2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

Request time! This week we’re diving into the 1990 cult classic, ‘Night Breed,’ directed by Clive Barker. For the first time ever, we’re reviewing both the theatrical cut and the director’s cut of the film.

We discuss the film’s storied history, from its troubled release to the rediscovery of lost footage that led to the creation of the director’s cut. We also share our own impressions and thoughts on the movie, the characters, and the visual effects. If you’re a fan of Clive Barker, horror films, or just curious about ‘Night Breed,’ you won’t want to miss this episode. Join us as we unravel the complexities and delve into the world of Midian. Don’t forget to leave your thoughts and comments; we’d love to hear what you think!

Episode 448, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, we come to another request. It is about time, and so as we always do, we put out a few movies that have been requested and added to our long standing request list to our patrons. Give them a poll and say, which of these three movies would you like us to do? And I thought it was leading in one direction for a while, and then, uh, at the last minute took a sharp turn.

And gosh, this might be one of our most participated polls ever. And overwhelmingly, everyone wanted us to do Clive Barker’s 1990 “Night Breed”, which had been requested by one of our listeners, Harry. Harry, who’s also a sports podcaster and an author, and I believe it was on Facebook or maybe it was on our patron page, that he had reached out and asked if we could do that or Midnight Meat Train.

And so, uh, yeah, we’re doing night breed. Thanks to him and the votes of our patrons, and it’s cool because neither Craig nor I had seen Nightbreed, oddly enough, even though I think it was in our faces all the time, right? I mean, you know, see it in the video store all the time. It’s a Clive Barker thing.

But as I started looking into it, I thought, wow, we’re, it feels like we’re biting off a lot by doing this movie much more than I realized because this film has a very storied history that stretches well into the two thousands, even with different versions that have come out. This is another one of those classic movies that Clive Barker, who was writer director of it, was based on his novella, really had grand ambitions and was given control, and then at the end of it all, the studio rested control back away from him and decided to put out a cut that he was not happy with.

That apparently most people involved were not happy with, didn’t really know what to do with the movie, didn’t really understand it. Marketed it as a totally different film, really, and that might be a big reason. You know, just audience expectations, why it was really a critical and commercial failure. At the time, it was released to theaters in 1990 and turned Clive Barker off of filmmaking for quite a while after that.

And so later in the two thousands, I think it was 2014, some people got a hold of footage that he thought thought was lost or misplaced or not in good shape or whatnot, and worked with him and they put together a director’s cut. They basically went with an old print of the film. One of the earlier prints of the film that they had had, that he had cut together and that this reflects, he said at the time, he said, this reflects my original vision.

This is the movie I wanted everybody to see. So I said to Craig, since we are in a unique situation here, why don’t we do something I don’t think we’ve ever done before? How do you feel about watching First the theatrical cut and then the director’s cut so that we can really go in all eyes open and fully compare these as though we were people who at the time had seen it in the theater and then later on caught the original director’s vision and we’ll have a lot to talk about comparing and contrasting, and you were up for it.

We had some extra time and so we did it. There is also, by the way, full disclosure, a third cut out there called the cabal cut, which is like three hours long and over three hours. Yeah. Hey, nobody got time for that, least of which Craig and I who were very, very interested in movies that are 90 minutes or less, I thought about it, but no, he won.

I thought if I had been just super, super taken by this, maybe I would go out and, and watch the cabal cut, you know, a month later. Uh, I don’t know if I will, but, uh, so anyway, this is my first time seeing it. Craig, that’s also your first time seeing it. We talked about that. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. Which is again, as you already said, I think super weird.

I don’t know how both of us have gotten this far in our lives and have not seen this movie. Yeah. Um, because it’s not like it’s some, you know, strange, oddball thing that people have never heard about. People talk about this movie a lot. It’s Clive Barker. I’m a huge fan of his. I just don’t know. And like you said, it’s not like it was difficult to find.

It was right there on the video shelves. I can’t tell you how many times I looked at it and thought, well, that looks interesting, but I don’t know why I didn’t pick it up. 

Todd: But I didn’t, I think I can tell you why I didn’t pick it up when I was a kid and I saw this on the shelves, I looked at it and I saw all the different goth looking creatures and stuff on the front, and I thought, I think this movie’s necessarily gonna appeal to me.

I figured it was gonna be, and I probably read the back of it about a bunch of like gothy creatures in tunnels under the city or something like that, in some other world. And, and I, that just was not really the kind of thing I was into. I didn’t feel like there would be much mystery. I didn’t think it would be much.

I clearly was gonna be more fantasy than I was into at the time, which again, I was, I think we talked on the Hellraiser episode, took me forever to see Hellraiser because again, the imagery and just that appeal, it just wasn’t what I was into. Gimme a slasher, gimme the dream Master Freddy Krueger. Give me some cheesy fun to laugh at.

Horror movie. That’s very typical. This was just the aesthetic of it. Didn’t seem like it would appeal to me. So 

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t know why it didn’t appeal to me. It should have I, everything else like this did, like even the characters have kind of a very, like labyrinth true dark crystal return to Oz, kind of look about them.

And I was totally into that stuff, so I don’t know why it didn’t appeal to me. I have no idea. But this is the first time I’ve seen it. And you talked about how there are different edits of it. I have a cautionary tale. Oh. When we pick these movies, Todd is always very kind and sends me useful links where I can find the movie Uhhuh.

And you ignore them? Not usually. I, I, I mean, it just depends. It just so happens Alan has been. Not home in the evenings. ’cause he’s working on a show. I wanted to watch Night Breed on an actual TV and you know, you and I had talked about we’re gonna watch the theatrical cut and then we’re gonna watch the other cut, whatever.

And so I found it on Amazon. It’s on Amazon Prime and they have the theatrical cut, which is a part of Amazon Prime. Like you don’t have to pay anything extra for it. And then they have the director’s cut that you have to rent for $4 or buy for like $15 or whatever. Huh. But that was great. Wanted to watch it.

So watched it and then I went to watch the, uh, director’s cut or whatever and I was like, this is exactly the same. I don’t, I don’t get it. Oh no. So I checked it out. Buyer beware. Amazon is a liar. What they are giving you for free as the theatrical cut is the director’s cut. You can’t get the theatrical cut.

On Amazon. Oh, they say that it is, but it’s not. So you watched them in reverse? I watched them in reverse, but I, when that happened, I was like, oh, this is annoying. But then I thought, well maybe this will be interesting. Yeah, because I saw as close to what. Clive Barker wanted as it could get. And then I saw the theatrical cut and I have a take, so I am interested.

Did did you watch both? Did you watch the theatrical and then the other one? 

Todd: Yeah, I watched them theatrical first and then the And then the other one. Yep. So I watched the opposite of you because when 

Craig: I started watching, the first one that I watched, which was the director’s cut, and I just didn’t know it.

I was texting you, I was like, oh my God. Already not a fan. I hate it. 

Todd: That’s right. You’re like, it’s so chopped up. And I was like, yeah, it is Little. Did you realize it could get worse? 

Craig: Little did I realize, I don’t know. So. I am really, I mean, I don’t know if there’s any reason to be coy about it and if, I don’t know.

I don’t even feel like this movie is worthy necessarily of a spoiler alert. It’s about demons or something that live underground. It’s, there’s not a lot to spoil, but if you don’t want spoilers, turn it off now. 

Todd: Yeah, now’s the time. 

Craig: Honestly. I liked the theatrical cut better, and I don’t think that it was just because it was shorter.

Now that may have had something to do with it. Uhhuh, I found the director’s cut Confusing. Really? Yes. Wow. I don’t know, and maybe I just felt 

Todd: like the theatrical cut was much more direct. Okay. That is interesting. I agree with you on that statement. I thought that theatrical cut was extremely direct.

However, having not seen the director’s cut, so I didn’t know the story beforehand. Having nothing to compare it to. I was confused. Okay. Because it cuts to the chase so fast that I had very little feeling for these characters. Like it jumps in and what we’ve got these guys, Aaron and Lori, his girlfriend, Aaron’s having these tattoo.

Nobody ever calls him Aaron. They only call him Boone. So let’s do that for now. They always call him Boone. Okay. I wrote him in here as Aaron. ’cause some people do call him Aaron, they call him Boone. Even his girlfriend calls him by his last name. Like, what the hell? But anyway, yeah, he’s having these bad dreams and his girlfriend’s like, oh, you getting the bad dreams, aren’t you?

And then his doctor, he’s with his psychiatrist. And his psychiatrist who is played by David Cronenberg. I know. And we 

Craig: can’t, like I know that we’re getting a late start, but we can’t gloss over things like that. The intro, like you don’t know. No, I mean I, yes, the intro, I mean, everything is crazy. Like the credits are so weird.

Like it just immediately smacks you with the imagery of these. Monsters like writhing around with snakes 

Todd: and stuff. Like I thought, because again, ’cause I watched the theatrical cut first. I thought, okay, they took a bunch of footage they were gonna cut and they decided to just make a cool credit sequence out of it, which is just monsters snarling, just very, very random.

No, they shot all that for the credit sequence. It’s pretty nuts. It is nuts. And, 

Craig: and then the whole first scene is like some bird creature. Person, like these are all people in prosthetics and makeup, which yeah, I love, I absolutely love it. Looks fantastic, but it’s, I, I, I don’t know, like it’s dreamlike and, and this first, uh, scene, like they’re all getting chased and they, they run behind this gate and they close the gate, but it turns out to be the main guy’s dream.

And he’s seeing this psychiatrist who apparently he’s seen for a long time now. I had to watch it twice to kind of understand what was going on. And again, spoilers, but his. Dr. Decker is played by David Cronenberg, and I just can’t, I mean, we, we’ve done David Cronenberg movies, we’ve talked about him extensively.

I don’t know that I ever had an idea in my mind of what he looked like, but now that I do, I am shocked that he didn’t act 

Todd: more. 

Craig: He is 

Todd: so 

Craig: good in this movie. 

Todd: He was in your fa well, previously your favorite Friday of the 13th movie. Jason Acts in the very beginning looks about the same too. Uhhuh, yeah.

Chris, it wasn’t too, too many years after that, I suppose. I mean, you thought his acting was good, I suppose. 

Craig: Yes, I really did. And but, but it wasn’t even just the acting, it was just that he is a handsome guy. Like he looks like an actor. 

Todd: Well, that’s true. Yeah. And you 

Craig: know, he’s, he’s tall and lean and he’s got an interesting face and all his hair.

And like in this part he’s supposedly Boone’s psychiatrist, who he has been with for a long time. Now, again, for the hundredth time, spoiler alert, ’cause I didn’t get this the first time. Boone has been having dreams about murders or apparently, you know, when he was talking to this doctor, he was having dreams about murders.

Todd: Yeah. And he’s 

Craig: kind of having dreams again. But the dreams are more just about the monsters that we already talked about in this place called Midian. And he’s actually kind of, he tells his girlfriend like, I’m not really scared of the dreams anymore. They’re actually kind of comforting as it turns out his doctor.

Is a crazy person. I didn’t get this the first time at all. You mean in the beginning or just 

Todd: completely? 

Craig: No, no, no. I mean, actually the first time I watched the movie, I never put it together. I never put it together that Boone had described these murders to his psychiatrist and then the psychiatrist, who is a crazy person, went out and recreated the 

Todd: murders.

Right? I mean, it’s so confusing in the theatrical cut because there are big chunks of the doctor scenes that are missing, that are in the director’s cut, and a man does it flesh out necessary information. ’cause the doctor has this bag. Actually, I’m not even sure now. I can’t remember what is in his suitcase.

Craig: It’s a briefcase. He has like a briefcase that has, but again, you don’t know this. All we see is there’s this horribly violent. Murder scene where there’s this very normal family, husband and wife who are like average middle American people. They don’t look like, yeah. You know, supermodel actors or whatever.

They’re just normal people. And they’ve got a kid who from the top of the stairs says to his mom, like, I think I saw a scary guy. And she’s like, no, no, no, everything’s fine. You just go to bed. I’ll come up and say goodnight in a minute. And then she gets brutally slaughtered, and then the husband gets brutally slaughtered, and then you don’t see it on screen, but it’s assumed that that little.

Sweet kid gets brutally slaughtered too by this man in a great mask. I was calling him sack head. I think that in my notes, I think that people online call him button eyes, but it’s just like, yeah, like a burlap. It’s not really a sack because it’s kind of fitted like a mask. Like it’s, it’s fitted to his head, kind of The eyes are just buttons and the mouth is ask skew off to one side and kind of a grin and it’s a zipper and it’s like part zipped and part not, and I mean, this stuff, all of this I love.

Like I, I thought that he looked great. Yeah. I’m gonna have a hard time pinpointing why I didn’t like it, but I just didn’t. 

Todd: Yeah. I didn’t. Really like it either. I think, well, first of all, that mask reminded me of Sam Hein from, from the, uh, trick or Treat movie Uhhuh. It, it very much is like a skinny form fitted version of that, but it’s got that Clive Barker, he’s, he’s Clive Barker has always got a little bit of that, like sexual s and m Edge to some of the stuff that he does.

Oh 

Craig: yeah. And 

Todd: this does look very much like a burlap sack version of a, I don’t know what you call it, right? The match, 

Craig: yeah, the rubber. Yeah. Like A-B-D-S-M rubber match with the 

Todd: zipper and everything, but a skew, you know, so this guy’s, I guess, you know, implies this guy’s getting a lot of pleasure from what he’s doing.

So there’s an interesting juxtaposition between the guy and the dreams and what’s, obviously just like a killer slasher guy. Turns out that characters, the, the monsters and things that he’s having the dreams about, they’re. Basically the good guys. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And it’s his Dr. Guy and, and basically all of the humans, with the exception of him and his girlfriend, are kind of the nasty people.

Uh, it’s very much a movie about othering and the oppressed and the silenced and the, the weird being pushed aside and being unacceptable for the world. I’ve heard a lot of talk about how this might be the queerest horror movie ever made in the sense that it seems like that’s a very strong message behind the film.

May it may be. I mean, it’s it’s very obviously a strong theme by the end of the movie. You get that. In fact, it’s weird because, I mean, I’m sure you’ve read the same stuff I did and I saw a lot of interviews. Did you find it on YouTube that when they premiered the director’s cut, there was a q and a with Clive Barker and several of the cast and, and people involved in the production of the movie that they did.

That was kind of fun. Did you see that at all? No, no. Yeah. I mean, they talk about really the studio didn’t get the picture because they were so excited about Hellraiser. They wanted basically another hell raiser, and so they couldn’t figure out why these monsters were good guys. They’re like, they seem like good guys.

And Barker’s like, yeah, that’s the point. It’s the whole point of the movie is that the monsters are the good guys and the bad guys are the humans. But they marketed it like a slasher movie, and he was so pissed about it at the time. He was so pissed. Like if you look at IMDB, you can see the original poster for this movie, and it’s just got this woman’s wide eyes on it and it says, yeah, the posters dumb.

She thought she knew everything about her boyfriend, but Lori was wrong. God, that’s not what I grew up seeing on the shelves. You know, on the shelves. At least the, no, the VHS sleeve had the main character surrounded by what looks like his gang of yes monsters. So. Yeah, I could see why. I know, I could see why this completely just pissed off Barker and then the way it was chopped up didn’t really change the, any of that at all.

I think it really didn’t change the thematic elements of the movie. 

Craig: I didn’t think so either. Like there was, I, I felt like I had read about, you know, Barker was so disappointed in the, the way that it had been edited and so much had been cut out. And again, I saw, you know, the extended cut first. But when I saw the theatrical cut, I was like, huh.

Yeah. Like I still got the gist. Maybe it’s because. 

Todd: You saw the director’s cut, 

Craig: right? Right. Maybe. I really think so because I already had that in my mind. Yeah. But I didn’t really feel like I missed out on a lot. There are leaps. In fact, I thought, I thought some things made more sense in the theatrical cut.

Like, like what the, that weird priest who just gets introduced at the very end at the jail. Mm-hmm. And then he like kind of plays a big part in the end in the director’s cut. I had no idea who he was or what he was supposed to be doing. And his scenes were placed in different places in the theatrical cut because it was tighter.

Yeah. Like he still seemed like an extraneous character who I didn’t care about, but at least like he played a role, like it was important. 

Todd: I think you’re right in that that priest role, which it’s so weird to bring in what turns out to be a fairly consequential character in three quarters of the way through your movie, but because the movie’s shorter in the theatrical cut and because it tightens the space between his scenes.

You’re right, I can, I can see that now where the priest definitely felt once he was introduced, like he was a little bit more of the story, whereas in the theatrical cut, he’s so spread out once he’s introduced that it’s like, oh yeah, there’s that guy, and why is he suddenly popping up again? I can totally see that.

Was there anything else? 

Craig: Oh gosh. I don’t know. I mean, I just didn’t feel like anything that that got put back into the director’s cut was really all that essential. Like I did very much enjoy. Their girlfriend singing that song, 

Todd: but it did need to go on for the length of the song. Did it 

Craig: Todd? That song has been in my head for like the rest of the week.

Todd: Oh, that’s hilarious. All this week.

Clip: The I ever, I a brave man. I a man Johnny show that you

Craig: And then my, my favorite line. I want a brave man. I want a cave man.

I, I loved that. Like, I can’t believe that. They trimmed that? Were they thinking cutting That? That was like my favorite part. 

Todd: I don’t know. I’ll tell you that first, beginning bit is my biggest problem with the theatrical cut, I think. I think that maybe you had the benefit of having seen their relationship as presented in the theatrical cut.

I’m sorry, in the director’s cut. So when you went to the theatrical cut and you saw it, you appreciated that they were just getting to the point of the action much sooner. Mm-hmm. When I saw the theatrical cut, to me, that whole beginning sequence up until he gets to Midian was so chopped up that, yeah, I.

Barely got a feel for who these people were, what their relationship was. Even like, I’m like, okay, well I, she’s his girlfriend, so I guess she cares about him, but it’s so jumpy that, you know, after like 10 minutes or whatever, he’s suddenly leaving and she’s upset about it. Then this doctor’s doing this thing and then he’s dead.

And I, I, I just didn’t even feel like I cared about him all that much yet. And already he’s dead. And I know I’m supposed to understand what’s happening here and how it’s affecting everybody. And I really didn’t, 

Craig: I just didn’t feel like the directors cut really expanded upon any of that at all. Like, it all moves so quickly and it all just kind of throws you into, okay, here’s this guy, and he dreams of this place where there’s a bunch of monsters.

And in his mind it’s like, oh, this is a good place because you go there and nobody judges you and you’re forgiven for everything that you’ve ever done. Who cares? He hasn’t done anything. Why is he 

Todd: true? 

Craig: Why is he dreaming of this place? Like none 

Todd: of this is ever explained. Actually, that’s a good point.

The movie even brings it out after he dies and then is sort of resurrected. 

Craig: How does he die? He gets shot. Oh, the, the doctor, this apparently psychopath that he just happened to go to for. Therapy. This guy’s a nutcase, and he is a killer and wants to kill people. So I’m a nutcase doctor, and some guy comes to me and is like, oh, I have these dreams of this place where there’s freaks and monsters, but I want to go there because everything is forgiven when you go there.

Okay. So now me, the doctor. Ooh, tell me more. Like, like, I, like, I wanna go there. What, what? Like, yeah. 

Todd: It 

Craig: doesn’t make any sense. And, and I don’t, that doesn’t bother me because movies don’t have to make sense. Yeah. But, and I, I don’t think that I’ve read this book, but I would be really interested in reading it because I almost feel like it.

It must come across better. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: On the page, because just throwing you into this world, it’s jarring. Yeah. It’s weird. It’s weird. And it’s jar, it’s, it’s jarring not only to throw you into this world, but to throw you into it immediately. The very first thing you see are all these monsters writhing around with snakes and shit.

Like, just, here we are. This is the world that we’re in. Get used to it. Go. It’s, it’s, it’s, 

Todd: it’s strange. It’s a strange movie. I can see the vision behind it. Barker himself, he said he wanted to create the Star Wars of horror. He wanted to do epic world building here, create these characters. He had a trilogy in mind.

He was hoping it would go beyond that. And I can see the ambition, you know, from a special effects and makeup effects thing. I mean, he was only given a couple million for Hellraiser, and the studio gave him 11 million for this and said, go to town. And I feel like he spent all that and more up on the screen as far as visual effects and makeup effects.

And there was stop motion in there. I mean, I. In that aspect, it’s really, really impressive. But in the story aspect, it feels so claustrophobic to me. 

Craig: It somehow misses the mark and I can’t figure out why even the effects. And, and you talked about like the stop motion there. There are some. Okay. So all of these freaks live in Midian, which people assume is a town, but it’s not, it’s really just like a graveyard.

But the, the truth of the matter is there’s a whole underground layer that they live in. Like it’s enormous. And some of that, especially at the end, looks amazing. And there are some great effects. And I feel like he tried to do things with showing us the different types of people, beings, whatever they’re supposed to be in Midian.

But it it, it was always just like. Here, I’m gonna take a, a, a shot, not a photograph, but that’s what it looks like because it’s just one person in frame. Like, ah, look what I did. Like, here’s a freaky fat guy. Ah, 

Todd: and then, yeah, here’s a freaky guy eating eels. Here’s a freaky guy with stuff that comes out of his stomach and here’s a, yeah.

Yeah. Ah, I mean, sad to say, a little bit like death house, right? Where. You’re just room after room after room, like this city or this layer that they’re in. It feels more like a jail, 

Craig: you know? It does, but, and that’s another thing that bothered me and I wonder what it’s like in the book, because there’s a point in the movie, and I don’t remember when it is, it’s when the, the main guy, Boone, has already, I think, gotten killed and then resurrected by the things in Midian.

So now he’s night breed two or whatever, and then his girlfriend goes there to find him and she like rescues a weird like elf coyote, and then. When she gets it into the shade, it turns into a girl and the girl’s mom’s like, oh yeah, she likes to play in the sun, but she doesn’t realize it’s gonna turn her into an elf, coyote or whatever, and quote from the movie.

No, 

Todd: I’m just kidding. 

Craig: I, gosh, I don’t even remember I got all caught up with the elf coyote ’cause it was so important. But like, it doesn’t, well it, it, it just seems so, I don’t know. Like I, I feel like I know, it seems so small. I need a limited. Series or Yes. You know, like I, I’m not getting enough of who these people are or what they’re supposed to be, because what we’re supposed to, I think, ultimately believe is that these are just different beings and just they just wanna be left alone.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: They just wanna exist. Just leave them alone. 

Todd: Be left alone. They’re like the outcast of society. And there’s this large, strange, unexplained entity named Luc, not Lucifer, what was it? 

Craig: Bath, BAME. Bath. 

Todd: May Bath, ofme. It was like bathe, but with a, if you pronounce it French, I guess Bath Ofme, which more or less looks like a statue in the, in the center of the city who has created this quote unquote city as their refuge and helped keep it hidden.

But it doesn’t feel like a city, like it doesn’t feel like they have a society down there. I mean, if they do, we don’t see them like interacting with each other, eating, playing, uh, doing things. We just see them sitting around in rooms, snarling and, yeah, being weird, you know? Yeah, that’s what I was 

Craig: trying to get at, because the weird coyote.

Things Mom. Rachel is like with a night 

Clip: breed. The last survivors of the great tribes, okay? Tribes of what we are shapeshifters freaks remains of races that your tribe have almost driven to extinction. So you’re not immortal far from it. The sun can kill some of us, like Babet. Some of us can be shot down, others can survive that because they’ve gone beyond death.

This is too weird to be able to fly, to be smoke or a wolf to know the night and live in it forever. That’s not so bad. 

Craig: You know? We’re all happy here. Like the things that you envy we can do. So like it. It sounds like we should be envious of. What they have, but it looks like a terrible hellscape. 

Todd: It looks like a terrible place to be.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. It’s just, it’s just these horribly deformed, humanoid type people. Huddling in corners by themselves. By torch light. Yeah. In 

Todd: dirt 

Craig: holes in the wall with elaborate. Yeah. I do not envy this like, like I, it’s cool that you can turn into smoke and hypnotize people with your titties, but I do not wanna live in this.

Horrible place where big gross guys have like weird telescopic snakes that come outta their gut. Yeah, it’s true. It does not look like a pleasant place to be. And and I get it, like Clive Barker is dark and I love that about him. Yeah. I, I love that he’s dark and he’s into all this s and m stuff and I really enjoy reading his stuff.

I like watching his movies, but I just couldn’t, this was weird. You’re supposed to, you are supposed to have empathy for the night breed, right? You’re supposed to root for them. They are the heroes of the movie and. To be fair. Yeah. The people in the movie are horrible. 

Todd: All the people, almost all of them, except for the guardian guy, the classic old man who has the gas station slash the gas station guy, taco shop, curio shop or whatever.

I mean, there are 

Craig: fine people in the movie there and you know, the, the main guy’s fine. His girlfriend’s fine. She makes a friend at a bar who is fine. But anybody who is like representative of authority 

Todd: yeah. Is. Horrible. The sheriff’s an asshole. The the detective. Oh, well, the detective’s more confused than anything, but he goes, the psychiatrist 

Craig: is terrible.

Yeah, police are terrible. Eventually the psychiatrist convinces the horrible sheriff to put together a redneck militia. Yes. 

Todd: Which he has on hand. Apparently. They have logos and hats. It’s insane and everything. Yeah, and he’s very proud of it. 

Craig: They put together a redneck militia and then. The police go to, I guess, what is their like bunker?

Yes. Where they have 

Todd: like machine 

Craig: guns 

Todd: drawn out explanation. This is 

Craig: insane. 

Todd: This is typical horror movie. This I found. Okay, I get what he’s doing. So the people are worse than the animal, than the creatures and all that. But none of this is really helped by the supposed motivations of the psychiatrist and all this, how this all comes together.

Because ultimately, I guess the psychiatrist’s motivation, I think Decker, that’s his name. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Is for Boone to lead him to Midian, right? Yeah. So that he can continue the cleansing or whatever that he’s doing. Yeah. But it turns out Midian’s really just down the road and it’s just in this rather large and obvious cemetery.

That is right along the highway that if you just walk in there and stumble around for 10 minutes, you’re bound to run into one of these creatures because they’re out wandering around, approaching people who 

Craig: come If you go there at night, wow. They pretty much, they pretty much stay inside during the day, except for the little girl 

Todd: turning into a dog turns right out in the open.

He turns the weird coyote. You know? I mean like, and even then, if you’re all curious or exploratory in this graveyard, all you gotta do is open the doors to this mausoleum or whatever. That’s, it’s like swinging doors on this mausoleum walk inside three steps, and there’s a staircase that leads right down into their layer.

I mean, it’s not, yeah, it’s not magically hidden. I didn’t get the sense that Bafa Ma did a great job keeping them hidden and protected, let alone that the sheriff. Who Midian is within his jurisdiction, apparently didn’t know weird shit was happening there. Or they keep to 

Craig: themselves, 

Todd: oh, come on. When our main character gets there at night, he’s instantly like accosted by.

He’s grieving. He’s instantly 

Craig: accosted. He shows up during, he shows up during the day and then sleeps there, falls asleep. Inexplicably decides to take a nap. Yeah. Wakes up. Well, and then the dreadlocks guy gets after him with his buddy. I, I, yeah. I called him. Dreadlocks Darth Mall. ’cause that’s what he looked like.

Um, but, but that’s not what wakes him up first. Uh, my favorite part of this movie, and I’m, I may need to ask questions about this, but there’s just, there’s just one little twink guy Oh, who’s just a normal, mostly naked little twink guy, and he has a little Boston Terrier. And my soul remaining dog is a little Boston Terrier, and she is my life.

Aw. So when he inexplicably like, he’s like, oh my God, I have to find this place. I have to find it. I have to find it. I have to find it. And then he finds it and he’s like, you know what? I think I need a nap. He just sits down and goes to sleep. But he wakes up to this little Boston Terrier licking his face, and it’s so cute, and then it runs away, and then it’s little twink owner grabs it.

Now, this little guy, I don’t remember what his name is, they all have weird names, but this little guy, I guess you don’t have to look like a monster to be night breed because Boone becomes night breed, but. He o, he looks normal most of the time. Like he kinda like monsters out the way that vampires vamp out on Buffy?

Yeah, like 

Todd: like on cue, like whatever he wants to, he can do that. Yeah. So I don’t know. And does that give him pow, did that make him stronger? I guess I never really got what it did besides like put these weird tattoo marks on his face. 

Craig: This is why I think that it would be so much better as a book, because I just don’t understand like, okay, ultimately it turns out that there’s some prophecy that like he’s supposed to be their savior or something.

And I guess some of them know that. And that’s the only reason to me. Why wouldn’t they just kill him? He’s annoying. Like he does nothing but bring them trouble. Like True. Just, just eat him. 

Todd: Yeah. Well that’s how he becomes night breed, right? Is ’cause the dreadlocks guy bites him. Yeah, he’s 

Craig: like, he’s 

Todd: meat.

Clip: He’s meat. I, I’ve been 

Todd: chases him for a while, which 

Craig: we learn later in one of the cuts was prophesized 

Todd: or whatever. Right. Did he know that he was fulfilling a prophecy when he bit him or did he just not check the paintings? 

Craig: A according to one of the cuts, I don’t remember which one because he shows, he’s the one who shows them.

Yeah, there’s big exposition later. God. It’s the reason that I’m shaking my head, which obviously y’all can’t see, but the reason that I’m shaking my head is because it’s all explained later in exposition that I don’t. Care about, like by them. It comes so late. Yeah. Like literally in the last 10 minutes of the movie, dreadlock Darth Mall explains this to Boone’s girlfriend, like, oh, it’s a big prophecy.

And look, here’s all of these like cave paintings that show it. And it shows me biting him. And I knew that I had to, and he’s mine or something like, 

Todd: yeah, really? I think it was mostly the director’s cut because the theatrical cut, I don’t remember ever seeing any of that, or if I did, it was very, very short.

And by the way, those cave paintings, they were painted by like, I mean, Barker brought all the talent in for this. He brought in Danny Elman to do the score, which is fantastic. And this was. Just off of Batman. I think he had just done Batman before this and was before he had done like every score for every other movie.

And then the guy who did those cave paintings, which apparently was a massive set and a massive ordeal for him to do these paintings, was the dude who, um, oh gosh, I wish I had his name on hand. But, uh, he did the matte paintings and stuff for Star Wars. Like, he was very big in set design and, and matte paintings and, and art direction and all that stuff.

Craig: There were some really amazing matte painting sets for this movie too. Oh yeah, they looked really cool. There are, you know, like. I, I’ve only seen this movie twice now in the last four days, but I know that there are big fans of it and if you are a big fan, there are some really cool things on YouTube where they really get into the nitty gritty Oh yeah.

Trying to dissect stuff. And I, I watched a couple of them, like I, I watched a whole thing about who the different monsters are and not only how they feature in this movie, but then there are comics and, and other stuff that, you know, continue the story. It is very interesting. So if you’re a fan of the movie and you haven’t seen that stuff, I very much recommend it.

’cause there’s some cool stuff out there to read. I don’t know. I, I, I think that if I had seen it, I don’t know. I can’t believe that we haven’t seen it. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: I won’t speak for you. I feel like I missed the boat. I just couldn’t get into it. Watching both and. Honestly, watching the directors cut first and then watching the theatrical cut, the stuff that they cut, I didn’t think was really that important.

I looked it up. He’s figure in theology in a, a bunch of different theologies and he represents different things and whatever, but I, I looked it up and it, it, it’s a thing, but he’s basically just. A statue. Yeah. That kind of talks at the end, and you see it in both cuts. You see more of him in the theatrical cut, or excuse me?

No, the director’s cut, 

Todd: but you, you don’t learn more about it. No, it’s true. But there’s something about just seeing more of everything that makes it a little more fluid. I have to disagree with you. I thought the theatrical cut was so chopped up that it was throwing things at me so fast and so furiously and everything it’s throwing at me is just different.

You know, it’s just wacky character after wacky character after wacky character. They’re coming in and out and in and out. In the meantime, it feels like it’s trying to cram this plot into an hour and a half at such a fast pace and such lightning speed that I didn’t really feel like I had to handle on much of anything that was, that was happening.

I mean, I got the general gist, but all the finer details and none of my questions got answered, and I think even just giving my brain a little more time to digest and make connections and think about what I was seeing was helpful. Even just seeing more of Baff ame and having that break for my brain was kind of nice and reinforced.

Okay, this guy really is. Important. It’s not just this dude thrown in here. There were just things that I thought were better fleshed out in the director’s cut that I did not get in the theatrical cut, and I was glad for it. But there were still, it’s still so loose. There’s still so many Yes questions and, and, and between the two, like, I still don’t get, the priest was angry about bringing Decker into their world at first.

Right. He says like, you’ve endangered our world because of Decker. Yeah. And Decker can lead our enemies here. It just feels like anyone could go there. It is not hard to find this place. The whole way that, that Boone finds it in the first place is that he’s sent briefly to like the loony bin. I guess he’s in a hospital 

Craig: because he gets hit by a truck because his psych.

Psychiatrist gave him 

Todd: drugs, LSD or something, which was not clear to me in the theatrical, but what made a lot more sense in the director’s cut, like there was a scene or two in there. I was like, 

Craig: oh, I get it. It was the drugs that he gave him. This is the thing that I think is emblematic of my problem with the movie.

So he’s in the hospital, he’s been whacked out on drugs, but apparently he wakes up and he’s fine and the first thing he hears is this. Person saying, take me to Midian. Take me to Midian. And he finds this guy, this crazy guy who’s like, oh, I wanna go to Midian. Midian’s this place. And he’s like, what do you know about Midian?

And they talk for a second. 

Clip: They won’t come money you here. They won’t show themselves to the likes of you. What did you just say? What did you just say? You said Midian, did I? Maybe. What do you know about it? It’s where the monsters go. It takes away the pig. 

Craig: And then he’s like, yeah, I’ll take you there. And the guy’s like, oh, you’ve been sent here.

You’re testing me. And eventually there’s a big gory scene where this crazy guy rips off his scalp. Then the movie goes on for another 20 minutes. And Boone dies. He gets shot by police because the, his doctor, his psychiatrist, convinces the police to shoot him or whatever, and then it immediately cuts to a scene where the guy who scalped himself in the hospital is ushering Boone into.

The underground of Midian. It seems like there should have been four other scenes before this. Yeah, I have no idea. I had and have no idea how Narciss, that’s the scalp guy ended up there. Yeah, and I think it was in the extended cut. He comes in and, oh God, what’s his name? The guy who plays Pinhead? Doug Bradley.

Doug Bradley who is like the priest 

Todd: figure type guy. 

Craig: I guess they bring him into this priest figure. Doug Bradley and Doug Bradley is like, have you studied all of the laws of Midian? And Boone is like, yeah, I’ve been studying them for a while. So like what? I feel like we missed a whole thing. 

Todd: Yeah. And also, so was Narcis actually a denizen of Midian that was just.

Placed there? No. Did he get recruit somewhere in the middle of this? He somehow knew about it and then he had, he pointed out the window. It was like, it’s over there. And that was all the information to Boo needed to get there? No, he gave street, 

Craig: no, he gave street by street directions. That was hilarious.

He was like, then you turn left on Maine 

Todd: and then go down the highway nine, take your third exit past the Buckys, you know, continue. Yeah, 

Craig: it was hilarious. Street by street. And then, okay, so then Boone left him and took his directions and he stayed back and the psychiatrist came and questioned him and apparently got the directions out of him too before he died.

Because then later, then later. The psychiatrist shows up in Midian and Boone has him like cornered or something, but then nurses comes out of nowhere and is like, you can kill him, but I want his balls. And, and he says like, do you remember me? You got all your answers out of me when I was at my weakest.

So like, we’re, we’re just, I guess he 

Todd: was a former patient of the psychiatrist? 

Craig: No, the psychiatrist just went in like, oh, after he had already pulled it. Don’t you remember that? Yes. He had a, he said something like, he said, I need privacy. I can talk to him and I can probably get things out of him, but I’ll have to do it in private.

Todd: That’s right. That’s right. I still don’t know what was in his suitcase, was it? Was it his knives and his hat? 

Craig: It was all of his knives and his mask, and he’s been killing people and he’s been setting Boone up. All you know, he’s been making it seem like Boone’s been the one. He’s been framing Boone for doing all these things, and then Boone becomes night breed.

But then he comes back and then the psychiatrist is obsessed with the night breed because apparently the reason that he’s doing all this is because he’s cleansing the earth of bad people or something. I don’t know. He’s just a psychopath. But because he brings all this attention and this redneck militia to Midian, then Midian ends up getting blown up and there’s a great scene where some redneck drives his truck into the cemetery and it.

Falls down through the stories and stories of underground world, of Midian. All of that looks great. I like the setup. I just, the execution, just Houston is bad. Certain things, you know, we talked about how all of those. You, you see all of these quote unquote freaks or monsters from Midian, but it’s just the camera just leers at them for a second and then it cuts to a different scene as though you’re taking prom pictures of Yeah.

Todd: These freaks or something. Right. Right. It’s like a little tour. Yeah. You know? But that’s it. And so again, from a technical perspective, it’s all very good. Like the filmmaking is good. Right. The effects are incredible. Yes. This looks like and feels like an expensive movie without seams. It’s great. The acting is actually quite good.

Mm-hmm. The performance is, there’s dance in here. Even her singing is good. 

Craig: Yeah. Like, you know, the girlfriend singing, she sang that life. Right. Catchy song, Jean Make Get Angry. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s an earworm. It’s the 

Todd: It is, but it’s the story that is just executed poorly. There’s just, yeah. Too much.

In here. Too much is not explained and too much. That quite frankly doesn’t make sense. I don’t buy that. This psychiatrist can do all this shit. I don’t buy that. This psychiatrist even needs to set this guy up, let alone why he got fixated on this guy when he started talking about Midian, which presumably he didn’t know about before.

But if he did know about it before, that would be good information to know. Like, is this like a local legend? Is it something other people are searching for? It doesn’t help that. It really does feel like it’s just down the street and quite easy to find, and once you find that cemetery, there’s no secret code.

There’s no like mystical portal you have to go through. No, you just walk in through a door that just seems like it’s always open. Walk down a staircase. It’s completely unguarded. I don’t even understand how his girlfriend finds a place like she goes into a bar. Nearby and she meets up with that.

Somebody tells her, I don’t remember. Yeah. But then if, if it’s that well known, then it’s not really like his journey was kind of meaningless. You know? If kind of more or less, several random strangers, if you talk to the right person, can tell you where Ian is. Right. Then this whole journey of this guy learning these clues and stuff, and leading Decker there, it’s kind of flat.

This could have happened any other way. 

Craig: I think that’s where the movie. Fails, there’s rich material to mine from there. Like I can believe that the gas station guy has known about these Oh yeah. Things or whatever for a long time. And he even says like, I wanted to be one of them, but they rejected me.

That’s interesting. Yeah. The bartender in the bar kind of seems to know something. The people around there, the the woman that the girlfriend. Lori meets in the bar there, there’s stuff to mine from here. Yeah. It’s just in an hour and a half or two hours, it’s just too much. You just, you can’t establish enough.

I mean, even the, the night breed themself. That is fascinating. 

Todd: Yeah. There’s like a story behind every one of these people probably. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. And I’ve heard people online refer to it as like X-Men. I mean, that’s what they are basically. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there’s a bird lady who’s, you know, like sexy and can lure men in, but then she can also like shoot, shoot spikes, poison quills out and Yeah.

You know, the, the, the, it’s great designs. Like, I love the moon face, man, God, 

Todd: the woman. With the child who you said turns into smoke and then has the hypnotic boobs, uhhuh, you don’t even get that in the theatrical cut. Oh. At least in the director’s cut. You see her come in and do all that magic. Without that, you don’t actually get a sense that each of them do have a bit of a superpower to them, but like you said, it’s like, here it is, and that’s it.

They don’t band together and, and 

Craig: you don’t get enough of it. And I, I, I think that where, where the two versions differ the most is in 

Todd: the. End real quick. Can we talk about what leads up to the end? ’cause this is another one of my big beefs with the movie. Yeah. There’s a grand fight scene. It is long in that theatrical cut.

It’s huge. It’s even longer in the director’s cut where like you said, the sheriff and his redneck militia come in at the same time that the detective and the people that are have gone ahead are already there discovering things on their own at the same time that his Boone’s girlfriend has been there and has taken her tour of the night breed.

Her guided tour. Yeah. Where they’re only so happy to do that for her, for reasons I’m not quite sure. And then he’s going back to take care of her and Decker is with the cops and he’s doing his own thing, suddenly dressing up as the killer and he’s killing everybody. So there’s a lot of elements happening here.

This is a big, jumbled message. Should be this really big epic battle. And in a sense it is because there is a lot of shit happening. But like you said earlier about. How it feels like a little prom picture moment each time. I didn’t get a sense of this grand epic battle because everything was in these short snapshots.

It’s like, okay, here’s a guy who wanders into a scene with a shotgun. He gets approached by one of these creatures and they do this thing and the creature best him, or he best the creature. And then there’s another snapshot just like that. Everyone’s just running loose and there’s just all these individual scenes of these things happening.

I didn’t get a sense of like, who’s winning? Is anybody helping someone else? Are they all just running scared? We’re supposed to get this sense that Boone is bringing them together for this epic fight. Like he’s, he’s telling them like, you guys need to defend yourself. Now is the time that you need to learn that you have to fight back.

Craig: Yeah. And I don’t, 

Todd: and they all kind of are individually, but there’s no feel like, like they’re marching into this great battle against these other groups that’s quite organized. Not really. They’re all running around with there shotguns doing random shit too. Like I got bored and I shouldn’t have been, but I got bored.

Halfway through this battle scene 

Craig: in the extended cut. It’s kind of explained that all of this was destined to happen, but ultimately in, in, in both cuts, it feels like Boone’s just an asshole. They should have just killed him. 

Todd: They would’ve been better off. They were fine. They were fine Before they brought this to them.

Craig: Yeah, they were fine. They were just living in their space. Nobody was fathering them. Everything was cool. And now 

Todd: their home is destroyed. 

Craig: Yeah. That, that little twink was just living there with his little dog and everything was fine. And now he’s all burned up and a bunch of other people are dead and his dog’s dead.

They had this whole like society, his dog is not dead. That dog is fired. Oh. Is not die. I, in my mind it’s fine. Oh, gotcha. Okay. 

Todd: It’s fine. Fair enough. 

Craig: But, uh, like the big difference to me was in the end, all of these folks, you know, the night breed in the extended cut, they end up in a barn. They’re just like waiting in a, I mean, it’s in both cuts, but they’re in a barn.

And the little girl, the weird aie coyote girl is like, uh, what’s gonna happen now? And her mom, the smoke tits lady is like, we are gonna, we’re gonna wait until our savior comes. Like, I don’t think she says savior, but that’s basically what she says. And, and like Boone is gonna lead them to somewhere else.

I think in both cuts, Boone faces BME in the end and BME is like, you brought this destruction, so you must find me and rebuild, like. 

Todd: Okay. Yeah. Great prophecy. 

Craig: Yeah. This 

Todd: guy’s gonna come and destroy their home and force them to go on somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. Oh boy. 

Craig: Gosh, I don’t know. There are differences, I think in the theatrical cut.

His friend is alive. Yes. The scalped guy, I think, doesn’t die. He dies in the extended cut. I don’t think he dies in the theatrical cut. You will notice substantial differences in the ending. Yeah. And, and in the ex. Extended cut. I think Boone and his girlfriend get out, but she, and he’s like, I have to go be their savior.

And she’s like, take me with you. And he is like, no. And she’s like, okay, fine. Bye then. And then she stabs herself and forces him to like turn her into night breed. And that’s supposed to be romantic or something. And then that’s how it ends. That’s supposed to 

Todd: be 

Craig: romantic and, and then I think in the theatrical cut, that’s not a thing.

I don’t even remember what happens with the two of them at the end. What I remember is that the bad guy sack face guy. Gets like crucified, but brought back to life. Like the priest? Yeah, by the priest too. The weird priest who splashed the boiling God water on his face. I don’t know, 

Todd: in his chest by the way, reached into his chest and poured it on his heart or something.

I don’t 

Craig: know. Something he brings sack face back to life. Like maybe there’s gonna be a sequel. Oh no. The endings are. Significantly different and worth watching. Like if, if you’re gonna watch either of these, watch either one, it doesn’t matter, you know? No. Whichever one you’re more interested in. Watch 

Todd: director’s, cut, watch director’s, cut 

Craig: fine, whatever.

But watch the ending of. Because they’re substantially different. Yeah. Yeah. And, and interesting. I I, 

Todd: I can see why people like this movie. I can’t, I can see why people got behind it. I think it’s one of those fanboy type things where you’re entranced by the idea. You’re entranced by, like you said, the promise of this mythology.

That’s just not quite well realized yet. And. You like these individual characters. You like these creatures. Yeah. You’re like a fantasy nut, you know? I get that. Sure, sure. I liked a lot of these characters and these creatures and me too. Probably like to see more of them. And I like, just like you said, this idea, but I, I just, after sitting through it, especially twice, I don’t really have much interest in diving back into that world because it doesn’t feel like there’s enough there.

Not here. A, a series would be good. A like a limited series. And there was supposed to be one, apparently in 2014 they were talking about it and it was gonna happen, and then it kind of fell through. But I think more recently it’s been picked up again and then maybe is still in development. 

Craig: I don’t know. I, I mean there, there’s definitely, again, I’m a big Clive Barker.

Fan, he’s good at world building and I think that there is structure for Good world building here. It’s just not realized well in this movie. I was surprised to see that this came out after like the first two hell raisers. I think both the first two hell raisers are better than this movie. And if I had, of course, this isn’t how it worked out, but if I had seen Hellraiser one and Hellraiser two and then this movie, I.

What is this? The same guy like, it just doesn’t come together for me for some reason. It just, I don’t know why. It just doesn’t, it’s, 

Todd: it’s too ambitious. 

Craig: Maybe. Maybe it’s too ambitious there. You know, like the moon face guy I really liked, I would’ve liked to have seen more of, oh yeah. He kind of dropped out.

I know. Even Dreadlock Darth Mall guy, like I would’ve liked to have seen more about them. I, I, I think that if I had been more invested in this mythos in this world than I could have gotten more on board with it. But there just wasn’t a 90 minute or a two hour movie just wasn’t enough to establish it for me.

And, and the stuff that I think was meant to be establishing like all of those shots in Midian of the different freaks and creatures, which. In a snapshot are interesting on their own, but when all you get are snapshots, it’s just really, yeah. It, it just didn’t, it 

Todd: just didn’t work for me. It doesn’t paint a good wider picture really.

Yeah. In that way. And I have to believe that if he had attempted this project now in the age of streaming, this would’ve a hundred percent right off the bat, been posed as a series and probably would’ve been able to take it. It would’ve taken us time with it. We’ve now established that people nowadays do have the patience for a good story.

Well told over a long episodic Yeah. Thing at this time. You know, it’s all movies. It’s just movie, movie, movie, movie, movie. You’re gonna do something big. It’s gotta be a movie. TV series are not known yet for being able to, with very few exceptions when Right. That’s like the realm of drama. Nobody imagined you could build a very long going story at a TV series.

It would just be really, really hard to do. But, uh, nowadays this is totally fitting for that kind of thing. Back then, trying to cram this all into a movie or even a trilogy, he swung for the fences, I think, and just came up short, not in the technical area. It’s a gorgeous film. I. It’s really well made.

Just the story’s just hard to sit through. 

Craig: Well, I also feel bad and I feel like I should apologize because I’m sure that there are people who saw this movie when it came out and it, you know, they love it and, and I don’t want to take away from that. Sure. You know, like, I, I am, I’m super glad if this is one of your favorite movies and I, oh, we piss on people’s cupcakes all the time on the show.

I know. 

Todd: It’s 

Craig: just, it just, it didn’t, you know, uh, I didn’t see it then. It didn’t hit me then. I’m just seeing it now for the first time and I may be being overly critical. It’s just a movie. There are so many things. I appreciate about it. I appreciate the visuals and the makeup and the special effects and like, there are cool things to see.

It’s worth seeing. Just as in, in terms of overall experience. It wasn’t for me, but I can see the comments 

Todd: now. You gotta see the cabal cut, man. 

Craig: I know the three hour and 15 minute cut. Save your 

Todd: judgment for the cabal cut. It’ll all make sense then, and you’ll 

Craig: love it. I’m gonna put that on in the background at some point.

For sure. 

Todd: Well, we do have to thank the patrons for finally bringing us to this movie that, as you said, we should have seen a long time ago. Absolutely. Especially Harry, thanks for, uh, putting that on the list for us. If you have strong feelings about this movie, definitely let us know. I would love to have a conversation about this.

Maybe you guys could even explain some of these things to us that maybe are just going right over our head. You can just find us online, chainsaw horror.com. Google two guys in a chainsaw, find our Facebook page. Our Instagram, wherever you find us, please reach out. You can also find our patreon.com/chainsaw podcast.

Consider paying five bucks a month, get even more stuff that we put out. Mini sos. So we got our book club going. We have read some Clive Barker in our book club, and I guarantee you we’ll probably read you reading more, even if you were curious about it, join the conversation. We have a Zoom meeting every week.

We also have a newsletter that you can join where we put out the the news on a mostly weekly basis, as well as let you know what we’ve got coming up, both with the Patreon and with our show. Until next time, I am Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Join us in this special episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw where we pay tribute to the talented Lar Park Lincoln, the star of ‘Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood’.

We’ve been eager to cover this film for months, and it’s finally here just after our last tribute episode. We delve into the behind-the-scenes stories, the challenges faced by the production team, the unique aspects of this installment, and why we think this is one of the best entries in the franchise.

Tune in to hear our thoughts, some fun trivia, and our heartfelt remembrance of Lar Park Lincoln’s contributions to the horror genre. Don’t miss this engaging and nostalgic discussion!

Episode #447, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, here we are fresh on the heels of another tribute episode. We’re doing another tribute episode this week. This one we’ve wanted to do for a couple months now. La Park Lincoln, the, uh, star of Friday, the 13th, part seven, the New Blood. Also one of our favorites, house two she was in.

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: we’ve already done on this. I like the idea that we could do another Friday, the 13th episode because Me Too, we don’t have. Enough excuses to dip into this, this series. 

Craig: This is the best one. Yeah

Todd: You like this one? Huh? 

Craig: Craig is dying behind you. Are they all right? There’s a frog. I think it’s the sound of a frog.

Todd: That’s hilarious. It sounded like someone was dying. It’s like this. We, we were freaking out about it the other day. I’m in a bungalow in Cambodia right now in CM Reap. We’re gonna be visiting Ancor Watt tomorrow and a whole bunch of temples including the Tomb Raider temple that was featured in the Laura Croft Tomb Raider movie a while ago.

It’s gonna be a busy day for us, and I’m here with the family and I’m awesome. We’re recording in the bathroom, so you’re gonna hear frogs. Just bear with me, please. It’s all good. But yeah, it, I do feel like I’m in the Friday, the 13th movie, to be honest. Now that you think about it, I’m in a bungalow that’s on stilts, but it’s in a nice little resort, but it, it feels very summer, campy.

It’s, it’s quite nice. So I’m in the spirit to talk about this movie because you know how I feel. About Friday, the 13th series. Yeah. I wanna like it so bad and I actually even every now and then think, you know, I think I’m in the mood. I’m gonna put on a Friday, the Friday the 13th movie, one of ’em, and then I’ll kind of get into it and I’ll get maybe about.

Halfway through it and I’ll be like, oh, now I know why. I don’t really care for these movies. They’re all so the same. Mm-hmm. And some of them are really pretty terrible. If I remember correctly, the one that was two before this, so this is part seven. Yeah, six five. So part five when I was going through one Halloween and I was like, I’m gonna just gonna binge the series.

I’m gonna like watch one a night. I think I got as far as eight and I was like, I can’t even do this anymore. And I think it was part five that started to turn me part five was so weird. It just felt strange. Like it was shot on video. Everything about it was just a little off. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Part five? 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Gosh, I, I get confused as to how many there are, but there was one, it was probably five, I don’t remember, but there was one that went really goofy. Yeah. Like silly, silly, silly characters. I mean, it wasn’t straight up comedy or anything, but. The characters were silly. Yeah, it’s, I don’t know.

Todd: That was it. 

Craig: I get what you’re saying.

Todd: Well, my understanding is that nobody liked it. The studio kind of hated it and, and the producer hated it. Sean Cunningham, whatever, and Frank Man Mancuso Jr. Who was kind of the guy who’s been, you know, spearheading this whole franchise. Undercover, you know, ’cause they do these like non-union pictures.

The paramount ends up distributing all of it feels very sleazy when you get back into the backstory behind these movies. And if you read Camp Crystal Lake Memories, it is eyeopening how these things came into being. It is utterly fascinating. There were drugs on the set all the time and bad conditions and.

It really just depended on who the director was at the time. And these were all shot on the cheap, but then like released by a big studio in the theater, so, so you know, it’s just weird. The whole series is even weirder when you get into the backstory. The reason I’m going into that is because I think this movie and the one just before it were really their attempt.

To put a little bit more money into this because Freddy was eating their lunch. Yeah, the, I think the, the one before this didn’t do quite as well as they thought, but it still did make money, so they just felt forced to make another one, and they pumped even more money into this one, thinking that if we get a good director behind it, if we put a bigger budget into it.

And a novel and interesting script. Then maybe we can do the Freddie thing. They were, I think they were also kind of waiting around too, right? Hoping that new line would agree to loan them Freddie so that they could come together on a Freddie versus Jason, but that never. Materialized at that time, and so they just kind of made this one, and I don’t know, man, I, I think it’s one of the better ones.

I, I agree with you that you say it’s your favorite. You said Jason X was your favorite. I know. So now you’re changing, you gotta explain that. What’s with the change of gears, I. 

Craig: Gosh, there, there, I mean, there’s so much, and you’re right. You should check out that book, crystal Lake Memories, is that what it’s called?

Yeah. Yeah. You should check out that book. I haven’t read the book, but I’ve watched the documentary and I rewatched the segment of the documentary that it was about this one, but I. Not the rest of it. ’cause it’s like, I don’t know, five hours long or something. Yeah. And, and it’s great. You, you should watch it.

It’s, it’s fantastic. But yeah, I mean, we talk about these things all the time, but it was an entirely different culture. The reason that this franchise could continue was because there were only a couple of lanes. You could see things in the theater. Or you could see things that went direct to video or you could see things that aired on television.

Those were the three outlets. Yeah. Now there are a bazillion gajillion outlets. You can watch things everywhere. So I don’t think that Jason would’ve survived. No. In. Our time today. Absolutely not. He’s, he’s not interesting enough. No. At the time we were excited to see Jason again. Yay. It’s Jason. It’s somebody we know.

He is doing exactly what we thought he would do. Yeah. And then eventually, I don’t think that they were wrong for leaning into the ridiculous humor of it. Like it turned into, I think in four, like you said, kind of, oh, we’re honky backwoods diner folk, and let’s have Jason come and slash us up. That’s funny.

Okay. Whatever. But. I think it was four that introduced Tommy Jarvis. Yeah. And it was supposed to be the last one. Well, and then there was another one and that was Cory Feldman, I think the original Tommy Jarvis. Yes. And then there was another one where it wasn’t even Jason at all. It was like an imposter, like a copycat killer 

Todd: That was five.

Yeah. With all the kids at a halfway house or something for a bunch of weird kids. Right. 

Craig: I don’t even 

Todd: remember. But then they, that’s one that feels off. Yeah, part five. 

Craig: I, I remember nothing about that one. Like, I don’t, maybe I’ve protested it. I remember too much 

Todd: about it. It really made it a, a, a strong negative impression on me because I can’t explain it.

And maybe we, we should maybe stop talking about it. Maybe we should just do it. At some point because it just felt sleazy to me and I can’t explain why. It’s not like there was a whole bunch of sex in it. I don’t think there was just something about it that felt sleazy. 

Craig: I don’t know. I almost feel like when they play marathons of these movies, they don’t even play that one.

Like I feel like I’ve never seen it. I don’t 

Todd: even know what happens in that one. I remember when six came out. Because when six came out, it was right before this. It was Jason Lives, and I remember there being a huge marketing push behind it when I was a kid, I think it was around the same time the Dream Master was coming out, so it was like.

The Dream Master and Jason lives and Jason lives. Doesn’t electricity like hit his grave? ’cause Tommy Jarvis tries to dig him up. 

Craig: Yes, yes. They bring Tommy Jarvis back as an adult and he is like, I have to go to Jason’s grave. Why? I don’t know. Make sure he’s there. Right. And then he shove like a giant.

Lightning rod in him. And then Jason gets struck by lightning and it’s not even off topic that we’re talking about all of this because we see all of this in the first, yes. Three minutes of this movie. It catches us up like it gives us an entire catch up narrated by crazy Ralph Walt. Gorney was the actor who played crazy Ralph in the first couple of movies at least.

And I love the crazy Ralph character, but he tells us all through this, and I feel like the whole point of doing this is to remind us that at one point Jason was a. Kid and a guy that went around killing people. But just to remind you, at this point, he’s an undead. Zombie. Yeah. 

Todd: Don’t forget about that.

That’s what six did. Six made him me. Undead. Zombie. That was the big. They were like, all right, we’re just gonna have to like make him an unstoppable, supernatural creature because we can’t go on futzing around trying to figure out ways of keeping the franchise going. I think at one point in the franchise, they were even considering doing what John Carpenter wanted to do with Halloween, where they were just gonna make like Friday the 13th was gonna just be the title.

They were just gonna do different movies that didn’t necessarily focus on Jason or even a killer. It was just like a twilight zombie type. Well, they did a series, they did a TV series that was Oh, yeah. They, they did that. But I mean, they were, they had that idea for the movies at one point and because they were just like, we can’t keep doing this because, uh, part five was just.

You’re so weird. You can keep doing it. 

Craig: Yep. Can keep 

Todd: doing it. I’m so mad. Once 

Craig: you make him an 

Todd: undead 

Craig: zombie, you can. Yeah. How, how are you going to make 12? Friday the 13th movies come the fuck on. You guys figure this shit out. Like there has to be a Friday the 13th, 13. Like, come on, what is wrong with you?

Come on. 

Todd: Oh God. Well here we are, part seven, the New Blood. John Buckler, who we just finished talking about, directed it. 

Craig: I couldn’t believe again that he was the same guy who directed Troll one of my favorite movies. See you guys. I was right. I.

Todd: Yeah. You still haven’t explained why you like this one. That was my original question. Why did you suddenly and so quickly? ’cause it has not been that long ago. We talked about JX. Yeah. And you insisted. Oh no, that’s the best 

Craig: one. The reason that I like JX was because it took it somewhere else like. Yes, please.

Let’s go somewhere else. Let’s stay with Jason, but let’s go somewhere else. That’s great. This one does the same thing and I think it does it better. The other one was just fresh in my mind. You know, these folks, I, I watched all this stuff, but. Full disclosure, we were supposed to record this a week ago, so it’s been a week since I’ve done my research, and it may be a little fuzzy, but the director or or writer or whoever, let’s do Carrie versus Jason.

Yes. Yeah. How? Let’s do that. That sounds fantastic. It does. And that’s what it is. And it picks up right where the last one kind of leaves off, like in the last one, Tommy Jarvis like puts a bunch of chains around Jason and chains him to a big boulder and sinks him to the bottom of Crystal Lake, and he’s just down there like, Ugh, that’s so creepy.

Like, yeah, I like to swim in lakes. I don’t wanna just. Bump into rush up against Jason. 

Todd: He’s not down there that deep is he? He doesn’t Sure Ms. Monkey’s down there that deep. 

Craig: Right. Okay. And so then in this movie, we’re introduced to this young girl. Her parents are fighting. They’re in a cabin at the lake, that same cabin as her parents are fighting.

She runs down and is so angry, I guess, that her telekinesis. Brings Jason back to life. I don’t even remember how this happens. Yeah, it’s just, um, I’m still not, I’m still not answering the question. Not yet. I I’m gonna try to, I’m gonna try to answer it quickly, but I, I do wanna talk about the movie. The reason I like it is because I think there are, there’s a litany of reasons.

It goes in a somewhat different direction that I really enjoy and I think plays out really well. And I wish that they had continued further into the franchise in some way. This idea, it, it, it is like Dream Warriors. It’s, it’s giving these kids an. Some advantage that they’ve never had before. Yeah, and I appreciate that.

I think that it’s very well acted and I wanna talk about Lar Park. Lar Park Lincoln. It’s Kane Hotter who I think is the best, Jason. And I think that the, that this is his best performance is Jason. This is the Friday of the 13th movie that Jason is in the most. Okay. That’s it. That’s 

Todd: my list. Especially the end.

I mean, the whole finale sequence is the best I have to admit. And you see his face eventually? Yep. Maybe some people don’t actually like that. I think that was controversial at the studio as well. Like when they were like, wait a minute, maybe we want to, you know, you take away a bit of the mystery when you take his mask off.

But even when his mask is on, I mean, the director had some good ideas here. You can tell he is an effects guy. They’ve got Jason, part of his mask is kind of broken and so you can see his jaw. In there. Ugh, 

Craig: I It looks so fantastic. It looks great. This is my favorite Jason. Yeah. Even better than Jason X.

Even better than Uber. Jason. Like it’s so, I have that in bold in my notes. I love that. I can see part of his jaw through the mask and that the mask. And for the most part, I mean, he is a zombie now, but for the most part, his wounds and the, the fractures and the mask are consistent with the previous movies.

Todd: It’s great. Yeah, he was real clear to make sure that was the case. Even when you take the mask off, like the, the cuts and stuff in his face are supposed to be consistent. I think his eye gets poked in one of the movies and, and he makes sure that his left eye is. Is not visible or is is, is out. Actually, Kane hotter was like, it was the worst he said, of all of the costumes.

This was the worst one because. He had to actually wear this sort of face underneath the mask. So you’ve got this like outer layer, so your vision is, is like two little tunnels. And then he only had one tunnel because he, they had to put black nylon or whatever over the other eye so you couldn’t see it.

So he’s like, he’s really, he is looking outta one eye down this very narrow tunnel while he’s performing, but, uh, gave it his all. I agree with you on the performance that he does feel. More interesting. 

Craig: Yes. 

Todd: As interesting 

Craig: as a guy can ex That’s exactly right. As interesting as he can. I, I haven’t watched the, you know, other cane hotter Friday the 13th movies, so I, I don’t have, I mean I have watched them, but not recently, so I don’t have anything to base comparison on, but I just kept, and I’m sure this is direction and cinematography too, like there are a lot of closeups on his face and he is clearly.

Aware. Yeah. And, and conscious and thinking this is, this is a, an entity that is reacting to things. I feel like in most of the movies, he’s just a hulking force. He’s not, yeah. I can see if not humanity, I can at least see consciousness. This Jason and I really, really liked it. Yeah, I really like his performance in this, so, okay, so I, I screwed it up.

The, the first scene is young. Tina and her parents are fighting and she rose out in a boat and her dad comes chasing after her and she’s like, no, I hate you. I wish you were dead. And the deck or whatever falls on him. And apparently he does die. Yeah. Right there where Jason is and 

Todd: already it’s got a higher production value than most of the previous movies.

Right. This whole deck sequence is really impressive. Yeah. Comparative, you know. To the other movies. Yeah. In fact, I almost, I thought the stuntman almost got his, I mean, that was a dangerous stunt. That whole top of that thing comes crashing down on it. Yeah, 

Craig: it’s a big doc. Yeah, a big covered doc. And it does, I, I feel like I saw La Park Lincoln say something about it, or maybe it was the younger actress that they filmed it several times.

I can’t imagine how you would reconstruct that. I, I don’t know. Anyway, so she killed her dad and now she’s coming back. To the cabin because she is under psychiatric evaluation by Bernie Terry Kaiser, Dr. Cruz, Terry Kaiser from weekend at Bernie’s and Tammy and the T-Rex. 

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Yes. 

Clip: You’re not trying, Tina.

Yes, I am. Think about it moving and make it move. I can’t. I told you. I don’t know how it happens. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t happen and you’re lying to me. You are lying because it happens when your emotions are at their peak. Come on, you’re holding back, concentrate, concentrate Dina, 

Craig: and she’s coming back.

I don’t know, like it turns out that Dr. Cruz is really just using her like. I don’t know. He wants to write a book. Basically. He’s basically Dr. Phil or any of the other unscrupulous people that you can imagine that capitalize on people’s problems, right? Um, that’s what he’s doing. But they come back and they come back, they come back to the same cabin, and it just so happens that the cabin next door is inhabited by a bevy of horny 20 year olds.

Stereotypes. 

Todd: Yes. Horny 20-year-old 

Craig: stereotypes and they are having a party and they’re, I feel like there are like 12 of them. There are so many. There’s so many. 

Todd: I don’t know who they all are. I didn’t remember their names. 

Craig: I wrote them down and I wrote down what their hairstyles were, so I could try to remember, but it doesn’t matter, you know, immediately, oh, here’s the cabin of fodder.

Like these are the 

Todd: yes, 

Craig: the kids that Jason is going to kill off, and he does. All of them.

And it’s fun. Like I, I don’t know the first night that she’s there, Tina goes out to the dock for some reason. I don’t know, like she’s mad at Dr. Cruise or something and I feel like she’s standing on the dock and it seems like she feels like she senses her dad, but it’s really Jason. Mm. And she’s like, oh, I wish you would come back to life.

Yes. So Ja. So he does. 

Todd: Yeah, that’s basically it. Now she’s great. I, I like her in this movie. I like, she has a sense of vulnerability. God, she just, she’s almost channeling a weaker version of, what’s her name in the Nightmare in Elm Street Dream Warriors. I feel 

Craig: Kristen. 

Todd: Yeah. Like a less confident, less badass version of her.

You know what I mean? I 

Craig: do know what you mean, but I feel like. Uh, they’re very, very similar. Yeah. Like in that they don’t understand their powers. In fact, they almost see them as a burden. But when they learn to utilize them, then they are very powerful and then they, they kind of come into their power.

They do like at the end, 

Todd: right? But like most Friday, the 13th movies, nobody really does anything until the last, you know, 10 minutes. No. They’re all just getting hacked to pieces. And like I said earlier, the thing that kind of made me realize as I was watching this, I was like, Ugh, yeah, this is why I don’t like these movies is, and, and I don’t know if it’s a problem with all of them.

I feel like in the first couple movies at least, there was a some sense of suspense. Sure. And this movie, it just feels like he just pops up on screen. And there’s only one scene in this movie that I felt actual suspense, and that was the nerdy girl in the, when she goes out to the shed. She’s crawling under the, oh, yeah.

Yeah. I liked that scene. That was a great scene. That whole scene was really great. It was really well constructed, and it felt almost out of place in this movie because there was not another scene like it. 

Craig: I don’t know. I mean, I, I thought the kills were good in this movie. Actually, 

Todd: I, the kills were fine.

It was just like, you know, a kid turns around and Jason’s suddenly there. I didn’t feel like there was a lot of stalking 

Craig: sometimes. Sometimes it’s because he had so many people to kill. I think he had. Well, like I think there are more people to kill in this movie than in a lot of the other ones. It’s true.

And so, yeah, some of them he’s just, you know, taken the machete too, or God, there are so many. Yeah, there are so many. And there are some that are so good. Like there are iconic. Kills in this movie. Yeah. There, I think this is the first time we get the Sleeping bag kill, which is iconic and it’s, yeah, it’s fantastic.

In this movie, there are so many things that I wanna talk about. I mean, you can watch the movie, you can see the Kills, and I hope we talk. About them along the way, but there are so many things that I learned after watching it and reading about it that I just think are so interesting that you might not get from just watching it.

I, I love that people call this Fry gay, the 13th. The actors. Yeah, 

Todd: because everybody on this movie was gay and. And they were having a, apparently they were having a blast behind the scenes too. I think. Lar Park. I bet 

Craig: they were. 

Todd: Lar Park Lincoln herself said that like she was, there was a quote from her in Crystal Lake Memories where she was talking about how cold it was outside.

She’s like. It was so cold, they had to put ice cubes in their mouths just to make sure you wouldn’t see us breathing. And I sucked on a lot of ice, although that’s the only thing I sucked on. Apparently other people did more than that. 

Craig: Oh my God, that’s so funny. Yeah. Oh, I bet they were, you know, in their twenties and hot.

Like, yeah. Get it. They’re all good looking. Everybody in this movie’s good looking. The, the main lead guy was gay. The. Token black guy was gay. LAR Park, Lincoln’s mom was gay. Just gay. Gay, gay. That’s that’s funny to me. And I, I would’ve never known, like, no, I didn’t think that the chemistry between the lead guy and LAR Park Lincoln was.

Anything less than any other movie like this that I have ever seen. No, and they were fine. And he’s a fine actor. I don’t know how deep into the trivia you went, but like he was from Days of Our Lives. There’s a lot of soap opera people in here. He was Dr. Craig Wesley on Days of Our Lives, and he was hot, hot, hot on that show too.

My favorite thing about him on that show, and I didn’t know he was gay at the time, but my favorite thing about him on that show was he was kind of like, he was a doctor, but he was also kind of like shady and villainous, and he was kind of in this like villainous partnership with his wife, who, her name was Nancy, and I wish I had looked up the actress because you would totally recognize her.

She kind of reminds me of the secretary from Ferris Bueller’s day off and that she’s shorter. And not a lean woman, but like red hair and cute. And my favorite thing about that show was like he was this big, hunky, hunky guy and she was adorable, like super cute and pretty, but she was not like a soap opera type of woman.

And they were all over each other. Like they, like, he just could not keep his hands off her like, ugh. I love that. And then one of the first women who gets killed, I don’t know, she’s the girlfriend of the guy whose birthday party it’s supposed to be. Mm-hmm. Before they even get there, she gets killed by Jason.

She gets like a screwdriver, like a something through the top of her head and then she gets impaled against a tree through her neck. Yeah. And it’s like hanging from the tree. I don’t remember her name either, but she played Isabella on Days of our Lives. Okay. And Isabella was super sweet and cute and like she was great and everybody loved her.

And then she died of cancer. And then the last time that I ever, I haven’t watched Days of Our Lives in like 10 years, but I still. Remember it fondly. The last time that I saw Isabella was when Mar, I know that there are people who listen to this podcast who, because they message me and they appreciate it when I talk about days of our lives.

So that’s why I’m doing it. The last time that I saw. Isabella was when Marlena was possessed and she was trying to trick somebody. So the demon appeared as Isabella to try to trick somebody and then it turned back into a demon. Ah, God. Also, uh, RIP Drake, oh God, I can’t think of his name. He played John Black on Days of Our Lives for like 30 years.

Drake Hodges. Drake, Hodgkins, something like that. He recently passed. RIP. Sorry. 

Todd: It’s all right. You should start another podcast of Days of Our Lives. I think you could, you could do well with this and you could put it in the intersection of horror because it, we have talked so much about. A lot of these people just came from soap operas.

’cause it was an easy avenue into movies. I think for those actors as well. Vice It’s work. Yeah, it’s work. You know, and, and it’s low key work. Like maybe they don’t really wanna, like back then you could believe that you would be in a horror movie, even a big S horror movie like this. And still like, your reputation wouldn’t be sli because nobody, no.

Nobody who mattered would see it anyway, you know. Oh my gosh. 

Craig: I, I don’t even think it’s that at all. I don’t think there’s any shame in it at all. It’s work. You get your foot in the door. Well, for some people it was so many people. Well, Sarah, Sarah, Michelle Geller, well, Jesse from full house, like it changed gahar.

It changed. Huge, huge stars have come 

Todd: out of daytime. Yeah. Horror came to be cool in the nineties, but like back in the eighties and the seventies, a lot of actors were a little nervous. They were about as nervous about doing a horror movie as they might be, you know, nervous about doing a nude scene. You know, they weren’t quite sure how it would affect their career.

Craig: Oh, I thought you were still talking about daytime. I thought you were talking about soaps and stuff. Oh, no, no, not at all. But, but, but. No, like tons, tons of huge, huge stars got their start in daytime. And same thing with horror. I get what you’re saying. It may at, at one point in time have been seen as lesser than some things, but you know the number of people that we’ve seen, I mean, just off the top of my head.

George Clooney, Matthew McConaughey, Renee Zellweger, Demi Moore, Brad Pitt. Yeah. Bazillions of huge, huge people took little roles in horror films because it’s work. 

Todd: Jennifer Aniston. Yeah. Yes. Right, right. Yeah. All. I wanna shout out, since we’re shouting out to actors, this isn’t, uh, soap opera related, but Heidi Kza, who played Sandra, who I thought was one of the more charming faces in here, I can’t really say my favorite character because I thought they’re all kind of cardboard cutouts, but I, I like watching her.

She was in slumber Party Massacre two. The year before this and the year after this, she was Shauna in society, which is one of our favorite films. Weird, weird movies. And, and she didn’t, you know, she had that face that I thought, oh yeah, I saw her in a ton of stuff. No, she really hasn’t done a ton of stuff.

She was like a guest on a bunch of TV series I watched like once. She was in those three movies and then just like a handful of TV things and then pretty much nothing. It’s so weird ’cause her face looks so familiar. I don’t even remember her. Which one was she? I don’t know how to describe her. I, I didn’t take notes, so I can’t remember exactly.

Was 

Craig: she, was she one, was she one of the 20 somethings? 

Todd: Yeah, she was one of the forgettable ones. I don’t remember how she died and I feel bad about that. Yeah, there’s a lot. I mean, I, there’s a lot of death. In this, they all have to die. 

Craig: Yeah, there is. And gosh, I don’t even know necessarily where to go with it.

I mean, Tina, the, the guy, the main guy Nick, is immediately, as soon as he sees her, he is interested in her. And there’s a, a girl, a dumb blonde girl. I don’t remember her name either. Oh, it’s so frustrating. Is that Kate? No, Melissa. Melissa. The. Snobby one. Yeah, she’s the bitchy blonde hot bitch that you’re supposed to not like because you know, she’s just messing with the boys to get attention and take attention away from other people.

And she’s just a bitch to the other girls. And she 

Todd: didn’t play much. She did this, she did two other movies and a a couple episodes of Charles in charge and that was it. 

Craig: One of my favorite. Deaths, I think from any of the movies is when there just happened to be a couple of 20 somethings, I guess, camping in the forest.

I don’t know what Jason is doing. He, he makes his way out of the water and then he just starts killing people. Yeah. And there just happened to be a lot of people around, so I, I don’t know that he has any particular objective. He is just going around killing people. I don’t think 

Todd: he does. I think he’s just a, a force of nature.

It’s just all he is like, who was it? One of the directors said something about how they figured Jason was just a guy who was too stupid to know he was dead. Something like that. 

Craig: I don’t know. Like, and it used to be like, it used to be like horny teenagers and doing drugs or whatever. Like these actors are clearly in their twenties at least.

Yeah. Like leave them alone. Like that’s what you’re supposed to do in your, your 

Todd: let them have. 

Craig: Sex and do drugs. They’re in their twenties now. You’re It’s loud. Yeah. Gosh. But there’s this couple in a tent and I think they like are making out or whatever, but then the guy’s like, I have to go pee or something.

And he goes out and I think he gets killed. And then Jason is like stalking around the tent and she’s in there. Tits out and she’s like, come get me a big hunk of man. And his machete like cuts through the tent and he stuffs her down into the sleeping bag and drags her out and then smashes her against the tree.

Oh, now 

Todd: I forgot about that. And then Liz was watching this with me and she had never seen it and she gasped at that and I was like, yeah, that is probably for some reason, one of the most brutal kills. In the whole series. It’s very brutal when they originally shot at you, but he was like whacking him against the tree like three or four times and they had to keep cutting one out and cutting one out and cutting one out.

Until like finally MPA, just let them have one. Also, apparently, MPAA was an absolute nightmare deliberately targeting these movies, and that was another reason why I didn’t really care for this one either, is I was like, man, there’s like no blood. Like the one thing that you might get out of this, it’s like some fun kills with some good gore effects.

There’s almost nothing for gore effects. They shot it all. That’s 

Craig: funny. But it’s, it’s been almost a week since I’ve seen it, but I remember it being brutal. Maybe it’s just because of the number of kills, because there are so many, but I know what you’re talking about because I know that there are, you can find some, not cuts, but you can find like deleted scenes and, and stuff online and it was.

Far, far 

Todd: gorier, man, the movie, they, they show some aftermath but not even that much, you know, in the hole. Like when she runs through and she finds all the bodies one at a time. There’s this great bit where Jason comes stepping out of the forest. I dunno where he gets it from, right? But he is got that buzz saw.

The end of a pole. It’s like a brush cutter or something. Yes. You just see that and the shot is so good. It’s like up. At him and that’s coming right at you with the camera. And I’m like, oh, that is so crazy badass. And then he like pokes it at her. You see like a split second of it cutting into her shirt and then it cuts away.

Yeah. Are you kidding me again? Now that we have the internet, we have IMDB, we can go into the history of these things and we can learn that. Yeah, there was AC and we can go and see. The cut stuff. Some of it. Yeah, some of it anyway. But like, you know, if I had seen this in the theater and if I had been old enough to go see this in the theater and this is what I was coming there for, I would’ve been so disappointed.

And apparently the director was too, he was like irritated. They were all irritated that the MPA targeted them so much because they felt like they were trying to give the fans what they wanted. Yes, of course. And the MPAA is thwarting them in every turn. I mean, it’s the whole point of making these movies right.

Oh, 

Craig: it is frustrating. And, and, uh, again, I, you know, I’ve said it a bazillion times. I’m glad that there are so many avenues for filmmakers these days where they can just bypass that. 

Craig (2): Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Like, uh, you know, terrify, you don’t wanna deal. Yeah. You don’t wanna deal with the MPAA then just don’t release it theatrically.

That’s fine. You know, sell it on streaming and make millions of dollars. It’s fine. Yeah. Again, we’ve talked about it before, but I think that stuff like the MPAA will probably always exist, but I don’t know that it will have the power that it has wielded or, or, or, or did wield at this time. Right, because it did wield a lot of power at this time.

It the MPAA slapped an R on you that limited your distribution. Even worse, if it slapped a NC 17 that. Severely limited your distribution and that’s, it’s not the case anymore. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: of course there are arguments about the decline of cinema in movie theaters that I nostalgically agree with, but it’s nice that there are these outlets, there are lots of kills and, and I actually thought they were good, especially as a, you know, coming off of the last couple of these movies, which I enjoyed.

I enjoyed every single one. I don’t think that I. Saw any of them in the theater before maybe Jason XI definitely saw Jason and Freddy in the theater, but I didn’t see the other ones in the theater. That’s not what it was about. It was about renting it with my friends. Yeah. Or my cousins on a summer night and you know, watching these dumb movies that we knew what to expect from.

And the last couple hadn’t been great. Not even good, but. Still liked him. I thought this was a great return. I thought bringing in this telekinetic young woman, she’s not a linebacker, you know, she’s, she’s a typical young. Woman and, and to put her against what, at the time I thought was the most formidable, Jason Zombie, Jason Bones out, indestructible.

Like, what the fuck are you gonna do? Hit him with some telekinesis, you know? 

Todd: That’s right. 

Craig: She’s timid in the beginning. She doesn’t know how to control her powers. You know, just like with, you know, alphabet from Wicked, wicked, like it all. Hinges on her emotions, like she has to be emotionally heightened, angry, scared, something to be able to use these powers.

And initially, early in the movie, she doesn’t know how to control that. But when faced with Mortal danger, she has to learn to control it, and she does. And ultimately in the end, she’s using these powers against him. Now it looks. Stupid. Yes. But the idea, 

Todd: idea is awesome, is 

Craig: fantastic. 

Todd: They don’t have the cool, they’re in such a box with this, with these movies, right?

Like they don’t have the coolness that you got with Freddy, where you’ve got this dream reality and you can do all kinds of cool stuff. So she kind of turns and stares and. And think something happens. 

Craig: She looks very intently like, I thought she did a good job. Like I get it, like good as she could.

Especially at this time, like, you are Carrie, I’m doing the closeup on you. Like, get really intense in your face. Like, like, like just tense every muscle in your face. Like look so intently into the camera that your face. Trembles. I 

Todd: get it. It’s fine to give the gal credit. I mean, you know, we’re, we are attributing her.

She did her research. She apparently sought out real psychics. Now That’s right. There is no such thing. I’m just gonna go on record and say that it’s all bullshit, but like, you know, at least if you say so, at least real quote unquote psychics told her we’re portrayed so corny in movies and things. It’s not like that.

You know, you just need to have an intent look on your face. Don’t like. Do weird whooo things or go all crazy eyed or anything like that when you’re, uh, when you’re looking at her and, and, and that plays a little better. Not as hokey, I suppose. 

Craig: Yeah. I thought she did a great job. Yeah. Just to put it out there.

I don’t necessarily disbelieve in those things. I think there are all kinds of things that we, I mean, I’ve never seen it. I, I’ve never seen it, but I don’t necessarily. Disbelieve in those things. And I also, I mean, even just a weird shit like just intuition and deja vu, like, eh, it’s all explainable. Well, it suggests it’s just 

Todd: part of our psychology.

Craig: That’s fine. It may all be explainable. It doesn’t mean I disbelieve in it. I think if it turned out that people had telekinesis, sure we could find a reason to explain that. But I, that doesn’t mean that I. Disbelieve it, but that doesn’t matter. In this movie, she has telekinesis and I don’t know, she throws lamps at him.

Yeah. Like it’s a great scene. And, and like she, she makes his hockey mask has like straps on it and she makes the straps like tighten. So it like constricts his head. Like it almost like crushes his head. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And then it breaks off. Then that’s when you see zombie. Jason, he’s awesome. You alluded to this earlier, but.

I, I thought he looked fantastic. Yeah. Apparently the producer was very much against like, just showing his face at all. Like Sure. Leave the mask on. And, and they didn’t, obviously. And, and I, I think he looks great. He does. I mean, he looks like a monster, but I think that it’s smart at this point in the series to just establish that like you might as well.

Yeah. I mean, he, he’s. He’s Freddy, he’s, he’s supernatural. There’s no getting around that. Like he’s come back from the dead a hundred times. We just have to accept the. Fact at this point that he is clearly a supernatural being. 

Todd: I get the idea right, like Mike Myers is creepy because you just, there’s just a faceless person.

Like this could be anything. It could be nothing. It’s like a force behind the mask. It’s the pure evil thing. It’s just you don’t wanna see the eyes darting left and right and necessarily thought going into it. You just want to feel like this is just an unstoppable, spooky force. It’s definitely creepier.

This is not the first time we’ve seen Jason’s face and no, it’s probably the best we’ve seen of Jason’s face. You know, they were making all this stuff up as they went along. So obviously in the first movie there’s that jump scare at the end where we see this deformity, I think in the second movie.

Doesn’t he come in through a window when you see his face? Or the third one, I can’t remember which. 

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: we, you, if you’re looking to do different things and do stuff with him, then this is about the time. Part seven is probably plenty of time for us to, yeah. Have waited to see zombie Jason’s face and, and I was happy to see it and I was also happy to not see it a lot after that.

To be honest with you. 

Craig: Yeah, yeah. Agreed. Yeah. Get the mask back on, get him a new mask, that’s fine. Mm-hmm. And you know, the mask, it’s, it’s interesting, you know, non horror fans just associate Jason with the mask, but the mask didn’t even come around until part three. I mean, I mean, Jason technically was in part one.

I, I, and I know that I’m preaching to the choir. Anybody who’s listening to this already knows this. They know. But your typical, you know, your non horror fan just doesn’t know that masked Jason Hockey masked Jason didn’t come around until halfway through the third movie, but yeah, now at this point, don’t take him out of it.

Get that fell a new mask. I’m glad he, I’m 

Todd: glad he got 

Craig: a new. 

Todd: He kind of knew about hockey mass too, and not the burlap sack. 

Craig: Right. I liked the burlap sack. I thought it like with the one hole 

Todd: that you could, I liked it so, so many non horror fans would never even believe that, that that’s the case. 

Craig: Yeah. But anyway, she fights him.

She like throws TVs and lamps at him, and it looks like they’re very slowly moving towards him on wires. Yes. But they knock him down. They knock him down the stairs and they knock him like through the floor into the basement. And then when she gets into the basement, I don’t remember how exactly it happens, but like, I don’t know if she likes.

Squirts him with gasoline with her mind. Like it’s all just with her mind. Yeah. It’s just closeups of her, like looking very intense and like shifting her eyes back and forth. But she’s like making things happen with her mind and she shoots him with fuel or something and then like shoots fire out of the furnace and he catches on fire and she and her boyfriend runaway and then the house explodes.

Yeah. Like a goddamn nuclear bomb in. 

Todd: But you can’t. Okay. So at what point is she running away from him? Is it this house where the, the thing falls on him? The porch? I don’t remember if it’s the same. They go to another cabin, right? That’s right. 

Craig: No, no. I feel like the house explodes like a bomb, but then he comes out anyway.

Yes. Like. He’s still not dead. Yeah. And then that’s when she makes, I don’t remember how 

Todd: she eventually kills him. I remember how it kills him. We cannot not talk about that. But first the fricking porch crashes down on him. And that was another thing where I was like, oh my God, did they not kill somebody doing this be, I thought, surely this was.

Like a Jason dummy standing there, because that just drops. 

Craig: Yeah. And it’s on fire. Yeah. And, but it doesn’t make any sense. Like literally they’re running away from the house. It explodes like there was a propane tank in there or something like, and, and I think I read something about how it exploded much l.

More than they had anticipated. Mm-hmm. Like, it was kind of insane. It doesn’t even make any sense that that porch, nothing would’ve, that would’ve been a hole in the ground. Understanding. Yeah. No. 

Todd: Yeah. But you’re right, you’re right. And apparently that was Kay Otter who got that thing dropped on him, and he was like, that was insane.

He, he said that they were, they made it out of balsa wood, and so the idea was that it would just drop on him and it wouldn’t hurt. But he was like. People don’t realize, depending on how you, you know, construct the thing out of balsa wood, it’s still heavy, it’s still pretty bad, and yeah. This like 700 pound thing came crashing down on him and put him through the, the floor there and, and he endured that.

He also, I know we’ve mentioned it on a previous podcast, I think, but I think it, up to this point, this was the longest fire stunt that had ever been done. Right. And it was also the first time that they showed Ignition. Usually with these movies, usually when they do a fire stunt in a movie, you know, somebody kinda lights a guy and then they start yelling action, or he runs out of a place or whatever and he is already on fire, right?

They actually rigged up a system for that fire to shoot out from the furnace there so that you could see in one whole shot on the camera him actually getting ignited. By the flames. And then Kane Otter was on fire forever and it was, it was pretty miraculous at the time, apparently. 

Craig: Yeah. And it, and it looks fantastic, but I mean, he’s still alive.

He’s zombie Jason or whatever, so he chases, he doesn’t chase like they think they’re okay. La Park, Lincoln and her boyfriend end up on the dock and they think that everything’s okay. But then Jason shows up and is kind of like fighting with her and him, I guess. So she does some kind of, she 

Todd: does some kind of like head thing and her dead father leaps up from under the water and puts his chain around Jason and drags him back down, basically.

Essentially, yeah. 

Craig: This doesn’t make any sense at all. 

Todd: No. On like five different levels. I mean, really, her dad died and they just left him down there, right? 

Craig: No, that doesn’t make any sense. At all 

Clip: ago. 

Craig: And he still looks like he died an hour ago. Now I did read, okay, so the producer hated the Jason Makeup look, and so the the Massless look, and so I guess there was a makeup design for this to guy, for this guy to look like he had been under the water for years, which still doesn’t make any sense, but the producer insisted that they take it out and that they shoot with him and just.

Just regular, which is stupid and doesn’t make any sense and just seems vindictive and like you as the producer don’t understand at all what these movies are. 

Todd: Yeah. Why is it the hill you have to die on? You know, of all the things. It’s so strange. I, I have to say I was rolling my eyes at that point. I had forgotten that was how he went down.

And as it’s dumb for, for every, the reason that we said. I guess that just puts Jason back in chains at the bottom of the lake. Right? I forgot how Part eight opens up. 

Craig: I don’t remember all. I remember in part eight is like they start in a yacht on Camp Crystal Lake and Jason gets on it somehow, God, and then they ride that yacht to New York.

What. What are you talking about? That doesn’t make any sense. And it’s dumb and it’s, and it’s called Jason Takes Manhattan or something like that. That’s when I gave up. No, and he’s only in New York for like the last 10 minutes of the movie. Like it all takes place on this dumb cruise. So disappointing.

Yeah, it’s terror. It’s not, well, I’m not gonna say it’s terrible ’cause I still enjoyed it, but it, it’s dumb and it is misleading and disappointing this movie, however, again, like we were gonna talk about it a week ago, but you’re traveling and it didn’t work out and so it’s been a while when. I came off of watching it, I was like, so happy.

Like, I love this movie. It’s so good. And, and I do honestly, even considering Jason XI, I, I have to put Freddie versus Jason in an entirely different category. Like I kind of can’t compare them. But in the Friday, the 13th series, this is definitely by far. My favorite Lar Park Lincoln. There were, there had been talks for a long time about doing a Friday, the 13th movie.

Well, a couple of things either where they just brought back all of the survivors as their characters or. They did kind of a new nightmare type of thing where they brought back the actresses playing themselves and there are a couple of fan made Friday the 13th films that Lard Park Lincoln is in and that other actors from the franchise are in.

And I’ve read good things about them, but I haven’t watched them, so I can’t, I. Endorse them, but I would’ve liked to have seen something like this. And I’m, I’m sad that she’s gone and she was relatively young. She had a full life. You know, she was married, had children. One of her daughters is following in her footsteps and acting now.

She did great things. She put together a foundation for young actors and, and like helped them, you know, with auditions and stuff like that. Like she did a lot of great things. I really only know her from this and House two, and she has a small role in House two, and she’s not even a likable character really in that movie.

Right. But for whatever reason, whether it’s this movie or that movie, both of which I loved. That movie I watched more than I watched this movie, but she’s cemented in my mind. I know her, at least I know what she looked like at this time. She was young and fresh. She had kind of a Meg Ryan, like a young Meg Ryan, look to her.

Yeah, these. Striking strike piercing blue eyes. You know she was blonde in this movie. She was brunette in the house too. Who knows what her natural hair color was? Who cares? You look at her IMDB profile and it’s a more recent picture of her and. Just still strikingly beautiful. And I know she wasn’t a huge star or anything, but I remember her and I will remember her and you know, we do these tribute, we don’t tribute every single celebrity who dies, right?

I don’t know when it’s somebody that we remember fondly. I like. Doing these things because I, I like, I like to g give them their flowers. So, you know, she, she passed away of breast cancer. I think she struggled with breast breast cancer for a very long time. Yeah. But she, she put up a good fight and she was a cool person.

And kudos to you. Rest in peace. Lard Park Lincoln. 

Todd: Amen. Thank you so much everyone for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. Let us know what you thought about this Friday, the 13th movie, how it stacks up against the others. If you were just bored out of your mind about halfway through it, like I was only to perk up at the end for the.

But big finale. Or if you were like, Craig, this is the best in the series, you know, just let us know. We want to hear from you. You can also shoot us a voice message by going to our website, Shane saw horror.com, and, uh, click talk to us. And right there, just leave us a quick voice message and we will play it on air in a, in a future episode.

If you are bold enough to do that, we’d love to hear from you there. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter by going to our website again, and click that link. We send out what’s been going on in the world for just a few tidbits that you might have overlooked over the last week, and, uh, let you know what’s coming up in the episodes that we’ve done in the past.

If you are really a big fan, you can support us by becoming a patron of the show and get a bunch of goodies. You can do that by going to patreon.com/chainsaw. Podcast for just five bucks a month. Get the complete unedited version of this episode, which would be a lot of fun, as well as the minisodes that we put up there.

Reviews, chatter, a book club that’s going strong. Five bucks a month gets you access to all that and our undying gratitude. Until next time, I am Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

In this episode, we dive deep into the obscure and over-the-top 1988 horror film ‘Demonwarp.’

Join us as we explore the film’s bizarre plot twists, including Bigfoot creatures, zombies, and alien priests. We discuss the movie’s low-budget charm, wacky special effects, and the often confusing storyline that makes it a true gem for fans of 80s horror. Tune in for our full breakdown and plenty of laughs as we navigate this wild ride of a movie. Don’t miss it!

Episode 446, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Alright. We are gonna get going today with a, I think, obscure horror film from the eighties. This is a movie that I selected. It’s been bouncing around on a list of mine for a while. I see it brought up every now and then, and I’ve always been curious about it because it’s a little more obscure.

I don’t remember seeing the box art for this on the video store shelves, or if I did it, I don’t know. It’s just kind of passed me by, but here we are. I think that the most interesting thing about it initially going in is the fact that it stars one of our favorite actors who’s always in these movies.

George, I’ll do anything for Aze Kennedy. Yeah, and this is 1980 eight’s Demon Warp, and it has a really interesting story behind it. 

Craig: I had never heard of it. I don’t know. I think it just must have been fairly obscure. ’cause this seems like the kind of movie that I probably would have rented, 

Todd: right? Yeah, 

Craig: based on the box art.

Now I’ve seen lots of different box art, but I think the most. Popular one has what looks very much like a Bigfoot on it. And, uh, I don’t know, demon Warp is a great name. That alone I probably would’ve been intrigued by, but no, I, I don’t recall ever having heard of it. It’s really not streaming anywhere.

It’s, it’s difficult to find. Yeah. 

Todd: It is surprisingly, 

Craig: I think we found it on YouTube, but you sent me a link to it. I don’t know if you had to dive deep for it. ’cause when I just looked for it on YouTube myself, I just found stuff about it. I had to follow your link to get to it, but it is there and the quality is okay.

I, I have a feeling that the original quality probably isn’t great, but it’s, it’s interesting. 

Todd: Yeah, it sure is. This is the 1988, so this is right in the middle of the video boom. And the genesis of this project was, it was, uh, something that Vidmark put together, Vidmark, which later became TriMark, um, was a video, uh, distributor.

And as we’ve talked about on previous episodes and with different movies that we’ve discussed, this was a time where you could make almost anything and instantly get distribution for it because the video rental market was so hungry for films, especially genre films that they were buying anything. And so it was kind of a golden age.

And you’ve got people like Charles Band and Fred Oland Ray out there producing stuff. Specifically to tap into this market, Vidmark decided they were gonna try to get in on to producing films that they had been previously only distributing, and this is one of their earliest ones. And I think that the history behind it is really interesting because it was originally a script by.

John Carl Buckler, who we’ve talked about a number of times on this podcast as recently as Giess, right? Mm-hmm. He was the special effects artist, a creature artist behind, uh, Giess, your favorite film troll. Mm-hmm. The Garbage Male Kids movies, a whole bunch of stuff Charles band put out. And, uh, he was originally slated to direct it as well, so he wrote this script and he was slated to direct it, and Jack Palas of all people was slated to star in it.

And Jack Palas bowed out because he decided, you know what? I’m not gonna make these kind of movies anymore. John Buckler got pulled away to do Friday the 13th, part seven, right? Much, much bigger project with a much, much bigger budget. You can’t blame him for that. But he left behind a few creature designs.

He had made a Bigfoot type monster, an alien type monster, a mummy type monster puppet that was intended to be used in the film and apparently also left behind a script that was absolutely a mess. And so it was kind of rescued by the producer Richard Albert, who was actually the head of a very, very famous and extremely successful advertising company for all the major studios put together advertising campaigns for tons of movies for these studios.

And, uh, he just sicked two of his copywriters on this. And in between, you know, them setting up poster art and, and writing ad copy and all that stuff, they managed to take his script and bang out different one that wrote around the now limited budget that they now had for the movie. And these. Creature designs that they had for the movie.

Basically, you know, writing for what you now have available to you, which is a smart thing to do. And these two guys who had no previous experience writing a movie put together this thing and got quite a few names in it, besides George Kennedy. I was kind of surprised at the people who ended up popping up on the screen.

Craig: Yeah, I know you’re gonna tell me about at least one of these ladies. What 

Todd: makes you say that? Because 

Craig: I, I don’t know, I was reading, you know, some review or, or something and it mentions this lady’s name who, and I think all the girls in this, women in this movie. Take their tops off at some point, which is great.

Love it. But there was one actress in particular that this reviewer was excited about, so I’m sure there’s some connection to her. The only other person, you know, they all kinda looked like typical. It’s the typical group of teenagers. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And I, I feel like it’s also fairly typical to have two couples and a goofy third wheel guy, and that’s.

Or fourth wheel or whatever, fifth, whatever. And that guy is you. You’ll get it right away. I got it eventually. That’s Tom played by Billy Jane, who is the, really the only one that I recognize and I get, I don’t get excited, but it always makes me smile when he pops up in these movies too. Just ’cause I think that he’s goofy and funny.

Yeah, and that’s the role that he plays in this movie, the goofy funny one. And I liked him fine. I didn’t recognize any of the other main cast. There’s, I mean there’s probably what, like 10 people in the whole thing? Yeah, it took me a minute to get all their names, but once I caught all their names, they were pretty easy to keep track of 

Todd: their name’s.

Tom Fred. Jack. Cindy. 

Craig: Cindy and Carrie and Ju. I know Bill. Julie. Like all the Mo. Yeah. Seriously, 

Todd: Betsy. 

Craig: That was funny. What was interesting to me about this and those movies that you mentioned that I really like, like Gooeys and Troll, there’s a lot of that here, especially in the first three quarters of the movie.

I guess what was interesting to me was this felt like, to me, a fairly typical eighties horror movie for most of it. I mean, there were some interesting things going on and some weird, goofy things going on that I want to talk about, but it felt fairly typical for a while, and then seemingly out of nowhere it just goes.

In 14 different directions all at the same time.

Todd: It’s so nuts. It’s weird, it’s so nuts. I was able to track down an interview with one of those screenwriters that was, uh, hired on and he had a lot of stuff, a lot of interesting behind the scenes stuff to talk about with this movie. First of all, he said the original script they got was a mess. It had everything.

And the kitchen sink thrown in. It was like aliens and zombies and a cult and a mummy and bigfoot all wrapped up in one. And it kind of ended up that way in a way. Uhhuh more or less, but probably you, they said honestly, because he was slated to direct it, you could kind of tell that he might have just written the script more as notes for himself than as something that somebody else was actually supposed to read and decipher.

Mm-hmm. But they said it made no, like, the characters had no motivation. They were not drawn out at all. Things just seemed to happen for reasons that, you know, you couldn’t really explain. Which to be fair is a lot of these movies, people 

Craig: would just pop in to, you know, get killed basically. Like I, I did read some reviews of the original script and I read that too.

Mm-hmm. That it, it, it didn’t seem, yeah, it seemed more like a collection of ideas rather than. A story and the review that, and I, I, I think it’s something that you sent to me, so I’m sure you probably read it too. They just, it just was not well written. Yeah. And, you know, whatever. I wouldn’t be super judgy about this, but they’re like, it was full of typos and, and misspellings and who cares?

Not all creatives have to be good spellers. Yeah. But I, I think the point was it didn’t seem like. Perhaps a lot of care had been taken in it and, and you know, you said not a lot of development to the characters or whatever. No. They were basically just to come in to take their clothes off and have steamy sex scenes and get picked off by this hodgepodge of stuff.

Todd: Yeah. I was surprised of the breast quotient in this movie. Like, you know, it’s not atypical for a movie from this era, but it, it’s like a Fred Oland Ray movie. It’s like every girl, but one takes her top off. And guess who that is? 

Craig: I don’t know. 

Todd: Tara, one of the two girls who comes in looking for their, their little secret garden.

Are you 

Craig: sure she doesn’t? I thought she did. Maybe not. 

Todd: No, I guess I thought Michelle Bauer is the one girl you were referring to earlier. She plays Betsy, her friend. 

Craig: Yes. Yes. And 

Todd: Michelle Bauer is like a fricking scream queen. She lya Quigley. They were in a ton of the same movies together. We saw her take her top off in sorority babes in the slime ball.

Borama doesn’t surprise me with Linea Quigley. She came out of, it’s interesting. If you look at her filmography, she sure was in a lot of adult films. However, she claims that although she was in those movies, anytime there was a sex scene, she insisted on a double being used. So I’m surprised by that. But that’s what she claims.

But she was on the covers. She was a model and you know, she ended up as a one of the big scream queens of the eighties and nineties. So good for her. Yeah. 

Craig: And she, I mean, she doesn’t have a whole lot to do, but run around with her boobs out. But I’m not surprised to hear that she’s been in all those things because she’s very beautiful.

She is a very, very beautiful woman. Yeah. But I’m also not surprised that I didn’t recognize her because, and I don’t mean this as any kind of insult, but she’s kind of generically beautiful. She’s not some, yeah. Lan Quigley stands out like, yeah, you recognize her. This woman is beautiful, but she’s just another beautiful brunette woman with big boobs.

It’s true, but good. Again, good for her. That’s a great career. Seriously, I’m not being ironic. Good for her. 

Todd: No, I know. Good for her for sure. Yeah, I’m, I’m kind of ashamed to say it, but I almost have to be reminded who she is. ’cause you’re right, she often appears in the same movies along with a lot of the other same screen queens and they all are very same samey looking.

They’ve got the same implants, they’ve got kind of the same hair, the same makeup and everything like that, except for Quigley. She just stands out ’cause she’s, she’s so distinct. But no, her, her partner in this who was Tara, was George Kennedy’s daughter Shannon Kennedy. And one of his stipulations of him working on this movie was that they cast his daughter in it.

And so apparently she, she wouldn’t take her top off, but they pulled her head off as a instead. So that was, they got about halfway down. 

Craig: That, that was one of my favorite, that was one of my favorite kills. It was one of the ones that I thought looked the best 

Todd: in a way. She had her top taken off just a different top.

Craig: That’s very clever. I hope you had that written down. I don’t know, we’ve already, gosh, we, we have to get to the plot. ’cause I feel like it’s important in this movie. Is it? Or isn’t it? The plot. Plot is something 

Todd: else. I’m not sure if it’s that important, but it’s, it’s all over the place. You’d almost need somebody to decipher the plot for you.

Well, I mean, it’s very straightforward. It’s just head scratching. Yeah. At times. Why, why certain things are happening and where this is all leading. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And I also felt like there was some odd things happening that I still didn’t understand that I want to ask you about, but frankly, the movie is too long.

Todd: Yeah. It 

Craig: needed to get to the wackiness. Faster. Yes. Okay. Maybe we can get through the first part of it kind of quickly. I don’t know. I always say that and then I ramble and ramble. It starts out in the desert with this guy who is dressed old timey, I guess, and is like reading from his Bible and singing Amazing Grace.

So long time ago 

Todd: I was, I was thinking Mormon real quick. I don’t know 

Craig: about 

Todd: you. Like I didn’t know what I was, I had no idea what 

Craig: was going on. Who knows? Um, but I assumed that we were being signaled that this is the past. Yeah, great. Fine. So we just watch him look to the sky and, and trace with his eyes something across the sky and something crashes and he goes over to it and it looks like it’s created a, a debris path.

And at the end where it’s stopped, it’s been almost entirely covered with earth, with dirt, but it looks like some sort of giant sphere. As big as a what? Three, four. Story building. It’s huge. 

Todd: Yeah. Something like that. 

Craig: Well they try, they try to show us perspective. ’cause they show the guy walking up to it and he’s teeny tiny walking up to it.

Todd: Yeah. They’ve got a very cool, um, and Fred o and Ray likes to do this in his movies and Charles band does as well where they’ll take like a little model and they’ll put it in front of the camera, kind of like incorporate it into the environment. It’s a real cheap way of getting kind of a bigger budget look giant set in.

Yeah. Like a live matte painting or whatever. 

Craig: Yeah. I love that stuff. Mm-hmm. I love it. 

Todd: It’s cool. 

Craig: Then it just immediately cuts to the woods and. A synth score, which I’m always a big fan of, and then the title, 

Todd: Ugh. But di wasn’t this score driving you crazy? It was driving me 

Craig: nuts. I don’t even, after a while, I don’t remember thinking anything about it after just being like, oh, okay, this is what we’re getting right here in the beginning.

What bothered you about it? 

Todd: I don’t know. It just never let up. It was like gr and after a while just felt very grinding. Like it felt like every second of this movie was scored. I may be wrong about it, maybe there was a reprieve, but I just, after a while, I’m sorry to say, it kind of felt like my ears were being assaulted.

That was just my, my feeling of it. Maybe it was the sinness too. It’s all these high notes and things, and it, it, it, although I normally love a sense score from an eighties movie, this one was just a bit much, it would bother me so much. I’m sorry, I sound like really grumpy dude. But it bothered me so much that I looked up the composer, Dan Slider, and the other score that he did after this was.

Uninvited. Do you remember that one? Yeah. About the, the cat mut Mutant cat on the boat. I love that. Also starring George Kennedy. Oh, that’s right. Yep, yep. I remember the score. And that being very distinct as well. Yeah, with the, remember with the cat meows and stuff? It, so for for sure it tracks, it was on brand for Dan Slider.

That’s funny. 

Craig: I don’t know if we mentioned that the director is Emmett Alston, who also directed New Year’s Evil, I think. I’m pretty sure it was New Year’s E. 

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: New Year’s Evil. I’m evil.

So, 

Todd: and then went on to do a bunch of Ninja movies after that. I have a soft spot in my heart for eighties ninja movies, so it kind of made me wanna seek out his other ones, especially if they’re more or less like this one. I think I’ll enjoy ’em. Yeah. ‘

Craig: cause this has fun stuff going on in it. Like it’s, it’s weird.

I wish that I hadn’t read the IMDB summary, because I think it would’ve been more fun to be surprised, and we’ve already spoiled things. I mean, it, it, it gets crazy, but the IMDB summary starts out with Bill and his daughter are enjoying their time in a cabin when they’re attacked by what they think is Bigfoot type creature.

But then they start to suspect that maybe there’s aliens or something like that. Like, and, and that it gives too much away. Thank God I didn’t read it. This, this movie takes at least an hour to build to that twist. And if you’ve waited that long for it, it’s then it’s kind of disappointing. 

Todd: Well, you’re marching through a lot of boring stuff up to that point.

I mean, and it’s all very. The movie doesn’t have a lot of style in the shooting, honestly, it’s kind of pedestrian. This Emmett Alston, apparently, according to this screenwriter again, said he was a nice enough guy. People would like the fact that he was very workmanlike and he could get through things pretty quickly, but he also seemed very disinterested in what he was doing and just thought it was kind of bland.

And, uh, he wasn’t even entirely familiar with the story. Like this guy said at one point that, uh, this guy was more or less reading the trades while his DP set up and blocked most of the shots for him. So 

Craig: I think it’s fine. I think it’s fine. Like 

Todd: it’s okay. It’s fine for this era. 

Craig: Exactly. Well, for this era, it’s.

Not bad. Like we, we actually Right. Have seen in terms of acting and, and filming and effects, it is not bad. We have seen far worse and it’s not terribly boring. It just goes on too long. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: If they had taken this first part, okay. So George, George Kennedy and his daughter get attacked and she gets immediately killed, which the thing was misleading too.

The synopsis made it sound like he and his daughter were then gonna start investigating. That’s not what happens at all. We immediately cut away from them after she’s dead, and this Bigfoot monster drags her away. Then we meet these five assholes in a van. 

Todd: Yep. It’s your bunch of assholes in a van drive driving to a cabin in the woods, 

Craig: right?

Yeah. Difficult and it’s, and it’s two couples and Billy Jane. They get to this cabin, the exact same cabin that we already saw somebody get attacked in same, same cabin. Uh, a Friday the 13th, one of the Friday the 13th was filmed in this cabin too. I don’t remember which one. 

Todd: The final chapter. Which one is that?

The fourth one? Final chapter. 

Craig: Yeah, that sounds right. I think it was the fourth one. Final. I can’t remember. So they all get there and turns out one of them is Jack. Jack. It’s his uncle’s cabin only his girlfriend Carrie, who is a curly haired brunette. That’s, I, I could only identify them by their hair.

But Jack and Carrie are a couple, and Fred and Cindy are kind of a couple, I think. And Tom is the odd man out. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But it turns out that. Jack has only told Carrie that the reason that they’re coming here is to do some sort of investigation. Alright, look, I would’ve told you all of this a lot earlier, but I wasn’t sure that you would come 

Clip: if you knew the whole story.

And I do need your help. Carrie, you knew about this and you didn’t tell me. Well, you know, we’re not in high school anymore. We tell, Hey, come on you guys. Come on you Canaries. 

Craig: People have been going missing here for a hundred years and the sightings and disappearances have increased in frequency and range.

So he’s brought a bunch of like random electrical equipment up here that they never do anything with. Like, no 

Todd: science. Science we don’t have time for. I 

Craig: suppose 

Todd: Jack, Jack is an asshole. Basically Jack, he’s a total asshole, led his friends to basically be bait for this monster that he seems to know.

There’s some monster something going on in there. Yeah. Later after they all get all set up and things happen, George Kennedy pops back in as like stumbling outta the woods with a shotgun and saying, you guys better go. You know? He’s the typical. Now he has become the typical Um-huh. Old man warning you away to the 

Craig: harbinger.

Yeah. Yeah. Which is 

Todd: weird 

Craig: because the Harbinger of 

Todd: Doom, who has gone from, I suppose, renting out the cabin with his daughter and then getting, you know, when his daughter got killed, he decided to set up camp Yeah. In the woods somewhere, so that, uh, he could investigate what’s going on. You would think at this point that when Jack comes out and meets George Kennedy and he tells them all this.

That he’d be like, oh, cool. You’re trying to hunt the same monster we are. We should work together. But no, he just sends him away. Back into the woods. 

Craig: Yeah. He’s just kind of a dirt bag. 

Todd: He’s Jack’s a dick in most, most of the movie, I would say. 

Craig: Yeah. And you know, the, the woods, you know, they talk about how the woods are called the demon woods, but they get there, the, the door is boarded up.

It’s so eighties, like Tom turns on his boombox that he has up on his shoulder and gets his head and they, for a, for just a like 10 seconds, they all danced to some groovy tunes. Like that was hilarious. And so at that point I’m thinking, okay. I’m in this. Right. 

Todd: I would’ve been disappointed if that had been in there how many?

Friday The 13th movies have at some point in them, in which the girls turn on the stereo. Oh. And everybody just dances around where they are for a little while. 

Craig: And there are at least a couple of those movies where there are full on dance numbers. Oh 

Todd: yeah. I feel like, like the uninvited had a spot in that too, when they were on the boat and the girls had a little party.

Remember? Yes, yes. Yeah. Just four people dancing in front of a boombox. It’s so cute.

Oh 

Craig: my goodness. 

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. The dialogue is really bad. 

Craig: Yeah, I don’t, in my notes, the dialogue that I have is, I think Cindy says there’s no wildlife up here, and I. George Kennedy says, ghosts and monsters, and even Bigfoot, you better believe it. 

Todd: There are a thousand stories about this place, but they have this awkward conversation at the table where he has to let them know 

Craig: the exposition dump, 

Todd: that he’s really brought them up here to investigate to which they at first.

Seemed like, oh, why would you do that? And then they’re all kinda like, okay, that’s fine. If that’s what we need to do, we’ll do it. Uncle Clem had disappeared and they need to find him. That’s essentially what his goal is, apparently. And they brought this listening equipment, like you said, which they don’t really do any listening.

Billy Jacoby’s character Tom, like fiddles on it for a hot second at some point, but nothing comes of that. Then there’s Tits Montage. Uh, yeah, tits Montage. Exactly. There’s a very, very lame sex scene, the one of the most awkward, lamest sex scenes I’ve ever seen. And it turns out that part of the reason for that is that actor hated her guts.

The guy who played Jack was not a fan of, uh, Carrie, so, huh. The, the actress Carrie. So, uh, he did his best to avoid touching her in any overtly sexual way. Huh. And that went on for a while. That was painful. And then you had, uh, Cindy, who pops outta the shower and 

Craig: Fred, who is her boyfriend, I believe, supposed to be, but scares her.

Yeah, I, there was, there was stuff that I didn’t understand, like he puts on that mask and he goes outside and scares her while she’s in the bathroom. She runs out and he runs back around and tries to get in, but the door is locked. Meanwhile, she. Is flirting with, and that’s not even fair to say. He starts it.

Yeah. Tom, the goofy one grabs her from behind is like, calm down, calm down, calm down. She’s only got a towel on Uhhuh. He’s actually being pretty creepy. Like he’s holding onto her and saying like, you can trust me. You can trust me. And then I feel like they sit down and they almost kiss, which is weird.

Yeah. It doesn’t make any sense. There’s no context for it. 

Todd: No. 

Craig: Especially since her boyfriend is right outside pounding on the door saying, guys, guys, there’s really something out here. There’s really something out here. And there is 

Todd: it. It’s very generous for you to call this a door, by the way. It is a giant sheet of plywood that they lean against the door opening because the real door got smashed in.

It is a literally a giant piece of plywood. I don’t know how he can’t get into this door. He should just push it and it, it should fall backwards and he should be able to get in just fine. But no, instead he succumbs to the big foot monster. He kind of offscreen, gets dragged away, doesn’t he? We don’t really see exactly what happens to 

Craig: him.

No, we don’t see any, I mean, we, we do see a big hulking shape coming up behind him, but then that’s, that’s it. Then the other couple comes back downstairs and is like, what’s going on? They’re like, uh, I don’t know. We think he’s played a joker, whatever. And they go out there and like, Nope. ’cause there’s blood everywhere.

And they’re like, oh no, something’s happening. 

Todd: And, and the truck is trashed, 

Craig: right? The truck. And so then Bigfoot, surprisingly, shockingly, is able to manage to break through that plywood. 

Todd: Yes. That was hilarious. They even attempted, it’s almost like at some point in the production they realized, wait a minute, we’re supposed to make it difficult for the monster to get in, but we already have this plywood board there.

So suddenly what appears is like, it’s like a little loop of bungee. Yeah. That only on one side, like this board didn’t have hinges. I, I still don’t understand why this little bungee loop would’ve kept that thing on, but there’s a whole to do about the monster reaching its hand through and trying to undo the bungee loop, which it does.

Craig: And he gets in. Jack shoots it once, but then he gets knocked down and anytime anybody gets knocked down on the ground, they’re unconscious for about 45 seconds. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Every 

Todd: time people get knocked out, left and right in this movie for a short period of time, 

Craig: like two, I think Jack, Jack gets knocked out probably like two or three times in this movie.

You can’t. You can’t. You can’t take that kinda head trauma. Yeah. But anyway, okay, so he gets in and Jack shoots him once, but then he gets thrown down and he’s unconscious for 30 seconds and when he wakes up, Bigfoot is holding Tom up by the head off the ground and Tom’s like, oh shit. But Jack just kind of points the gun and stares and watches this happen.

Doesn’t shoot, doesn’t shoot, and Bigfoot breaks Tom’s neck and then grabs some of their equipment that they brought and is just standing there for a while while. Carrie is screaming, shoot it, shoot it, shoot it like for 15 seconds, shoot it, shoot it, shoot it. And he’s just staring at it. Why is Tom aiming this gun at him?

I know. It’s right in front of you. You have the gun pointed at it. And I didn’t understand what happened. And then there’s a, a second where like they lock eyes and then Bigfoot turns and runs away. I had no idea what was going on. I was like, is the, like, do do the big feet have mind control powers? Right.

Because not only was he just not shooting, like he was just dead faced. Like, like it could have been a still Yeah, like he’s, I was so confused. 

Todd: Oh man. 

Craig: But now the two guys are dead, so it’s just the two girls left and Jack. Yeah, and they gotta get outta there. They wait until morning, but then they gotta get outta there.

That was fast. It was very fast. 

Todd: I thought this movie’s really moving right along, you know? ’cause like they’ve already killed off half of the cat. Usually you get your five or six people there so that you can, you know, have a lot of people to go through. But now they’re just down to one man and two women, but they’re still hanging out by the front door slash piece of plywood.

I’m like, why are you doing that? That thing could come in at any minute. And then this part puzzled me. I didn’t get it until much later. Jack gets the urge to go upstairs while the girls are sleeping. So he goes upstairs and he looks around the bedroom and then he comes down and the girls are like, wake up.

And they’re like, what’s going on? He’s like, oh, nothing. You should get some sleep. We’re gonna need to leave in the morning. And so in the morning they do just that. If there was something to that, I have no 

Craig: idea what it 

Todd: was. Oh, I figured out later. I’ll tell you in a second. So Jack and the girls walk out the door and they decide to head out and look for help.

Now, why they don’t go down the road? I have no idea. They decide instead to go up this dirt path into the woods. 

Clip: Should we just leave Tom’s body in there? Look, once we get some help, we’ll come back and we’ll take care of everything. There’s no point in going back inside though, right now. 

Craig: I thought that was a weird back and forth because what else are you going to do?

Like, do you wanna bury him? Do you wanna take him with you? I, I am not sure what this suggestion was. 

Todd: Well. What we find out later is that the, in a very laughable scene where he just up, up, up and tells them, oh, by the way, I didn’t tell you, but I found that Tom’s body was missing this morning. 

Craig: Okay, I missed that.

But it makes sense. 

Todd: That’s what him going upstairs looking for the bed thing was. But there’s no indication, like you had no idea. We never saw them drag Tom up to the bedroom. No. We never saw where he put Tom’s body. 

Craig: In fact, it seemed like, it looked like J when Jack picked up his body, it looked like he walked away from the stairs.

I thought he was taking it outside. Yeah, and this was when I, I still thought he was like in entranced by the monster. I thought he was like taking the body out there to give to the monster. It was very confusing, but at this point it becomes, don’t go into the woods. Yes. It’s exactly what it is. It, yeah.

It’s just cutting back and forth between these vignettes of different people. People up till now we’ve never met before. These two girls. Bibi and Tamby or something. And 

Todd: bi. Betsy and Tara. Yeah. 

Craig: Random jogger. Betsy and Tara. That’s what I said. Yeah, you’re close. So it keeps, now I think Betsy and Tara were in the script because boobs, but I read, I read that this random jogger, they just had to film stuff after everything was done in the woods to just get it to 90 minutes.

So 

Todd: this guy don’t have time. This jogger makes a lot of sense. 

Craig: Yeah. He has no connection to the rest of the story. Like he, he, he never encounters the actual characters of the story except for Bigfoot. Yeah. And Bigfoot chases him around for probably a good five minutes, but they cut it up into like one minute chunks back and forth.

Todd: Yeah. They killed a lot of time with that guy. Betsy and 

Craig: Tara or whatever, their scene is funny too. Well, first of all, they’re just like, you know, they’re just having fun drinking beers and driving their Jeep on narrow mountain roads and having a good time. And eventually they get to where they were trying to go.

Some spot in the forest where Betsy thought there was. Weed growing, I guess. 

Todd: Yeah. She kept saying Secret garden. I didn’t really know what the hell she was talking about. And then when she got there and it was empty and she said something about, I don’t 

Clip: get it. There was a whole qua here, plentiful patch of pleasure.

He called it, boy, it’s my brother gonna be disappointed. You told your brother about this? Well, I had to get directions from somebody, didn’t I? 

Todd: So I was like, oh, they were looking for weed. And they didn’t get it. It’s just a dirt patch. Yeah. So she just pulls her top off and Tara says, whatcha doing? They may as well get some sun as though they’re at the beach or by the lake.

They just lay down on this random dirt patch in the middle of the woods with the little picnic and everything, which I thought was cute. It turns out the place they had chosen for filming, there was supposed to be a pond, but the pond would not hold water and they couldn’t afford to line it with plastic and fill it, so they just decided to improvise.

Craig: That’s really funny. I didn’t know that at all. That is hilarious. Because what they show, like Betsy says something like, oh, the, the. Plants are already gone, or the crops are already gone. Now what they show us is a dirt patch with just like dead stuff coming up out of it. This, this does not look like someplace that has just recently been harvested of a crop, like it looks like.

No, 

Todd: no. 

Craig: And then it, it is just really funny that they’re in bathing suits. Like why would they be in bathing suits? Yeah. What were they planning? If they were just going to pick 

Todd: Yeah. Low budget filmmaking, but 

Craig: they, she takes her top off and they’re, you know, they’re just enjoying the sun with their eyes closed, talking to each other.

Todd: Oh man. And eventually the monster jumps in and scares them off and you know, Betsy gets away. We get lots of Betsy running through the, the woods with her top off until she decides it’s safe to stop and go through a lot of effort to put her shirt back on. Yeah. But then screams by looking down because the shirt’s covered with blood because, uh, her friend Tara.

Right next to her earlier had her head pulled clean off and the monster tossed it aside 

Craig: again. That was fun. Yeah. And just tossed it aside. 

Todd: I like, I, I thought it was fun. Big splatter of blood head gets pulled off. The monster definitely has his preferred modus operandi. He just likes to twist heads. And this one, he just twist a little too far.

He 

Craig: does, he, he likes to break necks a lot. He also likes to throw body parts because Yes. Now we cut back to the hiker and he just starts getting body parts thrown at him. I don’t even remember what the first one is. I don’t think that he knows what it is either. But then he just gets straight up, hit with the full severed arm.

Yeah. And then, and then Bigfoot starts chasing him. I specifically marks down at this point when Bigfoot threw the arm at the hiker that this is the halfway mark. And I’m like, where? Are we going? I know, right? 

Todd: Where is this leading? I have no clue. 

Craig: Immediately after I asked myself this question, like I, I noted and wrote down halfway mark.

The next note I have is the hiker then runs into. A zombie. Yes. We have never seen zombies before. And my, I have a question, was this supposed to be Fred? Fred? Yeah, that was Fred. The first guy that got killed. Uhhuh? I thought so, but I wasn’t sure and I couldn’t tell if it was the same actor. 

Todd: I’m going give Liz a lot of credit because she called this early.

You know, you were wondering what was the deal when, when Jack wouldn’t shoot Bigfoot and he said something like, oh, he looked familiar, whatever. 

Craig: Well, he doesn’t say that until later. Well, she said he only says that at the very end. 

Todd: No, no. He said the familiar 

Craig: part. The familiar part might 

Todd: not be exactly that, but it’s something like, there was something about him or whatever, and she was like, are people turning into Bigfoot’s?

Is that what happened to the girl? Is that what happened to Uncle Clem? And then so when Tom turns around and he looks dark, she’s like, aha. He’s in mid transformation or whatever, but Tom wanders off. Right. That’s 

Craig: so funny. The, the hiker is getting chased by a bigfoot uhhuh runs into a zombie, but the zombie’s just going about its day.

Like Yeah. He just keeps going. Does just walks right by Uhhuh and the, the, the hiker just like watches him walk away and then turns around and keeps running from Bigfoot. It’s so weird, 

Todd: Jack and the girls are wandering in through the woods and they keep finding bear traps, giant bear traps that they’re stumbling into.

And they’re like, oh, bill must have planted these. And it turns out that this was another thing where they had to save money. They couldn’t afford to dig the pits. There were supposed to be like pit traps that he had Oh. Put around there. So they decided to just substitute in bear traps. Enormous 

Craig: bear traps.

Todd: Oh my God. It’s so silly. He insists that they carry one. Uh, but they’re kind of avoiding them. The hiker fall ends up falling into one of ’em. Right. And that’s how he gets incapacitated enough for Bigfoot to stand over him and drive a stick right into his stomach and churning that up a little bit. That was kind of gruesome as well.

It’s 

Craig: pretty brutal. Yeah. I mean, I Good. I mean, if you’ve gotta insert. Footage. Footage. Yeah. Footage give us a good gory kill. Right. But I 

Todd: love how Jack who couldn’t pull the trigger to save his life inside the house is so jumpy that he whips his rifle around and shoots at any leaf movement. 

Craig: Oh my God. He is recklessly.

I couldn’t 

Todd: believe that he’s gonna get someone killed. 

Craig: Absolutely. He’s also a complete dick for Oh yeah. He. Initially takes no responsibility for getting his other friends killed. And one of the girls, I can’t remember, Cindy kind of is pissed off and calls him out on it like you did this. And he, no, I didn’t.

And he’s, it’s not my, that’s in the past. We have to move forward. I don’t know. He’s just kind of a dick about it. And then eventually, you know, he says privately to Carrie, she’s right, it is my fault. And she’s like, no, it’s not. It’s not your fault. Yes it is. Its totally your fault. Hundred 

Todd: percent your fault.

You’re peeking the truth. 

Craig: You brought them 

Todd: to their desks. 

Craig: There’s tons of bickering back and forth between him and Cindy. Like they’re just being assholes to each other. However, after that initial conflict about, oh, I can’t believe you got them killed, then they’re all just over it. Like, oh God, I can’t, I can’t wait to get home.

Like, 

Todd: yeah, there’s a weird moment too, right? Where Yes, climbing up over stuff and Jack helps Cindy up. Then they share like. A look and a mo, and I’m like, this is that. What is, that was the biggest, 

Craig: what the fuck moment to me? Like what? What is happening? Like, okay, so first of all, we’ve already had this moment where she was engaged in some kind of romantic interlude with a boy who wasn’t her boyfriend, but now this guy and she.

Seemingly didn’t like each other much to begin with, but have been going back and forth, kind of throwing barbs at one another. And then they have this moment that looks that they’re like, oh yeah,

maybe 

Todd: he does 

Craig: care about me. I wondered if it was supposed to be like reconciliation, but it didn’t feel like reconciliation. It felt either flirtatious or like heat, and it was weird. 

Todd: It was so weird and outta place. And it doesn’t go anywhere either. No. Like there, there’s nothing that develops between these two.

There’s just this weird moment and then that’s they’re, it’s done. It’s so much strangeness. Like were they just improvising some of this stuff, you know, as they went along? It’s really hard to say. It is a moment. It is a literal scene before we cut to something else. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: But eventually, yeah. They find, they find Crofton again, the 

Craig: bill.

Yeah. And this is, oh God, it’s so stupid. An alarm on his watch goes off that we were drawing attention to earlier. It was Tom’s watch. And they’re like, where did you get that watch? And like, I found it by my camp. Okay. Whatever. You know, the body was missing apparently. And then Bigfoot kills the hiker here, and then Bigfoot disables a dynamite trap.

Todd: Right. 

Craig: So he is clearly smart. And then this is where I have in my notes. I think Jack tells Bill, he thought that the Bigfoot recognized him. I think that Bill asks, why didn’t you shoot? Maybe he said something about it before. But he definitely tells Bill that, and that seems to maybe Bill like has a revelation in his mind or whatever.

But Bigfoot is watching and then Betsy joins the group. So pretty much everybody is together now. Yep. And I feel like at this point things start 

Todd: moving quickly. Kind of. But this was when I was looking at my watch, I was like, God, there can’t be much more to this movie. They’ve gotta wrap this up soon.

Same. And there were 27 minutes left and I was like, oh my God, it felt so long. You know, to hear us describe it, you might think that there was so much wacky stuff happening that it was interesting. But it was, it was pretty paced out. 

Craig: Yeah. I was, especially throughout this part, I def I, I had my other monitor up and like I was going back and forth between my notes and like.

Facebook or whatever. 

Todd: Can we just address for a moment the craziness of what’s going on here? Bill Croft’s daughter gets attacked in the middle, so he camps himself out in these same woods trying to find this monster booby traps the hell out of it so that any random hiker or anybody wandering around in the woods, including perhaps him, could possibly step in a giant bear trap or trip a bomb that sets off dynamite everywhere.

Craig: Now, to be fair, to be fair, now of course this is crazy. It’s crazy to set up booby traps like this, but the hiker stuff was put in. The hiker stuff would lead you to believe much, like don’t go into the woods, that this is a heavily populated area where people are just consistently picked off, 

Todd: right? 

Craig: Take the hiker out, and you could potentially believe that this is remote and that it’s not.

You. You know what I’m saying? The hiker and the girls 

Todd: maybe. 

Craig: Well, but even the girls, if the girls are looking for a weed farm, people usually hide their weed pretty deep in the woods where a lot of people aren’t gonna be walking around. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I guess, I don’t know. Yeah, I 

Todd: was just gonna say, is that where you hide your weight?

I mean, that’s what, that’s what, that’s what movies 

Craig: will tell me. That’s what I’ve been told. I’m having a little bit of difficulty because I watched two A, I watched this movie yesterday and then I watched another movie called Abduction. No, not Abduction. What was it called? Oh man. I’ll have to look it up.

But they were both alien movies and they had some similarities. And one of the similarities in, in the other movie that I watched, they actually did stumble upon the uncle’s weed farm. And there was a, that’s no joke. It was a bunch of assholes in the woods and they did stumble on the uncle’s weed farm.

Wow. And then there were aliens. But you, this is when, so Bigfoot ambushes the camp. So tell them about that while I look up my IMDB history. 

Todd: Bigfoot is very choosy about who he decides to off. He just jumps into camp. He takes George Kennedy and smashes his, his head against a rock repeatedly until he is presumably dead.

I thought, oh God, he’s dead. I, I was surprised he knocks jack out. He swipes at the girls and I just had to assume that the girls were dead or something because, or 

Craig: knocked out. ’cause they fell 

Todd: down. Yeah, they fell. That’s right. Because all we see is is Big Bigfoot run off. And Jack wakes up. The girls are gone.

So he starts stumbling around and then he runs across Cindy, who’s also gotten demon warped. Again, Cindy’s stumbling, just like Fred was earlier looking pretty zombie-like, and walks away from him and he’s just sort of like, oh, that’s weird. And keeps going until he comes to the, he just follows her pulsing cave.

Yeah. She 

Craig: leads him to a, yeah, she leads him to a cave. It’s like, oh, she’s a zombie. Yeah. He hasn’t even seen a zombie yet. No, we have, but he hasn’t, but, but yeah, he just follows her to a cave. Yeah. Where Bigfoot’s just hanging out in the mouth of the cave and he shoots it a bunch of times. And Liz was right.

She wasn’t right about the zombies, I don’t think, but. Bigfoot is like a wear Bigfoot. 

Todd: Yeah. Would you suppose, do you suppose though that if enough time had gone on that Fred and Cindy would’ve transformed into a Bigfoot like creature? Well, I guess they would’ve transformed into something, right? I mean, there was a lot because then why did.

Why did Uncle Clem turn into a Bigfoot creature? 

Craig: Okay, I, okay. Oh, 

Todd: you can tell me this. 

Craig: I, I think I can. So he goes further into the cave and he sees all these zombies and they’re, but again, they’re not attacking him, but they’re like messing with all this electronic equipment. Like, it looks so stupid bad.

It looks stupid zombies. It, it is just dumb. Like if you’re gonna do it, like have them really doing something productive. Don’t just have them lumbering around like zombies. And then we’re supposed to believe that these zombies built a spaceship. Like they’re, they’re don’t believe it. 

Todd: It’s more like they’re picking through the junkyard is what it looks 

Craig: like.

And just discarding things. Like, it just looks stupid. Yeah. But he finds one of the guys, right? One of his friends who wasn’t dead. Wait, does he find Fred? No, he eventually does. Yes. Yeah. So I don’t think that first zombie that we saw was Fred. It couldn’t have been. Yeah, it was ’cause Fred is fine now. Uh, no.

Todd: Yeah, no, he doesn’t find Fred. Then why is he fine now? No, he finds Fred, you’re right. He is fine. No, he finds Tom later. Dude, that was Fred. That other zombie was a hundred percent Fred. I 

Craig: thought it w it couldn’t be because he’s fine Now. I know. How can he open a zombie then? And now? He’s fine. That doesn’t make any sense.

Well, was he fine though? He was like, yes, he was fine. He was all beat up. He just says, I’m all beat up inside. But everybody else is just zombies. I don’t think that was Fred. Oh, okay. I thought it was. I thought we were both right, but I don’t think it was. I think that for no explainable reason, he’s just been dragged there because all the other zombies are doing a thing and Fred tells him the girls are probably still alive because the priest wants them for Yes.

I don’t remember. 

Todd: As soon as he said that, I was like, what are we doing now? I just couldn’t believe the priest and then cut to. Yes. A priest, a priest, a sacrificial table like we are now in a Satanic ritual movie, like we’re on the set of Gies, basically. Mm-hmm. And, uh, there’s naked, was it Cindy or Carrie?

Which of the two? Two of ’em. 

Craig: Both of ‘

Todd: em. Well, no, 

Craig: not Cindy. Carrie and, oh, it’s Betsy first. Betsy 

Todd: First. It’s Betsy. Yeah. Betsy’s laid out on the table and this priest, freaky looking guy. Boobs out. Yeah, boobs out every, I mean, it’s your classic. I do love a boobs out. Sacrifice. Me too. 

Craig: It’s the classic sacrifice.

There’s just something classic 

Todd: about it. Yeah. You gotta go all in.

It’s my favorite kind of sacrifice. 

Craig: It’s, it’s, it’s one of mine too. He’s 

Todd: wearing a robe. He is got the dagger and everything, and he’s saying a bunch of mumbo jumbo and he stabs straight down in and pulls out this girl’s heart and then tosses it at this goofy ass creature in the corner. Which apparently is the Mastermind behind this whole affair.

Okay? Right. 

Craig: It’s the Lord. Sath. You see it 

Clip: as Wrath is Lord, as wrath is Lord. My master dwells within the sacred chamber. His vessel buried deep in the bowels of the earth. He eats of the flesh of the land waiting patiently, gathering his strength for a return journey to the stars. I am his faithful shepherd, his servant of the table.

My sacred dagger is raised in trembling anticipation 

Craig: as breath is Lord. Now this just occurred to me now and it’s probably not true, but is there any chance? Okay. Now maybe I’m talking myself into it. Is there any chance that that priest was the guy that we saw in the first scene? I 

Todd: think it was, yeah, I think it’s the same guy.

Craig: Okay. I didn’t know. 

Todd: Yeah, it was supposed to be a mummy. Buckler had actually created a mummy type animatronic figure for this, but they found it much easier and cheaper to just put that guy back in, uh, in robes and stuff and, and just have him do it. There as a person. He’s kind of a cool looking dude.

Like he’s been in a, a fair number of movies, a a lot actually of movies and television and he’s got a look. You know, you can tell this guy’s a character actor, you know, he’s been in some stuff, but the alien creature in the corner apparently was supposed to be a squat, tentacle invaders from Mars type of reject that they were gonna use a forced perspective shot to make it look huge.

But they ended up going another route. Their makeup guy had an existing alien mask that looked pretty okay and had like an alien hand to go with it. And they really didn’t have enough money for him to make the rest of the alien suit. So they created that like podium structure, right? And that scorpion like tail that sticks out from a hole in the bottom.

And they jerry rigged a mechanical claw on his other hand. I don’t understand. Like, it just looks like the most jerry rigged creature you can imagine. And I think scorpion like tail is. Is being kind. It’s more of like a giant scorpion like dick that’s pocket popping straight out of the podium that this thing is sitting in.

It was bizarre, man. 

Craig: It kinda looked like if you took one of the mystery science theater, 3000 robots Yes. And sprayed it with a bunch of cook, like flesh colored cook. That is an accurate, that’s kind of what it looked like. Okay. So the, there’s the, there’s the whole heart eating part and the priest is like, ah, it’s delicious.

And there will be more. Okay. Cut back to the guys just outside the chamber and Jack is like, Hey, I’ve got some dynamite. And the other guy’s like, uh, I’m a goner, but get in there and, and blow it all up. Then zombie Tom comes out now. Okay. You know, we’ve seen a bunch of zombies at this point, but zombie Tom.

Is a wise 

Todd: cracking zombie. He’s a chatterbox. Everybody else is attacking the Halloween masks. And Tom is like, Hey guys, what are you doing? Ha ha ha. Here’s what’s happening. He’s like, 

Craig: yeah. He’s like, these are my friends. Now you’re gonna, they’re nice people, Jack. You’d like ’em. And it’s weird. And then Jack shoots him.

Once and he doesn’t die. And then he shoots them in the head and I think he does. And then he starts, he realizes, I guess you need to shoot them in the head. And he, so he starts shooting zombies in the head, but he runs out of, he runs outta bullets and they drag him and the other guy in there and. Jack, I guess, kills the priest right away.

At some point, Fred gets grabbed by the creepy alien robot thing, and it takes, its what you described as its scorpion tail and stabs him in the chest. And he’s like, Ugh. But Jack kills enough of the zombies, and he freeze, Carrie. They’re gonna leave and they’re trying to get Fred to go with them. And he’s like, no, leave me here.

All detonated or whatever. And they’re like, no, come on. And he says, look at me. And he shows them his hands and they’re getting covered with hair. So. Bigfoot people and they turn into zombies. But to make a Bigfoot, you have to get stabbed with the centipede tail and injected with some goop. Oh, you are brilliant.

You 

Todd: are absolutely brilliant. And who knows why or how they choose who gets what treatment. I also don’t understand, so does that mean that this alien creature that has crashed and has to enlist all these people to put together his shoddy ass looking ship on the shoddiest looking set, you could possibly imagine, but he, he also needs to get them to go out and bring back his only food source, which is the hearts of.

Women with their tops off. Who knows? Like, like why is this whole sacrifice thing happening? Is that’s what’s kept it alive for the last, I don’t know, a hundred years or so? 

Craig: I don’t know. I, I mean, if I was gonna get philosophical about it, what I would think was, the guy that we met in the beginning was a religious fanatic.

He met this alien being who he thought was like, God, the archangel. ’cause that’s what he calls him. Oh. And so he, the thing. You know, needs to eat. And so he made human sacrifice the way that he fed it. And, and that’s giving far, far too much credit to the writers. It doesn’t matter. But there is still another, I still have another favorite part.

While Jack and Carrie are running out, they run into the Cindy Zombie. Yes. And carrie’s like, we can’t leave her. We can’t leave her. And Jack’s like, we gotta leave her. And carrie’s like, we can’t leave her. We can’t leave her. So Jack shoots Cindy in the that and, and carrie’s like, and carrie’s like, okay.

Oh, that was so funny. And then the cave explodes. The cave explodes. Yep. Which would seemingly lead to kind of the logical end of the movie, which would just be maybe Jack and and Carrie, you know, embracing as the camera sweeps around them in the desert. And they’re fine and it’s over. But no, there’s a weird, like there’s a weird new heart ending, 

Todd: right?

Where it’s like it’s all a dream. Well, I don’t know actually the way that it’s staged. I thought it could be read two different ways. It could be read. Jack Wakes up next to Cindy and he’s like, oh, that was weird. It was all a dream. But then these monsters surround him and they start to descend upon them and he screams, and then he wakes up again and he’s by himself.

And I guess the implication is that I thought actually that it wasn’t that it was all a dream. I thought that he was just so traumatized by the incident that he can’t help but continue to relive it or it keeps haunting his nightmares. That was my initial thought. 

Craig: Well, but the way that it’s shot, it’s not shot in a bedroom.

No. It’s shot on a pitch black sound stage, so that all you can see is the, and I may be giving it too much credit, but you can’t see anything around it. Yeah, it’s just the bed and them and the very sparse furniture very close to the bed, so it feels dreamlike. It doesn’t feel real. So I’m not, I’m just not sure what they were going for.

Like you said, I, I agree with you. It could be. It could be a number of things. Maybe they never really got out. 

Todd: Well, I have inside information. 

Craig: Good. 

Todd: According to the screenwriter, and I’m, I’m reading from his interview, he says in the script, I just wanted the movie to end. These people had been through an ordeal.

It was over and I wanted that to be done. No zombies popping outta bushes, no Bigfoot in the backseat as they were driving home. No alien popping out of Jack’s chest. It was just supposed to be, are you all right? And I’m glad that’s over. And then Jack and Kerry walk off into the Sunset movie. Done. 

Craig: That sounds appropriate.

Todd: Well, that was not to be our director one take. Emmett Alston allowed David and Pamela to improvise their last lines in the film, and they decided it would be funny to bicker over who got them into this mess. Like, you’re the one who wanted to go camping, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And argue as they walked outta the scene.

Okay, that’s fine if you shoot coverage of the ending the way it was written. But no, there was only one take. And they couldn’t use it and they couldn’t go back to the location to reshoot and they couldn’t dub over their dialogue. It was all crap. So I had to come up with something to wrap it all up. Yes, the, it was all a dream as a bad cliche, but that was not meant to be the meaning of that scene.

It was not that the whole proceeding story was just to dream, but that Jack was reliving it in his dreams. I probably didn’t make that clear in the dialogue, but Jack does say, I can’t stop thinking about Tom and Cindy and what happened. Yeah. And then. To be clever. I tossed in two more, waking up from a nightmare bits.

At least I tried. He says, uh, the whole thing kind of balances out the movie. They have three beginnings, the preacher, the cabin with George and his daughter and the kids in the car. So we have three waking up from a dream endings as well.

Alright. Yeah. Okay. This happens, it happens in filmmaking. I didn’t think it was too terrible. I just thought, ugh. It was a bit of unnecessary. But you know, that’s also not uncommon for movie, right? We’ve got the Friday the 13th jump scares. We’ve got the Phantasm jump scare at the end. We’ve got so many movies kind of do a final little jump scare that feels like it was a dream or we’re not quite sure where it’s going.

Or maybe it’s setting, Liz thought they were setting it up for a sequel now, you know, they just, he just wrote something new because they had to, ’cause they couldn’t use what they shot 

Craig: and that’s fine. You know, I, I just. I wanna reiterate about this movie that I don’t think it’s bad. Really. I, I think that there’s a, I think there’s a big, I, I don’t, I don’t think it’s that bad.

I think that there’s Well, I mean, for what it is you mean? For what it is? Yeah. I don’t wanna steer people away from it. In fact, I would steer people too toward it. It’s entertaining in a goofy eighties kind of way. Yes. And when it goes off the rails at the end, it’s stupid. But it’s fun. I wish that they had leaned more into that.

I wish that they had gotten to it more quickly. I would’ve been fine with this movie if it had been 78 minutes or whatever. I, I am fine with it as is. It’s just is kind of a pedestrian bigfoot movie that you’re not really seeing anything you’ve never seen before. I mean, I like the design of the creature.

I like that, you know, its face has some articulation to it and it looks pretty good. And the practical effects of the kills look pretty good. It’s just very strangely paced. You know, two of them, no three main characters get killed off in like the first 10 minutes. Yeah. And then we go walk in the woods for an hour.

Yeah. And then it go with Bigfoot, just kind of walking around and randomly killing people every once in a while, mostly just twisting their necks or ripping their heads off, which looks good. I am, I mean, practical effects. I’m a big, huge fan of I and I, I appreciated them and thought it looked good, and then it gets to the wacky stuff.

And the wacky stuff is crazy, but it’s fun and I enjoyed it. So I, I get it. I, I don’t even know if there’s a cult following for this, but I feel like there should be, I feel like more people should have seen this movie, you said when we first started talking about it, that you had seen it pop up in different things.

I watch all those things, you know, all the hundred, you know, the top 100 list. All of these things. I don’t recall ever having seen anything about this before. Yeah. It’s like it just appeared out of the ether and even just Billy Jane is enough for me. Right. But I really think a lot of our viewers, especially our viewers, and I know there are a lot of you who, uh, really appreciate the more obscure things that we watch.

I think that you will be delighted by this. It’s not a great movie, but I think that you’ll have a lot of fun with it. 

Todd: Yeah. If you’re not tired, you know, if you’re wide awake and you’re especially watching it with other people, so you can just laugh at the goofiness of it, then you’ll definitely enjoy it.

If you’re into these kind of movies, you know, if you’re with people who don’t really have a tolerance for this kind of goofiness, basically, as somebody who’s not really a diehard horror fan who doesn’t watch this stuff on a regular basis, you know, then, then maybe they would wanna turn it off. But, uh, especially after the first hour, I honestly think the movie is.

A good lesson in the importance of foreshadowing when you tell a story, you know, like you said earlier, you kind of need to know where this is going and to have a lot of just stumbling around in the woods with these random monster kills and then some really random shit thrown in. Every now and then, you don’t really get any sense of what’s happening until the last, you know, 15 minutes.

You get impatient with the story. But it’s goofy, man. It’s just like one of the goofiest, low budget horror films I’ve ever seen. And I echo everything that you said. I would definitely steer horror fans towards it. I wouldn’t ask my mom to watch this. 

Craig: No, no, no. But if you could gather even just a few friends who enjoy, you know, who are big horror fans, if you’re fortunate enough to have that circle, this would be a great thing to watch with.

Other people. Yeah. ’cause you could laugh together and you could talk during most of it and really not miss a whole lot. And when things, you know, when a kill is coming up and Bigfoot’s prowling around, then you could pay attention. When it gets to the end and it’s getting crazy, then you can maybe pay more attention, but you’re not setting yourself up well for it.

If you’re sitting with your significant. Other who’s not a huge fan or you’re sitting in front of it alone. Yeah. In front of your laptop. Like, these are not the best environments to view this in. If, if possible, try to watch it with somebody else who will appreciate it with you. I think you and I would’ve had so much fun watching this together.

Todd: Oh yeah. We 

Craig: should. I think that we would’ve laughed and laughed and laughed. Yes. 

Todd: I totally agree. Well, it was certainly fun talking about, that’s for sure. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Uh, we hope that you can track down Demon Warp Yourself. Like we said, go to YouTube. The copies aren’t great that are out there, but if you Google it, you’ll find something out there.

Hopefully the thing will get a DVD release at some point, but right now all we have is the magic of who managed to rip it off their VHS tape and upload it on the internet. And that’s good enough. You know, that’s how we watched these movies back in the eighties. Yeah. So, uh, there you go. If you have seen Demon Warp and you want to share some, uh, thoughts about it, you can just find us online at our website, chainsaw horror.com.

Find us on our social media by Googling two guys in a Chainsaw podcast. We can talk about this movie, we can talk about other movies that we’ve done, and you can also put your requests in. Please sign up for a newsletter on our website, chains software.com. That just, uh, lets you know what we’ve got coming up.

And also we put out some of the freshest news articles that we think are most interesting from the previous week. You can also send us a voice message by going to our website and clicking talk to us. You don’t need any special software for it. It happens right through your browser. And, uh, we love to hear from you guys and we will definitely play those on air as well.

Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Join us in this special tribute episode of Two Guys in a Chainsaw as we dive into ‘Murder by Phone’ (1982). We bring a mix of nostalgia and critique as we explore this lesser-known horror flick starring Richard Chamberlain, who passed away this year.

From amusing kill scenes to dated technology, we give you an in-depth look at what makes this movie both charming and painfully slow. Plus, a special listener shout-out and a fun discussion on vintage phones! Tune in for our honest review and see if this film is worth a watch—or a skip.

Here is a comparison between the original (titled “Bells”) and the USA-released cut of “Murder By Phone”. Check the description to jump to the edited parts.

Episode 445, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, today we are doing a film that I chose. This is mainly a tribute to Richard Chamberlain, long time American actor slash heartthrob slash singer, who really made his. Name in the sixties on a television show called Dr. Kilder. Mm-hmm. It’s like a medical drama. He was just the handsome, dashing Dr.

Kilder, who saved lives and solved problems. And then, you know, went on to be in a lot of television, a lot of movies. I remember him most. From this film that my dad take took me to see in the movie theater in 1985 called King Solomon’s Mines. Did you ever see that that was a Canon movie that was meant to be sort of an Indiana Jones knockoff, or just trying, they were trying to start.

A franchise and they did two of them and they didn’t do very well. He later talked about how he thought he was kind of tricked into doing it because the budget was so lousy and there were a lot of famous people involved, but they, some of them were phoning it in. Some of them, the director was clearly just kind barely even there, and so it was a very disappointing experience for him.

The movie got terrible reviews, but when I was a kid, I remembered it being kind of a cool movie. And then as an adult, I went back to see it and I was like, yeah, I can see this is very, very dated, but this film we’re doing, I saw when I was a kid on tv. Now I dunno about you, but I have these movies that I caught when I was a kid and then forever for the rest of my life, I’m remembering it and wondering what movie was that for us?

One of those movies we did was Burnt Offerings. Because, yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. Both of us also had that about The Red Room or whatever. Yes. After School Special was that we talked about. 

Todd: We finally managed to track it down and actually watch it after all those years. This was one of those movies when I first caught this movie on television and I probably came in in the middle of it.

I was so entranced and freaked out by it. The movie is called Murder by Phone from 1982. 82. And I, I was terrified by this idea that there’s this guy who could, with just the push of a button, zap people through their phone and kill them. And I think that the, the kill scenes also kind of shocked me at the time as well.

So this is a movie that I had this gone back to look for. And you would think that murder by phone would be the easiest. Thing to find. I was looking up dial M for murder and murder this, and phone this and that. And I never, until about a couple years ago, found this film Murder by phone. And then, uh, when he died, I instantly was like, Craig, if we’re gonna do a tribute to this guy, I really want to do this movie.

It’s, it really is one of the few horror movies that he was in. And, uh, it just left such a deep impression on me, and it turned out to be kind of hard to find. I found it on YouTube. Yeah, it’s on YouTube, but it’s not a very good copy. No, it’s not. It’s ripped straight from the VHS. This has never gotten a proper like DVD Remastering or anything like that, but we were able to find it and I don’t know, had you ever seen or heard of this before?

No. 

Craig: No, I never heard of it. At all. Richard Chamberlain, I don’t really know a whole lot about him. Frankly. The thing that I know him from is he did a one episode guest appearance on Will and Grace, and I think that he was kind of making fun of himself, but he, he didn’t appear as himself, but he was.

Elderly, and, and that’s what he played. Like he played this, this really, really elderly gay guy that the other men on the show felt, we need to look out for him. You know, like these elder gays, you know, they paved the way, you know, we’ve, we’ve gotta, we’ve gotta take care of them now. But, but he was just very annoying and clingy and I think, I think as it turned out, he was.

Really not a good person. Like I don’t remember if he was racist or like something there see was something, and so eventually they were like, no, fuck you. But it was cute to see him play an elder gay ’cause he was right. He, he was a gay guy. But you know, of course in Hollywood, in his heyday, that’s just something that.

You didn’t talk about it. You know, leading men had to work to keep that quiet if they wanted to maintain their careers. And he did for a long time. He didn’t come out, I think he came out in like 2003 or something like that. Yeah. He wrote, he 

Todd: also wrote a book about his personal life, I think as a gay man.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. And I, and, and I think that he was in a long-term, committed relationship with another man. And so, and, and like, but like you said. He was this big heartthrob and I went back and for purposes of research Okay. Looked at, looked at, looked at some old, like shirtless pictures of him. And, uh, he was a good looking guy.

He really was a good looking guy. Yeah. The, he’s, you know, I, I don’t have any idea how old he is in this movie. He’s like in his 

Todd: forties. He’s pretty, but pretty close to our age now. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. He, and he, he still looks great. I mean, I, God, I wish I was in the shape that he was in at that time. I wish now I was in that shape and I’m certainly not.

He looks good. I don’t know. It, it, he’s in a period I think in his life where he’s got like a big bushy beard and, yeah. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t personally find it appealing. You like the clean cut 1960s, uh, Richard Chamberlain. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I myself have not shaved my face in probably five years, so I get it.

I get the appeal of a beard, but, ah, it just wasn’t working for me. Nor was this movie. I hated this. Did you? Yeah. Hated it. Absolutely. It was painful to watch. I started trying to watch it last night and I was very tired. It had been a very long day. 

Todd: Oh, that’s not good. 

Craig: A great day. It, it was a, it was a, a great day, a great day of friends and family, but I also, I managed to incorporate alcohol into all of that.

And so my, my nine o’clock at night when I got home, I was so tired. Like I had told myself like, it’s fine, I’ll, you know. I’ll watch it tonight. I have plenty of time, but I got home at nine o’clock and I was so tired and I put it on and I watched like 20 minutes of it and I just gave up. I’m like, I can’t do this.

Mm. I got, so I got up at six 30 this morning. To finish it so that we could talk about it. And that was fun too. God bless you.

Todd: I don’t think this is, I mean, I agree. The least you can say about this movie is it’s a slow burn. It’s not. Action packed. It’s more of a thriller mystery in a way than just a, I know, 

Craig: but like, who cares? Like this guy is just killing people over the phone. Okay, so, so a guy, I mean, we can talk about specifics or whatever, but the premise is some mysterious guy who, nobody knows who it is.

It’s just calling people seemingly at random. Pushing a button and then they’ve explode and that’s it. What 

Todd: I know, it was terrifying when I was a kid and oh my God, it’s hard to believe it’s rated R. It is, yeah. I suppose for the time, maybe the blood and it felt very much to me like a made for TV movie.

I know. I was thinking the same thing and I kept going back to see if it was, and it wasn’t. This was Shot Canada. 

Craig: I can’t believe it was rated R. It seems, this seems like something that would’ve. Been a movie of the week or, right, like you said it, it’s much more like a thriller. Yeah, it, it’s far more like that than horror.

Todd: Well, people have called it like a slasher esque type movie, except the slashing is done through the telephone. And I can get that idea. There’s a person out there who is targeting specific people, except for the first one we learn is targeting specific people and taking them out and you know, they’re dying in these horrible ways.

One right after the other. As the mystery grows, this guy is tracking it down. It was shot in 1980, like two years before it was released in the States, and it was called Bells Up there, and it was actually longer than this. I know. Did you find So I found a no. 

Craig: I, I can’t imagine. No. It’s like I, I, I, I read that too.

I read that like 17 minutes were cut. I’m like, are you kidding me? Like when they were cutting that 17 minutes, why didn’t they cut the other 90 like, so boring. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Tell tell me about the deleted stuff. 

Todd: I wonder, I wonder if, if you had been kind of fresh when you watched this and not at all tired, if you might’ve had more patience for it, or you might’ve found some charm in it like I did.

I thought the movie was very retro. I mean, because it’s a film of its time, and I liked the ideas that they had in the movie. They were so charmingly, quaint. They were like. Three different things that are charmingly quaint about this. Number one is the simplicity of the story. It’s so textbook this guy finds himself in this mystery who’s just like this college professor who is expert.

Yeah, but why? 

Craig: Why is he even involved? And I don’t even understand that. Like he’s like an environmentalist professor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who gets pulled into this telephone murder? Like 

Todd: what? The first person who’s murdered is one of his former students who had gone. Who he had sent to New York. So it’s hard to maybe pick up because it’s just a little bit in the beginning where he meets up with this farmer guy who is the father of the woman who dies.

But the, the first thing we see in the movie is this woman, uh, she’s on a subway platform. She kind of stumbles an old bag they call Bag Lady. That’s what we used to say about homeless people. We would call them terrible things like bag ladies kind of is there and kind of helps her out. The phone starts to ring a public phone.

Another charming thing on this pillar, which by the way, there are like four public phones on this one pillar alone, and every other pillar on this platform has at least two public phones posted to it. I thought, my God, do you remember that? 

Craig: Uh, yes. Yes, I do. And that’s what I was gonna ask you. I I, in America, I know that you visit from time to time, so it’s not like you’re totally ignorant of what things are like over here.

But, uh, no, payphones they just don’t exist anymore. Yeah. Of, I mean, they, they used to be ubiquitous. They were everywhere. Of course, there were were phones everywhere. Yeah. And now they’re just gone. They just don’t exist. Is there, is that, is it the same way in China? Yeah, nobody’s got a payphone here. 

Todd: There are some little phone booths that around the city.

When I first got here in 2016 and there was big news that they were kind of converting them into little, they were gonna try to convert them into little wifi stations. I don’t think that happened, but they, they did that in Japan. As well. When I was living in Japan in 2001 to 2004, people were still using payphones, but they were kind of going out out the door.

And I don’t think in the US we were really, it’s been at least 25 years since any of us have probably seriously thought about using a payphone. I, I used to carry a quarter. In my wallet. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Just, just in case, you know, you had to call home. Me too. It was crazy. 

Craig: Me too. And, and that’s, you know, I don’t know, most people have cell phones now, but I think of payphones kind of the same way that I think of like public libraries.

Like they’re just kind of, they were one of those kind of great equalizers, like mm-hmm. Virtually anybody could. Scrape up a quarter if they needed to make a call. 

Todd: Yeah, and it’s almost like a have and have not type situation. Like maybe people couldn’t afford a phone in their house, or maybe they only had one line when really they should have had two or three or something like that.

You know, public phone, like you said, everybody could use it. And people would take calls on public phones. I mean, you see it in old movies, right? Where uh, public phone actually has a number that you can call and you could say, Hey, I’ll be at the phone at such and such time. Please give me a call and then tell me the way to the library or whatever you need.

You know, or tell me where to find you, that kind of thing. I mean, it’s so 

Craig: nuts. What do you think? I can this, think about it, talk about this. I, I could talk about this all day, like, I know, right? And I, I’m far more interested in the, in this than the movie, but like, like payphones, like, you know, like you could call your parents collect and, and they could just not take, but like.

They could not accept the charges, but they would know you were okay. You know what I mean? Yeah, 

Todd: exactly. Oh, we used to do, oh, there’s so much we could talk about in the, in the context of this movie, I was making furious notes about charming, little retro things that I forgot because the whole overarching idea of this movie is that the phone company is kind of the villain.

There’s setting the phone company up to be like this all powerful, all controlling corporation. Satellite bounces, 

Paul: microwave relay, international communications, time lag. All the calculations are made from this room. By the year 2000, there will be 1.4 trillion phones in the world, including cable switches, long distance facilities.

The cost will amount to approximately $1,000 per phone. That’s what I call an industry. 

Todd: I mean, it’s a dated idea and it’s really cute and quaint, but really it’s just a modern day parallel of our internet companies now, or Facebook or something like that, just for the time. And it seems especially quaint because of how limited that would be, you know, a phone company.

But like there’s a point at which they threaten the, the boss of the phone company is threatened to have like a, we’ll shut you down. And he says stuff like, what would you do then if, if all these people needed to call the doctor, how many lives would be. Lost for emergencies and you’re not gonna dare to shut me down for one minute.

You know, this kind of thing. And I, I was thinking about it as I’m watching it, and there’s quite a bit of phone porn in here too, because every phone in this movie is different. The physical phone. Mm-hmm. It’s got these very dramatic closeups of phones ringing. It has to be. ’cause the whole movie’s about it and like one person’s phone is that classic, you know, touchtone one, one person’s phone is this classic dial one.

The woman’s got this what we thought were like the cool like sleek, eighties phone that just looked like a dildo. It looks like a dildo 

Craig: standing up. Right. My notes too, like her phone is a dildo standing upright on a table. The base of it is like balls. It just, and, and it just. Sticks up like a curved, erect penis on the table.

That was nuts. 

Todd: At the same time. I remember those. I mean, we didn’t have that one. I do not. I remember seeing that style of phone and thinking how cool it was because it was so modern. ’cause you, you couldn’t even see the dial on. Right. You lift it up and underneath the base is 

Craig: where the dial is for you to dial.

Well that was funny to me too, like, and that’s how you like. Hung it up. Like you just sit it down and that Yeah. Hanging out and then you pick it up. Oh my gosh, that dildo phone was my favorite part of the movie. One girl has a Mickey Mouse phone. Yes. She gets killed by the Mickey Mouse phone. And it’s so funny, like, I don’t remember any details about this.

I don’t like, I remember who the killer is, but I have no idea why he’s doing this. I, I don’t get it at all, and I don’t care. It was so boring to me, but. The kills are so funny because people, people, it was like ring, ring, ring, like the phone rings and then they’ll pick up like, hello. And the killer will be like, is this so and so?

Yes it is. And then he’ll just push a button and then they explode. The phone explodes. They don’t, the phone explodes like, like we see. Yeah, like, like they have some kind of convulsion or whatever and, and blood runs out of their nose and their eyes. But then. The culmination of it is that there’s an explosion and they just get like shot, like they don’t blow up, but their bodies just like, shoot.

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: Across the room. 

Todd: It’s so cool. It’s so violent. Really. It’s crazy. It’s done on a very low budget scale, so there are moments where it’s unintentionally funny. 

Craig: Those moments where like imagine, you know, in a, in a normal movie. Imagine like, you know, a door explodes or something and the person on the other side of it like just gets projected across the room, like their, their legs out in front of them as they just get shot.

That’s what it’s like every time. Yeah. Oh, it’s badass. 

Todd: Can you see how that would freak me out as a kid, though? As a kid, I can, I can Jesus. But 

Craig: like the movie is just so dated. Yeah. That it’s hard. It’s just hard to even take seriously. It’s, I mean, even just seeing them on those rotary phones with. Like the curly cords and like uhhuh, it just seems so dated and corny.

Like I just, I just couldn’t, this is what I loved about it. I’m glad that you found joy in it. I’m always, I’m, I’m so happy for you. I’m always so happy for people when they can find joy in things. I did not, I found this. Torturous to watch really bad. I thought the acting rest in peace. Richard Chamberlain, nothing Mad respect, but not good in this movie.

Not 

Todd: your finest hour. No, no. He’s, I can tell what he’s going for and you can tell from the writing what he’s going for too. He’s kind of almost just on the edge of likable. Because there’s a smug smarm nest to him. Yeah. That gets turned on whenever he is talking about environmental things. 

Craig: I felt like he was going for Donald Sutherland.

Yes. Like an animal house. That kind of smarmy sexy professor. That’s what I felt like he was going for. 

Paul: What’s your line Partner like you. Pollution. Yeah. Well, for all I know, you can be some geek off the street. Who wants to make love to her shoes? You got some identification. I take it the attitude, the, uh, wardrobe, the posture designed to let the public in on just who’s in charge here?

Well, it’s a second rate charade. Your style doesn’t impress me. In fact, it sucks. 

Craig: And I, I get it. I see what he’s going for, but then when I see him making out with a woman and it looks like the most forced, uncomfortable, it’s uncomfortable thing I’ve ever seen in my life, it’s really bad. I could make out with a woman more convincingly than I have done.

Todd: The, the whole chemistry between him and this woman is so shoehorned in it just feels so forced. It’s awful. It’s really bad. Now, I’ll tell you, I watched the deleted scenes. You can go on YouTube and you can find somebody went through the trouble of posting a split screen comparison between the two versions.

The bell, which was its original title, Uhhuh that was released in Canada and this murder by phone as it was cut and they cut like 17 minutes out of it. And it’s really cool because you can go down in the description and you can just click They, he put all the edits like where they are, so you could just click on it and then it jumps.

To that point, to be fair, a lot of what was cut out was relationship stuff between him and her that that eased that in a little bit better, like that kind of gave them some. Things to do with each other. It kind of gave them like opening up moments and like where they were chatting and, but when all that’s cut out, it seems really jumpy and really fast, how quickly these two just like smashed together?

You know, 

Craig: we’ve seen this trope a bazillion times, like just, you know, throwing people together to have a romantic line, right. It, it’s not necessary at all. No, but, but like, I think it was in Piranha, they do the same thing in Piranha, like. Random stupid romance plot that nobody needs. And we’ve seen it a bazillion times.

It’s not new, but that was more charming, right? 

Todd: The kind of drunk guy, I guess. That kind of goofy girl. And they have some awkward moments and it doesn’t really, they don’t really need a lot to just establish that, I think, in that because it’s like, okay, I just 

Craig: thought it was so funny. Like they’re, they’re.

I hated the movie, but that the, the romance is, is kind of like a through line, like it’s kind of, yeah. It starts out, I don’t even remember how he meets her, like he meets her on the job, but then she like stalks him outside and she’s like, Hey, you want to go on a date or whatever, and it’s, and so then they do, what I was trying to get to is I appreciate them trying to.

Up the ante of the sexiness. Like eventually they do hook up and then there’s like a scene where. She gets a phone call. ’cause the movie’s all about phone calls. It hurt. She takes her dildo phone into the bathroom where he’s taking his shower. That was a little sexy. Yeah, that was my favorite part when 

Todd: he opens up the door.

I 

Craig: desperately You wanted a little, wanted him to. Kevin Bacon. It, I totally won a little bit of dong and I didn’t 

Todd: get it. We got almost dong this, the, the door opened just enough and then it just, the, the camera changed angle right as he was coming out. But, but you notice how she hands the, the phone and the towel over to him and she’s looking down and smiling.

Craig: Yes. I think that’s funny too. That’s such a funny movie thing. Like, yes. He just. You like, you need to get, you need to take a peek at his wiener like he’s been inside you. Come on. Yeah. It was cleaner. Now, maybe, I don’t know.

And, and that’s a total lie because I, I, I’m always. Sneaking a peek at the wiener. I was gonna say, you don’t, you’ll look all day long. I’m sure. It doesn’t matter what you just did. Come on. Totally. It’s, it’s a hundred percent true. Always sneaking a peek at the wiener.

I am sure that at least 50% of our viewers appreciate a wiener, so. 

Todd: As do I, I also appreciate a wiener. I’m a straight guy, but good looking. Good looking. Uh, so, but the, well see, I guess there’s so much you don’t remember ’cause a lot of it went by you. Maybe you weren’t in the mood. The whole reason that he gets into this thing in the first place is that he.

Is a professor who’s very much into environmentalism, but he’s also like an electrical engineer. I mean, it took me a while to kind of figure out how those things combined, and then I just realized I don’t think they do. I just think the natural idea in the early eighties was if you’re a college professor, you’re this ultra liberal and you’re gonna be really irritatingly into environmental issues and putting off.

All the people around you by commenting on whether or not they recycle and what, what do they think about this, and why don’t they do that? And, and that’s how he kind of comes across. But he was going to a conference, an ecological conference in the big city. I don’t even know if the city’s ever named, if it’s New York or whatever, but he had sent his, stu, one of his former students there to go to the conference.

Like just suggested she go, and that’s why she was in the. City. And so when she dies from that phone call on the subway where she gets blasted, the only witness to that is the quote unquote bag lady as they keep calling it to her, which again was one of those charming, dated things I thought. And he meets up with a farmer who’s like, clearly this, this woman’s.

Father and he asks that while he’s in the city, could he go and get her things and look into exactly what happened? ’cause it just doesn’t make sense. Like she said, they say that she died from of a heart attack, but she’s really young, right? That just seems very weird. And so he does it as a favor to him and that’s how he gets in, involved in this, in this mystery.

In the meantime, he’s also meeting up with his, who we learned was his, uh, protege. A much older man played by John Houseman. Mm-hmm. Who we’ve talked about, 

Craig: but yeah, we’ve talked about him before. He’s been in tons of stuff. 

Todd: He was in Scrooge and he was also in the fog. He was the narrator at the beginning of the fog.

Craig: Oh, right. The guy was, yeah, I like him. He play, but I. I still don’t 

Todd: understand what’s going on. He also feels like he’s phoning it in. 

Craig: Yeah, and I don’t understand. ’cause I think at some point, like he’s friends with the main guy, Nat, for the whole thing. But then there was a point late in the movie, and I swear to God, I was just looking at the.

Like Jesus Christ is over yet, but there there came a point where it seemed to me like he was in on it. 

Todd: Yeah. Sort of. Again, the cut scenes give a lot more stuff between those two. He meets up with him before he ever goes to the phone company before he ever starts this investigation. They’re at the conference sort of registering.

And they have a chat, and that’s when you immediately establish like that. The two of them are that he was his old teacher and all this stuff, and they’re, they’re very, very friendly and he says, oh, you should stay at my house. There’s all this stuff that’s not in the movie that if it were in the movie, I would’ve been far less confused.

So to a certain extent, after watching the stuff that was cut. I do feel like the, the movie was a little bit a victim of being cut to pieces as far as these relationships were. On the other hand, I can see why it was cut, because all this stuff is rather slow. It’s boring. It’s so long and boring. It’s already slow.

The time between the kills is, yeah. It’s just, it’s a little boring. 

Craig: Yeah, and, and the kills are. Fun. I agree with you. Like I love that, like I love the big explosions and them flying across the room, but it’s exactly the same every time. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: So it’s gonna be exactly the same every time. Like, don’t make me wait for it, like.

Let’s just blow people up all over the place. You’re, I, I think you’re gonna have to explain it to me ’cause I don’t get it. I don’t understand why Nats friend was in on it. Sometime early in the movie. The killer says, I just have this in my notes. I have no context. I don’t have any idea what it means, but he says something like, you stole it from me, Gordon.

It should have been mine. Then that guy gets murdered by phone. I, I think that this also has something to do with like fiber optics. Yeah. Like, I like the killer, like invented fiber optics and somebody stole it from him. So then he hinted a away to kill people over the phone. 

Todd: I mean, that is what kind of ends up by the end.

When the killer has his monologue in explaining how he did it, that just pops outta nowhere. Oh yeah, I invented fiber optics, but this other guy stole it from, he’s basically killing all the people he has a beef with. So the first girl we learn was just a test. She was totally random, right? He was just testing to see if this tech would work, and it did.

Craig: I loved the way too, that the, they went out of their way. The, the filmmakers went out of their way to make it very clear that this was a lovely, lovely young woman. Like, like, like she’s helping people and being super, super nice, and then she gets killed and so then later the main guy can confront the killer and say, well, that.

The lady was a good person and he’s like, well, she was just a test. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. Sort of established that he’s, he’s loony and, and reckless that his morals are not so great as he claims because at that point there, there, he’s claiming to sort of be on the same side as Ned the net, you know, the rich, the 

Craig: environmentalist.

Todd: Yeah. He’s like, we’re doing this for the same reason. I 

Craig: don’t understand how that ties in either. Ah, it’s so weird. Three quarters of the way into the movie, and I feel like it’s all affront for something. But Nat gives a lecture about environmentalism. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Craig: What is happening? 

Paul: Ladies and gentlemen, the world is gonna die unless we turn around and fight.

We’ve gotta become noisy, radical, and insubordinate. Now I know what I’m gonna do about it. So what the hell Stanley Markowitz would wanted me to ask, are you gonna do about it? Acceptable casualty levels. Acceptable to whom? To working. Men and women, to our, our children, to our children’s children.

Mankind’s destiny is not to become father for his own technology. 

Todd: That’s what’s I find so charming about this movie, is that I feel like this is a very sloppy and simplistic attempt to make this. A movie about the evils of corporate, corporate American corporations and allowing technology into our homes.

And I’m down with that. 

Craig: I’m down with the critique of that. 

Todd: Yeah, it, it’s that plus what it does to the environment. There’s some conversation they have earlier about how they’re building new fac. Facilities and, and whatever, and they’re like, yeah, but at what cost? You know, to, it’s, again, it’s, it’s all just kind of like we’re abstractly supposed to understand it’s bad, you know, without really getting into the details, I guess.

And the phone company’s really set up to be villainous at first. When he goes, he looks around the, the, the phone on the platform and he notices that one of the receivers is brand spanking new and he thinks that’s odd. So he decides to go to the phone company to ask about who repaired that phone.

Because it’s just a clue. It’s a weird clue. Right. But maybe because he’s into. Electronics or something. He thinks it’s significant, so oh, oh, oh. It’s because the bag lady said that the woman just exploded and they’re not saying anything about it. They don’t want me to talk about it, yada, yada, yada. So he goes to the phone company and it, and, and there are a lot of these upward shots of this big gleaming skyscraper.

And he goes into the lobby and it’s huge and it’s marvelous. And there are all these people in there, and there’s a guy giving tours of the facility like it’s this, and maybe this was true. Or I think it’s just fictitious for the film, but people are in just such awe of this new phone tech that they’re taking tours to see all the behind the scenes stuff.

And so that’s constantly going and he’s getting the run around when he goes and, and he kind of pushes his way in. But in, in what has to be the oddest way, two people are going to meet. This woman is, I think, an artist who has been commissioned to put a giant mural in their lobby, and he walks over and looks up at it and is like, sees a photo that she has used as part of the mural that she’s gotten from the phone company.

He is like, oh, that’ll never work ’cause of this, this, this, this, that, and the other. And then they have this cute banter back and forth. Which catches her eye. Which catches his eye. And then you’re right after he walks out, pretty unsuccessful, she’s out there eating a sandwich or something, and they have this playful banter and she says, you know, I might actually be able to help you.

Would you like to meet up? And she’s like, yeah, at this restaurant. Yeah, so it’s like a date thus begins. Their whirlwind romance and her usefulness to him is because, somehow because she’s putting a mural together in this giant lobby, she has been given access to anything that she wants at the company.

So she’s gonna be his in for him to request apparently whatever he wants, because this artist has been granted, been granted permission for that, for the mural. It’s so weird. 

Craig: Yeah. I feel like you’re trying really hard to make this movie interesting. And it’s not. 

Todd: That’s it. I mean, that’s how it played out, right?

I don’t think it’s, I think it’s kind of dumb, but they cut out a lot of their byplay because like you said, they’re, they’re basically in bed with each other. In the meantime, we see another random guy get killed. We think he’s random. We don’t know who this guy is. We never met him. He’s just in a high rise office building in a very eighties style modern office with a very eighties style modern phone businessman on a rolling chair.

And he picks it up. And that’s the guy who we never see again, nor hear about again, nor did we see him before. And that’s where he says, you stole it from me. And he gets blown out the window and down to the street, which I thought it was kind of dramatic. 

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, that’s, that’s kind of how all the deaths are.

I like, again, I, I, I, I’ll repeat myself. I liked those kill moments, even though they were always exactly the same. Somebody just gets shot across from it looks good. I enjoyed watching it. It was fun to watch, but. I don’t know. I mean, the whole thing was just boring. You talked about that homeless lady in the subway.

At some point she asked somebody for a quarter. Do you remember that? Yeah. And then the next thing that we saw was she used that quarter to buy lipstick out of a vending machine. Yeah. Wait a minute. Did you? That’s all I have to say about that. 

Todd: Did you see a scene of her applying the lipstick to herself?

Yeah, it was, dude, you must have seen the uncut version. 

Craig: Oh boy. The, the version I saw was only an hour and a half long, so I don’t know. But I did see that woman use that quarter that she begged for to buy a lipstick out of a vending machine in the subway. 

Todd: Put it on 

Craig: what is happening. 

Todd: Why? Oh my God. Oh boy.

Yeah. According to the side-by-side comparison, that was cut out of murder by phone. That was one of the original ones. Well, I don’t know what version I saw. Maybe you saw the more boring version. I don’t know. Yeah, I 

Craig: don’t know. And then my notes, I, I took hardly any notes. That’s okay. Here’s where my notes are.

Woman killed while sun picks up chips. Stink explosion at the push of a button, like 

Todd: again, the way it’s chopped up. You have no idea why this woman is, is being targeted, right? 

Craig: No, and like that’s, that’s, that’s a good segue. Please tell me because I don’t understand. At some point in the movie, they know who the killer is.

Now they have figured out that somehow, and I thought that they didn’t even make this pun, but I thought the pun was so funny. Literally, what they need to do is reverse the charge. Like he’s, he’s sending electricity through the phone lines somehow. And if they can trace his number, they can reverse the charge.

Like you would reverse the charge on a phone call. You know, like, it’s so funny to me, so funny to me. But they can reverse the electrical charge if they can track his phone number. Now, here are the things that I have questions about. 

Todd: Yeah. Who the 

Craig: fuck is this guy 

Todd: Uhhuh? 

Craig: I have no idea. What the fuck is this problem?

I don’t understand that either. And then the whole end is just so stupid, like, okay, so please. 

Todd: Alright, talk now. So this guy works at the phone company. He’s the guy who gives the tours. Oh my God. But he’s also, apparently, I. Think, and I’m a little unclear on this, but I think he’s also involved in the research at the special lab that they have.

The recall lab they’re calling it. Yeah, 

Craig: the recall lab. Right. Oh, Jesus. There’s a scene 

Todd: where Richard Chamberlain’s character net. Improbably manages to sneak out of one of these tours that they schedule and find his way all the way to the back rooms past a security, gets a security guard to open a door for him, stumbles into a random room that just happens to be exactly where he needs to be, and at precisely the time he needs to be there because at the moment he walks in, there is a guy doing an experiment on the table of exactly this tech where.

He’s like, shoots an electrical charge across the room. 

Paul: You could 

Todd: send 

Paul: a thing like that down the line. You from the recall lab? Uh, no. Just visiting. Yeah. Where From, uh, up north printing, microprocessor chips, that sort of thing. Mm-hmm. What do you think boys in the recall lab wanna know too? That’s why I thought, uh, anyways.

Sure, yeah. Use the receiver as a capacitor, store up the voltage input to the point of spontaneous discharge and, uh. Sounds simple. Not really. No. You working on it or something? Uh, sort of, yeah. 

Todd: And you’re thinking, why is the phone company developing this? Like, why are they experimenting with this? But anyway, this dude who is also the guy who gives the tours is involved in that lab and he’s gone rogue, but nobody knows.

So he is basically using this tech secretly. At night when nobody else is there to get revenge on random people that he hates. 

Craig: Okay. Okay. All right. All right. But that’s it. It’s like a slasher 

Todd: basically 

Craig: at some point. They know who it is. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: They know who is doing it, but they don’t. But instead of just going and grabbing him, they set up some kinda like sting, like it doesn’t even make any, it doesn’t make any sense.

Todd: They don’t know where he’s doing it from. But he is not doing it from the phone company. He, he turns out he’s got his own setup in a basement somewhere. That’s where he’s doing it from. So they, they don’t know. And he 

Craig: can zap people from the basement, but they can’t trace him to where he is. 

Todd: Yeah. Well, I mean, they do eventually, but this is the old phone tech, right?

This is the whole. Tracing the call, and I don’t even know if this is real, but you remember it from black Christmas, right? Where they go through that whole phone tracing routine? Yeah. Where they’re running up and down aisles of those mechanical switches. Yeah. And they’re jumping to one and they’re climbing a ladder and seeing the other one.

Okay. The The second number’s two. I love that. The third number’s four. Oh, I love this shit. I ate that up. I was so giddy watching this happen. That was fun. Oh, that was the most fun part. Yeah. And the woman at the sink. I was just baffled. I’m like, what did she have to do with anything? This woman, with a kid?

And that was kind of a, a, you gotta admit that was kind of a clever little bit where it, they, they shook it up a little bit. Right? ’cause the kid first answers the phone and then he calls to his mom, Hey mom, you know the phone’s for you? ’cause the guy asks, is this Soandso? Yeah. She picks it up in the kitchen and then the guy says, is there anyone else on the line?

And she looks in and her son is listening in. Yeah. Up to that moment I thought, oh my God. Is the, is the kid gonna get it? But the killer actually makes sure that the. Kid hangs up the phone first. Yeah. And then this kid has got these, that was funny. Again, another trope, right? He’s got these big ass eighties style headphones on and this Walkman, which was New Tech at the time, that’s too loud for him to hear his mom exploding in the kitchen.

There were, there were a couple of funny things, especially at the 

Craig: end, near the end at least. 

Todd: But real quick, I wanna tell you who that woman was. If you had seen the deleted scenes from the early, from the earlier version, there was a whole POV. Sequence from the killer of him going into like the tax bureau and trying to settle some tax situation.

And she was the clerk behind the counter and she was giving him a hard time. So that was his revenge on her. 

Craig: Yeah. The phone killer takes revenge on people for petty things. I, I do remember that. 

Todd: So did you see that sequence too? I think so. So you saw, I think, I don’t 

Craig: know Todd, I don’t remember. You saw the uncut version maybe.

I don’t know. What I do remember is that towards the end, the main guy, Nat, is like gonna go off and find the killer and his lover says to him, don’t do anything stupid. And he looks at her and says, Hey. I’ve got a PhD.

I nearly died. 

Todd: Liz looked at me and we rolled our eyes. 

Craig: I nearly died. Oh my God. That was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life. Oh, that guy’s such a douche. Oh my God. Yeah. 

Todd: He comes across alternately like a douche and like totally charming. It’s so funny. 

Craig: I also. Like I expect there was a joke in friends, Phoebe Lisa Ro dated this guy who was totally obnoxious, but she liked him so she was trying to like him, but he kept saying super obnoxious things and he, and well, yeah, I’ve got PhD a pretty huge, she was like, okay.

And that was, that was the vibe that that gave me. Uhhuh, don’t do anything stupid. Hey. I’ve got a PhD. H

Oh man. Yeah. Yeah. Oh boy. Well, the, the other thing that I thought was funny, that was that by the end, all of our main characters knew that the killer was killing people over the phone. So. They would talk to him on the phone until he’d be like, well, hold on just a second. I’m about to kill you.

Todd: I know when, when they were coming up with that plan. Yeah, yeah. I know I said. If you knew this was going on, would you be even holding the phone to your head? Wouldn’t you like hold it away from you with like a pair of tongs or something? You know, speakerphone. My, do we have speaker phones? Back then 

Craig: we, of course we had speaker, we had answering machines, we had all kinds of things.

Yeah, that’s true. 

Todd: Oh man, that was so stupid. Okay, so you were asking about, uh, Stanley. So Stanley’s deal, his older professor friend, played by John Houseman. His deal is that he was. A college professor and he is speaking at the Ecological conference, but he’s now retired and he’s kind of quote unquote, gone to the dark side, like he’s now a lobbyist, okay.

For these same companies that apparently he used to rail against. And so even though they’re really friendly and they’re on good terms, and they have this friendship. Net is ribbing him about how he’s kind of, you know, do you really care anymore? Like you, so he’s a consultant for the phone company, so he’s got conflicts here of interest.

And apparently, I think what they’re trying to say, and I’m, I’m not a hundred percent on this, is that he knew this shit was happening initially. You’re meant to think that the phone company might be in on it, but when they do confront the phone company, Maine, the boss, the big boss, he’s a dick, and he’s like, yeah, we know what’s going on.

We’ve got top men working on it. And the detective there with net is like, yeah, but you don’t have the police involved. And he is like, yeah. So what are you gonna do? And that’s when he is like, well, we’ll shut you down. He’s like, nah, you’re not gonna do that. You’re not gonna shut down the phone service.

So the whole thing is that the phone company knows what’s happening, but they’re kind of covering it up and not involving the police. ’cause they wanna solve it themselves. And I think that Stanley is aware of this as well. And so that’s his big. Evil thing. And so on the one hand, the phone company’s like, Hey, Stanley, like you’re not doing your job.

But that gets muddied by this other dude who calls Stanley and is like, yeah, dude, you’re not doing your job, and so your time is up. And he zaps him and kills him of his own accord. Not like, you know, like the phone company instructed him to do it or anything. 

Craig: Well, all the trivia that I read made a big deal about how John Houseman did all of his own stunts, and that’s great.

I think he was in his seventies. I think when the movie was made. Yeah. And I can only imagine that his own stunts just meant being like falling backwards, thrown, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And good for you. And, and that’s great. Out a glass door, 

Todd: you know. 

Craig: Good for you. Good for you. Oh boy. I, I still like, I don’t understand, and I apologize if you’ve already explained this, but they.

They understand, like I’m just, I’m just so bored. Like I’m bored with this conversation. I was bored with the movie. Um,

Todd: oh man. I thought you and I were gonna get all nostalgic about certain aspects. I didn’t think we were gonna say the movie was great, but I did think we were gonna find some charm together. 

Craig: You know, I say it all. Time, but it also has a lot to do with how you set yourself up for it. I think so, and I didn’t set myself up for this well at all.

And ultimately I was just bored by it. God, I feel like maybe you just explained it and I wasn’t listening, but why is this guy, eventually they figure out who this guy is and they reverse the charge. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And they send the electricity back towards him and it just kills him. It’s a little bit.

Anticlimactic in my opinion. And then in the very end, and I’ll, I’ll be very honest with you, I got hungry. And normally when I would watch these movies, like if, if I get distracted or whatever, I’ll pause it and I’ll go and do whatever I have to do. No, I got hungry and I need a snack, and I just left my earbuds in and I didn’t even pause it.

I’m like, I don’t care. Like I need a snack. So maybe I missed it. Maybe I missed it, but. Again, why was he doing this? Why was this bat guy killing people? 

Todd: First and foremost, he’s crazy. So he’s and, and and stole fiber. And he has access 

Craig: to this optic from him. I, right? Yeah. So is 

Todd: it 

Craig: just 

Todd: revenge? It’s just revenge.

It’s revenge. At the dude who stole the fiber optics from him, it’s revenge at the woman who a fronted him at the tax bureau, anger at Stanley for not doing what he thought he was supposed to do and helping to cover all this shit up. And the girl with the. Mickey phone. I’m not really sure why he killed her.

I thought it was so cute that she gets dropped off at her apartment by a guy, and I don’t think it was him. Now that I go back, was it that guy? Dropped her off at the apartment. I don’t 

Craig: know. I mean, they’re, they’re, they’re all attached to him at some point. And like, there’s killer POV shots like him interacting with people who are 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: I mean, kind of casually rude to him, the girl that you’re talking about, she wasn’t rude to him.

She was just, she worked in a. Bank or somewhere. Oh, that’s right. He wanted to get in, but it was closed. Like it was so petty. It was late. So petty. He but yeah, stupid. That wasn’t her fault. In fact, she was very friendly. She said, I’m sorry, we’re closed. And they were like celebrating the boss’s bay or something.

Somebody’s birthday or something, whatever. But she wasn’t a bitch at all. 

Todd: No, not at all. It’s very petty. Well, yeah, neither was the woman to the tax bureau. The tax bureau. This woman was just like, like clearly the guy was in the wrong and she was, you know, busy and she was kind of frustrated ’cause he kept pushing her and she was just like, I’m sorry sir, there’s nothing I can do for you.

And she moves on to the next person. So, yeah, I mean that’s pretty typical though, right? I mean, this is kind of your slasher thing sometimes the slasher guy just got this really petty, stupid reasons for killing people. Sure. Fine, whatever. But he had 

Craig: the tech, he had the tech. That was the key boy. I mean, look, I know that we didn’t go through this movie scene by scene, and if you wanna watch it, watch it, but I don’t recommend it.

I was bored outta my mind. I, I thought that the, the acting, like I respect Richard Chamberlain. I really do. Like he has a storied career. Like yeah. He’s a cool dude and I respect that, but this is not a good movie and I didn’t think that he was good in it. And I think that maybe the premise of killing people over the phone might have been interesting in a particular period of time.

But I don’t find it interesting now. No, I find it ade and boring. It’s super dated. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: in so many ways. Skip it. 

Todd: Skip it. I don’t know, man. It’s fine. Skip it. I completely agree with your sentiment. It is pretty slow. It’s basically police procedural type thing. Not police procedural, but your typical. Every man gets involved in this case that the cops can’t solve, and he follows one clue after another, and he’s just one step behind the killer until finally he gets enough evidence and then gets the police involved.

And then there’s this final scene where they’ve, you know, man to track down the killer. Only, it’s not very physical, it’s running around. It’s like when Black Christmas, where the detectives running around the, the phone company trying to manually trace this call across these switches, which I find charming.

But no, it’s, it’s very dated and it’s not really fast paced in any sense of the word. 

Craig: And I love black Christmas, don’t get me wrong. I love those types of movies. Yeah. But that’s. Black Christmas is a great one. Not comparable to this 

Todd: movie. I’m not saying this movie’s like Black Christmas. I’m just talking about that one scene.

Craig: I get it. No, I get it. I get the comparison. It’s a fair comparison, but this one does not succeed, whereas that one does. 

Todd: Well, the director of this film has directed good stuff. I mean, Logan’s run and, uh, one movie that we absolutely loved called Orca that we did a while ago. Oh, I wouldn’t say I absolutely loved it, but I enjoyed it.

Craig: Oh, we really, it was fun. 

Todd: Oh, I thought we really loved, I loved Orca. I thought it was way, way more fun than we thought we were ever gonna have with it. Michael Anderson is his name, and again, it’s got these stars in it. It just. It’s too dated, I think, to work, and it’s a little slow. And honestly, like I said, I do think that it should have been chopped.

It’s good that they cut it down, but I think they did leave out a few things. They could have cut some different places to at least make the movie a little more coherent in what all these characters relationships were, were for each other and what their motivations were. It got really muddied. In the cutting.

Apparently there was a, a novelization that was released before the movie, while the movie was in development. They had a screenplay written, and then they wrote, a couple guys took the screenplay and wrote a book based on the screenplay, which had a lot more detail and apparently is a lot better. And then the movie went and actually took a few things from the book and added those to the screenplay by the time it was produced.

So this is one of those cases where there was a book version and a screenplay version kind of really closely related and. I did read somebody online who said, honestly, if you thought this movie was bad, but had promise, if you read the book, you wouldn’t be disappointed. So I dunno if that’s gonna go on your reading list.

Probably not gonna go on mine. 

Craig: Probably not. But speaking of that, and I realize that this episode will probably air after we’ve already discussed the long walk by. Stephen King. Mm-hmm. In our book club. This will probably air after that. However, we do have a book club on our Patreon page that we have a lot of fun.

I like, I just can’t say enough how much fun I have with that. So if you are a loyal listener and are interested in. Talking more about stuff, check out our Patreon page. We do like minisodes and other reviews that we don’t release on our regular page, but the book club is a lot of fun, so, yeah. Yeah. Check that out.

Todd: Mm-hmm. Maybe we, maybe we read this in book club one time. Who knows? Or, or not. I don’t know, man. I just, I think, again, I was in the spirit for it. I had, I was full of caffeine. It was the middle of the day I sat down. I did not expect this to be a great action packed movie, and in that way I was totally right.

But I was just really charmed by the retro aspects of it, of both the, the aesthetic, the sets that kind of. Filmmaking mentality of the way that the plot kind of is laid out. It’s just so cliche now. So much of it is so cliche. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Todd: And the phone tech just reminded me so much of that era that I grew up in, that I was just, I had a bit of fun with that.

I get it. And again, you’re either in the mood for it or you’re not, or you just don’t like those kind of things. And that’s fine too, as, as, as it stands as a horror movie, it’s not that effective if you’re not gonna appreciate it for those things. I think 

Craig: No. And, and I understand what you’re saying from a nostalgia perspective.

It just didn’t work for me. It was just too slow for me. But I also wanted to remind you that we had a message from Paul, one of our listeners. Yeah, let’s listen to that. 

Paul: Hey guys, it’s Paul from Alabama. Just wanting to say I appreciate everything I do. Y’all have kept me entertained for years. I’ve loved pretty much all the episodes.

Um, there’s been a few y suggested and I appreciate the shout outs. Uh, what’s funny, I, the funniest episode, man, I, I don’t know, I don’t know about the funniest episodes, but I do love it when, when Craig does the voices and Tyler tries to sing how much entertainment that is for us.

And, uh, keep up the good work. And I really thank y’all so much. Still listening every day from Alabama. Just Paul signing off. 

Craig: It was so nice. Thanks Paul. People are so nice. Yeah, yeah. Gosh. Yeah. Thanks Paul. 

Todd: Well, I guess I’ll keep singing.

I don’t know if that was an endorsement of your, he said he thought it was funny, so maybe it’s not, but you know, we take what we can get, I suppose. What is that? Any attention is 

Craig: better than none at all. Oh gosh. Thanks Paul. That was really nice. That was super, super nice and it’s, it’s nice to hear from people.

We’re, we’re just trying to give you some lighthearted stuff to listen to and I know that sometimes people get a little bit troubled if, if we get too much into politics or, or those types of things. And we try to avoid that ’cause we don’t wanna upset you that, you know, that’s what we’re here for is, is just trying to have a good time just for fun.

Right? Yeah. Just having a, it’s just you and me, Todd. Mm, having a good time and, and sometimes we have to talk about those things ’cause they’re a real part of life. But it, it’s really nice to hear from somebody like Paul, who just is having a good time listening to us for years. 

Todd: It makes me feel. So good.

It really is. And thanks also, Paul, for, you know, sending in the suggestions that we’ve done some of your, of your suggestions over the years. You know, we, we don’t always get last names, so we can’t match up who’s who, but we’re happy to shout you out there on the show. One of the perks that we have for our patrons is because we do get a lot of requests and we have over the years just kept this long running request list.

We thought it’d be a nice perk to give our patrons the ability to vote on which ones we do next. Yeah. So we no longer just pick the ones that we want, but we pick like. Three or four that we want, right? And, uh, we put it up to the patrons as a, as a poll and they vote on it. And by golly, whether or not we’re enthusiastic about it, we, that’s the one we do.

So we do. And that’s another perk that you can get by going to our Patreon. That’s patreon.com/chainsaw podcast. Just five bucks a month. Well, yeah. Thank you for joining us, guys. Suggest some other films that we might have missed. Also, let us know if you’ve seen this movie and if you have fond memories of it from childhood like I did, I sure would like to hear another perspective than just Greg’s grumbling that, uh, he didn’t enjoy it while he was half asleep and drunk over two days.

I 

Craig: would, I wouldn’t. I was just tired. 

Todd: Uhhuh, right? Chainsawhorror.com. You could leave us a message there, or you can of course, uh, find us on Facebook, Instagram, just by googling two guys into a chainsaw podcast. Until next time, I’m Todd, and I’m drunk Craig, apparently. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

‘Wolf Man’ has been getting mixed reviews, but it sparked our interest as a Lee Whannell project, co-written with his wife. Join us as we discuss the film’s connections to the Saw franchise, its ties to the failed Universal Dark Universe, and its unique take on the werewolf transformation narrative.

We pick apart the thematic elements influenced by the pandemic, tackle the emotional nuances of the characters, and debate the effectiveness of its practical effects and transformation scenes. Don’t miss our in-depth analysis, critical moments, and our final thoughts on whether ‘Wolf Man’ stands out in the werewolf genre. Share the episode with friends and subscribe for more horror movie discussions!

Episode 444, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: This week, uh, we’re doing something that Craig picked another brand new film, and this is titled Wolf Man. Gosh, it just came out, I think, uh, in January of this year, and I believe it’s getting mixed reviews. The director, I, you know, I didn’t know anything about this when you sent it to me.

In fact, I just pulled it up and started playing it. I didn’t read a darn thing, so I was really surprised to see this looks like a, a Leigh Whannell passion project, ell, whatever his name is. Yeah. Many of you might remember him as being part of the duo behind the original saw franchise. He’s gone off to do a lot of different things since then.

He’s done some acting as well. He’s got a voice in this. Mm-hmm. But in this case, he’s the director and the writers are him and his wife and it seems like something they put together during the pandemic and it kind of shows, it’s got some thematic elements there. 

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know if it was a passion project.

I mean, I, a different director was attached at some point, and it was originally gonna star Ryan Gosling. When that fell through, the director left and Gosling left with him, I think, or vice versa. I don’t remember. 

Todd: Well, I guess it was gonna be originally. Part of the universal Dark Universe way back when.

Right, 

Craig: right. But then the Mummy tanked so bad, which I’m not surprised. It was terrible. I hated it. I never saw it. I’m not a big Tom Cruise fan anyway. I don’t know. It just wasn’t great. And that’s too bad. ’cause you know, they’re still gonna keep making these movies. They’re just not gonna do them as quickly, and they’re not necessarily.

Interesting. Linking ’em together. Yeah, right. Exactly. They’re not going for like a dark Avengers type thing or anything like that. 

Todd: Well, let’s be honest. It’s kind of a dumb idea. I mean, I get where they’re going, you know, they’ve got all these properties. It’s kind of what they’re known for since putting universes together is a big thing now.

And of course it’s a huge money maker if you can make it work, at least like Marvel has, but nobody else has really been able to do it. DC’s kind of foundering in their attempts to do it. Yeah, and this whole notion that you can take Frankenstein and the Mummy and Dracula, I mean, as a thematic group of monster movies that came out at a particular time, that sort of set a stage, that’s one thing, but like.

To then say that now we can connect them all in this grander universe is, uh, I always thought that was gonna be tricky for them. 

Craig: Yeah, I guess it would be tricky. I don’t know, it just seems like it should be such a cool thing to be able to do. At least. I don’t know. It, it makes the little kid me really excited, you know, to Jason versus Freddie kind of thing, but it’s never worked, you know?

Like, no, I liked Van Helsing with Hugh Jackman. Oh, it’s not a good movie. I still enjoyed it. The League of Extraordinary Gentleman was bad. So it’s been tried before and it’s never worked. I wish it would. Yeah. I think people are even at this point, exhausted with Marvel, and maybe I’m wrong. I mean, I, I’m sure those movies and shows are continuing to make tons of money, but I’m exhausted with it so 

Todd: everyone I 

Craig: know.

Is exhausted. Maybe it’s just our age, though. Who knows? Maybe, I don’t know. It’s just too much to keep track of and now like they’re moving into a different phase. I’m like, I don’t care. 

Todd: I lost track of this a 

Craig: long time ago. Yeah, right. I think I’ll skip this next phase. It’ll be, it’ll be all right. So anyway, this is a remake or, well, I mean, kind of a remake of, I don’t know, what year was it?

It was sometime in the thirties. One of the original, yeah. Or maybe the original Wolfman. I don’t know. And I like it, the movie a lot and there are lots of things that I like about it, but I like that it kind of has that old school, not necessarily any particular studio, but just kind of a feel. It’s very isolated.

It’s a very small cast. Yeah. It’s a lot of, you know, old Dark House spooky woods. I, I just love that feel of it. And I think it balances well, those classic elements. But isn’t just a carbon copy of things we’ve seen before. Right. He’s experimenting with some new things. He’s playing with lore and visuals and, and all kinds of things.

So, I mean, just going in, I told you this wasn’t something that we had planned. It wasn’t even something that was on my list. I just happened to be scrolling through my streaming services to see what was new and I saw that this was available on Peacock love horror movies, obviously. So that’s a given. I probably would’ve watched it anyway, but I was particularly interested in this one because it’s stars.

Julia Garner. Yeah. Who I’m a big fan of. Have you ever seen her in anything? I feel like I have, but nothing’s coming to mind. She’s gonna be the new Silver Surfer in the new Fantastic four. She was great in Ozark. I think she was either nominated for or won Emmy’s for her and, and as far as I’m concerned, that was a great show and Jason Bateman was the star, as far as I’m concerned.

She was the star of that show. Oh yeah. Within the first season. She was the character that I was most invested in and remained most invested in throughout. Oh, she was just fantastic. She also, I mean, she’s a brilliant actress. She, is she related to Jennifer Garner? I don’t think so. She played. Anna Delvy, that fake Hess who scammed all those rich people.

Oh, I did see that. That was great. Yeah. Oh yeah. I liked her in that. She was so funny, and she had talked with that accents and called everyone bass. She was, that was good actually. She was so, I mean, but I can understand why you potentially wouldn’t recognize her, because she really kinda melted into that role.

I mean, I don’t know. She had different hair and there some prosthetics and things, but Right, right. I was probably a little more excited than our typical listeners would be about the Madonna biopic that was supposed to happen. It was gonna be written and directed by Diablo Cody, who I think has a great Yeah, sensibility, female voice, uhhuh, and great sensibility.

And this Julia Garner was cast as Madonna, which I think was perfect casting. She looks almost just like her. Yeah, for sure. When she was young, blonde ambition, tour era. I mean, she’s even got the hair. Yeah. And I thought, you know, she’s a great actress, you know, she’s gonna be perfect for this. And then of course it all fell through, I think, because Madonna’s impossible to work with.

Who knows? Whatever. Anyway, I’m a big fan of hers. That’s initially what drew me to the movie. I watched it by myself because Alan wasn’t home. He was doing something I don’t remember. And I really liked it. And I texted you right away. Yeah. Not should we do it for the podcast, but just it was really good.

Uhhuh. So the next time we were talking about what we should do, I was like, can we do it? So thanks. I 

Todd: appreciate it. Here we are. Yeah, no, it’s fun. I, I, I like these kind of movies and I think this is the kind of film you’re either, you’re either in the mood for or you’re not, because it’s full of action. It really is.

But it’s a story that is very intimate. It focuses around three people, this guy named Blake, his wife Charlotte, and his daughter Ginger. It opens though with Blake as a child, with his father, and I think the opening really does set the tone of what this movie is going to be. It’s strikingly beautiful to 

Craig: look at, and when I see something like when some of the first shots are these beautiful landscapes, the first shot actually is really strange.

It’s a, a very, I don’t know, kind of disturbing closeup of a colony of ants, like attacking a, a hornet or something, which I get what he was going for, but I, why, well, I read what he was going for. He was, you know, he wanted to, you know, show the, I don’t know, carnal nature of. Animals or the violent nature of animals or the animal kingdom or something.

And I get it in a way that wouldn’t defend us too much, I suppose. I guess I get it. It’s just, it never comes back. Like there’s it, it’s never called back to like, yeah, if, if the main character were like a bug scientist. It 

Todd: was a bit, you’re right. It was a bit much. I mean, if you’re gonna make that the opening scene of your movie and spend like 60 seconds on it, you know, you really maybe want it to thematically tie in a little better than that semi-abstract way.

Craig: Yeah, I get it. And it was a cool shot. It was very, you know, national Geographic or whatever, except the sound was really gross and scary and unsettling. But then they live on this farm in some sort of mountainous area where there’s this amazingly. Picturesque valley between these two mountains and his dad talks about, you know, it’s, it’s so beautiful.

You never get tired of looking at it. But 

Todd: I’m gonna predict what, what you were about to say. Whenever you see these high, big shots of the mountains going over, it instantly makes you think of the shining. 

Craig: Well, I mean, even more so when the family eventually moves back there and we track them in their car from above Yep.

Like we do at the beginning of every movie, which is fine. It always looks great. 

Todd: Yeah. Stanley Kubrick had no idea the standard he was setting when he put those opening shots together. So many horrible movies we do are 

Craig: just like it. It’s so funny. It has become such a typical convention like it’s, it’s.

Insane. Mm. But yeah, I mean, you tell them about, you know, what happens in the prologue because it’s important. And of course you don’t know this going in, but it serves as a really lovely framing device for the whole movie. 

Todd: It really does. I love it. Well, we do get some text on the screen. I don’t really wanna read that, but, uh, it’s about a hiker going missing in 95, yada, yada.

Craig: And people got, think he got like the forest fever or something? I don’t remember. It was like, it made me think of beaver fever from zombies, beaver fever. The native, the native word for it. Transferred something to like dog face or, yeah, something. I don’t remember. 

Todd: I didn’t, I didn’t bother to look this up to see if this was actually a thing on.

I kind of doubt it. So father and the son are just like. Alone and they’re walking through this beautiful woods, but it’s established, almost insanely driven into you how protective he feels about his son. Mm-hmm. He says, let’s go. We’re gonna go hunting. And so they go hiking through this gorgeous forest with this very ethereal music playing behind them.

Clip: Ah. Don’t go anywhere near those. These are death cap mushrooms. And they ain’t kidding either one of those. You’ll be wearing a toe tag real quick, unless someone’s got a brand new liver line around for you.

Blake, did you hear what I just said? Yes sir. What did I say? Don’t eat the mushrooms. What are they called? 

Craig: Oh, 

Clip: see, this is what I’m talking about. You’re not hearing me. You’re off in your own goddamn world somewhere. This place is beautiful. It’s also dangerous. You can survive if you know exactly what to do.

Yes, sir. 

Todd: And you always have to listen to me, right? Yeah. Always listen to me. And he about, after about three more steps, he turns around and says, what is I just saying to you? And he’s like, uh, uh, uh, something about the mushrooms and what’ll happen. What were they called? You gotta listen to me. You gotta listen to me because in the woods, you could die.

It’s not hard. People can be taken from you just like that. It can happen like that. And I’m gonna make god damn sure you know how to survive. It’s like, okay, dad. 

Craig: Yeah, I know. But he, like, he, he comes across as very regimented. I don’t know if we, if we know or not, but he, I, I would guess based on his characterization, he’s probably ex-military.

More military. Yeah. Yeah. Which is great. There’s nothing wrong with that. And the lesson that he’s teaching is, he’s absolutely right. He is. I was really interested on hearing your perspective on this, because I think that really 85% of this movie is about parenting. Yeah. And, and protecting your kids. And so.

I wonder, like, I wondered if you related to that moment, like I can imagine Yeah. That I would probably be more like that dad, ah, than people might expect. 

Todd: You know, I, um, I a hundred percent relate to it. I’m sure every parent relates to it, and I’m sure it doesn’t take much imagination, you know, to put yourself in this father’s shoes even if you don’t have kids, especially when your son is really young.

My son in particular living in be and growing up in Beijing, what he did for the first few years of his life, thankfully. Just a side note, China is probably physically the safest place you could possibly live. Violent crime is very rare here. I think that has a lot to do with the fact there are cameras everywhere.

Nobody wants to do anything. They know they can get caught, but I mean, it’s really, really nice place to raise a kid in that way. And also, people are very kid oriented here, so you kind of know that if your son was ever lost or there was some issue, I would worry less about a lot of things. I wouldn’t really worry that someone was gonna abduct him, and I probably wouldn’t worry that nobody would help him either, because instantly people would probably jump to the aid and try to sort things out.

So there’d be the language barrier would be a problem. The thing I worried about the most was living in Beijing was his physical safety. Around the street and on the sidewalks, because traffic is crazy. People are, don’t always follow the rules, and there are scooters zipping around everywhere, and the streets can be very crowded.

I don’t mean necessarily just jam packed full of traffic, but there are cars parked on the sidewalk. There are cars parked in the street. Then there are cars coming down the street, whether they’re fast or slow. And then there are occasional coming outta nowhere, scooters that are zipping around through all of this.

And so it’s very easy even walking down the sidewalk for somebody to not pay attention and come out and bean you. You know? And I was terrified that, uh, this little toddler would get away from me and he did once or twice or he would just run gleefully away like he was playing a game right? Right.

Towards the street. And I would run after him and I would grab him and before he could even talk, I would look at him and I would make it absolutely clear. Like the only time I would put on my mean dad face was, you must hold my hand. You cannot not hold my hand. And I tried my best to scare the living daylights out of him, right.

To make him know that that is unacceptable. So yeah, I totally get this. 

Craig: A hundred percent. Oh boy. Yeah. I, I don’t know. I mean, my parents were great parents, but like, I, I think they were very clear. You know, I, I, I was a small town kid. My grandparents on my mom’s side were rural and I spent a lot of time on the farm and hunting and in the woods and those kinds of things.

And don’t eat those mushrooms. Stay close to me. I mean, these are really important, important things for kids to understand what the consequences can be. You went on hunting trips with your dad, didn’t you? Didn’t you guys hunt? Yeah, we hunted. Yeah. 

Todd: I mean, we didn’t You had guns? 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd: I mean, that’s a whole different level of, you know, safety and consideration that I never had to deal with.

Right, 

Craig: right, right. Yeah. And, and, and just, I mean, even around here, I don’t think it’s as big of a threat, but if you get lost in the woods in America, you could die. Yeah. You could be lost in the woods forever. So I, I totally understood. Yes, it was a harsh approach. He seems like kind of a harsh guy, but he’s right, because when he is focused on, you know, trying to aim at a deer that they see, the deer gets spooked and runs away, and he turns around and his kid is gone and he runs looking for him, and we see that the kid, you know, I’m sure nearby, but in a different part of the forest.

What he was trying to do, we learned later, is he was trying to get a better shot at the deer. He was trying to get around it or something, but while he’s out there, he’s looking through his scope and it’s blink and you miss it. But as he pans across the horizon, there’s something there. It looks like a man.

Yeah, I was thinking like Sasquatch. Yeah. Yeah. Get quick. Yeah. I mean, it’s so fast. In fact, the first time I watched it, I did watch it again. I just watched it just now. But the first time I watched it, I didn’t see it at all. I must have blinked or something, but, and then the dad shows up and I think, and he yells at the kid and, and the kid tries to explain what he was trying to do.

But then they hear some movement and I think that they find the deer 

Todd: torn up, right? There’s a deer blind there, so they have to climb up into the deer blind. And honestly, if you didn’t know this was a horror movie going in, you could also think this is a bear. And that’s sort of what the dad believes.

Sure. And it makes perfect sense. It even kind of looked like a bear when he saw it through the scope in that split second. And sure enough, when they’re up there, you’re right, they hear noises down below, he gets up, he looks, and they do see through the scope, a freshly torn apart deer carcass. 

Craig: Yeah.

Whatever it is, comes up the ladder of the deer. Blind and scratches at the. Door. Mm-hmm. And, and they’re huddled a against the far wall, the back wall. And the dad is prepared to shoot this, whatever it is, if it comes over. But it doesn’t, it goes away. And he kind of gets a glimpse of it through his sights.

And he takes a shot at, he knows he missed, but I don’t think he thinks it’s a bear because as soon he gets home, he calls his friend and is like, I saw it. And his friend’s like, what the dog man or whatever, and he’s like, seriously, I saw it. And we have to protect our kids. Yeah. The, the son overhears that, and that’s when we jump to 30 years 

Todd: later.

Right. You’re right. And it, when he calls him, by the way, it’s on a short wave radio. I mean, it’s, it’s a really important point that these guys are so isolated. There’s no phone line out there. That’s right. No cell service either. Right? 

Craig: No cell service. Of course. I don’t even think they’re on the grid. Like I don’t even think they’re on the electrical grid.

No, they’re not. They’ve got like a everything’s generator, which either that must have been a really powerful generator or they spent a lot of money on gas 

Todd: for sure, 

Craig: because not only, I’m jumping ahead a little bit, but not only does it power a barn, a greenhouse and a big farmhouse, but when they eventually, when they turn it on, when they, when the grown son and his family come back to the house and he turns the, the, he like flips the switch for the generator.

It comes on and every light. In every building comes on. Right. Well, 

Todd: you know, they upgraded to LEDA long time ago, so, uh, that might have helped. 

Craig: That’s funny. 

Todd: Yeah. Turn off some of those lights when you leave the room. Dad. Yeah. Minor point on that generator. I’m sure we’ll get back to it later, but that generator would’ve had to be so freaking loud and when it first fires up, it’s really, really loud.

And then we never hear the generator again for the rest of the movie. 

Craig: Not really small point and sound is important. Yeah. And I’m gonna have a little bit of a complaint about it in, in a little bit, but in present day, what’s his name? Blake. The kid is of course an adult and he lives with his wife Charlotte, and his daughter Ginger, which is a shout out to Ginger Snaps.

I don’t know. Their family dynamic seems kinda weird. Yeah, there’s clearly tension between the mom and the dad. The dad and the daughter seem to have a really tight relationship, but his father’s influence has clearly worn off on him because he is protective of her much in the same way that his dad was protective, but he’s not scary enough, so she doesn’t really respond to it as well.

Yeah, and he also kind of has a softer approach where he explains to her, which I think is wonderful, this is, this is probably the better way to approach it. He explains to her that as. Her dad, it’s his job to protect her. Mm-hmm. And I 

Todd: think kids can understand that they can. And, and this is a very modern parenting approach that these two have.

And I think it’s solid. You know, there’s even a point later in the movie, I think, where he sits down and he sits her down and intentionally apologizes to her for something that I don’t think my dad ever would’ve thought, I need to apologize to you for, you know, no. Like, I apologize for putting you in this position, or I apologize that you had to see that, or something like that.

That’s definitely very modern parenting approach. So there is that difference between how he approaches it versus his dad approaches it. And I thought that was pretty believable. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, it was. But I also think throughout the course of the movie that he underst, I, I think he gets why his dad was the way he was.

Oh yeah. But. This is also a, a great illustration of how you can learn from your parents and you can do better. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, the, he and the wife seem to have some tension for whatever reason. I think they’re both writers, right? I think 

Todd: so, 

Craig: yeah. Not that it’s really all that important. His career’s not going very well.

I think that she is super busy, is doing fine, but she’s, she’s stressed out, right? And, and uptight and, and they’re kind of bickering in front of the kid. And the kid’s like, when I grow up, I’ll never fight in front of my kids. This all happens very quickly. And it culminates with, he has received a notification that his father has finally been.

Pronounced deceased, I guess he’s been missing for a long time. Why? And, and they were just waiting for this to, you know, they, they anticipated this happening, but it’s happened now. And so he meets her at her work and brings her lunch and stuff, and he’s like, we’re having trouble. I really wanna work on it.

You know, I, I love you. I want, you know, I want this to get better. We can be better. I, I think is what he says. Mm-hmm. And he says, I have to go, you know, up to Oregon and, and sort out my dad’s things. Let’s all go together and just spend family time together. And she’s reluctant about taking off work and stuff, but you can see that there is affection and tenderness between them two.

And so ultimately she decides to go and they all go and then they drive to the Shining. 

Todd: That’s right 

Craig: up 

Todd: to the overlook, the under look, maybe we can call it. There’s one thing you did neglect to mention, but it’s really important to point out early on, is that when he said his job is to keep her safe, because what’s my job?

Clip: To keep her daughter safe? 

Todd: Yeah, that’s right. And what’s your job 

Clip: to read minds? 

Todd: Can you guess what I’m thinking right now? 

Clip: I love my little girl. 

Todd: That’s amazing. That’s exactly what I was thinking. How do you do that every time you’re so good at your job? I am gonna use this on my son. It’s adorable. I’m gonna use this on my son.

A hundred percent. We’re about to do like a he, well, he’s about to spend the whole summer with me and I can see where this would be valuable. 

Craig: It’s real. I mean, it’s really sweet. Even just in the moments, ’cause there are these moments kind of throughout and mm-hmm. As things evolve, they become a little bit more bittersweet.

But it’s such a sweet notion that he is basically letting her know that in every given moment he’s thinking about how much he loves her and Yeah. That’s so that’s really sweet. Yeah. You should totally use it. I am. I am 

Todd: stealing this for sure. Yeah. It is hard. You know what? I’ll just say it is sometimes very hard to communicate with your kids.

I bet. Not that you can’t. Find the right words to say, but it’s just really hard to know if they get it. They’re just at a certain age and at every step of the way you think they got it. They think they got it, but then later you realize, oh no, they didn’t really understand that thing that we both thought.

Yeah, they understood. And so it’s a constant challenge. I’m constantly looking for things like this to uh, you know, to better communicate with my son and I’m totally gonna use it. 

Craig: I think it’s easy to forget as adults how scary and confusing and frustrating. Life can be. Yeah. You know, as an adult we, we as an adult, we have tools at our disposal, but you know, kids are experiencing new things all the time.

And that can be scary and it can be frustrating if you don’t understand things like, you don’t understand why your dad’s being such a dick about, you know, walking on the, it’s like a balance being type thing next to the street. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: So they’re traveling back to his family home and it is beautiful.

They’re driving through the mountains and through the forest and we’re following them from above and it’s great. And the mom, what she. Is insecure about, is not her work, but her bond with the daughter. She sees how close her husband and her daughter are, and she’s, she doesn’t say this, but for lack of a better word, she’s envious.

Yeah. She wants that connection too. And so she’s trying to force it. Like the dad starts to tickle the daughter, you know, she’s in the backseat, he’s driving, he reaches back and tickles and the mom kind of tries to join into, and I think the daughter feels like it’s kind of forced. They do a good job.

This whole movie, this whole movie is really well acted and you know that I’m typically not a huge fan of. Kid actors. This girl, uh, Matilda Firth. She’s fantastic, I think. Yeah. I thought she’s fine. I thought she was great. It was not like she has a ton to do, but I believed her all the time. 

Todd: Yeah. I didn’t believe these were not real people.

She didn’t feel like she was acting. 

Craig: No. They felt like real people and I felt genuine connection. I felt, I felt like the husband and wife. There were such intimate moments of connection. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And not just connection, but nonverbal communication. Ah, yeah. That was so subtle, but so. Also easy to read. You could see the conversations that they were having.

They didn’t have to say anything out loud. That’s true. And part of that is because later he has a problem communicating and, and I, I really felt genuine connection between the dad and the daughter. Like their relationship just felt. So, it just seemed like there was so much love there. And, and so if I hadn’t felt that, I don’t think the movie would’ve been effective for me at all.

Because you have to be rooting for this family. Yeah. Percent. Otherwise, there’s nothing else going on. It’s just them anyway, they get there that he pulls up to what he thinks is his dad’s driveway, but they’re, they’re confused. They don’t know where they are. And, and Ginger looks over. Outside the side and says there’s somebody in that tree house Again, it’s a dear blind, but she doesn’t have that context.

And they look over and in fact there is a silhouette there and it starts to come down. And it turns out it’s the kid, I believe, of the guy that the dad called on the short wave radio. Yeah. His name’s Derek. And the guy he called was Dan, I think. Yeah. And he remembers Blake. Mm-hmm. And he says, this isn’t your driveway, it’s mine, but I can take you to yours.

Now Charlotte, the wife is really concerned ’cause she’s a city girl, it seems, and you know, this guy is definitely giving kind of scary back woods a little bit if you chose to read it that way. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Really. I mean it, it could be totally innocent too, but I think the movie’s kind of toying with us a little bit here.

Yeah. They want him to come across as a little bit threatening. It’s a misdirect. But he 

Todd: actually has some great lines. He does. I really like this bit and I think it was really important. It was really smart to put these lines in here. He says some stuff to them about how, you know, this is dangerous to be ride driving around, especially when night falls.

And I don’t think it’s just about. This monster either. It’s really about just being in a car out in the middle of nowhere in the woods. You know, you break down, you run outta gas, you, something happens, like you’re stuck and there’s nothing, nowhere, no one’s gonna help you. It’s just a different sensibility that you have to have when you live in a place like this that obviously they don’t have, or the, at least the mom doesn’t, the daughter doesn’t.

Blake’s probably lost quite a bit of it. You just don’t have to think about these very basic life things. And he’s impressing this point and the mom says, 

Clip: well, we’re, we’re pretty tough. People

says, so

to me, you don’t seem so tough.

That’s a good thing. It means you got a good life, you’re healthy, safe. 

Todd: But you know, this is. Really setting us up. It’s a strong bit of foreshadowing when Blake and Derek talk about being tough, and when these two talk about being tough, they’re talking about completely different things. Being tough isn’t just about a mindset.

It’s about having to like, have real courage and do very difficult things. It’s like straw dogs, it’s like deliverance or anything like that. You know, the, these are city people who are used to city problems, and when they talk about being tough in the face of adversity, what they’re about to face is not the kind of adversity they’re talking about.

You know? And Derek is foreshadowing that, and I think it’s very important to point that out. 

Craig: Yeah, I think that the movie has something to say about that. I, I, I really liked that line. And, you know, again, they’re, they’re trying to make him seem kind of threatening, like, yeah, you don’t look very tough to me, but then the line delivery of the next line, and that’s a good thing.

And he explains why comes across as very sincere and the very next thing that he says. To Blake is, do you thank yourself every day for having such a beautiful family? And again, that could come across threatening in a different movie. And Blake says, yeah, I do. And I feel like it’s it. That exact moment that Ginger screams Daddy, there’s something in the road.

It, again, it looks like a man mostly, but maybe an animal. ’cause it looks kind of hairy. Like again, it’s so quick, you can’t really tell. But it causes Blake to swerve this huge moving truck off the road, which I understand the, I understand the instinct and the impulse, but if you are driving in the mountains just with your family, just hit that guy.

He shouldn’t be in the middle of the street. Anyway, 

Todd: uh, this is such a classic setup and I was a little disappointed at this cliche, once again, how many horror movies have we started where somebody’s driving down a dark road, suddenly there’s something in the middle of the road. The person panics and they instantly incapacitate their car.

Craig: That’s okay. In the middle of nowhere, right? Yeah. And, and this, this is great. Like they Jurassic Park this stuff and have the truck like land sideways. There’s a couple of Jurassic Park moments in this movie. You’re right. Actually this one. Okay. So, so the truck, it’s a big moving truck. It’s like a U-Haul.

Yeah. It lands on its side in a tree, like suspended in the branches, probably, I would guess. Uh, 15, 20 feet off the ground. And the backwoods guy, it’s not nice to call him that. He’s just a country person. 

Todd: Yeah. Nothing 

Craig: wrong with him, but anyway, yeah, he falls out. And is laying on the ground. And when Blake, like he’s dazed for a minute, but when he comes to, and there’s great camera work here too, because it starts on him like as though we were just looking at him in a car.

Normally when he comes around and realizes that he’s sideways, there’s a wonky part in the score and the camera kind of twists. So it disorients us in the same way that he’s disoriented. Mm-hmm. There’s lots of such cool camera work in this. Oh, there really is. I made Alan watch it with me tonight and he didn’t like it, but there were some of the camera effects that he thought were really cool, but we’ll get to those in a second.

Anyway, Derek gets dragged away by something, some kind of. Harry something. Mm-hmm. And so Blake has seen this and he’s, he, he starts to tell his, you know, crawl out the window, crawl up on top of the truck, and they start to, and then I think he sees something in like the side view. It looks like it’s approaching or whatever.

Mm-hmm. Eventually they get out, they jump down off, they take off running. Fortunately, they were very close to the house. Something is obviously chasing them. They just make it inside. Whatever it is, it’s chasing them pounds at the door for a while. But, and again, I could nitpick this, I’m more into this movie for the relationship stuff and the atmosphere stuff.

If you wanna get down to the nitty gritty, like really criticizing it, like they basically get in the house and then they’re fine. Yeah. For a while until they’re not anymore. Uhhuh, this movie is called Wolfman, so we don’t have to try to pretend like it’s not a werewolf movie. It’s okay. Yeah. This werewolf thing, whatever it is, it just kind of comes and goes.

Yeah. At its whim. For a while. 

Todd: It really does. It’s one of those convenient things where when the movie wants to slow it down, that suddenly the werewolf’s not there. And then when the movie’s ready for some action, the werewolf is suddenly a threat. And I mean, if these people were as smart as your typical zombie movie people are, the first thing they would start doing is boarding up the, the walls and the, the doors and the windows.

And they don’t really make this attempt to do it until then. There’s one point where he drags a big piece of furniture to the door. But it, it just all feels a little half-assed to me. For a guy who is so intent on protecting his family, he sure hasn’t seen enough horror movies to know how to do it.

Right. And this guy can just crash through the 

Craig: window at, at any point, right? I mean, the windows at least, I mean, they don’t know what they’re dealing with, but presumably at this point, they. Think it’s an animal. Yeah. But anyway, he, he gets the generator going that we already talked about. Everything lights up.

And then here is a series of events where, you know, they, they find the radio, they start trying to call, that’s fine. But then the wife notices that his arm is bleeding and they pull up his sleeve and he’s got a big nasty cut. And he says, oh, I must have cut it on the window when it shattered. And she says, this doesn’t look like a glass cut to me.

And she pours hydrogen peroxide on it and bandages it up. Now the movie, you know, I read the IMDB trivia and the, they, the filmmakers talk about how they wanted this transformation to be a more gradual transformation than is typical in these movies. Mm-hmm. And it is, yeah. But it still happens over the course of just a couple hours.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: One night at least. 

Todd: Well, it’s still faster. Yeah. It’s 

Craig: really 

Todd: not all that gradual, I suppose. Yeah. I mean, when you consider, when you compare it to American Werewolf in London. There’s a much longer where it’s minutes. Yeah. Well it is minutes in its final transformation, but honestly, like he’s having symptoms and issues for days.

Right. So it is a That’s true. That’s, it is a little longer in that’s, it’s having 

Craig: nightmares and stuff. Well, but it’s also different because in American Werewolf and London, and most of these movies, you know, there’s usually kind of maybe the full moon thing. Like you only actually turn into a wolf when you’re That’s true.

In the full moon, or, or you only turn into a wolf at night or something along those lines. Lee Weell and his wife had a friend who was diagnosed with a LS Luke E’s disease, which is a terrible disease. Alan lost an uncle, a beloved uncle, to a LSA couple of years ago, and he was a great guy. I had the, the pleasure of meeting him and he was wonderful, and his family just speaks of him so highly.

And a LS is a terrible disease because it’s degenerative. Physically, and you know, you’re, you’re all there mentally, so you just have to kind of watch yourself deteriorate and, and watch your body fail you. And it’s, it’s horrible. They wanted this movie to be more of a reflection of that. Yeah. And it’s also, it’s, it’s not only awful for the person who’s suffering from it, but their family suffers.

You know, they have to watch their loved one waste away in front of their eyes and, and lose the ability to care for themselves and do the things that they once did and loved. And it’s just awful. And I think that that’s what he’s going for. So this transformation feels more like that. And it also feels like we don’t know the rules.

This isn’t a standard werewolf movie. Right. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the moon. You know, it doesn’t seem like this is a temporary transformation. And then like most of the time in these types of movies, when. The person who is a lichen trope is in their wolf state. When they come back to their human state, often they have no memory of what they did while they were a wolf.

Right. It’s almost like it’s two separate entities. It’s just taking over at different times. And in this case it seems more gradual and it seems that it’s a gradual progression towards something permanent. Yes, 

Todd: you’re right. It’s like the fly. Mm-hmm. A lot. I was getting strong fly vibes when I was watching it.

And also, God, I was thinking clown as the movie went on, it was reminding me of clown. Do you remember that one where he puts on the clown outfit? Yeah. And, and that. That movie was far more tragic and really hit me harder than than I thought it would at its core. It’s really, really sad. Very sad. And the fly is for sure.

It’s a tragedy. Yeah, it’s a tragedy about the same thing. It’s like old age. It’s about. Terminal illness, whatever you want it to be. This is a horror that is all the more real, because it actually happens to people. Mm-hmm. And many of us have experience with this. It really hurts. And then clown for me was, was this the sense of this guy who really didn’t do anything wrong?

Which is again, illness is like that too. No, he was trying to do something nice for his kid. Yeah. He was actually trying to do something nice for his kid and he just got in this situation, you know, he didn’t deserve that much. Like none of us deserve these kind of things to happen to us. Terrible things.

Craig: Right, exactly. And nobody deserves. 

Todd: And the same thing with this guy. Obviously he didn’t deserve this, he didn’t do anything wrong. And it’s an ironic twist of fate that this guy who has seen himself so rigorously as the protector over his family is now becoming the threat. To his family. And I think those are really interesting themes to explore emotionally.

You know, between both of them it 

Craig: is, I’m gonna kind of gloss over. So the point is he begins to transform. It’s very gradual, but here are some of the things that happens. His senses start to become enhanced. He smells things that other people can’t smell. He hears things very, like he hears a very loud noise in the house.

Again, it’s a misdirect. You think that the werewolf has gotten into the house somehow, but the wife and the daughter are both asleep and they don’t hear it. He goes upstairs to investigate and in fact, it’s just a spider. I mean, it’s a big spider, but crawling along the wall. Now here’s where I get to the complaint about sound.

Yeah. It doesn’t, this isn’t consistent. If his hearing is that enhanced, that alone should drive him insane. Yeah, because while he’s hearing. This clunk, clunk, clunk of this spider walking along the wall. We are also hearing the noises of nature outside, crickets, all kinds of things. And that kind of incessant noise almost drives me crazy.

At a normal level. If my hearing were enhanced tenfold or more, it would drive you absolutely insane and you wouldn’t be able, I don’t think, I don’t know. I’ve never been a werewolf. But you wouldn’t be able to differentiate. It would just be a cacophony of noise. Yeah. 

Todd: And then every time your kids are talking to you in a normal tone, it would sound like screaming.

You know? I mean, it, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. And you’d think with this super power, I get it. I understand 

Craig: what they’re going for. Yeah. But it’s just, you know, it’s true. I mean, I, I guess that dogs don’t go crazy and, and that’s what they were going for. He was trying to like. What would a, if a, if a, a man were turning into some sort of canine hybrid, how would that change their senses?

And dogs do have heightened, you know, greater hearing capacity than rehab. Yeah, true. They do have, you know, a, a greater sense of smell than we have. So maybe I’m over, I get what he’s going for. And for me it works because the first time I watched it, I didn’t think twice when he said, what’s that smell? I just thought there was rotting meat.

And he smelled it. And the second time I watched it, I’m like, oh yeah, his, his smell is enhancing smell right. Then the sound and then his teeth start to fall out. And then subtle changes in his appearance. Like his, his jaw is starting to swell a little bit, which could be explained by the accident if he hit his head or something.

But when it gets really cool, it’s right after he sees the spider, he comes downstairs and he hears something else strange. It sounds like a radio. That there’s interference or something, not, not static, but like the mm-hmm. You can’t make out what the person is saying. And as he walks down the stairs, we realize that it’s his wife on the radio and she’s desperately calling out.

Clip: This is Charlotte Bubble. If someone can hear me, please respond. My, my husband is, uh, sick. Um, I, I, if anyone can and can hear me, uh, please, please call someone to help. We were attacked by. Some kind of animal. And I, I think my, um, husband was infected by it. He’s, he is not himself and, um, he can’t, he can’t talk.

Um, yeah, he does. He doesn’t seem to know he is sick. But, um, if, if someone can hear what I’m saying, please help. 

Craig: But when we see it more from his perspective, it’s as though she’s talking in gibberish. Yeah. He can’t understand anything she’s saying. This is a nice bit. It’s a really good bit. And it eventually leads to that camera stuff that Alan was so impressed by and that I said, I’m going to have to ask Todd to explain this to me.

Todd: Oh, what you mean, how they did it? I mean, yeah. It’s obviously computer effects laid over well, 

Craig: that’s. I am sure there’s some CGI, but one of the things that we haven’t discussed, which is one of the things that I love most about this movie is that they wanted to do it as practically as possible. Yeah. And so most of the effects, the makeup effects, the physical transformation effects are almost exclusively now, of course, this is modern.

So, you know, in editing and in touching up, of course they add some touching up CGI, which is great. And that’s fine. You know, I appreciate the effort at Practical Effects and it looks great. But what he said when you read the trivia is he said that a lot of these effects were achieved in camera. Yeah. The effect is that when you’re looking.

From the wife’s perspective, you see him and he, you know, his face is starting to change. He’s starting to kind of grow hair. He’s kind of getting kinda like slimy and weird. His eyes are changing a little bit, but she’s talking and you can understand her and everything looks normal. Then the camera swings around as though it passes through an invisible barrier, 180 degrees.

So it’s looking from his perspective, and as it swings, it gradually changes. The light becomes, I don’t know how tos glowy explain it. 

Todd: Everything’s right. It’s, they’re, they’re shadowy, but they’re kind of glowy now. It almost like you can see their veins, but they’re like glowing 

Craig: and 

Todd: their 

Craig: eyes are kind of glowing and their face is kind of iridescent and everything is kind of in.

I saw somebody describe it as more heat. Yeah, like that heat sensor, like the predator kind of mm-hmm. It’s a little bit like predator vision. Yeah. It’s not all red like a machine, but it does seem like it’s picking up temperature as opposed to just visual. And as it swings around, her voice becomes jumbled.

So what he’s doing is he’s showing us that Blake. His perception is changing. Yeah. He can’t understand them. He can’t talk. He’s seeing them in a different way. It’s all changing and it’s very cool, and I don’t understand how they would do that in camera. I don’t even know what that means. No, 

Todd: I, I mean, what they were saying was that they did some of the lighting in camera, so when it swings around from him to them, you know, it does get darker.

Right Uhhuh in addition to this glowing stuff. So they were actually dimming lights and bringing them back up when they swung it back around and things like that. But then all of those extra details, like the glowing eyes and the veins and there’s like some kind of swirliness in the air and things like that.

I mean, those were obviously laid on later as CGI, but uh Okay. But yeah, they didn’t just a hundred percent CGI it, you know, they did. And there are also some interesting light effects earlier too, where his background dims and things like that without any of this crazy purple and stuff in it that they achieved in camera.

So I don’t think they were talking about like absolutely everything, but they were talking about, you know, elements of that were done practically. And you know, it probably helps the actor too, you know, to get in that frame of mind. I like this. I’m not sure we did a whole werewolf month and I know that, you know, some of those films in one way or another address the idea that these.

You know, through the eyes of these people, they’re getting these different abilities or these heightened senses. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen a werewolf movie where it was done to this degree before and this, I really like it, this kind of holistically. And I, I liked it 

Craig: too. I thought that really set this apart.

Wolfen was kind of like it. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: I would say Wolfen is probably the closest ’cause they saw in a different kind of way. 

Todd: That’s true. 

Craig: But, so this is all happening. And it’s also heartbreaking because she’s trying to talk to him. Now, I’m probably gonna conflate a couple of scenes, but there’s one scene where he’s lying down and she’s talking to him and she’s saying all of these things.

I love you, you’re my best friend. I, I never wanna go through life without you. And these are the things that they had been struggling with. You know, they had had this tension. And obviously in this moment of. Tragedy. She means it, she does love him. And she, it swings back around to his perspective and he can’t understand what she’s saying.

Yeah, it’s heartbreaking. Really heartbreaking. And it’s also hard, like she, because he can’t talk, she brings him a pad of paper and she says, can you write it down? And he writes down in a scrawled hand dying. And she says, no, no, no. You’re just sick. We’re gonna get you help. You’re gonna be okay. And again, he can’t understand anything.

There are are moments where the daughter talks to him and she puts her hand on his head and says, I know that you’re thinking that you love me. And you know what, again, he can’t understand, but he, but he’s seeing them. It’s obvious that he doesn’t understand what’s happening to him. But it’s obvious that he’s also still 

Todd: him.

Yeah, he’s slipping away, but he’s still him. Now, here’s where the movie for me didn’t. I look, I, I’m just gonna say that this movie didn’t hit me at the emotional level that the fly and clown did. That’s fair. And I was trying to figure out why, because it should, and I know it’s aiming for that. I cry, watching the fly, I cry thinking about the fly.

That’s really sad. That movie is super sad. The clown clown movie really bothered me. This one, I was even trying to conjure those feelings. And on an intellectual level, I was like, yeah, this is horrible. This is really sad story. What? Look at what these people are going through, but didn’t draw those emotions out of me.

And I still not exactly sure why, because it, it had all the elements. I think it kind of came down to the performances. And maybe there are two things that I can think about. Number one is this family is. Super stoic in the face of all this. They are resilient. The mother stares him down multiple times.

There are times when he is lunging and lurching at them. Looks like he’s gonna kill his own family. And the mom will just stand there, steely-eyed and look at him. Now she’s, I read 

Craig: that scene entirely different. Entirely different. I didn’t see her as staring him down steely-eyed at all, and, and we’re jumping way ahead.

A lot happens and we’ll go back, but this moment is important because it’s wind. He’s just done something very violent to protect them, but it’s clearly unlocked more of his animalistic nature and he’s still kind of riled up and he jumps over a table and gets right in her face. Snarling. Yeah. But I didn’t see it at all as her returning a glare.

A steely glare. I thought it was communicating. I know you won’t hurt me. I thought that that’s at what calmed him down because he doesn’t hurt 

Todd: her. Uh, maybe I chose the wrong word here because, ’cause I’m not saying that it was all that, right. I, I think it was a mixture of emotions. But I, what I’m trying to say is she’s remarkably calm in the face of almost getting attacked by her husband.

I understand it’s her husband, but I do feel like there is even just these emotions of protecting my daughter, she’s taken a huge risk here that I’m just not convinced she would take. Maybe she felt she had no choice, but it just, ugh. I, I, I, it just didn’t, I understand. Ah. 

Craig: I understand what you’re saying and I understand why.

It could be hard to believe. And I questioned her choices at times too. But ultimately I understood why she made the choices that she did. There’s one point after he can’t understand them, obviously things are not going well, and there’s a moment where he can’t talk, but he walks up out of the basement and he walks to the door and it’s, and he’s looking at the door.

This is one of those moments where I thought that they had conversations without any words. He stands looking at the door, she’s standing right behind him. It seems to me that both of them are thinking he may need to leave. Mm. I thought that they were both thinking that. Mm. And then he turned around and looked at her and he was still kind of panting a little bit, but in looking at her, he kind of calmed down and kind of exhaled a little bit.

Yeah. And looked at her very pleadingly. Yeah. And she just looked at him and turned her back to him. And walked back into the house, and I read that as an invitation. You can stay. Yeah. And I don’t know Todd, I don’t, I don’t know. Maybe that wasn’t a wise decision. It probably would’ve been smarter if they were really making the decision for their daughter.

They should have locked him out. But putting myself in that position, I don’t know what I would do. 

Todd: Well, I don’t know what I would do either, but I mean, watching the movie happen in front of me, I feel like this woman somewhere in her mind. Had a bit of a death wish. You know, like, well, God, if he’s gonna go out, I’m just gonna go out with him.

That is the only way I could explain some of the choices that she makes, and I don’t think the movie was really trying for that, but that was how I felt. And also, let me just talk about the daughter for a second. She was, look, you can just say, well, these are just how these characters are. They’re more stoic, they’re more resilient, they’re more whatever.

Okay, that’s fine. But then because of that, it just didn’t hit me as hard. The daughter has a heartbreaking moment where she’s running away, and I can’t remember when or where it happens, but she says, daddy, you’re scaring me. And I, I was like, oh my God. Like, that is horrible 

Craig: to hear that from your kid. The only things that we skipped, I will go back to them.

I, gosh, I, I’m not trying to be contrary, I just totally disagree. I saw this as three people who were desperately, desperately trying to cling. To hope and to clinging to their family. I understand what you’re saying. This girl, from an outsider’s perspective seems shocking. Like she’s scared. She’s definitely scared, but I can understand why one might think that she would be more scared, especially as a child.

The reason that I didn’t think that was because no matter what, that’s her dad, you know? Like yes. But, and, and, and what the mom keeps saying, nobody ever says werewolf in this movie. What the mom keeps saying is, daddy is sick. Yeah. And. If your dad is, when people get sick, they change, they, their physical appearance of change, often their behavior changes.

It’s still your dad. You know, I can understand. I don’t know. I just, I don’t know. I get it. No, I get it. And, and I’m, Alan didn’t like the movie either, so I’m not even suggesting I’m right. And you’re, I’m not saying I didn’t like it. You’re right. The reviews are very, very mixed. I’ve, 

Todd: I don’t know. It just, it hit, it hit for me.

Please don’t paint me as not liking this movie. I like the movie. I’m just explaining why emotionally this part of it didn’t hit me the same and didn’t hit me as I expected. And I think maybe didn’t hit me like the filmmakers wanted it to hit me. Look, I, I get it and I agree with you. I think that’s exactly what they were going for and Sure.

Look, I’ve had sick relatives and we’ve had to have my son visit my grandfather who was dying, Bicks mother who wasted away, and we didn’t shield him from any of that. We wanted him to face it. Even as a, that’s good kid. You know? And we calmly explained these things to him and I think he’s better off for it.

Okay. But he never saw any of them leap up and have a all in out brawl with another similar creature, two or three times and or leap threatening towards him, you know what I mean? After what she has seen go down and after she has seen how dangerous her dad can be and about how her dad clearly is having trouble controlling himself.

I would think that the smarter this girl is and they’re paying her as wise beyond her years, her high EQ that she seems to have, she would just naturally be more scared. There are moments where we are far into the movie and far into his transformation and he seems very, very threatening and she is going up to him and putting her hand on his forehead and doing the, the, you know, the read My Mind trick, which is very, very sweet.

But yeah, come 

Craig: on. I know, and I questioned those moments too, and I think that you’re referring probably to. One of the final moments, and, and I agree with you. I questioned it too. I, I was logically, it doesn’t make less sense. Just at 

Todd: some point your emotions take over and you’re scared, you know, your dad’s eyes are glowing.

He has fangs, you know, he’s like, he just attacked a guy two or three times and, you know, killed his own. Okay. It ends up being his own father. Big surprise. Right. We, like, we didn’t see that coming. Surprise, 

Craig: Alan, Alan wanted me to tell you that he called it in the first 10 minutes. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s a little obvious.

Todd: Yeah. I don’t know if it was even supposed to be a twist, but the movie kind of played it like it was a twist, and so that was a little like, oh, come on, come on, 

Craig: Lee. Yeah. Give us some credit that, that werewolf. Yeah, I know. It CEEs them in the house for a while. It, it gets in at some point through a doggy door for a little bit and, and, and then CEEs them more around the house.

Eventually Charlotte sees that there’s a truck outside. There’s a whole scene where they go out to the truck. It’s very tense, and eventually the werewolf, you know, they get the truck started, but the werewolf shows up and disables the truck and chases them on top of this. Plastic greenhouse. I thought that was a stupid decision too.

But what else were they gonna do? I mean, it was nearby, they were trying to get away. Yeah. There’s another Jurassic Park moment where the werewolf is in the greenhouse jumping up and ripping holes with its claws in the plastic and ginger kind of falls through and has to get pulled up. It’s just like that scene where the girl falls through the ceiling panel and the raptor’s like jumping up at her.

Yeah, and that’s fun. And then the dad, Blake distracts the werewolf. He runs off like he, he can’t talk, but he signals for them to run to the house and he jumps off and runs away. They run back to the house, they get inside, they hear the werewolves fighting outside, but then the fighting stops and they just hear panting outside.

So they let him in again. Again. Yeah, questionable. Come on. But like he’s just standing out there looking at them plaintively, but they let him in again. He’s in there. He throws up, he throws up one of the other werewolf’s fingers. He’s getting scarier and scarier. But then the other werewolf gets in and there’s a big fight there and everybody fights and the mom fights the werewolf and the dad fights the werewolf.

And it ends up with Blake, who’s almost fully wolfed out now, tearing out the other werewolf’s throat and he dies. And that’s when he sees the tattoo on his arm that has his last name. So we know it’s his dad. And Blake knows now. 

Todd: And I was like, come on. I, I think it would’ve been much better if Blake had just put two and two together earlier on.

Like he should have that. Wait a minute, my dad, who’s been missing for years and this creature I know. Like, just, just do that. It would’ve been just fine. We don’t need this fake twist in here. This, I guess, I don’t know. I don’t know that I would immediately, it didn’t matter for Blake either. It didn’t change him.

He’s already 

Craig: changed. 

Todd: This revelation. And he, 

Craig: well, right, and this is, this is the moment, like he’s so worked up from this. I think this is the moment where he lunges at her and it takes her not responding in fear to calm him down. And finally he realizes that he needs to get out of there. Yeah. And he goes out into the moonlight and has a great, oh.

Mostly practical transformation with air bladders and very Rick Baker. Oh, so good. 

Todd: Ugh. I, I, it looks, it’s, it’s great. I, I stood up at that point. I was like, yes. Yeah, it’s really 

Craig: good. Yeah. But now he’s fully wolfed out and he does come back and, you know, he’s chasing them and he chases ’em around the house a little bit and he chases them through the forest.

And now we get back to the bookend. They end up at the same deer blind. That he and his dad were in at the beginning. Yep. And they climb into the deer blind and it’s the exact same scene. They’re sitting up against the back of it. She’s got a gun. She got the gun from the guy whose name I got wrong before Derrick.

Derrick. His body, you know, his body parts are strewn all over, but she finds his gun there. They’re up there and Blake Werewolf is crawling up just like in the beginning. And he scratches and she readies the gun. And then unlike the first time, the werewolf does come up above and Alan laughed. He’s like, this looks so stupid.

What’s his name? The director, Lee Winnel said that he knew. That people would have mixed opinions on the look of the werewolf. You know, they had discussions about how much hair should it have, how much, and it is a different look than your typical werewolf. Alan found his final form to be a, aside from the fact that he was yoked, he liked that, but he found his face to be almost humorous.

I don’t know. Yeah. I liked it. I thought it was, I didn’t have a problem with it. I appreciate a different approach. But anyway, he rises up, Charlotte and Ginger stand up. She’s pointing the gun at him, and I didn’t catch this the first time either, but it’s so sweet. Yes, Blake looks at both of them and he looks at the daughter and she kind of exhales and says.

Mommy, he wants it to be over. Mm-hmm. I didn’t even put two and two together the first time that, that’s her reading his mind again. Like she really can. And that’s what she’s really reading in him, that he’s still in there and he just wants it to be over. So when he does lunge at them, she shoots him and Alan said, oh, he’s not dead.

He’ll be back. But you can’t be right about everything. 

Todd: I, I think this is a poignant, poetic, great ending. It’s still very tragic, 

Craig: but it leads to the moment I think that you were talking about he’s not dead. Yeah. He appears to be mortally injured, but they go and kneel down next to him as he dies. Yeah. I mean that, that, that maybe wait until he dies.

You know? Yeah. It was a little risky. I mean, it was, it was a nice moment. It’s a nice shot, but a little risky maybe. Especially since Charlotte, the wife kneels down by his hips and the daughter kneels right by his head, and like you said, puts his, puts her hand on his head and both, I mean, it’s, we’re supposed to believe that he dies peacefully and everything’s, you know, for 

Todd: the better or whatever.

I think this is why this didn’t hit me so hard, because at the point at which, ’cause I’m standing there, I’m literally thinking in my head, I am intentionally trying to drop these emotions. I’m thinking in my head, I, how horrible that you know, you’re gonna have to shoot your loved one. It’s like putting your dog down.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Right? 

Craig: Yes. Like, 

Todd: how horrible when you know that you’re gonna have to do this, what must be going through their minds right now? And when the daughter says, mommy, he wants it to be over, I’m like, oh. They’ve kind of made peace with it. Yeah. And that’s good. That’s fine. Like that. We could all be that strong and we know she, they have to it work.

Right. 

Craig: And it, it 

Todd: works for 

Craig: the metaphor. Yes. It’s, it works perfectly. Like at, at, at some point she says, why did daddy get sick? I mean, this is earlier in the movie. She says, why did daddy get sick? And she says, the mom says. Daddy’s daddy was sick and I think that he passed it on to Daddy. Yeah, yeah, of course.

It’s, it’s on the nose. Obviously not all illnesses hereditary, but some of it is, it is a little on the nose, but that, I mean, I, that was the specific messaging that they were going for, and as an analogy, it really works for me. It works for me too. I, I 

Todd: think it’s fine, and that’s why I really don’t have a problem with this movie.

That’s why I liked the movie. All I’m explaining is, I think that’s why it hits differently is because in the fly in clown, they don’t make peace with this. Like it’s a tragedy, it’s a horrible thing that happens and everybody feels bad. Sure. And so maybe that is why, you know, it didn’t hit the same.

Whereas by the end of the movie, I feel like, okay, mother and daughter have been preparing for this moment. Moment. They have almost been preparing for this moment since midway through when daughter was, you know, very courageously going to dad and trying to comfort him even though he’s still snarling and scary and weird.

Like she has somehow in her mind, emotionally figured out what’s happening and is no longer as scared as she should be. And so I think all of that kind of dampened for me, the sense of danger. I never, for one moment thought those two were gonna get killed. Never for one moment. No. No, not at all. And some might say, well, in a better movie, you know, they would, there would be that tension.

I’m like, no, it’s just not that kind of movie. I don’t care. You don’t need to try to make this, uh, the movie that you think it should be in order to sound like a really smart critic. Just go with it with what it is. And so I don’t really have a problem with it. I think it works. I think the movie works.

I’ll be on the side of the people who are like, yeah, it was a nice movie. It really was. I think they did some interesting things with it. I liked the transformation scenes. I liked the practical effects. I thought emotionally it, it worked. There were a few unbelievable moments, but I don’t mm-hmm. Expect a movie to be perfect either.

I 

Craig: thought the cinematography was really good. Yeah, it’s well made. I appreciated the acting. I, I, I was, I was down with that family and I think that Lee Winnel is a really talented director. He is. I’ve enjoyed most of his movies that I’ve seen. The only one that I wasn’t a big fan of was that ventriloquist dummy one that wasn’t my favorite.

Dead, uh, silence or whatever. Was that 

Todd: what it 

Craig: was? Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd: Didn’t care much for that one. But the other ones I’ve really liked that was him and, um, James Juan together on that one. Right. I think he Gotcha, gotcha. He wrote that. Yeah. 

Craig: Maybe it was, I don’t know. I didn’t look it up. But a lot of the times that we do this, we agree on things, and I actually think that it’s interesting sometimes when we don’t, and I think that in this case, your opinion is more reflective of the general opinion of this movie.

For whatever reason, I really enjoyed it. And so I don’t know if you tend to like the movies I like. Mm, you’ll probably like it.

I don’t know. I think e either way, and I think that you would agree with me. It’s, it’s a well-made movie and it’s, yeah, certainly, certainly far from a waste of time. 

Todd: Oh, I liked it. I mean, I liked the movie. I, I walked away feeling good about it. Like I said, it just didn’t hit me emotionally like I, like I think it was going for, or like I’ve been hit with these kind of movies in the past, but gosh, especially after doing our werewolf month, you know, this is right up there.

If this had come out, you know, when we were doing that month, we would be, that would’ve been in the mix and it probably would’ve been one of our favorites, I think. I think so too. Well, thank you so much for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend. You can find us online.

Just Google two guys in chainsaw podcast. Chainsaw ho.com is our website. patreon.com/chainsaw podcast is our Patreon for just five bucks a month, you can join and get complete unedited episodes that we put out, a lots of little here and there conversation that we have behind the scenes with our listeners.

They get to vote on our requests that we do on the show. We have Mini sos. We have a book club up there. Lots of fun back behind the scenes. Please check it out at patreon.com/chainsaw podcast. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw. 

Join us as we take a deep dive into the 1989 horror-comedy ‘Parents,’ directed by Bob Balaban. Or is it?

In this episode, we discuss our thoughts on the film, which was marketed as a horror-comedy but delivered more unsettling psychological horror than laughs. We reflect on the story, performances, and the movie’s eerie presentation of a child’s disturbing reality.

Was it a commentary on 1950s parenting norms or simply a bizarre horror experience? Tune in to hear our take. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share if you enjoy the episode!

Episode 443, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, Craig, we, uh, ended horror comedy month and it feels like we took a sharp turn into what a movie that builds itself as a horror comedy. But, uh, I didn’t find anything funny about it. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: I guess it, you know, I guess it’s appropriate.

So we’re doing Parents. It’s a 1989 movie directed by Bob Balaban. Bob Balaban is a guy that you will probably recognize. He was in a lot of the Christopher Guest comedies. He’s been all over television, all over movies. He’s just pops in and out of a lot of stuff. I’ve always enjoyed him and as, as an actor, I didn’t really realize that he had.

A bit of a career as a director, but he’s done like I didn’t either. 29 I, most of it’s television, but this was his directorial debut. And what an interesting idea to go with what is billed as a horror comedy, 1989, written by Christopher Hawthorne starring Randy Quaid. Mary Beth, her who used to be married to William Hurt for a while.

Sandy Dennis, a couple other people my first time seeing it, but I tell you, I had seen this movie on the shelves. Never really picked it up, but it was very curious about it. So I’m really glad that we finally got around to doing it. ’cause it’s kind of been on my list for a while. Had you seen this before?

Yeah, I know I have. 

Craig: It’s so strange. I I, I know I’ve seen it before. Really? Like, yeah, like you. It, it, it was the, the box art that I found intriguing. You know, like this fifties style, leave it to beaver style mother, like carving a big tray of meat and her husband at the refrigerator behind her, kind of looking over his shoulder.

Towards her and there’s a skull in the freezer. Mm. I don’t know. It was just, yeah. It, it looked, it was weird and creepy and I, I always liked that box art. I know I’ve seen it, but the thing is, I didn’t remember anything about it, but it was Bill as a horror comedy. And so that’s what I was expecting going in and I kept thinking the same thing that you just said.

I’m like, I don’t get, which parts are supposed to be funny. Like if this is dark comedy, it is as dark as it gets, and not really funny. I. 

Todd: No, 

Craig: but I don’t think that that’s the movie’s fault. 

Todd: No, 

Craig: it’s 

Todd: okay. I think 

Craig: that that is it’s, I think that it’s false expectations, because what I just read like in the last half hour was that Bob Balaban intended this as a psychological drama.

Oh, and then. The studio marketed it as a horror movie, and so it did really poorly because people went to the theaters expecting to see a, a dark horror comedy and this is what they got. So I, I think it just, it was, it was marketed poorly and yeah, it’s not, it’s, it’s just not what you expect. That’s not to say that it’s a bad movie.

No. It’s just not at all what you expect. 

Todd: Oh no. I will even go on record. I will say this is a fantastic movie. It’s weird. As a horror film, this is a gem. It is a bizarre, very psychological movie that did what a horror movie is supposed to do. I was uncomfortable through the whole thing. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I found the movie deeply unsettling from the get go.

It never let up. I almost felt like I had to take a shower when it was done, but not in the way of other films that we’ve seen where they’re just kind of really gross out and they’re just mm-hmm. You know, really exploitative and, and so, you know, you feel like they’re just, they’re just sleazy. This is not a sleazy movie.

This is a really, really well thought out, well-made movie with a lot of layers to it. And the only criticism I have is that they marketed it, it wrong. I I, I came in here with expecting comedy. I was looking for the comedy. I was anticipating it. It never came. And at the end of it I was like, well. God, great movie.

Really unsettling. Really, really dark. Not a funny thing in it. Right. So somebody really missed the mark on that. Yeah. 

Craig: Well, those expectations I think are further set by the fact that it stars Randy Quaid, who you know at this time was. National Lampoon’s vacation guy, you know? Yeah. Uncle Eddie. And, and he’s hilarious in those movies.

I, I, I think he’s great in those movies, and I think he’s great in this, but he’s, he, he’s totally against type. He is not funny. He is terrifying. No, 

Todd: he’s a horrifying person from the, from the minute he shows up on the screen, he’s just, he’s 

Craig: menacing, like 

Todd: predatory. Ugh. 

Craig: Yeah. You, you forget, I, I, I think he’s so.

Not dangerous in those fun family comedies that you forget that he is a big, giant man. And, and that’s really emphasized here. Especially because he’s playing against his son. Who is the main character? Michael is his name. I just, throughout this, I’m just gonna call them mom, dad, and son. I, I, yeah. Didn’t even bother learning their names ’cause it doesn’t really matter.

No. Like, and, and you, and you get that from the beginning too. Like this is all allegory. It reminded me, frankly, a lot of eraser head. 

Todd: Oh, it’s very surreal in so many ways. Yeah. Yeah. I 

Craig: mean, Balaban himself described it as kafkaesque, which I think is a word that we used to describe eraser head. Right. It doesn’t necessarily start out that way.

It, it kind of establishes, I mean, it’s, it’s not entirely traditional. It starts with a weird kind of black and white pan up this young boys. Face and you only kind of see half of his face at a time. And then there’s the conventional flyover of fifties suburbia and an old, old mobile being driven by this new family.

Moving into a new neighborhood. Classic setup. E every, like every other podcast starts like this, 

Todd: right? 

Craig: It’s so true. We should just record like a generic one. And then there’s a family in a car and they’re driving into a new town and we just cut it in every time. It’s exactly the same. 

Todd: Yep. Oh gosh. Yeah.

Craig: So the son is Michael, played by Brian Madorsky, who had, I think. Done nothing really before this or next to nothing. And I don’t know how old he is or how old he’s supposed to be, but he’s. Tiny. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And especially compared to Randy Quaid, he’s tiny. And I also feel like there’s something done in the shooting, like in the cinematography, that emphasizes his smallness.

’cause he’s very, very small. 

Todd: Well, apparently the, his best friend, uh, Sheila, in the movie was. So much taller than him that they actually had to do some things with the shooting so that it wasn’t quite so obvious. I mean, she was four years older than him, so you know, naturally she was a little bit taller than him, but they wanted to really de-emphasize that while they were shooting.

So they did some perspective things and kind of just had them moving quickly. And I would imagine, I don’t know. Third or fourth grade, maybe. Fifth grade. Yeah. Middle elementary school. And he, from the get go, just looks uncom. By the way, Brian Madorsky as an actor, I think this is the only thing he ever did.

That’s interesting because I think he’s good in this movie. 

Craig: Well, he was intentionally cast because he’s ki he’s very deadpan. Yeah. He doesn’t really change expression much at all. And it’s because he’s not an actor. I think I read that the director said that he, you know, he expressed himself internally.

Okay, whatever. He’s just not really doing anything. Yeah. But it’s fine. It works like it fits. Yeah. He’s kind of a blank slate. He doesn’t really openly react to things and it, it, it so works for the movie because. You don’t know. I mean, I guess you kind of know what kind of movie you’re getting into, but I kept wondering, is something sinister going on here with these parents?

Or is the boy just weird? Like, yeah, is he just having these dark fantasies and he can’t tell Fanta from. Reality. 

Todd: I have a take on the movie. Well, it kind of all crumbled by the end of it, but I guess we’ll probably, I’ll bring it up at some point here in our discussion because I feel like you need to hear a little bit about how it goes first.

Right. It’s fifties America. Right? It’s like a parody of fifties America. The house is this little ranch style house. Mm-hmm. And this little. Beautiful little suburban neighborhood. The decor in there is just mid-century modern through and through the man’s in a suit. The whole time. The woman is in these tailored dresses that you know look like she sewed them herself just straight out of Betty Crocker.

And their kitchen is too, to the point where like things are sort of prominently placed to overemphasize this fact. It almost feels like it’s made to look like a 1950s movie set. And to that extent, I could say we’ve already established, it’s not a comedy, but I. In a way, it’s a bit of a satire. Satire does not necessarily equal comedy in this case.

I feel like this is almost a satire of the 1950s. Yeah, it’s not funny, but a hundred percent everything is done up to the nines. Like everybody thinks of this era, like television and movies presented this era where whether or not it was actually true is another story. But you know, it looks like it’s fricking Leave it to Beaver.

And I love these at first. It’s like there, these parents. Almost come across as really dorky. You know, they, they go into their new house and they’re kind of awkwardly lovey-dovey to each other, and, and they are doing a barbecue in the back. By the way, I love to barbecue and I love the fact that this guy had a shaker on a skewer.

Have you ever seen that before? 

Craig: Yeah. No, I’ve never seen it, but I, 

Todd: I thought it was, I want one now. I want one now so badly. I’m like, if this ever existed, why does it exist anymore? It’s just like a. Like a salt shaker on a skewer so you can hold it over the fire. Brilliant, brilliant. 

Craig: He’s like practicing putts in the living room, and she’s baking in her apron, like 

Todd: consulting the recipe book.

Yeah, 

Craig: they’re really laying it on thick, you know, they sit down at the table for dinner. They have, you know, big stacks of meat and red wine with dinner, which, you know, again, there’s nothing necessarily strange about that. No. When, I mean, when you see. You know those stereotypical pictures of this time period of happy family, you know, like there’s usually like a Turkey or a ham or something on the table.

Like we were very meat forward in those days. Yes, 

Todd: very meat forward. It’s all about eat your veggies of course, but you gotta eat or at least you got it. Have you, by the way, a little bit of a side note, have you ever been to Disney World? 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: In Florida? Yeah. Have you been to, used to be MGM studios, now it’s Hollywood studios.

Craig: Yeah, I When it was MGM? Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. And they have a restaurant there. I dunno if you guys ate in there, called the fifties Primetime Cafe. Did you guys eat there? 

Craig: No. We were the family that packed a cooler of bologna sandwiches and left it in the car in the parking lot and went and took a lunch break. Hey, 

Todd: fair enough.

There’s nothing wrong with that. This, there’s a, there’s a theme restaurant there called The 15th Primetime Cafe, and apparently it was Robin Williams’s favorite restaurant to eat at. Because he didn’t have much of a childhood, but, but the restaurant itself is themed like you are eating in your mother’s kitchen in the fifties.

So every table’s a little separated from the others, and it’s done up like you’re sitting in the kitchen at this four Micah table and your waiter is your cousin. Oh, that’s funny. And they treat you like your cousin. Like, all right, what are we gonna have to eat today? And the menus like meatloaf and mashed potatoes and things like that.

Just everything from this era. And then they do shit with you. Like they come in and like keep your elbows off the table and like, oh, did you eat your greens? And they’ll actually take a fork full of green beans and like, open up, here’s the airplane coming into the hangar, you know, and do all this. Cute stuff with you.

And I think this is why Robin Williams loved it is ’cause he apparently, he got so excited and into it when he was there, he took the dishes to the kitchen. Like 

Craig: that’s funny that 

Todd: that was the story. But it’s, it’s a fun place to eat and it is a hundred percent like this. The decor is the same, the attitude is the same.

While we were watching this and Liz was sitting next to me, she remarked there is so much food on that table for one meal of three people. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. And 

Todd: I’m like, yeah, ’cause this is a satire, this is what TV showed us. People cooked like this is what this theme restaurant presents to you. I’m not sure that’s actually how it was, but that seemed to be the expectation that was created in the fifties, is that you have, you know, six different dishes in the middle of the table, right?

All perfectly cooked by the wife who’s following her, Betty Crocker Cook. Book and lovingly placing it all together. 

Craig: Right? And then father is like serving like, yeah, it’s right. But there’s also something about these dinner scenes, all of them, of which there are many, the pattern of the wallpaper, the wallpaper is black and white, and it’s just like white with.

Like a line pattern. I, I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s, it’s unsettling. Okay. And, and the dinner, it, they’re always lit. It seems like all of the rest of the lights in the house are off, except for a low hanging lamp that is right above the table. Mm-hmm. That casts very odd shadows. And so all of these dinner scenes are.

Strange and uncomfortable, and I, I feel like they get increasingly strange and uncomfortable until, yeah. At the end they’ve got some wacky shit going on, but we’ll wait for that. The first weird thing is, I don’t even remember how it comes up, but we find out that Michael is afraid of the dark. And so his dad, Randy Quaid, sits down with him on his bed and every time he talks, it’s creepy.

Clip: Yeah. You really like the dark, don’t you, Michael? You can be yourself in the dark, but you know, there’s one dark place that we have to be very careful in. Do you know where that is? 

Craig: And he points to his head and laughs. Mm-hmm. Oh, and, and then he tells a story about like when he, when he was a little boy, he was scared of everything.

Like monsters under the bed and in the dark and everything. But he grew up to be a big, strong man and now he’s not scared of anything. Goodnight. Big, giant, scary dad. 

Todd: Like that’s gonna help. Here’s the thing that was going through my mind. Every time Randy Quaids character opens his mouth, well, one thing that you didn’t mention but is pretty present, and I think it’s not just in the dinner scenes, but everywhere else is it seems like most of the movie is shot more or less from the kid’s perspective.

Yeah. The camera angles are low. Right? Right. Like a kid looking up at the world, and that’s pretty clear during the dinner scenes, like he picks ’em up and takes ’em off to bed and it’s literally his POVV over his shoulder as he’s being carried off. I think the movie’s doing a really good job cinematography wise.

I. Of putting you in the headspace and perspective of a child, it really pretty much throughout the whole movie. And the thing that’s so creepy about Randy Quaids performance is that the kind of stuff that he’s saying to the kid is so typical of the kinds of things that fathers say to their children.

Mm-hmm. There are little life lessons and little bits of advice and things like that, and oh, you know, suggestions that we’re gonna go off and we’re gonna do this thing, or we’re gonna do that thing. Or he’s teaching the kid about the world and about repairs and things like that. But the way that it’s delivered.

And the way that it’s perceived by us through the camera is sinister. Right. And so it was making me think, you know, I was like, God, I’m trying to remember what it was like being a kid. But I feel like maybe the purpose of of the movie and the director of this movie is really giving a sinister turn to all of the.

Somewhat normal things because maybe we’ve forgotten as a kid what it was like to just not understand a lot of shit that was happening. And to be under the subjective control of our parents and our teachers and everybody else telling us what we need to do and what we shouldn’t do, and teaching us about the world and eat your meat even if you don’t want to.

You gotta eat your veggies, you gotta eat your meat, you gotta go to bed at this time and all this stuff. Well, as a child, you know, you do feel a little. Confused a little, put out a little like everybody’s in control and in charge of you and telling you what to do and teaching you about the world and you really don’t understand everything.

And from that, I felt like this movie did a really good job of putting me in that perspective. I. I had to think back and think, is that how I felt as a child? I don’t know, but I guess some kids felt that way. Maybe Bob Balaban did at some level, and that’s what he’s trying to get across, is just the general unsettling horror of what your childhood could be like.

You know what I mean? 

Craig: Yeah. I think, and I, I, I am making assumptions. I may be wrong, but I, I think that you and I were raised by the generation that was raised, like the kid in this movie is raised Yeah. Where respecting your parents was a respect that was born really largely kind of out of fear, especially when it comes.

To fathers. Does that make sense? Mm. 

Todd: Yeah. It was always, dad’s gonna come home and really lay into you. Right. Mom’s the more friendly one. Dad’s the one who’s kind of the stern. He’s, he’s the bad cop to the good cop. 

Craig: He Right, right. He’s the authority and you don’t mess with him. And I don’t know, like, to some extent, because I, my, I know, I know that my dad was raised that way.

Yeah. And, and that, that rubbed off on him a little bit, but. And obviously I think he had learned some things and I had a great. Childhood, like my parents did a great job. It wasn’t like this. I wasn’t scared of my parents, but that’s what I was thinking about. And, and I, I, I don’t know that my dad was scared of his dad.

I just think that, and it was a different time, like men were expected to be a certain way and I, I think that the movie is intentionally. Satirizing that 

Todd: for sure, 

Craig: and trying to kinda show the, the dark underbelly of it. Not necessarily, I don’t know, maybe, but not necessarily condemning it, just taking, you know, let’s look at this from a different perspective.

Yeah. Let’s, let’s look at it from the kid’s perspective that, that may. Shed a little bit of light on it. 

Todd: Like I said earlier, satire is not necessarily comedy. I immediately got that they were satirizing this era, and I was on board with that. What surprised me, especially when you’re going into a movie that was, you know, written up as a horror comedy, that they weren’t finding any humor in this.

It was all very dark. So everything the father says has this sinister tone to it, and the boy is just flat faced throughout. He just looks unsure, if not scared most of the time. And then, you know, he goes to bed and he starts to take off his PJs. He’s got more underneath whatever, and then he leaps into bed and we get our first very surreal moment.

It’s a. It’s actually a really good shot Yeah. Of him leaping into bed, and it’s a slow mo of him falling into the covers as, as the perspective changes to shoot from above. But the covers keep going. As it turns out, they’re sinking into a pool of red blood, I guess. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That 

Todd: he falls. Down into and apparently drowns or whatever, you know, I mean, that was surprising.

I was, okay, this movie’s gonna be surreal. 

Craig: Yeah. I mean, it’s not like you don’t literally see him like drown it. It’s, it’s very dreamlike. Like the bed kind of turns into a, like a deep. Pool and you see him, you know, in this big pool of red liquid with his eyes open. Like it’s, it’s a very dreamlike thing and it is apparently a dream.

Apparently he has these nightmares, right the next morning as he’s playing with his hands in a giant bowl of blood on the counter that I am not sure why it’s there. Was it blood or was it 

Todd: supposed to be tomato sauce? 

Craig: Oh, maybe it was tomato sauce. I don’t know. It looked like blood, but maybe it was tomato sauce.

’cause the mom is always cooking some kind of meat and, and I think I read that it was kidneys that she was frying up in this frying pan every morning. 

Todd: Took me forever to figure it out. But yeah, I thought it was, it looked like it 

Craig: looked like tongue. Yeah. Yeah. I thought they were having tongue for breakfast every day, but apparently it was kidneys and apparently it was real kidneys.

And apparently they used real meat for a lot of these shots, which. I mean, great for the authenticity, but those poor actors and crew, it always makes me think of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That dinner scene where they, all of that was like real rotting meat and it was like 110 degrees and they were like paring in between takes.

Uh, anytime I hear they use real meat, that’s what I think of. Um, but anyway, he tells her he had a nightmare and she’s like, well, did you take off your pajamas? And he’s. And he doesn’t say anything. That was weird ’cause it never comes up again. But she’s like, you have nightmares when you take off your pajamas.

I’m like, what? Okay. Again, is that some kind? I, I, I do. I still, I feel like that’s some sort of commentary on modesty or something. I don’t know. I have no idea. But there’s a very, a closeup scene. He looks out the window like he peers through the blinds at his dad who’s outside doing something and he shoots him with a finger gun.

So there’s obviously tension, like mm-hmm. He obviously has some kind of feelings about his dad 

Todd: and the basement. 

Craig: And the basement. And this is, I feel like this is when he meets Sheila when he goes to school. Yeah. Oh, oh. They’re, they’re the only two new kids. I think she just transferred out of a new class or a different class, but he just moved there.

And, but I loved the teacher’s game. Like 

Clip: when we have new faces, we love to learn something new, don’t we? Sheila, can you tell us something new? When you make a martini with an onion? It’s called a Gibson. Oh, that, that is new. Uh. Where did you learn that, Sheila? My mom’s bartending guy. Uhhuh. We don’t drink those things though, do we?

Michael, can you tell us something new? Um, if you take a black cat and broil it on the oven. And you peel off the skin of the bones and take it off and you chew on the bone, you’ll be invisible. 

Craig: What? Oh man. So he’s just weird. So you don’t, and, and it’s, it’s seemingly mostly from his perspective. So you don’t know if these things are as sinister as they appear to be.

Right. Because they. Don’t necessarily have to be, 

Todd: it could just be his perception. 

Craig: Right, right. 

Todd: Yeah. And that’s what I’m thinking the whole time. And you know, and it, he comes home from school and he walks in like, Hey mom. And like, nobody answers him. Nobody’s there. He just stands there in the living room, like are they even home?

And eventually his dad starts to walk up from his wine cellar. Well, his basement, when she calls the wine cellar, ’cause he’s got a rack of wine in there, and then mom just comes in from what must have been the kitchen. Oh, you’re home already. And he’s like, yeah, you know, school ends at a quarter to three.

And she’s like, oh, we’ll have to keep that in mind. Like this whole idea is that the parents have a life separate from the kids. And I get this because. I think this was the parenting style from the fifties, even pretty much up to the fifties and sixties until we kinda got the new modern parenting style, which is, you know, the kids are central to your life.

Like everything revolves around the kids. Whereas before, you know, children are to be seen, not heard. Mm-hmm. Children very much are expected to just jump in and, and adapt themselves to the family and adult situation. Whereas it seems like nowadays parents almost take the complete opposite approach and they rearranged their lives around their children once they’re born.

Mm-hmm. And so I could see that too. I could see this as being a commentary on that. You know, that was how I was, I was interpreting the movie as we went. 

Craig: Well, and I think that, that, that scene that we just talked about is a perfect example. Of his perception, he thinks that something shady is going on, and because we’re looking at it through that lens.

So do we. But yeah, nothing. Ha I mean the, the dad walks. No, the dad walks slowly up from the basement. So what he’s allowed to be down there. It’s his house. He could be doing any number of things down there. Yeah. The mom comes out of the kitchen. She’s carrying two champagne flutes. So what they can. Have champagne at their house during the day, or maybe she’s cleaning.

I don’t know. Like it seems suspicious to him, so it seems suspicious to us, but it could be a hundred percent innocent. And honestly, even though I’ve seen this movie before, I just kept thinking it’s doing a very good job of maintaining that balance. Yeah. It’s never taking it really, the step too far until, and I apologize if I’m jumping, I, I, I feel like the, the time that.

I really started to question was one time Michael wakes up in the middle of the night and walks down to his parents’ bedroom and sees something that he didn’t want to see. Now I’m sure that that has happened to millions of kids throughout history. I didn’t. I never did either. Thank God. Yeah, thank God.

Todd: But also, we could also record this and replay it. ’cause how many horror movies start out with this scenario, right? 

Craig: True. Yeah. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. This solid. But 

Craig: yeah, 

Todd: even here, I didn’t think this was sinister because he pops out. He actually, I think they’re in the living room, aren’t they? Which is weird, but yeah, maybe.

But anyway, they’re, they’ve made a little bed in the living room and they’re tussling and they’ve got half their clothes off and mom looks up and she, her, what I interpret as her lipstick, her lipstick is kind of smeared all over her face as is on dad’s face. And you’re like, oh my God, Michael. Oh no, I never, and of course he runs off and he’s.

Really upset about it. It’s really presented as very, very scary. You’ve got the slowmo in there and all this stuff, and this scene then gets referenced later on as a memory. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. And 

Todd: in his memories, he adds extra things to it that weren’t actually there. But even this, I saw. It’s the same thing. I saw this as, yeah, this is yet another one of those things.

You know what happens when you’re asleep? You know you gotta be in bed by seven 30 or eight 30, you go to sleep. It’s kind of a mystery what your parents do while you’re asleep. God, if you were to walk on in this, you know, on this stuff, like that’s even. Bigger mystery to you, it would seem very, very scary.

And it would call into question, what the hell are they doing while I’m asleep? And how scary is that? You know? So again, I was still on board with this interpretation of the film that is presenting this childhood as, as this fundamentally frightening experience. 

Craig: But, 

Todd: but you, you saw something sinister here or, 

Craig: well, I don’t know.

I mean, it would’ve been a lot of lipstick, but to be fair, she does wear red lipstick. Yeah. I, I I could see how he could interpret it as something else. The thing that you said later, it comes back as a memory. That’s the thing here, it, it, it looks kind of different from the dreams, but then the way that, if I remember correctly.

Him getting up and walking down the hallway is shot very realistically in the same way that everything else is shot. But then his view of the parents is very stylized. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s got the slowmo. Closeup. 

Craig: Yeah, it, it’s very choppy lot, lots of closeup cuts and cutting to different chins and lips and kissing and touching and so it’s all very stylized and then he runs back.

So it, it could be a dream, 

Todd: right? 

Craig: We know he has nightmares or it could just be. Him not being able to process because he doesn’t understand what’s going on. And I don’t know, it seemed kind of sinister to me, but when you said it comes back later as a memory and he adds things to it that weren’t really there, I actually interpreted it as he didn’t know how to process it at that time.

Mm. But later when he had more of a suspicion and more evidence, his memory became clearer. Oh, and what we see later in his memory is what was really happening, but. I think it could be either way. That’s just as, as I was watching it. That’s what I thought. It’s ambiguous. We dunno. 

Todd: It’s definitely ambiguous and that’s kind of how it is at this point.

I mean, everything is ambiguous. And then there’s this great scene where he’s at school and the teacher gives them an assignment in their workbook, which is, there’s a picture of a family on the top of the page and there’s a blank space on the bottom of the page. And your job is to draw a picture of you and your family and how you see your family.

I was like, okay, I see where this is going. And of course later we have a scene of the teacher grading papers and when she pulls up his picture, it looks very disturbing. Yeah, it’s got drawing all over the page and 

Craig: it’s all stuff. It’s red. Yeah, it’s all red. Disturbing enough that 

Todd: she brings it to the school psychologist, which I’d be shocked if they had a school psychologist in the fifties, but maybe they did.

I don’t know. But the only part of this movie that gave me the slightest hint of a chuckle was when they show the exterior of where his father works, which is a giant like perfectly gleaming, skyscraper, industrial looking building. And as it pans down. There are just people endlessly streaming into the front door.

And over the front door is the name of the company, which is Toco. Mm-hmm. 

Craig: I thought that was funny too. 

Todd: And then I thought, okay, this is where it’s gonna get funny. Surely. 

Craig: Right, and And I think they make herbicides. Is that right? 

Todd: Or chemical weapons? 

Craig: Yeah, because he’s talking about, right. He, he, he talks about how they can like totally decimate entire.

Yes, natural habitats and forests or something with these chemicals that they’re making. It’s basically like 

Todd: Agent Orange type shit 

Craig: for Yeah, yeah. But I also then don’t understand why they have a morgue there. Are they testing the bodies for levels 

Todd: of their. Chemicals. That was unsettling too, because I don’t know, I just know there’s a door that says the Department of Human Experiments or whatever, and inside is just a whole bunch of bodies under sheets, which were in there a couple times, and are they actually conducting experiments?

And then these are the bodies that then they analyze later. Are these just cadavers that they do experiments on their organs? It’s unclear. But it’s, it’s, again, it’s typical, very unsettling how just normalized all this is that this guy’s working on these toxic chemicals. He’s apparently doing a very good job at his company.

To the point where his boss has a moment with the sun. It’s like a moment from the graduate. Mm-hmm. Plastics. 

Clip: You know what this is Mike. I 

Todd: think 

Clip: it’s a pen. It’s an opportunity. I bet you knew this pen was made of chemicals, but did you know that if I took the exact same chemicals that make up this pen and recombine them, I could make.

I dunno, an automobile, maybe you could make an electric light. The whole world is made up of chemicals, Mike. You can make anything with them, but if you’re smart, you’ll make opportunities. 

Todd: And it’s just as bewildering and baffling to this poor little kid as it is to us, this adult trying to give him this dumb little lesson, which is stupid, but.

Sure. I mean, they’ve got this little terrarium or something, right? Where as Randy Quaid is talking about the. Chemical and about how it decimate forest. There’s this little airplane that drops it over the plants in this little tiny little terrarium. And then when we look back at the terrarium, we see that everything is just mush.

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: And as Randy’s explaining it, you drop this right before a typhoon. So it basically kills all the vegetation and then the, the water comes in and tears everything and the villages and everything out. So this guy’s dad is doing what? Happened in the fifties and forties, developing chemical weapons in a very, that’s crazy.

Normal deal. With a normal job. It that just happens to be his job. It’s, it’s spooky. 

Craig: Yeah. And that guy, his boss is Sheila’s dad. The parents and Michael go over to their house, the Zellner and. The parents are getting drunk. I don’t know. Like I, I, again, I felt like this was, again, commentary on our idea of this time.

The, the Zelner mom is played by an actress who. I recognize from a bazillion things, I can’t think of her name, but you would totally recognize her. She’s done film and TV all over the place. 

Todd: Oh yeah. 

Craig: She’s the martini wife. Like, yeah, she’s, she’s, she’s always drunk, but can always keep herself together. And then when they all get together, there’s a weird vibe and the moms are getting drunk or whatever.

The dads. Spills a drink on the mom. Randy Quaid spills a drink on his wife, seemingly intentionally. But I didn’t understand Was that just to get them out of there because she was getting drunk? I’m not sure. I, I was confused. But anyway, for some, and you may have to remind me of the context of this, ’cause I can’t think of it, but it’s that night they go home and the dad is talking to Michael and he says it’s good to watch.

I don’t know what was like, 

Todd: oh God. Yeah, 

Craig: he’s, he says it’s good to watch, but you know what? Other people are watching you at school, at home, maybe even in the bathroom. Don’t let them. First loss, survival, goodnight. Like what? In the bathroom? I think that that’s a warning because the dad, and I don’t remember when it starts there, there’s increasing tension between Michael and the dad throughout the movie.

Mm-hmm. And, and I think that at this point the dad is, is kind of saying there are eyes on you. 

Todd: Hmm. You think like government eyes or do you just mean No, I think, 

Craig: I think he’s talking like we are watching you, I think is what he’s saying. 

Todd: Oh, gotcha. 

Craig: But I could be wrong. I don’t know. Again, like that’s a weird, creepy thing to say, but whatever.

Todd: I mean, it’s the same kind of thing like that a father thinks he’s imparting these lifelong great advice, but like the kid takes it and is like, what, what the hell are you talking about? That’s creepy. Right. You know, and, and I mean, he goes into the psychologist I think immediately after that. And she shows him the pick.

And she wants, she shows him a pick of two parents making a bed and says, how does you know, what does this make you feel? And he has a flashback to the parents tumbling around on the floor and he says, it makes me scared. And she’s like, why? And he’s like, well, I won’t, I can’t tell you because my parents, they can see me.

They know everything they, yeah. 

Craig: They hear everything 

Todd: and how many of us didn’t really feel that way intuitively as children, that somehow no matter what happened, our parents would find out about it. Like they just had an omniscience at least. I always felt that my parents had an eerie omniscience that I could get away with something, but not for too long.

Somebody would tell them something. They would hear from a neighbor, they’d hear from the teacher at school, or somebody would tell them, eventually I could get confronted by the sting that maybe I did what? They weren’t even there. 

Craig: That’s funny. 

Todd: And I thought that’s true. That’s good childhood. Yeah, it’s 

Craig: true.

I think we, yeah, I think kids do feel that way, but I think that it just comes because. Kids are stupid. Like, yeah, we do, we we do things we’re not supposed to do and we think we won’t get caught. And then we get caught and we’re like, how did they catch us? How did they know? They must know everything. No, it’s ’cause you’re stupid.

Yeah. And it’s, they know what you did because you left a trail or whatever. Yeah, like you, the, the chocolate is around your lips. I didn’t do it. Like how did they know, or like, you don’t think the 

Todd: teacher talks to me like, you don’t think your friend’s parents talk to me. Right, exactly. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And then there’s a weird scene where Mike is for some reason unknown.

He is in the. Pantry in the kitchen, which is like slatted, and he’s watching his mom work with meat. She’s constantly working with meat and it’s always super closeups of cutting and, and sizzling, and it’s always like mostly raw and bloody and soft and squishy. It’s so gross. It, it, it’s disgusting. I mean, it’s just meat.

Like it’s, it’s really just cooking. Yeah. I process, I work with, I don’t like, it’s not my favorite part of cooking, but. Whatever, but the, the way it’s shot, it’s just disgusting. It’s like Dennis Qua eating those shrimp in that other movie. Oh, it’s like his 

Todd: brother. I mean, really, if there’s a movie to make you a vegetarian, this is close to the top of the list, honestly.

Yeah, 

Craig: yeah, yeah. But, but this is another part that reminded me of Eraser Head, because while Michael is in the pantry at. The camera pans up and there’s a big string of sausage links on the top shelf that moves and wraps itself around him and starts to like, pull him back into the pantry until his mom opens the door.

And apparently all of that was just fantasy. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But it, it’s, but it’s very surreal to watch like, like what? Yeah. You never know because it’s not just. He has nightmares or he’s awake. Even when he’s awake. He’s having these weird fantasies or hallucinations, so you never really know what’s what’s going on, which 

Todd: honestly set me at ease.

It sort of solidified this idea for me that this movie is really an allegory and it’s, it’s presenting. All this stuff is creepy, but it’s actually quite normal. It’s just to this kid, it’s creepy. So. I felt like the purpose of this scene was more or less to establish that, that don’t trust what you see, just take it as a, as a commentary on the kid’s psychological state, you know, and how he views the world.

But later, I think that gets violated. I. 

Craig: I don’t know. Well, this is, I don’t know if this is the first time, but there’s another dinner scene, and again, it’s lit very strangely with weird shadows everywhere. And Michael never wants to eat and, and he says, 

Clip: what are we eating? Leftover, sunny leftover swim wine

from the refrigerator. We have leftovers every day since we moved here. I’d like to know what they were before they were leftovers. Well before that they were leftovers to be. Eat your dinner, honey. Him. 

Craig: Oh my God. And he never wants to eat, so he just goes to bed. Yeah. And then I, were you gonna talk about his next nightmare?

Todd: Yeah. He wakes up and he goes downstairs and he sees a hand in the disposal, flopping around, bloody coming out the opposite way. And blood comes down, comes streaming down the, the wall. And uh. Yeah. Then he has that vision of his parents again, except this time, you know, they’re biting each other. It’s almost like they’re vampires, right?

They’re gnawing on each other’s neck. His dad’s got his a big, the big piece of the flesh ripped off of his cheek and stuff. And I mean, I took this as, as just his, uh, memory of that intensified in the context of all of his fears. Now. I didn’t, I didn’t really take that as that was what he really saw when he was first there, but, uh, 

Craig: yeah.

Yeah, maybe not that, that definitely was a dream. So again, and it, I think I should have approached it a different way when it started to remind me of eraser head. I should have just let that. Allow me to just experience it. Like, don’t try too hard. Don’t try to figure out what’s going on. I don’t think it really matters.

Todd: Right. 

Craig: That’s the, I don’t think that’s really the point, 

Todd: except it does lay, I mean. I guess, I mean, it’s it to the end, but I guess it does, right? 

Craig: It, yeah. I mean, it turns out, of course, that something is going on. The root of it is not really explained. I, I don’t know. Anyway, there’s a whole thing here with Sheila.

Sheila says she’s quitting school. I thought it sounded like she has a bad home life. We know, we know her mom’s drunk all the time. She says something about she wants to run away because then she can never get punished again and again. It’s that whole idea. We talked about it with the. The burbs of, you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

Mm-hmm. Everything looks hunky dory from the outside, but you don’t know what was really going on behind closed doors. But anyway, they get into some mischief, which ends up with them in the freezer at, at mike’s house, the, the chest freezer that he’s forbidden from touching. Oh yeah. And it’s very scary when the dad comes home and finds them in there.

But then it just cuts to Randy Quaid telling Mike a bedtime story, and I didn’t even write it down. 

Todd: He just 

Craig: like, 

Todd: there’s a story about a kid and the kid did this thing that he wasn’t supposed to do, like go into the freezer or whatever. Again, a very typical father like thing, and the mom pops her head in and says, I don’t think this is the right way.

You know, she’s like the good cop. She’s just, just a very stark contrast to the father. 

Craig: Yeah, and this monologue, again, it sounds very mean. But it also sounds like, you know, he says something like, and then the, you know, what happened to that little boy? He grew up to be a weak, pathetic little man. Like, yeah.

That it’s such that machismo that I, I feel, has started to take away. It’s not, it’s, yeah. Well, yeah. It’s, but it’s not as emphasized today as it once, once, once was. Right. And, and in a, in a good way, I think. Mm-hmm. I mean, I, I, you know, men can be men, that’s great, but it doesn’t have to come through.

Intimidation and fear and threats and Yeah. That, that’s, and I think that’s, and it, you’re right, the mom kind of objects like, like, you’re going too far. And he’s like, am I? And just keeps going. And he even says something like, do I scare you, Michael? He says something like, well, you scare me too. You don’t look anything like me.

You don’t act anything like me. And that really, I really wondered what you thought of that as a father. Now, I could, would never suggest that you had ever felt that way, but I, I can imagine as a parent. If your child was nothing like you, you know, like Yeah. Just almost seemed like a stranger to you. That would be scary.

And this objectively, this kid is weird. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And so if we’re seeing things from his perspective, we’re not really seeing things from the dad’s perspective. And if we were seeing things from the dad’s perspective, maybe he would be a little bit scared of the kid. But you still wouldn’t say that 

Todd: Exactly. I mean, God, I was just talking about this tonight with another dad, but like on the one hand, of course you should never say anything like this to your kid.

It’s horrible and it’s usually not true anyway. But it does express a certain thing. And I will just say that this, we were, I was literally talking with another father about this. Just minutes before I popped on here. And that is that you know, your kids, they’re their own people. And you just imagine, I think when, when you’re first a parent that your kids are gonna be more or less like you.

They’re gonna be into the same things. They’re gonna have similar personalities either because of genetics and or because you rub off on them. Uhhuh, you know, in that way, but it doesn’t. It’s just really not necessarily true at all. You know, on a superficial level, like my son is super into sports. I mean, he’s eight, but like Uhhuh, he’s like apparently supernaturally good at sports for an 8-year-old.

Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And you 

Todd: can tell like he just is really into physical activity and stuff to the extent where I was absolutely not. As a kid, I was a way more bookish kind of kid who had very little to no interest in sports. The only reason I was into sports is ’cause my parents pushed me into it because they thought it was a good thing for me to do.

Same. And so, you know, that’s different. But then on a deeper level, like the way that he handles things and the way that he deals with things, and there are a lot of aspects to his personality that I, I can’t relate to because. Even when I was his age, I just did not have that same mentality. I didn’t have that same outlook on life.

I didn’t react to things the same way. And it’s frustrating as a parent because therefore you don’t really know how to deal with it. You know? I really don’t. There are times when I kind of feel that way. I’m like, you are not like me, and, right. I mean, I would never tell him anything. But beyond that. But right privately inside my head and to other people, I express my frustration at that because I don’t know what to do with it.

You know, I don’t know how to solve the quote unquote problems that come up with his behavior, because I’ve never been in that head space. Right. And I never expected that he would not be like me. So I’m not prepared for it either. So you do feel rather lost, I get. Yeah, I, I totally get that. 

Craig: And I can only imagine that that’s a hundred percent universal.

Nobody, it’s gotta be right. Yeah. Nobody knows. Nobody knows how to do it. You just do it, you know, 

Todd: and you screw up sometimes. 

Craig: Oh, totally. And 

Todd: sometimes you say destructive things you could, you know, ’cause you think you’re supposed to say this thing in this way, but you really it, it doesn’t do it. Yeah. I think that’s this father in a way.

Or it could be. It could be, right. You know, he’s doing what he thinks dad is supposed to do. Maybe that’s the way his dad treated him. But mom is like the loving, caring one who’s like, you know, no, like layoff. 

Craig: It all comes to a head when Michael is forbidden from seeing Sheila. But he does anyway. And Sheila kind of out of the blue says, how do you really know what your father.

Does. You don’t see it. You know, for all you know, they could take him off to jail every day and just let him out at night to be with his family. So Michael though, he’s been to the lab before, goes back and 

Todd: sneaks in. Really? 

Craig: Yeah. Sneaks in, hides under a table while his dad’s cutting up a person with a big sack.

But who knows what he is doing, you know? 

Todd: Yeah. But he also seems like he’s not supposed to be there, like he does. He’s looking around, around, looks shady. It’s quiet. It’s dark in there. He is the only one in there. It’s very, very shady. And it was at this point when finally I was like, oh, okay. So maybe the movie isn’t just as big metaphor.

Craig: Right. Well, and then, I don’t know, he, he takes scissors from the lab and then he drops ’em at the dinner table and the dad finds ’em, and there’s another kind of tense moment there. But Michael just goes, he still won’t eat. He goes off to bed as another dream, I guess. Yeah, he has a dream of Sheila saying she comes out from under his bed, like slides out, face up from under his bed and just says, I know what your parents do at night, Michael.

So he walks down the hall and looks in on his parents. Again, they’re just sleeping to nothing unusual at all. But then he goes down to the basement for reasons I don’t know why. And he finds a bloody cleaver on like a table and meat hooks. And a human leg hanging from one of the hooks. And the scariest part of the movie to me was when he goes back up to his room and he, it’s dark and he closes the door behind him and he is just standing there.

And I don’t remember if he flips the light on, but the light comes on and Randy Qua is just sitting there on his bed. Oh my God, that was so scary to me. Fortunately, Randy Quaid asks him what he was doing. He says, what do you have in your pocket? And he pulls out like a hostess cupcake. And so at this point, I think dad just thinks he was going down for a snack, which would make sense because he’s not eating dinner.

So he would be. Hungry. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But the next day, Michael goes immediately to the school psychologist and says something, he saw something really bad, but he can’t tell her because his parents see everything. So she drives him home, but he runs out of the car and she chases him into the house and into the basement.

And she’s like, see, there’s nothing down here. Oh, look, there’s a rat in the window cell, but I’ll get rid of that. And I don’t know what those things are called. Like those, those trough windows. What are the, I don’t 

Todd: know what they’re, it’s called a window. Well, yeah, around the basement window. Where when it’s lower than the ground, 

Craig: it’s lower than the ground.

Right. But there’s a window. Right. So she’s trying to get the rat away and a body falls down. Makes no sense. She screams, but okay. No, it doesn’t make any sense. Why would it be there? But Right. Okay. And she screams, and that scene was so funny to me. She screams for a good 30 seconds and it like follows like her scream all the way out of the house.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But as she’s screaming and the camera pans outside of the house, we see that a car. So either dad or mom or both are arriving back. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: and there’s a whole thing where the teacher, this goes on for a little bit where the psychologist is kind of moving around the house and somebody is like locking her behind doors and eventually she gets shoved.

She gets shoved into the pantry. 

Todd: Oh my God. 

Craig: Whoever’s doing it is wearing black gloves. And then they’re stabbing through the slats at her and. 

Todd: And then she grabs the knife with her hands. 

Craig: Oh, I hate it when people do that. 

Todd: That hurt so much. Oh 

Craig: God. Yeah. ’cause he just pulls it, or whoever it is just pulls it right back out.

Oh gosh. She eventually gets, it stops all the stabbing stops and it’s quiet. So she comes out, but then she takes golf club to the head and she’s dead. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: and then there’s lots of meat on the barbecue 

Todd: uhhuh. There’s lots of meat on the barbecue, and dad comes in with mom and dinner is served, but his son is ready there with a baseball bat and swings and hits his dad right in the stomach and he falls forward.

And it’s just basically a big, I don’t know what you call, like his struggles chasing or whatever where. The boy is fighting his parents Really fighting his dad. 

Craig: Yeah. Well they tie him up in the chair and this is when the dinner scene gets totally wild because I, my guess is that the camera now, it could be different.

I, but what it looks like is the camera and the actors at the dinner table are on a big lazy Susan. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: That is spinning. So it looks like the room is spinning around them. Mm-hmm. And it’s, it’s, it’s wild. It’s, it’s a, it’s a really neat effect. But the dad says to him something like, we are different.

You’re different. You’re like us. Michael says, I don’t love you anymore. And he says, well, okay, I’m gonna untie you and you can either join us for dinner or you can run out and tell your big secret. But you know what’ll happen if you do, people will come here and they’ll burn us. Do you want. To see them burn your parents.

I didn’t think about this, but I read and you probably did too, that there, there are, there’s like theories about this movie that this is a family of witches. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Because Michael has that weird, dark, magic stuff about the black cat and he says something else about. Producing heat, like we wouldn’t need gas.

All we would need was like the corpses of some hanged people and we could cut off their hands and burn them and it would burn forever or something like that. So there’s all this weird stuff. And then the sig 

Todd: the, and they came from Massachusetts and they 

Craig: Uhhuh Uhhuh to start a new life. And here the dad says people are gonna.

Come and burn us if they find out. I don’t know. It’s an interesting theory. Yeah, whatever. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. They’re cannibals. And then the dad suggests that they could move to the mountains as long as there was a highway nearby for the accidents. And he says to Michael as he’s trying to serve him meat, I’m sure you’ll acquire a taste for it.

Your mother did. And the mom’s like, Hmm. Yeah. Now I love it. Like. Ugh. 

Todd: Oh, it’s so gross. 

Craig: So weird and creepy. But Mike stabs his dad, I thought through the heart, but apparently not just in the chest. And then the dad grabs Michael and is being very rough with them, and the mom and dad are fighting. ’cause the mom saying, don’t hurt him.

Leave him alone. He says, the dad says. We’ll have another one, Lily. We’ll bring him up. Right? And he, it’s like he’s taking Michael down to the cellar, but the mom stab, stabs him in the back. Michael runs down to the basement, which is stupid. But then. The dad pulls the knife that the mom used. I somehow he gets it out of her hand and he turns it on her and stabs her by pulling him towards himself, by embracing her.

And then they fall him on top of her and it goes, but it’s very reminiscent of their weird, gross. Bloody lovemaking. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Which I think we skipped at some point. Michael has a dream or remembers, like when he is talking to the psychologist now, his memory, they’re covered in blood and there are like organs in the bed with them and stuff.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s real or not. Mm-hmm. Anyway, mom’s dead. Dad falls down the stairs, then that’s when there’s like this cat and mouse chase in the cellar. Eventually the dad pulls the wine shelves down on himself and the blood red wine, you know, splashes all around Latin, chanting all of a sudden in the soundtrack.

Yeah, and because the dad in stumbling around in the basement pulled down one of the gas pipes, gas is filling the house. Michael runs out the house, explodes the house, explodes, hits the burbs again, Uhhuh and Michael goes to live with his sweet grandparents. Who then plays a, 

Todd: as they’re, as they’re putting him to bed, place a, uh, sandwich stacked with meat next to him, which he suddenly turns and looks at.

And you realize probably the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, 

Craig: right? Because it’s, it’s made clear, like the grandpa or grandma, I think says he looks just like his daddy. And then it cuts to a picture of Randy Quaid with these. People, so this is, this is his paternal grandparents, the people who raised Randy Quaid.

So yeah, of course, of course they’re cannibals too. And then it goes to credits and I almost turned it immediately off. But then I saw like the credits are framed in some like funny. Uh, old fashioned, I don’t know. It looks like something that you would’ve done in middle school frame and it’s, it’s, it’s a curtain call.

The actors come out of a door and like smile and wave at the camera as their name comes up and they come out one by one to the song. One-eyed, one horned blind, purple people eater. So like it’s such a weird change in tone. And they’re all all smiling and waving. And then the parents come out and wave one at a time and then the kid comes out and waves and then the parents come out and pick the kid up by the arm and they all wave and that’s the end.

It was a weird movie. It was, I’m glad we watched it because I, I remembered nothing about it. And I think about it like it lives in my head. I think about this movie and I’m like, oh, I should watch that again. Oh man. It’s weird. I hope I remember now ’cause I don’t know that I necessarily need to see it again.

But I also think that it is a movie that you could probably watch multiple times and pick up new things. Yes. Or, or look at it from different perspectives. ’cause I do think that it’s really smart and nuanced. It’s just weird. 

Todd: It is weird, but you’re, you’re right. It’s smart. It’s very nuanced. I think it has layers here that what that that could be unpacked even deeper than we unpacked it here.

By the way, the soundtrack. Really good. 

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: that probably made this movie even more unsettling than it already was there. It just goes all over the place and, but it’s always on and I like it and I think it’s effective. I think the whole movie’s effective. I think it’s, as a horror movie, it’s a hundred percent effective.

It goes down as one of the more deeply unsettling films all the way through that I’ve ever seen. And it left a, you know, kind of a sick taste in my mouth afterwards. So. As a horror movie. It’s great as a horror comedy if that is truly what they were ever going for. Utterly fails on that level. But if, if Bab Balaban said, I was never intending to make a comedy, that’s just the way it was marketed then?

Yeah. Wow. What a shame it was marketed the way it was. That’s all I’ll say. ’cause it, it was a bomb. I apparently, and I think it’s kind of forgotten. Right. I don’t think a lot of people talk about this movie. 

Craig: I, I think it has a cult following. I does it. Yeah. There, I read that there were a couple of directors who cited it as being underrated.

Greta Gerwig was one of them. Oh, I don’t remember who the other one was. But, uh, I do think that it has a cult following as it should. It, it very much feels like a, a cult movie. I would, I would recommend it. Just, just know what you’re getting into, because Yeah, otherwise you could potentially be disappointed.

I was expecting a comedy when I realized that it wasn’t, it was fine. I, I just tried to appreciate it for what it was, and I do appreciate it for what it is. But yeah, just, just temper your expectations 

Todd: a hundred percent. Agreed. Recommended. Watch it as a straight horror film. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share with a friend. You can find [email protected] or by Googling two guys in the Chainsaw podcast, and you’ll find all of our social media out there. We love to hear from you guys. Please send us a message there.

Let us know what you thought of. Parents or any other film that we have covered or give us some suggestions for films to cover in the coming weeks and months. Our patrons get to vote on which of our requests we will do. And if you would like that opportunity as well as the opportunity to listen to some mini sos, the complete unedited phone calls that make up our podcast.

Lots of other things we have behind the scenes, a book club, yada, yada yada. Go to patreon.com/chainsaw podcast and uh, you’ll find a lot of fun stuff back there for just five bucks a month. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

In this exciting episode of ‘Two Guys and a Chainsaw,’ we are joined by two special guest speakers for the first time ever – Kristen and Heather! Together, we dive into the classic 1992 horror comedy ‘Death Becomes Her,’ starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, and Bruce Willis.

We discuss our personal memories, favorite lines, and explore the groundbreaking special effects that made this film an instant favorite. Listen in as we celebrate Horror Comedy Month with insightful commentary, engaging anecdotes, and lots of laughs.

Death Becomes Her (1992)

Episode 442, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: We have a very special day today. We are joined by not one, but two guest speakers. I, for the first time ever, I think, yeah, it’s really great. Kristen and Heather. Kristen. Heather, say hello to everyone else. 

Kristen: Hello everyone.

Todd: Welcome to the show. 

Craig: Kristen and Heather have both been with us multiple times, but we’ve never had them together. And for our last week of our. Horror Comedy Month. This is the one I honestly, I think that this movie is the whole reason that I wanted to do this whole month. Um, I love this movie so much, and Heather, when, when we were in the middle of the horror comedy, she’s like.

Are you gonna do this movie? And I was like, yeah. And, and Kristen. Kristen was excited about it too. And I thought, I think we need to get both these ladies on here to talk about this movie. ’cause it’s just so good 

Todd: for those people just joining us on the podcast in general, who may not have heard some previous episodes, Kristen is Craig’s sister, and I have to imagine that part of the reason you’re on here is because you two have some memories watching this growing up.

Am I, am I right or am I wrong? 

Craig: We watch it all the time. 

Kristen: All the time. And it was funny for me to, we haven’t even said what movie it is, but it came out when I was 10 years old. So the first time I would’ve been viewing this and many times thereafter, I was, I was 10. 

Todd: Oh. So, so now we’re gonna reveal something you might not want revealed, but we’re doing 1992 is death becomes her.

Craig: Yeah. So exciting. Yep. 

Todd: It’s super exciting. This came out, what, 92? I think you would’ve been early high school. Late junior high, I guess. Yeah. Early high school. I think Jurassic Park came out around this time. 

Craig: Uh, Jurassic Park came out a little bit after, and they used some of the effects that they developed in this movie.

I think on it think, because I, 

Kristen: I heard the, the writer. Also wrote Jurassic Park. Is that right? Oh yeah. 

Todd: David Kepp. Yeah. One of the writers. Yeah. David Kepp has written a lot of really well loved movies. We did Stir Of Echoes on here. Mm-hmm. As well. And he wrote that he wrote the Mission Impossible movie, you know, the remake, uh, of course he did Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which a lot of people don’t like, but like a lot of Steven Spielberg films, war The World’s remake was his.

He wrote the screenplay for Sam Ramey Spider-Man. He did Panic Room The Shadow, which Oh God, I like that movie so much. And uh, and uh, we haven’t talked about it much. And then Craig and I did Toy Soldiers. That was one of his first among his first. I used to make Kristen watch that a lot too. 

Craig: Oh, what a great movie.

I love that movie. 

Todd: It’s not a horror movie. It’s like an action thriller movie. And we did it as a mini so for our patrons and posted that. ’cause we do that sometimes. Sometimes we just find non horse stuff and. We, we dive into it just ’cause we love it. I’m threatening to do it for a cloak and dagger, but Craig tells me you guys didn’t watch that growing up.

Heather, did you see Cloak and Dagger? 

Heather: I have not. 

Todd: Huh? See it’s not just me. Alright, well you guys grew up with this movie, Heather, how about you? When did you uh, first watch this? 

Heather: Probably similar. I mean it came out yeah, like Kristen said, when we were 10 and I, I feel like I watched it. Like I wouldn’t have seen it in the theater but I think it was a rental and then I’m pretty pretty sure we owned it and I watched it a lot because it’s fantastic.

Kristen: Well I wanted to ask Craig because I feel like, was Meryl Streep also in that movie? She Devil with Roseanne Barr? Yeah. Okay. I think we had recorded this on a VHS and it must have been some TV like double feature Meryl Streep because I remember watching Death Becomes Her and She Devil like back to back all the time.

Do you remember that? 

Craig: I don’t remember it being on the same, but I, I think Death Becomes or was on HBOA lot, but I, I, I don’t remember. I, but I do remember watching both. She Devil is a terrible movie and I still just think it’s absolutely hilarious. Uh, and it’s, it’s interesting that Meryl Streep was, you know, Meryl Streep is Meryl Streep, and she’s been Meryl Streep for a long time.

Um, that is profound. Craig, that hot tip from Craig, today’s, I guess, that she’s done throughout her career. She’s done some comedies and things, but she’s mostly known for being this highly regarded, well-respected, serious actress. And so she, this period in the mid early nineties, um, she was kind of doing some oddball comedies and I think it’s great because I think she’s hilarious.

What, what I remember about this movie, it came out like I, late junior high, probably, uh, for me, I didn’t know I was gay at the time, but. My enthusiasm about this movie should have been a big red flag.

Like I was, so the, the trailer, I think I just thought that Meryl Streep and Goldie Han were just like the best actresses that I knew, and I was a huge fans of both of them. And they looked so beautiful and glamorous and, you know, it’s like fashion and hair and plus it’s, you know, the, all the horror gothic, you know, big scary mansions and um, the tales from the crypt music literally in the trailer.

And it was like, ugh. I was so excited about it and I wasn’t. Disappointed at all. I loved it from the beginning and I still watch it, you know, probably at least once a year. I quote it probably at least 

Kristen: once a day, 

Craig: maybe once a day. I was texting the girls last night and I said, I’m taking notes, but all I’m doing is writing down the lines that I say ad nauseam in my real life all the time.

Todd: I don’t know how many times in my life, and especially when we were growing up as kids, we find some reason to be. You pushed me down the stairs. I The stairs, 

Craig: yeah. 

Todd: Yep. The minute you brought up death becomes her. That just pops into my mind immediately. And I remember this being on television probably because it was on HBOA lot, but they were making ofs of it because like you said earlier.

This movie definitely was one of the earlier big effects films that incorporated, uh, the CGI and Robert Ek, who has always been a real innovator as far as using technology in films. Uh, he directed this and it was huge. I mean, this guy at this time could do no wrong and he kind of still can’t. He did Romancing the Stone, which was this big romantic comedy in 84.

Then he came out with what may be one of the best movies in the entire world throughout history, which is Back to the Future in 85. And then, you know, went under Produce amazing stories they did, who Framed Roger Rabbit, which combined the cell animation with live action. Then the other two, back to the futures, I mean, and then boom, boom, boom.

Here comes, death becomes her, and we’re seeing him use computer generated graphics for the first time in these ways that were really blowing us away. You know, they were more limited, I think, than I remembered them being, and maybe that’s a good thing because there’s a moment or two where it’s a little distracting to me that how dated it is and how unnatural it is.

We’re just so used now to things being absolutely perfect that it’s, sometimes it’s hard to go back. 

Craig: They show their age a little bit. Yeah, go ahead. I 

Kristen: remember as a kid though, thinking that the effects were so. Cool. Same. Yeah. So good. Like everything to me, I remember the potion thinking how beautiful that glowy potion was, and then when her neck was turned all the way around and one of my favorites is just her boobs tightening up.

Uh, which I actually, I listened to a different podcast episode about this movie once because I love the movie that much. And they talked about how to get that effect. They literally just had people push her boobs up. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Kristen: Outta frame. 

Todd: That’s what it looked like. Yeah. I don’t think that was computer effects on that.

And I was watching, I mean, you know, 

Kristen: I’m sure you were, but there are for the research. 

Craig: But, but there are, I mean, even in that scene it’s, you know, this is kind of a fountain of youth kind of thing. We’ll get into the plot here in a second, but even in that scene, it’s not just, yeah, the boobs, the practical thing of the boobs, just getting perky.

That’s cute and funny, really funny. But there’s also, there is. You know, light and magic stuff going on on her face, like her face dages too. And for the time I thought that those, um, effects were really impressive. 

Heather: To piggyback what Kristen was saying about the effects, you guys all know that I love, I.

Special effects makeup. And so I know watching this when I was a kid, I was just floored with all of that. And I know that there was CGI and things like that involved, but the makeup itself, I just fell in love with. And, and Dick Smith was the makeup artist for this. And so in doing this podcast, I thought surely he would’ve won an Oscar for the, the makeup effects.

But he didn’t. The, the Oscar was for visual effects, but he won an Oscar for Amadeus. So 

Craig: I also think that it’s interesting, I don’t know how this movie would fly now because these women are supposed to be 50. They’re really only, I think Goldie ha was 46 and Meryl Streep was 43. And the idea, I don’t know, the idea that these women would be perceived as old even before their big transformation just feels very not of this moment.

Like we’ve got women who are in their fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, who are still looking amazing. And owning it. So, uh, I just think it’s kind of interesting how culture has shifted. 

Heather: I have in my notes 50 exclamation mark, exclamation mark, like you’re ancient. 

Craig: They’ve talked, uh, I don’t know if they’ve talked, there’s been internet rumors of, um, a remake, uh, of this with, um, Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, and I’m sure it’s just rumors.

I’m sure it will never happen. Um, but I think that would be great. I think Kate Hudson, uh, is much like her mom and very fun and funny and that would be great. But I just don’t know if the story would hold up. I know, except 

Kristen: that I heard someone compare this to the substance, which I still haven’t seen, although I’ve listened to your, your episode, um, on it.

Mm-hmm. And so I think it’s still a relevant topic in Hollywood Fair, fair in particular, you know, that women are aging out or not seen as sex symbols or whatever past a certain age. So I think that. Piece of the story still holds true, 

Todd: and the movie embraces that angle. You know, it is very much about Hollywood and rich people and, you know, people who are in, um, you know, this is their job is to look good.

You know, you and I, and we might have our own certain kinds of vanities, and of course we all have our own insecurities and things, but if you’re up there and your whole livelihood depends on people wanting to see you, and how attractive are you, how much are you gonna get cast in roles and things like, the main character in this movie is Meryl Streep.

Then, uh, it, it lends a different angle to it that I think, I think it would be interesting to see this from a position that’s not that, you know, um, but you’re right, we might not see it. It’s safer to, to, to do this from a, a Hollywood angle, I think. 

Heather: Yeah. And because then we don’t offend 

Todd: anyone, you know?

Heather: Right. Well, I think about that even in my daily life. Like, you know, Craig talked, we, we and Kristen, you used to perform, but like we still try to make it a point to do a show, you know, once a summer, and it is getting sad that the roles that are available for somebody in their early forties as it’s. It’s getting slimmer, right?

And so there, there is definitely, this is still very relevant, I think. 

Craig: And these characters, I think it’s easy to laugh at them because first of all, they’re so over the top, which is one of the things that I love about it. It’s so melodramatic and it’s hilarious. But they’re the elite of the elite apparently.

I guess technically they don’t have to be. We’ll, we will get. To that, but I don’t know. 

Todd: Judging from their houses. 

Craig: Well, I know, I know. But, but you know, the whole potion thing, um, when Meryl Streep asks how much it costs, Liesl says it’s different for everybody. We find out later that Goldie Hawn has taken it to Meryl Streep says, how much did it cost you?

And she said, I gave everything I had, which was nothing. So like, I think it’s more about seducing people, but then I think they become the elite because they’re so gorgeous and beautiful or whatever. But there are so many things that I wanna talk about. And the very first thing that I, you know, I put on the movie and I’m sitting there and the score comes on and I’m like.

Ugh, I’m in love already. Like the score is so good. That 

Heather: was my first note too, Craig. Amazing score. 

Craig: It’s a a, a big fixture in the movie, like it really establishes tone and it’s spooky, but campy and I love it. Then we cut to one of the millions of. Greatest scenes of the movie, which is Broadway, 1978, where Madeline Ashton played by Meryl Streep, is performing in a musical version of a Tennessee Williams play about an aging actress.

And the audience is like walking out and trashing her and like, oh my God, her career is so dead and it’s so over, and they’re like getting up in the middle of her performance and walking out. I thought it was fantastic. 

Todd: No, 

Craig: that’s what I was gonna say. 

Kristen: I was gonna say, as a 10-year-old, I’m sure there were lots of things that went over my head, but I just didn’t understand that.

I was like, there’s sequins on her dress, there’s lights, there’s singing, there’s dancing. What is not to like? Like I was enthralled. I loved it. 

Craig: I, yeah, and I do sing that song here. I see me. It’s, it’s a hit. 

Todd: I think this is one of those things from the movie that hasn’t really aged well in that the, I think the comedy and I had to kind of really think about it in order to get it, because I think the comedy of that whole dance sequence is that it’s like a mashup.

She starts out and sort of a modern thing kind of goes to this stur forties thing that it becomes disco and whatever. And nowadays that just doesn’t seem that weird to us anymore. Like we’re used to mashing up and, and inconsistency and sometimes we do that on purpose, you know, and that’s where the comedy comes from.

So I was actually kind of, um, kind of surprised how, like the same way I was like, I don’t think anybody today would’ve walked out of that audience. 

Craig: I loved it then. I loved it. Now, uh, it’s great and everybody, okay, so in the audience are Helen, who is Goldie Ha looking just absolutely stunning, but she’s supposed to be.

Mousy at this point. Like she’s the mousy one or whatever. Okay. And her fiance is, uh, Dr. Ernest Minville, played by Bruce Willis, who is in his mid early thirties during this movie too. And everybody hates the show and is walking out except for Ernest, who is just absolutely enthralled and like stands up and is clapping and cheering and they go backstage because Madeline and Helen are friends from childhood.

I guess I was 

Todd: unclear. To me there’s probably a line in there I missed that, explained it all, but, uh, I couldn’t remember their relationship. 

Craig: At least college. They’ve known each other for a very long time and apparently we’re. Or have been very close, but it doesn’t seem like they really like each other very much.

Heather: Yeah. There’s a conversation later in the movie about when they were younger and you stole so and so from me and you were always trying to beat me, blah, blah, blah. So yeah, since childhood, I think. 

Craig: But anyway, Madeline, before they come back, she’s looking at herself in the mirror and she says, wrinkled, wrinkled, little star.

Hope they never see the scars. And so she’s self-conscious. She, I don’t know what’s her again, she looks great. There’s nothing for her to be concerned about. She looks fantastic, but she’s afraid she’s aging. Earnest and Helen come back to visit and Ernest is clearly smitten with Madeline from the beginning and she is.

On him like a cougar, you know, right from the beginning. It’s, it’s super obvious that she’s, you know, and, and she’s putting the moves on him because he’s the famous Dr. Ernest Menville, the plastic surgeon. Mm-hmm. Um, so that’s, uh, of benefit to her too. And then we get a scene where Helen is talking to Ernest and it’s like, 

Clip: Ernest, you don’t know Madeline the way I do.

She wants you, she wants you because you’re mine. I’ve lost men to her before. She just turns on that flash and that glitter in there, gone. That’s why I wanted you to meet her before we got married, because I just had to see if you could pass the Madeleine Ashton test. Please, please don’t fail. I couldn’t take it again.

I have absolutely no interest in Madeleine Ashton 

Craig: cut to the his wedding with. Madeline, so she steals them. I don’t know. I’m trying to get the plot in there. What, what are the important parts? 

Todd: Yeah, I, well, you know, to be honest with you, I like didn’t take many notes because after a while I was just kind of enjoying it and it was so madcap and I thought, I’m gonna remember most of this stuff anyway.

I 

Craig: need to, I mean, I remember it like, because Madeline steals her man, Helen loses her mind and she becomes the crazy cat lady. Becomes the crazy cat lady. Uh, again, like we’re so pc, I don’t think that we would put a beautiful young actress in a big gross, fat suit. I think, uh, any actress would probably take a lot of flack for that today.

I still think it’s funny. And Goldie Han is hilarious in the fat suit and out of it, but she’s like eating frosting out of the can. And it’s, is that what that was? Okay. 

Kristen: That’s one thing that, um, when she opens her cupboards, it’s just all different flavors of frosting. That’s all the food that’s right in the house.

Craig: And there were just 

Kristen: little things like that, that just like set the whole tone of the movie so that they have the freedom to just be silly and as crazy 

Todd: as they want to be. Yeah. Yeah. The, the whole film is just heightened like that, isn’t it? And it’s set for that way from the outset so they can get away with a lot without really caring about realism or anything like that.

Oh, yeah. The whole movie, it feels like a big, almost like a big comic book mixed with, um, just a wacky com. I mean, every bit of this movie feels like a comic book, even in her house, you know, where it’s just, it’s lit dramatically. She’s being hit from dramatic angles, you know, nobody’s apartment well. I mean, there are people with real hoarding problems, but you know, like this apartment is clearly dressed up to be unrealistically crazy with the cats everywhere and these, you know, things in there and, and it gets more and more like that throughout the film, which is one thing I like about it.

One thing I kind of stinks, it sets it apart from most of the horror comedies we’ve done this month. It’s just unabashedly. So Uhhuh not in a Mel Brooks way, just in a very stylish kind of way. 

Craig: Yeah, and, and I really like it. I mean, this is a comedy first and foremost. There are horror elements if you look, uh, on IMDB and you look at the descriptions, you know, it says horror, it says body horror.

I don’t know that I would consider this body horror, but I guess, I guess kind of, 

Kristen: I guess the, I guess the breaking of the neck 

Heather: and things like that. Yeah. I mean, getting a big 

Craig: hole in. Yeah. 

Heather: Well if they did remake it, my gosh, they would have to add more of those elements in. You know what I mean? Like, 

Craig: but it’s not played, it’s not played for gross really?

And it’s not played for scary. Well, 

Heather: I think it would still be a comedy. I think they would have to, um, appease this generation and give it some more gore too, which would be totally different from what this one is. 

Craig: It’s funny, it’s slapstick. It’s three stooges type of stuff. 

Todd: It’s body horror the whole family can enjoy.

That’s right. Right. 

Craig: But even like it’s, you know, at some point in the movie, and I’m not spoiling anything, this is iconic. It’s on the, it’s on the poster. Goldie ha gets a big, uh, hole blown through her abdomen, but it’s not like there’s no blood, there’s no guts. Like it’s just a big black hole. 

Kristen: The pool fills with blood.

That’s true. Which is really, that’s true. That’s true. I remember thinking that was really cool, but she’s not like oozing intestines or anything like that, so it’s 

Todd: no missed opportunity, but okay. Yeah. Although Meryl Streeps fall down the stairs is pretty brutal. Even more brutal than I remembered it being.

Craig: Yes. I felt the exact same way. I don’t know. ’cause I guess I was watching it to talk about it. I was paying closer attention. I was like, dang, those effects were crazy. Like she really is breaking. Yeah, all over the place. 

Kristen: The sound effects are pretty gross. The cracking, the crunching of her bones, breaking as she falls down a million stairs.

Pretty gross. 

Todd: I was honestly a little surprised by that to be honest. But, uh, what is the movie rated? Is it pg? It’s PG 13. Mm-hmm. PG 13. Okay. Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s PG 13. The whole inciting incident for that is that Meryl Streep? I mean, there’s a bunch of stuff that happens. 

Craig: Yeah. The right. So there, okay, so time, more time.

She, um, Helen, uh, big gross. Helen gets institutionalized and she’s fixated every time they ask her in, um, therapy, they’re like, is there anything you wanna talk about? She’s like, yes, I want to talk about Madeline Ashton and all of the other patients. Like, no, no, she makes the mental patient’s mental. It’s like, that’s all she ever talks about.

And then she’s in therapy and her therapist says something to her like, 

Clip: you have got to forget about her. You have to erase her from your mind. You have to completely eliminate in it what you have to completely eliminate. You’re right. What. You are absolutely right. 

Craig: Like so she has to totally eliminate her.

Cut to seven years later where we catch up with Madeline and Ernest who are miserable. He’s a big drunk, he can’t even do surgery anymore because he has like the dts and so he’s now, he does makeup for, uh, dead people. 

Kristen: Mortician and she Yeah, 

Craig: a mortician. Yeah. And she is just a washed up actress, you know, doing her best to clinging to her youth.

And they’re miserable. They hate each other, but they get invited to Helen’s book party. And on the way there, one of, another, one of my favorite lines is they’re just sitting there in the limo on complete opposite sides and Madeline says to him, could you just not breathe? 

Kristen: That’s when, that’s when my first note happened.

And I said, Madeline is my inner monologue. Yeah. 

Craig: Could you just not breathe? It’s Alan too, like. Why are you breathing like that? 

Kristen: Yeah. She said something else right before that, that I thought that too. I can’t remember what it was now. I should have written that down. But I feel like she says everything that she thinks, you know, she just doesn’t have a filter.

But a lot of times, like we think those mean things when we’re irritated, but we certainly don’t say them out loud. But she just says it all. She says it all out loud. 

Craig: Oh God. It’s funny. At the book party, um, it turns out that. Helen, there’s this big reveal, like you see, they think they see her from behind ’cause there’s this heavy woman that they think is her.

But that heavy woman steps aside to reveal just like Jessica Rabbit style, um, Goldie Han, she’s got this long flowing red hair. Just, you know, a red, you know, form fitting dress. Uh, you know, just a bright red lip. She just looks absolutely stunning. Her eyes, I don’t know if that’s her natural eye color or if, because she’s normally a blonde, so I’m not used to seeing her with dark hair.

And I think that the dark hair makes her eyes strikingly blue. They really pop. But I mean, she just looks amazing. And I remember people talking about this movie at the time, like, oh my God, she’s 47. Look at her. Look how amazing she looks at 47. Well, like, that’s just what 47 looks like these days, I feel like.

Anyway, so Meryl Streep is of course very, she kinda wants to get out of there. She, she turns to leave, but. Helen Caesar, and they greet each other like they always do. I’ll do one. You do the other one. Kristen. Mad. Oh.

And it’s so vague. God, you guys have a whole routine worked 

Todd: up, don’t 

Craig: you? And they hug each other and they clearly hate each other. And like, um, Helen is already making eyes at earnest over Madeline’s shoulder and stuff. And another line that I use all the time, um, Helen’s like, 

Clip: oh gosh, I’m glad you came.

Oh, I didn’t know if you would. I spoke to my PR woman and she said, Madeline Ashton goes to the opening of an envelope. Oh, those people can be so cruel. I fired her. Well, I almost fired her. 

Craig: I, I, I say so and so would come or would go to the opening of an envelope. All the time. That’s another, do you really?

Yes, it would go to an opening of an envelope, but there’s a whole, okay. I don’t know. I don’t need to go through it line by line. But the plan is, but you want to, 

Kristen: I could, I could. I 

Craig: could just say 

Kristen: the whole thing. It’s so good. 

Craig: Um, Helen is, is scheming to get earnest back. So she’s, you know, talking to Madeline saying, oh, it was never your fault.

It was him. It was him. And then she talks to Ernest and she’s like, it was never you. It was her. It’s her. It’s always been her. Um, but she’s 

Todd: really scheming to get earnest back because she wants to do Helen dirty. I, um, Madeline dirty, right? Yeah. Yeah, I never got the impression that she gave a, that either of them gave a shit about Earnest.

Kristen: No. So here’s something kind of interesting that I heard from that other podcast. ’cause the other podcast I listened to was more about, I think it was writers. Uh, it’s not a podcast I listened to all the time. It was literally just ’cause it was this movie. But they said in the script, which they said many of the things are line for line in the movie.

Like it’s a really close adaptation, but that it’s kind of hinted at more often that earnest may be closeted and um Oh really? And so like he’s really more in love with the glamor and so whichever woman is sort of more appealing, he talks about the magic of women. Even they say it in his eulogy and different, like he’s fascinated by the glitz and the glam and youth and beauty.

Hearing that, I’d never really thought of it, but I feel like if you have that in your mind, you could kind of see that. ’cause Helen doesn’t even in the beginning, really seem in love with him. They both just kind of seem like these people that were together because they should be, and then the women kind of fight over him.

But it, you don’t get the idea that anyone’s in love with anyone in this movie. Like it’s not about love. 

Craig: Well, not for them. I think that earnest is Well, and of course, you know, at the end we find out that this is true. I think that he’s probably a good guy. The both, these women are just both toxic. Um, 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: they only really care about themselves.

I don’t know. Or you wanna side, I think, or at least I did, I wanted to side with Helen because she’s kind of the mousy one and it is, uh, Madeline, who is stealing her man away, and that’s not nice. And so you wanna side with her, but later they talk and they have history and when they talk it all out, fight it all out.

It’s a big fight scene. It’s a, a great. But the issue that comes out is that they were always jealous of each other. And Madeline felt like, Helen thought that she, Madeline wasn’t good enough. Like her, her family thought that she, Madeline was trashed, and Helen said something like, we just weren’t accustomed to having pushed in the 

Kristen: house.

Craig: Trash in the house,

trash in the house. And, and so they talk it out and as it turns out, you know, they were hurting each other on purpose. You hurt me on purpose. And once they get down to their issues, then they realize that they really do love each other. And it was just all, you know, a misunderstanding because they, um, were jealous of each other.

But by that point, they’re both dead now to get there. 

Kristen: I was gonna say. We jumped to the end somehow. Yeah. 

Craig: So now, okay, so Madeline now is scared that Helen is gonna steal her man back. So she goes, she had already been, she had gone to her plastic surgeon and the plastic surgeon refused to do any more work ’cause she’s having so much work done.

But then said, you know, for a very elite group, there’s this lady, I can give you her card, her name’s Liesel Vaughn something or whatever. And so initially she doesn’t go, she thinks it’s just like a quack thing or whatever, but now that she’s nervous about Helen, she goes, and I love this whole scene. Okay, so she pulls up to this castle, I guess, in la like it’s this huge modern gothic, it’s gorgeous.

Todd: It looks almost like Batman’s, uh, Bruce, Bruce Wayne’s manner from the outside. It’s insane. Yeah, it’s, and I love this. It’s done up so good. I don’t think it’s a big accident that Madeleine’s house is equally as huge and Oh, amazing. It’s just a giant mansion. The only difference is that Madeline’s house is very, um, art Novoa, and this one is a, a lot more like, got classic gothic, I think.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, in it’s dial and it’s, 

Kristen: there’s always lightning and it’s always storming and anytime we’re outside, which I, I lived in la I love 

Todd: it. 

Kristen: Yeah. I lived in LA for three years. I don’t think it rained one time when we lived there, but Oh yeah. For this movie, it’s storming every day. 

Craig: So she meets with this, uh, well there are all these like man servants around and stuff, and like big, like dobermans, like just prowling around and it’s amazing on the inside.

Everything’s like stone and it’s fantastic. But she gets led into this like big parlor with the fireplace, and she’s introduced to Liesel, played by Isabella Rossini. Who was also, she was in, I think she was 39 when this was filmed. And it’s funny because she looks stunning. I mean, she’s wearing next to nothing virtually nude.

She’s got like a big bejeweled. It’s a necklace that covers her nipples 

Todd: somehow. And I was trying to figure it out, you know, again, research for the film, you’re, 

Craig: you’re so broad with. Yeah. 

Todd: Um, 

Craig: but she looks fantastic. They, you know, they talk about, she’s like, I know why you’re here. And she’s, you know, got this great European accent and 

Clip: this is life’s ultimate cruelty.

It offers us the taste of youth and vitality. And then d witness our own decay. Well, it is the natural law. No, screw the natural law. 

Craig: And she says, how old would you guess I am? And Meryl Streep’s initial response is my favorite response that anytime, any, if anybody ever says, how old would you guess I am?

I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, why would I do that? That this is a no win situation. But she says 38 and Lisa looks offended or whatever. It’s kind of a funny end joke considering that she really was 39 and looks amazing. But she’s, I’m 71 years old, and then she pulls out, what is it? She pulls out like a, it’s like a, 

Todd: it’s, well, it’s like, it’s a box within, which is another box that is closed with a dagger within, which is like a fge egg, which has a, it’s almost like a magician, you know, doing a trick, right.

Undoes the ribbon on the top and then that egg opens up and inside is a vial. It’s so funny. Handed down by this manser. Right. That’s always behind her. And I didn’t catch until later that her man servant’s names were Tom, Dick and Harry. 

Heather: Yeah. When I was little and she got to the house and she sat next to the man servant.

I thought he looked like he man. And I thought that was cool how they incorporated him into this movie. And then I also really enjoyed that the potion is kept in a berger egg. So 

Todd: she, she sits on him more than, it’s so weird. 

Kristen: Well, I love that. ’cause he doesn’t move at all, just like snap up. But then it’s Lisa who’s like, what does she say?

Like. Make some dumb room where she like orders him to move. I don’t remember what she said, oh, move your ass or something, I can’t remember. But 

Craig: then she turns around her chair and says, but keep your ass handy. Oh, yeah,

but, but this is my favorite, this scene. Okay. So to entice her, she pokes Meryl Streep’s finger with a dagger to draw blood. And I love that Meryl Streep goes, ow

uh, what are you nuts? It’s, it’s so funny. And then she puts a little dab of the potion on there, and there’s a great effect that shows her hands de-age, like her liver spots disappear, her veins disappear, her skin smoothed out, and then she holds up both hands and compares them. And then she says. How much, so Liesl writes a figure on a piece of paper and she’s like, yeah, I can’t afford that, or whatever, but I don’t know.

Somehow she seduces her into it, right? I don’t know. Well, I 

Heather: shows her the price first, and then she pricks her finger and then she says, okay, 

Craig: that’s right. That’s right. That’s right. She, 

Heather: she then my favorite line is coming. Yeah. 

Craig: She writes her a check, she writes her a check, and she goes, bottoms up, and she drinks it, and then Liesel goes, now a warning, 

Kristen: and then Madeline says Now, and it’s just the best delivery of a line.

Craig: That’s the one that I say on probably a weekly basis now, a warning that it, it just seems like there’s context for that in my life a lot. So I, I use that one a lot. Yeah. But 

Heather: the, but I also have in my notes. Yeah. How cute checks are. ’cause clearly it was a large amount and she just wrote the checks and enhance it to her.

And she’s not even gonna cash it first. She’s like, here’s the potion. 

Todd: Yeah, that’s, that’s a lot of trust there. Yeah. Oh, checks. That’s another thing we don’t have anymore. Does anybody write checks? I do. Oh my God. For bills. Just for bills you guys. 

Kristen: But yeah, now it’d be like, I’ll Venmo you. 

Craig: Yeah, right, right.

Do you 

Kristen: take Apple Pay? 

Craig: The warning is she just says, be good to your body. You’re gonna be in it for a long time. And the rules, and I don’t remember if she explained the rules before or after. She took it. 

Todd: After. After, yeah. 

Craig: Which is shady. She’s like, you can, you know, live your life publicly. Up until like, like you, she just says 

Kristen: 10 years, I think 

Craig: Does, is it 10 years?

Kristen: Yeah, because she’s supposed to be 50 and so I think she thinks past 60. It would be a little weird that you still look this age. It was a short amount of time. I feel like. 

Craig: I know, and that’s, I don’t, I probably never thought about it when I was a kid and it’s not like it’s, you know, deep or anything, but that would totally change the deal.

Like why would I wanna live forever if I can’t enjoy it? I mean, I guess they continue to enjoy it. They have their own little private elite. You know, society or whatever, with Elvis and James Dean and, uh, 

Kristen: Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn 

Craig: Monroe and all these 

Todd: jokes. Yeah, 

Craig: Jaja Gabor. I had to 

Todd: explain to Liz because I watched it with Liz for, and she saw it for the first time.

I had to explain to her, there was this moment, I think in the late eighties where people were convinced that Elvis had faked his death and was still alive. And there was a book about it and a woman who claims she had recordings of him, you know, from her answering machine or something like that, that was handed out with the book and all this stuff.

Like, all those things, like, you know, they’re jokes that for, for not putting the actual number on the check. You know, that she shows her and for kind of keeping that secret to keep the movie a little more timeless. It’s funny how they really inserted these jokes that, like Jaja, I don’t, Marilyn Monroe.

Okay. James Dean. Okay. Like Andy Warhol, those people. Okay. They’re pretty timeless, I suppose. Like probably in 50 years we might still know who those people are. But isn’t Jim Morrison? Is he the guy in the pool later? Yeah, at the pool. Uhhuh. I had to think about it hard. I was like, I think that’s supposed to be Jim Morrison, but I’m not sure.

I’d have to explain that to people. 

Craig: I think I, I think I’m right about the Jaja Gabo one because when she’s saying, she’s like, you can stage your own death or you can retire, or just go away or whatever, and she says, or as one of my clients says, I want to be alone. And I, I think that’s a Jaja Gabo reference, right?

Because didn’t jaja Gabo become like a recluse. In her later life. I think 

Kristen: I, that was my first, those things as a kid, it was like I, I saw Marilyn Monroe from, which I probably mostly knew ’cause she was wearing the outfit from like the Madonna material girl. Yeah. Video. So I like got that reference and I think Elvis, but all the other people as a 10-year-old, I didn’t, I 

Todd: wouldn’t have gotten Andy Warhol as a 10-year-old, let’s put it that way.

Definitely not. But instantly this time around. So. 

Craig: Well, and here’s the great, you know, scene. She walks away and she, before she leaves me, Meryl Streep does, before she leaves the house, she stops and looks in a full length mirror. And at first she’s disappointed ’cause she doesn’t really see much change.

But then all the change happens before her eyes, her boobs, perk up her ass perks up her face glows, her hair softens. I mean, it’s great effects. And she looks amazing. And she’s a beautiful woman Anyway, so now she’s all confident and she goes back home. She doesn’t know that Helen has been at her house all this time convincing earnest that they have to kill her.

And I love the fantasy sequence where Helen explains how they’re going to kill her. I forgot how funny that is. She’s like, so I’ll call and I’ll get her to invite me over and you see Meryl Streep pick up the phone and say, fine, why don’t you come for dinner?

Kristen: And also in this montage, Bruce Willis is like carrying this big candle labra with candles as if they don’t have electricity in their house. 

Craig: I didn’t even notice that. That’s so funny. So they’re playing and, and then they’re gonna, they’re gonna drug her and finish dinner and then put her in a car and send it over a cliff and there’ll be no trace.

And then they can live happily ever after Meryl Streep gets home. Helen sneaks out, right? Bef, you know, right before she gets there, she’s all feeling herself. So she goes and puts on. This body suit, the black body suit. The 

Todd: Chris is Ling for 

Craig: us now. Oh my 

Todd: gosh. You guys, when I popped on this, so we all decided we were gonna do, um, this vi you’re, you obviously can’t see it, but we decided that in order to make sure that we’re not stepping all over each other, we were going to do this, uh, as a video call.

And that’s how we’re recording it. And I popped on to see Craig dressed as the spitting image of Bruce Willis. Kristen here has his makeup on her neck to look twisted, and Heather’s skin is completely peeling off her face and neck. It was funny you guys go all out, you pictures. We took pictures. 

Craig: We’ll send some pictures.

Maybe you can put ’em on, put ’em on the website. 

Todd: If I had known I would’ve been on here in my Isabella Rossini outfit, but, uh, 

Kristen: that, that would’ve, you didn’t tell me. 

Todd: You didn’t tell me I 

Kristen: wasn’t enough to do that. No, I said we should surprise Todd. It would be a cute, funny surprise for Todd. 

Todd: It’s a riot and I can’t stop staring at your neck this entire time, Chris.

It looks so good. I’m so glad. 

Kristen: I’ve never been great at the stage makeup. So Heather’s peeling paint. I was like, damn it. She, I knew she’d go all out, but I think I did okay. 

Todd: It it’s fantastic. You both look great. 

Kristen: Your neck is amazing. 

Todd: It really is, isn’t it? You next Never look better, Kristin. 

Kristen: Well, I, I, I couldn’t quite do the like, head turn full fully around and say Maas.

I. Yeah, we’ll get to that. 

Craig: Yeah, I was just gonna say it was funny to me. Well, first of all, I love that she puts on this thing that you know is really fitted to her body, so that when these effects come up later, you know it, it enhances it even more. I really like that. It also just highlights that she looks amazing, her body, she does have the body of a young woman.

I don’t think that it had ever occurred to me that she takes this potion and dies. Like a half an hour later, same day. Yep. Doesn’t get to enjoy it very long, but the, yeah, she doesn’t get to enjoy it at all. She doesn’t even get to go out like she was gonna go out. But she meets earnest at the top of the stairs and they argue and they just start throwing insults at each other and it’s just very catty and mean, and they’re clearly just trying to hurt each other’s feelings.

And he calls her cheap. Which is the thing that hurts her the most. But I like, she calls him a tragic, boozy flacid clown fla. I can’t even do that with my flacid. 

Kristen: Oh gosh. She’s brilliant. I just love her. 

Craig: She’s so funny. Like, I think we think of Meryl Streep as being very classy, and so when she plays this kind of crude off, it just is so funny.

She just goes for it. Which shouldn’t be a surprise. She’s a brilliant actress. Um, she can do anything. It’s fun to see her in a role like this, 

Kristen: because when I was thinking about, I was thinking, I can’t believe, like Bruce Willis, Goldie Ha and Meryl Streep did this. Movie. You know, those are really, really good actors.

But I heard that like she had been doing a lot of really serious kind of Oscar type, which by the way, did you know this movie does have an Oscar? 

Todd: Yeah. For effects? 

Kristen: I think it’s for effects. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Uh, but anyways, uh, she wanted to do something really different and fun. Like she just Yeah. Was ready for, for something fun.

And you could tell she had so much fun. 

Craig: Oh gosh. It looks like they all had a lot of fun, especially the two lead women. Uh, Bruce Willis is kind of the, I don’t know, the, 

Kristen: you, you feel sorry for him. 

Craig: Oh yeah. I feel sorry for him, but he’s just a victim of circumstance. 

Kristen: Yeah, 

Craig: pretty much. And he’s a sad sack and all that kind of stuff.

But I do wanna say that I think Bruce Willis puts in a great performance too. You do feel bad. You feel bad for him. I mean, he’s, he’s kind of a dope, uh, he’s definitely 

Todd: a dope, but, well, we often forget, like Bruce Willis came out of comedy, you know, he was doing moonlighting Yeah. On tv. Yeah. When he got his role in diehard, and for a while, everyone was afraid diehard was gonna fail because nobody would take him seriously as an action star because he was such a comedy guy that solely changed everything.

And apparently Bruce will like doing comedy so much that he showed up at like 5:00 AM on the set, on the first day of doing this, just ’cause he was so excited to get back in and be shooting a comedy again. So 

Craig: I can only imagine how fun this was. They fight and fight and fight and eventually he grabs her by the throat and holds her at the top of the stairs, like leaning back over the stairs.

She is kind of begging please. And eventually he lets go of her neck, like, what am I doing? But she’s still standing there like wobbling on, I mean, it’s ridiculous. She’s at an angle that there’s no way that she could still be standing there. She’s like, help, help, help. But then she makes the mistake of getting mean.

And what does she say? Something like, help me, you idiot. So instead of helping her, he just, with one finger pushes her and she goes down the stairs. Now this is a big winding marble staircase and I don’t have any idea. I didn’t read anything about how they did this. Um, and like you guys said before, a lot of it is in the.

Sound ’cause it’s a lot. You hear just, you just hear, uh, bones just snapping as she tumbles down the stairs. Whatever kind of dummy they used and however they shot it, it looked really good and painful. 

Kristen: There were a couple closeups of like her head and her neck just bent and really disturbing ways that we’re, yeah, getting 

Todd: whacked.

Ugh. 

Kristen: Really make you cringe as she’s going down and then the pile of her at the end. Yeah. Really seals the deal. 

Craig: Her limbs are just completely akimbo in directions that they should never be. 

Todd: I think the movie’s really smart in that. It’s kind of been setting us up all along, not to take all this too seriously.

So even when this does come up, you’re not too grossed out by it. You know? It’s still, I mean, I love the production design of this film and sort of like. Kristen said earlier, Bruce Willis is walking around with a candelabra when he doesn’t need to. You know, there’s thunder and lightning coming through.

It’s just like a big cartoon and it really, I think, pays homage to one of Roberts EK’s big inspirations as Tales from the Crypt. I mean, he co-created the, the movie series, but we talk about the comics and stuff, you know, that came from that on here constantly. This was originally, apparently supposed to be a sequel to like a Tales from the Crypt movie that he wanted to do.

Mm-hmm. And you can totally tell, and you can totally tell in the kind of movie it is. Like these tales from the Crypt comics, if you read them, every other story involves some kind of version of this monkey’s paw type situation where somebody does some devil’s bargain and then it turns out really, really wrong because you know, they didn’t take care of themselves, or some accident happened and the tables turn.

And this is so in line with that, that by this time you’re just. I’m just really into this movie and I think, again, we’ve been set up for it this whole time. Like we all kind of know what kind of movie this is gonna be. It’s not gonna surprise us with any ironic twists. It’s not gonna mess with us tonally, you know, where it suddenly becomes scary at the end or something like that.

You know, it’s, it’s just funny throughout and that’s, I think what kind of keeps it family friendly is the fact that from beginning to end, it’s the same kind of movie. Even in this incredible violence, you know, at this moment the staircase she’s tumbling down is not your home staircase. It is just huge long, some of the comedy comes from the fact that the staircase is just so long and her fault.

Yeah. So long down it, you kind of can’t help but laugh after you’re done grimacing. 

Heather: This summer I get to go to New York and I get to see. Death becomes her. It’s a new Broadway musical, and I’m super, super stoked because I was, I’ve been doing research and seeing reels and all this stuff, and the staircase scene on Broadway, they’ve built this entire like neoprene staircase and at the top of the stairs, Madeline gets switched out with like this acrobat gymnast.

Who does a slow motion fall down the stairs. So they’re, they’re holding onto the rails and contorting and twisting their legs. That sequence alone has 45 cues in it. So by the end of it, they, they can fall and they can twist their body to, to replicate how she looks at the end of the staircase. And I’m, I’m probably gonna cry ’cause I’m gonna be so excited.

Craig: That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Wild. It’s wild. You can watch that scene on YouTube. It’s, it’s impressive. It’s a lot like, it suggests to me that the stage play is going to take the cue of the movie and really just play up the, the melodrama. It’s really gonna go for the physical comedy and I’m. Very envious, uh, that you get to see that.

Is the original cast still, like, is Megan Hilty still in it? 

Heather: You know? Yes. Yeah. And I might get to meet her and I’m super excited about that too. Oh my 

Craig: gosh. Wow. Okay. So Ernest thinks she’s dead. So he go, goes and calls Helen and he’s like, she’s dead. And I love Helen’s like exactly what part of the plan.

Didn’t you understand Ernest?

And she’s like, did you call the police? And he’s like, no, I called you first. Don’t you think the police might think it’s a little odd that you called me before you called them? So she comes over, meanwhile, in the background, well, they’re on the phone in the background. We see Madeline very awkwardly get up and, and she’s all broken and twisted, but she gets up and she starts walking towards him.

And when he gets off the phone and turns around, she’s standing there. That’s then Todd’s favorite line, 

Clip: Ernest, Ernest. You pushed me down the stairs. 

Todd: I think that was in the, um, that was in the trailer a lot. It was. That must be. It 

Craig: was, yeah. Right. I watched the trailer today and half of it is not in the movie.

Isn’t 

Kristen: in the movie. I know, I know. I think they, they filmed a. A few different things that ended up getting cut. But it was so interesting that it was in the trailer and then it wasn’t in the movie. There was something about putting her in the freezer. 

Craig: Uhhuh Uhhuh. 

Kristen: I, I did that too. And I was like, what that, is there an extended cut that I haven’t seen?

Todd: Tracy Ulman apparently played her agent right. And she was completely 

Craig: cut out of it. She cut out completely. They completely changed the ending, which we’ll get to. And I want to, I I, I’ve heard that, um, the play, it blends the cinematic ending with one of the original endings. A little bit sweeter note that it ends on, but anyway, okay.

So. They just argue and she doesn’t realize what’s happened really. Um, it’s just a lot of physical comedy, which is great. Her just kind of stumbling around ’cause her head is on backwards, she’s trying to walk, but she can’t really figure it out. And she’s bumping into things and knocking things over and, and 

Heather: when they’re trying to figure out what’s wrong, uh, they just conclude that it’s shock.

Yep. Could be shock. 

Kristen: I know I love it when, uh, we already said, when she says, I can see my ass. I just love his delivery of, and I think there’s something kind of wrong with your neck or whenever he sounds 

Craig: ready, 

Kristen: completely backwards. He, the way he plays everything too, just, it’s so melodramatic. But you can also picture yourself in that Yeah.

Scene where like, she is dead. I know she’s gotta be dead. Her head isn’t on the right way. And yet here she is in front of me talking to me. Medical 

Todd: miracle. 

Kristen: Yes. She’s a medical marvel. 

Todd: This is the part of the movie that for me, didn’t age as well. Now it’s kind of helped by the fact that a person who’s walking backwards is awkward anyway, but somehow when the CGI face was.

Mixed with her, and I don’t know the movement of it. It’s all, I mean, I think they had to do this in two runs. You know, she had to do it once forward or, or in front of a green screen with just her face. And then she had to do it again backwards. Meryl Streep hated it. She said doing this movie was like, uh, going to the dentist.

She didn’t like all the effects stuff that she had to do. And I don’t know if she’s done much effects stuff since then. It’s actually fine, but it just, uh, you know, it didn’t age as well as I think most of the other effects in the movie did. Mm-hmm. 

Craig: I get it. I mean, it shows its seam. That’s, that’s totally fair.

I still think it’s really funny to watch, you know, and, and she, she twists her own head so that she’s facing the right way again. And then they take her to the hospital, which is a really funny scene. And the doctor is like bending her hand, like all the way back to her arm. And he’s like, are you, you’re telling me this doesn’t hurt?

He’s like, I said, it doesn’t hurt like nothing hurts, but she still hasn’t figured out that she’s dead until Earnest says you’re in violation of every natural law. And she goes, what? What? I’m in violation of what? Because that was what she and Liesel had talked about, you know, like, um, and then she realizes she’s dead.

She passes out, they put her in the morgue, eventually they get her back home. Earnest thinks it’s a miracle and it’s a sign that they’re meant to be together. Obvi, obviously she knows otherwise, but she needs Earnest’s help. So he spray paints her all up. We don’t really see, he’s not quite finished, you know, he’s spray painting.

He’s, he’s doing her makeup on her face. He goes downstairs to get something and Helen arrives with shovels so that they can take Madeline’s dead body out into the valley to bury it. And tis is like, um, she’s not quite ready to be buried yet. And he, and she’s like, Ernest. You’re not doing anything funny with Madeline’s body.

Are you? 

Todd: Oh my God. Oh. Which I thought was so funny. That was so weird. 

Kristen: Madeline just comes downstairs. Yeah. Looking all beautiful. And so then she’s there all of a sudden. 

Craig: Yeah. And she kind of confronts her and she’s like, what are you two scheming about? Or should I say what else? Because she overheard, they were, Helen was saying, you know, the plan was to kill her and now she’s dead and blah, blah, blah.

So she knows now she didn’t know before, but she knows now that they were scheming against her. And then she just walks away into the other room and Bruce Willis is like, uh, Helen, I think you better leave. This is not gonna be good. And Meryl Streep has passed through the room with all the guns in it.

It’s just a room full of guns 

Kristen: and alcohol. 

Craig: He sees her walk, uh, back towards Goldie. Ha. And then they exchange words. I only remember what they say, but she takes the shotgun and. Shoots at point blank. Uh, Goldie Han in the abdomen and Goldie Han flies through the air and lands in the pool. Um, and the pool just fills with blood.

Of course, the big reveal is. That she’s not dead either. She gets up. I love her dead look. Um, her eyes look even icier than before. Um, her skin is pale ’cause she doesn’t have any blood. Um, and she’s got that big hole, uh, in her stomach 

Kristen: and I love that. All the pool water, just like when she stands up, falls out of her stomach.

Yeah. Yeah. Just pours out. And then so she’s got this huge hole, which was at the time, such a cool effect. And then another favorite line. Look at me, I’m soaking wet like 

Craig: that. 

Kristen: And then that’s the, I think, 

Craig: I think Ernest says, and there seems to be something wrong with your. Blouse. 

Kristen: Yeah. You blouse or your stomach.

Yeah. 

Craig: And she looks, and she sees that she’s got the big hole and Meryl Streep is like, Hey, what’s going on? And she walks up to her and she looks at her lapel and she finds the pin. Goldie ha has been wearing that pin, the whole movie. I had never noticed. I, I don’t know that I had noticed that before. Wow.

But in the book, not the whole movie, but at the book party, she is wearing liesel’s pin. We just hadn’t seen it before, 

Kristen: which I did put in my notes. Is it like you had to sign a contract to wear that pin? Because for something so exclusive that’s not very discreet to just be like walking around with this pin.

But I think that’s because in the original script, Helen hasn’t taken the potion. There was something about how they changed that piece. I don’t know. I that really. She had just gotten very thin and like done this makeover. I could have that wrong, but that’s how I understood it when I was reading about that part.

Craig: I didn’t, yeah, I didn’t read that. 

Kristen: So that may be how the movie, I don’t know. It’s different and changed that. But yeah, I just thought that’s interesting. But I remember us going back to see if she had been wearing the pin the whole time, or if they were just like threw that in at the end. That in what?

Craig: Wow. No, she was wearing it. Um, so they figure it out and so then they fight and they have a big fight. Uh, they’re hitting each other with shovels. Like Meryl Streep’s head gets both knocked clear back, so it’s just hanging, you know, her neck stretches out and her head is just hanging at her back. There’s another time, uh, Helen hits her, you know, on the top of the head.

And so her head like, like goes down into her body and at one point, Mar you know, like they’re like fencing with these swords. And 

Heather: when they get the shovels, this is my favorite line, Goldie ha. Turns to Meryl Streep and says On guard bitch, 

Craig: the choreography didn’t look that great. Frankly, when they were hitting the, I was like, why are you just banging the, like, that’s not how people fight.

You don’t just bang shovels together. Yeah, it looks like a fake sword fight. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Kristen: it might be how they fight maybe. 

Todd: Or you could say it was an artistic choice that kind of with the whole cartoonish atmosphere, you know, style of the whole movie that their fight wasn’t, I 

Heather: guess, and I just love the attention to detail here too, when they’re fighting because you see them fighting in silhouette and you see Goldie, Han’s, you know, hole in her stomach in the silhouette and.

It was just, it was just a nice touch, 

Craig: I guess. Goldie ha got hurt shooting this scene. Meryl Streep hit her in the face with a shovel, and she got, she had a scar. But anyway, whatever. That’s not even the fun stuff. The fun stuff is like when one of the shovel breaks and Meryl Streep takes it like a javelin and throws it and it goes right through, uh, Helen’s the hole and Meryl Streep goes, yes, no damn.

And then they have the whole big heart to heart. You hurt me on purpose thing, which again, it’s played for the comedy, but it’s, it’s funny to see them like it’s supposed to be their tough. Veneers, like falling away and them, you know, sharing real emotion and being honest with, with each other, which they never have been before.

And when they can both admit that they were jealous of one another, and that they did do things intentionally to hurt one another, and they both apologize, then they’re like, we’re besties again 

Kristen: and we’re beautiful except for our neck and stomach problems. 

Craig: Right. That’s when they realize that they need earnest.

They’re like, let’s have Earnest fix us up. And he does. But he’s leaving. He’s packing his stuff. He’s out of here, which is the smartest decision that he has made in this entire movie. The only decision 

Todd: he is really made in the whole movie. 

Craig: Yeah. But they’re like, no, can’t you, can you just fix us up? Please, please, please.

And he’s like, fine, I’ll do it. But on the condition that once I’m, once it’s done. I leave and I never have to see you again. And they’re like, oh yeah, sure, that’s fine. Whatever. And so then he fixes them up and they do look amazing. Like they, they do kind of look like they are covered head to toe in paint or makeup, but it looks great.

They’re admiring themselves. Um, but then a little piece peels off of Goldie Ha and Meryl Streep makes it worse. She like peels it down and, uh, she’s like, oh no, what are we gonna do? And they realize that they’re gonna need earnest forever to, to keep them looking that way. So their plan is they gotta get him to take the potion, but he is not interested.

He just wants to leave. So they have to knock him out. And then they take him to Liesel’s and he wakes up in a tuxedo in Liesel’s, you know, pool hall where she’s swimming naked and comes out. And then she seduces him and I, again, I’m sure that I noticed it before, but in preparing to talk about it, I just thought it was really interesting.

She offers him the potion. There’s no discussion of cost. I, I think the reason is, is be he could be very valuable to them. Surely Meryl Streep and Goldie Ha are not the only two people who have met with some misfortune who now could probably use a little bit of help. I. Aesthetically. At least that’s what I’m guessing.

Kristen: And also, she doesn’t want the secret out that, you know, because now he kind of, well, I guess he doesn’t really know, but he has seen, you know, right. These two women who should clearly be dead. So they kind of also need to keep it a secret. He’s not interested. 

Craig: And she does the hand trick on him and he’s impressed.

And she’s like, think of all the people that you could help, or something. I don’t remember, or, no, no, no. It’s not even like that. It’s about being selfish. It’s like all your life you’ve been helping other people. You should live for yourself. You sacrificed your own youth, you should get to enjoy it, blah, blah, blah.

And he’s very tempted and he starts to drink it, and she’s getting increasingly excited. And she does her big siva, which she always does when they drink it. Siva live forever. And that stops him and he goes, wait a second. Live forever. Then what? Oh, 

Kristen: no thing. What 

Craig: if I get bored? Yeah. What if I get bored?

What if I get lonely? And she’s like, but you’ll never get old and you’ll never die. And he’s like, yeah, but everybody else will, like, I’ll just have to watch everybody else I love, you know, get old and die. That sounds terrible. So he doesn’t want to take the potion, but he also says, you people have to be stopped.

And he takes the potion and he runs. And so she says, Dick, Tom, Harry. And, and sends, uh, the men’s servants after him. 

Kristen: If I can just say that every single time I watch this movie, this is the part where I take a little nap. Ah, I fall asleep at this whole earnest getting outta here. 

Craig: So did I. 

Kristen: Every, every time I fall asleep.

And so I kept like waking up thinking, oh, I gotta keep my eyes open, open. ’cause I’m watching this for the podcast. I’m like. No, I don’t really, I’ll just wake up up where I always wake up 

Todd: even now. Huh? 

Kristen: It just gets a little like 

Todd: long, 

Kristen: long and like, yeah, yeah, we get it. He’s gonna get out on there. 

Todd: That’s how I felt when I was a kid.

You know, when I was, when I was going back to watch this, this time, I thought, okay, like I remember this being pretty long and it got kind of like extended, you know, toward the end and whatnot. And then I looked at it, I was like, oh, it’s only an hour and 42 minutes. So it’s not that long, huh? Okay. Maybe just when I was a kid and then I remembered this whole sequence of him running away and getting, I thought, oh God, we’ve got at least another 30 minutes of this.

And it’s actually kind of short. 

Kristen: So it’s a cat nap, I think. Yeah. But like, we know what’s happening and it’s, it’s not totally necessary to go on and on. And then, you know, if you wake up when he falls in the pool 

Craig: Right, 

Kristen: you’re good. 

Craig: Right, right. He just, he gets, he gets chased around. He gets chased through that party.

There’s all these, I mean, they’re not cameos ’cause they’re actors, but there’s all these famous people, cameos, famous dead people or whatever. And he ends up for drama, I guess, on the roof of this castle. And the women are trying to chase him down too. And they end up up there and he slips off the roof and ends up hanging by his suspenders on like a gutter pipe or something.

And they’re like, take the potion. Take the potion. It’s the only way you’ll survive if you fall and he’s going to fall. But he says, no, he doesn’t take it. He, he drops it. 

Todd: You know why I think. This part bored me as a kid and why it made the movie felt long even to me as the, is that I think that this sort of succumbs to this trend, and especially true in kids’ movies and in cartoons in particular, I dunno where it you know, came from, but I started to recognize this, where everything has to be turned into an action sequence at some point.

Like every movie suddenly has to have a grand chase scene in it. And it’s like this movie didn’t really need that. And so this whole bit of him climbing out onto the. Just to get away and we don’t see him again. He might as well have just refused the potion run out of there. And the same result, like nothing really changes.

Clip: No, 

Todd: but that would be boring. We do much GS and we get the excitement of an action sequence. I mean, it’s the same thing with Roberts ecs. You know, I think feelings are mixed about his image movers, movies, polar Express and all that. But um, I’m actually a really big fan of the Jim Carrey Christmas Carol.

Kristen: Oh, Christmas Carol. 

Todd: That, that animated Christmas Carol. I really like that one. But similarly, and again, it’s another Robert Zeki movie I. For some reason, toward the end, he throws in this huge chase scene. Yeah. It’s so out of place. It’s like going across the rooftops and all this stuff, and it’s like, wait, why did, when did Christmas Carol become an action movie Uhhuh?

You know? And I feel like this is exactly the same thing. Yeah. 

Kristen: Yeah. That’s interesting because I. In, in action movies. Even in those sequences, I always fall asleep. Oh, me too. And my, my husband Zaner is like, you always fall asleep. But the most exciting part, I’m like, it is not exciting to me 

Todd: to watch 

Kristen: 15 cars blow up.

Like they come 

Todd: long, long, and drawn out. I’m sorry. Maybe this is gonna be an another old man thing, but you know, I think when stunts were more difficult and they were more impressive and you couldn’t just do cover everything with a computer and do everything, you know, real easily, they were parceled out.

They, they’d be an action sequence. It would be cool, and you’d be amazed that this car blew up and flipped in the air. Now you don’t give a shit. 15 cars are flipping and blowing up in the air, and that’ll be, you know, 20 minutes long. It’s, it’s annoying. 

Kristen: Like, going back to this movie too, in particular, like, we don’t really care all that much about earnest, like no such kind of a boring character.

He’s there to serve the women and so it’s kind of like, get back to them. They’re funnier. Right. Um, not that, I mean, he did a great job playing earnest that’s just. 

Todd: Right, and so 

Kristen: I think that too makes it get a little long. 

Todd: One could argue the main purpose of this sequence is to show that no, no, he’s actually really, really serious about not taking that because he chooses death.

I. Overtaking the, the potion. Right. And he just gets sit spared from it. 

Craig: Right. But Right. He doesn’t die because he falls into the pool. I mean, he probably would’ve died anyway, crashing through that big plate glass, stain glass thing. But whatever he, he, he walks away unscathed. Yeah. 

Kristen: That’s another, I think probably a line that I love with the, either Tom Dick or Harry.

He is like getting in the pool with this naked lady and he’s like, that was pretty neat. 

Heather: He just 

Kristen: like felt. 

Todd: That was Jim. That was Jim Morrison or that was, 

Heather: I think Kristen just said something about Bruce Willis doing a good job. And I would just to, to comment on that. I agree. I think it’s. Really crazy that he even took a role like this in the midst of like die hard fame to play like the complete opposite of that.

Um, and even opposite of his character in, um, like the romantic comedies. Like he plays just a, a super bump. And I think that just speaks to him as a, as a actor, you know, like, I don’t care what, I’m just gonna take all the fun roles to try it out. And I think it’s, that was cool. 

Craig: Yeah, he’s good. Uh, uh, like I said, he, he, he walks away and they realize.

That, um, they’re, they’re peeling and they know that they’re gonna have, Meryl Streep says, you know what, you know what this is? This is upkeep. We can do this. And they say, I’ll paint your ass and you paint my ass. And, and Helen’s like, who would’ve thought you and me painting each other’s asses together forever?

And they kinda laugh, like, ha. And then it jumps to 37 years later, and this was a, this entire ending was reshot because they shot a different ending that that audiences test audiences didn’t like at all. Earnest’s funeral. And we see that he has gone on through his eulogy. We hear that he has gone on to live a very full and happy life.

Uh, had kids, grandkids traveled, you know, service, all this stuff. I don’t think that the movie’s trying to beat us over the head with any kind of message, but I think that it was about, you know, enjoy your life. It’s, it’s reward to get old and, and all that kind of stuff. But there are two. Black, you know, all in black veiled figures at the very, very back of the church, and it’s of course the ladies and they’re scoffing at things that the priest says, and they’re laughing out loud, reading his funeral program or whatever.

They get up to leave and the priest says. And who can forget all of his stories about the living dead walking around Los Angeles. And he found the secret to eternal life. And that stops them in their tracks and they turn around and they’re like, the secret to eternal life. I don’t remember what it is, it’s something very cliche.

It’s about the people that love you and leaving behind a whatever. And then Meryl Streep uses the line that I say probably on a daily basis, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, I, I swear to God, I say that all the time. Any, anytime somebody’s just going on and on about something and blah, blah. 

Kristen: So Todd should start doing that to you, is what you’re saying on, on here? Yeah, for sure. 

Craig: Yeah, all the time. But they walk out and they like, they, they’re veiled, but they pull their veils up and they look, their makeup is bad.

Um, you know, it’s a, a very amateurish attempt to cover up whatever is underneath there. And their limbs don’t really work, right. And they end up at, at the top of a set of concrete stairs and they’ve lost their spray paint. And we see the spray paint can right there. And they’re arguing about losing things.

Helen loses her balance at the top of the stairs, and Meryl Streep is not going to help her. So she just grabs Meryl Streep and pulls her down too. And they both go down and their bodies just completely shatter. And we cut to the base of the stairs in closeup where Meryl Streep’s head is just sitting there.

And then we hear something and Goldie Han’s head rolls into frame. And Goldie Han’s head just says. Do you remember where you parked the car?

Todd: What was the original ending? Do you know? 

Kristen: I think, I know at least, I sort of know at least the concept that earnest, the, it’s kind of like the, the eulogy. It’s a little bit like that, but it’s more like you get to see that play out. Like he gets married and he is with a woman, his wife, and they’re old and they’re just sort of reflecting on like their life together and how, you know, his life began when he met her.

So like at 50 or whatever he was. So it’s just kind of this sweet thing about them together. And I guess they like held hands. They took hands and you see his old age spot hand and her old hand, but then he puts his other hand there and it’s like young because he, you know, that was the hand. Oh. ‘

Todd: cause he did the one thing 

Kristen: that was tested.

But it’s, it’s kind of the same thing that we get from the eulogy, but it’s, uh, like a more. Sweet. Less comedy ending. Yeah. And just kind of a more focused on him instead of them. I think 

Craig: I, I think that they were somehow still and, and may I maybe ’cause I what you just said, that’s what I heard. I heard that they are somehow incorporating that into the stage show and, and I think if, and, and I could be just totally making this up, but I thought that, I remembered the women who are, you know, gross now in their makeup and stuff, they see earnest and this other woman.

And I don’t know if it’s supposed to be like some sort of revelation to them if they’re supposed to learn something from it or if they’re still cynical about it or whatever. But I do think that they see that he’s happy anyway. We talked so long about this movie, but I, I’m not surprised because, and I, I, I, I, we haven’t done it justice.

You, I say this all the time, especially with these comedies, me telling you how it’s funny, doesn’t do enough. I can’t tell you how funny it is. You have to watch it. And if you’re just a real diehard horror fan and you’re not, you know, comedy’s not so much your thing. I don’t know if you’ll like it because it’s a comedy first and foremost, there are horror elements.

I would say the thing that makes it most horror to me is the atmosphere and the setting, even more so than the body stuff that, that to me, makes it feel more like a horror movie. But, um, I absolutely love it. I think the performances in it are phenomenal. I’m just a big fan of both of the lead actresses.

I’m a fan of Bruce Willis too, and it’s really nice to see him young and healthy, you know, um, he’s struggling with his wellness now and, um, isn’t in good shape and we won’t. I don’t think see him on screen anymore, but he, uh, is a really cool guy, uh, was and is a really cool guy. So it’s nice to see him get to, like Heather said, to get to do something atypical of what we usually see him do.

Um, so that was nice, but I don’t know, just super fun, tons of quotable lines that I’ll, I’ll shut up and let you guys give your. Final thoughts? 

Kristen: I think you said it Well, I, so I ended up actually buying this movie to add to my collection. ’cause I was like, well maybe I’ll wanna watch this again. And then after I spent however much money I spent on it, I was like, I don’t know if I need to buy it.

I probably could have risked it and written, 

Craig: but 

Kristen: I, not to say I love this movie, but I don’t know, like if you’ve never seen it, if now in 2025 you would be like, yeah, that’s great. I, I don’t know. I’ll be interested probably around Halloween time, I’ll make my daughter watch it with me and I’ll see if she thinks it’s funny.

But I know my husband and I have been showing them like movies that we remember as so funny lately, and they’re like, what? Is this like one, they just don’t translate to a younger generation. Um, so it’ll be interesting. I’ll show it to her and I’ll see what she thinks. I just think that those women are brilliant in this.

Mm-hmm. And she did like Goldie ha and Overboard. We, we watched that. She thought that was funny. So maybe she will at least like the characters and their, their deliveries. But yeah, it’ll be interesting to see what someone who’s never seen it and is now in 2025 would would think of it. 

Todd: Heather, have your kids seen this?

Heather: No, they haven’t yet. Um, I think my oldest would love it, but it’s so funny ’cause when I was renting this, I, I noticed that it was categorized as body horror and mm-hmm. We just didn’t have that genre, I think back when it came out. Right. So like, that wasn’t even a thought in my mind that it would be classified as body horror.

And of course it is, but really the movie itself is so. Tame, right? A few curse words, a few things, but it is just, it is a fun romp and it’s no wonder I love all this weird, spooky makeup stuff because I was so young when this came out and I’m sure it made an impression on me. ’cause it’s just, God, it’s just so good.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s very. 

Kristen: Very campy. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

Todd: Yes. Yeah. Campy over the top. And you, you know, Kristen, when you said Halloween? Yeah. This is like a Halloween movie really almost through and through. I mean, it doesn’t have anything to do with Halloween. Right, right. But it’s appropriate for the season. A hundred percent.

Um, so yeah, I could see, I could see that maybe being a sort of a family Halloween staple maybe because unless you’re really sensitive about partial nudity or, uh, maybe the more you know, her falling down the stairs and, and the F-bomb. I think there’s an F-bomb or two in here. Mm. There can’t be more than one.

I don’t even, 

Kristen: I You think ’cause Yeah, ’cause it’s peachy 13, so there can’t be any, there’s there’s 

Todd: one, but is there, 

Kristen: I can’t remember. I thought 

Todd: there was two. But you are allowed one for PG 13, but that’s it. But the partial. 

Kristen: Partiality. The things our kids see and where probably, I don’t think that’s different.

Bump them. It 

Todd: scandalized me when I was a teenager watching this. I mean, you see Isabella Ru from the back, you know, just fully nude. 

Kristen: You see that? And you Or body double. 

Todd: Yeah, her body double. Yeah. 

Kristen: He doesn’t care who it is. He, I really don’t give a shit. 

Todd: Who would Come on, 

Craig: let’s be honest, you can still pretend it’s Ebel Isabel Rossini.

If you want 

Todd: the movie’s pretending that’s good enough for me. Yeah, you can see if you want see Isabella Ru, you know, without clothes on, you can watch blue velvet. There’s no body double in that one anyway. Okay, now I sound like the creep. Thanks a lot guys, 

Craig: for all the creepers out there.

Well thanks. Thank you ladies for joining us. Alright, Todd. I. Take us out. 

Todd: Thank you guys so much for joining, just like Craig said. Thank you guys so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. You can find us online just by going to chainsaw horror.com. We got a brand spank, a new website, kind of in the vein of tales from the Crypt comics.

Uh, you know, that was intentional. So if you’re in the mood for that, go there and check it out. Please click on our newsletter link to join and, uh, see our newsletter. Uh, we send out every week just talking about the movies that we’ve done, the movies that are coming up, and some horror news that’s happening and what’s going on with our patrons.

You can also send us a voice message by clicking talk to us. You don’t need any special software, just all you need is your phone or your browser record, uh, up to 92nd, uh, message and it’ll go right to us. Until next time, I am Todd. And I’m Craig. 

Kristen: And I am the little Sister Kristen. 

Heather: And I’m Heather 

Todd: with two guys, two gals, and a chainsaw.

Join us as we dive into the fourth installment of horror comedy month with our in-depth review of ‘The Frighteners’ (1996) by Peter Jackson.

In this episode, we discuss everything from Michael J. Fox’s charming performance to Peter Jackson’s craftsmanship and CGI innovations that foreshadowed his later work. We also reminisce about Jackson’s earlier films like ‘Dead Alive’ and ‘Heavenly Creatures,’ and touch – quite extensively! – on the tonal balance of comedy and horror that this movie tries to strike.

Tune in for all the details, fun facts, and our favorite moments. Plus, don’t miss our thoughts on incredible performances by D Wallace, Jeffrey Combs, and more!

Episode 441, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, we’re going back into the past this week for the gosh fourth installment now on our horror comedy month. This time, uh, you dug out, uh, one I had kind of forgotten about the Frighteners 1996 movie by Peter Jackson.

I was surprised to be reminded that this was the same year that Scream came out. Can you believe it? Oh, this and Scream in the same year. Wow. They, I know this came out in the summer. I don’t remember if Scream was a summer movie or not, but uh, I don’t remember either. But this is also Peter Jackson.

Before Peter Jackson was getting way in over his head on things I, I wouldn’t even say over his head. I mean, he pulled it off, but gosh, the Lord of the Rings took years off that guy’s life. 

Craig: Uhhuh. Oh yeah. But it also. Made him bazillions of dollars. Yeah. Right. Why so? 

Todd: Why does the guy bother making movies anymore?

Right? Like, uh, gosh, I remember, you know, when he was doing that, he was shooting all three movies at once and while he was shooting the second one, I think he was editing the first one and they were doing script rights on the third. And, uh, all this, you know, somebody’s interviewing him while he’s on a plane doing all this, and he is like, I would not recommend doing this.

Like, yeah, never again am I gonna try to shoot three gigantic movies all at once. 

Craig: Well, that was crazy. I mean, it was, I think that it was brilliant. I think that it was the way to do it. You get everybody committed, you go and you just get it all done. I, I, I think that it was, but I, I. Can’t begin to imagine how taxing that was for everybody involved.

Yeah. And Michael J. Fox, the star of this movie. This movie I believe was also filmed in New Zealand. This is the movie that made Michael J. Fox say, no, I’m not doing this. I’m done. I’m not, I’m not gonna be away from my family for these extended periods of time. So he went back to TV and had. Great success.

Yeah. But you know, it’s, it’s, it’s fun that he’s in this it, Peter Jackson, you know, I picked this movie ’cause I was trying to think of horror comedies that I liked or that I didn’t remember very well and wanted to return to. And this was kind of one of those, I, a big draw for me was D Wallace. I love her.

And we don’t talk about her enough, in my opinion. I, well, we 

Todd: talk about her an awful lot too.

You tried to get her on the show once. 

Craig: It was a big, it was a big draw for me. We’ve never really talked about Michael J. Fox, I don’t think. 

Clip: No. 

Craig: And he’s great. And such kind of like a cultural touchstone of our generation. So that was a draw to, frankly, I had forgotten that Peter Jackson directed it until you reminded me.

Hmm. And, and going back and looking at it again. I think that it’s. It’s obvious. It’s very Peter Jackson. Yeah. For 

Todd: Peter 

Craig: Jackson. But this is before the whole Lord of the Ring Saga. And then I haven’t watched the Hobbit movies. I’ve heard they’re not as good. Oh God. But that makes sense ’cause they had to film them kind of quickly.

And it, correct me if I’m wrong, I’ll feel really stupid. But he also did the King Kong remake. Yep. Correct. Yep, he did. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: I loved that movie. I think it has its critics. I absolutely loved it. I saw it in the theater and it was the end when King Kong is up on the Empire State Building or whatever, like I, I was dizzy and scared and I, and I knew it was going to happen, but.

That final scene between that computer generated ape and Naomi Watts, I was fucking weeping. Wow. Wow. Like I was 

Clip: just 

Craig: bawling and I thought that that movie was beautiful and really super well made. And so I love that. But this is before all that, and honestly, my favorite Peter Jackson movie is Heavenly Creatures.

Mm. Have you seen it? You know what? Oddly enough I have not. Oh my God, Todd. It is so good. It’s like a true crime story, right? Uhhuh. It stars Melanie Linsky and Kate Winsley. Mm. As these two teenage girls, and it’s a true crime movie about something that happened in New Zealand, I believe, where these two teenage girls, I don’t know how much of it was fictionalized or sensationalized, but they form a very, very close friendship that kind of develops into a little bit more than a friendship, and then they conspire in the murder of one of their mothers.

It was the first time I had ever seen Melanie Linsky, who has gone on to be. A prolific and very successful actress who I am, a huge, huge fan of, and of course, Kate Winslet pre Titanic. Yeah, and it’s understated and I’m sure it was shot on a low budget and it’s dark and, and so well acted and so compelling.

The Frighteners is great. And I really like it, and I’m gonna say good things about it, though I do have some conflicting feelings, but I super, super recommend Heavenly Creatures. It’s not a horror film, but it’s dark and I think you’ll really like it. 

Todd: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody says great things about Heavenly Creatures, and I think Heavenly Creatures is the movie that really turned a lot of Hollywood people onto Peter Jackson.

And you know, when you read about it, it seems like a lot of people agreed to work on this movie because they admired Heavenly Creatures so much. I may be wrong in my recollection, but wasn’t it at least nominated for some Academy Awards? I 

Craig: don’t know. I don’t remember 

Todd: Some awards, maybe Golden Globes, something like that.

I just remember it was a very well regarded movie, and I’m pretty sure it won an award or two somewhere now I was into Peter Jackson. Before Peter Jackson was big, I really, 

Craig: you introduced me. What was the, what’s that super, super gory one that we’ve done? Dead Alive? Yeah. I had, I don’t think I had seen that before.

You brought it to the table. 

Todd: That was something that I discovered at a comic book rental stop that had all kinds of weird movies and old movies from like foreign places in Japan and the East and things like that. And they had a number of Peter Jackson movies and one of which was Meet the Feebles. Have you ever seen that?

Craig: No. That’s so funny because before you moved to China, you gave me a physical copy of that movie. Oh, did I like a, A dvd? Yeah. A DVD or something. Oh my 

Todd: God. And you still haven’t seen it? 

Craig: No, I still haven’t seen, and I don’t have any idea where it is, but I remember very specifically you gave me that and a couple others that I don’t remember, but I specifically remember that one.

It 

Todd: is wacky. It’s like if, if you took the Muppets and gave them all heroin and I mean it’s just, it’s crazy. And before that he did bad taste and or maybe it was right after that or between that. Peter Jackson’s one of these guys who, and there are a lot of them, you know, directors and producers and people who really got into film through a love of special effects.

Yeah. Practical effects, makeup and things. And so this guy was down in New Zealand cooking up masks and things in his oven and putting together movies. Bad taste, which we should almost do on here sometime. It is the wackiest. 

Craig: You may have given me 

Todd: that one too. I think I did. Yeah. I, I do remember owning Bad Taste.

I didn’t remember owning Meat the Feebles, but I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s, it’s about these aliens that land in New Zealand and like chaos ensues. It’s like an exercise in bad taste. It’s exactly what it says it is, but it’s very inventive and it’s really impressive that this guy kind of put it all together himself.

The special effects, all the bits and things like that in there. He directed it. He did the camera work and all that. Obviously there’s lots of actors and other people involved, but you know, the whole thing is kind of his baby and he’s doing all the stuff, and so it’s no surprise now that you know the, the trajectory of his career.

But this seems like that middle spot where as CGI became Uhhuh a thing that became his new favorite toy. 

Craig: Well, and and he’s an innovator. I mean his studio or, or company wida. Yeah. It has been historically groundbreaking, I think revered as, as some of the best CGI effects that we’ve seen. And this isn’t where it started, but I read somewhere that like, you know, as, as their effects company or whatever they were, they had one computer and j and for the effects of this movie, they had to expand to like 33 or something like that.

Yeah. But so, but then going into then the Lord of the Rings, which was, you know. People have different opinions about CGI. It’s, it’s one of those things, it’s kinda like the cat’s out of the bag. Like it’s here. We, you know, it’s not going anywhere. Yeah. And I don’t have any problem. I, I still love practical effects a lot, but CGI, when done well, can be.

Beautiful and amazing and can really realize these fantastic thing. And I think that Peter Jackson has a history of that and, and this movie, you’re absolutely correct, is kind of at the dawn of him really leaning hard into it. Yeah. And it’s not perfect. It’s 1996, but I think for 1996. Six. It looks really fucking good.

It’s 

Todd: actually very impressive for 1996. It’s hard to believe, you know, sometimes Weta, it kind of outshined ILM and, and maybe still does, does in some ways. I don’t know. You know, it just, I was always surprised that ILM as big and as well established for decades as they were, and of course they, I, I think they were among the first to put any CGI in a movie.

Still. This guy with his one computer turned 30, some computers can almost outdo the stuff that they were doing at that time. ILM had a lot of catching up to do on the CGI at some point, and it was people like Peter Jackson and Robert Ekka who were pushing the envelope with, with, you know, Robert Ekka had his image movers.

It’s no surprise that he produced this movie. It’s almost got the stamp of a Robert Ekka movie on it too. You know? It does, it does it because Robert Ekka, he does these. Fun, comedic, kind of wacky adventure. Yeah. Fast moving, but also innovative. He, he’s constantly pushing the envelope and I don’t know if anybody had really seen CGI to this degree at that time.

Now we just take it for granted. But you go to the behind the scenes of, of how this was done and you watched the videos ’cause they, they really documented it. Well, you forget that even back then. It’s not like everything could be done in a computer. Mm-hmm. You know, so it’s CGI, mixed with live action and still in some very crude ways that they made look, look really good.

Especially when you consider how they had to shoot it. So, you know, there’s like people running down the street and the people running behind them with green screens or blue screens behind them and just all this strange stuff. There’s one scene in particular in this movie where it follows these characters through a rather elaborate.

It’s, it’s when they’re walking through the, the prison and they’re going through the walls and they’re backing up and all that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. What an elaborate shot that was. And to know that this shot a hundred percent was shot twice. The background was shot once, and then these guys walking through there was shot once.

And this all had to be composited together. It had to be coordinated, rehearsed, practiced. It is insane. How good it is. 

Craig: I’m fascinated. But clarify for me, are you talking about the scene where they’re in a jail cell and like it’s a ghost movie? You guys, we’ll talk more about the plot. We’ll talk about the movie in a bit.

There’s ghosts and so the ghosts can like come in and out of Yes. Through walls and things. Yes. At, at this scene they’re in a jail cell and two ghosts are fighting the antagonist, which we don’t really know his nature at first. It, it seems kind of like the Grim Reaper, but he kind of basically follows the same rules as ghosts so he can go through walls and stuff too.

And so Michael J. Fox and his love interest Lucy played by Trini Alvarado, who I like are in that cell and like the Grim Reaper. That’s what I’m gonna call him. ’cause that’s how he’s dressed. Yeah. Like that’s how he’s presented. I’m gonna call him the Reaper. So the Reaper is after her and these other ghosts, Michael j Fox’s friends are trying to keep him away.

But of course. Michael J. Fox and his girlfriend, not really. I’m being misleading, but his love interests are. Physical and locked in this tiny, tiny cell, so the ghosts are just popping in and out through walls. I hope that’s the scene that you’re talking about. ’cause if not, I just went along. 

Todd: Are you talking about the big action scene or are you just talking about the scene where they’re strolling through the prison and seeing him in the cell for the first time.

Craig: Oh, okay. Okay. That’s, yes. That’s when they, like when the ghosts first get to the prison. Yeah. Yes. They walk through a series of walls. Okay. That’s a great scene too. And then they eventually get there and there’s a big fight, but that walk through the series of walls is. Good too. I’m sorry, you may have already said this, but you said they filmed it twice.

So what happens basically is the camera pans through a series of narrow cells and there are different people in there as the ghosts are walking through and they comment on the people that they see and stuff. Are you saying they shot that twice and then just overlaid 

Todd: them? Yeah, they had, I mean, that was the way it was done.

I mean, OB obviously computer controlled cameras and things like that, but I mean, to make this live action, it’s not like the camera’s stationary and it’s not like it’s just panning. It’s going up and it’s going down and it’s turning a little bit and dolling in and out until they finally get into his cell.

I was just in awe. You know, seeing this, that, to know that this had to be composited together that way. Whereas nowadays, they’ve got all kinds of tricks and they can do almost all of it in camera, or they might just make CGI versions of people. That’s the 

Craig: filmmaker side of you. And that’s the stuff in watching these movies and talking about these movies, that’s the stuff that I’m fascinated by, because that didn’t even occur to me.

It was such a simple scene, and I knew it had to be done with effects. But this is a ghost movie. I’ve been seeing these ghosts the whole time, and they’re walking through walls or whatever. And I think that that speaks to the quality of the movie, that it was invisible. I wasn’t, I wasn’t asking those questions.

Yeah. I was just immersed in this world and I, I wasn’t concerned about the technicality of that. Mind you, I really do try as a podcaster to be mindful of things like I, I, I, I, I pay really close attention to these movies. I, I take. Pages of notes. ’cause I want to have good stuff to talk about. Right. But the fact that some of this stuff just totally goes right over my head.

Like I said, I think it speaks to the quality of the movie. 

Todd: Oh yeah. It should go over your head. I mean, obviously if, if you’re thinking about the effects, then you’re not really engaged in Right. The film and the effects are clearly done well enough, you know, that, that they’re in, in some, to some degree seamless.

Right. I mean there are parts of this, you’re right, that are dated. Obviously our CGI now is much better. But this really ain’t half bad. Honestly. 

Craig: It still looks good. I mean the, first of all, the movie, I think I looked at IMDB and saw, oh boy, it’s an hour and 50 minutes. Like that’s long for me. The version that you sent me, director’s cut must be.

The director’s cut. Yeah. Yeah. ’cause it was two hours and two minutes, which in the moment I was like, oh, it’s too long. Looking back on it now, I’m like, no, it’s fine. Calm down.

It is a long movie though. I, I, I think it is long. It’s long. It could have been shorter, honestly. Like, I like it and I recommend it. I was a little conflicted. Everything was right. Peter Jackson and his wife and co-creator of everything. Obviously she doesn’t get the credit she deserves because she’s not out in front.

He’s out in front, but she is right there. You know, writing with him. Yeah. And working with him all the time. 

Todd: Everything. 

Craig: They have done a great job. Everything works and everything is right, and somehow I don’t love it. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Do you get it? I know know, I know. I, I, I can say to anybody, oh, it’s really good. You should definitely watch it.

I, I mean, there’s so many great things about it. Is it one of my favorites? No. 

Todd: No. Yeah, I agree. And it’s interesting because I had never actually seen this movie from beginning to end until now. I had popped in and out of it, it, it had been playing, you know, in a room where I had been. My dad liked it. I like it.

I just never sat down and watched it from beginning to end. And I remember it being marketed as this goofy kind of silly ghost movie with all these stars in it, Michael J. Fox, obviously, and there’s a lot of wackiness involved. I wasn’t expecting it to be as dark as it gets. It’s very dark. Yeah. Yeah. But that’s very Peter Jackson too.

He as mm-hmm. Absolutely will mash up the dark and the wacky. Now we did see the director’s cut, but he really wanted a PG 13 for this movie. He couldn’t get it. He tried really, really hard, but he just couldn’t cut enough to satisfy them. And so he said, all right, then we’re just gonna keep in everything.

I wanted to keep in. In fact, they went back and said, well then we’re gonna earn that R by making the final villains. Death, one of the final villain’s deaths, a bigger grocer thing. And so he did that. But 

Craig: other than that, which wasn’t even that, it wasn’t even that bad. Which wasn’t even that extreme. No, 

Todd: no.

Like this would’ve been a PG 13 today. Maybe. Today, 

Craig: yes, maybe. But when people get killed in this movie, they don’t go away. They just become ghosts. Yeah. So like the, the scene that you’re specifically talking about, Jeffrey Combs gets his head blown off, but it’s instantly replaced with a ghost head. Yeah.

So it doesn’t even really look that scary or crazy. Yeah. I thought that was wild too. This should have been a PG 13 movie and I, I don’t know, people have weird feelings about ratings too, but it, it really should have been PG 13. I don’t know what their problem was. I think if I had to guess, I would say that they felt ultimately that it was just too scary.

In general Yeah. For PG 13, because I do think that this movie is scary. It is. It’s funny. It’s not quite as funny as I’d like it to be, but it is funny, but it is also scary. I mean, and the, the lead antagonists are scary and goodness. We barely started talking about it. I, I, we were talking about the special effects and I just wanted to give the example, the opening scene.

It’s a spooky old mansion with a great spooky old mansion score by Danny Elman. Right. 

Todd: He’s another guy. So impressed with heavenly creatures. He offered to, to score, uh, Peter Jackson’s next film. 

Craig: Danny Elfman has scored like a third of the movies you’ve seen. Yeah, he’s fantastic. 

Todd: He really is. 

Craig: It’s great.

Spooky old music. Patricia Bradley in this old mansion played by D Wallace, who is like my, like my movie mom who I love and I love. She’s, she’s got long, she’s supposed to be younger I think in, yeah, I guess, I don’t know. This was 1996. She, I don’t know, I think they’ve played down her age a little bit.

She’s got long, dark hair and she’s screaming and she’s running away, and then her old lady mom is like tormenting her and 

Clip: it’s wrong. She’s too young. The sins of the flesh will ruin her.

The wicked will be punished.

Craig: But the cool thing about this is that apparently what she’s being pursued by is some sort of entity that can manipulate the environment in that like it’s, it’s like it’s behind the wallpaper and it comes out like Freddy in 

Todd: Yeah, like poke through. 

Craig: Yeah. Like you can see it defined behind whatever it is coming through, whether it be the wallpaper or the floor or a table or whatever.

And it’s pursuing her and it’s very scary. But her, the old lady blows its ghost head off and it flies away. And then that’s when we get the title and the premise of the movie is it’s in this small town. And Michael J. Fox is like a paranormal investigator, paranormal psychologist or something. Kind of a charlatan though.

Yeah. I had in my notes that he’s like. An ambulance chaser. 

Todd: Yeah. Well, he’s taken advantage of a special skill that he has. Uh, he had an accident, a car accident, which took his wife, I believe. 

Craig: Well, I mean, there’s a whole backstory that gets laid out slowly over the course of the thing. But we do find out that yes, he was in an accident and since that time he has been able to see the spirits of people who have not passed on.

Todd: Right. 

Craig: His backstory gets laid out, but he can talk to ghosts, but ghosts people when they die, have have the opportunity to go through a corridor, which is a big, like tunnel, 

Clip: uh, tube. Tube to the sea of light 

Craig: that you can go through Uhhuh, yeah. To heaven or whatever, and you have the opportunity to go through that.

But if you don’t, then you stay on earth. For whatever 

Todd: you get, like 10 years, every 10 years you get another opportunity or something like that. 

Craig: I, I think there’s one guy dies and, and I don’t remember if, if, if it’s Michael J. Fox or another ghost, but he says in a year, oh, you’ll have another opportunity a year.

That would, I mean, it’s so random. That’s one of the problems with this movie that I have, is that the rules are so nebulous. I don’t 

Todd: get it. 

Craig: I, I, I just had to at some point say, just go with it. Yeah. ’cause the rules are so nebulous. Like you can shoot ghosts with real guns. But then you can also shoot them with like ghost Ozzie, like, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

And like 

Todd: they can walk through walls and things and stuff sometimes, but then like when they’re standing out in the road and a car, a car will literally hit them. I, I, it, it didn’t make much sense. Actually, most of the movie I found a little distracting in the rules to where you’re right, it, I did end up having to just willfully and deliberately say, I’m not gonna care anymore.

There’s one part that I thought was kind of cool where Michael j Fox’s character becomes a ghost and he’s on like the third floor of a building or something, and immediately he falls down through the floor to the ground. And I thought, oh yeah. That’s something I hadn’t noticed before. Are the ghosts only able to be on ground level?

And then later in the movie, ghosts are going up and down stairs in this whole abandoned hospital, like, you know, four stories up and stuff and it doesn’t even matter. So I was like, what was that all about? I actually, 

Craig: I actually thought that that scene was kind of pivotal and I think kind of explains exactly what we’re having trouble with.

The rules are so nebulous. Now, Michael J. Fox is alive through most of the movie, but at some point in order to figure out who the really bad guy is, he thinks that he has to die so that he can go into the ghost plane or whatever. So his friend who happens to be a doctor Lucy, kills him, I guess within an injection and puts him in a freezer and she’s gonna revive him later so he can run around.

It’s 

Todd: like flat liners. Yeah. 

Craig: Right. But. When he dies and starts moving around, he immediately falls through the floor, like you said. Now, I thought that this was smart because to me it kind of justified everything else in that as a brand new ghost, he’s never been on this plane before. He doesn’t understand what the rules are, and he doesn’t know how they work.

I think that as they become accustomed to being ghosts, they figure it out more and they’re more able to manipulate and use it because like even one of his friends, the reason it’s called the Frighteners is because Michael J. Fox has these ghost friends and, and to make money, the ghost friends go and haunted a house, and then he comes in and pretends to get rid of them, and then people pay him and like, that’s their, that’s their whole scam.

One of them. Can walk through walls no problem. The other one is constantly getting stuck. I think that it’s a state of mind thing. Mm. And even the really bad guy, I think it is, just has figured it out enough that he can manipulate the physical world 

Todd: God-like control. Right. Okay. Well that would make sense.

So you’re, what you’re saying is this is sort of like a Christopher Pike remember me situation where the 

Craig: Right or, or a, a Patrick Swayze ghost situation where Ah, right. You can manipulate the physical world. You just have to train yourself to do it. And the more you train yourself to do it, the more adept you will be at it.

I think that’s what it is now. I’m coming to that now 24 hours later. Right. Watching the movie. I was a little confused. Like, what? 

Clip: Well, you know, this 

Todd: is one of those cases where tell us, don’t show us might be a better, a better thing. Like there could have just been one throw off line early in the movie, you know, where one character said to another, ah, you haven’t learned all the, the ways of it yet, or whatever, you know, that would’ve answered that for me and I wouldn’t have had to think about it again.

But the fact that I was constantly bothered by it throughout the movie until at some point I was like, well, this is never gonna get answered and it’s never gonna be solved. I feel that’s a little bit of a failing. Right. I don’t 

Craig: know. Well, and it really never is. It really never is. 

Todd: Yeah. That’s just your theory 

Craig: that Right.

Exactly. But it’s solid. That’s exactly right. It’s, 

Todd: I mean, what else could it be? I mean, because it’s all over the place. I don’t know. Like I’m with you. I feel like. The movie was good and it’s, it’s great. I mean, it’s a nice movie. It really is. There’s nothing wrong with it. Liked it. It just wasn’t great, and I guess I expected it to be greater and I don’t know why.

I think. Peter Jackson has these problems with his movies and it gets worse and worse the more money and time and reputation he has where they just get bloated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like this movie suffers from that a little bit. It is. It is frenetic pacing almost from the first, I don’t know, I’m not gonna say from the get go, but it almost feels like after about the 10, 15 minutes of set up, the movie just never lets up.

And you think it’s gonna end and it doesn’t, and you think it’s gonna end and it doesn’t and you think they’ve solved it and they haven’t and they’re, you know, it’s like, 

Craig: whoa. I agree with you. I agree with you. And like Return of the King, I mean, people have talked about this ad nauseum, but that last in The Lord of the Ring trilogies had like 15 endings.

I was like, Jesus Christ. Like get me the fuck outta here. Like, yeah, I’m so done. People complained about. King Kong too. ’cause it was long. I was into that. Like it was action heavy. It was big effects. I was super, super into it. This movie’s good and there’s not any particular part that I would say necessarily cut out of it.

’cause I like every, I like everything I see. Yeah. Just for some reason it doesn’t come. 

Todd: Is it the tone? 

Craig: I don’t know. I, I just don’t know. I just, I, I think partly it’s the tone. Honestly, I wish that it had been a little bit more funny. You’ve got Michael J. Fox, who I think does an amazing job and I think that Michael J.

Fox is one of the most charming people to ever exist. Yeah. He really is. And in this, in this movie, he’s young. And healthy and handsome and charming and everything. It looks like 

Todd: he stepped right off the back to the future set, you know? Well, 

Craig: I, I, I only disagree in that he looks like a grownup in this movie.

Like he looks like a, a young man. I read that he was first choice. Now they considered other people, but Michael J. Fox was their first choice. The other people that they considered I thought were funny. Tom Cruise, uh, at that time, I can kind of see it. Maybe Matthew Broderick, a hundred percent. Mm-hmm. A hundred percent can see that.

Johnny Depp, maybe I’m not a huge fan of Johnny Depp. John Cusack, maybe Danny DeVito. A hundred percent. 

Todd: Oh yeah. I 

Craig: guess so. It would be a different movie. But yeah. Danny DeVito, it would be a hundred percent different movie, but it would be a hilarious movie. Seriously. I love Michael J. Fox. We grew up with him.

You know, Michael p Keaton our favorite Republican, right?

Oh, what a different time. 

Todd: Oh 

Craig: man. But, but that, and then of course, back to the Future God, which I think will 

Todd: always be one of the best his movies ever made. Lic. Yeah, always. 

Craig: People are always gonna know about Back to the Future. It’s fantastic. I love him. Love him, love him. I don’t know that he was the best cast for this movie.

He’s great. He’s charming. I don’t know. I almost feel like I needed a, I don’t know. I think I needed something different. Somebody A little edgier. Something a little edgier. Yeah. Yeah, because he’s too charming and kind and pure to be this tormented. That’s true Charlatan. That’s a good point 

Todd: actually.

Craig: That’s the whole, the whole concept. I mean, there’s a whole movie that we’re not gonna talk about, but the whole premise with him is that he has been through this trauma and it’s led him into this life that he’s not really happy with and he really is a charlatan and he’s taking advantage of people. And we can get into the details of it, but I feel like I wanna lay out like what what happened was, and this was so jarring to me, this comes at least halfway, if not further than halfway through the movie.

He just seems like kind of a asshole. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: kind of like a swindler. He drives like a maniac, which still makes me mad. Like, what is wrong with you? You’re going to kill somebody. It’s so weird. Yeah, it was crazy. 

Todd: He doesn’t care. He’s just driving all over his stuff. I thought, is this supposed to be funny or does he have a mental problem?

I think it was supposed to be funny. Just made me mad, couldn’t 

Craig: it? Yeah, it was bizarre. You’re gonna hurt somebody. Yeah. I didn’t like it. Meanwhile, he’s Michael J. Fox, so he’s, you love him. You’re like, oh, he’s a good guy, whatever. But the backstory is the reason that he is the way he is, is because he was in a drunk driving accident where he was the driver drunk that killed his wife.

Now, ultimately, it turns out that his wife. Didn’t die as a result of the accident. Yeah, she was actually murdered by the murderer of the movie, which is kind of dumb, but whatever. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: it’s a little, it’s all a little contrived. Well, that explanation still doesn’t redeem him of the fact. That he was driving drunk and had a terrible accident that 

Clip: could have killed his wife.

Right. And I mean, he feels bad about it. 

Todd: He’s trying to rebuild their house, I guess, or I don’t know what happened to the house. What was the deal with the house? 

Craig: He’s well, and it was all a result of the fact, like the whole reason that they were fighting, they were that that’s what they had a crash because he was drunk and they were fighting.

And the whole reason that they were fighting is ’cause he was this great architect and he was building them this house. Ah. And the only thing that she wanted was a garden in the backyard. And instead he put a basketball court in there, a basketball court. Michael J. Fox is like five. Five. 

Todd: Yeah. But don’t forget he was Teen Wolf.

Craig: He was teen Wolf. But it’s also funny, in in the flashbacks, they put him in the douches longhaired wig. Like, oh boy, gosh. So he’s tormented. Okay, fine, whatever. And then what’s happening is in their little town, all of these unexplainable deaths are happening. Like people are just dropping dead. But eventually when they like do autopsies or whatever, they’re like, they all died of heart attacks, but it doesn’t make any sense because none of them had any heart problems.

It’s like their heart’s exploded 

Todd: or they were compressed, they said, and yeah, the burst things were bursting and they didn’t have any explanation for it. And, and what we find out is that there is this ghost that’s going around and. Reaching into people’s chests and squeezing their heart until it dies seemingly at random, but not, but not because there’s a number that appears that only Michael J.

Fox can see Uhhuh that shows on their head, on their forehead before they die. So they’re marked somehow. Mm-hmm. By the ghost. I guess he does like a ghostly carving in his forehead. Yeah. Before he, yeah. 

Craig: The revelation of this is a little bit annoying too, because the first time that he sees it, okay, so like he’s doing these scams, he’s going to people’s houses and.

And pretending to clear them of the ghosts that he sent there. And he’s not really doing anything. He’s just setting up fake traps and like pretending to trap them in like dog poop bags and put them down the garbage disposal. And that sounds really stupid and it is really stupid, but it’s played for the comedy.

And I, Michael, I do love Michael J. Fox and I think that he delivers everything. 

Todd: Yeah, great. He’s good at this kind of stuff. 

Craig: I Right. I have no problem with his performance. He’s so charming and so funny. I love him. I’ll never say anything bad about him. Mm-hmm. But I don’t know that he was necessarily the best cast.

But yeah, he’s doing all that. But then at one of these fake things, it’s the girl that becomes his love interest, which this is also very forced and strange because she’s married. 

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: In this moment. But when he goes to her house to clear out the ghost, he sees this. Number, this glowing number on her husband’s forehead.

And then almost immediately he sees a funeral procession and it’s her husband. And that starts off a whole thing. But what bothers me about the writing of this is that he blows it off like he says to his frighteners, his ghost friends, who we need to at least talk about John Aston. Please don’t let me not talk about John Aston.

Oh yeah. But he says to his ghost friends who put that number on her head that wasn’t funny. And that’s it. And then like we keep seeing numbers on people’s heads, but we don’t learn for the longest time. Yeah. That his wife, I guess that they announced her cause of death as a result of the accident, but there was a number carved into her forehead.

He saw 

Todd: it. 

Craig: Yeah. So 

Todd: he saw in the past, because we see later a flashback to it. This very same thing, play out in front of him with his own wife glowing number on her forehead, ghost reaches in, kills her. Why would this not be a thing that he has been carrying so close to himself all this time that he wouldn’t instantly know what’s going on?

You know what I mean? Or at least have some clue instead of just brush it off like you just said, or that wasn’t funny, but why wouldn’t you put two and two together? It’s right. You know, I think that we are to 

Craig: believe that he has somehow disassociated from it. Like he doesn’t remember, like as a result of the, because he kind of has flashbacks.

So you’re 

Todd: thinking the flashback was like a sudden remembrance of a thing that he had suppressed. I 

Craig: guess maybe. I guess. But the number immediately bothers him, so it’s difficult to. Reconcile him being immediately bothered buying it and saying, Hey, that wasn’t funny. 

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And, but then he also doesn’t remember, like, that’s kind of weird, but whatever.

Okay. So then I guess people kind of keep getting killed in the same way and at some point he, okay, so Ray dies. Ray is the husband of Lucy, and he dies because he was marked and he dies, but then he hangs out. Because he doesn’t go through his corridor and he’s annoying, but he’s also funny. I do enjoy the comedy that’s there.

I do enjoy it. He’s funny. He’s super annoying. That’s what, what makes him funny is that he’s annoying as hell, but he’s hanging out and he’s trying to deliver messages through Michael J. Fox to his wife and Michael J. Fox obliges for a long time. But there’s obviously clearly chemistry between him and Lucy.

This is the day of her husband’s funeral. Yeah. And she is wet for Michael J. Fox. 

Todd: Yeah. Well, to be fair, the guy comes across as a big douche from the beginning. Oh, totally. And she makes some comment. What would she say about it’s, it’s very, very early on, I think when we first meet them and they’re in the bedroom and he’s like lifting weights or something, and she’s laying in bed.

Maybe it’s when they’re seeing the serial killer movie or 

Clip: today she lives a reclusive life back in the family home. I should have fried her when they fried Bartlett. She was 15 years old. You know, she just fell in love with the wrong guy. Could happen 

Todd: to anyone. You immediately think, oh okay, this is a double meaning, but that’s it.

You know? That’s all we ever we ever see of that. But I thought that was a bit of foreshadowing and a little bit of a peek into her meant to be 

Craig: and yeah. And he is a douche and she’s, yeah. I mean it’s fine still whatever’s still, it’s just, it’s funny to me in these movies where like Ray specifically says like, I can’t be dead.

I’m only 29. So like he and his wife are in their twenties. Yeah. If you are in your twenties and you are having feelings like maybe I married the wrong person, get divorced today. You 

Todd: still today? While you still have time, take it from 

Craig: me 

Todd: folks. If you are 

Craig: doubting it. Now in your twenties, close the door and never look back.

You all can be friends, but you don’t need to be married. Well, she does. Right. And, and so that’s fine. So she’s wet for him and that’s fine. Whatever. Okay. So there’s also this backstory that there’s this Murderer Bartlett. Yes. Is his name played by Gary Busey son. What’s his name? Jake Busey. Yeah. Jake Busey was working a lot.

He was, at this time he was 

Todd: in, uh, Starship Troopers. That was what I remember him from. 

Craig: He was in a lot. And I don’t wanna call him a Nepo baby, even though I’m sure he is. Really. But I like Jake Busey. Yeah, that’s cool. I think that he’s, yeah, he’s cool. He’s got the, his dad’s crazy eyes. Got his dad’s teeth.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and he works it and, and I think he’s great. Yeah. Every time he’s in something, I think he’s fantastic. He’s in a lot of 

Todd: stuff. I mean, the guy’s just been all been steadily working even to now, you know, he was in Rust. No, I didn’t, yeah, I haven’t seen it yet, but yeah, 

Craig: I haven’t either, but No, but he’s great and he’s, and it, okay, so he, in the past, apparently he killed a whole bunch of people in this town.

He went like on a murderous spree and D Wallace, his was his girlfriend at the time. She was only like 15. They kind of based this on. Real life murders, stark weather, starkly, stark, something. Hmm. They mention it in the movie a lot. This, this guy, Jake Busey, whatever his name is, is trying to be some other serial killer’s record.

And so they go on this massacre in this hospital and he was sentenced to death, but because she was a minor and they didn’t really know the extent of the role that she played, she was first institutionalized. But she has since been released into her mother’s custody and Lucy. Is a social worker, a doctor?

Todd: Not sure really. 

Craig: She’s tasked with checking in on her and De Wallace plays. Oh my God, I’m so sweet. And my mother keeps me here and, oh, it’s terrible. 

Todd: Well, and then the mother is, seems like this overbearing mean, you know, evil stepmother basically. Yeah. She 

Craig: also says directly to Lucy, you don’t know who my daughter is, do you?

Clip: Patricia’s not to be trusted. I beg your pardon? I can have her locked up anytime I want to. Mm-hmm.

Craig: And honestly, I can’t remember. I’ve seen this movie a couple of times. I can’t remember what I thought in the beginning, but having seen it several times, the veneer is very thin. Like, yeah. Now I, right. As it turns out. We don’t find this out until the very end. There’s a whole lot of ghost stuff in the middle.

And it’s fun with this reaper, like they’re chasing it. Like that’s, that’s most of the movie. They’re chasing this reaper. And the cops think Frank is somehow responsible. I mean, not the local cops. The local cops know him and they’re kind of on his side ultimately. And I do want to go back, I wanna talk about that local cop.

I wanna talk about Jeffrey Combs. I wanna talk about John as Jeffrey 

Todd: Combs. We haven’t even mentioned Jeffrey Combs yet. I 

Craig: know. Oh my God. Uh, but ultimately what it turns out is that Patricia. D Wallace was in on it all along. Yeah. Like she was totally a cohort in that massacre. No. Now that her evil boyfriend is back in ghost form, spoiler alert, he’s the ghost that’s going around looking like the grim reaper the whole time, and he’s just continuing his spree that began in the hospital, but resumed when D Wallace was let out of the institution and started killing people again with his aid, and the first person that she killed was Frank’s wife.

Todd: Yeah. I find it very hard to believe. Again, since we’re kind of picking it apart, I find it very hard to believe that this woman was, as it turns out, as involved in these killings as she turns out to be, and nobody really. New. 

Craig: Well, she’s never allowed out of the house, but apparently I, I think, actually, I think that that’s explained.

I think that they say near the end of the movie that her mother, who seems like a crazy old bitch, but really isn’t, who is just trying to keep her murderous daughter contained. I think that she brought her home and then she found out that her daughter had killed this woman. That’s why she had the utility knife that the woman was carved with.

Right. The, the wife was carved with, she found out about that, and that’s why she’s been keeping her in the house. And that’s why I guess, like, again, I’m putting pieces together that you shouldn’t have to put together. Like it seemed like it was dormant. The, the killings were dormant until she was released from the insane asylum.

Yeah. And then they began again with Frank’s wife, who they, a a apparently stumbled upon after a car accident, killed her, carved a number in her head, but then the mother of the murderous confined her to her home. So it was only then that he took on the Grim Reaper identity and started squeezing people’s hearts to death.

I mean, that’s fine, that’s fine. But I don’t feel like I should have to 

Todd: put together that puzzle. Yeah. If you think about it too hard, there are a lot of cracks in this plot and, uh, in the way it unfolds, but you don’t really have a lot of time to think about it too hard. No, because things are just happening one right after the other.

Craig: Arley Emery, somebody else I wanna talk about. 

Todd: Yeah. So like, you know, Michael J. Fox, he goes to the cemetery and he can see all the ghosts, and so you got Arley Emery there. As the drill sergeant who I, again, having seen this all the way through for the first time, I thought that guy had a much bigger role in this movie than he turned out to have because he was just, oh, yeah.

All over the promotionals in the trailers and all that stuff. I really thought this was a wacky comedy about this guy who had to deal with all these ghosts all the time and their crazy personalities. But really, there are just a few funny ghosts, and most of it is pretty dark with this one ghost going around killing people and them trying to figure out what’s going on.

And a whole bunch of near misses and a lot of people dying. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And Michael J. Fox is there for a lot of it, so he’s starting to get framed really. Right. And so that’s when he gets put in jail. I know I’m skipping over a bunch of stuff, but, uh, 

Craig: well, I, we’re, I feel like we’re skipping over everything, which is fine.

I mean, yeah. You get the gist. Movie. Watch the movie, the movie. It’s, it’s a good, it’s a good movie. You’ll like it. Yeah. 

Todd: It’s worth your time. 

Craig: I, I love these stories where like. When they’re writing a script, they’re like, oh, let’s write like an Arley Emery type. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: And then they try to cast it and they can’t get somebody, and they’re like, do you think Arley Emery would do it?

Right. And he does. I mean, he, he’s just playing, you know, the same role that he played in full metal jacket, which is basically just him. Yeah. Like, I’m not mistaken. I mean, he was like a, he was a drill sergeant. Sergeant, right. Yeah. I love that. All of the frighteners, the ghosts that work with the main guy, I like them all.

I, the two main ones are kind of like a, a nerdy guy and like a, a hip, like seventies. Afro black guy and I don’t have their names down. The only reason I don’t have their names down is because I didn’t recognize them and I didn’t know if maybe they were New Zealand actors. But they’re funny. They’re, they’re really nice comic relief.

I wish frankly that there were more of them. It’s interesting that the movie is called The Frighteners and we really don’t spend all that much time with the Frighteners at all. No, and I wish that we did. I think that that would’ve been a fun movie watching them in that scene where they like scared people by levitating their babies.

But they talked to the babies first. Yeah, like that was 

Clip: so funny. That was cute. Like they got down and they were talking to the babies like, alright kid. Quit jumping around and acting like a baby. This is serious. Now we’re gonna scared of living daylights outta your parents, so come on kid. You gonna help us out?

Are you with us? See, he gets it. The kids always get, 

Craig: let’s go. The babies can see them for whatever reason. Oh, and then they do. And one of those babies was Peter Jackson’s baby and his wife, you know? And like, that was cute and funny. I actually would’ve enjoyed more of that. Like I, this could today be a limited series where we got more of kind of that fun stuff.

Todd: Oh, amidst the, the bigger mystery. Yeah. Yeah. 

Craig: And the bigger mystery is, is good and I like it, and. Uh, one of the frighteners is John Aston. Now, I know that John Aston has done a million things, but he’s Gomez Adams, right? Yeah. You would never recognize John Aston in this movie because he plays one of the ghosts and he’s like a western cowboy kind of thing.

He reminds me a lot, a lot of the grandpa from house two, and he’s fun and funny. In that way. I really, really like his parts in this movie. He’s, he’s charming. He’s kind of like, because he’s the older one and he’s been a ghost for a long time. He even talks about like how he feels like his ectoplasm is all dried up at some point.

Like again, the rules are nebulous because I don’t know if ghosts eventually like die on their own, but they can be killed. Yeah. Which I don’t understand. The grim reaper can kill them with his sife, but that kind of seems the way they only can be killed and then the si just goes away. At 

Todd: some point for a little while, I thought maybe they were ghost weapons that could kill ghosts, because there’s So John Aston’s character is a judge, right?

Yeah. And he’s kind of a dirty old man, I suppose. But I loved his makeup apparent. This is a, oh, it looks so good. This is a Rick Baker thing, and. I mean, you know, it probably took forever to put on and for sure it early gag in the movie is that there’s a dog that’s got his jaw. That’s how we’re introduced to him.

He’s walking around Jawless and eventually the jaw gets a ghost dog. Yeah, a ghost dog. I love the ghost dog 

Clip: by 

Todd: the 

Clip: way. 

Todd: But you know, the jaw gets kind of put back on, but not really. So there’s a, the one side of it is just jutting out. It’s just bones sticking out through the skin and it’s, it’s cute. I really liked his character design.

I really liked his character and then he just disappears. There’s a scene in the museum Uhhuh, where I believe, I think they go to, I can’t remember 

Craig: where he humps a mummy. That was, which I thought was Sophie funny. It was funny. 

Todd: It was funny. And that was one of the scenes where I thought either it’s just because directors cut or why did you think this was gonna be PG 13, you know, after shit like this in there, you know, this is like meet the feebles type stuff.

But it’s very Peter Jackson. But yeah, then, uh, the guy comes through with the ghost side and he cuts him in half. And he falls to the ground. And I think that’s the last we ever see of him. It is, but that’s, 

Craig: and I think that that’s important because it kind of establishes that if they get cut in half with that side, they die because the other two frighteners both get killed too.

Yes. But then, and, and we see it on screen, but I read that there were deleted scenes that you can see. I haven’t watched them, but there are deleted scenes where the cowboy. Comes back, comes back. Which I’m glad that they cut because I would’ve been confused even further. Right. Because later we see the other two frighteners who we see get killed on screen.

I was uncertain about the second one, the guy with the Afro. I was uncertain about him because we didn’t technically see him quote unquote die. I thought that he might come back. The nerdy one we totally saw get cut in half and deflate. So I, I figured he was dead. But at the end we see them in heaven, so Yeah, they are, 

Todd: they got sent.

Do you just get sent to heaven when you’re killed as a ghost like that? I guess. I 

Craig: don’t know. Who cares? 

Todd: It doesn’t matter. I was just gonna, I was just bringing it up because there’s a pretty pivotal scene toward the end where the, our drill sergeant character is shooting ghost guns at uh. The ghost, the bad one, and well, 

Craig: Michael J.

Fox does too. And Michael J. Fox. Michael J. Fox, in that same scene pulls out two Ghost Ozzie. First of all, both real characters. We still haven’t talked about Jeffrey Combs, both real characters. And ghost characters have straight up Ozzy. Yeah. That they are shooting people with Michael J. Fox gets shot with an oozy at some point.

It’s just fine. 

Clip: Yeah. At close range. That made 

Todd: no sense. He’s just like, oh, oh my shoulder. And then like five minutes later is, you’d never know he was shot, 

Craig: but Michael J. Fox shoots the Grim Reaper character with an Uzi and like destroys him. Like he’s just like several pools of mushy goo and like one of those pools of mushy goo is a face and like he’s getting ready to destroy the face before he gets pulled away because he’s a ghost and he gets pulled back to life.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter. But yeah, it does. Like the, the rules are so weird, like, so you can apparently kill ghost with a ghost juy, but if you accidentally don’t. If you can get ahold of their ashes, you can take them to a church where apparently a church is a place where like a corridor is always open, I guess like this, like it’s like a subway stop, like, 

Todd: and this was the only church in the town that they could find was in this creepy old chapel.

A hospital. Like a hospital chapel. A hospital, which happens to be where the killer and the d Wallace character were working as orderlies. And they started their entire murderous rampage, 

Craig: which also happens to be within immediate walking distance of D Wallace’s House, right? Like their next door. Like to get to D Wallace’s house, you have to go through the gate.

That says the hospital, 

Todd: surely, surely you could find another church in an easier, an area that’s not as likely to be haunted by ghosts. 

Craig: Lots of flashbacks. We find out that t Wallace was involved all along, so now she’s chasing after all of them. There’s guns and shooting and fighting and crazy. And boy, I don’t even know, D Wallace is fun.

I I really enjoy her playing crazy. And Peter Jackson wanted to cast her because he didn’t want it to be obvious. That she was villainous from the beginning and he thought, well, the mom for me, t everybody’s gonna think right. That she’s innocent. And I, I think he’s right. I bought it. Yeah. And I think it was a good casting choice.

And I’m not just saying this in the hopes that someday you’ll like surprise me and pay t Wallace a thousand dollars to do 20 minutes on our podcast, but I, 

Todd: she’s a little too rich for our blood. 

Craig: She is. But the thing about her is I continue to see her in movies, but unfortunately the movies that I’m seeing in her lately aren’t great.

And I am, I, I feel bad that she, I can only imagine and I have nothing but the. Utmost respect for the fact that she’s working. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: You know, we, we all have to work. You have to work. Yeah. And if things aren’t working out as well as they once were, you know, she’s taking jobs and I appreciate that and I always appreciate her and everything that I see.

The only reason that I say that that makes me a little bit sad is because I really think that d Wallace is a. Fine, fine actress. Mm. I think that she’s very good and I really enjoyed her unhinged performance at the end of this movie. The gross sexual stuff with Jake Busey was so gross. Uhhuh nasty.

They’re like humping. Yeah. And oh gosh. And, and both of them, he’s unhinged too. I don’t know. In real life. I don’t know him. I’m sure he is a great guy, but on camera and he’s got those crazy eyes. 

Todd: Oh yeah. His 

Craig: eyes are even crazier than his death. 

Todd: Oh, for sure. And big smile, like he’s cre he, he could be creepy.

Craig: Yeah. And he’s a big guy. He’s tall and muscular and like the two of them I thought that they just played together so well. They were such a great crazy Bonnie and Clyde duo. Like they were just reveling in murder and blood and mayhem and she’s, you know, chasing Lucy with a shotgun and just screaming and it’s just insane.

And I love it all. Michael J. Fox eventually. I guess he gets killed somehow. I think D Wallace kills him. She chokes him out with a shotgun, and so he gets killed, and then he somehow as a ghost, now again, what the fuck with these rules as a ghost, he just grabs d Wallace from behind a alive d Wallace and pulls her soul out of her.

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: we’ve never seen anything like this happen before. Nope. But okay. 

Todd: Nope. 

Craig: And so then he starts pulling her up into the big tube corridor. All right? He’s like, Hey, Busey, I don’t know what his name is. Hey, I’ve got your girlfriend. And so Busey starts coming up in the corridor too, and he busey grabs d Wallace and pulls him away.

And, and, and Michael J. Fox keeps getting pulled upwards, and he ends up in heaven, and he is looking down, and Busey is like, ha ha, ha, we beat you, or whatever. And then. The,

then the tunnel turns into what I can really probably only describe as what like an endoscopy looks like

from the inside. Yeah. Like when they stick that little camera up your butt, that’s kinda what it turns into. Ah. And then these like hookworms come out of like. The intestine walls and grab Gary Busey and and D Wallace and pull them down to hell. Yeah. And the ghosts are frightening. Ghosts, the friendly ones who are in heaven, they’re like, oh, Michael J.

Fox, you know, you did good. Whatever, but it’s not your time. And they kick him back down to Earth and he wakes up and he is alive. And then it cuts to three weeks later, I don’t know, they’re Lucy and Frank are together and they’re tearing down his old house, I guess, because it, he was holding onto it because of his guilt or something.

I don’t know. It’s symbolic. Who cares? And they seem to be a happy couple. And then the sheriff. Shows up and delivers an epilogue at the end of which Michael J. Fox says, thanks for the epilogue shirt. Yeah, 

Todd: I was kind of glad he called that out because I was thinking, oh geez, not one of these again. And then he literally calls it out in the movie and I was like, oh, that was an interesting way to do that.

Clever. I thought 

Craig: it was clever that that cop I, I don’t know his name, he’s been in a million things. Oh yeah. He’s been in everything, and I always like seeing him. He’s always funny. He always plays kind of the friendly dopey guy, and he’s super funny. Troy Evans, I love him. And Lucy can see ghosts now because she’s been through a traumatic experience.

And then there’s a cover of Don’t Fear The Reaper, and I love that song. Me too. I just absolutely love that song. Me and I love every cover of it. And then it’s the end. Jeffrey Combs is a huge part of this movie. Oh my gosh. And as soon as I. Saw him, I was like, oh boy. Like, like he, I just love him. He’s so great.

And he’s the kind of actor that I love because he just goes for it every time. Yeah. Like he just dials it up to 11 every time. You can always count on him to just be out of the box. In this movie, he plays this weird, like Hitler obsessed psychologic. I, I don’t even remember P Paray Parapsychologists, something weird.

I 

Todd: think he’s an FBI agent who had been undercover with like satanic cults and things like that. And it just became, and 

Craig: he has this whole monologue at the end where he kind of reveals everything that he’s been through and it is disturbing. Yeah. Like he talks about how he was a sex slave for the Manson family for like six months 

Clip: or something like that.

Yeah. My body, his roadmap of pain. 1974 children of Lucifer, three years undercover drinking, gouts blood. 1981. I infiltrated the cult of the dead. I was involved in ritualistic cannibalism, in orgiastic dances, reaching. Painful thresholds of intense physical 

Todd: eroticism. It is wild. And it goes on for like three minutes.

Once again, I’m sitting here going and, and they expected this to be PG 13. Like what? It’s just the tone, you know, it’s very, like I said, like we said, it goes from wacky to really, really dark uhhuh, sometimes jarringly, so like this scene very jarring. Wasn’t expecting it, it was in keeping with his character.

So I’m not saying it just didn’t work, but I’m just saying, whoa, what a whiplash you get. And, and 

Craig: for this monologue, he rips open his shirt to reveal that he is covered in horrible scars. He has been carved into and burned and tattooed and like it, I mean, it’s just. It looks, it’s horrible Yeah. To look at as he’s delivering this monologue, and I think you know his part and, and, and he’s an antagonist.

He’s a, he’s a secondary antagonist. Yeah. Like he’s always just showing up to throw a wrench in the works. Like, oh, Jesus Christ, you again, like, get the fuck outta here. Like, we’ve got real things to worry about. Yeah. But he’s very frightening and menacing too. He’s a good part of the movie, but I think as is demonstrated in the way that we talked about it, you could have excised his part entirely, maybe shaved off 10, 15 minutes of the movie, and that might’ve worked better.

Now, I would’ve hated to lose him. But I do think that there are parts of this movie that could have been trimmed down, get it to a nice hour and a half. And I think that I would’ve enjoyed it more. Ultimately, I definitely a hundred percent recommend it. I do think that it is kind of forgotten and lost to time, and I don’t think that it should be.

I don’t think that I’ve ever seen Michael J. Fox, God bless him, looking more vibrant and healthy. 

Clip: Mm. 

Craig: Thank God that despite his health struggles, he’s still doing well. He’s still thriving. He has a wonderful family. He is still an American treasure. To see him at his absolute peak brings me a lot of joy and it’s a good movie.

You know, if you like Peter Jackson movies, you’re gonna see it. And I, like you said early on, this seems to be kind of a transition phase. I see Dead alive here. Yep. And I also see Lord of the Rings here. Yep. It’s, it’s, it’s a great middle ground and it’s fun and it’s worth your time. 

Todd: There are straight out callouts to Dead Alive.

There’s one scene, it’s very early on when the Afro Ghost, right walks, he’s talking and he walks straight into a lamp that’s hanging from the ceiling and his whole face is lit up. Like from the inside. So it’s like a gag, but it, that’s exactly what happens in Dead Alive with one of the zombies where it gets impaled on this light and it looks just like that, where it’s got this light bulb lighting it up from the inside of the head.

Yeah, dead Alive wasn’t far behind this movie. And you’re right. This is a big transition. And for me, it’s a big transition from not only that, but also Peter Jackson stretching out and him and Fran Walsh being like, you know what, we can make movies two plus hours long and 

Clip: Yeah. 

Todd: And never ending. That’s the part that where I start to tune out if a movie’s got too much action and not enough breaks.

I think, and I, I just, it’s like, like the Transformers movies. I just can’t watch ’em most action movies today. About halfway through, I’m already checked out because there’s just too much going on. And I felt that way a bit about this movie. I think that was the one thing, it was just, so much is crammed in here.

And I think you’re absolutely right that Jeffrey Combs character could have been excised from this movie. It would’ve been tighter. That would’ve been so much stuff that wouldn’t have had to happen, that didn’t even need to happen if he was out of it. I loved his character. I loved his performance just like you did.

But God, take that outta here. You would’ve shaved 20 minutes. 

Craig: Yeah. And 

Todd: it would’ve been so much better and it, 

Craig: it really wouldn’t have had any impact on the direct plot at 

Todd: all. No, not at all. And uh, and so, you know, I, I, this is why I don’t think I enjoyed King Kong as much as you did is because I felt like it was overstuffed.

It is just like taking the Hobbit and turning it into three long ass movies when it’s such a short, sweet book. I just feel this is also the transition from the Peter Jackson of. Of, I’m making my little movies to, I’m going to make the biggest, longest movies you’ve ever seen, and they’re gonna be filled with nonstop action.

So, you know, for that, I can see why the reviews have been mixed. I could see why maybe it didn’t go over so well, but yeah. I mean, it’s still a good movie. It’s still, yeah, it’s, there’s nothing wrong with it. There really isn’t no, nothing in there that isn’t earned. Nothing in there that’s out of place.

Nothing in there that isn’t foreshadowed in some way. Yeah. There are plot holes if you think about it too closely. So you really just, shouldn’t you just watch it? No. And like, like you’re strapping yourself into a roller coaster and just let it take you where it takes you and, and it’s fun. It is. It is nice.

We’ve still got one more coming your way and it is another. Oh, 

Clip: I’m so excited. Oh God. 

Todd: Should we even tease what it’s gonna be because it, no. Alright. Alright. We won’t. No, I want 

Clip: it to be a surprise. There 

Todd: is. I’m just realizing there is a through line for many of the movies you’ve picked for this month that I don’t even think you realized, but maybe not.

Oh no. We’re so excited about the next one. You guys are gonna enjoy it. We’ve purposely saved it for last. Alright guys, well thank you again for listening and, uh, once again, if you’ve been enjoying this horror comedy month and know a friend that, that loves horror comedies and would love to hear what we’re talking about, go ahead and send this podcast to them.

That’s the best thing you can do. Just help us spread the word so we can grow our listenership and keep us going. If you’re feeling even more generous, uh, go to patreon.com/chainsaw podcast. Get to the unedited versions of our podcast, as well as mini sos little mini reviews. We write up interviews with us and, uh, lots of little fun stuff.

We’ve got a book club going on there as well. We talk about every time. Go on patreon.com/chainsaw podcast. Five bucks a month gets you access to all that. Go to our brand Spank a new website. We’ve recently updated it just to look a little cooler and put things more in their proper place. Make it run a little faster.

That’s chainsaw horror.com. And as always, until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

In this episode of Two Guys in a Chainsaw, we dive into the hilarious and charming horror comedy ‘Parenting,’ a modern film currently available on HBO Max.

With a star-studded cast including Lisa Kudrow, Parker Posey, Edie Falco, and Brian Cox, the film balances humor and light horror elements in a story about a young gay couple introducing their parents.

From unexpected antics and quirky humor to touching emotional moments, we discuss it all. Join us for a fun-filled and insightful conversation about why this movie is a must-watch, even for those who are not typically horror fans!

Episode 440, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: We are doing a horror comedy, pretty modern. I think it came out this year on HBO Max, the Parenting with a whole bunch of stars in it. Craig, uh, you recommended this movie. Obviously I hadn’t seen it. 

Craig: I like doing new things and modern things, things that people are maybe talking about and interested in, even though I know that we get way more hits on the more.

Obscure films that we cover. I know, I know that’s true. Yeah. But I still like to do, you know, I, I, I like keeping up with the things that are coming out. I don’t have many people to talk to about these things except for you and like the patrons. So Alan doesn’t want to hear it, does he? No, I couldn’t even get him to watch this one with me.

I think I’ve, I’ve just come to the realization that Alan just doesn’t like watching movies. Like I think he’s become part of the younger generation who just doesn’t have the patience for them. Like, wow, if he can’t absorb the content in like 30 minutes, an hour max, I. He’s out. If I can convince him to watch a movie, we have to watch it in shifts.

Like we can’t sit and watch it from beginning to end. We have to watch like a half an hour at a time or an hour at a time. I was surprised that I couldn’t get him to watch this because it’s a, it is a comedy and I would say first and foremost it’s a comedy. Yeah, it’s definitely a horror movie too, for sure.

But it’s a comedy and it stars multiple people that we are huge fans of and. I’m just gonna get right out of the gate and say, I thought it was fucking hilarious and I am worried about how to talk about it because so much of the comedy comes from the combination of the writing and the delivery. Yeah.

Me trying to tell you why it’s funny is not going to do it justice. You’re just gonna have to take my word for it. And that’s our podcast folks.

I will try. I’ll, you know, both of us will try to, you know. Talk about the movie, but I don’t think I can do it justice. Maybe you can, I shouldn’t speak for you. Well, I 

Todd: mean, I’m just, I’m surprised that Alan didn’t wanna watch this or you couldn’t get him to watch it. ’cause it’s such a shame because, uh, it seems like it might be right up his alley.

’cause like you said, it is first and foremost a comedy. I mean, it feels like, like a sitcom almost. And like you said, all these stars. All of whom I really enjoy. Lisa Kudrow just has a way of delivering everything to make it sound hilarious. 

Craig: Lisa Kudrow is one of those, she’s one of those rare actors, and there’s a lot of them.

And I would argue that Parker Posey is what an oxymoron. I just said one of those rare actors that there’s a lot of, but Parker Posey is, is kind of like this too, in that Lisa Kudrow is always Lisa Kudrow. Yeah. But it’s always funny. Yeah. Like it just always works. I don’t know why. It’s just that she’s so quirky and so funny that she just works.

And so, and, and Parker Posey is much the same. Like Parker Posey will play more with, I’m watching White Lotus right now, which she’s in and she’s hilarious in that too. And she’s got this funny affected Southern accent. It’s hilarious. And she was great in all of those. Uh, I can’t think of the guy’s name, but all of those Guffman movies.

What’s his name? Oh yeah. Uh, Christopher Guest movies. Yeah, all those. Chris, she’s great. She’s hilarious. And she’s in this, and she’s hilarious in this too. And, and you’re right, I’m sorry. I’m talking too much. I’m just excited about this movie. Alan would love this movie. I’m going to make him watch it eventually because he would, yeah.

Because it’s really funny and it’s not that scary. 

Todd: It’s really not scary. I mean, it’s one of those movies that’s too much of a comedy to be scary at all, and it’s not trying to be, I think No, and you’re right. I think part of the reason why it works is I think these jokes were written for these people.

It’s the writer is, uh, Kent Sublet. He’s been a writer for Saturday Night Live for almost 20 years, and this is really the only film I think that he’s written. The director, Craig Johnson has done a bunch of stuff, but nothing. I think of note, I’d be pleading 

Craig: my ignorance here. He did a movie called The Skeleton.

Twins. Okay. With Kristen Wig and Stefan, I can’t think of his real name. Bill Hader. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it too had elements of comedy, but it was a dark comedy. But those two actors were absolutely phenomenal in it. And I love that movie. I highly recommend it. It’s not horror at all, but it’s, it’s really, really good.

So when I saw that he had done that. I was looking forward to it. I don’t know that I will necessarily have a lot to say about the direction. Right, because it’s, 

Todd: it’s, it’s really just directed like a, like a TV show or a sitcom or, I mean, it’s, there’s nothing particularly notable about it because it’s not really trying, it’s not a stylish movie.

No. It’s just a, it’s not trying to be, it’s just a, a comedy. Yeah. I think that. Oddly enough, this movie isn’t getting a lot of love. Pretty low rated on, on Rotten Tomatoes, and it seemed like people were just saying, oh, it’s not scary, or, I didn’t think it was that funny, or it was corny or something. I, I don’t know.

I don’t really get it. Maybe there were expectations going into it that weren’t fulfilled. Maybe people really wanted something scarier, gorier, or I guess, I don’t know, like, I don’t know what more you want from a. A comedy, you know what I mean? Like it, I, I think it works. 

Craig: Those types of reviews frustrate me because why are you criticizing something for something that it’s not trying to be like, appreciate it for what it is or not.

And if you genuinely don’t like it, that’s fine. I. Whatever. But if you’re saying it’s not scary enough, well, it’s not trying to be scary. That’s not the point. The horror elements in the movie, which there are and they’re well executed, but they’re there to service the comedy. It’s not the other way around.

Right. This is a movie where you place wacky, you know, cartoonish people. Yeah. The movie has been described as Meet the parents. In a haunted house. Yeah. And 

Clip: that’s what it 

Craig: is, a hundred percent. So you just, you take a comedy like that and you take these eccentric characters and, and put them together. And so there’s gonna be all of that business anyway.

And then throw in the haunted element. And so you have all of these comedic characters reacting to. A haunted house haunted, and it’s funny. Is it scary? No. Are the, the, the air quotes scary parts of it executed well. I certainly thought so. Yeah. 

Todd: They 

Craig: are, 

Todd: but, but they’re played for laughs. Yeah. Even the scary parts are played for laughs.

And also I think a lot of people were saying, oh, I never felt like emotionally connected, or those moments didn’t hit. I’m like, what do you, what do you want? Come on. This is not, there’s too much going on here. Uh, for this to become some deep, heartfelt moment anywhere in this movie. And, and you know, there’s a, there’s an attempt at it, there’s a little bit, but I don’t really think the movie’s terribly concerned with that either.

You know, I suppose when you compare it to meet with the parents, that is a comedy where at some point, you know, it kind of comes to a head and there’s deep emotion and the characters are really allowed to like. I dunno, get over these, these feelings or these difficulties with each other and there’s a catharsis and there’s an arc and all that.

I don’t think this movie was ever going that direction. I never expected it to go that direction. And so you can’t cram everything in, you know, you can’t have this wacky, screwball, horror comedy, you know, with this deep heartfelt thing and these characters that come together and, oh, I care so much for him and still have these, you know, SNL style jokes going and the scary, just, what do you expect?

It’s a light. Hearted comedy and I didn’t have high expectations for it, and I ended up laughing and enjoying it, and I thought it went to some interesting directions. I thought it did some kind of newish things. 

Craig: I agree with most everything that you said, except for I do think that this movie has. An emotional arc.

Um, oh, it does. It’s, 

Todd: it’s just, it’s just not, it’s, it’s a 

Craig: story deep. No, it’s not deep, but I still think it’s poignant. It is. It it, you know, it’s a, it’s a story about these, it’s the tale as old of time, as old as time, uh, of these two. People In this case, it happens to be a young gay couple, which I didn’t know going into it and I was really excited about.

Mm-hmm. It’s this young, good looking gay couple, Rowan and Josh and I, they’re both young, good looking guys. I don’t really know much about them, but they’re coming together. They, they’ve rented a house. So that they can introduce their parents to one another because Josh doesn’t know it at first. He finds out within the first 10 minutes of the movie.

But Rowan’s planning on proposing, so, you know, this is a meet the family kind of movie, which is cute. And it’s the classic thing where, I mean, it, it’s, it’s almost meet the parents. Exactly. Yeah. One family. Rowan’s family, his adoptive parents are very successful and like straight laced and clean cut and waspy, A little reserved.

Yeah. Dad doesn’t tell him he loves him. You know, that kind of thing. Right, right, right. And then Josh, his parents are, I wouldn’t go so far as to call them like hippies, but they’re just. More normal, I guess. You know, like I, I relate, I relate much more to them. They’re, they’re a little quirky, not even really that quirky.

No. They’re just kind of down to earth, not concerned as much as the other family. You get the picture, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re setting these families up to be kind of opposites. And what I think about the emotional arc of it is that Rowan’s family who thinks that they’re perfect because in appearance they are.

They’re really not. And Josh’s family who kind of looks like a mess really, when it comes down to it, as far as family is concerned, they’ve got it together so they learn from each other and, and in the end there is, I think, kind of an emotional catharsis where, I don’t know, I, I. I thought it was emotional.

Well, there, 

Todd: there is, don’t get me wrong. There’s that there, but, and I think maybe this gets to the heart of some of that criticism. It’s not a big gap. Unlike meet the parents, these, these are not cartoonishly opposite families. There’s not incredible conflict between them when they meet. They’re generally like normal-ish people where even though they’re different, they’re trying to get along and they more or less are.

And they’re apologizing to each other and they’re giving each other space. And so it’s not one of those crazy situations where these complete opposite families clash together and there’s all this ridiculousness that happens because of it. And I was fine with that. I didn’t need to see. That either.

Right? In fact, I think that would be more cliche. I, I thought it was kind of refreshing that, you know, this, this felt like a little more of a normalish situation where, look, I mean these parents, as opposite as they may be, they both have gay sons that they accept and clearly love. So I. There’s not any of this weirdness of, oh my gosh, he’s your boyfriend.

Oh my gosh, I’m, I’m not really cool with this, or any of that that you would normally see in a movie like this. I don’t know, 

Craig: man, 

Todd: that’s going for all that 

Craig: conflict. I don’t know. Maybe we come from very different perspectives, but I didn’t see it like that at all. This is the first time that Rowan has ever brought a boy home, and I think that he’s very nervous about it.

Well, he is, and I think that it has very much to do with the fact that he’s gay and. He’s concerned about how his parents, I mean, they know he’s gay obviously, but this is the first time that he’s ever presented them with a relationship, which is a big deal. And I, I think that there is unspoken tension between him and his father, especially.

Well, there’s that, um, he expresses the 

Todd: concern, but I didn’t really see that displayed on the, the screen in a. I mean, yeah, okay. There’s a little bit of uncomfortability, but it kind of gets overshadowed by jokes and situation, you know, after a point where it never seems like it’s a big issue that gets explored.

It seems more like a setup than anything else. I don’t, maybe, maybe I just didn’t see it, or maybe I just didn’t feel that at all when I was watching this. 

Craig: It, it could have just as easily been a straight relationship and the concerns intentions might have felt. Presented themselves. In a similar way, right?

I don’t know. Again, maybe it’s just, I don’t know. Maybe it’s my gayness, 

Todd: like I You’re hypersensitive or something. Well, no, 

Craig: I got it. Like, I, it, it, there’s gonna be that layer there of introducing your parents to somebody. Who you’re hoping to assimilate into your family. I mean, that’s right. But then the gay thing is just a whole other layer and, and, and there, there does seem to be his dad.

Not, not that his dad seems to be a bad guy, but he seems he’s, he’s reserved, he’s older. Like he’s older than my parents. He looks to be in his. Late sixties or seventies, so I’m sure you know he and the mom too. They come, the mom, by the way, is played by Edie Falco, who I, she’s known for The Sopranos, right?

Mm-hmm. For the most part, which I never watched. No, me neither. But she’s hilarious. She is so funny. Both her and her husband are the. Straight man. But she’s hilarious too. I guess the point I’m making is I don’t know what point I’m making. 

Todd: No, you’re you’re saying that it’s there. I mean, I’m not saying it’s not there.

I’m just saying I feel like it, it’s not a big part of the plot. Ultimately. It’s not, but it is. I mean, 

Craig: I, 

Todd: I, I, 

Craig: look, I, alright. ’cause the, the data eventually gets possessed. This is a haunted house movie. Yeah. And when the dad is possessed, the demon inside him starts hurling horrible, homophobic things. Yes.

At the boys. At first they don’t know he’s possessed. And then even after they know he’s possessed, I. That is something that troubles them. I don’t know. The son sometimes says things like, they, they talk. When they try to communicate with him, they’ll say like, I’m, I’m talking to the real you. I’m talking to the person inside.

Yes, I know you’re not, I know you’re not really saying these things, but I, I really just think that that tension. Is intentional and I, whatever we can get over it. Well, no, it’s fine. I 

Todd: just, I just feel like, and, and that moment in particular kind of deflates it right at the moment where he realizes they’re possessed and he says, I know this isn’t the real you.

I was like, oh, okay. You know, I felt that way. I’m like, if this son recognizes, or, you know, you could say he’s saying it in a hopeful manner, but. The way I took it. He was saying that realizing, oh, you’re demon possessed. And we know from movies that possess demons say ridiculous things to try to get us angry.

And so I, I feel like the movie kind of brushes that aside, gives an excuse for it. Look, I mean, again, I’m acknowledging there is a little bit of tension there. I’m just saying unlike a movie, like Meet the Parents, where that is the antagonizing. That’s the inciting incidents. All stem from this. That’s kind of a side thing, but.

The movie really isn’t about that. I think. I mean, it’s ostensibly trying to be a little bit about that. You know, obviously they do provide this character arc where eventually dad hugs and says, I should tell you, I love you more often. I really do accept you. Son says, I know Dad, thank you. They all love and embrace and everybody’s happy.

So it does go from awkwardness to that. But I don’t see that hill, that mountain that they climb as being that steep. I guess is what I’m trying to say. At least I didn’t feel like the movie presented it that way. It was way more concerned with k cracking some jokes that were not related to any of that and, you know, all this craziness with the possession and, and whatnot.

And I think maybe that is why some people criticize this movie is because they’re like, oh, I just didn’t feel that deep emotional connection. I didn’t feel that, you know, the characters were real enough for me to care about this predicament that they’re in. So that’s how I read it anyway, but it has, it, it, I mean, it’s sweet, it’s nice and it’s cute and that’s all it is as far as I’m concerned.

It’s sweet and it’s nice and it’s cute and it’s got this happy ending and everybody kind of changes a little 

Craig: bit and Right. I mean, it, it, it’s, it’s. Typical in that way. Yeah. I mean, it, it’s formulaic in that way. The, the, it’s not different in that way, I think. No, I, I think filmmakers are, are clever to take something that we are familiar with and throw a wrench in it.

Like in this case, you know, throw a haunted house in it. Throw a possession in it. Yeah. And. See how these people would respond and it’s very, very funny. There’s a cold open where we see this house and there’s this family and I don’t know, the teenage daughter won’t come out of her room for dinner or something and she’s got a brother 

Todd: mom’s preparing dinner.

I think this cold open really sets you up for the kind of movie this is gonna be because it is this very, very. Stereotypical 1983 house, right where it’s still coming outta the seventies. There’s wood paneling on the walls and brightness, and she’s watching the end of MASH on tv. Mom is cooking, but it’s also kind of cartoonish because she’s so styled and so perfect and everything is so properly in its place.

The thing that struck me about this more than anything else was the Catalina salad dressing. Did that mean anything to you? I mean, I remember it. It was good. This is one of those things, I’m like, whatever happened to that? Like somebody remind me of Catalina salad dressing. I’m like, oh yeah, that was like one of our three or four staples.

And I went, it’s, it was basically just ketchup. It’s totally gone. Yeah. It was like thinned out ketchup in a way. But I’m telling you. This is a secret that maybe if we ever become popular enough, this, this recipe’s gonna spread. If you want the best taco salad in your life, you just crush up. All right? So you take, you know, you chop up lettuce, you put the diced tomatoes in, you get like shredded cheddar cheese.

Throw that in there. You ground, you brown up some taco meat. You toss that in. You crush up nacho cheese Doritos and you throw that in and then you top it all off, alright? You need a big bowl of this with an entire thing of Catalina salad dressing. Mix it in there so you have like a super wet taco salad.

I’m telling you that combination works like you would not believe. You are welcome. Trust me on this one. Just try it sometime. There’s something about it that works and I only from this movie was I reminded that that recipe even existed, but that was a staple of our camp outs when I was growing up.

What’s even funnier 

Craig: is. I’m pretty sure you’ve told me about this before, like you are really passionate about this recipe. I guarantee you, anytime 

Todd: I’ve seen Catalina salad dressing, I have to evangelize a little bit. Oh gosh. Because nobody remembers 

Craig: it. I hope they still sell it in the cold open. All you see basically is this.

The, the mom knocks on this teenage girl’s door and she won’t come out and the wallpaper starts peeling behind her. Something weird is going on. She goes back downstairs, she’s in her kitchen. The pantry door opens and a demon arm reaches out and grabs her. And then a demon also takes the teenage son and the last.

You see is the teenage girl like scared, huddling in a corner, screaming as though the demon is about to take her to. Mm-hmm. So we got a haunted house. All right. Then we meet our couple and they’re so cute. Like Rowan is stiff, you know, he’s the product of his environment. He’s, he’s anxious, he’s concerned about appearances.

Josh on the other hand, is footloose and fancy free. He, he’s a musician. He’s recently quit his. Job. I think he was like a salesman or something, I don’t know. But he’s quit his job to be a musician, but he doesn’t really do much. He just kind of jams with his friends. And so it’s cute. I love these romantic stories where they’re very different, but, and, and there’s a little bit of, I.

Conflicts, you know, in their relationship, but it’s stuff that they’re willing to work with each other on because they love each other. Mm-hmm. That’s the biggest thing. You know, they may be different, they come from different backgrounds, but they love each other, and you can tell that it reads in the movie, it’s a Sweet romance, and I never felt that that was in jeopardy ever.

No. Mm-hmm. Right. I, I was concerned about the family dynamic and knew that that could potentially be, and, and that’s very real too. I mean, that’s real for anybody who’s in a relationship. You know, you, you, you marry into families and sometimes that works out really well and sometimes it doesn’t. Yeah. But they’re cute and they’re funny and, you know, they just have small talks so that we can get to know them and.

I don’t remember which of them is asking the other one, but one of them is like, okay, 

Clip: would you rather have a cat that can talk? Okay. But all I can say is, fuck it. So just walks around all day saying, fuck it all day. Fuck it. Or, or a cat with a human butt. Okay. Is it a sexy but like mine? No, it’s very saggy.

Ew. Well, can it wear pants? Just decide. ’cause it’s, it’s not really happening. So you said this cat, is it chill? Like, I’m down for whatever? Or is it more like, fuck. I don’t wanna live anymore. What is wrong with you? Did you take a gummy? I don’t even have any gummies. I’m just having fun. What’s that? 

Todd: That is the most random thing.

Oh my 

Craig: God. I think it’s hilarious. Like they talk about it for a while, like it’s, it’s just a funny way of establishing that they’re cute and fun and they have a good relationship. Okay, so then they get there and they’re met by the property manager Brenda, played by Parker Posey, who I have been a fan of.

Since the early nineties, she was in so many great indie movies in the nineties. She’s still working. She’s very eccentric, and she looks very eccentric. They comment on it. They’re like, is that a wig? Is that two wigs? Like she may be wearing two wigs. I don’t know. She’s, she’s very eccentric, but she tells them that there was a fire in the 1980s, and the family, she said the family didn’t live.

Oh, I mean. They couldn’t live here anymore, and she takes them in and she gives them a tour, and she’s like, I don’t know. I, I just wrote down all these lines just out of context. They don’t even make any sense, but I just, she’s like. She offers them refreshments. She’s like, wine in a meats stick. Yum. Like it’s just, it’s so silly.

The silliest stuff and the wifi password. She gives ’em the wifi password and says, this is gonna be really important. And I feel like one of them starts to read it off and there’s a noise like, yes, a thump in the background or something. Real anxious to get out. Yeah. And she’s anxious to get out. She tells ’em Good luck with the parents.

There’s a short scene that I guess is important because Rowan calls his friend. Sarah, there was a term for these women that we used to use when I was in college, but it doesn’t seem very nice anymore, so I’m not gonna say it. I’m just gonna say straight. Women who are really close friends. With gay men, right?

She’s one of those women and he’s nervous and she tells him not to propose. I don’t remember why. Well, 

Todd: it is a bit of a tall order, right? Like he’s bringing this guy home to introduce him for the first time, and he’s also gonna propose right there in front of all of ’em. I mean, it’s kind of a dumb idea, really.

Craig: Oh, I thought it was romantic. 

Todd: Uh, I don’t know if you’re a little concerned that your parents are gonna be accepting, you might wanna take things a little bit slower, I 

Craig: guess. I mean, you, 

Todd: you can always 

Craig: abort. Like if things aren’t going well, you can, again, that’s why I didn’t really believe it too much.

You know what I mean? Fine. The, the only other funny thing before the parents arrive, they go outside. I don’t remember why. They find Brenda clearly drawing a circle in the dirt around the house, and I don’t even remember what excuse she gives. Does she say she’s like sweeping or something, like it’s just a big measuring for a sprinkler system and she’s like, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Yep. Five, yeah. 

Todd: Units. Oh God. I love these horror comedies where they, you know, they do these obvious, like goofy setups and little hints that something’s not right, that the characters are oblivious to 

Craig: it. The comedy comes from the fact that we know we’re watching a horror movie, but they don’t, like if you were in their shoes, like if that were me and Al, I’d be like, what the fuck is she doing?

She’s weird. But, but I, I certainly wouldn’t think she was drawing a. Spell circle around the house, right? I don’t know, whatever. Sarah accidentally, I think she was trying to text Rowan, but she accidentally texts Josh about the proposal and it’s so obvious that she can’t even get out of it. So now he knows and he’s excited about it, but he’s, you know, keeping the secret or whatever, and then the parents show up

and you know, all of this is really just set up for establishing tension. Then introducing the haunted house stuff. And like I said, I can tell you what happens, but I can’t do it justice. The humor is in the dialogue and in the interaction. Right? So just explaining what happens. Does it know justice at all?

Justice at all? Honestly, I mean, you’re already. A half an hour in, and we’ve barely gotten started talking about the plot, but if you’re really interested in watching this movie, just watch it first and come back to us. Yeah, because I think that that will be a better experience. This isn’t going to do a lot for you, but his parents are Sharon, played by Edie Falco, who is hilarious.

Again, she plays the straight laced hard ass. Matriarch of this family, but she’s so funny in the way that she does it and, and the dad. Is Frank Play played by Brian Cox? I don’t know. Do you know him from stuff? Like, he’s obviously been around forever. I recognize him, 

Todd: but Oh yeah, he is been in a million things.

I mean, he was in, I don’t know, man, like he’s been acting since the seventies and he’s got parts and everything. Long kiss, goodnight glimmer, man. Yeah, just for the love of the game. He’s been in a ton of stuff. Yeah. All of them have been in a ton of stuff. Oh. Brian Cox, man, he was in trick Our treat. He was the old guy, Mr.

Krieg, who has to battle the Oh, San Sand him, the, the, the, the little guy. 

Craig: Oh gosh. He looks different than that. Uh, I don’t 

Todd: know when you think about it. Not too different. 

Craig: No, I don’t know. He’s 

Todd: got hair. He’s got more 

Craig: hair in that room again. Yeah. I, I, I believe you because I’ve seen him in a million things.

He’s very familiar as are Josh’s parents. His mom, Liddy, and there’s a, God, there’s a hilarious joke like when. The mothers are introduced. Sharon Rowan’s mom, like can’t wrap her head around Liddy’s name, like she just can’t get it. 

Clip: Hi, we are Sharon and Frank Liddy. Hi, Libby. Uh, no, it’s, it’s Liddy like lid of ajar.

It’s uh, short for Lydia. It’s actually short for Elizabeth. Uh, wouldn’t that be Libby? Well, it could be, but uh, I’m Liddy. So like the canned vegetables that’s Libby’s. Call it whatever you want. I’m Cliff, like the, uh, rock that you fall off, break your neck and die. 

Craig: They kind of clash immediately, like their personalities are just so opposite.

And Lisa Kudrow, I love, I, I’ve already mentioned, you know, I’ve talked about her already, but of course from friends, but she’s done a lot of film work. One of the most impressive things I’ve seen her in, I, I won’t be able to remember the name of the movie, but it was about. John Holmes and the murders that he was involved with.

Oh, tangentially. And, and she played his wife, John Holmes was married before he got into porn and then got into porn while he was still married. Lisa Kudrow played his wife and, and it was a dramatic role. And she was still Lisa Kudrow, but if you wanna see her in kind of something different, I was very impressed with her performance.

Oh. And like I said, they are just, they’re my people. Yeah. They’re quirky. They’re down to earth. They’re funny. I don’t know. They seem very normal to me, but as compared to the other parents, they’re a little bit wacky. Hmm. They’re, they’re wacky in the way that she shows up with a dish. Like she brought food and she’s like, here, I made my crazy noodles.

Todd: The crazy noodles. 

Craig: I know this woman, I’m friends with this woman. Yeah. This is not eccentric to me. These are the people that I hang out with Uhhuh and, and they brought with them three little dogs that aren’t even their dogs, like she’s. Dog sitting for somebody, and she’s like, her son’s like, well, what are their names?

She’s like, ow. I don’t know. Frick Frack. And I know,

Todd: and she’s just funny like that. I thought it was God. It was very smart. Later on, it becomes kind of obvious why these dogs, they don’t belong to them, because there isn’t that emotional aspect of bad things happening to these dogs that the characters care about. Ultimately right now. 

Craig: It’s funny, they’re comic relief.

It’s hilarious. Yeah, it keeps it light. Yeah. Yeah, it keeps it light. But then, okay, so now they’re all there and we see somebody. I mean, who’s it gonna be? It’s Brenda, obviously. We see a hand shaking a snow globe with the, uh, house inside and, and stirring up the snow, and it immediately starts snowing.

There at the house. Mm-hmm. There’s a lot of family stuff that goes on, like Liddy accidentally spills the beans that Josh has lost his job and, and says that, you know, he’s a songwriter and she encourages him to sing, which he does, which is. So cringey like I actually really enjoy just the comedy parts.

Like there are so many parts of this movie, especially up till now, where really nothing scary has been introduced, and I am still a hundred percent into this movie. I would’ve watched this movie if it weren’t a horror movie. Yeah. If you took that element out and it was just this family comedy, I still would’ve enjoyed it.

It’s not like I was invested in the characters in an emotional way, but I believed them and, and I believed their circumstances. I understood Rowan’s. Anxiety about how his parents were gonna react, not only to Josh, but to his family. I, I felt that emotional investment, but the reason that I brought that up is because a lot of stuff happens.

That’s just, I. Family interaction. My favorite one is when Josh and Rowan are not arguing but disagreeing with how to deal with their parents or whatever. And Rowan says something like, well, whatever you do, don’t just bring up my mom’s pussy again. And Josh is like, oh my God, I can’t believe I did that.

And then he opens the door and it’s a bathroom door and Rowan’s mother is sitting. Spread eagle off the toilet just staring at me. And they all just, they all just stare at each other for a second. And finally Josh was like, oh, I’m sorry. And closes the door. It’s just that funny thing, like, I don’t even remember what Josh says at that point.

Like I. What am I gonna do about it? I don’t know. He tries to bring it up again later and she just pretends, she’s like, I don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s like, I’m sorry about what happened. She’s like, whatcha talking about? He’s like, you know, upstairs. Like, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

She’s just to ignore it. Silly little things like that to establish family dynamics. 

Todd: Yeah. Well, I guess what, what really basically happens now that all this is established is they’re getting on the wifi and the father reads the wifi password out loud because it’s kind of odd. It’s, it’s like three Latin words.

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: And that is the trick. That is the trick that she had. Because you have to say these words, what, which in English mean? I welcome you into me or something like that. Mm-hmm. And that’s the thing. Take me something like that. Yeah. And that’s the thing that brings the demon out and possesses Rohan’s dad.

And so now he is possessed and Hijinx and Sue. 

Craig: Yeah. They have a dinner, which is really funny. Josh, because he’s anxious, takes three gummies, which. That’s a lot. So he’s, he’s baked anyway, and they’re having this kind of awkward dinner. He sings again, which I thought was gonna be awkward, but then inexplicably, all of the parents join in, which was silly, but kind of cute.

But then Josh, I think, says the password again for some reason. And he’s been feeding Kate the dog under the table, but he reaches down to feed her something and a hand grabs him and he freaks out. Now, mind you, he is stoned and they don’t know they, they can’t figure out what’s going on. But it’s still at that dinner, isn’t it?

It’s, it’s at this dinner, isn’t it? That the Rowan’s dad slices Josh’s. Yeah, with a knife 

Todd: twice. He just reaches out and cuts his arm just very, very quickly and does it twice. And like, what the hell dad? And you know, he runs off and dad’s kind of confused, right? He’s a little like, uh, he is not fully possessed yet.

He’s kind of coming in and out of the possession. He is like, I don’t know what, what’s going on? And. They’re awfully forgiving. 

Craig: Well, they are. Like I, I think Sharon, the mom kind of ushers him away and says he’s not feeling well or something, and that kind of ends the dinner. And, you know, they fix, they want to get Josh to a hospital, but they, the snow has blocked the roads and they can’t get a plow out there.

So Sarah shows up at some point. I don’t remember when it is. Maybe it’s this night, I don’t know, but they go off their separate ways and Rowan’s parents talk and, and Sharon says something about Josh, like she doesn’t like him. She’s been pretty cold to him throughout so far. And she says, yes, Josh is attractive.

But is that it? Honestly, like I don’t have kids, but I understand. Where parents come from, you know, you want the best for your kids. Yeah. And, and here, you know, Josh is a very good looking guy. He’s very charming, but you know, he, he, he, he’s not working. He’s a little flighty. I, I, I understand where the hesitation comes from, but I.

Ultimately, and I think that this is what you are supposed to learn from these movies is that you have to just trust your kids. Yeah. There’s nothing you can do about it. If they Yeah. And if they love somebody, like you just have to do your best to love them too. And if it works out great and if it doesn’t, whatever, that’s gonna have to be their mistake.

Yeah. Like you can’t. Try to control. You can’t fix these things for your kids. Yeah, yeah. Trying to control it is not gonna work out. There’s a big gag that goes on for like five minutes where there’s a lot of banging in the night and it kind of sounds like sex banging, but it’s the gag is that it, you know, starts on one couple laying in bed and they’re like, oh my God.

Like, I can’t believe they’re, I don’t even remember who it starts with, but the gag is that it goes through every couple and it’s none of them. Yeah, it’s. Like a zombie girl beating her head against the wall right in the hallway, but none of them know that. And then they all get up in the morning and I think maybe Sarah came in the night.

I don’t know. Then Frank gets he, he goes down, I guess he’s having wifi problems, so he goes down to the router and says the word and gets totally possessed. Wow. 

Todd: By the way, for an older guy, Frank is really techie. Yeah. I, I don’t, I don’t know many people his age who would like, oh, let me find the wifi router and see if I can fix this.

Craig: Yeah. And, and I’m looking at my notes and I was conflating, there were two dinners, you know. Oh, right, right. All of this stuff, this is, this is act, it’s actually the second dinner when he cuts the, the guy, and then this is where. Things start to go more off the rails. After he cuts him twice, he yells like supernaturally loudly.

Like, I feel like the, the movie shows us like sound waves, right? And it’s, it’s so loud that it causes a cabinet to fall over and kill one of the little dogs, which, you know, I hate violence against dogs in movies, but when you play it for comedy, and I like, I thought it was so. Funny. They’re like, oh no.

Bad things happen to these dogs. What? One of the dogs gets possessed? When does that happen? I don’t remember. It does. One of them gets possessed and it’s funny. Um, but the next thing that I have in my notes after the little dog gets killed is Frank comes out naked and hard

and. People, like everybody’s kind of upset and this is where it starts. He’s like, he says to the boys, what are you crying about? Now you’re queers like, and, and then from that point on, it’s just a barrage of don’t touch me, you chocolate munch and poof. And it’s so funny. 

Todd: It is 

Craig: after all that Frank Pukes all over and the dog, one of the other dogs, eats the barf.

And that’s what turns it evil. 

Todd: That’s it. He pugs up all that, all that crazy, crazy noodles to which the mom’s like crazy noodles. I just made, I mean, I just made a, a small bowl of it. It just kept coming. Yeah. And coming and coming. I kind of want crazy noodles now. It’s just like every pasta she had in the pantry just, uh, cooked up together and tossed together.

Yeah, it 

Craig: looks like a mess again. Throughout all of this, there is dialogue that is so funny. Lisa Kudrow everything she says. Is funny and, and I like you said, whether, I don’t know if it was written with these people in mind. Oh, I sure. It either had to be that or they allowed them to play. That could be, um, yeah, it could just be good writing.

Like you said, this guy wrote for SNL, so it could just be good writing delivered. Well, but I have a feeling that there was some collaboration probably. I don’t know. It’s just, it’s, it’s, it’s so funny. I don’t know Frank at some point, like he’s acting very ill. You know, he’s not, well, he’s not himself. He’s, he’s feverish, he’s sweaty.

He keeps saying to his wife, who is legitimately concerned about him, he keeps saying he’s okay. But we see, I. Like demon writing on his back. Right. That says, I’m not okay. He’s in his bed and the demon tau taunts him, like the demon appears to him as kind of a demonic form of himself. Yep. And, and taunts him and tells him that he’s going to eat his entire family and then, then he’s gonna die.

And, and, and these horror elements are silly, but they’re treated, I don’t know how to, I don’t know how to explain it. I mean, they’re played 

Todd: straight, but. You don’t really take them seriously, 

Craig: I guess, but he, the demon version of him looks scary. Yeah. Like it doesn’t look comical. No. Like you could take that look and put it in a more straightforward horror movie and it would still look good.

Todd: Yeah. But be scary. Exactly. Right. 

Craig: And, and the, the effects, like most of the effects, some of them are goofy. Like when the, the dog eats the barf, like its eyes flash red, that’s corny. Mm-hmm. And then that dog just randomly shows up at some other time later to attack Lisa Curo. And it’s, it’s a funny, you know, scary dog puppet attached to her arm and she’s like shaking it around.

I love that bit. ’cause then he 

Todd: grabs. Because then, uh, oh, by the way, I absolutely love, uh, Dean. What’s his name? Dean Norris. E Norris. Yeah. Dean Norris is so great. I, he’s just like the kinda like overly chatty neighbor, kind of easygoing dude, but like, you know, basically the dude from breaking bat. Yeah.

Yeah. And uh, I just love him and he just comes in and he grabs the DA dog and just starts bashing it with a hammer. You don’t do that to my wife. You don’t do 

Clip: that to my wife 

Todd: and nobody cares. They’re like, all right, well, we took care of that. And they chuck it in the, in the washing machine or the dish washer.

Again, that kept the movie light. The dog didn’t belong to anybody, so nobody’s like really heartbroken, no emotion when all these emotional mistakes, terrible things happen to this dog. But then at the end of the movie, like they had to get a little seen of after everything is all right again, that I. Door pops open and the dog comes out.

Unharmed. 

Craig: Uhhuh. I was like, okay. I thought I was actually kind of cute. It was cute because everything ultimately does work out in the end talking about him, the dad, that dad, I don’t even remember at what point it comes. I think at some point, at some point when the craziness has began, you know, of course Sharon is struggling because her husband is possessed and she doesn’t know what to do.

She and Liddy have a lovely exchange. Before I get to that. At some point the dad Cliff sits down with his son Josh and just has a warm heart to heart with him where he just tells him that he loves him. And I don’t even remember in what context, but it’s really sweet and it sets up that’s, you know, his family may be quirky.

Whatever, but they just love each other and they know that, and they tell each other that, and they’re there for each other no matter what. The dad makes that clear no matter what happens. You know, I, I, I don’t remember if he says that, but that’s, that’s clear. On the other hand, the other family, I. It seems like Rowan’s anxiety stems from the fact that he doesn’t know that his family will be okay with it.

Yeah. And that they will accept it no matter what. And I think that that’s where the arc comes in. Of course, you know, Rowan’s family, that’s the lesson that they learn that they, I. Do need to, you know, accept him and accept Josh and accept the family and everything. That’s where it goes. But they both have to get there.

And I think it’s really sweet and cute that the, the two dads never have a heart to heart because the one dad is possessed by a demon. But the two moms do, they sit down and they have a heart to heart, and they talk about worrying about their sons. But I think that Lisa Kudrow, you know, says something, I don’t remember what she says.

Mm-hmm. I just remember that the message is, you know, I, I love Josh and. Whatever he wants to do, you know, I, I support that and eventually Sharon figures it out too. And they, the families work through all of this together. The dad becomes full out demon and they lock him in a room. There’s also a couple of zombies.

I don’t know, were those zombies or ghosts? I guess they were ghosts, right? 

Todd: Um, I guess, yeah. They were ghosts. You mean that girl with the face? That’s, that’s the, 

Craig: with no face. With no face. I think she’s the daughter, both of them. She is. Okay. So all of this stuff is going on. My other favorite joke, and I don’t remember, Josh goes to try to talk to Frank, the possessed one.

Mm-hmm. And he’s trying to, like, he’s trying to talk to the real frank and he’s trying to talk, tell him like, you know, I, I really love your son and all of this stuff. And he says, he says something like, I love your son. He is a great guy, but there’s just one problem. And the dad says something like. Is it his dick?

Is it too small? Is it too small for your butt? And then, oh my God, I was died laughing. He’s like, 

Todd: no, Frank, the dick is fine. And he is like, I don’t know, I’m looking down at the dads. And if it’s anything like this, it’s too small. Too small for your butt. 

Craig: Oh God. So funny. So anyway, whatever that happens.

Eventually the boys, the couple, they see a light outside and they realize that there’s like a, a guest house or, or something. And so they go down there and they find Deborah in there. Deborah just tells them like very nonchalantly the whole story that she was best friends with the teenage girl who lived in that house.

They were a very normal family. She was into the occult when the teenage girl who lived there, I think her name was Jamie or something, I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter when her mother. Didn’t want her hanging out with Brenda anymore. She and Brenda conspired on how they would get back at the parents or whatever.

And Brenda’s like, I knew we, we could summon a demon. Yeah. So they do. So now we find out that that’s what was happening in, in that cold open. When the mom was banging on the girl’s door, what was going on on the other side of the door was Ali. The teenage girl and Brenda were summoning a demon. Yeah. And they did, they had placed a protective circle around themselves when they summoned the demon, but obviously the, the family was outside of that circle and the demon killed the mom and it killed the brother.

And then when. Ally was like, wait a second. I just wanted to scare them. And Brenda, she was like, uh, I don’t know you. They seem pretty scared to me.

Uh, ally gets scared and she runs out of the circle, and then she got killed too. So now Brenda, apparently, I guess all of this time, has been plotting away to get a human host to this house so that she could free the demon into the world. Yes. Why? I don’t know. I still 

Todd: don’t understand this. What was, why was she trying to do this?

Craig: I don’t know. I think she’s just like crazy, crazy. She’s just evil. Yeah. And she wanted to summon a demon. I thought she was. Why? Why she had to wait 18 years, like a, does she own this house? And if so, how? B, why did she wait 18 years to turn it into like a bed and b and b or whatever? 

Todd: Because they’re the first ones.

She’s like, oh, I thought it was gonna take forever, but you, you know, just lucked out on the first try. Okay, so this isn’t a thing you’ve been trying for a long time. It just didn’t make any sense. 

Craig: And who cares? I mean, yeah, it doesn’t matter. Whatever. And so that’s what’s happening. She says she’s going to the bathroom and while she’s in the bathroom, they’re like, um, well, I guess we have to.

Kill her if she’s the one that’s gonna bring the demon. And they eventually, she takes a long time and they open the bathroom door and she’s gone. And she’s back up at the house. She’s back up at the house. Now the snow has completely disappeared. They were in like feet and feet of snow. Now it’s completely gone.

And Parker Posey is standing outside the house in this crazy like priestess garb. Her hair is all wild as crazy. She looks hilarious. She’s chanting. And the circle around the house catches fire at some point. I don’t know. Yeah. 

Todd: Uh, the thing is something like about the demon will be free when it leaves the circle.

Was that the whole thing? Right, right. She’s trying to get the, 

Craig: the demon outside of the circle and, and so, so Frank comes out, he bursts out of the room that they had him in, and he’s, he’s slow marching towards the edge of the circle and ro they have this demonology book, I guess whatever Rowan’s looking in it.

And he finds out that those ghosts in the house were not trying to scare them all along. They were really just trying to help. But he said something like, yeah, that. Was not clear. 

Clip: Right. That was really funny. 

Todd: Which is hilarious. ’cause that also gets me to, you know, everything I think about ultimately with these haunted house ghost stories.

You know, these ghosts that come back and scare everybody, but really they’re asking for help. Like, why don’t you guys just try not being scary, you know? 

Craig: Right. Get a pen and a piece of paper and write it down. Right. But this is the big end. And Rowan learns from the Demonology book very quickly. He, he, he, he says to possessed Frank, like, Hey, you don’t want this body, it’s old.

You know, I’m young and I can be more powerful, and how are you gonna take over the world? And that old gross body or whatever. Mm-hmm. And he says, the chant and the demon starts to come out of his dad and go into him. Now, before he did that, he. Said to Josh something like, I love you. You know, I’m, I hope you’ll understand that I have to do this.

And so now the demon’s going into him. So now Josh goes up and he starts saying the chant too. So I don’t know. How would you describe it? It’s like, it’s not smoke, but it’s like the essence of the demon. Yeah. It’s like coming out of Frank’s mouth and like going into now both Rowan and Josh’s mouths.

Mm-hmm. Then somebody else, I don’t remember if it’s Sharon or Liddy, somebody else steps in too. And what it all comes down to is that everybody in the family, including the friend, you know, the Sarah, the friend, they all come in and in all of them taking in part of it, it confused, weakens it and kills it.

Yeah. Confuses and weakens and kills it. It’s, it’s silly, but it’s fresh. I thought it 

Todd: was kind of cool. I did really wonder how I liked it, how they were gonna figure all this out and I thought that was cool. Yeah, it’s just floating around in there and between them all, can’t, can’t, can’t go from one body to the other.

And finally is just isolated and it takes its true form of a bird, like a big bird demon thing, which we saw in the book. And Frank is, that was his name comes up and stomps on him. It says, my dick is big 

Craig: stops on my dick. That was funny. Meanwhile, Brenda is freaking out and she’s like, you killed him. He was supposed to come out of the circle and Lisa Kudrow says, we made our own circle, bitch.

Oh. Oh, I’m, I’m sorry. That’s, that’s not me. That’s not me. I don’t say it. That’s like her running gag.

Oh God. It’s, she says it several times. It’s so funny. Yeah, and then they all hug and everybody loves each other. And Frank says to Rowan, I love you and I. And Rowan says, I know. And he says, no, no you don’t. How could you know? Because I don’t tell you. How could you know if I don’t tell you? And like it’s all very kumbaya.

But it’s also I again, you know, it’s that type of movie. It’s supposed to. Yeah, these people are supposed to come together. They’re supposed to learn the air of their waste. They’re supposed to be happy family at the end. And I found it. Very satisfying on that emotional family level. I also just found it to be a very funny movie.

The the very la I think the last line is Parker. Posey says, 

Clip: I am beat. So I’m gonna scram check out. Set 11. You’re going to jail. You psychopath write a review. I have a review. Suck my dick. Sorry, that’s, I’m not myself this weekend,

Craig: and I wish that I could do a better Lisa Kudrow impersonation because she’s hilarious. But you’re gonna have to watch it and I a hundred percent, a hundred percent recommend it. Watch this with friends. Yeah, 

Todd: I recommend it as a comedy. It’s just a comedy. 

Craig: And I think even your friends who aren’t necessarily horror fans will like this movie because the emphasis is on the comedy.

Yeah. The horror elements are there, but it’s in such a silly context that it’s not scary at all and it’s not gross and gory. So you know, pretty much anybody coming? Not really. There’s some barfing, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh gosh. I, I was looking forward to it because I, you know, Lisa Kudrow and Parker Posey were enough to sell me.

Mm. They did a movie together too in the nineties, clock Watchers, which is an interesting dark comedy also that I would recommend. That was enough to sell me on it, and I knew, you know, I recognized the other actors. I knew that they were, you know, good actors. So I was, I was looking forward to it, and to say that I was pleasantly surprised wouldn’t even be.

True. I, I, I expected to like it, and I did. I, I liked it very much and I would recommend it to just about anybody. 

Todd: Yeah, I echo that. I, I liked it a lot. It was just fun. It was light. Nothing deep. Nothing’s super scary, but clever and cute and I don’t know why it would get any hate at all, honestly. So, uh, yeah.

I feel the same way You do. Highly recommend. Well, thank you so much for joining us for today’s episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us online. Just Google Two guys in a chainsaw podcast. Uh, you’ll find our website, which has been recently refreshed. There’s a link on there for you to click through to all of our back episodes.

You can leave. Comments, you can click the talk to us button and uh, chat with us directly. That basically allows you to record a quick up to 92nd MV three file that immediately gets sent to us. You don’t need to solve special software. Log into anything to do that, and we will definitely play it here on the episode and a respond to you.

We also have a Patreon patreon.com/chainsaw podcast. Go on over there and that for just five bucks a month. Um, join the inner circle. Until next time. I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Revisiting ‘Haunted Honeymoon’: A Charming Throwback with Gene Wilder & Gilda Radner

In this episode of ‘Two Guides and a Chainsaw,’ we dive into the 1986 horror comedy ‘Haunted Honeymoon,’ starring the legendary Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner. Join us as we celebrate week two of our horror comedy month with Craig’s excellent movie choice. We reminisce about this nostalgic film, blending comedy, mystery, and light horror elements.

We discuss the film’s plot, standout performances, particularly by Dom DeLuise in drag, and the heartwarming chemistry between the real-life couple, Wilder and Radner.

Tune in for an entertaining discussion filled with laughs, insights, and our shared love for this joyful, family-friendly movie.

Haunted Honeymoon (1986)

Episode 439, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: We are week two into our month of horror comedies, brought to you by Craig. You chose all of these and uh, I have to say, I’m really happy with your choices. They wouldn’t have probably been the ones that I chose, but having chosen them, now that I’m looking at them, I’m like, I don’t know if I could have done a better job because I like going back to things that I haven’t seen in a while.

Mm-hmm. Or bringing to light stuff that might be a little forgotten or unknown. And I feel like this one just screamed out. From my past. The one that we’re doing today is Haunted Honeymoon. That’s starring Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner. And God, I remember very distinctly watching this movie. My dad rented it for us.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t see it in the theater. ’cause 1986 

Craig: you probably didn’t beget it had a, it had a super limited run. It bombed. Oh yeah. Bad it, it was only in theaters for 

Todd: like a week. That’s right. I remember watching it with my parents and it must have been at home and I remembered enjoying it, but thinking it was a bit odd because it.

It had this story within a story aspect to it, and also there was this mystery, and at the time I was really, I’ve always been kind of fascinated with radio and the old timey stuff, and because this is takes place, it is a period piece, right? It takes place during the, you’d say like the forties or whatever I suppose.

Thirties, forties. Yeah. Thirties, forties. Yeah. And is about these two people hosting a radio show. And I just remember, especially this moment in the middle of the movie where you think all these scary things are happening, but then outside the window there’s somebody shaking a thing that makes it. Like lightning thunder, the thunder sound type thing.

Yeah. Like shaking a metal big metal plate. Yeah. Yeah. Which now that I’ve watched the movie, I realized that’s kind of a false memory. Yeah. There is a guy who shakes a big metal plate for thunder sound, but it’s not outside the window in the middle. I. But the idea is the same anyway. Uh, yeah. And I, I haven’t seen it since, I guess probably 1986 when I was a kid, so I was really excited to come back to it.

So what made you decide to choose this movie? Man, 

Craig: I don’t know. This is, I think this is probably one of those movies from my. Childhood that I really liked, but I thought, I don’t know if we can really do it on the podcast, but we can. And I don’t know why I ever felt that way. First of all, we can do whatever we want, I guess.

Secondly, one of the few spaces in our lives where we have ultimate control, 

Todd: we should 

Clip: take 

Todd: advantage. 

Craig: Secondly, if it’s not a horror movie, which is a fair. Argument. It’s at least like a parody of a horror movie, which I think is fair game. Like, yeah, we’ve done Scream, I mean, scream’s kind of a, I don’t know if, if we were to do scary movie, I wouldn’t think that was out of bounds, and I don’t think this is either.

Plus I just. Love it. I mean, that’s, that’s why I picked it. This is kind of like I said, one of those that I’ve wanted to do forever and have just hesitated bringing up. ’cause I didn’t know if it really fit, but I love everything about it. I, I don’t even know where to begin it. It blows me away that it was.

So critically panned and it wasn’t successful at all because this movie is like, it’s just so joyful to me. Like I’m sitting here right now with the biggest smile on my face. It’s charming, it’s sweet. It’s. Innocent. It’s like, it, it’s fun. It, it does so much fun stuff with these old school horror movie tropes.

I love the whole radio show thing. It’s not really so much that they’re hosting a radio show. They are the stars of one of those. 1930s Radio serials. Yeah. Which I, I’ve never really listened to, and you and I have talked about this before. I know that you have kind of listened to some of those. Oh yeah.

But this movie has always made me. Fascinated about those. And, you know, this is Hollywood, so I don’t know how real it is, but I feel like I get a little peek behind the scenes of these people putting this thing together in the moment, all with, you know, practical sound effects and people doing different voices and, and they’re all just in, you know, one room in a recording studio.

But as the movie illustrates, they can tell a really vivid story. Uh, I just think the whole thing is so cool. 

Todd: Yeah. Well, I’ll, I’d kind of like to address a few of the things that you mentioned. I mean, number one, why did this movie do so poorly in the eighties? And I think if I can put myself back in the sensibility of where we were with movies, I think it’s probably just ’cause it was in the eighties.

I wanna say that now we are a lot more open, I think, to different kinds of movies, to people being a little playful with genre to movies that sort of subvert our expectations and, and mashed things up a little bit. But that’s not entirely true because the seventies were a big time period for film where there was a lot of this kind of experimentation going on, arguably way more than than today.

But I just think there was this period of time between the eighties and nineties where things started to kind of. Fall into neat little boxes, especially in the eighties. I mean, the eighties to me, at least in my recollection, but maybe I’m bi. Maybe it’s just my own personal experience. Were all about, it was an action movie or it was a like a war movie, like a Schwarzenegger type thing, or it’s a screwball comedy, or it’s like a big kind of blockbuster spielbergian type adventure movie.

Mm-hmm. Or it’s like a horror slasher, Freddie, or something like that. I mean. Maybe those four or five things, and anything that was too far outside of that, or even worse, really was too close to any of them at once. People didn’t know what to do with, you’d see a movie being advertised as a, as a comedy, but then you’d go in and you’d be like, Ooh, this comedy’s got a dark edge to it.

People would be a little, maybe a little more critical to it because it didn’t, it didn’t fit what they were expecting. Like marketing was really important. There’s really only one way to market things. That’s through the trailer. I mean, now, you know, think about it. God, now that I’m really thinking about it, you will know so much about a film before you ever go to see it.

Yeah. You might not have even seen the trailer, but you will know the development history and who starred in it and who almost starred it, and how many directors they went through, and how many rewrites it had and has it been in development hell for 10 years or whatever. All we knew about in the eighties was we saw this trailer on television and however that presented the film.

That was the film we expected to go see. So if it deviated from that at all, and films like this are really hard to pin down. Yeah. That way. You know, I can see why it probably just disappoint a lot of people who didn’t know what they were getting into. That is a long way of explaining it. But maybe, yeah, 

Craig: I, I can imagine, I think even today, this movie might be a little hard to market, but especially in the eighties.

Well, and, and maybe today too. Maybe, maybe people would react to it the same. I just feel like at that time there was so much focus on. I don’t know if this is a word. Modernity. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Like everything modern. We’re so progressive and look at our technology and we’re, everything was looking towards the future.

Mm-hmm. Like we, we were dressing, like we were like from the future or something. I. And I, and I think that this is a major throwback to a time that maybe people weren’t particularly nostalgic for at that time. It could be for whatever reason I am. I just find it very, very charming and it’s, it’s really nice.

This movie’s rated pg. Have we ever done a PG movie before? Oh, surely we have, 

Todd: surely we have, I think we’ve talked about this before with what, the one other PG movie maybe, right? 

Craig: Yeah. But it’s pg like, it’s nice. It’s nice to just have something light and funny. And 

Clip: it is, 

Craig: and it’s a, it’s a spooky old ma haunted mansion.