know, who knows what’s going to happen now that craving has passed, unfortunately, but, uh, he had several projects in development and one of those was a TV series, uh, based on the children under the stairs or the people under the stairs. For scifi, right? I believe so.

I fly channel and I’ll be really interested to see what they do with that, because I don’t really see how this plays into a serial kind of thing. I don’t see how you take 

Todd: this into a TV series. It’s nothing more than a mini, you know, like how do you keep this going for seasons and seasons? I mean, it all is in this 

Craig: house.

Well, and you know, limited series are really popular right now. So maybe that’s the direction they’ll go. Who knows? I don’t want to 

Todd: interesting. Yeah. Well, I miss him already. I was kind of bothered more than I thought I would be just by the notion that he passed, you know, and to hear that it was brain cancer.

I mean, did anybody really? 

Craig: I didn’t know. And I, I feel like I kind of keep up on these things. I had no idea. I didn’t even know he was ill. In fact, I didn’t even realize it. His age. I mean, he was up there. He was in his seventies and I mean, it’s still tragic that he’s gone, but, um, but prolific. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Uh, I, I really think that, you know, had his health not failed him, that he probably would have continued putting stuff out there that would have. Continue to be popular. And, you know, he had, I don’t even want to call them hits and misses because I appreciate everything he’s done, but he had some really successful stuff like the scream franchise and run out on the street.

Um, a couple of other big names, uh, but he also made a lot of movies that didn’t get that kind of attention. They are, uh, you know, All of them, whether I particularly liked them or not. For example, I don’t particularly enjoy watching last house on the left. It’s a little brutal for me. Um, but I appreciate what he did there.

I mean, uh, it’s, it’s really interesting filmmaking and, and worth a watch. And you know, for that reason alone, if nothing, almost a 

Todd: 4runner to torture porn in a way. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, really ahead of his time, he really broke some ground with everything he did. Yeah. Uh, well, most adamant, well, we’re going to be talking more about West Craven as the next couple of weeks.

Go on. We’re going to watch a couple more of his films. If you have any more thoughts about closing thoughts 

Craig: about this movie. Again, it’s, it’s, it’s one of those movies that reminds me of my childhood. Not just because it’s from my childhood, but because of the genre, um, it’s something that I miss, you know, and I, and I’ve got a little nieces and nephews and I, I can’t wait.

Until they’re old enough. If hopefully my sister will allow me to, to show them these kinds of movies, because I feel like they’re not getting that, uh, in mainstream culture right now. And I, I hope that they can appreciate them the same way that I did. We’ll have to wait and see. Yeah. That’s great. Well, 

Todd: thank you for bringing up this film.

This was a great one again, hadn’t seen it in such a long time. Um, enjoyed it more now, I think, than I really did before. And it’s great to see a master of work. Absolutely. All right, well, um, please tune in with us again next week when we’re going to be bringing you another Western. Craven horror film. And also, if you liked what you heard today, please share this podcast with your friends please until next week, this is Todd and this is Craig and we are two guys and a chainsaw. .