2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

Welcome to Horror Comedy Month! Craig picked five awesome, unique, overlooked and sometimes forgotten gems that range the gamut from screwball comedy and parody to weird and wonderful.

No better film to set the tone than Joe Dante’s videostore rental favorite, The ‘Burbs. Starring Tom Hanks, Carrie Fisher, and a slew of other stars, it’s still baffling why this hilarious send-up of suburbia and “the horrors behind closed doors” received such critical fire during its theatrical run. But history has redeemed this one, and we loved revisiting our favorite moments on this week’s episode.

Enjoy the review, and let us know YOUR favorite lines!

Episode 438, 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 are kicking off a month. It was a hundred percent your idea Horror comedy month. I feel like this isn’t the first time we’ve done a horror comedy month, but maybe it is. 

Craig: I dunno. I I, I don’t know if we’ve ever done a full month.

I mean, we’ve definitely done horror comedies. I love. Horror comedies, hence this month. Yeah, I mean, it’s a great idea and I love theme month. So yeah, let’s just 

Todd: do 

Craig: it all. I know you love a theme month. Mm-hmm. I did, and I had several in mind, and I don’t wanna spoil ’em all. I want it to be surprises, but I don’t know if this is the movie that made me think of the month, but.

I knew I wanted to do this one first. 1980 nines, the burbs directed by Joe Dante. What is your history with this movie? 

Todd: Oh gosh. My history with this movie is nothing but lovely. We watched this a lot growing up and we loved it. I remember there being so many little catchphrases from this movie. Yeah. Some of which I kind of forgot until we started watching it.

I know we had it on video, probably recorded off the TV or something, but I do remember this was, uh, this came out at a time when Tom Hanks was still mostly doing comedies. Mm-hmm. I think even though I believe this was filmed before Big, they took a little time to get post-production finished and Big came out.

Before this? 

Craig: Yeah. I think this, I, they were filming this when Big came out. By the time this came out, he was nominated for something. I don’t, best actor, I guess. Yeah, I, I 

Todd: did 

Craig: he, was he just nominated or did he actually 

Todd: win? I just saw nominated, but I’m not sure. I think nominated. I don’t think he won an Oscar until Philadelphia because, right.

I think that’s right. This was right at the edge, right? Like at this point, Tom Hanks was a big name actor, but he was mostly known as a comic actor. Like he was in Bachelor Party and Splash and The Burbs and Big. And he was just doing all these goofy comedies. But everybody loved him. He was really, really good.

And I think it was around the time Big came out because he had a lot more serious heart. Later on, you know that movie’s got a lot of going on in it. I really love his performance in it. And so he had a nice little trajectory to his career. And then, if I remember correctly, because I remember distinctly watching the Academy Awards when he won the Oscar for Philadelphia, where I believe he played a gay man that was.

Kicked out of the military because he had aids. 

Craig: I don’t, I don’t know. 

Todd: And went to court about it. God, I should have looked this up beforehand, but it was something along those lines, and it was a completely serious role. And from then on he started getting more serious roles. And it’s hard to believe, but yeah, that, that, that was the Tom Hanks, that in the early eighties, nobody ever would’ve believed that he was going to grow up to be like the widely respected, serious actor that Tom Hanks is.

It’s like. He can do it all now. Yeah. And it’s really cool. Yeah, he’s really good. Yeah, he’s good in this. It’s full of stars. My understanding is that this movie wasn’t well reviewed when it came out. It had, some people liked it, some people didn’t, but everyone I know loved it and I think that it didn’t take long, especially on the home video market, for everyone else to just sort of unanimously fall in love with this movie.

Craig: Yeah. I was actually surprised to read that it was. Critically panned. It did pretty well because Big was huge and, and Tom Hanks was nominated, so like, it, it, it made its money back at least. Mm-hmm. But it, it was, I think, the worst reviewed movie of that year. And that’s crazy. I don’t get it. 

Todd: What was coming out, what kind of gems were coming out that year?

I gotta go back and look. 1989. Geez. 

Craig: Exactly 

Todd: like 

Craig: I, I don’t get it. I don’t think that I was aware of that at the time because like you, everybody that I knew thought it was hilarious. Like this is a movie, like you said, the same. I think we have pretty much the same experience. I don’t think we had it, but we would get really excited when it would come on, or we would rent it over and over again.

Yeah, because it’s hilarious. Yes. And. It’s also, it is horror. It’s a horror comedy. It leans heavy into the comedy. Yeah. As many of these that I have chosen are going to, so yeah. I hope that’s okay. Dear listener, 

Todd: I like what you chose. I, I’ve just gotta say, we’re not gonna spoil it, but I think that what you chose is a nice series of these, sometimes forgotten, sometimes underappreciated, but actually really lovely horror comedies.

It’s a gonna be a great month. Great month. 

Craig: Yeah, I think so too. And I just wanted to do something fun. I, you know, I wanna laugh. I, yeah, everything feels kind of serious and heavy these days. Yeah. And I just wanted to, let’s, let’s talk about something fun. And this is, and you know, you talk about Tom Hanks, this is kind of prime, Tom Hanks to me.

I love all Tom Hanks. Yeah, every Tom Hanks I love, he seems like just an a gem of a person. He’s a great actor, just he’s an American icon. He’s fantastic. I have nothing negative to say about him, but this is when I like him best. This and big where he’s still kind of playing more into the physical comedy and he’s making bigger comedic choices.

Like there’s one, you know, kind of. If any scenes in this movie are iconic, one kind of iconic scene in this movie where he and his neighbor realize that they’re holding a human bone that the dog has dug outta the yard. One guy’s like Ray, this is Walter.

They both just. Open their mouths wide and just scream, and the camera fast pans in and out, in and out. Like it’s, it’s goofy and it’s meant to be, but it’s so big and so funny that I just can’t help but laugh out loud. And that’s kind of the tone of this movie, and I love it. 

Todd: Oh yeah. I mean, it’s just a fun ride.

Like when you wanna sit down and you just want to enjoy something that is light and you know you’re gonna laugh and you’re not gonna have to think too hard, you’re just gonna love it. There’s just so much to love about. This movie and it’s just about suburban America. It’s almost a parody of suburban America.

Yeah, and you know, I was, I was really thinking hard about this today and I think this is what I love about the movie and maybe part of it’s charm, why it resonates with so many people. It’s no accident that this was filmed on the same Universal Studios back lot that like leave it to Beaver and the Monsters and.

All of these old desperate housewives. Yeah. Up to now. Right. But like all of these sitcoms that all take suburbia and kind of make it this classic notion of what it’s like in suburbia, which we can make fun of when we can make silly, I think it just plays to a fantasy. That we have about what it’s like to live in the suburbs.

I grew up in the suburbs pretty much everywhere we lived, I was with the military family. We moved around a lot, but everywhere we lived, we were either on base, which was its own little suburban experience. It really is. Or off base. We just, my parents bought a house and or rented a house, and we lived again in a street just like this.

At least two of them were cul-de-sacs, just like this nice. But we as kids playing around in these streets had full reign and we always had these fantasies of what was happening with our neighbors. A lot of people we didn’t even know. I even think when I was growing up in the eighties, it still sadly wasn’t like everybody’s outside mowing their lawns and sprinklers and kids just running around playing.

Most people were inside their house, but the kids might be out on the street playing around, coming and going, and I remember when we lived in Michigan, we lived on this. Kind of cul-de-sac. And there was a woman, I think she must have been in high school. I, I, I don’t even know her. She was two doors down from us and we didn’t even know this family.

But at some point while we were living there, I think she got a present from her parents for her 16th birthday and into the driveway pulls a pink convertible. And on the pink convertible. They had put like a decal of the Playboy bunny, like on the back or in the corner, and my friends and I were convinced that my neighbor next door was a a Playboy centerfold playmate.

Craig: That’s funny. 

Todd: We had concocted this whole story about her based on just the fact that she had this. Pink convertible with a Playboy Bunny logo on it somewhere, 

Craig: you know? Well, I mean, that’s the, that’s the whole thing. The movie is based on a very common trope that we see in thrillers and horror all the time.

Really, based on what you just said, the, the notion that you never know what goes on behind closed doors. 

Clip: Hmm. 

Craig: And you know, sometimes everything looks normal, but then you take something like this, that satirizes it and you know, you basically. Have the Adams family move in next door to the Adams family house.

Like, like why is this house on this beautiful street? These people just moved in. It’s not like it fell into this terrible disrepair in the last month. Right, 

Clip: exactly. 

Craig: Inside and out. This place looks like the Adams family house. It’s a joke, but that is the whole premise is that like you, you never really know what goes on behind closed doors.

You don’t really know your neighbors, uh, who are they, what they do, or whatever. And the movie was intended originally to be like a parody of Rear Window, which I can totally see. Mm-hmm. It was written by Dana Olson. I don’t know anything about them. He did 

Todd: memorize of an invisible man. Georgia, the jungle.

Not a lot, honestly, but some movies I kind of enjoyed. 

Craig: He wrote it, but then they filmed it during. The writer strike. And so this is very shady to me. I read that like Dante got him on set by hiring him as an actor, but he couldn’t contribute anything to the script. Okay.

Didn’t happen, huh? But supposedly, as a result of that, most of the movie is improvised. Like they were just rewriting in the moment all the time. And that I think probably. Is great because the cast of this movie is just, it’s great. Capable. Like this. Very capable of this, yeah. Oh, capable. I mean, Tom Hanks, you know, he, he’s an actor.

I, I know he’s directed, I don’t know, I think he’s written, but I’m not sure. However, his wife is played by Carrie Fisher, who is a brilliant writer. Brilliant comedian. Yes. So I’m sure she contributed. Rick Du Cummin was a, a comedian out out of Canada. I, I think. Yep. That he and Rick Moranis and all those famous Canadians came from.

So he’s, you know, he’s, he’s used to improv. That’s kind of what he does. Wendy Shaw, who, I don’t think people would recognize her name. I don’t even know that I would recognize her name, but she was in great eighties things. Yes. And I always kind of remember her the same. She’s always got, you know, kind of ditzy and like big blonde hair and big boobs and, and high heels.

I remember her. As being Martin Short’s grocery store coworker in Innerspace. Oh yeah. Another 

Todd: fantastic movie. 

Craig: Yes. And her boss was played by Henry Gibson, who plays Dr. K Cloak in this movie also. Yes. Then you got Cory Feldman, and then you got Bruce De like, I think of Bruce Dern as a serious actor, and he plays kind of the straight man, I guess.

In this movie, but he’s really funny. Courtney Gaines from The Children of the Corn. Yeah. And uh, can’t Buy Me Love. He was in that too. I mean, he wasn’t huge or anything, but he was, he had been in stuff at this point. It’s a great cast, especially if you grew up in the eighties watching movies. This is an all star cast 

Todd: for eighties kids.

It is. And then directed by none other than Joe Dante, and this is Joe Dante. Through and through. This is his material. He is so about these quirky kind of genre mashups, you know, even the Howling when we did that, which was one of his first big movies and Piana, they’re piranha’s, a comedy horror. The Howling has these.

Odd elements of comedy, definitely these odd elements of darkness and horror. So he’s perfect for this movie. He just has this almost gremlins like sensibility to it. They’re playing with a darkness, but it never gets too dark. 

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: But when you really step back and think about it. It is actually kind of dark and quirky, you know, and comedy.

He can just do comedy really well. And apparently Hanks was like, look man, he, he’s one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with you. He let us experiment, he let us play, and he really knew how to work the camera so that the story was told through the eyes of the camera. I. Couldn’t say enough good things about it.

And apparently everybody had a blast on this set and it totally shows. 

Craig: Yeah, a hundred percent. It just looks like they’re having fun and it’s all, there’s something quaint and charming about filming this all just on this cul-de-sac, like it almost exclusively takes place. Outdoors and it’s just these neighbors commun, you know, doing What neighbors do they have?

They know each other. They have established relationships. The, the first thing we see is Tom Hanks steps outside of his house at night. I think he’s in his pajamas and he hears weird noises next door, like banging, and when he steps onto the lawn, the wind picks up mysteriously like we’re just. Yeah, establishing tone, this is what we’re doing.

Then immediately, boom, it’s daytime in suburbia, uhhuh, and they establish it the same way. We always establish daytime in suburbia with kids riding their bikes down the street and you know, somebody mowing their lawn or something. I don’t know. I’m making this up. Yeah, but it’s this, it’s the same way that they always set this up and then we start to meet people.

Todd: It’s like panning through the neighborhood. 

Craig: Yeah. Right. And it’s great. I love this as a device. I love this part of these types of movies. Even when the new family comes into town and we, we get acquainted with the town and we meet the people. There’s Walter who appears to be an elderly gay man, though that’s never really an issue and he’s got a little dog.

A little poodle named Queenie played by the same dog from the Silence of the Lambs. It’s a crazy bit of trivia. Yeah. Teenager Ricky played by Corey Feldman, who lives in the Munster’s House and I guess his parents are away for the weekend or something. I was trying to figure out what for, it’s 

Todd: almost seems like he owns the house, but it does seem like it.

He just, but there’s no way ’cause he’s a teenager. No, he’s too young. Either that or he struck at Richard Bitcoin or something. 

Craig: And then there’s Rumsfield played by Bruce Stern and he’s like retired military, still wears his fatigues and camos and stuff. Still raises the flag every morning. Uhhuh, Uhhuh.

And he’s married to Bonnie, played by Wendy Shaw, who I talked about, who’s clearly younger than him. But they actually seem to have a really cute relationship. They do. We meet Carol, Carrie Fisher Ray’s wife, and she’s worried about him. Now I’m not really clear what’s going on here. Right? He, they keep talking about how he’s on vacation, but it kind of seems like vacation in air quotes, and he’s really on edge.

Todd: Yeah, I felt like. When I was a kid that he was overworked, he was on vacation and he was also stressed out about just like living the life that everybody lives. You know, that old trope of, I’m so successful that and every, everything is so normal that I don’t have any excitement in my life where I don’t know where my wi life is going, except ordinary, and so I’m depressed.

Midlife crisis kind of thing. Like, what? What am I coming to? And so, 

Clip: yeah, 

Todd: instead of going out for his vacation, he was going to stay home and have vacation, like staycation, I guess, at home. Try to get things done around the house. Yeah, just relax, relax. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. Sit around and drink beer in his yard during the day.

I guess he spends almost no time doing that right away. Yeah. Well, and that’s the problem, like. They’re bored. I, I think you’re right. I think that this is kind of commentary on, you know, the grind and you know, just living that prescribed life or whatever. I don’t know. I don’t really have any commentary about that, but 

Todd: Well, a general neighborly.

Nosiness too. 

Craig: Well, that’s true, but what I was getting at was he also has this friend Art played by Rick Docu. Now I heard that Tom Hanks and Rick. I heard, like somebody told me, I read it, I read that Rick Docu and like Tom Hanks didn’t get along with him very well, but. He, you know, was a professional about it and I hate to hear that ’cause they worked pretty well together.

Yeah. But it, I, it also kind of worked for their characters because Tom Hanks’ character, who is kind of, like I said before, uptight is generally irritated by Duke Cummins character art. Yeah. So maybe that’s a little bit of life imitating art, but it works well in the movie, but. My point was the two of them, seemingly art’s wife, is out of town for the weekend.

Also, by the way, they have nothing better to do than spy on and theorize about their new neighbors who they don’t know. 

Clip: I did talk to the real estate fraud that sold ’em the place, apparently their last house. It only burnt to the ground. Really? Yeah. A hideous, raging inferno.

Neighbors from hell, whatever it is. I’m sure glad I’m not the one who lives right next door to ’em. I mean, come on, let’s face it. You know these cloaks are strange. I’ve been watching that house ever since they moved in. No one goes in. No one comes out, no visitors, no deliveries. What do you think they’re eating over there, Ray?

Craig: You know, like if they would occupy themselves with something productive or go on vacation rather than just hanging out in the yard, maybe they wouldn’t be so worried about it. 

Todd: Yeah. Which Ray’s wife, Carrie Fisher, is continually telling him, you just need to do this. Go on vacation, we just need to leave.

He is like, no, no, really I’m gonna do this. And there’s a lot of that humor too that I told your so wife who just sits and smiles knowingly nodding at her husband’s antics that she knows are not gonna go anywhere. And she knows they’re overblown and knows her. Silly. That’s that classic sort of woman knows best relationship.

Craig: Yeah. I I, but I love Carrie Fisher so much. Carrie Fisher just has. Something about her that can come across that trope that you’re talking about can kind of come across as like the bitch wife, you know? Right. And And that’s not with Carrie Fisher at all, like No. You’re on her side actually. Oh yeah. Oh my God.

She’s clearly the voice of reason. At every turn. Yes. And, and if he would’ve listened to her all along, they would’ve had no problems. He and art are, you know, suspicious of what’s going on next door. These, these people moved in, it’s the clo, I guess they know their name, but they’ve like seen them digging in their backyard at night.

And the only one that really comes out is. Hans k Cloak, played by Courtney Gaines, who is a child of the corn. Yes. And looks like a child of the corn in leader Hosen. 

Todd: I, I remember being so creeped out, but oddly fascinated by this guy when I was a kid. He’s got like these big, like lamb chops on his, the side of his face.

You know, where his, he’s grown at. He just looks like he doesn’t take very good care of himself and is scared of his shadow and is a werewolf. Mid transformation, basically. Well, yeah, 

Craig: Ray, but, but, but they, they just, you know, art and Ray just stand around in the yard staring at their house talking about it, and Carrie Fisher, Carol just keeps saying like, either leave them alone or go over there.

Mm-hmm. Like, there are, there are very rational ways. To deal with this. Yeah. But instead they act like big dumb dumb men, which you know, and they eventually get the military guy rumsfield in on it too. And then it just becomes a series of. Silly things, but that are all funny. But I don’t really know how to go about them.

I don’t feel like 

Todd: I, I think there’s an escalation here, but even from the get go, the things that are happening do feel rather odd. Like you’re trying to convince yourself that there might be a rational explanation for it. Just in the way that it’s filmed. Maybe it’s overblown, but No, not really. Like there’s one point during the rainstorm, and I think this is the thing that starts to kick it off.

They see the garage door opens, this guy haunts, drives their car like eight feet. To the edge of, to the end of the driveway, pulls a big plastic bag out of there, stuffs it in the garbage can, takes a shovel and bashes it down harder into the garbage can, looks left and right, gets back in the car and backs it back into.

The garage and what they should do is go right over there and check it out, but they decide to wait until morning. 

Craig: Yeah. But there’s been an escalation up to that point. Like they’ve already like gone up on the porch and I don’t remember if they knocked on the door, run the doorbell, the, yeah. Well, and this scene that you’re talking about, the three men.

Are on one of their rooftops spying on this guy with an infrared scope. So like, oh yeah, it is already, it’s already escalated on their side too. But you’re right. This stuff is shady. And that was a hilarious performance by Courtney Gaines, which again, was another improvised thing. Like he was just supposed to take the trash out.

Yeah. And he, he just starts bashing it and bashing it, and b, like you can see him getting physically like work. Up, fucked up. And it’s really funny and it looks crazy and, and it’s supposed to look crazy. But then they find Walter’s dog running around and the whole joke is that Walter’s dog, oh wait, no, no.

Hold on. You can’t. You can’t skip. You were talking about the trash and they should have just gone and looked in it right then. I don’t even remember why they explained. Oh yeah, they don’t. But there’s a great, they’re gonna look at it in the morning and the next thing we see is them like, I think running out.

Because the garbage truck is already there. Yep. And ah, good old Dick Miller, the garbage man. Yeah. Dick Miller and Robert Picardo. Robert Picardo, I don’t know from a lot of things, but he was in inner space too. Lots of inner space. Another 

Todd: Joe Dante 

Craig: movie, Uhhuh. 

Todd: Joe Dante has his people he likes to work with.

And Dick Miller being, being probably in maybe every single one of his movies. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Clip: Go away. Wednesday night, I’m gonna leave you. This seminar could change your life. Vicki, the man is a great dealer and I’m a great bowler. And Wednesday night we’re taking on rose plumbing. You really should expose yourself to this guy, Vic, guy.

He understands para forces the healing capabilities of crystal and the, the laying on of hands 

Craig: if you want, try laying on some hands. They’re funny. It’s, you know, you’re watching a Joe Dante movie. This is your Dick Miller moment. Like, yes. It’s just a, it’s just a fun little back and forth. They have some stupid conversation about like when garbage becomes.

Public property or something, uhhuh. But it’s a funny scene because those three dumb dumbs all come running out of their houses in their pajamas, jumping into the garbage truck, pulling all the garbage out into the street. And then I, I didn’t notice until the very end of the movie, but that, that garbage just stays on the street.

The rest of it, the movie never moved. 

Todd: That was so funny. Every now and then, like a car drives over it or they have to step over it when they go in and I’m like, days go by and I’m like, there’s nobody gonna.

That was great. But yeah, you’re right. So that happens. And then they notice the dog running loose and they get worried because Walter would never let his dog just run loose. And so they go over to his house to return the dog, and when Walter doesn’t answer, they break into his house. 

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: And they find some chairs overturned and the television on, and Walter’s toupee.

Walter’s not there. 

Craig: Right. And they think that’s shady because a bald guy would never leave. The house without his toupee, which is Oh, fair enough. True. 

Todd: Unless he has two toupees. They didn’t really think about that Fair. So they leave a note for Walter, which the minute he wrote it and post fast in there, we have your dog.

I thought that just sounds like a of note. It totally 

Craig: does. 

Todd: Yeah. Leaves the toupee and they actually slips it back through the mail slot too, and then sees, you are always seeing the cloak, watching them from the roof, from their house or from the window or something like 

Craig: that. Yeah. Like from behind gauzy curtains, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then for some reason, Ray is reading about Demonology. I don’t, I don’t know how we got here. I don’t either. Either. I guess because art is convinced that Walter was a human. Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Sacrifice. I 

Todd: did. Why? He says he just jumps to it really fast. 

Clip: Ray, do you want him to take your family, kidnap ’em, tear their livers out and make some kind of satanic ate?

No, I’m not going to listen to this. Ray, you’re chanting. I’m not going to hear this. Now I’m listen to unconscious chanting. You’re chanting. Hear this now. I wanna kill everyone. Satan. Good. I’m not going. Satan is our pal. 

Craig: But you talked about how there were like phrases from this movie that as kids, we repeated this one, my cousins and I, I don’t remember when it stopped because we used to do, I went to Caleb.

Everyone, Satan is good. Satan Pal. Pal. So did we

all. The time. Yes. So funny. Another ad-lib. Yeah. Oh God. But Ray’s freaking himself out watching horror movies like The Exorcist and Texas Shades on Massacre two, and then he has a crazy nightmare, which is hilarious. Yes, this is, this is, I think Joe Dante, he just has this sensibility, just this. Dark comedic sensibility, and like you said, I totally agree with you.

He kind of knows just how far to push it. He also keeps it light enough that you can laugh at it comfortably. Right. Right. Yeah. You know, bad things can happen to people, you know, in gremlins a lot of people died. Yeah. But it was okay to laugh ’cause it was silly. Yeah. 

Todd: Old woman flies out the window. Yeah.

Jesus 

Craig: Ray’s nightmare is silly. But it’s funny. I, I just have on my notes, he’s barbecue. 

Todd: Yeah, on a giant Weber grill, which slowly reveals itself as they’re tying him down and, and standing around. I’m going, I want to kill everyone. Say as good say as my v. He gets to in a state of mind, and then I think they’re talking in the backyard.

And Ray may even be going, oh, this is ridiculous. This is stupid. We need to stop bothering our neighbor. We need to get to vacation and all that. And there his dog is digging in the backyard by the, by the fence. It separates his property from the clo and his dog brings over a bone, which he brings to Ray, which Ray just absolutely picks up and tosses back.

That was really funny. The dog retrieves it brings it back eventually. Art looks and says Ray. What do you have there? And he’s like, oh, it’s just a bone. He’s like, that’s not just any bone. That’s a human femur bone. And they all walk towards slowly, everything builds to this moment. I love the buildup for this joke.

The camera gets low. The music, by the way, the score from Jerry Goldsmith is wonderful. The music gets really intense. It dawns on them. Suddenly he dug it up from underneath the fence,

Clip: Ray. Ray, there’s no doubt anymore. This is real. Your neighbors are murdering people. They’re chopping ’em up. They’re burying ’em in their backyard. Ray, this is Walter. Ah, 

Todd: and then totally break the moon with that. Zoom in, zoom out, zoom in, zoom out of them screaming and. We thought that was the funniest thing in the world.

Craig: It was hilarious. I, to this day, laugh out loud. Every time I see it, it is so funny. 

Todd: I saw this with Liz for the very first time. She had never seen this movie before and she laughed out loud. Here we, it’s such a bold choice too, because I do not think even the wackiest comedies are not gonna go this far as to do this camera move.

Yeah, it’s pretty bold choice, but it. It so works. 

Craig: I know it just does. I don’t know how to explain it. It just, it, the, the tone is just perfectly balanced. ’cause it is dark too. We’re talking about dead people. Of course, this happens even after, at some point Carol won’t even let Ray go out to play with his friends because he’s getting so worked up about things.

And in that time, stupid art puts a note. Under the CLO door and runs away like he like ding-dong ditches and his note, his note just says, I know what you’ve done. Like at this point, they are actively tormenting these people. Oh boy. And I, and I think, again, voice of reason Carol keeps saying that, but. It.

They’re big dumb men. So, but right after that big scream, one of the clo throws the note crumpled up over the fence onto their lawn, like at their feet. So they know. They know. They know, they know. Right. 

Todd: And at the meantime, you feel a little bad for Ray because Ray. Kind of getting framed by his friend’s antics.

Yeah, because Rayen slipped that note under the door. Right? But they tossed this note off on Ray’s lawn. And so you can also see that Ray’s kind of at a pickle here too, where he’s their literal next door neighbor and he doesn’t wanna be targeted next. 

Craig: But I do love this part where the wives. Finally step in and both of them are very level-headed and they’re like, let’s just go over there.

The women kind of lead them over there. The men, you know, trailing behind them and they try to be neighborly. I think I. Bonnie has like brownies or something, has made them brownies and they, they knock on the door and somebody answers. This is somebody we haven’t seen before, I think. Ruben Klo. Yeah.

Played by Theodore Gottlieb, who I know nothing about, but he looks like he’s kind of like an Igor, like he’s, he’s kind of short and squat and, and hunches his shoulders and kind of tilts his head and looks a sc very suspicious looking and. Everything in this house is cuckoo. Crazy. 

Todd: It’s just an old fashioned house in a neighborhood where all the houses are modern Uhhuh.

It looks like you said, like the Adams family house. Just dark wood, ornate, gothic decoration everywhere. Not even all of the. Furniture, I think is uncovered and all he does is just stare at them uncomfortably while they sit around and try sort of to make conversation. 

Craig: And Hans serves them on a platter, sardines and pretzels.

And watching Tom Hanks pull out a sardine out of the tent and lay it gingerly across the pretzel and put it in his mouth. Oh, that was so funny. That 

Todd: was, that was hilarious. I’d forgotten about that. Bit sardines and pretzels. But it’s fun to watch the women as they start to come around to, oh, they, this really is weird.

Craig: Yeah. But it’s also hilarious. I, I think that Carrie Fisher and, and the other lady whose name I can’t think of, played it very well. You know, they are. Suburban women. They are trying to be neighborly. They are trying to be polite. Yes. Now they realize these guys are weirdos, but not necessarily dangerous.

Dangerous or what, you know? Okay, you’re right. They’re weird. Let’s be nice and get this over with and get outta here. But it, it was fun to watch. I, I felt like they, as silly as the situation is, they played it as straight as possible and I mm-hmm. I thought it was. Really funny. 

Todd: And then we meet the doctor who comes out again, like you said, played by Henry Gibson.

By the way, did you know that Henry Gibson played, uh, the Voice of Wilbur in that Charlotte’s web cartoon? I absolutely did not. I love that movie so much. He looks, it’s so good. He looks so sinister, but he’s the least odd of all of them, and I like what, what’s happening here? Everyone, but art is trying to be tiptoe and tap dance.

Around these guys and they’re just all kind of stunned. And art is like, so the body’s downstairs, huh? So what do you got going on in the basement? Huh? Maybe a little something weird. Maybe we should go down there. He is just outwardly trying to provoke these people. And he sneaks around the back while they’re all talking.

I think their dog cuts gets, gets loose and chases up. Yeah. They have a great 

Craig: big, great Dane. Mm-hmm. 

Todd: Yep. And that’s what kind of ends the whole, the whole thing. 

Craig: Right. They all uncomfortably leave after that commotion. And I think the wives go home and they’re like, see, you guys are big dummies. They’re just weirdos.

Leave them alone. And all the men are left standing in the street. And Ray reveals. That he found Walter’s toupee at the CLO house. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: I’m not sure if I get that. How did it get there? 

Todd: They said that they were taking in the mail for. At the end. Okay. That’s later. Yeah, later. But it’s something at this point in the movie though, you’re, you’re drawn back in, you know, you’re like, wait a minute.

There’s no way there’s a good reason for that toupee being at the cloak, right? Because we saw him put that toupee back into Walter’s 

Craig: house. Obviously I can’t remember seeing this movie for the first time, but I don’t, I can’t imagine that there was. Ever any doubt in my mind that there was something sinister going on over there.

Sure. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: I can’t imagine. What a letdown the movie would’ve been if it turned out to be nothing like there. There’s no way this is going nowhere. It’s true. Um, it’s true. So, so these were just, it felt fun. Like, ooh, we’re getting new clues like Right. It’s satisfying. Of course. You know, they feel so proud of themselves for being right.

Clip: As soon as that car leaves in the morning, I’m going over the fence and I’m not coming back till I find a dead body. Nobody knocks off an old man in my neighborhood and gets away with it.

Craig: So they set this whole plan into motion. The for for reasons unknown maybe. Maybe they told them during the visit that they were. Leaving. Yeah, because they kind of explained the, the doctor said that his work keeps them on the move. I, I, I, I think he’s a professor or something. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: He says they’ve moved four times in four years and they’re getting ready to move again.

Todd: Yeah. He said, we’re, and tomorrow we’re gonna have to leave and go to a meeting to discuss yet another move. And they’re like, oh, that’s a shame. But this is a turning point for Tom Hanks’ character for Ray, because now he’s like, totally. Sold and a man on a mission who’s gotta do a thing. 

Craig: Right. I don’t remember how he convinces his wife and son to leave.

That’s a little sha, but he does. Yeah. I don’t, I 

Todd: didn’t buy that, honestly. Uh, she is way too smart. Yeah. To believe that he is not gonna be up to no good suddenly wanting to send them away and suddenly coming around on all this stuff. 

Craig: I, that I guess if you wanted to, you know, I, I, I, I guess you could say maybe she thinks that his curiosity has been satisfied ’cause they’ve been over there, but.

Again. No, she’s too smart. She’s, nah, 

Todd: he’s too shady about it 

Craig: too. Yeah. He’s like, me and me and art are gonna go play golf and then art comes over with a golf club in his hand in like a full golf and he’s like outfit. He’s on the cold. Golf. Yeah. I can’t wait to be golf. I’m gonna be golfing all day. Just golf, golf, golf, golf, golf.

Like, yeah, Carol is way too smart to fall for that. 

Todd: I love that. Art also has like a full on uniform for everything that he’s doing. So he comes over in the golf uniform and then the rest of them go to go to work. They’ve got this plan that they’ve put together that we’re about to see unfold, that we don’t know exactly what it is yet, and part of it involves him having to climb the.

The power line in the backyard and cut the power to their house. And at the time he goes to do that, he’s got like a hard hat on. He, he’s got suspenders. Yeah, he looks like, 

Craig: like coveralls. Yeah. Yeah. I also think that it’s his, it’s, it’s so funny to me that the movie. Tells you this is it, this is act three, because Right.

Ricky Corey Feldman literally calls all of his friends over to his house to watch the show. Yes. Like it’s, it’s the movie telling you get out the popcorn folks, the show’s about to start.

It starts with him going up and cutting the power line and getting electrocuted. Uhhuh getting shot off the pole on falling through the roof of a shed, and it’s shenanigans from this point on, 

Todd: it’s total shenanigans and I’m totally on board. Oh yeah. And I’m right there with Ricky, literally across the street.

And it just makes you think it would be so fun to be in this neighborhood. Absolutely. Because everything’s happening on full display. But yeah, they go in and so they break it. Well the first thing they start doing, I think they’re digging in the backyard forever. They dig like six or seven holes and can’t find anything.

While art is keeping watch right across the street from the roof, 

Craig: not art arts. Isn’t art the one that’s with him? I’m, it’s the military guy. Rumsfield. Rumsfield. Rumsfield. Yeah. Yeah. He’s, 

Todd: yeah. They decide they need to go in the house and so they break in the house and they go straight to the basement.

Conveniently, they took the dogs with them. Yeah, and there’s a giant furnace down there, which can only be for one thing. It’s got extra. Pipes and power and stuff rigged to it, and it all starts to make sense to them. They’re like, well, yeah, well, no wonder the, the, the lights go out in the neighborhood.

Every now and then we get these brownouts and there’s all this stuff, like, there must be serious power coming into this furnace, and what more could this furnace be, but a crematorium? And so. They decide they have to start digging. 

Craig: Yeah, I guess, I guess they think they’re burying the bones down there now.

Right? So Tom Hanks is, is digging the power, meanwhile is still out on the whole block from where they, where they cut it and the CLO slowly pull up. The street, see the light in the cellar and then leave again. Now, I don’t know. It seems to me like nobody saw them. Yeah. I know that at that point, Rumsfeld had, al had fallen off the roof, so I, I don’t think that anybody saw them, but Correct.

They see that somebody, they see that somebody’s in their house and they leave. Meanwhile, we see. A car pull into Walter’s driveway and somebody helps Walter out of the backseat. Mm-hmm. Like, he seems to be not well, like something has happened, but he’s there and alive and, and I, I guess, I don’t know.

Again, I, I wish that I could remember how I felt. When I had first seen it because the CLO come back with the police. Yep. They have called the police because they somebody is in their house. Yep. As the police are pulling up, Ray hits metal and I think we hear a hissing and he realizes he’s hit the gas line and he tells art to run and art runs out the door screaming, I don’t know, gas, gas or something and the house blows up.

Todd: Yep. Oh my God. 

Craig: The, the whole house explodes. 

Todd: Yeah. This is a real, it’s, I mean it’s kind of a classic gotcha reversal, right? Where now we’re just questioning everything. Wait a minute, Walter’s fine. They haven’t found a thing in there. Nothing. Now the house is exploding. The cloak went and got the cops. The clo called the police, right?

Yeah. So it’s like, oh my God, it’s. It’s kind of a funny ending. You know, you’re thinking it’s ending because then Ray miraculously manages to walk outta the house. And I remember how I felt when I first saw this. I thought Tom Hanks was putting on the performance of his life and it was absolutely hilarious.

It’s so funny. He is just this stunned, beaten man who is, it’s like he’s finally come to his sense, but he is dazed and. Art comes up to him and is still on about the clo and he just goes off on this guy, 

Clip: get out their case already. They didn’t do anything to us. They us. Alright, so they’re different. So they, the steal you blame them.

They live next door to people who break into the house and put it down. Well, the confident day. Remember what you were saying about people in the burbs. Alright. People like skip people who mow their lawn for the 800th time and then snap. Well, that’s us. It’s not them. That’s us. We’re the ones who are vaulting over the fences and picking into people’s windows.

We’re the ones who are throwing garbage in the street and lighting fires we’re the ones who are acting suspicious and paranoid. Ice we’re the lunatics us. 

Todd: In the process of this, he just grabs the gurney, throws it in the back of the ambulance, jumps on 

Craig: himself and is like, take me to the hospital. It’s so funny and at least I don’t know how much of it, but at least that gurney part was improv.

Oh, it’s so, and it’s, it’s, it’s so physical and so funny. I mean, he’s, he’s manic. Yes, he’s absolutely manic and he throws it in the back and then throws himself onto it. Like the mattress doesn’t even have time to settle. Like he’s, he like, it’s, it’s kind of folded underneath him and he’s just, ugh. You have to see it.

But it it, oh, he does such a great job. His physical comedy is, is hilarious. It really is. That whole outburst is absolutely hilarious. I also thought it was funny, even before that outburst, Carol comes home with the sun and instead of. The typical thing that would, you know, you would have the panicked woman like, oh my God, what’s going on?

What’s going on? She’s more like, oh my God, what now? 

Todd: Almost like she half expected this to happen anyway. Yeah, 

Craig: and, and that’s, I I, maybe the cops explain to them that the CLO had been picking up Walter’s mail and they picked up the to pay by mistake, which that, that. Tracks. Tracks because he put the, 

Todd: to pay in the, the mail slot when he Right.

Put it back. Yeah. You think the movie’s over, 

Craig: you think the movie’s over and Ray Ray’s in the back of the ambulance and Dr. Keck gets in the back with him and Ray’s like. I am so sorry, sir. I am, I am, I’m really sorry. And I promise, as soon as I’m out of the hospital, I will help you, like build your house 

Clip: or something stupid like 

Craig: that.

But he’s being totally apologetic and, and completely admitting that he was in the wrong, and Dr. K Cloak looks at him and says, you saw one of them, didn’t you? And he’s like. What He’s like, you saw one of my skulls, didn’t you? And, and then he gives, you know, the evil villain speech where he, you know, tells him that they killed the previous owners and this is what they do.

And then he tries to, he has this great big comically large. Needle and he’s trying to inject Ray and the driver in the ambulance turns around and it’s Hans and the ambulance takes off. And I don’t know why. ’cause I don’t, is anybody in pursuit or anything? I, 

Todd: no. The ambulance 

Craig: just drives into a house. It just didn’t, I don’t even know whose house that was.

Todd: Yeah, it was definitely Art’s House, which felt fitting. Art needed to get a little pain in all this, 

Craig: but when, when that happens, the stretcher rolls out of the back. This is so funny. It’s so stupid. It’s hilarious, but it’s just hilarious. Yeah, it’s dumb. Um, and Ray and the doctor are fighting, you know, struggling on this.

Stretcher as it rolls down the street. And eventually, I guess when it stops, Ray like grabs onto the doctor and says, citizen 

Clip: arrest, citizen arrest, citizen arrest. I’m making a citizen arrest

Craig: man. But the doctor, the doctor then is playing all innocent and I don’t even know how it happens, but they’re all standing around the family, the clo. Car and somehow the trunk pops open. Mm-hmm. And it’s all full of human skeletons and bones. Like 

Todd: what do the clex do? I mean, what? Do they just kill people?

Yeah. Who cares? And just mass murderers or something. I don’t know. Sure. Why not? 

Craig: Whatever. 

Todd: They’re arrested immediately. Charges against Ray are immediately dropped and then of course we’re gonna go away for a long while and he’s turns to Ricky and is like you watch over to the over the neighborhood when we gone, where we’re gone.

And Cory Feldman does this kind of stroll away and breaks the fourth wall, looks right at the camera and says, God, I love this neighborhood. It spins around, starts to walk away through the chaos of the cops and everything. Ah, 

Craig: fitting end. I just, somebody says, I don’t know if it’s rumsfield, or somebody at some point says, do not mess with suburbanite.

It’s, that was hilarious. I also thought somebody, somebody says, I, I think it’s ra, but somebody says, art, your wife’s home and your house is on fire, right? God, yeah. It’s just, it’s a. It’s a, it’s a funny ending. A satisfying ending that, you know, I, that I read that, that the, the bones in the trunk were an insert shot.

They, they didn’t know what to put in the trunk. Oh. At one point they had the bodies of the trash guys, Dick Miller and the other guy. Oh, at one point they were gonna be in there at one point it was. Full of dead cheerleaders, which would’ve been odd. I, yeah, I think the bones was probably the right way to go, especially probably since we had seen Bones before.

Todd: Well, they apparently shot three different endings. Right? 

Craig: Something like that. Joe 

Todd: Dante was like, none of them really worked, but you know, the first, the first test screening they did, the audience didn’t really like it, so they did make some tweaks, but apparently the script originally had Ray dying. 

Craig: Yeah, but I don’t think they ever shot that.

No, no, no, no. I think they thought, no, nobody wants to see Tom Hanks get killed. 

Todd: No. And they were right. That would’ve made it very dark. Yeah. And taken a real goofy comedy and like had a real weird dark ending to it just wouldn’t have worked. 

Craig: I can only imagine the, the script probably was significantly darker.

But you get, you know, you put Joe Dante on it who already has this kind of dark comic sensibility and then you. Fill it with a bunch of really, really smart comedic actors and writers and basically give them free reign. Yeah. You’re gonna get some good stuff. Mm-hmm. And, and it may vary significantly from the source material, but if you’re getting, you know, I never know how to feel about that either.

The writer was on. Set. I, I hope that he was cool with it. I, I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t be. I would think it would be so great to be able to work with these kind of people on something that you had written and, and to, to be able to see them play with it and come up with fun, cool ideas that maybe you hadn’t thought of.

Yeah, I can’t imagine how cool that would be. So I hope it was a positive experience for him. But this is one of those, maybe it was kind of a happy accident that the writers or writer, or. Kind had to be hands off. 

Clip: Mm. Um, 

Craig: yeah, because of the strike. 

Clip: I could see 

Craig: that. I, I think, yeah, sometimes, you know, sometimes maybe there should be like a producer’s strike so that, 

Clip: so that directors 

Craig: and, and writers can really go with their real vision without the influence of the money, right.

In whatever. In this case, I think. I, I don’t even wanna say it’s lightning in a bottle, because Joe Dante’s done lots of stuff that I’ve thought was innovative and funny and fun, and, and still, I get my horror fix too. I love horror comedy. I get that chocolate right in my peanut butter. I’m, I’m ready for it.

Well, we got a lot more of it coming up this month. I know. And I’m excited. I think it’s gonna be super fun. 

Todd: Oh, you guys are gonna love it. And like I said, there’s some stuff in there that’s gonna surprise you. Maybe some stuff you’ve never even heard of before and maybe some things you’ve forgotten about and need to be reminded of how cool they really were or not.

I don’t know. We’ll see. You know, when you revisit these older movies, that meant a lot to us when we were kids. I’m always a little nervous about it. Me too. I was honestly a little nervous going into this one. I thought, Hmm, am I gonna reevaluate this? This, you know, if it’s not gonna be quite as fun. And aside from saying maybe the pacing is just a tad bit slower than a modern comedy would be.

No, I was just, I was just laughing from moment to moment and just really enjoying the ride. The whole, 

Craig: I couldn’t rec, yeah, I couldn’t recommend this movie more. I don’t know. I mean, if you’re, if you’re a fan of horror, if you’re a fan of comedy, if you’re a fan of Tom Hanks, if you’re a fan of Carrie Fisher and, and you’ve gotta be at least one of those things, right?

Yeah. If you haven’t seen it, and I get it, it’s a, it’s, it’s not Joe Dante says. Even though it was critically panned and didn’t do as well as they had hoped it would do. You know, at the time they just kind of threw up their hands and were like, huh, whatever. Move on to the next thing. That’s fine. But he said that over time, this is the movie that comes in second only to gremlins as the movie that people ask him the most about and that people are the most excited to talk to him about.

And I get it ’cause it’s super fun. And I imagine that a lot of those people are like us. They saw it when they were kids. This movie, you know, I don’t think it’s scary. There are dark elements like human bones, human skeletons, that kind of thing. But I, this is fairly family friendly. Yeah. No fright night, you know, at all.

No, right there, there’s no, there’s really no violence or gore really. So, again, I, I, I could go on and on, but basically, uh, it’s one of my favorite movies, frankly, from when I was young. It, it’s kind of hard to find, surprisingly. I know it doesn’t seem to be streaming on any of the major platforms, and I would’ve bought it, but I, I couldn’t even find any place to buy it digitally.

I was able to watch it. It was so annoying in five minute clips on YouTube, they weren’t even stitched together, so every time one would end, I would’ve to click over to the next one. And so that was annoying, but whatever. I didn’t care. It was still a great movie. I would do it again. 

Todd: Well, one down. Four more to go.

What a great way to kick off Horror Comedy Month. Friends, thank you so much for listening and if you have a, a friend or somebody you know who loves horror comedies as much as we do, what a perfect time to introduce him to the podcast. Just. Send them to chainsaw horror.com or just have them Google Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast.

We also have a weekly newsletter that you can sign up for on our site that lets you know what’s coming up and what we’ve done gives you a little bit of news for the week in horror. Just consolidates that for you. We have a Patreon behind the scenes. We just finished doing the book Clown in a Cornfield, and we’re moving on to another Christopher Pike book.

If something like that interests you, go to patreon.com/chainsaw podcast, get access. To that plus a whole bunch of other stuff. Uh, mini sos uh, the full unedited versions of our podcasts and interviews, written things that we do, and just general access to us for five bucks a month. Until next time, I’m Todd.

And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Join us for a special Fog Day celebration with a deep dive into John Carpenter’s 1979 classic, ‘The Fog.’ As we delve into the atmospheric prowess of the film, we explore its accidental perfect timing, memorable characters, and Carpenter’s genius creative choices.

Discover how ‘The Fog’ has aged, the ingenious practical effects, and our personal connections and memories associated with this spooky tale. Thank you to our patrons for elevating this classic to the top of our list!

Episode 437, 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: Happy Fog Day, Craig.

Craig: Okay. Happy Fog Day to you.

Todd: You may be asking, what is Fog Day? I didn’t even know Fog Day existed until now. But indeed, it is April 21st. Fog Day. And, uh, you would think that, uh, I did all this great research and then we coordinated this episode on Fog Day to celebrate the movie that we’re doing, which is the fog.

But no, it’s actually a total coincidence that here about the time that we put out one of our request polls, it turned out that of the three that we put out on our poll to our patrons, remember our patrons generally get to select which request we’re going to do next from our large pool of requests.

Turned out to be the fog. And so what perfect timing, and this was a request by the way, from Chris. So thank you, Chris, for requesting this movie. And thank you patrons for bumping this to the top of the list. We are doing 1970 nine’s, John Carpenter film the Fog. Now, I saw this movie first when I was a kid, probably earlier than high school, though I’m pretty sure I was in middle school.

Either rented it or saw it on tv. It’s interesting because one of our patrons, when he admittedly chose this movie, said I, I loved this movie more for the atmosphere than the actual movie. I think he more or less said, nothing really interesting happens until the very end, and then it just seems very abrupt.

That is my memory of this movie. So I have to say, going into it, I was like, okay, the fog, you know, it wasn’t gonna be the one that I chose, but I figured this was the kind of movie we would have have to get around to doing anyway. And since I hadn’t seen it, since I was super young, I was anxious to get back to and watch it.

But that was my recollection of the movie as a kid. Kind of disappointing. Nothing really happened. And then boom, the ending came and then it ended. Now I’m gonna save my feelings about it until I hear from you, Craig. Had you seen this before and what had your Yeah. Feelings about it? 

Craig: I know I’ve seen it before.

I think I’ve probably seen it before, more than once I’ve seen the remake. Oh. So it, like, for whatever reason, I, I don’t know. Some people really like this movie and consider it a classic. I, I think that it gets overshadowed by Halloween. 

Todd: Well, it came out the what, two years after. One year after Halloween.

This was John Carpenter and Deborah Hill’s second movie, I think. So there was a lot anticipation, I think, for it. Well, right. And probably a lot of people expecting something more like Halloween. And I think they deliberately wanted to do something scary, but a little different. 

Craig: Yeah. I mean, I don’t remember the year, I wanna say that Halloween came out in 1978.

This IMDB tells me 1980, you said 1979, whatever. It doesn’t really matter. But Halloween, you know, they paid for everything. They did everything for free. I mean, it was really just kind of a labor of love and they didn’t have a lot of expectations for it. And it came out and I think that it got not very good reviews.

And they thought that it was a flop, a bomb. Yeah. But then it got re-reviewed like somebody else reviewed it. The Village Voice. Yeah. And reviewed it really well. And so all of a sudden he was like this hot new filmmaker and, and yeah, because Halloween had been so successful, they figured they probably would want another horror movie.

So he was gonna do another horror movie. I don’t know, you know, how much he intentionally wanted to get away from Halloween? I, I know that they were more interested in doing like a ghost revenge story. They, yeah, the two of them, Deborah Hill and John Carpenter, I think had traveled together and visited Stonehenge and saw Weird Fog and was like, huh, what if there was something in the fog?

And like, that’s literally the idea. Yeah. It’s, and then they’re like, okay, well let’s make it a ghost revenge story. And I get it. I like these kinds of stories a lot. And, and, and they were, carpenter was also really inspired by comics with, you know, these corpses rising from the grave and menacing communities and people and lots of dark shadow and, and fog and that kind of stuff.

All of that. Great. Love it. Yeah, 

Todd: love all 

Craig: of it. And, and I think, I think that’s really what he was going for, right? I’m talking about everything so fast, but I, it’s also fascinating to me that he, that’s, that’s basically the movie. He made a moody, atmospheric ghost story. Yeah. Really? No violence, really. No.

You know, no jump scares, anything like that. Turned it in. First of all, it was too short. I don’t remember, what was it, like 80 minutes? I don’t remember. 

Todd: Yeah, well, about 10 minutes short of a, of a typical feature, like, 

Craig: so the studio wanted. More, they wanted more scares, they wanted more violence. Um, well, 

Todd: and they agreed too.

I mean, uh, John Carpenter and, oh gosh, I watched an interview with him. Deborah Hill, the director of photography, everybody, when they finished cutting this together, including Tommy Lee Wallace, his, uh, editor said, we watched it and we realized it wasn’t very good. It wasn’t very scary. And so it wasn’t just a studio.

They themselves, you know, it was very self pressure trying to save the film. 

Craig: So they, they did, they went back in, they re-edited, they worked on the score more. They, they put in a lot more ghosts. 

Todd: A lot of reshoots. Yeah. Shot a lot of extra footage, whole sequences they added to it. 

Craig: Yeah. And, and jump scares and, and all kinds of things.

And not that I could say that I would know that just watching the movie, but knowing it and then looking specifically at the, the scenes that they say they added in, I’m like, oh, well that makes a lot more sense, because it didn’t really make a whole lot of sense in the movie, you know, like, yeah. It, it felt like extra like.

Todd: Yeah, there was one scene in particular and you were probably thinking of the same one. Yeah. Where it was like, this is Uhhuh a little off tonally from everything 

Craig: else. Right. Like, how are we in a different movie all of a sudden? 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: It was very strange, but there were really a couple or, or maybe even several scenes like that that just seemed a little strangely out of place overall.

It worked, but, but it’s not seamless. And going back you can kind of see that, I don’t know. I almost feel like I may have preferred. The original cut. 

Todd: Really? 

Craig: Uh, I may feel like our friend who said that they like it because of the atmosphere. I do. I like all that spooky ghost story atmosphere. And John Carpenter, you know, generally his feeling is people are more scared by what they don’t see than what they do see.

Yes. But for whatever reason, he just didn’t feel like that was the case here. 

Todd: Well. I think they felt pressure because, uh, scanners, David Cronenberg’s scanners had come out just before this. Um, and this seemed to be the tone of way things were going right now. This is sort of the beginning of the slasher fa craze that John Carpenter himself, more or less kicked off, right?

And so they realized that audiences wanted to see more bloody stuff. They wanted to see stuff a little more in your face. And so I think they were desperately in the midst of reworking this movie that they could tell wasn’t working, decided that they needed to give the audience what they wanted. And I, this is, I like John Carpenter a lot.

I do too. Every movie of his, I just love more him, more and more. He’s a guy after my own heart for a number of reasons. But one of the things I really like about him is he’s very pragmatic. As a director. He makes no bones about the fact that he’s in this business to make money. But you can tell he’s an artist.

He’s not a hack job. He makes really interesting movies. He goes out on limbs, he tries high concept stuff, but he has a smart sensibility about him where he thinks, you know, kind of like in a way, like Hitchcockian, although he, he never wants to be compared with Hitchcock ’cause he has too much respect for the guy.

But he is like, you know, people are often scared more by what they don’t see than by what they do see. And so he has this tension in his movies yet. I know it’s great that he put this together. He said, you know what? This doesn’t really work, and I don’t think, given the state of the market right now, that audiences are gonna respond really well to it.

We need this movie to make money, so let’s insert some things. They’re gonna respond a little bit well to, and kudos for him for having a, A pulse on the audience. Yeah. And throwing some of that stuff in there. I actually think it’s a better movie for it, honestly, because I totally revised my feeling about this film this time around.

And I don’t know what it was. I don’t know if I’m just an older guy, I’m in a different place, or I was just in the mood for a movie like this. I freaking loved it. I was eating up every minute of it, and I was not expecting that at all. Because that was not my recollection of, you know, and that was not how I first received the film.

So, like I said earlier, talking about how John Carpenter is a guy after my own heart. I love his movies, but I feel like we also had similar sensibilities growing up. You know, I talk a lot about, on this podcast, about how my dad influenced my love of sci-fi and, and in a way horror, even though he was never a horror guy, he was really more into sci-fi and, and that kind of element of fantasy.

There’s a lot of crossover in there. And I had a lot of these old 1950s style horror movies at my house, or sci-fi movies at my house. I was not surprised. And, and we’ve talked about it too, we did Village of the Damned Tear, where John Carpenter was inspired by that old fifties movie. And so I, he and I saw a lot of the same movies growing up.

The only difference was they were contemporaneous to him, right. And for me, they were things my dad showed us. So I wasn’t also surprised to hear that along with Stonehenge, he took a lot of the visual and thematic elements from this. Old, uh, movie called The Crawling Eye, or I think its original title was the Tandberg Terror in Britain.

Anyway, but then when it was exported to the US it was called The Crawling Eye, and my dad and my uncle, apparently, when they were kids, saw the crawling eye on tv and to this. Day they talk about how much that movie scared the bejesus out of them when they were kids. To the point where I want you and I to do an episode in the crawling eye and bring my dad, my uncle in just because That’d be fun.

It is such legend in my family about it that I’d and I’d want kind of wanna see it myself. So I was really pleasantly surprised to see that he took direct inspiration. ’cause I think they’re monsters who come outta the clouds, essentially. 

Craig: Yes. Yeah, I heard about that. 

Todd: But yeah, so that’s kind of cool. And so we’ve seen a lot of the same stuff.

EC comics, like you said before, big impact on me, obviously not contemporaneously, but much later became a big interest of mine. I love those ghost stories. It was so obvious the minute we started watching this, I was like, oh yeah. Totally could have been a long ass episode of Tales from the Crypt, you know?

Absolutely. Yep. That’s the style of this film. So it, this all just fit right in my wheelhouse, and unlike the first time I saw it, I honestly didn’t find it boring at all. I real, I recognize it’s a slow burn, but I also feel like he’s very effective at getting a good atmosphere going. A lot of that has to do with the score.

He, he, he self scored again, like a lot of John Carpenter movies, but he’s really good at this. And so I was entranced by the score. Mm-hmm. And I was really entranced by the cinematography. I thought the cinematography of this film was fantastic. 

Craig: Yeah, it looks great. I mean, I’m, I’m, I’m sitting here looking at the IMDB page and just the, you know, the few images that they have up each of them looks like a, a photograph, you know?

Yeah. It looks like 

Todd: amazing. 

Craig: It looks. It. Yeah, it’s very intentional. It’s very intentional in the way that it’s lit and the way that it’s framed and the framing is interesting because technically this is a low budget indie, right? Yeah. Like, I don’t, I don’t really remember what the budget was, maybe, you know, but 

Todd: about 1 million it, it was originally 800,000, and then once they decided to go in and redo stuff, it bumped it up to 1.1 million.

Craig: It. Looks expensive. Yeah, it really 

Todd: does. He shot it at anamorphic Widescreen too, which is a panavision process of putting a different lens on a camera so you can get something really wide on a 35 millimeter. And that was a very conscious decision of trying to make this look bigger. And it works. It totally works.

Craig: It totally works. Like, I don’t know, there’s just something, you know, widescreen wide, like that’s cinema, that’s film, you know? Yeah. Like, and, and it does, you know, I, I’m looking at a closeup of Adrian Barbo right now, and it’s a closeup right on her. Head, she’s holding a telephone, but she’s way to the left of center.

Mm-hmm. And so there’s a lot of this space, like, it just creates, it creates so much space, and especially when you’ve got, like, when your principle antagonist is fog, like you’ve, you’ve gotta give it space to move. True. It doesn’t, it’s, it’s not gonna be as threatening or, or eerie if 

Todd: it’s just scooting across a square screen.

Yeah. Small screen. Yeah. I, yeah. My, 

Craig: my, my point is. It looks great. I agree with you. I think the cinematography looks great. I think it looks expensive. It’s really well shot. It blows my mind that it was shot on that low of a budget 

Todd: and the special effects I was, I found myself again. Nowadays, do people even sit back and go, God, the effects in that movie were great anymore because just like anything’s possible and you kind of cease to be amazed by anything because well just, they did it in the computer or as a half computer, half green screen or something.

But when you go back to a time period like this and you know that that was not what, they had no possibility of doing that at this time. I’m watching the way this fog is creeping in down these streets and all this stuff, and all I’m thinking about in my head is, how the hell did they do that? The fog has motion.

It moves. It really seems to be going after these people at one point and I got down this rabbit hole and it figuring out how they did it and it was really genius. They talked about how difficult it was to work with this fog and you know, there are fog people in Hollywood. I mean, there are guys who, their specialties are just handling fog because it is a big part of film, right?

Mm-hmm. It, it can be subtle. Sometimes it’s just there to reflect light and create a mood. But in this movie it is, like you said, a character. And so the pressure’s on to make this thing not just look like they were blowing a bunch of smoke in front of the camera. Mm-hmm. And they succeed in that too. And I just didn’t remember that.

I didn’t remember so many shots of fog getting into all these spaces, literally seeming to chase people down the street. And with early eighties, late seventies tech, it’s mind blowing how they did it. It’s so cool. Basically what they did for those street scenes is they would shoot the street and then they went back on the sound stage and they recreated the street in miniature.

With the buildings all covered in black, so they could just shoot the fog and they could more, more easily direct it down these areas and have it envelope those spaces and those buildings in a very, very natural way. And then just superimpose that on it and it, it works. It’s so smart. Mm-hmm. And it’s so good.

Oh, it looks great. 

Craig: It does. It looks fantastic. It shows its age a little bit. It could, I mean, it’s also like a glowing fog. And they did other cool tricks too, you know, like shooting things in reverse because I, I guess it’s really difficult to make fog roll. I. Away. In or out. Yeah. Or whatever. So they would shoot some scenes in reverse, which is smart.

It’s just, it’s smart filmmaking and it does look really good. I love, you know, those effects are great. There isn’t a lot of blood, so there still, even with the added in stuff, there’s, there’s a little bit more violence, but not a lot of blood. So if you’re looking for that, you won’t find that here. I’m actually pretty surprised that the movie is rated R, but I’m guessing that this was pre PG 13.

Yeah, I think you’re right because, yeah, I, I think initially he was going for a PG rating, but especially with the additional stuff, it ended up being R but it, it’s relatively tamed. There really is no blood. But there are many things that I like about it, and I like this. And there are some things that weren’t in the original cut that I really like.

I really like John Houseman telling kids a fireside story. Yes. That ultimately is like the background story for. The whole movie. 

Todd: I can’t believe it wasn’t in the original, honestly. ’cause it just fits in so naturally. 

Craig: Yeah. I mean, I suppose there is more exposition later when that priest finds that journal in the wall or whatever.

Right. But this is actually far more entertaining and I feel like it really establishes the mood of the whole movie. Like, oh, this is a campfire, ghost story. Oh, exactly. Okay. Mm-hmm. I am down with this and John Houseman, who I, I think acted forever. But ironically, what I know him most from is in Scrooge.

He’s the guy that reads. A Christmas carol on, on the TV special at the end. That’s right. 

Todd: I forgot. 

Craig: And, and so here he is, you know, again, doing what he does, and I, I think they brought him in for like a day. I don’t know. Yeah. It was super fast. 

Todd: He filmed it on a sound stage, but if a little fake campfire out brought him in for a day and, and then he was gone.

But he got the memo. 

Craig: Yeah. The story that he tells is super great. Well, first of all, he sets it up. It’s so ominous. He’s like 1155. One more story before 12, and then it’s just this great story. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Clip: 100 years ago, on the 21st of April, out on the waters around Spivey Point, a small clipper ship drew toward land suddenly.

Out of the night. The fog rolled in for a moment. They could see nothing, not a foot ahead of them. And then they saw a light. My God, it was a fire burning on the shore. 

Craig: It was a campfire or something. And they crashed on the shore and sank, and all the men died and the fog left and never came back. But when the fog returns, the men at the bottom of the sea will rise up and search for the campfire and.

Todd: I think that’s a 

Craig: great story, grandpa. It’s a great way, great way to scare 

Todd: kids sitting around a campfire on the very day that this is supposed to be going down. Yeah. 

Craig: The hundred year anniversary at midnight. Little do they know that it really is happening. It just 

Todd: takes, it’s a few days off. Just a little.

Craig: It’s just a little offshore for a while. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s a well told story with some wrapped kids. One of those kids, it turns out, is the son of one of our main people here. Who is Stevie? Played by Adrian Barbo, who you already mentioned, and I could watch her on screen all day long. I 

Craig: love her. 

Todd: Hal Holbrook and her, uh, played husband and wife in the, the crate segment from Creep Show by George Romero just a couple years after this.

And I think Adrian Barbo, I know she was romantically involved with John Carpenter at this point. I think they might’ve been married, right? 

Craig: Yeah. During the filming of this movie, they were married. 

Todd: Yeah, he’s been married to a, a few of his, uh, I think 

Craig: stars or Costars Uhhuh collaborators, if you would. He’s married three or four times, I think.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. But she’s great in this movie, and I really appreciate the structure of the story. It’s not all coming at you at once, like it lays this foundation of this backstory. But as far as how we are slowly introduced to all the people who are going to be relevant and the denizens of this town, I was getting a little bit of the needful things, vibes.

Yeah. Or Salem’s lot. Yeah, exactly. Where you, you start to get introduced to each of these people and then after a few more scenes you realize, oh, they’re connected in this way. Like, oh, okay. So this kid that we see a lot in the campfire scene is the son of Stevie. You know, that becomes obvious subtly we see that, uh, she’s a widow because, uh, or later on she’s waking up before her stint at the radio station, which is in a lighthouse, which is a great place for radio station, by the way.

Mm-hmm. You know, it pans slowly across her dresser and stuff, and you see photos of the three of them in there, but clearly, you know, the husband is not around anymore. So, you know, just little touches like that are so smart about this movie. There’s so much stuff that is just eventually introduced to you over time that may or may not be necessary, but it really helps to fill in this idea that this is a town and these characters are, are real.

And I think the town is obviously, what is it called? Antonio Point or something like that. I don’t remember. It’s a very much a par a character in this story too, because it’s really all about the heritage of this town and, and it and its past and how that past comes back to haunt them on this date. So good.

Yeah. And how Holbrooke is the drunk priest? Yes. Who of all the people in this town is very One note. 

Craig: Jamie Lee Curtis is in the movie. Yep. Janet Lee’s like the mayor, Tom Atkins. Is just, he plays a guy named Nick, Nick Castle. A lot of these character names John Carpenter apparently does this all the time.

He names characters in his movies about people that he works with. So Nick Castle was the guy who played Michael Myers in Halloween. Mm-hmm. So he used this for the character name of this guy, played by Tom Atkins, who we’ve seen in. Several horror movies, 

Todd: including Creep Show. He was the father in the wraparound story.

Craig: Oh, yep, 

Todd: yep. 

Craig: That’s right. That’s right. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: So there are tons of good people in it. Buck Flowers pops up in it. Yes. Like I love this cast. I’m a little weirded out by one of the, you know, after the opening credits, which was this, didn’t the opening credits go on for like 12 minutes? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I, I get they kept coming and I was like, surely we’re a half an hour into this movie by now.

Todd: It seems like at some point maybe they realized like they had too much footage, and so the, maybe they’re like, let’s, let’s overlap the credits with it for a little bit, because all of this stuff that goes on here in the beginning is also extra stuff that they put in. But again, I, I liked it. I thought it really set the mood.

It’s just weird shit’s going on at night in this village at this time. 

Craig: Yeah. I almost forgot about this. I do have it in my notes, but I almost skipped ahead because I kind of forgot about it because ultimately it doesn’t really amount to anything. I don’t know. I mean, I guess anytime. The ghosts show up.

Weird things just happen. Yeah. But this first scene, there’s not even fog around. No. It’s just weird crap is happening. There’s like an earthquake and all, all the cars turn on and start honking their horns and flashing their lights and the 

Todd: guy’s sweeping in a shop and the all everything’s rattling and something kind of breaks on its own.

And our drunk priest is sitting in the basement of the church at his desk and he, as he dismisses his assistant, who I think was John Carpenter himself in a little cameo. Yeah, that’s right. Suddenly he walks away and we get our first jump scare. There are, there are a few jump scares in this now, and I thought they were all effective.

Honestly, A big brick falls outta the wall and falls onto his desk and he walks over and what was behind it, but, uh, hidden in the wall, a journal and he opens it up and it’s the Journal of Father something, something Malone 1880. And it isn’t until later. When we hear his name for the first time that he realizes, well, this is one of his ancestors.

He’s, I guess in a, in a line of priests, you know, or, or pastors or whatever in this town, and this is like his grandfather’s journal or something like that. Again, you don’t see you, you see it now, but you don’t really recognize, realize his significance until a little later and I just love how that’s just not all thrown at you the instant.

I really like that this script is structured to be this puzzle that is slowly being pieced together because I think that’s one of the things Yeah. That maintains interest through what is ultimately a lot of exposition for a while anyway. 

Craig: Yeah. I mean, the first thing he reads in the book is April 30th, which I think is that day.

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: 12 to one belongs to the dead and that’s when all the weird stuff starts happening, I guess kind of culminating when Nick Castle, Tom Atkins. Picks up this girl, Jamee Lee Curtis on the side of the road. Now. Her name is Elizabeth. I’m not sure how old she’s supposed to be, and I’m not sure how old she was when she filmed this, I’m guessing early twenties.

Mm. But he’s like. Pretty old 70. He’s a middle aged guy, let’s put it that way. I could probably look it up. And he’s probably our age. I think he’s, he’s 

Todd: probably in his forties, but you’re right, like the, the age gap looks pretty wide here for these two who get very, very flirtatious very quickly. And then later we see that they’ve decided to sleep together.

Craig: Oh yeah. Like they do before and they sleep together and then they’re like, oh, by the way, what’s your name? I know 

Todd: Liz and I were laughing at that. She’s like, they just slept together and they don’t even know their names. I mean, 

Craig: whatever. It’s the seventies. She’s on the road. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I, you know, I read, I don’t think that this is true at all, but I, I like it as a fan theory that, ’cause she’s very cagey about her past.

Like she doesn’t wanna talk about it. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Um, but she does say at some point, oh, I’m bad luck. Everywhere I go, bad things happen. And she’s saying this like, as dead bodies are falling around. Right. And so some people are, some people are like, they think that she’s Lori Strode and she was so traumatized by what happened in Haddenfield that she’s changed her name and is going on the road.

To find herself. Bad things keep happening all around her, 

Todd: right? Like she’s a bad luck charm or something. This was very like Tommy Knockers, right? Where it’s like the right time in this town and then suddenly bad things are happening really, really quickly, including when they drive into town. ’cause at first I thought, oh, this guy’s driving through town.

I didn’t think he lived there, but he actually does. And again. In line with all this other stuff. With the Hortons honking and things breaking and the, the stone falling and everything, the windows of his truck just shatter. Oh, right. The windows and the windshield spontaneously shatter. And I have to admit, it bothered me a little bit ’cause later on their driving down the road with this completely shattered windshield and you’d think the windshield was still in place ’cause there was no wind blowing their air.

That’s funny. Anyway, yep. And then, and then the stove Stevie’s at the lighthouse. And she’s this, uh, very sultry nighttime dj, of which we don’t have anymore. 

Craig: I love it. 

Todd: Oh, it’s so 

Craig: nice. She rem Do you remember Delilah? Oh, um, there was a nighttime. Yes. Radio host named Delilah, and she played like 

Todd: in our town, like 

Craig: soft rock and like romantic stuff.

No, it wasn’t in my town. It was a national syndicated thing. Oh, was it? Oh, in fact, yeah. In fact, I, I only heard, I didn’t even hear it in my town. It would only be if I was like driving through cities and stuff, but she reminds me of Delilah. If any of you remember who that was. Yeah, just the very sultry voice.

Clip: It’s exactly 12 minutes after midnight. And Mrs. Stevie Wayne, your night Stand outta here. Around until about one o’clock. I’m Hi. Tonight in the KAB lighthouse on Spidey point, and in case you’ve forgotten, it’s April 21st and a happy birthday for Antonio Bay. Now there’s a celebration plan for tonight, so if you’re so excited about it, you can’t sleep well, stay up with me and I’ll figure out some way to keep you occupied.

Craig: It did kind of bother me that everybody in town. Our huge, smooth jazz fan.

Todd: Well, that’s, that’s what you gotta play at night. Anyway. We mostly hear her doing her show at night. Right. I 

Craig: guess the dialogue is like. If you’re lonely tonight, I’ll try to find something to keep you excited. Smooth jazz,

Todd: like baby that ain’t gonna do it and sleep. No, I am fast asleep. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: She’s got a guy who’s calling her two and they’ve got this cute little relationship that apparently has been only over the phone, even though I guess he’s within very, very short driving distance of where she is. And he’s at the weather station, I guess, where they’re monitoring the weather and she’ll report that there’s fog rolling in or something, or that the weather’s happening and this guy will call back and say, nah, you’re wrong about that.

And what was his name? I, I never, I know. I don’t think I called him. I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter. Weather guy. Weather guy. We’ll call him Weather guy. So they’ve got this cute little relationship going, which I thought was fun and. Just, I really liked the relationships between all these characters.

They felt really real. They felt like they had a bit of backstory behind them. Mm-hmm. It was just cute. And then we’re also out in the water where, where Buck Flowers is with a couple other guys and they’re on a fishing, trawler, 

Craig: and weather guy gives her. He says there’s a big fog rolling in and it’s, it’s, it’s approaching this one particular ship.

I, I guess he has really advanced technology, 

Todd: right? Like, it’s like a fog tracker, right? It’s, it’s almost like the beeping sonar from, I, I can’t even imagine this is real. I think it was just for the movie, right? Where I think, so the little green thing sweeps around and then you just see a big blob on there that’s supposed to be fog.

Craig: Yeah. I think I read somewhere that like, we still don’t have technology that can detect fog. Maybe I’m making that up. I don’t know. But anyway, so she gets on and she’s like, uh, whatever ship you are, you better look out. There’s a big fog coming. And then it’s the, like the hull of this ship where these men are all just drunk and like lounging around on each other.

Like these burly sailor men and buck flowers is looking out like the, the peephole or manhole or whatever you, the window. And he’s like. There ain’t no fog coming in.

And then, and then once I get later, it starts rolling in. He is like. Hey, there’s a fog wall coming in.

Todd: That was hilarious. Do people just call him like, 

Craig: don’t I feel like he mostly does cameos, like, oh my God, he’s only such a small, small role, but it’s so funny. But he’s just. 

Todd: Unforgettable. Every single time. I just, I get warm feelings in my heart when I see Bud 

Craig: Flowers on the screen. I know he’s an Easter egg and you have to cherish him while you can because you know he is not gonna be there for very long.

That’s true. 

Todd: He’s in a ton of John Carpenter movies. I think this is the first movie he worked with him on, but he has a great role and they live, which we also did as I recall. Mm-hmm. Oh God. And maybe his biggest role. Uh, yeah. Yeah. But anyway, yeah. And, and so then, uh, this fog rolls in and that we see it again as this character, it actually kind of sucks into their engine and makes their engine and all their power go out.

And this was where I first was like, God, this movie is just dripping with atmosphere because the lighting is just so. Good here. Mm-hmm. As they go outside, two of them anyway, go outside, including Buck and, uh, they look and they see this ghost ship come in. It’s this classic 18 hundreds clipper ship or something with the mm-hmm.

Just your classic ghost ship. I mean, it’s straight outta comic books, right? Yeah, absolutely. The sails are tattered and there’s a fog and it’s come up close to them and so Cool. 

Craig: And, and we’ve said this about other movies too, like creep show, and it seems like at least not all the time, but many of these frames are set up so that they look like comic cells.

Yeah. Shooting that ghost ship from the character’s, POV. So you’re looking up at it and looking up into like the skeleton of the sails as it slowly goes by, then the ghosts arrive, but they are just black silhouettes. With the light emanating from the fog behind them, that is a cell directly out of one of those comics.

And, and I love that. Like I will just eat that up with a spoon every time. And that’s, that’s much of this, 

Todd: it is, 

Craig: I really. Yeah, I, I, I like this movie too. I don’t know, like, I can’t say that it’s one of my favorites and I like other John Carpenter movies more, but I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t like it.

There are so many things that I really like about it. And you said, I don’t even consider it a slow burn. I feel like things continue happening. Like I actually, and there’s a lot going on. 

Todd: Well, it’s not a hack and slash I guess that’s what I meant. It’s not like an action filled hack and slash Right. But there’s always something going on.

There’s always something intriguing happening, or at least just a beautiful image on the screen. Something unsettling. 

Craig: Exactly. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And like you said, the score is very informative too. I, I, carpenter does such a good job with that of letting me know when the tense moments are, or they’re coming or, or when I can ease up a little bit.

He, he’s really good at that. And I thought that it was well paced because apparently the rules for these ghosts are that they can only be out from 12 to one. Yeah. So the first night that they’re out, like they have a ghost curfew. That’s so cute. The first night they’re out, like they break a bunch of.

Shit mysteriously, apparently weird things happen. They kill the guys on the boat. 

Todd: Yeah, all three of ’em. 

Craig: I, I think they almost get to 

Todd: like, there’s a knock at Nick and Elizabeth’s door. Yeah. Well, first of all, real quick, they killed the guys on the boat and I forgot. That this movie went here so early and I forgot that it was actually this explicit and brutal.

And I don’t mean it’s really bloody, it’s not. But they stabbed right through this guy and then they hook another guy right in the neck and then they sneak on the ship and there’s an arm coming out and everything. And I mean, you talk about mood and the lighting. I loved that scene where the last guy is inside the boat and he’s calling out to the other dudes and just like outta Halloween, really?

You see that figure appear far behind him? In the, I guess you call it the doorway, just lit by the back, but because the light is kind of swinging and it’s, it’s in and out, every time that light swings back around, that figure is a little closer and then it swings out and it’s just the guy’s completely surrounded in shadow.

And then that light swings in that figure’s closer, and then that light swings out and you can’t see where that figure is, and suddenly he gets the guy. It’s just so cool. I mean, again, this is John Carpenter being suspenseful, John Carpenter, even in these scenes, like apparently he never really intended to shoot the first time around.

Right. So yeah, there’s even some excitement like this happening at the beginning. For sure. 

Craig: I said earlier that I think that I would’ve liked to have seen the original cut, and I would like to, but. I don’t wanna suggest that, I don’t think that adding these things in was the right idea. Mm. I think adding these things in was absolutely the right choice.

Sure. Because I, especially at that time, like you said before, the audience would have certain expectations and I think without some of these more explicit scenes, I think audiences would’ve been disappointed. So I totally think it was the right choice. And, and they’re fun. They’re fun scenes. Some of them get a little silly.

There are some junk chairs that get a little silly, and I don’t remember exactly where they come. I, I just remember there’s one where Janet Lee is looking for the priest in the church and she can’t find him. And then he. Pops out of the, uh, the shadows like fucking anywise. What’s, what’s like was 

Todd: what’s on his shoulder.

Craig: It almost looks like he was intentionally hiding from her and trying to jump out and scare her. It’s true. It’s a little 

Todd: silly 

Craig: and I definitely jumped, but there are a couple of stupid ones like that. 

Todd: There are, yeah. Well you were talking about Nick and Elizabeth who are now lounging half naked at his home, flipping through magazines or something and there’s a knock on the his door as well.

And you can see the silhouette of somebody outside there and he’s just about to answer it when it turns one o’clock. And I think this is another jump scare, right where the clock shatters. Yes. At at one o’clock and then he opens the door and sticks sticks his head out and there’s nobody there. I was still waiting for something to get him, but it didn’t.

Craig: Right. Yeah. But now we have, now we have 24 hours to meet a few new characters and, and start putting these things together and getting some exposition. The first thing, and again, I don’t know if this was in the original script or not. It was, it was, this was one of the stranger things to me. We don’t even know yet that that little boy from the beginning we find out here, pretty soon we see that little boy from the campfire looking along the beach.

I thought he was gonna find a, a body. I thought he, he was gonna find one of the sailors, but he doesn’t. First he sees like a gold de balloon and then a wave comes in over it and pulls back. I didn’t know what was going on here. I thought that, okay, well I guess the wave pulled the de balloon away and washed this board up.

But he takes it and shows his mom, who turns out to be Stevie and he’s like, 

Clip: mom, mom, come on. I. But look at first it was a gold coin, and then it turned into this neat piece of wood. This is one of those times Uhhuh. But look at it mom. 

Craig: And she’s like, okay, whatever. Run along 

Todd: and she’s got this board and it, what does it say on it?

Dane? 

Craig: I think it’s supposed to be part of the name of the ship. Yes, 

Todd: it is. A hundred percent. 

Craig: Hey, when? When the kid comes in and gives her the board, as he’s leaving, he says, can I have a stomach pounder and a Coke? 

Todd: What does that mean? I’m not sure. I don’t know if it was like a snack of some kind. I don’t know.

And 

Craig: she was like, nah, maybe later. I don’t, I don’t know if you should give your kid a stomach pounder. 

Todd: Sounds like a drink. It sounds like a mixed drink, doesn’t it? 

Craig: I don’t know. It 

Todd: sounds like something you shouldn’t eat. 

Craig: Someone’s 

Todd: gonna educate us about that later. 

Craig: It sounds like something that would be on one of those like novelty menus, like at one of those 

Todd: right 

Craig: burger places where if you can eat the five pound burger, the stomach pound, or like if you weigh over 400 pounds, you eat for free or whatever.

Eat 

Todd: the stomach pounder in 10 minutes and you get it for free and your name on a plaque on the wall. 

Craig: We also find out now. That Nick, either like, I think, does he own the boat or he’s somehow connected to the boat somehow? Yeah. And he knows the crew. And so he’s worried when he finds out that they’re missing.

And Elizabeth’s hacking along with him 

Todd: and she’s like, I’m just gonna stick around. He’s like, didn’t you need to go somewhere? She’s like, ah, you know what? I think I’m just gonna stick around. Yeah. So we know they’re gonna be a couple for a while. She doesn’t, having her to be 

Craig: Right. Yeah. They’re gonna be together.

And, and the, the movie is kind of set up that way. Like these stories are happening concurrently. Mm-hmm. And they are connected, but they’re still like disparate stories. Yeah. Their, their paths cross from time to time, but, and I suppose at the end it becomes a little more ensemble, but as of right now, everything’s, everybody’s just kind of doing their own thing.

And Mrs. Williams, who I, is she the mayor? I don’t know. Or is she just like, like, I think she’s 

Todd: the mayor or the chairman of the city council or something. I mean, it’s clearly a very small city, right? Maybe they don’t have a proper mayor or who knows. But yeah, she’s in charge. 

Craig: Well, whatever. She’s in charge of planning this.

Ceremony to celebrate their centennial and it’s gonna culminate in like this candlelight vigil, conveniently honoring the sixth founding fathers or something tonight, right 

Todd: at night. Usually we do this shit in the day, but, oh, well 

Craig: Elizabeth and, and what’s his name? Get to the boat and they find it, but, and it’s empty.

There’s no crew there. But for whatever reason, the boat, even though it’s floating, appears to have been at the bottom of the ocean for a long time. Like there it’s full of silt and sand. 

Todd: Yeah, that’s a weird thing that I don’t know was ever really fully explained. 

Craig: No 

Todd: at all. It’s just like a weird ghost thing, I guess.

Like he, he smells a beer and then takes like an open beer and like takes a sip of it. He’s like, Hmm, salt water. There’s a jump scare that I thought was really effective in there where like everybody leaves and the two of them, Nick and Liz are just in the boat sitting there and it’s really just an excuse for him to tell a story about his.

Father, who apparently also had an interaction with that same ghostship that they don’t know about yet, but about how he actually boarded it and found a delo. 

Clip: It was a gold de balloon minute in Spain, 1867. My dad picked up the coin, put it in his breast pocket of his jacket, zippered it up, came home, told us a story, and he unzippered the pocket to gimme the coin.

It was gone. 

Todd: This is referencing obviously the same ghost ship we saw, but as they’re sitting there, there’s like the, the latch on a, like a locker starts to move and then of course it opens up and this stuff falls out. And that’s supposed to be our jump scare. But I thought, well, we knew that was gonna happen.

That was pretty lame. But then like two seconds later, a body falls on top of her and she screams. And that made me jump.

Yeah, that was a good fake out. It 

Craig: was funny. It it was good. It was, I liked it. I liked it. It was funny to me because it was right after she had gotten done saying that she was bad luck and weird things, and then that body just like fell right on top of her. It was 

Todd: hilarious. They didn’t do a very good search of this ship if they, they missed this body.

Craig: Yeah. Meanwhile, while that is happening. Kathy, the lady in charge for some reason goes to talk to the priest. I guess she wants him to say something at this vigil or whatever, 

Todd: give the benediction 

Craig: and, and while he’s there or while she’s there, they just get to talking about the journal. He’s not in the move that he found.

Todd: Yeah. ’cause of what he read in the, in his diary. Yeah. 

Craig: And this is where we get the explanation for why these ghost sailors are, are seeking their revenge. 

Todd: Yeah. Somehow. Okay. I was a little mixed up on this. Same, because there was. Something about the captain of the ship wanted to establish a, he was maybe a leper and wanted to establish a leper colony nearby, and they weren’t excited about that and he took some gold to do that.

But maybe, and I don’t really know the motivations, but for whatever reason, the town or several co-conspirators, including this priest, did this trick that the guy at the very beginning told us about where they lit. I don’t know, they were sailing out or in I, none of this makes sense to me. But anyway, they’re out on the water.

They crash into the ocean, into the, the shore. The whole ship sank along with all of the gold that they were going to use to establish their colony. And those conspirators went down and grabbed the gold and took it. So it’s like a lost gold situation as well. Very typical ghost story. 

Craig: Yeah, I that you may very well be right.

I think and because I was confused about it too. What I had it in my head was that it was even more dastardly than that. Was that the gold, or at least I think that this guy, whoever it was, I think that he wanted to establish a leper colony. I don’t think that he was a, well, he may or may not have been a leper, but I think that he was trying to establish a colony in a humanitarian effort.

Todd: Oh, 

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t know either, but I think what happened was at least some of that gold was, oh God, maybe I’m making this up. But it’s, it, it, it didn’t sound convoluted in my head when I was saying, I think that they made a deal. I think that the guy who wanted to establish the leper colony made a deal with the leaders of this township or whatever it was, this colony at the time, and said, we wanna establish this leper colony nearby.

We will give you money. And the colony leaders, the sixth of them or whatever, wanted the money, but they didn’t want the lepers. Oh, gotcha. So that’s, so that’s why they sank the ship and they were just gonna take it all for themselves, which apparently they did. I have no idea. You could totally be right.

No. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. Now we know why they’re mad. 

Todd: Yeah. Their gold got stolen and their ship was sunk by these people in the town. And the priest in his diary admits that he was one of them, and that’s caused him a lot of consternation. Ah, 

Craig: right. 

Todd: There’s a, I have down in my notes, crazy jump scale.

Oh, I know what that is. So now we’re back examining the body. 

Craig: Oh 

Todd: yes. Oh my God. This, this was the scene I was referring to earlier, and maybe you were too about, this was just so out of place in this movie that I was just scratching my head. I just didn’t think the movie was gonna go here. I mean, we’ve seen weird things happening always between midnight and one, but nothing this gregarious, they’re back at the morgue examining the body.

The mortician is there, and I think it’s, uh, isn’t it just Stevie and, no, it’s not Stevie, it’s Nick and Elizabeth. Right? 

Craig: The, yeah, the, the mortician and Nick are out. Side talking about how this body died. I they, on, I, I think they only found one of the guys, it looked to me like his eyeballs were gone maybe.

Todd: Mm. 

Craig: But the, the coroner or whoever is, is telling him this guy, it’s like he’s been dead at the bottom of the ocean for weeks. And Nick is like that. Well, that can’t be, I just talked to him yesterday. Okay. So that’s happening out in the hall. Meanwhile. Jamie Lee Curtis is just sitting in there with the corpse.

Todd: Mm, yeah. 

Craig: And, 

Todd: and then go ahead. There’s, there’s movement under the sheet behind her, and you see a hand fall down the side, and then the hand goes searching up under the tray next to it and finds a scalpel. And then now we see everything kind of from underneath there, where these two legs swing down and they to get up and they start to come towards her.

And I’m like, why is, is this a zombie movie now? What’s going on? And then she kind of turns around and there’s a stumble and a scream and they rush in and the body’s on the ground. And like, I just did it just collapse before it got to her. Uhhuh. Okay. And then, and then 

Craig: they’re all like. Whoa. That was weird.

That was weird. Alright. Put it back and then 

Todd: that’s just it. 

Craig: Like they nev never talk about it again. So, so 

Todd: dumb 

Craig: it. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s entirely out of keeping, like that shouldn’t be happening. Yeah. These kinds of things are only supposed to be able to happen between 12 and one. 

Todd: Yeah. And certainly nothing like this really.

Yeah. Like, but at the same time, or maybe just before this actually Stevie Inexplicably has decided to bring that piece of driftwood with her to the radio station. I’m not sure why, but. She set it down on top of a stack of eight tracks and while she’s busying herself on the phone and chatting with some, that guy again, I think behind her and I thought this was cool.

’cause in ghost stories, you know, you always wanna see something a little different. You know, not just the lights flickering or the electricity going out or the shadow along the wall. Sure. Uh, water was seeping out of the driftwood and then starts coming out at full force and starts to short circuit some of the equipment down there, which causes it to catch fire.

She turns around and just before it catches fire, she sees that the word on it has changed and it says six must die. And after she blasts it with her fire extinguisher, of course it’s back to what it looked like before. And I guess then this corpse in, its in its final gasp of zombies had scratched three on the ground with his.

Scalpel. So, I mean, it’s very obvious. No, and I like how this had all come together though. Like at this point we get it, we get what’s going on. Okay, the ghosts are coming, they’ve taken their revenge. I did a count in my head. There were three guys on the boat, right? And so now three more people have to die, I guess, before they’re satisfied or they go back to the ocean or something like that.

So I’m thinking, okay, it’s cool. Like now we know how many more people are gonna die. And I thought, well, that can’t be too hard. You know, like, sure, it’s gonna be a low body count and I guess three will die. And then they go back to the water. I don’t know. But you know, you’re curious to see what’s gonna happen.

And so now it’s nighttime and everybody’s having their nighttime celebration to unveil the statue. As Stevie announces, that candlelight procession will be happening in about an hour. And at this time the fog is rolling in. Huh? 

Craig: It gets to end the weatherman. She warns him that it’s coming ’cause. 

Todd: Now she’s afraid of it.

Craig: Yeah. She thinks there’s something in it. There’s something in the fog and he gets killed by one of the sailor guys or whatever. Then it’s also she’s, she’s yelling over the airwaves for her kid, Andy. She’s like, stay in the house or, or first she’s saying, get out. I don’t remember. He’s with a babysitter.

Something I don’t remember because, you know, I read stuff about it, but I don’t think that it was ever specifically suggested, these ghosts, they appear to me to be targeting. People or, or am I or is that incorrect? I’m not, I’m not sure. Becau are they just, are they just moving around and just whoever they stumble upon, 

Todd: that’s who they get.

See, that’s why I would say like, it would be a rather short movie. ’cause they almost got fricking Tom Atkins’ character and possibly Jamie Lee Curtis the night before, which would’ve gotten ’em almost completely to their quota rather quickly. Unless this is a case of where these people are, are, you know, like descendants of the co-conspirators.

And it’s just never fully explained 

Craig: Well, right. Because what’s his name? The priest is for sure. And he said, he says near the end, he’s like, I am the sixth conspirator. I am. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: It, it’s almost like he is. Aware of some prophecy that I we’re not aware of is, I don’t, I don’t know, whatever. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: it’s fine.

Todd: It literally states in the, the diary something about how Blake’s gold will be recovered. And I’m pretty sure the diary more or less tells him that this is gonna happen. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. Something. But this last, I don’t know. I, I feel like we’re in like the last 15 minutes. Yeah. And it’s kind of a lot of running around.

Mm-hmm. Um, the fog is getting close to people. It’s getting close to Andy, but then Elizabeth and. The guy, whatever his name is. Yeah. Rescue the kids so that it almost 

Todd: kills Andy. 

Craig: Yeah, it does kill the babysitter. Yeah. The old, the nice old lady babysitter. I kind was not expecting that, surprised by that.

Todd: But now you realize there’s just one left, right? I mean, that would 

Craig: the baby, that’d be five. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That’d be five. And somehow the vigil goes on. Nobody, it just so happens that the ghosts cut all of the power in town, like right before the candlelight vigil is supposed to begin. So like nobody really questions it.

It was like, oh, that was nice, I guess to turn out all the lights. For the vigil. 

Todd: Yeah, I know, right. It’s a good thing. They were all holding candles at that time. Very good coincidence. Right? The mayor’s good at playing, but 

Craig: I don’t, and there’s big panic and you know, they’re driving, there’s driving around and this is the fog.

And 

Todd: this is where I thought the effects on the fog really shine because they’re driving down the street and the fog is creeping on. Oh, she’s giving play by play from her perch up in the, up in the lighthouse. Although I have to say, if you actually look at where the lighthouse is located, it’s, it’s actually down by the cliffs.

It there’s no way from where she was. It’s below. Yeah. There’s no way she could have been looking down on the town from up there. Quite the opposite. She wouldn’t have seen shit. 

Craig: No. That real lighthouse was very, very cool. But you had to go down more than a down. Yes. More than 300 steps to get to it. 

Todd: But anyway, she’s given play by play of other, the streets and they’re driving the car around.

They’ve got a backup to get away from the fog. And of course, like she’s like, eventually she’s like, get to the church. The church is the only place that, that, the fog hasn’t gotten to yet. Where did all, did all the other people from the vigil 

Craig: just go home? I don’t, because eventually 

Todd: I know it’s, 

Craig: it’s just, it’s just the boss lady and her assistant lady with the priest, and then they meet at the church with Jamie Lee Curtis and, and her boyfriend.

Yeah, and the kid. The 

Todd: kid too. And 

Craig: so they’re all there. Yeah. And so that’s, that’s basically the showdown because Stevie apparently is so duty bound. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: that she cannot leave this radio station. 

Todd: Right. She’s like, it’s my job to report on the fog for everybody. Keep ’em safe. She 

Craig: apologizes to her son over the air.

I’m so sorry. Mommy couldn’t come. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I swear I love you, but I have to stay on the radio. It 

Todd: honestly would’ve been better for the movie if she just hadn’t called that out so 

Craig: explicitly And she never does leave. 

Todd: No. 

Craig: Like I, does she even have any scenes with anybody? I don’t remember.

Todd: That is a very good question, because what happens next is, oh, 

Craig: she has a scene. She has that scene with her kid. In the morning. In the 

Todd: morning, and that’s it. When it gives her 

Craig: the wood, I think that’s it. She talks to other people on the phone, but I think the rest of the time she’s just on a, a set by herself.

You are right. Anyway, so it’s the big climax. Mm-hmm. So the ghosts show up at the church. The ghosts show up at the lighthouse and the priest figures out, oh, they, they just, they’re like leprechauns. They just want 

Todd: their gold. There must be gold somewhere. Let’s go back downstairs. Maybe. It’s 

Craig: right here, right?

Oh, it is. Yep. There it is. Didn’t notice it before. Here is an enormous. Gold cross that surely must have weighed hundreds of pounds. And how Holbrook, God bless him. 

Todd: I know. There’s no way couple people could have carried that thing upstairs. That thing was massive. Also, I love the way, like when they were pulling it down, like these, these bricks, these rocks were just like, I don’t know, an inch deep.

Yeah, the rocks look all beautiful, like rocky and stuff from the outside, but when they’re pulling it off, it’s clearly plaster. Oh my God. Yeah. That was cheap. 

Craig: Oh gosh. These things are happening. So while that’s happening and those ghosts are approaching in the church, Stevie the ghost converge on her in the lighthouse.

So she climbs up on the roof. I mean, I guess, what else are you gonna do? Yeah. And they’re grabbing at her and like, you know, I, I think one of them hooks her and then shoulder or something, but she’s Okay. So back at the church, the priest is like, here, here’s your gold. And I am the sixth conspirator. Take me.

And so the ghost, the main ghost like grabs the cross. Mm-hmm. So they’re both holding the cross 

Todd: and it starts glowing. I got the sense it was burning up, you know, that was just my feeling, but I. Oh, 

Craig: Nick, or whatever the guy’s name is, so I can never remember, like pulls the priest away, like off and onto the floor, and then the cross kind of just, it doesn’t explode, but like just a super 

Todd: bright light.

And then the ghost are just gone, right? And the fog’s gone. Everything’s gone including, uh, from the top of the lighthouse. And so I’m sitting here scratching my head. I’m like, okay, so if they get their gold back, then they don’t need to kill the sixth person, I guess, because yeah, they’re all gone and everybody hugs and I thought, well, Stevie’s the least gonna need to find a new babysitter.

But every everybody else is fine. The fog’s gone, and I guess that lifts the curse. Right. At least that’s what I’m thinking. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: But, uh, 

Craig: but Stevie on the radio, like it warns that the fog could come back. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. And then, and then it 

Craig: cuts to the priest and the church and you see some 

Todd: fog come out from under a door.

And then that was kind of cheap. I mean, I don’t know, I, I, I thought it would’ve been better if the priest just died along with the, the gold cross and then that kind of is a neat and tidy bow on the whole thing. 

Craig: Yeah. They 

Todd: got their six people, they got their gold back, which presumably means they’re, they’re, they’ve got nothing to come back for and they’ve been satisfied.

And the ghosts are done. This was obviously constructed so that they could have that one last jumps scare at the very end. That singer, you know, that are pretty typical for horror movies. But, and I would like to think that wasn’t part of the original. 

Craig: I don’t know. We did when Stevie’s fighting them up on top of the tower.

There’s one moment where we, you we. Throughout the whole rest of the movie, we really don’t see their faces. They’re, they’re mostly just silhouetted, they’re kind of hooded. Mm-hmm. But for one moment we see one of their faces and it’s just a big blobby magdy mess. Oh yeah. Like, and I didn’t, and I didn’t care for it.

Todd: Um, 

Craig: they, they could have, they could have not shown that, and I think it would’ve been better, but 

Todd: Oh, yeah. 

Craig: That’s a, that’s a small 

Todd: complaint. Way better like you Yeah. When they’re just shadowy ghosts and not so much like, oh, it’s like kind of a zombie type thing. Yeah, I know what you’re saying. 

Craig: I don’t know.

It was really weird. It was like green and it was, it was strange. 

Todd: It was definitely a, a late edition. I, I know that for a fact ’cause I read about that and, and Rob Boten was the guy who did all the makeup effects and, and that thing in particular, I think we’ve talked about him before because, uh, when we did The Howling, he was, um, makeup effects creator on The Howling.

And he worked with John Carpenter a lot. The thing he did, the, the stuff for Explorers and Legend and Innerspace and Robocop and Piranha Seven even, and Basic Instinct later on. Total Recall, basically all of my favorite movies this guy did pretty much the makeup effects for, but this was one of his earliest ones.

Yeah. It’s, uh, I, I’m telling you, man, I still, I just freaking love this movie. Uh, it just hit all my right buttons. I was in the mood for a spooky ghost story like this. I thought it did have momentum throughout. I could see where some people might call it slow, but I was engaged throughout the whole thing.

I liked how the plot was constructed, like a puzzle that pieces together. I got a real sense of place. I felt that this place was a real town. These characters were real. They had real relationships. It hit all my buttons and I just was really, really happy with it. It’s totally different from what I remembered as a kid.

I, I think I would totally watch this again. I’d introduce other people to it. I highly recommend it. 

Craig: Yeah, I recommend it too, especially if you haven’t seen it. I mean, so many, especially, especially if you like slasher movies, especially if you’re into eighties stuff. If you’re a John Carpenter fan and you haven’t seen it, Adrian Barbo is worth the price of admission.

Yeah. There are so many great things about it. I think for me, more than I love the movie, I love the nostalgia that it inspires in me. Like, 

Todd: mm. 

Craig: This is the type of movie. That I really love, and it’s a really well done one. I will watch it again. I’m sure, I know I’ve seen it more than once before this. Mm.

It’s not one of the ones that’s in my regular rotation. 

Todd: Sure. 

Craig: I, I guess probably just because it’s not one of the ones that I consumed like on a monthly basis as a kid, I just didn’t see it as much. We didn’t have it, so I don’t have that kind of connection to it. I’m not as inspired to watch it that often, but when I do.

It’s lovely. Like it’s, it’s really nice. It’s, I think my fa the atmosphere and, and just the cinematography are my favorite parts of it. But I agree with absolutely everything that you said. I don’t find it boring. I didn’t find it slow. I was engaged in every moment. I loved the score. There are so many wonderful things to say about it.

So yeah, I agree a hundred percent. You should watch this if you haven’t seen it. 

Todd: Well, thank you so much for joining us on this Fog Day. Happy fog day. Everyone out there. Thank you to our patrons for putting this to the top of the list. Thank you, Chris, for requesting this. We were so excited to do this today.

If you have any requests for us, you can reach out to us anywhere. We are just by googling two guys in a chainsaw. We’ve got an Instagram out there. We have a Facebook page. We also have our website, chainsaw horror.com. You can become a patron yourself by going to patreon.com/chainsaw podcast. Five bucks a month gets you, uh, the ability to help shape our show just like our patrons is today.

We have an awesome book club going on. We’ve got mini sos unedited versions of our phone calls that, that go into this podcast. All you need is five bucks a month. Go over there, become a patron. Support the show. We just love you for listening. We love you for passing this along to a friend. You’ve got a friend who is celebrating Fog Day with you.

Pass this along. I’m gonna milk that fog day shit for all it’s worth. Pass this along to them. The best way that you can help support this show is by helping us to get new listeners. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Wings Hauser died shortly after we recorded this, so this week’s review of a quirky film is our tribute to his legacy. We’re covering the 1988 horror flick ‘The Carpenter,’ directed by David Wellington. Join us as we explore the film’s intriguing early ’90s vibe, surreal scenes, and its surprising charm that time seems to have forgotten.

From discussing the enigmatic actor Wings Hauser to debating the movie’s intentional oddities and potential feminist undertones, we leave no stone unturned. Tune in for our full analysis and decide if this quirky gem deserves a place in your horror collection. Don’t miss this episode if you’re a fan of under-the-radar horror films!

Episode 436, 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 we’re doing a movie totally out of left field. This is a film that I learned about online and it wasn’t like people were discussing it or anything. I think it just maybe came up in a feed or maybe it got a recent release from Vinegar Syndrome.

I don’t really know. I honestly don’t know how I stumbled upon this movie. It is 1980 eights the carpenter, directed by a guy named David Wellington, written by a guy named Doug Taylor and starring a name that I hadn’t heard in a long time. Wings Hauser. It was just one of those actors who I kind of remember from the eighties.

It seemed like he was always that special guest on a whole bunch of TV shows. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Todd: I thought for sure, like I remember him from some movies or something, and I mean, not really. He’s been in a ton of stuff, but he’s got a face I think you’d recognize well and a name you’d recognize. Yeah. But other than that, I just kind of vaguely remember him and never heard of this movie before at all.

So this is my first time seeing it. But it seemed interesting enough that, uh, I proposed it to Craig and we decided to do it. 

Craig: The title and the cover art were so unfamiliar that at first I thought maybe it was fake. Uh huh. I almost didn’t believe that it was real. ’cause it also looks kind of cheesy and Oh, yeah.

You know, it’s from 1988. This happens to us every once in a blue moon that something just slipped past us. Yeah. But no, I, I, I don’t, I think it must be pretty obscure because I’ve never heard anybody talk about it. Like, I don’t feel like. I’ve ever seen it in documentaries about the horror in the eighties, or maybe it’s just unmemorable enough that I don’t remember, but it felt weird watching it.

It felt like this can’t really be from the eighties. Right. It’s, it’s got kind of it, it does, to be fair, have kind of an early nineties vibe to it, I feel like. But it’s also weird and crazy and I don’t know if you were able to find anything about this movie. I wasn’t. 

Todd: Well, I just feel like this is one of those cases where this movie, like you said, totally slipped by us and all, maybe everybody else, because it’s hard to find people talking about it online.

Mm-hmm. I feel like it’s available on Tubi and Amazon Prime, and that’s how some people have discovered it, because there are a few people, you know, with reviews and whatnot. It is such an oddball movie that that is. I’m kind of surprised about that and I disagree with you. I feel like this movie is eighties through and through The music is like Tangerine Dream.

What they’re wearing is totally eighties. Yeah. Then the That’s fair. It’s also got that. At times, very dreamlike wispy quality to it where it feels like somebody pulled gauze over the camera, you know? And that to me strikes it’s either 1930s Hollywood or that’s 1980s romance. It’s such a strange film.

Craig: There are many strange. Things, but I couldn’t tell. One of the only things that I read about it is that apparently there’s the theatrical cut and there’s an unrated cut. I have no idea which one we watched. The one I watched was a an hour and 27 minutes long, which was plenty long, but it’s edited in a really bizarre way.

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: That I can’t tell if it’s just. Sloppy or they’re intentionally trying to disorient you because I do think at times they are intentionally trying to disorient you. But like some I, I had a difficulty keeping track of, wait, are we in the real world right now or are we in a dream or is this some? I think that’s the point.

Yeah, I think it’s intentional, but I just found it very confusing. There were some confusing things. I guess dreams can be confusing. They don’t have to make sense, but. 

Todd: Well, it’s a Canadian production. It was released at the Montreal World Film Festival. It didn’t get great reviews when it came out, but the reviews that I was able to find, which were all kind of for much later, all give this movie sort of a, you know, it’s not amazing, but it’s really quirky enough that it’s worth watching vibe.

There’s no trivia. I mean, really like, like I was surprised this movie even had a Wikipedia entry. Mm-hmm. But I’m not, because I mean, it, it deserves, I mean, it sounds like we’re talking about some piece of shit that, you know, some kids threw together on their home camcorder. No, I think this is a really well-made movie and.

The director, David Wellington, this was his first feature and uh, you know, he’s directed like 27 things. A lot of it’s in television and the kids in the Hall Law and order episodes and things like that. A few other movies that I’ve never heard of before, like a Touch of Murder and The Hidden Room and the Man in the Uniform, but Wings Hauser.

I know that guy. I just totally forgot about him until now. Do you remember 

Craig: him, 

Todd: right? 

Craig: Yeah, I, yeah. Yeah. I mean, like you said, he’s just very familiar and I did the same thing that you did. I went, you know, down his resume and there were things I was like, yeah, I’ve seen that, like. I saw Watchers three at some point, and he was in that saw rubber.

I probably would recognize him most. He, he did like five episodes of Roseanne and we watched a lot of Roseanne in my house, so I probably knew him from that. But like you said, he’s just kind of this rugged. I don’t know who to compare him to. Like Gary Busey before. Crazy. Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it.

Kind of maybe a little Rucker Hower in his younger I, I don’t know. He’s just, he’s a man’s guy. Yeah. And I feel like he just kind of showed up as those ragged men’s men in. Small parts all over the place, and that’s why he’s so familiar. But I think that what I’m failing to articulate in talking about how weird it is, is just that ultimately it’s very surreal and I found that disorienting.

But like you said, I think that’s probably intentional. I ultimately, I guess there’s a twist at the end because I feel like most of the movie is a misdirect. 

Todd: Mm. Do you know what I’m saying? I kind of know what you’re saying. I mean, I think this is a movie that very firmly is trying to disregard convention.

I feel like this director’s trying to be experimental. I I maybe even inspired by David Lynch, I’m trying to think of Twin Peaks came out in 1988 because. It’s just giving me, not, not a hundred percent, but it’s almost like halfway there to a very surreal ish type David Lynch movie. That’s 

Craig: a fair comparison.

Todd: It’s a horror movie that is shot in a very pedestrian manner. The horror when it comes out is almost underplayed and to the point where you feel like maybe. Maybe this character’s imagining it and we have good reason to believe so, right? Because immediately when we’re introduced to this woman and, and this opening scene happens right after a very long closeup of a circular saw, cutting through wood in slow motion to very intense music, no title or anything.

And then finally the title comes with a couple of names. The next thing we see is a woman who just is in her bedroom and she goes into the closet and she picks a suit out and she has a pair of scissors and she lays the suit on the bed and just starts cutting it up into pieces. And this is done so slowly.

I mean, we watched like five or six minutes of, I swear, of this woman cutting up this suit. 

Craig: Well, she stands and looks out the window wistfully for a while, and then she lays around for a while and then she cuts up the suit and it’s all, yeah, you’re asking yourself what is she doing? Because it’s not like, you know, a hack and slash like that.

She’s angry and she’s just slashing away. No, she’s very meticulously laying it out, like cutting along the seams. And then the man who turns out to be her husband walks in. Looks at her and just says, hi, honey. Rough day, huh? And the next thing we know, she’s in the loony bin. 

Todd: Yeah. He’s had her committed again, apparently.

So I feel like that opening scene is very much meant to put us in her mind space to really get us on her side and in her head before we really know anything about her. So it’s disorienting to us because I feel like the world is disorienting to her. 

Craig: Yeah. Right. 

Todd: She is. Kind of crazy, you know? Or she’s got some issues maybe with reality.

We never really know what the problem was before, except that later she admits to somebody else that she just sees things and she doesn’t think that they’re real because they couldn’t be real. 

Craig: Right? 

Todd: But we don’t know that yet. We just know that he’s had her committed and she’s in a hospital and there’s a woman, crazy woman kind of screaming next to her, 

Clip: but I can’t, so can I go home now?

I’ll talk to somebody about getting you a private room or something. I don’t like it here. Why can’t I just go home? No. Why not? ’cause I can’t afford the suits because your love is better than any love. Sorry about. That’s like you are gonna have to stay here for a little while. Hello Mrs. Jarret. Time for the ease.

Oh, Mr. Jarret, it’s almost new. Fine 

Todd: going. And I’m putting your house up for sale, and all of this gets intercut now with her in the hospital and the people next to her and this doctor who’s almost as crazy as she is, he’s just, he’s just so odd, right? 

Craig: Well, yes, but I odd because one of the first times, okay, so he tells her the, the husband tells the wife that he.

Bought a new house and, and she’s getting out and she’s like, I am free. And then there’s this weird, surreal montage of people telling her, you’re free, you’re free, you’re free. And it, the montage ends. She’s in her bed, but her hands are bound above her. Her head suspended above her head, and the doctor says you’re free, and then holds a chainsaw up over her and acts like he’s gonna start chopping her up with it.

He cuts her bonds. What, what confused me about this. I mean, I’m, I, I feel like I’m to understand that it’s in her head, but they don’t tell you that directly? Nope. It just cuts back to normal. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. Just immediately. 

Craig: Yeah. It’s just the doctor maniacally holding the chainsaw up, getting ready to slash it at her, and then it cuts immediately to the, the door opening from the other side and they walk out just chatting.

So I, I get it, I get it. That’s in that, it’s in her head and, and maybe it’s even supposed to be metaphorical, but just the way that it’s cut and edited 

Todd: is strange. It is. I, I feel like there’s a message here and I’m hoping that we can kind of unpack it as we talk, but, but basically, the doctor is, is very cheerful and nice.

And he’s jokey. 

Clip: There’s no point in being inactive. Just don’t, uh, overdo it either. Uh, try to stay at home as much as possible. Good luck. Relax. I am relaxed. Well, you get more relaxed. Okay? House in the country is just what you need to get you firmly on your feet. I am on my feet will get more on your feet.

And don’t forget, if you have trouble getting to sleep, take two of the tranquilizers or one, even if your dreams are troubling you, I’m sure it’ll fine. I’m sure you will too. Oh, and I’m sure you’ll take good care of. I’m sure I will. And I don’t want to see you back here again. You’d have to be crazy to come back to a place like this.

Todd: Oh my God. But like you said, he said he’s sold the house while she’s been in there and. They’ve apparently gotten a new one, but it needs a lot of work. And so the next thing we see is her coming home to this new house and there’s a lot of people there working on it. So there’s scaffolding up outside Martin, her husband introduces her to Barry, who’s in charge of the renovations, and uh, he seems like an affable guy.

He had almost a bit of a Ted dancing look to him. This dude. And then we get another montage where she walks up to the house and we get long lingering shots of the house and the people working on it and her wistfully sort of walking up. And like I said, the music in this movie is really part of the mood.

It’s there, I feel like, to tell you what you’re supposed to be feeling and also to be like, no, wait, don’t feel this way. Feel this way instead, no matter what you’re seeing, because it does have this like. Tangerine Dream style, like never ending story or something. I don’t remember. I must 

Craig: not have been paying attention.

I, I, I remember there being diegetic music, like they were playing music in the scenes, but I don’t remember the score. 

Todd: Hmm. No, there’s definitely score, but you’re right. There’s also diegetic music and sometimes you don’t know. Which is which. It takes a moment to sort that out. But you know, Barry comes by and tells the scaffolding, guys get back to work.

She goes inside end scene, and then she wakes up in the mor in the middle of the night to sawing and hammering sounds. Her husband is asleep and the music gets very. Happy and bouncy. What am I trying to say? Like cheerful, like a little elf. I don’t know what you’re trying to say. That was what I was thinking because it’s, this is this typical horror scene where the person wakes up in the middle of the night and in any other movie, this would be very, very suspenseful as she creeps down the stairs, who could be in her house making all this racket with these tools.

But the music is not suspenseful. It’s quite the opposite. It’s very whimsical. And she goes into the basement and there’s a dude there who’s nailing paneling up and he turns around, it’s like, oh, hi. And she’s like, well, you’re still working. And he is like, well, it’s gotta get done. And spins around and does that shit that they always do with nail guns in these movies where he shoots it at a rat that’s a mouse or something.

Oh my God. This movie got so many male guns getting shot across the room. Improbably. Mm-hmm. But he’s like, well, it’s gotta get done. And she’s like, well, why are you working so late? And he’s like, well, you know, you gotta work, you gotta work hard if you wanna get something finished. And she’s like, oh, okay.

And she just goes back upstairs. 

Craig: I know. So right away, obviously something is wrong. I mean, like, he’s handsome and charismatic and he is not doing anything. Uh, you know, he’s being productive, getting stuff done, but in the middle of the night, 

Todd: he’s the only one 

Craig: they justify. Or explain away the husband never being disturbed by it because he takes heavy tranquilizers every night.

Yeah. And he wants her to also, he, he seems to always want her sedated. It took me a while in this movie to just figure out that he was a douche bag. Like, yeah. He always seemed a little dismissive of her. Like for her mental health problems seemed more of a. An annoyance than anything else. He didn’t really particularly seem concerned about her, so he was douchey in that way.

Then he’s constantly trying to push drugs on her. 

Todd: Yeah, he controls her money. 

Craig: She, yeah, she asks him for money to just go shopping ’cause she wants to get outta the house and he’s like, no, we’ll have to talk about that later. Just. Very dismissive, and she is now just stuck alone in this house. Like it’s very, the yellow wallpaper, like, okay, I, I get it.

She’s going stir crazy. She has nobody to talk to. So yeah. Is this guy I. Just a figment of her imagination, right? Because it could be. It could be or not. Who knows? Well, but maybe not because the next day the construction worker is like, did you guys do the basement? It’s like almost done. And they think that the crew boss is like bringing in scabs or students or something to do cheaper labor at night.

So there is evidence that something was going on down there. 

Todd: Yeah, so either, either she’s seeing this guy in her head and she’s doing the work, or there really is some mysterious guy who comes and goes and works on the house. And that was at least what I was thinking in my head because it just seems so weird and improbable.

Plus again, it had been hammered home that she is. Cra, she’s stir crazy. I wanna say stir crazy. ’cause I kind of hate using the word crazy. She’s not sure of herself. And I think that’s also why she’s just kind of goes, oh, okay, and, and goes upstairs. I think the movie is telling us very early on that this woman doesn’t even trust her own eyes.

Right. So, and I feel like there’s definitely some kind of feminist message here because one of these dudes comes onto her. Like hard. She’s in the kitchen, like washing dishes or making breakfast or something. And this dude leans in. I called him Mullet guy. Same. Did you really? 

Craig: Yeah, I just, I just named him Mullet with a capital M.

So Mullet goes to the house at night. Also, 

Todd: also another eighties thing about this movie, and he leans in the window and he just starts saying, Hey, 

Clip: so, uh, it looks like you’re on your own tonight. Huh? Yeah. I hate eating alone. Hate it. Of course. You know, we could have dinner together, huh? I don’t think so. I sure have a little dinner, a couple of drinks, maybe have a bit of a tie of it, you know?

Come on. What do you say? Huh? 

Todd: And it turns out Martin is a professor and the next scene we get is he is lecturing a class. I guess it’s a night class. I don’t know about Paul Bunion and he’s talking about how Paul Bunion was a carpenter and a symbol of hyper-masculinity and the American. Mythos. I just don’t think it’s an accident.

Right. No. And there’s this student, and I really like the way this was shot because he’s lecturing to this mostly dark classroom because he’s got the slides on the screen or something and the camera cuts between him and this woman in the audience. To the point where I feel like he’s distracted by her, or at least he’s thinking about her a lot as he lectures, but she’s in shadow.

We don’t see her face and, and then the next time we see her, which is almost immediately after the scene, they’re tussling around on a bed and the, okay, so this guy is cheating on his wife with this student, 

Craig: right? 

Todd: Maybe that’s why he wants her sedated all the time. Maybe. Maybe he’s just. Gaslighting her and stuff.

Or maybe he’s just unhappy and doing sometimes what unhappy to marry guys do. Right. I just felt like this guy was a douche bag. 

Craig: Yeah, he seemed like a jerk. Yeah. But you know, meanwhile, while he’s off doing that, mullet does go back to the house at night when there’s nobody else there. He’s very aggressive from the get go, and she is overly, I don’t know what the right word is, like she doesn’t.

Panic enough, fast enough, not early enough. She’s obviously, she’s too polite, I guess is what I’m saying. Yeah, because it seems apparent from the get go that she’s in danger, and that’s essentially what happens. He starts to assault her, but then they hear hammering from. The basement and he’s like, oh, are those those students that they’ve got taken our work?

And he’s like, I guess I’m gonna go have to teach them a lesson. And he walks over and she just kind of follows behind him looking 

Todd: just as confused. Yeah. 

Craig: And he opens. The cellar door. He, he, I think he takes one step in and then he backs back out and the carpenter is like pushing him back out. And I think he just says something like, you’re gonna have to learn to keep your hands to yourself.

And then he cuts off both of his arms with a circular saw as they all just stand there in the parlor, including this guy. And she just stands there and watches. And that guy just stands there while he, the guy cuts off one arm and then while he cuts off the other. 

Todd: He barely makes a whimper. Then I wonder about the unrated version.

Maybe the unrated version has just a slightly more gore because the movie does have a bit of gore, but for the most part it’s either very quick or it’s very. I don’t know, mild, I suppose, for what’s actually happening. I mean, this dude is literally cutting off both of this guy’s arms, and like you said, he is more or less just standing there with a wince on his face and the carpenter.

It’s almost like the carpenter could have a hat on and tip it to this woman and go, howdy, ma’am. You know, because mm-hmm. He’s just super nonchalant about it. 

Craig: He basically does do that. He basically, you know, he, he, he cuts off the guy’s arms and then he looks at the woman who’s just like looking at them like she doesn’t seem panicked or scared or anything.

And he says, he says. You go on and get some rest, I’ll take care of this. And she just walks past the guy who’s still standing there, arms on the floor, uhhuh, blood spurting out. He’s standing there like kind of convulsing a little bit. Every once in a while she slowly walks to the stairs, starts walking up the stairs.

The guy eventually falls down, but after probably a good minute of standing there with his arms off. Oh, that was. Silly. 

Todd: It was, but again, I thought, okay, this is, this is very intentional filmmaking and, and I thought there’s a message here I suppose that, you know, now that I’m going back and I’m thinking about the whole movie, this carpenter, when he’s killing these people is just very workmanlike about it.

Yeah. You know, it’s. It’s very reflective of what he had talked to her downstairs and what we get a long monologue from him later that we’ll get to, which is about, well, just, some things need to be done. You gotta be willing to do the work, you gotta be willing to put in the time. And that’s the problem with the world today is people aren’t willing to just roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty, and that’s what he’s doing.

He ends up dispatching several people who are mostly men who are being a pain in the ass to. To her getting in her way. Mm-hmm. I think it was IMDB that on the IMDB description that describes him as her guardian angel in a way. Uhhuh, that’s apt. She just pops out, takes care of this guy and then, uh, she’s like, goes back to sleep.

And I think she’s also wondering, this is so weird, did I just. Dream this. And so, yeah, I think this is the world she kind of lives in. She just walks around, not really sure if what she’s seeing is real, because it all feels very unreal. 

Craig: We don’t really know either, because she wakes up, the husband comes home, he sees a spot of blood on the ground, but he thinks it’s wine ’cause there’s a wine bottle sitting there.

That’s so dumb. But, but, but there’s no other, right? Like they’re the same. But there’s, there’s no other evidence of it. She, I don’t even know if she ever finds out that that guy has gone missing. The husband does. Mm-hmm. So we know something’s going on. We also find out she, she tells her husband kind of defiantly that she’s not taking her meds, that she’s fine, that she doesn’t need them.

You know, I always wondered about that too. I wondered. If she did need the meds or has he been gaslighting her for a very long time and the meds are used to control her, and I still don’t really know the answer. She seems a little bit crazy to me, but I don’t know. 

Todd: Is she waking up right from a dream in a way?

Right, right, exactly. 

Craig: She begins obsessively cleaning the house and fixing it up. But in doing so, she also finds herself at a hardware store, a paint store where she sees help wanted and she goes inside and the manager is very weird and it’s a very kind of. Funny, weird scene because he’s just so bizarre.

But he’s interviewing her and he’s like, do you have any, you know, secretary, I don’t know, retail experience? And she’s like, no, but I’m really good with people. And he’s like, what about your education? She’s like, uh, a little bit in the liberal arts or something. Finally, he’s like, well, I. What about your health?

Is there anything I should know? 

Clip: Well, I recently recovered from a nervous breakdown that had me in the hospital for several weeks, and sometimes I see things that can’t really be happening, but I know that, so I don’t think it’s really anything that’ll interfere with my job.

Craig: She’s hired. It’s hilarious. I see things that I know can’t be there because they can’t be, but I know that, so I don’t see how it’ll be a problem. 

Todd: It’s so funny because, you know, I’m trying to pinpoint this guy’s personality and at once he just looks really bored and at other times he seems really uptight and she says, oh, well he seems very nervous.

’cause later she gets visited by her sister at this shop and she describes. Her boss is a very nervous guy. And then I’m like, oh yeah, that’s what that is. So, I don’t know, maybe at some point this guy realizes she’s not too far off from me in that regard, so I don’t need to worry about it too much. But I also think that the questions he’s asking her are strange enough.

Like he’s asking her like, how about chemistry? ’cause you know, paint is chemistry. Uh, like anybody who works in a paint shop has a degree in chemistry to do it. I, again, I wondered if we’re talk, if this is another sort of, we’re talking about this woman who’s finally waking up, but like she’s got this guy hitting on her.

She’s empowering herself by starting to take some action at the house and starting to get to go out and get her own job. But here’s another man who’s being weird and just asking her. Weird, unrelated questions. Again, if I were there, I would think, am I in a dream? You know, I do wonder if this woman sees the way she’s treated and the way that she’s, if this, if this is her way of handling it, you know, if she kind of is being gaslighted, like she more or less thinks she’s crazy or she’s resigned herself.

Mm-hmm. To crazy and not being able to trust what’s around her, just because everything that’s happening to her objectively. It’s really surreal and unfair. Her husband’s cheating on her. This guy’s hitting on her. This dude is asking her weird questions, so you know, if there’s a carpenter in the basement who’s taking care of business for her, who’s she?

To question that. It’s just one more in a long line of odd things that are, that men are doing. To me, except this guy is doing things for me. And that might be the first time in her life she’s experienced that. 

Craig: Sure. Yeah, it makes sense. Like I said before, she’s also very isolated, so just any company is, is nice.

And he’s charming. He’s nice to her. Yeah. You know, aside from the killing, he’s very polite. 

Todd: Um, well, he’s even a polite killer. Really Sorry ma’am. I’ll clean this right up. 

Craig: We’re introduced very briefly to her sister Rachel, who is like an up and coming interior designer or something. It doesn’t matter. She just comes back later.

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: What’s her name? Alice is painting the house through the night. She’s working a lot and the carpenter is working outside and this is my favorite scene. Oh, 

Todd: it’s so good 

Craig: because they are having a conversation and the way that the conversation is shot. Is that the camera cuts back and forth between them.

They are not in framed together. I don’t even really remember what they’re talking about because I was so distracted by the fact that every time it comes back to him, he’s doing something completely different. Yeah. At one point, 

Todd: at one point he is like painting a birdhouse or something. It’s so 

Craig: crazy.

Yeah. He’s sawing. Sometimes he’s hammering, sometimes he’s drilling. Sometimes at the end. When they’re finishing their conversation, it cuts back to her and they play all of the sounds at the same time as though he’s doing all of those things at the same time and she just looks at him wistfully and smiles.

Todd: Yeah. You can tell she’s fascinated and you can also tell that she’s not sure of what she’s seeing. 

Craig: I’m not sure of what I’m seeing. I know, right? It’s so, 

Todd: it’s so great though. Like this bit, it would be comedy. In a comedy film. Oh, because they play it 

Craig: big like he is. Uh, he’s doing wildly different things.

Yes. Like holding big tools or, or, or large objects, you know, different things in each scene. So they’re, they’re calling attention to it. Well, I 

Todd: think the thrust of their conversation is, is basically he’s telling her you gotta keep your momentum up. 

Clip: That’s 

Todd: right. You know, that’s, that’s what it’s all about, is you gotta keep your momentum up.

Once you find something you gotta, you’re doing, you should see it through. And that’s sort of the secret to life, that that seems to be the thrust of what he’s. Teaching her, I guess, is, uh, you know, you just have to take action and you can tell she’s fascinated and, uh, you can kind of see that she’s kind of into him a little bit.

I think I saw that in the eyes anyway. 

Craig: Oh, definitely. For sure. 

Todd: But the next morning everyone comes back to the house and the house is. It looks like it’s basically done. Mm-hmm. Even the scaffolding is gone and the workmen are confused. Barry comes up and it seems like Barry, who also should be shitting bricks right now.

Like, what the hell’s going on? He’s more interested in firing those two dudes that, uh, Martin had asked him to fire earlier. He’s like, uh, come over here. Let me talk to you. And he fires them and like, what the hell? What, what do we do? And he is like, well, you guys were just goofing off and the guy who’s writing your check doesn’t like it.

And so. You know, you’re gone. I’m sorry. 

Craig: Yeah. And it really wasn’t, it really wasn’t his fault at all. No, he did try to fight for them. Yeah. They don’t know that, but he did. Um, he even tells them to take the rest of the day with pay. Like this is a pretty decent guy. Mm-hmm. So it’s pretty shitty when then they.

Come back, but before they come back, right? It’s before. Yeah. 

Todd: The, the, those 

Craig: two guys get fired and then she finds a rocking chair with a gift bow on it. Are we to believe that the carpenter made that for her? Oh, you’re right. Okay. See, I 

Todd: wasn’t sure about this rocking chair scene. 

Craig: I. I’m not sure about it either, but it definitely had a red gift bow on it the first time she found it.

Todd: I did not catch that, but if that’s true, then yeah, that’s probably right. There’s just so many wide, slow misty shots with that dreamy music. Mm-hmm. And this is one of them, right? Mm-hmm. The house is really emphasized in these shots. You know, it pulls back pretty far and she walks around through it. It’s just so surreal and dreamlike 

Craig: and, yeah, and I don’t, I don’t know anything about it, but it’s an, it seems like a location, but I could be wrong.

I have no idea. Yeah. But it’s just this big open, it’s an old. Kind of almost like plantation style house, but like with really high ceilings and really big archways. So you can see a lot from any perspective. It gives them interesting angles to shoot from. It looks good. I like that about 

Todd: it. It’s cool. It, it’s a bit.

It’s a bit of a character of the movie. I, I’m positive it was shot on location. I mean, it’s a very low budget movie. It’s only 350,000 to make it, you know, this was shot in Canada, like so many horror movies of the time war, including a bunch of slashers. I would not be surprised if we have not seen this house.

That’s true. In one or two other slasher movies. Even from the outside, with the pool in the back. I swore this was the house from, I thought the house from sorority row. The house where they killed the, the girl, but the woman. But, um, I, I flipped through some shots of that movie and I, I, I don’t think it’s that house.

There’s just something about the way the porch is and the way it’s all oriented toward the pool that it reminded me of some other movie. I’m just not remembering which one. 

Craig: Well, at this point, the smarmy sheriff visits like. Except for the carpenter. All the men in this movie are gross. Yes, exactly. He, he is just like, he’s, he’s weird.

I don’t even know why he’s behaving the way that he is. Like, it just seems like for no reason. He’s trying to make her uncomfortable. Yes. But he, uh, he basically is exposition guy. He shows up for this. Scene just to have a conversation with her where he lays out the entire exposition and that’s it. You never see him again.

Todd: Yeah. I was surprised. I wondered too if, if the movie wasn’t even winking at that because, well, I mean, first of all, she has this improbably huge pile of donuts just ready for him. Mm-hmm. But how cliche is that? The cop who eats the donuts. And at some point while he’s talking to her, she goes and sets a timer and the, the camera seems very concerned about letting us know about this timer.

It just slowly zooms in on it as she walks away. And then the sheriff even mentions it. Anyway, he tells her about Ed, the carpenter who used to own this house and had a bad temper and was taking out loans and just obsessed with building this house and. Didn’t hire anybody else. He just wanted to do it all himself.

And when he ran outta money and his loans were coming in and the repo man came by, he would kill him. Yeah. In gruesome, horrible ways. Right. He went through what, I don’t know, five or six, and it sounds like he’s trying to scare her. You know, the way he says this 

Craig: and then Right. It, well, it’s a ghost story because you know, the, I don’t even remember.

She asks what happened to him, but I don’t remember what he said, or I don’t know if I could hear it. He 

Todd: says he went to the chair. He went to the electric chair. Okay. 

Craig: And, but then the sheriff, who as far as we know is a sane person, says, do you hear that? Mm-hmm. And I can hear people screaming in the distance.

And he’s like, those are the screams of the repo men, like. Is that supposed to be, are they really hearing that right or is he, is she maybe just hearing it because he’s suggesting it? Like that’s part of the ghost story? Like do you hear that? If you listen carefully, you can hear the sounds of their screams and so maybe he just suggested it so she started to hear it.

I definitely heard it, 

Todd: yeah. It was there, it was in the soundtrack. Again, I think they’re keeping us in her head for a lot of this, even in these weird scenes. I I, there was a part of me that is even wondering if she, in her mind, was making him smar than he really was. Right. I don’t know if a guy like that came in and sat down at my table and acted the way he did, I wouldn’t be as hospitable as she is to him.

She even talks to him like he’s just a normal person. 

Craig: Yeah. I wanna say, I wanna say. Gosh, it was a different time. Kind of. It’s not like it was that long ago, but I, I mean, she’s, she’s also a small wom woman and most of the men that she deals with could overpower her. Yeah. Fairly easily. They’re big guys.

Um, so I think that she’s, she’s treading cautiously, but you’re right. She does appear to be in. Imminent danger, but I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t know. I just want her to be bold and tell them to get out. But she does. You know, she told that other guy to get out several times. Yeah. The one who got his arms cut off didn’t matter.

Um, this guy’s, the sheriff, you kind of have to be nice to him, I guess. True. But anyway. Uh, that scene’s over, you never see him again. Then those two guys that got fired, break into the house at night to steal tools and one guy wants to go down to the basement to get something and as he’s going down and they intentionally wanna mess things up.

’cause you know, this is their revenge. As they go down, he takes his box cutter, his knife or whatever, and runs it through the drywall As he walks down the stairs, cut to the carpenter who’s in the basement, looking at his arm. That has a big, long. Bleeding scratch on it. Yeah. So apparently if the house gets harmed, the carpenter gets harmed.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And so he kills that first kid with a buzz saw. I don’t remember exactly how. And then the other kid who was really the, the, the guy, the ED or whatever his name is, even says to the kid when he grabs him, he is like, it’s too bad. You’re really not that bad a kid. You just hung with the wrong crowd.

And then he staple guns, his eyeballs. And does something else. Terrible drills right into his neck. Drills through his neck. 

Todd: God, again, it’s just very workman-like. He just does this and he’s, he’s a little quippy, you know? But also he doesn’t, he does it like you do work. Like you don’t really necessarily enjoy doing the work.

You just, just gotta be done. And so this is all very matter of fact. 

Craig: Yeah. Except it’s a, it’s a little, it’s, I was a little unclear on what was happening because Alice comes down the stairs. Calmly sees all of this happening or the aftermath of it, and he’s just, he’s just hovering over the guy just drilling and drilling and drilling into his chest cavity.

Yeah. I’m not really sure what the point of that was. 

Todd: Well, she calls attention to it. She says, you, you really think that’s necessary? And he is like, well, you know, I don’t like to leave a job. Half done. What is the full job? I, I don’t really know. And she’s 

Craig: like. Ed, you really should get your temper under control.

And then they flirt for a little while over that body. And then he’s like, have you ever, have you had a chance to go walking in the woods yet? And she says, no. He’s like, well, we should, we should do that together sometime. And she’s like, okay, 

Clip: it’s a date, 

Craig: I 

Todd: guess. There’s a little bit of humor here. I mean, obviously it’s all quite funny in a dark way.

All of his dialogue with her again is, is like if you do something right, it stays right. And the trouble these days is people don’t take the time to do things right. They’re always looking for the fastest and cheapest ways and they end up with shoddy workmanship and, and you know, it’s just philosophical stuff about people being lazy and soft and being scared of work.

Yeah. Yeah. He’s like, take a look at this guy. See what I mean? Soft. And he drills it. To him again. 

Clip: Yep. 

Todd: You know, I was thinking a lot about American Psycho when I was watching this. Have you seen that movie? 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: I also read the book It, it feels a lot like American Psycho, where you’ve got this guy who, you know, just has these very strong ideas about, about life and about how things should be.

Clip: Yeah. But you work really hard. Don’t you ever take a break? Not much. You lose your momentum that way.

That’s the thing about hard work. You can’t lose your momentum. It’s just like music. Huh? That’s a nice thought. Well, that’s just the way it is. You know, once you get it going, once you get the rhythm, it takes on a life of its own. And the moment you stop it, you kill the rhythm, but you’ve gotta stop sometime.

Not until job’s done. 

Todd: A little bit, a bit of catcher in the Rye about everything, but also you’re not quite sure if what’s happening is really happening because it just seems so fantastical and it’s just presented so matter of factly that you’re, you have caused to question it. 

Craig: I am sure I’ve told you this before, but I saw American Psycho around the time when it came out.

I thought it was. Fine, good, whatever. And then much later I decided to read the book. And I read the book, and it’s the only time in my life that when I finished a book, I threw it in the garbage. I can see why. I mean, it is a slog to get, I didn’t want anybody else to read it. Oh, really? Yeah. Well it was just so horrible.

It was just so sadistic. And I was like, Ew, no, I hate this. And I threw it in the trash can. I never done that. I hoard books, but I had to get that one outta the house. Oh gosh. A bunch of stupid stuff happens now that it doesn’t really matter. The sister visits, we find out that Martin’s mystic is mistress is pregnant, which she tells him, and then that just kind of is hanging over everything for a little while.

At one point, Martin Drugs. Alice for reasons that I don’t understand, just because she’s staying up working on the house. Yeah, like she has fixed up the whole house and he’s always like, Ugh, what are you doing? Like, what do you care? Shut up. Go back to bed. 

Todd: I feel like also maybe this is a revenge in a way, because when her sister comes over, she’s like a totally different person.

In front of her sister. Yeah. She’s jokey, she’s laughing, she’s super excited. She greets her with this big scream and this huge hug and uh, they are just chattering away and Martin is sitting there like trying to get a word in edgewise and they almost completely ignore him and that’s really clearly pissing him off.

He’s not used to that. Yeah. So I did wonder if that was just his way of, again, trying to dominate her some more, 

Craig: I guess. But he drugs her and when he drugs her. She wakes up in bed like she’s, we see her downstairs. We see her drink, the drink that he put drugs in, cut to her in bed, waking up. She goes downstairs and finds the carpenter wearing a suit, the weirdest suit, an all white suit with a black vest, which just looked so bizarre to me.

Um, I hated it. I hated his. Suit. Other than that, he looks I did. Other than that, he looked nice, very handsome, very debonair. And he’s down there and he’s in a suit and he plays a Victrola for her. He’s cranking an 

Todd: old fashioned Victrola. Yeah. And the music is very 

Craig: classic, right? It’s, and it sound I do love that sound.

The, the old scratchy sound of those old wax records. I mean, it’s terrible quality, but it’s charming. I love it. Yeah, it is. So they dance and he, I kind of lost, I think my mind wandered here, but I think the gist of what he says is things could be different. It could just be the two of us. We could close off the whole world and it would just be us in the house.

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Right. That’s basically what he says. Yeah. And then he steps back, they’re dancing and he steps back and he says something like. Of course there’s always this too. And he un, he unzips his fly and it cuts to her face horrified. And you hear a drill sound. Yes. Like he has a drill for a wiener. Um, but it turns out this.

I think was a dream because she wakes up again in bed. Yes. And she try, she tries to wake up her husband, but, and I don’t even know if she’s trying to wake him up or if she’s just angry. She’s like hitting him, but he’s so drugged out. He doesn’t even. Wake up. She’s 

Todd: really upset about it too. I’m, 

Craig: well, I would be too.

She has specifically told him that she doesn’t like taking those medicines, you know, he keeps saying, well, it’ll help your dreams. She’s like, my dreams are fine. Like, fuck off. Yeah. Um, so I would be really mad too. Don’t do that. 

Todd: Yeah. Oh. Oh, you think she realized she was drugged at this point? Because the dream was so crazy?

Craig: I think so, yes. Oh, I think so, but I, I don’t know. I’m jumping to conclusions there. 

Todd: No, it makes sense. In the morning, Martin and Rachel have a very awkward conversation where basically he’s like, I know you don’t like me. And she’s like, well, I don’t like you because you treat my sister like shit. And then he says, you know, we could have had something, you know, as she walks out the room and just kind of clucks at him.

Craig: This was one of. Two or three scenes that I felt were really unnecessary and could have easily been cut. Like it’s clear that there’s tension between them at this point. It’s clear that he’s a douche bag. We really don’t need that reinforced ex. Exactly. It’s, it’s fine. It’s just unnecessary and it just slows it down.

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Because then Rachel and Alice take a walk outdoors and she tells. Her sister about Ed, and she’s talking about him as though he’s real. But then some of the things that she’s saying, she, she says something like, I mean like just last night we were talking in a dream and he was telling me about how he, and she just says that casually as though that’s a normal thing.

Like you talk to people in dreams. 

Clip: Mm-hmm. Um, 

Craig: and at that point it seemed like the sister was encouraging it. Thinks that she’s ama Yeah, she thinks that she’s imagining it. So she says, look, that’s great. I’m really happy for you, but we’ve gotta do something about Martin because the wife Alice already, she knows he’s having an affair and she doesn’t even really care.

Mm-hmm. But Rachel thinks something needs to be done about it, and she’s like, we’ve gotta do something about that, because it’s important and it’s real. Like she’s, 

Clip: you 

Craig: know, okay, let’s, that’s, I like that you have a new boyfriend. That’s, that’s nice. Let’s, let’s talk about these real things. Then we get surreal clips of Martin talking to Alice’s doctor.

I have no idea if that was real or not. I have no idea if she was just being paranoid. 

Todd: It’s strange. Yeah. I’m not sure. But she’s staring into paint cans that are shaking and I’ve done that too. I’m fascinated by those machines that shake those paint cans. Yeah, they’re, they’re really. 

Craig: They’re hypnotic.

Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. And as she’s staring into those paint cans and we’re getting these cuts back and forth, it’s just very slow in on her. They start to leak. They’re spraying red paint all over her. It looks like blood. Blood red. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. On her white dress. And when she comes home, she’s still covered in that red stuff, but she’s got groceries with her and Laura Bell, that’s the name of this guy’s Mistress.

Mistress is there waiting for her and wants to talk. Oh my God. Does this actually happen? I guess it does. That would be terrible. And I think it does, man. And uh, I was like, oh shit, this is not gonna be good. And it doesn’t go well. 

Craig: It’s funny, I, because this, by the way, the, the woman that plays Laura Bell is very beautiful, just a, a stunning blonde.

But she’s petulant. And I think, yeah, that some women, probably young, maybe not so secure women. Like to catch other women in these gotcha moments. Like, haha, I’m sleeping with your man. Yeah. And it’s, and guess what? Alice is basically just kind of patronizing her, just like, yeah. Trying to make small talk.

And she’s like, funny weather we’re having. Hmm. And she’s like, yeah, what’s even funnier is I’m pregnant with your husband’s baby. And she’s like, Hmm, don’t really care. Right. 

Todd: I do. It’s nice. Well, I do believe this is kind of a turning point for Alice because Yeah, she seems to be losing it. 

Craig: She seems to be losing 

Todd: it.

She’s losing it, but she’s also, I think, starting to come to grips with and push back against the people that are doing things to her. I mean, here’s ano, here’s a woman coming in basically doing the same shit to her that men do. Condescending to her, treating her like she’s 

Craig: stupid. Right, 

Todd: exactly. So. At this point though, instead of more or less tolerating it, she, and don’t get me wrong, in the past she’s asked people to get out of her house, but not until, you know, she’s gotten to a point of no return where she has to say that now because she’s extremely uncomfortable.

Craig: Well, and this was giving me burnt offerings. Oh yeah. She is now so connected to the house. She’s like, you are dirty. You bring your dirty filth in here. Into my nice. Clean house, and this is my house. Get out of my house, and 

Todd: she goes and sits down in that rocking chair. That was the gift to her from the carpenter, you know?

Mm-hmm. Opposite her when she’s talking it, it seems to give her power, I think, in a way. 

Craig: Yeah. But she, she chases her out and I knew something stupid was gonna happen, but I, I didn’t know. Because it’s daytime and at this point I don’t think we’d ever seen the carpenter in the daytime before. 

Todd: Right? 

Craig: So I didn’t know if he would show up, but he does and he, she picks up the nail gun and starts to point it and he like helps her aim and she shoots the mistress several times.

And that nail gun apparently. Has the same force as like a machine gun because the nails go all the way through her body and come out the front blowing holes. 

Todd: Yeah, these big nail guns in movies, we’ve talked about this before. Anyone who has handled a nail gun nose, you can’t just hold it up and shoot it across the room.

They’re deliberately designed to not allow you to do that. Because that would be dangerous. You have to press it up against something. But they, I mean, they’ve got force. Don’t get me wrong. I’m ah, oh, absolutely. And I have, I’ve, I’ve done the thing where you shoot a nail gun across the room, you can make it happen.

If you find a thing to kind of hold, pull that thing back. But I wouldn’t advise it. No, you shouldn’t do it. Trust me. You could do some damage to a person. A hundred percent sure. Would you shoot a nail through their body from, uh, 12 feet away? 

Clip: Uh, 

Todd: maybe not, but this is significant. I think, you know, I think you might be right.

I feel like she is kind of going crazy at this point, because before you could shock this carpenter up to a dream. He’s always visiting her at night under these kinda mysterious and dream-like circumstances. And here, you know, when she needs him, he’s conjured up. You know, he’s right there and the moment she pulls a nail gun up, he’s like, oh.

He kinda looks up like he’s been standing there the whole time and helps her aim 

Craig: also. Up to this point, the only other people who have been present have been, oh gosh. I don’t know what I was trying to get at. I, I guess what I’m suggesting is it’s feasible that she could have been doing all of this herself.

Right. Right. It, it’s unlikely. But it’s feasible, including 

Todd: this. 

Craig: I was still not sure. Yeah. But at this point, things are sloppy because there’s, you know, a dead chick and, and Martin comes home immediately finds a trail of blood leading from the driveway into the house. He finds the mistress’s corpse just thrown haphazardly onto the couch.

She’s dead and looks. Funny. And at one point she totally blinks and that was hilarious to me. 

Todd: Yeah, she al. I also saw her chest rise a couple times. 

Craig: She’s just sitting there that part of the reason that I say that she seems to be losing it is because she seems to be kind of disassociating like she’s not.

Really understanding the reality or the gravity of what’s happened it seems. Yeah. You know, she just seems kind of distant and vacant. 

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And he tells her, the husband tells her, you know, you’re sick. I knew it. I’ve always known it. And she turns it around and says, no, you’re the sick one. You’re the the sick pervert.

And she starts shaming her and he starts hitting her. And of course, her knight in shining armor. Shows up and throws him to the ground 

Clip: and 

Craig: I think nails his hands to the ground with screwdrivers and then puts his head in a vice and gives him a lecture about being a smart ass. Yeah, a fairly long one 

Todd: as he twist the vice, which, oh God, that was um, to me the most gruesome thing I could not imagine having her head slowly crushed by a vice.

Craig: No, it would be awful. But that smart ass lecture, I bet if you counted the number of times he said smart ass, you’d have to use more than two hands. I don’t know. 

Todd: I mean, he is a Paul bunion type man’s man character, I suppose, right? He’s just, 

Craig: yeah, 

Todd: hyper masculine in a way. 

Craig: I’m wondering at this point, you know, where is this going?

Like I, I just couldn’t figure out where it was going, but Alice just goes up and takes a shower, her sister comes back. She also sees all the blood and bodies she thinks. That her sister has lost it, but she just wants to get her out of there, I’m sure, to get her help. But then Ed appears and is talking to her, and at this point I’m like, okay, Rachel is our rational, realistic character if she is talking to and interacting with this person.

I. He must really be there. 

Clip: Yeah, 

Craig: I’m sure I probably should have come to that conclusion earlier, but this was for whatever reason, I was like, okay. I mean, I guess it’s a ghost, right? We’re dealing with a ghost. 

Todd: Uh, yeah. I think it’s pretty clear by now. Like I can’t think of any other explanation for it.

The only other wacky theory I had was maybe Rachel is not real either. Maybe Rachel, that’s possible. You know, she has conjured up, but Rachel interacts with her boss earlier. Yep. And so. I don’t think so. I think she’s real as well. Yeah. And so she runs off, they both 

Craig: run off well because Rachel, Rachel tries to get, basically he is saying Alice isn’t going anywhere.

Yeah. And Rachel is trying to strong arm Alice out. And so he says, you’re not doing that. And it gets physical and he throws her to the ground as soon as he throws her against the wall and she falls to the ground, apparently unconscious. That’s it for Alice. She’s done. Yeah. You’re done with this guy. She says, you’re, you’re, you’re an asshole.

You’re just like the rest of them, you’re just like, Martin, you’re just like the rest of them. And that’s it. Like there’s no going back for her. Yeah. And he chases her around a little bit, and then it turns out that he is just a gross creep like all other men apparently. Because the second he, you know, she’s defied him in any way.

He’s like, well, I guess the courting phase is over time to give it up. And he keeps saying it. 

Todd: Yes. Like, ew. Gross. It’s such a weird moment for him to be insisting that she give, I guess, you know, it’s a, it’s, it’s a rape thing, I guess. Yeah. But, uh, she’s, she and Rachel figure out that by destroying the house, they can destroy him.

And that’s basically what they do. They end up in the basement. Uh, she’s hit him with a hammer a couple times, but it really hasn’t done anything to him. He says it’s a tool, not a toy, when she hits him on the head with it. 

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: But when, uh, one of them wax the house, the wall, or whatever, he, he hurts. And so they realize that’s the case.

And so they just start smashing the walls. And then Alice just decides she’s gonna torch the place and she picks up a literal torch and burns the walls, which starts burning him As they run out, we get a really impressive Burning man effect. Yeah. This, this guy is on fire, but he’s also talking like, you can see this figure’s.

Face. Wow. Really good. 

Craig: That, yeah, that was wild. And. They surely had to do it in several sections for sure, because he, it seemed like he was on fire for a long time. Oh, and because he, he starts out in the basement. He follows them upstairs. He follows them out of the house, down the driveway, until eventually he falls on his stomach and starts pulling himself along for a little bit.

All this time, from the very beginning, fully enga engulfed. In raging Flames. It looks really impressive. 

Todd: It’s super impressive. And he yells out at her and eventually, I think the last line is a, Alice, I could have loved you. We could have been something. And she turns around and says, you should have been more of a gentleman, ed.

And they walk away and credits credits. That’s 

Clip: kind of silly. So 

Todd: yeah, I mean. It’s definitely a anti-man. I don’t wanna say that, but you know, it’s just kind of a, it’s definitely got this message and this very strong character arc. This woman, I think, finally gets her empowerment. I get the impression anyway, she’s gonna go on to a better life.

Right? And maybe all the evidence of, of what just happened is gonna burn up in the house and she’s off scot free. I don’t know, man. I lo I have to say, as weird as this movie was, I. Really enjoyed watching it. I really liked it. I mean, I, I was just fascinated by it the whole time. I could see where as if maybe, and I was in some other mood where I was in a hurry or I just wanted to get something done that I would’ve maybe been a little bit more impatient with it or something.

But 

Craig: yeah, 

Todd: it was so dreamlike. I think IMDB calls it a fantasy horror, and I would call it that too. Huh. It’s got that element of fantasy about it. That I find compelling and interesting and I’ve got a lot of patience for, because I trusted the filmmakers. You know, I thought it was really well made and so I knew they knew what they were doing, that all these odd things happening was not just incompetence or stupid, you know, head scratching moments of some shit script that was thrown together or doesn’t make sense.

I think they were. Clearly trying to say some things here. Did it all land? You know, was it all perfect? No, not really. And apparently the movie didn’t really land with people because I don’t think anybody, I cannot wait to hear if other people in our crowd have even seen or heard of this movie before.

But so odd for this kind of film to come out of left field and very few people are talking about it. You know what? 30 years later, 

Craig: I really like parts of it. I thought there were some really interesting parts. I thought the scenes between the Carpenter and Alice were interesting. I think even though a lot of the stuff that we’ve talked about, I do agree that it was intentional.

I think some of the editing was a little sloppy and again. Always listening on my earbuds. The sound was not particularly clean. No, it’s his first full length feature. You know, it’s a low budget. I’m willing to forgive those things, but I will also point them out. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: But like I said, I thought there were some really creative things.

It was certainly different. Some interesting things to look at. I did find it darkly funny there. I, I laughed out loud when she said that line about, well, I was recently released from a mental institution. Like I laughed out loud. I thought that was so funny. So it was worth seeing. It’s not a waste of time.

You know, if, if you like eighties slashers, you’ve probably never see it. You’ll probably have fun with it. But you, you’re, Todd, you’re right. Set yourself up when you’ve got time and you want to sit down and enjoy something like this. Because if you’re doing it on the. Fly, you will get impatient. I did, uh, you know, I was trying to squeeze it in on my phone at work and then, so it wasn’t the greatest viewing.

Mm-hmm. But I did like parts of it and I think that other people will like it too. 

Todd: Well, there are just so few movies like this, right? It defies description almost intentionally. So I think this movie is made to defy genre, but it’s very clearly a horror movie. But it’s also other things, you know, it’s a psychological thriller.

It’s a drama. It’s kind of a domestic, what do you call it, dome, like a lifetime movie. Sure. You know, it, it’s, it’s got a little bit of. Everything in it, and it’s got enough mystery also to keep you guessing up to the very end. So that’s true. I really think people should go outta their way to see this because it’s utterly fascinating piece of filmmaking, and I’m really surprised that this director didn’t go on to make.

More important, more, I don’t know, maybe some of his movies are really interesting and they’re just as lost to time. I mean, he’s still around. He’s still shooting episodes of TV shows and things like that. I’m just, uh, they’re just feels like there’s real clear vision here. Really interesting stuff going on.

I would sort of expect to see more of that, you know, later in your career. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll look into that. Well, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy this episode, please share it with a friend. You can find us online, two guys in chainsaws. All you need to Google to get to our website to leave us a message there.

Over our social media as well, we have patrons behind the scenes. They get unedited episodes, mini episodes, and we have a book club going and lots of other things. If you’re interested in joining our patrons and supporting the show that way, we’d love you for it. It’s five bucks a month. You just go to patreon.com/chainsaw podcast.

Such a small price to pay for over 400 episodes of entertainment that you can also get for free.

Not gonna lie. Thank you so much. We love our supporters. You guys allow us to keep the show going, uh, to do things that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to do. We wouldn’t even have. The activity on these social media channels that we have now without it. So thank you guys so much. 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 cult classic 80s horror-comedy ‘Ghoulies’. They explore listener Russ’s request, reminiscing about the iconic VHS cover art and discussing the movie’s bizarre blend of horror, comedy, and satanic cult themes.

Topics include the awkward ritual scenes, the hilarious little creature puppets, and the unforgettable Grizzle and Greedy Gut. Don’t miss this nostalgia-filled journey back to the golden age of video rentals and 80s horror!

Episode 435, 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 are ready to do another request this month. And you know, I think I say this every now and then on our outros, that we have a feature on our website where you can go and you can leave us a voice message. You don’t have to sign into anything.

You don’t need any special software. You can just do it right through your browser and then record something up to 60 seconds and then it just sends it right to us. And we love it when people do that and whenever people do that, of course, we featured on the show this time around, we have loyal listener Russ.

Who sent us this request? 

Russ: Hi there. I just started listening to you guys podcast and I really like it. I think you guys should do an episode on the Ghoulies because I’d love to hear your take on that. Alright. Also, Silent Night, Deadly Night 2. I don’t remember seeing that. Your podcast. Thanks guys. Keep up the good work.

Craig: Thank you, Russ. I appreciate hearing from you. I, I, somebody’s gonna have to really twist my arm if we’re ever gonna do Silent Night, Deadly Night 2. 

Todd: I know, right? 

Craig: My arm is gonna have to be really, really twisted, isn’t it? 

Todd: Now you’ve seen it? I haven’t Isn’t it mostly just like clips from the first movie?

Craig: Yeah, it’s mostly just cuts from the first, I don’t know. It’s fine. Whatever. Like there are funny moments. In it. Gosh, we’ve 

Todd: done like the first one, the fourth one, the fifth one, the sixth I, I think the third or the sixth one as well. We’ve done quite a few of them. I don’t know. 

Craig: Yeah. However, Russ, we can accommodate you.

I. With Ghoulies. Yes. Ghoulies. We’ve been talking, I, I feel like we’ve mentioned Ghoulies a million times. 117 times. Yeah. Yeah. Like so many times, give or take, and we’ve talked about doing this and when we’ve talked about doing this, and I will stand by it. I’m, I’m happy to talk about this movie. I’m excited to talk about this movie, but I will stand by it.

Goey two. Is the better Ghoulies movie. Ah, I’d imagine it is. I haven’t seen it. Yeah, it is, and I hope that someday, I mean, it set it at like a carnival, my gosh. It’s just, it’s, it’s more fun. This movie’s weird, weird. This movie actually, I, for, I forgot how weird this movie is in, in all honesty, the, the Ghoulies, the little puppet monsters are just kind of.

Background. Yes. Like they just kind of hang out in the back. 

Todd: They don’t really themselves do much at all. They, they kill a few people, but ultimately they’re not the focus of the story. Unlike Critters and Munchies, Gremlins, obviously we recently did Critters 4, but we’ve also covered critters on this.

We’ve covered Gremlins here. It’s interesting ’cause this movie’s in 1985, and I remember when Gremlins came out. It was 1985, wasn’t it? It was huge. Steven Spielberg produced, Joe Dante directed Fitz credited with setting off a whole craze of little monster creature movies. But what I didn’t realize until we started working on, you know, really covering these other films for the podcast mm-hmm.

Is these other movies that we think of as knockoffs. They were in production at the same time. Yeah, yeah. They didn’t even know about Gremlins until they were well into it in at least a case of critters and this movie. The concepts and the scripts had been finished for years before they ever went into production, and just so happened to start to go into production at the same time that Joe Dante is doing gremlins.

In fact, this movie was sued by Warren Warner Brothers because they were afraid that the title was too similar, Ghoulies and Gremlins, and if they come out at the same time. People would get confused. Ultimately. They either drop a lawsuit or they lost the lawsuit. Not quite sure which that is. But, uh, yeah, this movie was able to come out and capitalize on some of the success of Gremlins could have come out before Gremlins, but there were some factors we’ll probably talk about later that kept it from getting released as, as early as it could have been released.

There had to be some reshoots and they wanted to put together a proper marketing campaign. And then also this being a a Charles band movie, this was one of his. One of his first movies out on his Empire Pictures studio, and he really knew, thought that this one was gonna be a, a big hit for them and wanted to use that momentum to finally get into distribution because up until now the movies they’d been making, I.

You know, I think when you have somebody else distributing the film, you just don’t see a lot of profits or there’s a lot of shadiness and bookkeeping that goes on and upstream and so, so a lot of the profits don’t end up coming back to you for whatever reason. And he was like, if we’re gonna make any money in this business, we really need to start controlling distribution.

And this was the one that, that he did it. He, they did a hundred thousand prints of this back when this was all necessary and to spend a lot of money into that. Spent a lot of marketing and it paid off. To the point where this movie that only cost, I think it only had a budget of less than half a million.

I think it was like two or 300,000. They did, of course, sink million. A a million or so into marketing, but it went on to gross, like 35 or 36 million plus. Even more in rentals and, and sales afterwards. So, uh, this is really the movie that set Empire Pictures going and Charles Ban’s whole machine to start doing all the stuff that came after it.

All of the little puppet creature movies that came after 

Craig: it. I didn’t know that. Yeah. That’s interesting. Well, thank goodness. Yeah. I, I loved all those movies. You know, this one reminded me very much of my favorite of all of them, troll. Yes. Anybody who’s listened to the podcast like Troll is one of my favorite movies and Stop period.

Mm-hmm. Like they love that movie. We love Troll and a lot of the little monsters in this kind of look. Like they’re from that. 

Yeah. 

Craig: Like, well, when I, when I was seeing those little like rat faced monsters with the sharp teeth and like, they’re like dripping KY jelly. All I could think of was the trolls in trolls.

Like, hey. Yes. 

Todd: Weren’t, weren’t some of the trolls in that movie actually reused puppets from this one? I swear there were a puppet. 

Craig: Maybe. Yeah. Maybe because they look so similar. I don’t know why, and maybe it’s just my blind love for that movie. I just feel like the trolls in that movie, though, they still look like handheld puppets.

They look better. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I, I don’t mind in, in this movie that they don’t. Look amazing. Like it’s fine. I, I, I love the conceit of little handheld puppets. That’s great. Like I am so in for that. It, it’s charming to me. It’s it’s super eighties. Yeah. Love it, love it, love it. 

Todd: Well, there’s a reason for that. And, and, and a lot of Charles Band’s puppets kind of look like this because they’re all based on the work of this one guy, Joe Beagler.

And it’s so interesting how this came about and how his involvement in it came about because this whole movie, so I don’t know if many people realize this, but Charles Band, I. And his brother Richard Band got into the movie business ’cause their father was in the movie business. Their father Albert band was producing spaghetti Western and Italian horror movies over in Italy.

And they were over there with him. And then when they became of age, they were like, we really want to get in the movie business. And Richard Band went off and did music. And so he ends up scoring most of Empire Pictures in full Moon productions films. But, um, Charles Band started right out directing and he was directing a few of these guys very much Roger Corman style.

He was doing some sci-fi. Once he was doing some action ones, he directed to me Moore in her very first movie I. Parasite. Yeah, I read that. Yeah. That was one of their earliest productions. And it was in 3D because 3D was kind of a thing at the time. And on Parasite, Charles Band worked with Stan Winston.

He had been working with Stan Winston for a couple of his previous films, and so he was really interested in all these creature and monster effects, but he realized that sci-fi is expensive. Horrors a little. Cheaper. So, um, one of the actors on Parasite, actually Demi Moores CoStar on parasite is Luca Luca Kochi, and he pitched.

Band. This idea that he and a friend of his had come up with for these little, this little creature movie that they called Beasties. Band got excited about it and he was planning on directing it and Stan Winston was gonna do the creature effects. But you know, it just like time passed and it got kind of put on hold.

Yeah. As he was doing some other things. And when he came back around to it, he was no longer gonna direct it. He actually allowed Luca Barko Vici this to be his directorial debut. So this guy was thrilled. But Sam Winston by now was already. Ha getting too expensive. He was already moving on to bigger and better productions in Hollywood.

And so Stan Winston offered up one of his proteges, which is Joe Bler. And so Joe Beeker took control of this. Did the creature effects on this. Did the creature effects on Troll. Gosh, we’ve done so many that he’s been involved inm Cellar Dweller. Yeah. TerrorVision, From Beyond. Yeah. Dolls, Demonic Toys, Seed People.

Uh, but he also did effects for, you know, some of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, the Friday the 13th movies. And one of maybe the pinnacle of, oh yeah, that’s definitely a Joe Beeker movie: The Garbage Pail Kids film. You remember that one? 

Craig: Oh boy. Oh God. Vaguely. You can’t find it. Like, I’m sure you can find it.

I can find it, but you can’t find that movie. It’s in, it’s impossible to find.

Todd: I saw it in the theater. Can you believe that 

Craig: somebody, I mean, if somebody. Happened to stumble upon it and wanted to share it with me, then maybe we could watch it and do it for a mini so or something. It’s almost as much a horror movie.

I know it’s weird. But these movies, all the ones that you just listed, some of them, many of them that we’ve already covered, I love them. Yeah. I love the Puppet Master movies. I love dolls. I, you know, like they’re great. Yeah. They’re just silly and fun, but they’re so of this time, they’re of a certain time.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I don’t remember when the last Puppet Master movie came out. It wasn’t that long ago. Probably within the last 10 years, but I just don’t. Don’t think there’s really the market for it anymore. And that’s fine. Like 

Todd: yeah, I mean 

Craig: it was, it was a fun, it was a fun time. 

Todd: Unless you’re looking, yeah, you’re right.

It was like a short, intense flash in the pan and then you didn’t really see them anymore. Unless you look at Charles band’s lineup, which to this day is filled with fair. This stuff to 

Craig: this day though, really? I think so. I, I wonder. What’s he doing now? Like what is Full Moon doing now? Because I feel like their whole market was based on the video shelves.

Like, oh yeah, you see Ginger Dead Man, or, or whatever, you know, like you, you see these great covers. Evil bong. Evil bong, right? And, and, and you see that and you’re out to rent a movie and it’s just an entirely different. Culture now, and I, yeah. I just don’t know if the market for those movies still exists.

I’m sure it does, but that’s how I was exposed to those movies, seeing them on the shelves. That’s the only time that I would be exposed to it. And sometimes I would usually laugh at the covers and be like, ha ha, that’s really clever, whatever. But I wouldn’t rent it. Yeah. But even then, like that was a to, that was a total shift because for me, those were the movies that we would see.

See at 1:00 AM. Yes. On up all night or whatever. Exactly. You know? 

Todd: Exactly. 

Craig: They were, that went away and so then we just had to see them on the video shelves and these things are concurrent. I things overlap, I get it, but it’s just wild how. Times change, and I genuinely am curious whether or not there is still a market for these movies, especially in the days of streaming and everything is just so saturated.

Todd: Well, but it’s, it’s one of these cases where things evolve and history repeats itself. When video came out and suddenly the rental market became huge, they said that there was such a hunger. For product that people couldn’t make these movies fast enough. You could make the shittiest movie, especially if it was like a horror sci-fi movie.

Right. And you’d make tons of money just because they needed content. And then when Netflix first came out, I don’t know if you remember this, but I probably could have gotten my movie up on Netflix. You know what I mean? Like Netflix was hungry for content. You saw all. Kinds of just stuff going up there that they didn’t produce, but like people were just throwing at ’em, you know, trauma had a lot of stuff up on there and you know, you see Amazon Prime is choked with this stuff.

You see Tubi is choked with this stuff. Yeah. And, and so I think that streaming is kind of the new video market, but it’s probably at its saturation point by now too. But, you know, you forced me to look it up, so now I, I can tell you that pop. Puppet Master Doctor Death was produced in 2022. There is a whole series of those baby Oopsie movies.

Baby Oopsie three Burn, baby Burn Only came out three years ago. Killjoy, I think is a, is a doll movie. That was, that was last year. Demonic Toys. Jack Attack was 2023. So no, I don’t think there’s a huge market for this stuff, but Charles Band keeps making them. Yeah. So there must be, there must be something.

And I, I read a, I actually read a comment from. Charles Ban’s editor on this film, Gies, who said that this movie like kind of ruined him, is what he, that’s what he says. When this movie came out, something in Charles Ban’s mind just snapped and he just decided that this is the, my ticket is all these little puppet creatures movies.

And that from then on out, it seemed like that was just all he did, at least for a while. So an argument I suppose could be made there that. When you kind of go back and look at most of what Charles Band has been doing since this and you know what he was doing before this, which wasn’t a lot, but still it does seem like this movie made a big impact in more than one way.

Clip: Gosh. 

Todd: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I dunno. 

Craig: It’s odd. It’s odd that this is the one I know. It is and, and I know it’s not the first and there were. Movies before it, with puppets or whatever, and there were many, many after. But this one, again, I, I know I’ve seen it, but I haven’t seen it in a long time. And I prefer the second one.

And I’ve seen it many times, but I just, I forgot how weird this movie is just so weird. Yeah. Such a weird movie. 

Todd: I can tell you, when I was a kid, my dad rented this for me, and I’m pretty sure because we’ve talked about this before, my dad tried to fulfill my horror desires, but he would screen 

Craig: and every time you say that, I just think it’s the sweetest.

It’s so nice. I just, that’s. So sweet. I just think it’s the loveliest, loveliest thing. 

Todd: I’m gonna be seeing him again in like two weeks, and I do need to tell him like right up, straight up, you have no idea. The memories maybe to this day that still stay with me based on this. And one of them is, I remembered him renting this for me.

I’m sure he thought it was gonna be another Gremlin Z type movie. That’s certainly how it was marketed and we watched it and I distinctly remember being. Pretty scared. I mean, I watched the whole thing, but I remembered it being kind of terrifying. And at the end I said, so dad, what did you think? And he was like, I didn’t really care for it.

And I was kind of sad. And I was like, why dad? Why didn’t you like it? And he’s like, well, I just don’t like things that involve devil worship. I get it. And I remembered there being that stuff, but. Until I watch it this time, I did not realize how intense and brutal this devil worship is. My God. The whole first scene of this movie, God, they’re about to sacrifice a baby.

Yeah. I’m surprised you didn’t turn it off right then and there. Kudos to you dad. As far as Giess go, I feel like anybody who was a child or even a teenager at the time that this movie came out has to. At least be aware of the film because of its iconic cover. And poster. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Even if you never saw it, you pass by this a hundred times and it always caught your eye.

It’s the gey popping outta the toilet. 

Craig: Yeah. A little monster popping out of a toilet. Like that’s great. Like that is just brilliant marketing. It’s brilliant. And like it wasn’t even in the movie. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I know there’s some story about how it was inspired or whatever, but it wasn’t even in the movie. And then they sh when they came up with the idea for the marketing, then they shot a scene for the movie and then they, there are three sequels to this movie.

The second one is great. The third and fourth, I haven’t even seen, I just watched clips from them, but they look terrible. Awful. 

Todd: I think the fourth one is shot by my friend Jim Winky. I love that guy, but I’m not gonna say everything he shoots is great. 

Craig: I know you do, but it looks terrible. I mean, it just looks like little people in really bad rubber suits.

Oh, 

Todd: and the 

Craig: gooey start talking like, no, I, 

Todd: well, they keep with the toilet theme for at least the first three, I think. Right in the, in the cover, 

Craig: all four of the posters for the. The rest of the series, which is great because it is like, I agree with you. Again, being in the video store and seeing that, that grabs my attention.

I wanna watch that movie. Ah, and I did, I, I rented this movie, I rented the second one. I rented so many of these movies based solely, I was probably more sophisticated than your typical video store. Patron. Ooh. And I would actually turn it over and read the back. Like I wanted to know what the story was about, but it was really the cover that grabbed you.

And this is a great cover. This looked like a, this looked so much fun like this. Look, and not only is it a little monster popping out of the toilet, but it, it looks like it’s having a good time. Like it’s like a little party monster. Yeah. 

Todd: Although. They put that shot that they had to shoot right in, they made sure it was in the trailer and their trailer got approved for showing on television to all audiences.

So it actually showed during like Saturday morning cartoon times and apparently the studio got tons of hate mail. I. There was a big stink from parents who were like, my child will, I’m trying to potty train my kid and he will not sit on the toilet. ’cause he’s afraid a monster’s gonna jump out of it because of your damn movie trailer that they keep seeing like in the middle of gummy bears or whatever.

Can you believe that? Can you believe that? That’s what people were complaining about. They’d be doing it on the internet now. They just, it was just slower back then. Oh boy. Yeah. I know. It’s so funny. We, 

Craig: we, listen, we’ve been talking for almost a half an hour and we haven’t even, like this movie is about a cult.

It’s about a cult. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: It’s about a cult, 

Todd: a devil worshiping, 

Craig: a devil worshiping cult who wear pristine white robes 

Todd: and look beautiful. 

Craig: Yeah, they look great. They’re led by. Men. Who have glowing green eyes, and I want to talk about those eyes, but the, in the opening scene, this, this guy, they’re sacrificing a baby, but the mom butts in and she’s like, no, you can’t kill my baby.

And she puts like a protective amulet on it or something, and then something pops out of her chest maybe. But you don’t really see it ’cause it’s off screen. But there’s, there’s also Gies. There’s ghoulies around, all around just watching. They’re like the audience just watching. They’re like, but, but they cover their eyes when whatever this is pops out of her chest, which we never know what it is ’cause we never come back to that.

That 

Todd: was a let down. 

Craig: Another thing that I love about this movie is that there’s just. Sometimes randomly a narrator. Yes. 

Todd: Unnecessary narrator is very present in this movie, and I’m not sure who he is talking to. I guess he’s talking to us. Yeah. There’s no framing device of telling a story, even though he has that story telling like quality.

It’s just for no good reason. The narrator’s coming in to tell us what we could already infer. 

Craig: Right? Like, like you, like we’re idiots. Just like a narrator. Yeah. Like you’re watching. A, a children’s movie or something like, it’s very strange, like he’ll just pop in. Like after the events that we just talked about, the narrator pops in, the child had been saved.

So it 

Clip: seemed, and I vowed that he would never know the evil from when he was spawned and when his father finally died a horrible death. I felt sure that the curse had passed forever. 

Craig: So weird. Alright, so then we get to the main people, Jonathan, who is apparently the, the baby, I guess. Yeah. Because the narrator tells us that after the father died, 

Todd: he left.

Craig: Yeah. Whatever. Who, okay. So Jonathan inherited this. Mansion and he and his waspy fiance, Rebecca, check into this new estate and we’re immediately introduced to Wolfgang. The caretaker. 

Todd: The silent caretaker. 

Craig: The silent caretaker. The, the like brawny. Silent caretaker. Bearded caretaker, who we are specifically introduced to.

And then he disappears 

Todd: for the, for almost. The rest of the film 

Craig: never see him again 

Todd: until the very end, 

Craig: I assume. Right. But it’s important to introduce him because he comes back at the end. But I just thought that was hilarious. 

Todd: You would think that the caretaker would be around doing a lot more, taking care of this dilapidated mansion.

Unfortunately, it’s up to the two of them to, to clean up the whole thing, which they man should do. Quite quickly. Wolfgang’s played by Jack Nance. We just finished talking about him. He was, uh, the lead in eraser head for our David Lynch. Yeah. Retrospective and he was the, the, uh, the doctor and the blob remake that we absolutely loved.

Craig: Yeah. I only learned that after watching it and, and just before getting on with you. I read that for whatever reason, like it’s so silly. We watch all of these movies and I read that he was the lead in Erase her Head and I was like. Oh, I see that now. Like I feel like, oh, I know him. Look at that guy. Look at you in this movie.

Todd: He has the same look in the as the caretaker as he does in eraser head. I feel like he’s really pretty. He 

Craig: really kind does. He is. He’s crazy eyed and big staring out. That’s great. It’s great. He’s, he was my favorite part. 

Todd: I don’t know. I feel like the green eye go, the, the green eyeballs were my favorite part of this whole movie.

Craig: All right. Can we talk, let’s just talk about this. Let’s just talk about this 

Todd: right in the beginning, the high priest of the Satanic Cult, and by the way, you are right. Everything is pristine and clean. It’s almost like a comic book. The way that this cult and this scenario and everything is presented, he’s overly dramatic.

He’s doing everything you, um, you would imagine a cartoonish satanic, uh, high priest would be doing, waving his hand around. You know, it’s like he’s shooting sparks 

Clip: in ign Ito on,

Todd: and he’s got these green. Glowing eyes that are freaky as hell. Yeah. And I thought at first I was like, oh, those must be like animated over his eyeballs. But it’s like, no, that’s, that’s, it’s a little too good for that. 

Craig: I don’t think so. Nobody’s 

Todd: got contacts in, he really does. 

Craig: Yeah. I had hoped that I would read something about how they had done that.

I did, did you? Okay. Okay. Great. Be okay. Let me, let me tell you, let me tell you what I was thinking. They’re clearly contacts because there are some parts of the movie where the contacts are misaligned. The, the part, the part that’s supposed to be the pupil is way over on the far side of the eyeball. 

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: It looks often and goofy, but I was also thinking I’ve had. An eye injury before. Did they put the dye in your eye? They put the dye, that’s it. That’s it. They put like highlighter fluid in your eye. Mm-hmm. And then they can shine like black light on it and it glows. And they can see where the injury is. So is that what happened here?

Todd: Yeah. It’s a contact lens that’s filled with that fluid. When you shine a black light on it, it glows. So they’ve got black light coming from one end and you know, the regular lighting kind of coming down. And apparently they were so heavy that that’s why they got misaligned a lot. You know, every time you blink they shift and stuff.

So 

Craig: I was impressed with that actor. I wear glasses. I’ve, I’ve tried contacts before and I just. I can do it. I can put them in and I can wear them, but I don’t like it. 

Todd: Do you wear contacts? I do. And I took me a good two solid months. Oh my God. I think it was like a two solid months for me to not feel like there was something in my eye.

I, I’ve been wearing ’em for decades now, so it’s not a thing for me anymore. But I remember there was a learning curve. 

Craig: Yeah. I gave up after a couple of months because it, they exhausted my eyes, like my eyes were tired. Yeah. And they hurt at the end of the day. They do. They dry out. Yeah. And I just wanted to clo I just wanted to close my eyes.

Todd: Yeah. So, so, yeah. And I understand how that is and apparently these contacts were impossible to see through. And so much so that Mal, the guy who plays Malcolm, the big high priest guy whose name is uh, Michael Debars, he refused to wear ’em for most of it. That’s why you don’t see him with the green contacts on in half the movie when he’s in there.

Craig: Are you talking about the dad or the son? The dad. The dad, okay. Yeah. You don’t. See him wearing them very often. That’s interesting. I, I don’t know what to say. There’s not much to the movie, like, so the son inherits it and the, the, the house and he kind of immediately like finds stuff in the basement. He gets obsessed with this occult stuff too.

It’s all just leading to him kind of getting deep into it and then inadvertently resurrecting his evil dad. But in there, there’s also your standard, I don’t wanna say slasher movie, because people don’t get picked off, but you’ve got your typical cast. Of young, hot, I guess people Yeah. You know, 20 somethings.

I, and like, I’m gonna get lost in this because I don’t care. Like nothing really happens. But I, I don’t wanna miss out on saying that. A girl named Donna is played by Mariska. Harte, 

Todd: yeah. Her first role 

Craig: I already knew going in. All I had done was I had gone to the IMDB page and looked at the cast, and the cast is so random that only 50% of them even have headshot.

On IMDB, 

Todd: right? 

Craig: But scroll down halfway through and one of these people is played by Mariska. Harte and, and, okay, so I was already, so, I was already super excited and then having even read it, I kind of forgot she was gonna be in it. And then I, uh, was. I had been watching her for 20 minutes and I’m like, oh my God, that girl is so pretty.

Like she’s the pretty girl. And then I was like, oh wait, that’s Marico Harte. It’s crazy. It is crazy. She’s young. And gorgeous. And if you know who she is going in, you will a hundred percent spot it. If you don’t know going in, you’re gonna be like, who is that? I know her. Mm. And you’re gonna eventually figure it out.

I don’t think, I mean, she doesn’t have any kind of, she’s just a pretty girl in this movie who eventually gets killed kind of off screen, like she doesn’t have a lot to do, but she looks amazing. 

Todd: All these people are props. I have to say, as the movie started off, I was really getting into it because this was almost everything I want.

In an early eighties horror movie, if you’re not looking for a slasher, you want something supernatural right off the bat. You know, first shot closeups of snarling monster faces, right? And I’m thinking, okay, you know, these puppets, they’re not gonna hide them. You know, we’re, we’re already seeing them up close and personal.

And then you get your, almost. Child sacrifice. Baby sacrifice with this do with these glowing green eyes and this satanic cult. Okay, I’m down with that too. Immediately the baby inherits the mansion and doesn’t know his. True origin as an adult, and they’re going through this creepy mansion that’s, looks like it hasn’t been touched in a while if everything’s dusty and a little cobwebby and almost comically.

So everywhere you turn, there’s some weird OC culty thing that they barely comment on, right? Like you would think that this couple would be, gee, there’s a lot of like. Statues, pentagrams and demons and books on demonology and pentagrams, and there’s a headstone out in the front they stand and stare at for a while.

That unlike most headstones, has a pentagram carved into it. He goes down in the basement, there’s like a big. Had a BFA met like over the top that he just walks on by like it’s nothing. And the whole basement, it looks like kind of like a tomb once you start clearing things away. But this is where they were having their ceremonies.

And it looks like I said, like if a comic book artist were to draw the chambers where a cult is having their ceremonies, it’s just got all, got a little bit of dust on it and he is going through it like you’d expect. And he bents down and brushes a pentagram off the floor and then opens up a box and finds the robes.

You know, I’m like, okay, cool. Like, this is not slow. You know, this is moving right along. And it’s kind of funny in its cute cheesiness, which I’m always down for, and then they, they’re sitting around having wine and the weirdest lunch ever, which is just some, some salad, a bowl of bread, and a big thing of butter.

And she says, 

Clip: I’ve been thinking about having a party. Sure, why not? It’s not like anybody can wreck the place or anything. 

Todd: And bam, the next scene is the house is filled with people having a party and you got the goofy guy with the glasses and his sidekick doing hide jinks. You have the suave, dorky guy who’s hitting on ladies.

You have all the beautiful ladies and they’re all talking and they’re dancing. And one guy does this extended horrible break dance scene, like the most awkward attempt at break dancing that you can imagine. And like 

Craig: he’s, he is break dancing and. Full joints and pills are falling out of his pockets. That was so funny to me.

That was so eighties to me. That was hilarious all around him. And then the main guy who’s hosting the party, I shit you not says. I’ve got an idea. Let’s go ritual. Like they’re trying to figure like, like should we order a pizza? Should we dance? 

Clip: What do you guys wanna do? Well, we could play hide and go seek.

Yeah. What about Trivial Pursuit? Yeah. Yeah. Why don’t we just place your raids? Yeah.

Strip poker.

Yeah.

Todd: I got an idea, let’s do a ritual, and then they’re all in. 

Craig: But then nothing happens. Like they, they go down and he like starts chanting like an asshole. Like can you imagine? Can you imagine? I was, 

Todd: I was trying to put myself at the position of these very, very patient friends who were standing in his little circle.

Thank God watching him. I’d be like, where did this come from? Tom. 

Clip: Yeah. This is when I’m 

Craig: so glad that I am in a relationship. Like there’s, Alan understands me. You know, like we would be standing there and this would be happening, and I would just have to glance at him and he would. Understand, like, we have to get outta here,

we are done. And like, he’s so nice and so sociable. Like, like he would find a nice way to get out of it. Like I would just be like, no, bye. Like. Goodbye. And 

Todd: not because you were scared, but just because you were embarrassed to be in that. Oh, embarrassed. Oh 

Craig: my God. ’cause especially like he chants like, ugh, and, and then nothing happens.

And so all of his friends are like, well, that was embarrassing. 

Todd: And he is like, shut up. He hides them multiple times. I was like, cool it, bro. I thought we were supposed to be having fun here. Like, I mean. We were gonna play strip poker and you deci, we decided to go with your ritual instead. The least you can do is like, have a good time 

Clip: species.

Shut up, God dammit. I’m sorry. 

Todd: Stay in the circle. Okay. It’s 

Craig: not done yet. 

Todd: Eventually they do leave, 

Craig: but he doesn’t dismiss the spirit. Like I feel like that’s like, he’s like, wait, I haven’t dismissed the spirit. Oh, whatever. Okay. Who cares? I don’t know. God, it does. It doesn’t matter. It’s so stupid. It all that it comes down to is that from this point, like he’s obsessed with his dad’s stuff and he’s fucking around in the basement, like it’s so 

Todd: dumb in the basement.

In the bedroom 

Craig: outside. Isn’t this just a hilarious, I just feel like it’s just a hilarious allegory for relationships. Like he bought this, he bought this new house and he’s obsessed with it, and he talks to his fiance and he’s like. Hey, babe. Um, I think I’m gonna drop outta school and work on the house.

And she’s like, she’s like, are you fucking kidding me? And he’s like, no, I’m serious. I’m gonna, I’m gonna work on the,

Todd: there’s, there’s, I just keep walking around here and there’s things I really want to do with it. Oh my God. Okay. She’s being supportive. 

Craig: Kind of, but I totally am. Like I was so on Elizabeth’s side. Oh, of course. Like he keeps doing all 

Todd: this. You drop outta school to do home repairs. Jesus like being 

Craig: a cult.

But I also like, I loved the stuff like. She w she at some point, I feel like she walked in on him doing some like satanic shit. And she’s like, are you fucking kidding me? Is this what you’re doing with your day? And he’s like, well, hold on a second. Look, I painted the entryway. And she was like, and she’s like, holy shit, that looks fantastic.

Good job.

Todd: I’ll overlook the rain, the rainstorm you created downstairs with your Satanic ritual, the thunderstorm in the basement as he is standing there in the kitchen dripping, wet, trying desperately to explain to her. It’s nothing really. Okay. I promise I won’t do it anymore. I don’t even know you j John. Is it his name?

Sometimes I thought his name was Tom. I don’t know. I don’t know. Yeah. Any, any, um, fiance who’s. Significant other. Bought a PlayStation or something like that. Really got into it. Probably even knows exactly what this 

Craig: Absolutely, and I loved it. It was hilarious. It was hilarious how angry she got at him and then how quick she was to forgive it.

Like that was hilarious. We are running short on time and I refuse to end this podcast. Before we talk about Grizzle and Greedy Gut. 

Todd: Totally outta left field. I did not see this coming.

Craig: I had entirely, entirely forgotten about Grizzle and Greedy Gut. I thought that this was a movie about little puppet monsters, and it’s not. 

Todd: No, 

Craig: not at all. Really. It’s not at all. Like 

Todd: you said, they’re just, they’re just flavoring. 

Craig: Yeah. They just hang out in the background and there’s this guy who now is like embracing his evil heritage.

I guess. He’s getting in touch with his evil side. He’s. Yes, he is. And he is like, he’s trying to summon things. It’s so embarrassing. Like he’s trying to summon things in front of his friends and he can’t even do it. Like it’s so embarrassing. Like, figure this out before you, like make a spectacle of yourself.

But eventually he’s summoning all the shit. He is able to summon some things and what he summons are these two. Very small little people in like medieval outfits. 

Todd: It’s really hard to say. I don’t 

Craig: know. It’s like leather, like, like they look like they’re going into battle. Like they’re, they’re clothes are like leather.

They’re wearing these like metal helmets and they’re these two little, little tiny, tiny, tiny people and their names are grizzle. Greedy gut, and they’re in the rest of the movie 

Todd: for reasons I don’t understand. Budgetary. 

Craig: Yeah. Hey, listen, you do need to watch this movie. Like if, like if you’re listening to this and you’re like, should I watch gies?

Overall, I would be like, nah, you can pass it. But no, you absolutely fucking have to watch this movie. For Grizzle and Greedy Go. They are hilarious. It’s hilarious. Yeah. They’re so funny. Like they are just comic relief throughout the rest of the movie, like they’re just around 

Todd: uhhuh 

Craig: and they’re just 

Todd: shaking their heads.

Consternation. At one point, they seem to be on his side against his father. I don’t know what they’re supposed to do. 

Craig: They pledge allegiance. They pledge allegiance to him. But I love that scene where they pledge allegiance to him, the son, because they do it, but they also kind of look at each other like with a wink wink, like, yeah, we’ll see, or whatever, Uhhuh.

And then later the dad’s like, ha ha, son, you’re so. Stupid. They were always on my side, right? And they’re like, yeah, we are. Whatever. But then ultimately they turn on. The dad and, and side with the sun. 

Todd: Yeah, they’re the best. Did you know that she, uh, the, the gal, Tamara De, who played Greedy Gut was one of the people in the ET costume for the et?

Craig: No, I 

Todd: did not. They are small. Their stature, even amongst little people is pretty small. Very small. And this, at this point, I was like, what is going on here? Because. Aside from the fact that he is just unnaturally getting obsessed with all of this ritual stuff, he keeps conjuring up animal, you know, these demon things.

He’s like, now you will scatter across the law and, and, and await to do my bidding and now you are under my command. And he summons these two and you will pledge allegiance to me to do my bidding. And I’m like, what is this guy’s bidding? I really don’t understand what he wants. 

Craig: No, I don’t either. Are you talking about the father or the.

Son, I’m talking about the son. Right? Agreed. No idea what he wants. He’s just doing this stuff. It’s just like he just got into it. It’s like, it’s like he found a. PS five in his basement and just got really into it. That’s it. And, 

Todd: and he’s like, I want power. And then you’re like, oh, we can give you power.

And I’m like, okay, but like for what? That’s an insufferable part of this movie is there’s no real clear indication what this guy’s doing all this shit for, except like you said, he just got really into it. I think ultimately the movie wants us to think by the end of it that this is all kind of an influence trick that somehow the power of the house and the power of his dead father.

He’s cast a shadow over the house, and once he gets there, he’s somehow reconnecting with his past and, and this is all part of a ploy to resurrect his father. So in doing all of these things, eventually his dad burst forth out of the grave in the front. And this, this is an image that I remember. From my childhood, I mean, of all the grave bursting scenes I remember from movies growing up, this is the one that was sort of like the, the standard bearer for me because that initial thing that pops out of the grave, it’s awesome.

I. And it springs out and it’s got this kind of stretched mouth and it’s crusty and it’s mostly skeletal and ah, kind of yawns as everybody else is screaming inside. And then when we cut back to it, it’s just the guy in costume with some makeup on his face. Yeah, it’s low rent. Rutger hour. It really bad.

Yeah. He comes to life. So that, that’s the thing. Now he’s come to life and he says some words about how now his son has been tricked into bringing him into life. And then when they have their final confrontation, he tells him, I wanted your youth and now I’m finally gonna get it after all these years. So not until the very end game that we.

Know what the whole end game was supposed to be in the first place. 

Craig: Well, and you know, we skipped, there is a whole cast of young people who are there in the beginning, and then they, once the son, whatever his name is, is not possessed but influenced by the magic, he brings them all back because they have to kill six people or something.

Do they? To bring the dad back. Oh, I didn’t know that. I 

Todd: don’t know, maybe. 

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t 

Todd: know. It is not, it’s never really said, is it? 

Craig: I don’t know. But they do. I mean that, that, that all happens, like all these people come back and there are weird, there’s so many weird things that we didn’t talk about.

Like he invites them back to this dinner and they all are wearing sunglasses. So the movie was supposed to be in 3D and they started shooting it in 3D. Yeah, 

Todd: well, I think Charles Band, he realized that the cost of coordinating all this with all the theaters was gonna be astronomical. Like they’d have to have special lenses.

The projectionists would have to switch between the 2D and the 3D version. And that’s all kind of a technical thing that they might not get right. And it was just a pain in the ass and expensive. So that’s when he decided to abandon it. 

Craig: Right? But there are these weird moments in the movie. I don’t know if you remember this.

I went and saw Freddy’s dead. Right. I’m pretty sure that’s what it was called. Yep. And it was 3D, but they handed you the, the 3D glasses when you walked in and they said when the character in the movie puts on the 3D glasses, put on your 3D glasses. Yep. ’cause only a part of it was 3D. Yep. I did. That’s what this movie was supposed to be too.

Like when you see the characters putting on sunglasses, put on your glasses and it will be 3D, but they abandon it. So there are all these weird, not even weird. Oh, they’re weird saying, why are they wearing sunglasses? Like all these young people are invited to their house, this mansion or whatever for dinner, and they’re all wearing sunglasses and just why?

Clip: Tell me why are we wearing these ridiculous glasses? I can barely see what I’m eating. The answer 

Craig: to the question is. They don’t wanna have to reshoot it. Reshoots cost money. Yep. Who cares? It’s a stupid movie anyway. Mm-hmm. Ultimately, I feel like it is a stupid movie. We, we’ve barely talked about the gooeys because they’re barely in it.

How do we close this out? The, the son thinks that he’s gonna be all powerful, but then he resurrects. His dad and his dad’s like, haha, jokes on you. I was just using you so I could come back and be all powerful. And then they have a, a dual, a fight 

Todd: Wizards dual in the basement. Yeah. Their powers against each other.

They’re 

Craig: shooting lightning out of their eyeballs. 

Todd: It’s. So comic book and silly, but while they’re in the basement, his friends, I think they’re by the, now, there’s six of them that are dead. Like three of them got torn up by some gies. One of them’s been, they’re all 

Craig: dead. They’ve all gotten killed in some way.

Right? In some 

Todd: way. The dad even did the classic, oh, made himself look like a, a sexy woman. And then his tongue shot out and. You know, wrapped around the neck of one his care, his friends, and strangled him. Dick. Yeah, Dick was a dick, by the way. The actor’s last name is Dick too. So that was kind of cool. But anyway, as as they’re fighting and it looks like the sun is losing, suddenly the day SX Mki nut comes in, they all spin around and there’s a guy at the top of the stairway and wouldn’t you know it.

It’s the caretaker Wolfgang, who apparently all along was just cleaning his robes and ready for a, 

Craig: where the fuck have you been? 

Todd: I know, right? 

Craig: What? What have you been 

Todd: doing? If you were supposed to like keep this from happening, you could have started a lot earlier. And they come in and they have like a classic Wizards dual.

It’s like straight out of like a Hong Kong martial arts Wooah movie where they’re just at up against each other shooting electricity out of their eyes and their fingertips. And at one point each of their hands gets around the other’s necks and it’s just a bunch of animated stuff around them as they struggle mightily against the forces of each other.

And, uh, I don’t know, he just disappears. They both just disappear. They both disappear. Yeah. And everyone’s alive again. 

Craig: Yeah, they’re, they’re just fine. Yeah. Everybody who died is fine and they all just jump in cars and leave and then, you know, it turns out that the gooeys pop up in the backseat of John’s car.

Okay. Whatever. 

Todd: Freeze frame. Har ha. Yeah. 

Craig: All of that was crazy that last. Scene between the father and the son was so weird to me because I feel like the way that it culminated was the dad said like he’s holding the other man’s head, his son. Mm-hmm. Like in his hand, and he says. Kiss me, my son. Kiss me.

What? You don’t get it? Oh God. You don’t get 

Todd: it. It’s weird. Dramatic. That was weird. Yeah. I mean, the movie’s so ridiculous because the director says that when they originally wrote the script, they were dead serious about making this a hardcore, scary movie. They wanted it to be a scary, dark. Horror film.

And so that really explains these very dark elements that are in there. But then he said, once they got the puppets from Joe Beagler, they were like, these aren’t scary at all. They’re actually kind of silly looking. I. So we need to pivot and we need to maybe insert some comedy in here and have some fun with these puppets.

So he admitted that’s why the movie’s kind of off, because in some ways it seems like it’s trying to be goofy and silly, but in other ways it feels like it’s taking itself very, very seriously. Ultimately, it’s kind of a mess, but it was a popular mess. It made a lot of money for a lot of people and was very, very popular apparently.

Not with critics, of course not. 

Craig: Big surprise, sure. But we all knew about this movie. You know, again, video store shelves. This box art is iconic. It’s everything. We all knew about it. Whether you rented the movie or not, you know it if you’re our age, I understand that. Our younger viewers, listeners, whatever, may not understand, but it was always there.

Yeah. People who are younger than us will never understand going to the video store with your parents. I. Or your family, and then you walk in the door and everybody splits off. Mm-hmm. I head immediately for the horror section. My dad usually goes there too. My mom’s looking at the new releases. My sister’s, who knows what she’s doing, she’s in la la land, who knows?

But I am in the horror section in these dingy back rooms of these small. Buildings. Yeah. I’m just looking around. It’s not the fucking internet where everything is infinite. Like it’s, it’s this little tiny room filled with box art. Gooeys was always there. Yeah. And it, it, it is just, I iconic to me, that picture of the little goly.

Coming out of the toilet. And I’m sure it’s not for other people and they have other iconic images in their mind for whatever reason and And that’s fine. But yeah, it is so cemented. I feel like for us eighties kids, that is a touchstone. Yeah. Of pop culture. 

Todd: Yeah. You could almost say, how old are you if you know what this is?

Strip off the words and say, what is this? And they’ll go, oh, that’s gies. Right? That’s how you know it sold the movie 

Craig: and maybe have never seen the movie. Yeah. Maybe you have never seen the movie. Oh yeah. But you know what it is. 

Todd: You know the, they’ll get you in the end. Do you know what that originally was supposed to be?

No Charles band when he realized we’re gonna go full on with this. We’re gonna go full distribution, everything we really need to solidify this marketing campaign. Uh, he talked to Gary Allen, who he knew Gary Allen cut the trailer for Star Wars. You know, he was the guy. Mm-hmm. Responsible for saving. It’s alive.

You remember? We did. It’s alive. And that one was. Yeah. You know, that was a failure until the marketing campaign kind of saved it and then made it a huge hit with two sequels. So he knew, this guy knew what he was talking about, and he said, I, I went over to his house to chat about this, and he said he was a bit of a pot smoker and he opens the door and smoke is just billowing out.

And he’s like, man. I got the best idea for your movie poster, and he is like, all right, Gary, what is it? And he’s like, all right, so one of your gies, they’re popping out of the toilet and the words below him say. They’ll eat your ass.

And he is like, oh yeah, you know what, Gary? Uh, that’s really interesting, but I’m pretty sure we can’t do that in our Bowery. He’s like, no, man. Think about it. Nobody’s ever seen that before. That’s hilarious. But it got, I love it. Got toned down to they’ll get you in the end, which is also really cute, but 

Craig: they’ll eat your ass.

It’s cute and that’s hilarious. It’s so funny. That would, that would fly today because it would, you could advertise on the internet. You don’t put that poster up in that dingy video place that families are coming into. You just put it up on the internet and it would totally work. Yeah. But it would, and it’s hilarious.

It would 

Todd: also instantly get lost amongst a hundred other things that are trying to be equally outrageous. Oh, you know? Yeah, sure. That’s the problem. It’s not 

Craig: edgy. 

Todd: No, no, 

Craig: it’s not edgy anymore. I still think it’s hilarious. 

Todd: I dunno if you know this, but the, um, director of this movie finally got the rights back ’cause you know, they’ve made sequels and things like that and it’s been passed through various hands and it’s taken lots of lawyers to try to untangle it.

MGM doesn’t seem to be, wanna do much more with it, although I think they had it at one point. Vest on video had it. Anyway, the original director whose concept you remember, this was him and his friend are set to film. A reboot for it and, uh, I don’t know why that’s gonna come out. That’s great. I would 

Craig: love to see a reboot of this movie.

That’s fantastic. It’s fun. It’s a super, super, super fun property. I think that somebody could do something cute and funny and scary, you know, whatever. I would be totally, totally down, uh, with the reboot of this movie. I’m just so nostalgic for all of this stuff. So great. Go for it. Love it. Yep. 

Todd: Last year they’re saying a trilogy is coming our way.

Could be cool. 

Craig: I hope that we didn’t do this movie dirty. I feel like, you know, we, we skipped over a lot of the plot because there’s really not a lot to it. 

Todd: It’s goofy. 

Craig: This is a fun movie. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: It’s goofy and it’s, and it’s fun. It’s fun to watch. Honestly, we gotta do gies too. It’s better, it’s more fun.

It, it takes, it takes itself so much less seriously. Like, I like this movie for what it is. I like the cult stuff. We didn’t even talk about the. Clown. Oh God, dummy. There’s like a, like a killer clown. Dummy almost straight out of Poltergeist, right? 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But even scarier because it’s obviously either a little person, I assume a little person, yeah.

Or a child in this clown dummy costume, and it’s animated. It’s quite frightening. Mm-hmm. My point is we skipped over a lot, skipped and, and I apologize if that upsets anybody, but this movie’s more interesting to me to talk about in terms of its. Cultural relevance and its place in our history and horror history and yeah, it’s such an interesting time capsule.

It really is of movies that we, we don’t, we just don’t see movies like this anymore. We just don’t. No, I wish we did. I like them. They’re fun. 

Todd: Oh, we should do gies too. I, I, I bet, I bet you’re right, because it’s probably was more direct response to gremlins. They probably made it just fun and funnier, and it was a lot more of a.

Of a comedy than this movie, which is sort of trying to be both, right? It’s trying to be this dark, scary movie, but it can’t be because it’s too silly. But then it’s also trying to inject this humor in very awkwardly. And then it’s got all these non sequiturs, like you said, of like, why in the world are they wearing sunglasses?

And if you don’t know the reason behind it, which you wouldn’t, if you don’t have the internet and you don’t look it up, the trivia, you’d just be like, these choices are bizarre. It’s a fun movie to watch for that. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Todd: And again, I mean, it just takes you right back. It’s great. I still like it, but it’s dumb.

Craig: I just, it is dumb, but it’s fine. Like, like it, I, like every Charles band has done the demonic toys. Has that whole like satanic element, like Yeah. 

Todd: To a sillier degree. Really? Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. In 1984, like this whole satanic thing was a thing. Yeah. And, and that’s fine, great, whatever. But I like it more for the small creature element of it.

Clip: Mm. 

Craig: I like this. I love troll. I love gremlins. I love. Dolls. Yeah. Various entries of the Puppet Master franchise. I really like. I don’t know, I, I think that you have to have a taste for it, and I do, but if you don’t, you’re just gonna think it’s stupid. And it is stupid. 

Todd: Yep. 

Craig: But it’s stupid that I can get on board with.

Yep. So I appreciate it. I appreciate the recommendation. We should have gotten to this movie a long, long time ago. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s remarkable. It’s taken us this long, 

Craig: so I’m glad that we finally got around to it. 

Todd: Thank you, Russ, for your suggestion. We absolutely love it. And thank you guys all for listening. If you wanna leave us another recommendation, please do.

You can just go to our website, you can speak to us like Rust. Did you just click talk to us at the very [email protected]? And like I said, uh, you don’t have to do anything special. Just talk into your computer and it’ll go right to us. And we’ll respond, but you could also send us a message anywhere we are online, you know the drill.

We’ve got social media out there. Just Google two guys in the Chainsaw podcast to find us if you want to be a member of our Patreon. And, uh, check out the behind the scenes stuff, a complete unedited. Version of this episode, which I can tell you right now, has a, a couple little juicy stories in it. 

Craig: Oh yeah.

And I’m getting ready to say some shit that I wasn’t gonna say on the episode. So if you want to hear that, 

Todd: jump in, jump in. Five bucks a month gets you that. It gets you mini sos, it gets you access to our. Book club and little reviews that rewrite and all kinds of fun stuff we do with our patrons behind the scenes.

patreon.com/chainsaw podcast. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainaw.

Join us in this latest episode of Two Guys in a Chainsaw as we dive deep into the grindhouse horror classic, ‘The Toolbox Murders’.

Returning from ‘In Space Month’, Todd and Craig go back to Earth and back in time to the raw exploitative cinema of the 70s. We discuss the iconic VHS cover, Stephen King’s surprising endorsement, and the film’s brutal and sleazy content that only 70s grindhouse could deliver.

Listen as we break down the plot, the over-the-top kills, the bizarre character moments, and the lasting impact of this unsettling flick. If you appreciate raw, low budget horror fare or are curious about the shocking twists and turns of this vintage slasher, this episode is a must-listen. Don’t forget to share your thoughts and requests for future episodes!

Episode 434, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror 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, straight out of In Space Month, back to Earth and back in time. I really wanted to just reach back into time and to do something very low budget grindhouse from the 70s. That has been on my list since I was a kid, to be completely honest with you. If you’ve seen the cover of this movie, the poster slash video art, you’ll know why.

It’s, it’s got a buxom babe in a bathtub, and uh, there’s a guy standing behind her with a drill. And it’s called The Toolbox Murders. The tagline is: “Bit by bit, by bit. He carved a nightmare.” And I do remember this from my childhood, but also I’ve been reminded constantly on the internet that apparently Stephen King at one point said that it was his favorite horror movie of the seventies.

He probably said that in the seventies. 

Craig: He, I think he said something about it being one of the scariest movies he’d ever seen, and I wonder if we saw the same movie. 

Todd: I know, right? Well, Stephen King was high for a considerable amount of time. That’s true. The time back then, and I looked for the evidence of this, right?

I mean, I’m sure it’s in, maybe it’s in Don’s Macabre or something like that, which I read a long time ago. Right, sure. And I haven’t read since, but, uh, I mean, I don’t doubt that it’s true, but, yeah, a lot has changed since then, and a lot of horror movies have come and gone, and I don’t think I would put it in that category anymore, but, uh, you know, it’s an interesting grindhouse movie for us to, uh, check out, and again, one of those fulfillments of my childhood wishes.

Nobody requested it, I doubt it was on your radar, but, uh, I’m finally happy to check it off our list. Had you even heard of this before? 

Craig: I don’t know, I mean, the title is familiar, I don’t, I don’t know if I knew that it was a movie, or if it was a real story, or Which, by the way, it purports to be. It does. I guess it’s loosely based, potentially, on some murders.

Some guy killed some women with tools. But, no, I hadn’t heard of it. You know, I, growing up, wasn’t really drawn to these gritty Movies of this era. I saw them on the shelves, but that wasn’t my cup of tea. I was more of a Freddy Jason Michael Myers leprechaun. Hmm. I don’t know these these these franchises.

Yeah, not that this one is as bad as Some of them, but the just really graphically violent person on person violence never really appealed to me. I started watching them in college just because, you know, for science. You’re a completionist. 

Clip: Yeah, right, exactly. 

Craig: And, you know, I can appreciate them. for what they are, and some of them are actually very well made, but it just was never my cup of tea, so, no.

This didn’t appeal to me then. You know, we were talking just a month ago or something about the fact that we don’t very often have the opportunity to see something for the first time, so, I was looking forward to that. Ultimately, I was Disappointed, but whatever. We can talk about it. 

Todd: I mean, you’ve got to put it in its time and you’ve got to put it in its place, right?

The movie’s, the genesis was there’s a producer who was really taken by how much money Texas Chainsaw Massacre had made. And so, he had it screened and said to a couple of his writer friends, Can you write me something that would be kind of like this? And so, it’s supposed to be a knockoff, but it bears no resemblance.

at all really to that except that it’s oh, you know, somebody’s going around killing people and it was done cheaply and at a lower budget and obviously didn’t make as much money, although it made a significant amount. I mean, the budget was 165, 000 and the box office gross was over half a million by the time it was done.

So and the people in this were well known at the time. So this movie came out in 1978. This is when I was born. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: So it’s going on 47 years old now. And I was really Kind of surprised at the names in here. One of the names that jumped out at me in the very beginning was a name we’ve come across in this podcast a couple times.

The cinematographer is Gary Graver. Gary Graver became a close personal friend of Orson Welles and famously worked with Orson Welles on that long lost movie, The Other Side of the Wind, that he had been working on, you know, in his twilight years for decades and never quite finished and then recently got finished.

But he Gary Graver also has done a lot of low b I mean, if you look at his IMDb pages, he’s got hundreds of movies that he’s either directed or been the director of cinematography for, dipping in and out of exploitation fare all this time, much like, you know, Wes Craven and Sean Cunningham did as well.

But he dabbled a lot in porn, under different names, and we did Trick or Treat. Do you 

Craig: remember 

Todd: that one or trick or treats? 

Craig: Was that the, the rock and roll killer guy? 

Todd: No, I wish. No, that was the really insufferable movie about the kid at home who, 

Craig: Oh, yes. Oh gosh. Yes. I definitely remember that now. 

Todd: I was filmed in some famous person’s house and I think it had one of the caridines in it and it’s, it’s lame as hell.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Then you can kind of see, I mean, as a cinematographer, I, he’s fine. I don’t know if I’ve been impressed really with. Much that I’ve seen of him so far, it’s just fairly pedestrian. There’s some interesting angles and shots and stuff in here. I mean, everything’s really crisp and clean, you know, you can see everything.

It’s not all in shadow. 

Craig: It feels very of the day. I feel like these types of movies at this time were shot and almost. This is gonna make me sound stupid because I’m not educated in these things, but almost in a documentary style, like, it’s just very, just shoot it, you know, like, just shoot it straight on, not a lot of creative approaches, just, just shoot it, which is fine.

I, I, I feel that it gives it kind of that gritty cheap feel that we expect from these movies and that in itself may be a stylistic choice. I don’t know. I didn’t find the shooting of this movie to be particularly interesting. Actually, there are parts of it that I found to be frustrating and part of that.

It’s from the very beginning. It starts out with somebody, I think somebody in black gloves, you don’t see their face, driving around at night. And they drive by Like there’s a car accident. 

Todd: Yeah 

Craig: outside of a car lot and a girl falls out and then it goes back to driving again And then this is what frustrated me from the beginning.

There’s lots of flashing Really really quick cut flashes to like maybe a child’s funeral. I didn’t know what was going on. It took me a while To figure out what was going on. And then when I did figure it out, I just thought I don’t know, it was kind of stupid. 

Todd: I think, I think I know what you mean, because the editing is also very weird here at the beginning.

We’re in a POV of a car, but like you said, there’s a car accident that happened, and at first I thought, oh, well, the car we were riding in had the accident, but then the car is driving past the accident after it gives us those flashes of a woman falling out, and then the woman being loaded into an emergency vehicle, and then at the hospital or on the gurney or something, her arm sort of falling off the gurney.

And then there’s some freeze frames. I can only guess they were missing some footage or they were short of footage or something? Yeah. I didn’t understand the freeze frames. I thought, okay, this movie’s at least going for some style. So I’m hoping that it’ll be a little stylish and except for this and maybe another part where it gets equally weird with flashing.

It doesn’t really have any style. 

Craig: I would have to say. No, and this, you know, this, this felt more just kind of in service of being an opening credits sequence. It’s not something that really, really continues throughout. I don’t know. I feel like there was questionable editing in a couple of places. Right. I hate to jump ahead, but I’m afraid that I’ll forget.

There’s one point, a young woman gets kidnapped and people are looking for her. And one of the main people who’s looking for her is her brother. Maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention, but it appeared to me that at one point he found her, but then just kind of carried on with the rest of his day as though nothing had happened, and then came back.

Did that ha I don’t I think, I know what you’re talking 

Todd: about, and I think that was his friend. I don’t think that was him. Okay, alright. Because, because I, I had to rewind it actually there, because I had the exact same feeling, and I think I know the reason is because the camera does follow The brother, as he’s getting in his car and going somewhere, and then we pick up later, a kid comes out of his car, which seems like it would be him, only as the scene goes on, you realize, only due to the hair color, as far as I can see, that it’s actually his friend.

Okay, what I’m And I had to rewind to confirm that. You’re right, the editing was a problem, because you can’t just butt up two people driving in a car, one guy gets in, To a car. Another guy gets out of a similarly looking car a second later and have them be two different people. You know, that’s not very good.

Craig: I mean, ultimately I didn’t really care because I wasn’t particularly invested, so whatever. Who cares? What it comes down to, you know, okay, so then there’s a guy with a toolbox and he’s wearing a ski cap. 

Todd: Well, he isn’t at first. Is he? I don’t think he is at first. He pulls it out later. I 

Craig: think he is because I don’t know.

I mean, this is just a choice. It’s a fine choice, I suppose. But you know who the killer is from the very beginning. At least, spoiler alert, one of the killers. Because, like, he wears that ski mask, but he’s very recognizable. Like, you can tell that as soon as he came on screen without the ski mask, and like, he’s just the chummy owner of this apartment complex or whatever.

I was like, Oh, it’s him. Like I just saw him in the mask. Yeah. He looks just like 

Todd: him. They did. It was almost like they weren’t even trying to hide it really. I 

Craig: don’t think they were. 

Todd: I don’t think so either. A lot of times these movies, right? They do that trick where they’ll put a different person in the mask or then, but this, they didn’t even bother.

Craig: We just saw that with that terrible hospital movie. 

Todd: That 

Craig: surgeon walking around the whole time was not the actor who played the killer at the end. Not at all. But then my question is, why bother? Like, why put him in a mask? We know who it is. Well, I don’t know. Who cares? I guess it’s 

Todd: more menacing? Maybe it’s more menacing.

Craig: Or maybe he’s, you know, the character legitimately is trying to disguise himself and just doing a terrible job of it. 

Todd: Well. 

Craig: Who knows? Whatever. 

Todd: That’s some of it. By the way, he’s played by Cameron Mitchell. Veteran actor. 244 credits. 

Craig: He looked very familiar to me, but I I just scrolled through all of those credits and nothing stood out as being familiar to me, but he, he looked familiar.

Todd: All over television, like every television series you can imagine, he was on at least one episode. So he was one of those guys who popped in and out. Once I saw the list, I remembered, oh yeah, he was Jeremiah in the Swiss Family Robinson. 

Craig: That’s right. I did remember that. 

Todd: So that was about it. But yeah, he’s very recognizable guy.

He’s got that kind of a cross between Tom Jones. And, uh, David Hasselhoff. 

Craig: Yes. I don’t know what you’d say. Yeah. Definitely got a Tom Jones vibe for sure, 

Clip: yeah. 

Craig: Yeah, he’s the killer. And first, he kills some woman who clearly is familiar with him. He kills her with a giant drill bit. Yeah. Like, that you use to like bore holes in boards or whatever.

Yeah. Like inch wide holes. And then a girl takes off her shirt and shows her boobs. You know, she’s just changing her shirt, but boobs. But she turns on the hot water 

Todd: before she changes into her shirt. I didn’t even notice that. I thought we were gonna get a shower scene Here she, she comes in, she takes off her clothes, shows her boobs, turns on the hot water, puts on her shirt, and then walks outta the bathroom and starts doing something else completely.

It’s like, why did she turn on the water? Does it take that long for her water to heat up that she’s got to put a shirt on in the midst of it? I don’t know, 

Craig: but the, the, the masked guy knocks her out. And then, yeah. 

Todd: Cause she goes outside. 

Craig: Yeah. I don’t even, I don’t know why she went outside. Did somebody knock?

I don’t remember. Whatever. She went 

Todd: to get a package or something. 

Craig: It’s really, it’s really unclear. No, it doesn’t matter. And he knocks her out and then. It kills her with the claw end of a hammer, like hits her in the face with it. Kind of out in public. Just out in the hallway. This is like It’s an open hallway.

This is Daniel LaRusso’s apartment tenement. Yes. From Karate Kid. That’s what it looks like. 100%. One of those, you know, California 70s stucco Apartment complexes with like a courtyard in the middle and she’s on I think the second floor So she’s kind of out, you know, like on the balcony or whatever, but he kills her right out there right there And then he carries her back into the apartment Then another girl walks into that same apartment sees the dead girl on the floor and then she gets stabbed with a screwdriver Mm 

Clip: hmm 

Craig: Yeah, well, I mean, I don’t know like this is all like 

Todd: Who cares?

It all happens in the first 10 minutes. Yeah. I had to say, I was kind of, at first I was like, Oh, at least the movie’s really getting into it, you know, it’s getting into it fast. It’s a little giallo at the beginning, right? Cause he’s got the black gloves and we’re not seeing his face. And it, it, then it switches to POV at one point where he’s approaching her with the drill.

Blood splatters, blood splatters everywhere. It gets a little silly where, you know, she. We’re talking about the first woman where she runs into the bathroom and backs herself up against the door and it seems like this woman is almost waiting for that drill bit to come through the door before she runs away from it.

You know, they’re trying, they’re trying to create some tension and some excitement here and it’s pretty gory. He drills into her, and like you said, the, the hammer, the back end of the hammer, he stabs the other woman, blood splattering everywhere, it’s pretty brutal, it’s a very grindhouse, it’s low budget brutal, but then like, this, this third girl, and I’m like, wait a minute, is this what this movie’s gonna be?

Is he just gonna go from door to door, in this apartment complex, and kill people? 

Craig: Yeah, and apparently, like, this whole complex, most of it is inhabited by Co eds, like, like, just, just sexy girls in lingerie who dance in front of their open windows. Because he literally 

Todd: After he stabs that one woman in the gut, he literally goes over to the window of her place, looks out the window, and we get almost like a rear window style view of the rest of the apartment, where we see the top one, and there’s like, I don’t know, some couple that are standing there?

And then you look down, and there’s like a woman dancing in her lingerie? To disco music? It felt very porny at this point. I, what is this woman doing? And then she like opens the window? What is this? I just 

Craig: didn’t get it. Her apartment faces the courtyard. Yeah. It’s not like, you know, I can understand. You know, you’re vacuuming in your underwear and you’re dancing.

That’s fine. No, she’s putting on a little show. Yes, for nobody. She’s standing in the window facing outdoors. It is dark outside, light inside. Like, this is just a little peep show. I don’t know what’s happening. It’s just for the 

Todd: service of the movie. It’s fine. 

Craig: It’s great. 

Todd: Dude, cleans a screwdriver on his shirt, packs it away and leaves and goes to the next apartment.

And that was when I was like, he opens the door, by the way, does anyone in this apartment lock their door? Because this guy just walks into every room. He looks at on a couple in there and then he closes the door and moves on and at this point I don’t know There’s like a woman who’s like taking out the trash and he she stumbles upon the obvious blood stains on the staircase Out in the open where he had that body calls for husband John they knock on the door there Where Deborah and me up Marie are and they open it and they see the mess.

There’s just this long lingering shot on the body of the woman who was Who came in after and got stabbed and now yeah, the cops are there and they’re asking questions 

Craig: Yeah, and there’s a detective named Mark and they’re asking questions and stuff and like we’re introduced to the building owner Kingsley who is clearly the killer You know this immediately when you see him right now, you know it and he knows He says something about being invested in his clientele or something, like he knows everything about the people who live in his building.

And then we meet what I guess become our main characters who also live in the complex. It’s Lori. She’s supposed to be 15, but she doesn’t look 15. No. She was 17, she was cash. She was 18. When they started filming and I read the, I don’t know if it was the director, the producers, I don’t know, but when they found out that she had turned 18, they really pressured her to do a nude scene.

And she just refused and eventually threatened to walk if they didn’t back off. So they backed off. Good for you girl who played Laurie, right? 

Todd: Imagine that. Oh, she’s 18. Go in there. Show us your boobs. Show your boobs for our movie. 

Craig: She’s supposed to be 15, but let’s. Get her naked 

Todd: right so gross men are disgusting.

She doesn’t look look She looks like she’s in her 20s. Honestly, this woman’s played by Pamela and Ferdin who was a longtime child actress and at first I thought okay This was her trying to get out of her child acting role like she was in she was in Disney movies She voiced Lucy from the Peanuts cartoons I think.

I think she originated that role. She voiced someone in Charlotte’s Web. You know, she’s been in a lot of these things, but then I read later, no, she actually didn’t even like acting. She was in it because her parents forced her to be in it. And she more or less retired from acting a couple years after this movie.

I think she did come back to play some voices in a couple cartoons, like in the early 2000s, but that was about it. But yeah. She’s in this movie. Right, fine. She’s fine. Whatever. She, yeah, she doesn’t 

Craig: have a lot to do, really. She seems cute and sweet, and that’s what they’re trying to, you know, they’re setting her up as this cute, sweet girl, and she lives with her mom and her brother.

And so then we get more murderer shots, and he’s humming to himself as he walks around the complex. I 

Todd: thought that was funny, actually. The, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm. He’s carrying the toolbox up on his shoulder, and walking by the camera so he can’t see his face. 

Craig: Well, and it also, you know, it makes sense. He easily, he could walk around here in broad daylight and nobody would think anything of it.

He owns the place, like, you know, he could be doing maintenance, whatever. 

Todd: That’s true. 

Craig: But, then we get to this, you know, this, there’s this redhead in her apartment and she gets Buck naked and gets in the pub and she gets in the tub and she starts jerking off and like that’s fine Get it, you know, whatever.

It felt very porny. It was super porny. Why am I watching porn again? I thought 

Todd: Again, knowing Gary Graver, I thought, surely he pulled this woman out of porn. You know what I mean? Like, she is very comfortable being completely nude here with these crotch shots of her masturbating just underneath the suds in this.

And then, uh, it turns out, yeah, after this movie, this woman, Kelly Nichols, who at this point had no problem doing the scene because she had already been nude modeling, went on to be a full time porn actress, apparently very, very popular in the late 70s, early 80s. 

Craig: And that’s fine, too. I just Oh, I 

Todd: don’t have a problem with it.

Craig: I know you don’t have a problem. I don’t have a problem with it either. I suppose it’s just ultimately there is a motive for it because you know, what’s the point in trying not to spoil anything? Like, I guess that the killer is like a moralist or something. Like, I don’t know. It’s not any different, I guess, than Jason killing all the bad people who have sex and do drugs.

Like this guy thinks that people who have. premarital sex or touch themselves, apparently, are dirty and must be killed. He stands there. The reason that this scene really bothered me is because not only is she masturbating in the tub, fine, I’ve jerked off in the tub a million times, who cares? But It’s just that it lingers for so long and like he’s like he stands there and watches her come like come on like this Yeah, so Exploitive isn’t even the right word sleazy.

It’s sleazy. Yeah, it’s easy gross 

Todd: But it’s kind of what you expect kind of what you expect in a movie like it’s checking all the boxes I mean you could see this movie. I mean who’s gonna come see a movie called the toolbox murders It was probably playing in some dirty theaters in Times Square or in drive ins 

Craig: drive ins 

Todd: Yeah, they were, they were wanting this shit and the movie delivers a hundred percent.

This is where they also do another one of those crazy cuts, like right when she comes, like suddenly it’s like really flashy cuts to her, her crotch and her face and her hands and the bubble bath and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. 

Craig: So he kills her. He chases her around fully nude. Yeah, through the house, 

Todd: that was something.

And 

Craig: then shoots her with a nail gun. 

Todd: Now, let me tell you something about nail guns. We all know how nail guns operate. We’ve talked about this in horror movies a million times. Obviously this nail gun that he has isn’t a very modern nail gun. It doesn’t look anything like what I’ve had, but usually they don’t work unless you actually have them pressed up against wood.

Right. Precisely so you can’t run around and shoot them like guns. Shooting 

Craig: people. 

Todd: But the other thing is nail guns operate under pressure and they usually have to be hooked up to something. There are electric nail guns nowadays, but most nail guns are air powered. This is hooked up to nothing. This has no battery in it.

This is kind of before batteries were good enough that you could get high power tools that are battery operated. It’s not plugged into anything. And you can look at this in the handle. I mean. It’s really silly, this idea that this nail gun that he’s running around could shoot nails across the room. It just wouldn’t work.

It’s missing power and he loads it like a fricking double barreled shotgun, kicking it back and putting more nails in it and closing it. It was a groaner. Let’s just put it that way. And he’s shooting at her and she runs onto the bed and she ran onto what I thought was a waterbed. I thought I saw where this was coming with it.

I thought I saw where this was going because I thought, Oh, he’s going to shoot her on the nail bed, water bed. We’re going to get something cool, like pieces, you know, with that awesome kill on the water bed, which, which this movie reminds me a lot of too. Cause it was equally sleazy, but a lot more fun.

And then like all the girls in this movies do like, they don’t really do anything logical. They just sit there and wait to be killed more or less, or just cower in the corner and writhe around a little bit. 

Craig: Well, actually this one, this one I thought was. One of the more uncomfortable, the kills are very fast, usually.

And this one, he menaces her for a little while. And yeah, she tries to negotiate with him. I think basically she’s, she’s offering to have sex with him. Just, just don’t, just don’t kill me. And of course it doesn’t work. He kills her anyway, but I actually thought that this actress. Did a fine job. Like, she, she seemed scared, but also, Oh god, I’m analyzing it far too much.

She seemed alert, like, like, she was really, like, I could, I could see in her head, like, the wheel spinning, like, what am I, what am I gonna do? How, how am I gonna get out? Well, at 

Todd: least she ran. 

Craig: Yeah, you know, she, she seemed scared. So, I thought she did a good job. Good job, naked girl. 

Todd: Yeah, good job, uh, Miss Kelly Nichols, but then he, so he sits down next to her and he starts rubbing her boobs, but she must get second thoughts or something because he’s put the gun down.

Like she could probably pull this off, but she decides to dive off the bed. And this is where we get those jump cuts again, back to the accident. That was shocking. I wasn’t expecting to have a reference back to that. It actually matches up really well. Yeah. Her falling from the bed, and this person that we had seen earlier falling from the car.

And she runs all away, and he picks up the nail gun again, and as she’s by the door, he shoots her in the stomach. That is enough to completely incapacitate her, because she turns around and kind of lays back down? In, not also a very provocative way of dying, but, anyway, she’s, she’s laying back, and he stands over her, he reloads the gun, and shoots her right in the forehead.

Pretty gruesome. And her arm falls down to her side, much like that arm on the woman who died in the accident. We get another cut straight to that. So I was like, what are they trying to do here? What is the connection they’re trying to make between this woman or this act and that woman who I already had forgotten about who had died in the car accident?

So I’ll give them that. You know, they were trying for something a little artsy here. 

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: I mean Or at least trying to call back to that, you know, remind us that it happened. 

Craig: Yeah, I it just it there’s not really much purpose to it. Like, I I feel like the killer’s motives are a little bit nebulous for me to to get to the motives.

Yeah, might as well. The next thing that we see is that I think Lori The young girl, 15 year old girl, is in her bed, and the killer smothers her with a pillow. And I thought that she was surely dead, and then the complex and the police discover the redhead’s body, but Lori is, they do not discover her body, she is missing.

So now I don’t know what’s happening. Yeah. Her brother Joe wants to find her, and the cops like interrogate him, and he gets all pissed off because he feels like they’re treating him like a suspect, and he just wants to find his sister. 

Todd: By the way, I love that interrogation. It’s the lamest, most unrealistic interrogation ever.

I don’t know why the cop is harassing this guy, but basically, his conclusion is, 

Clip: Look, Joey, we got four violent, bloody murders and a possible kidnapping. I’m supposed to think this guy butchered these girls and kidnapped your sister? I mean, it’s possible, but it, uh 

Todd: Why not? You’ve got an apartment complex where people are being butchered.

This guy’s sister is missing. Why does it not make sense that these could be connected? 

Craig: Well, yeah, the guy, Mark or whatever, doesn’t matter. Who cares? The detective is, is very aggressive. Not physically, but verbally, like, like, accusatory, you know, when, when Joe gets defensive, I would too, you know, like, Yeah, of course, and the cop just seems completely incompetent, and like you said, it’s, it’s not even like, how just are these things connected?

He’s like, oh, I’m sure she’s fine. She’ll show up. You’re making a big deal out of nothing. Like, what is, are you stupid? Like, we’ve just found like 15 dead women, but don’t be dumb. I’m sure she just ran away. She’ll be fine. And Joe’s like, okay, well, I guess if you won’t find her, I will. And the cop’s like, yeah, I’m sure you will.

Okay Thanks for your help, sir. So then he goes Joe goes back to the murder scene. I guess he’s gonna be a detective now I don’t how and I don’t know and his handsome friend Kent is there have we ever met Kent before? 

Todd: No, this is our introduction to Kent. 

Craig: So he’s handsome. I guess he was the son on the land of the lost 

Todd: Oh god.

Yeah 

Craig: that that TV show where they got like They went through a time rift and ended up in prehistoric times and like had to live amongst the dinosaurs and stuff I liked that show. I loved it. I was so fascinated 

Todd: and scared by that show when I was a kid I still have weird feelings about it 

Craig: He’s this handsome guy and we find out that he is the nephew of Vance, who is the owner, the killer.

So we know this and he’s been hired by his uncle to clean up these crime scenes so that they can re rent the units. This was porny too. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this movie. Those guys were seconds away from tearing each other’s pants off. There was so much sexual chemistry between these guys, like.

I was just waiting. And, and like, so, and, and at some point, you know, they’re just in this apartment and they’re talking to each other and Joe at some point says. You want to help me with something? I was like, here we go. Oh yeah. 

Todd: You’ve seen this movie. So many times. You look tense.

You could use a massage. 

Craig: Oh, and it gets, it gets even better. Like they break into the other murder scenes and one of them finds a Dildo and throws it at the other one, like, you guys.

Todd: And then they, they look at the nail in the wall. Kent’s like, Hey, come look at this. And he goes, a nail gun. And there’s a musical cue. Like it’s some kind of revelation. Like, I mean, I think it was pretty obvious to everybody that the killer killed her with a nail gun. This whole notion that they are doing some kind of detective work is.

Silly, because they find nothing. Nothing they find amounts to anything. And the cops are just lame. Again, it reminded me a lot of Pieces. Pieces had this sort of thrown in there because you have to have it in there detective, who couldn’t really do anything, who didn’t ask any of the right questions, just had to show up every time there was a body and go, Yeah, that really sucks.

I’m gonna need to get you down to the station. We’re gonna need to talk for a few minutes. So, as a mystery, it totally fails. 

Craig: Well, it fails because there’s a twist that isn’t really projected at all. So, when it happens, it’s like, what? Okay, whatever. But this part was so funny to me when they realized they’re like Hey, check this out.

She was killed with a nail gun because they find a nail shot into the wall, surrounded by blood. Explain to me how that happened. I know, right? The nail, did the nail like travel through her body and carry a large amount of blood with it and then impale itself in the wall makes no sense. But my favorite part about it is when he, Kent is like, she was killed with a nail gun and he looks over and he sees.

Something the toolbox. I think he sees the toolbox or something and there’s a look I wish this is one of the very few times I wish that we were still doing this on video because a look the most melodramatic look comes over his face like wait a Second. Like, you, like, you totally, like, he projects so hard on his face, like, Oh shit, I know what’s going on, but I’m not gonna say anything.

Cause he’s 

Todd: my uncle. Right. So funny that your uncle who fixes up apartments would have a toolbox. Imagine that. Oh. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Todd: So then Lori’s mom, who is like, just portrayed as perpetually drunk or always at the bar. This scene is pointless. This scene goes nowhere. There’s no point to it at all. She goes into an empty bar, turns everything on.

There’s some guy named Al who comes over and comforts her. 

Clip: Lori’s close, Al. Yeah? I mean, I, I feel it. I can just sense it somehow.

I keep thinking any minute I’m gonna look up and she’s gonna be just standing there. Well, she’ll call. She could call him. She, she will when, when she gets the chance. Oh, Al! And 

Craig: then 

Clip: that’s 

Todd: it. We’re back at the boy’s house. 

Craig: It’s like a five minute scene. Yeah, it’s 

Todd: ridiculous. It’s just to fill out time. I suppose.

But Stephen King loved it apparently, so. 

Craig: I guess. But you’re right. Now, now the two boys are together and they’re in the killer’s garage. And you see the toolbox. It’s not like this is any big surprise to us. We already know. So, I don’t know what the, like, okay. Thank you for confirming what we’ve known for the whole time.

Todd: As if to put an exclamation point on it, the guy pops out around the corner all shady and then pops back into his room. 

Craig: He pops back into the back of the house, into a bedroom, where he has Lori dressed up like a baby doll and tied to the bed with lace. This infuriates me. 

Todd: I know. It was so irritating. I don’t know.

Craig: I remember when I was a kid. Actually, there’s still this nice old lady that’s friends with my family and every year for Christmas She gifts my mother a tea towel with a little lace Trim she that she sews on the bottom that little lace trim that’s you know Maybe an inch in width is what this girl is tied down to the bed with yeah It’s the stupidest thing i’ve ever seen She could so easily just squirm right out of there and not only that But he’s got her gagged with it.

He may as well have her gagged with a shoestring. That doesn’t, that doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t. Like, that’s just annoying. 

Todd: Right. To say that she’s tied down is generous. She is sitting up in bed. These two long ass ribbons are from either end of the thing tied around her wrists. In the middle where she’s got her hands together like she’s praying, you know, just in a prayer position It’s like there’s so many this would be the easiest thing in the world to get out of And there are heart shaped pillows all around her and he comes in he starts combing her hair and stuff And this is where we get our long ass monologue about his kathy And at first I thought his kathy was his wife.

I guess his kathy was his Daughter and she’s the one who died in the car accident and God this monologue goes on far too long I suppose it was supposed to sound fascinating like we’re getting this deep psychological insight into this guy But it just goes all over the place and it’s so melodramatic about how the world is bad But when he hurts these people he makes it quick because he never wants to cause suffering and he killed the one He killed the woman downstairs who did Terrible things to her body.

The most unnatural acts to her own body. Oh my God. They were all committing unnatural acts with each other. 

Craig: Yeah. And it’s all religious and just fanatical and it’s stupid. To be 

Todd: fair. This is projected a little bit, because the very credit sequence that we saw, there is like some preacher on the radio, in what is presumably the killer’s car, going past the scene of the wreck.

I don’t think it was the scene of the wreck, I think it was the memory of the wreck as he’s driving by, but nonetheless, there is that aspect to it. And then of course, when the cops are talking to him, he says, Oh, I know everybody in here, I know everything that’s going on, I can see everything. So, you know, they sprinkle these little It’s not like this comes out of left field, but, again, like we said, we already know who this guy is, all we needed was the motive, and the motive is just dumb.

Craig: Yeah, and he, like, he says, I mean, he just rants forever, and like, he’s a religious nut, and he’s like, I tried to keep her right, I tried to keep her good, and he keeps calling her Kathy, and she tries, like, playing along, like, calling him daddy or whatever, but it doesn’t really work, and he just keeps getting weirder, he’s like, did it hurt when you died?

And, she has a great line. 

Clip: Dying’s easy. It’s over in a second. But this hurts worse. Which I thought was, 

Craig: She’s smart. Was really smart. 

Todd: Yeah, she is really smart. It doesn’t work, but it’s pretty smart. No, right. Then he goes back to putting that little piece of lace in her mouth and moves on. 

Craig: Yeah, and then there’s another scene that I Have no idea what the point of it was.

I think the cop is talking to the mom and is he hitting on her? That was so weird 

Todd: He’s back at the bar. The detective’s talking to the mom and it’s really noisy. So he takes her to a booth And it’s just like, I’m looking for Lori, but I’m at a dead end. I’m at a dead end. I’m fishing. And she’s like, well, I’m only doing what I know to do, which is to get drunk.

And he’s like, I know, I’m also used to working long hours. Maybe you and I ought to get together and What? He puts his hand on her hand? And then she’s like, no, I think you just need to go looking for Lori. And he’s like, okay, nevermind then. Nothing comes of this scene. 

Craig: Yeah, and then I feel like we never see them again.

Todd: I don’t even think we see the cop 

Craig: again. 

Todd: Do we ever see the cop again? I 

Craig: don’t think so. I don’t, I don’t think so. This was the part that I was confused by because this is when we see somebody who I thought was Joey look in the window where Laurie is tied up. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But I guess that wasn’t Joey, it was Kent?

Todd: I think it was Kent. Look, I don’t know, we’re back to the boys, but I don’t understand what they’re trying to do. Cause, you’re right, at first it’s Joey, and he’s going to his mom’s and he gets, like, her purse or something, and then he decides to go back somewhere, then he gets in a car, and then he’s in another room, I don’t even know, and then, you’re right, and then suddenly he, he, what looks like him gets out of a car, but actually it’s Kent, and he goes around to the back of this apartment, and he knocks on the window above, and you’re right, it’s above.

Laurie, and I thought, oh, why isn’t Kent doing anything? And then I thought, okay, maybe he is gonna do something, or maybe he’s gonna confront his uncle, or maybe he literally doesn’t see her, because she is, like, directly below him. 

Craig: Below, yeah. I thought that that was a possibility, that maybe he didn’t see her.

I’m still uncertain, because Kent has really dark, dark hair, and Joey has blonde, light sandy kind of blonde hair, and I could have sworn that was Joey. Who cares? Doesn’t matter. Vance, the killer, sings to Laurie. That was weird. That was very weird. Also went on too long. 

Clip: Oh. 

Craig: And then Joey comes back to the killer’s house and looks in the toolbox in the garage, but then Kent confronts him and Kent says, I have to protect my family and, to my complete shock, douses Joey in gasoline, kerosene, something flammable and Then walks around, like, like, I guess Joey kind of falls to the floor and is kind of scrambling around.

And Kent is taunting him, lighting matches and throwing them in his direction, and singing, like, I just wrote, I don’t know, like Joey Joey burning bright. Something, I don’t know, but like, he’s obviously a cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Lunatune. 

Todd: Ken is like a magician. He’s producing matches from nothing. It’s like, he keeps pulling them out of his, like a magician continues to produce cards from an empty hand.

It was so funny 

Craig: and striking them with this thumbnail, which I’ve always thought is really cool. I’ve never been able to do that. 

Todd: I think you have to have a special kind of match to do that actually. But yeah, I will someday I’ll just practice that. 

Craig: But I was shocked because I thought that Joey was the hero of this movie.

I thought that he was going to rescue his sister. No, no. Kent throws the match on him and burns him to a crisp. He’s dead. 

Todd: Yeah, that was surprising really surprising. It’s also surprising you didn’t burn down the rest of the of the house with it Also surprising that dad didn’t pop out to see what was going on because he’s literally down the hall 

Craig: Yeah, but he’s just you know talking to Laurie Nonsense, and and then Kent comes in he’s like, oh, here’s Kent Kent always helped me He helped keep the dirty boys away from Laurie and this scene was so So weird because now all of a sudden this poor girl is sitting on this bed witnessing two lunatics have a conversation 

Clip: and 

Craig: at first Kent is like acting all innocent as though he didn’t just emulate his best friend in The garage acting like he doesn’t know what’s going on, like, like he’s surprised.

Yeah. Like he’s surprised. And then he’s like, what are you talking about? I never helped you. And then he says, Kathy, who is his first cousin. He’s like, we loved each other. So all those times that we were going away, we were making sweet, sweet love.

Clip: Oh 

Craig: man. So Vance and Kent. Vow to kill each other and then take their fight out into the kitchen 

Todd: Vance is holding a doll. You got to mention that Vance is holding this doll that he was like 

Craig: In a wedding dress. 

Todd: Oh, a 

Craig: bride doll like a porcelain doll and I think that Kent picks up a knife and Vance grabs it by the blade or something it somehow it both cuts him and cuts off the head of the doll So there’s blood all over this white wedding dress of the doll and he says to Kent you hurt my Kathy You’re a heathen you killed her again And then Kent stabs Vance kind of really Vance kind of more walks into the knife than anything else But 

Todd: it’s so weird because it’s kind of at odds with his whole I got to protect my family angle that he had moments ago with Joe, but I guess he’s just a lunatic.

So Whatever. Then Kent becomes even more loony. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, he tries to put the doll back together, which somehow he’s able to do. I don’t know how he stuck that head back on. 

Todd: Washes it off. He’s super happy. He’s cackling. Yeah, 

Craig: he sprays it off in the sink. Ugh, 

Todd: so dumb. 

Craig: He unties Lori. She literally screams, I’m free!

And then he rapes her. Like, this, I 

Todd: I mean, you can’t remain a little girl for the rest of your life, he says. It was really gross. 

Craig: It was really gross, and I knew, like, I’m looking at the, the time, and I know that there’s literally, like, three or four minutes of this movie left, and, you know, thankfully, It’s off screen, you know, he, he starts to get aggressive with her, you can tell what’s going to happen and then it cuts to black and comes back in the aftermath and, and you know, you know what’s happened, but thankfully they didn’t show it to us, but they’re laying there.

Todd: He says to her, we’re married now, Lori, just the way Kathy and I were married. Oh, gross. 

Craig: Yeah, and he’s like, I’m gonna, you’re gonna be so happy here or something. She looks over to the bedside table where there’s a huge pair of scissors. And then again, it cuts away and the next shot that we see is her ambling in the early dawn.

Through a parking lot, and the, the nightgown that she’s wearing is covered in blood. So obviously she’s killed him. Good. Good job. Good for 

Todd: you. Very much like, um, Texas Chainsaw, right? So for, at least in this, you know, it kind of mimics that whole stumbling down the street at dawn. Final girl kind of thing and then we get that big long ass title card on the screen It says the events dramatized in this film actually took place in 1967 and it goes into great detail dates and things Laurie spent from 1967 to 1970 in a mental institution and her mother in 1974 was killed in a single car accident and in 1975 she was married and she and her husband now have one child and live in California in San Fernando Valley Just four miles away from all where all this happened And I ain’t believe a word of it.

I mean, it’s odd too, right? Like usually when they do this kind of thing with a movie, it’s used to promote the film. It’s like a, it gets people in the theaters. It’s at the beginning based on a true story, even though it’s not, which I suppose is what, isn’t that exactly what Texas Chainsaw did too? Yeah.

Isn’t there a based on a true story in the beginning? Oh yeah. Which if it legitimately kind of was, I mean, it’s. Based very loosely on Ed Gein, but still 

Craig: yeah, 

Todd: what to have it at the end is weird when you’re trying to promote your movie It probably At least should have said something about it at the beginning.

Craig: Yeah, gosh, I don’t know either. Yeah, I’m sure that at some point in time, there was somebody who killed somebody with tools. Okay, I’m willing to believe that. This whole convoluted nonsense with the nephew and incest and that’s all just silliness, but whatever. I mean, you know, we, even if This is even loosely based on some kind of true crime.

That’s even still more than some, you know, some, some of these movies just make shit up. Which again is fine, I don’t care. But I was turned off by the last 10 minutes. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I just felt like that, that, even the insinuation of rape was Unnecessary for me. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: The girl was supposed to be 15. I didn’t like it.

I get it. I know that horrible things happen and, and, you know, it’s not like something like I spit on your grave where I actually had to watch it in terrible detail. 

Todd: True. 

Craig: So I’m grateful for that. It just, it, I don’t know. I didn’t like it. Yeah. It, it The movie wasn’t good enough to warrant it for, for me.

I see, it didn’t 

Todd: earn it. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s almost like two different movies too. It starts off as this really brutal slasher, and it’s just one body after another, after another, after another. And then like halfway through, suddenly it’s trying to be this psychological study of a killer, like maniac or something.

And, and it’s, it’s a change in tone, really. I mean, it all feels sleazy. So, that tone remains. But, the direction the movie was going in, I mean, the guy’s not killing anybody anymore. Now it’s, he’s taking this girl hostage. There’s all this weird shit, why? I mean, yeah, it’s just not a very satisfying story.

It’s trying to be twisty, and it’s trying to be interesting, and I’ll give it that it’s trying. It’s certainly more interesting than, um, some movies we watch, but, uh, But, yeah, it didn’t really Do it for me. It was okay. 

Craig: It was fine. I mean, yeah, I mean, if you are into these kinds of movies from the seventies, it’s fine, it’s serviceable.

We’ve, we’ve seen far worse. 

Todd: It’s almost like a perfect representation of these kinds of movies. I mean, really grindhouse film. Apparently in 2004, Toby Hooper did a remake of this called toolbox murders. 

Craig: I looked at, I didn’t watch it, but I, I looked at it a little bit. I don’t even, it sounds like an entire, it doesn’t sound anything like this movie at all.

The whole premise of it isn’t even similar. So I don’t know. I mean, I’d be interested in watching it because I like Toby Hooper as a director. I think he’s a good director, so I would definitely watch it, but. I don’t know. It didn’t sound like a remake at all. It’s it’s called Toolbox Murders. So 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: it purports to be a remake.

But I mean, even if you look just the the cover art shows some kind of like mutated deformed guy and like a burlap. And if you read, if you read the plot description, it’s like some girl, some woman or something moves into an old estate and there’s some ancient evil lurking there behind the walls. What?

Todd: It sounds very Toby Hooper. 

Craig: I mean, that sounds fine, but it doesn’t sound like this. 

Todd: Maybe there are tools involved. I’m sure 

Craig: there are. 

Todd: I don’t know. There’s also a sequel to that one that was announced in 2009. Oh, I didn’t know that. Yeah, it got made in 2013 by a guy named Dean Jones, who’s done a lot of makeup for like the Star Trek series and stuff, and has Bruce Dern in it.

Apparently a bunch of other people were attached to it, but one by one they kind of And I think Bruce Dern was the only one left. 

Craig: Bruce Dern? 

Todd: Yeah, but it doesn’t look very good. It’s Again, you read the description. Samantha is kidnapped by a serial killer, locked in a cage, and forced to witness dozens of people being killed.

And after ten days in captivity, the killer begins to fall in love with her, until she is rescued by police. 

Craig: Well that kinda sounds more like this movie than the other one. 

Todd: It really does, doesn’t it? And I think it has the alternate title, Coffin Baby. So even Toolbox Murders 2 wasn’t enough to get that movie going.

Apparently. It also doesn’t have very high reviews, but uh, Bruce Dern’s in it. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I, yeah, I like Bruce. He’s great. I can’t give this movie any kind of glowing recommendation. I know it was okay. I mean, it was whatever for me. It’s also not something that I would say, Oh, don’t watch it. Like you’ll feel like you’ve completely wasted your time.

I mean, it’s, it’s fine. It’s whatever. I just, uh, I can’t get enthusiastic about it. 

Todd: As an artifact of a typical 1970s exploitation film, this does indeed check all the boxes. It’s even got the people involved, who are crossing over into other genres and porn and all that stuff. It’s porny, it’s sleazy, it’s gory, it’s brutal.

It’s also very nonsensical, and doesn’t give really a shit about the plot. So, again, like you said, if you’re into those movies, or you just kind of enjoy watching them as I would say this is probably one of the better ones, but to be fair Pieces is ten times better than this and far more entertaining.

That’s kinda become my standard actually. I always compare these movies to Pieces. Yeah, you do. Is it better than Pieces? Is it as fun as Pieces? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And it’s not. Yeah, 

Craig: I would say that this is more in line with like Last House on the Left.

It’s not as brutal. And as brutal as Last House on the left is, Wes Craven was just a really talented director. And so you can at least appreciate the, the filmmaking. The filmmaking isn’t poor here. It’s just not exceptional. It’s so, anyway, I think I’ve said everything I have to say. That’s fine. 

Todd: Well, thank you so much for listening to another episode.

If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend. If you have other exploitation movies that you think we just need to see, go ahead and reach out to us. Just Google Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast, and you can find our website, ChainsawHorror. com. You can leave us a voice message on there to request something.

It’s very, very simple. You just do it right through your browser. You don’t have to sign up for anything. Subscribe to our newsletter. We put out a weekly newsletter, and any replies to that go straight to us. Or you can just comment on our social media or anywhere we are. We’d love to your request. If you are interested in shaping the show and becoming a patron, then you can just go to patreon.

com slash chainsaw podcast. That is one of the privileges our patrons get is to, uh, look at our long list of requests and vote on which one we’re going to do next. They also get complete unedited versions of our episodes. They get lots of little behind the scenes. things, mini sotes that we put out, little mini reviews we write, and a book club that has been going strong for quite a while now.

If any of this interests you, once again, that is patreon. com slash Chainsaw Podcast. Until next week, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

In this episode of ‘Two Guys in a Chainsaw,’ we wrap up our horror-in-space theme month with ‘Jason X’ from 2001.

Is this the best Friday the 13th film ever? Craig seems to think so. We discuss the film’s blend of sci-fi and horror, its unique setting, memorable kills, and the transformation of Jason into Uber Jason.

With behind-the-scenes insights and a comparison to the other cosmic horror films we covered this month, we’re gonna explore why ‘Jason X’ stands out in the Friday the 13th franchise – and among “in space” franchise entries in general. Check it out!

Episode 433, 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. Here we are wrapping up what will be probably our final theme month of horror in space. Maybe, 

Craig: maybe. Oh, I’m sorry to cut you off for your longest one yet. I know you had that planned. 

Todd: That’s okay. In space, no one can hear you be stupid.

Craig: One of our friends, Neil, recommended another go to space movie. Cloverfield 

Todd: in space, I think. That’s true. And then somebody, somebody I think in tick, can’t remember the name. I believe on YouTube or Instagram, I’m not sure which, had said that we really missed the boat on Amityville in space. 

Craig: Oh God, no, I can’t.

I 

Todd: think I can’t either. I went and I looked at that and I was like, Oh my goodness. No, this is not, I mean, we do some pretty bad shit, but I don’t know if we’ve ever stooped to that level. Yeah, but 

Craig: the Cloverfield in space, that movie was polarizing and I actually liked it a little bit. So maybe, maybe someday, but not yet.

Because what we are finally getting to in our in space series is Jason in space. Yeah. And it’s Jason X from 2001. And when you announced this month, I was excited about it. And then we watched Critters and Leprechaun, 

Todd: and I was just, 

Craig: like, both of them just, like, ruined my whole weekend, like, ugh, so terrible, they’re so awful, I hate them so bad, now I have to get on the internet and talk about them.

Todd: Hellraiser redeemed it, I thought. I really liked Hellraiser Bloodline. 

Craig: Yeah, Pinhead in Space, I did too, I did too. And I’ve been telling you all along, like, I think you’re gonna like Jason X. If I remember it correctly, I think you’re gonna enjoy it, I think it’s fun. But I hadn’t seen it in a really long time, and when I had seen it The most recently it had only been in clips like Years ago when I still had cable, you know I would flip around and it would just be on on sci fi or something and I would catch You know 20 30 minutes of it or whatever and I Remembered thinking it was fun.

I haven’t watched it in its entirety since, God, who knows, probably since it came out and I think I saw this in the theater. Pretty sure. Yeah, 

Todd: you would have been in college. 

Craig: Maybe 2001. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No college. But this is something that I would have gone to with my dad. Freddy, Jason, you know, these things that have a long history.

I’m pretty sure I saw this in the theater with my dad. Don’t remember what my reaction to it was at the time. If I had to guess, I would guess that my reaction was probably kind of lukewarm at the time. 

Clip: Mm hmm. 

Craig: Going back and watching it now, I f ing loved it.

Todd: You’re coming at it from a different place now. You’re an older wife of Craig, I suppose. Yep. You’ve 

Craig: had I loved it. 

Todd: You’ve also had Leprechaun in space and Critters 4 in space, uh, in your past as well, 

Craig: which were so bad, which were so bad that I wanted to like harm myself. And then, and then, and it’s been, you know, like, I don’t remember.

I feel like you and I took a week off. It’s been a minute since I talked to you and we, we recorded those like back to back to back. And I, they were so bad that they just kind of made me angry. And then. Watching this one, I would honestly watching this one. I thought this is what all of them were trying to be right.

But this one got it right. 

Clip: Yeah, 

Craig: they 

Clip: kind of 

Craig: did 

Todd: because you know, this movie has a. bit of a storied history. It was in development. Well, I won’t say it was in development hell. Basically, Freddy versus Jason was in development hell for quite some time. And right. Sean Cunningham was really planning on that being the next in the franchise, but they just couldn’t get it going.

And I think six or seven years went by and eventually like, look, we just need to do another Jason movie. 

Craig: Yeah. I think that they were concerned about keeping him relevant. Like it. It had been a while since he’d been on the screen. So since he went to hell and you’re right, it was, yeah. Well, and that was a big departure and that was people were divided on that movie because in that movie, Jason became a body hopper, like, uh, whatever was inside him.

God, I haven’t seen it. No, it’s. Interesting. He, Jason is very He’s like a parasite. Yeah, he’s like a parasite and he jumps into different people and then these different people do his bidding. It was very polarizing, but they knew at the end, New Line, we could talk about the story of Friday the 13th for hours because it is so convoluted.

Yeah, it’s It’s 

Todd: long and storied, 

Craig: but basically Paramount was holding onto the rights forever, but they weren’t really particularly interested in the property. The same thing happened with Hellraiser, the studio that owned Hellraiser wasn’t particularly interested in the property, but they didn’t want to lose the rights to it, so they had to keep putting out movies every few years.

I think Jason Goes to Hell was the first one that was done by New Line. At the very end of Jason Goes to Hell. Because New Line did it, I think, they were able to have Freddy’s glove come up out of the ground and pull the mask down into the ground, Jason’s mask. Yeah, 

Todd: to tease the Freddy vs. Jason. 

Craig: Right, to tease the Freddy vs.

Jason, but they couldn’t get Freddy vs. Jason off the ground. There were a bunch of different scripts over, you know, a decade, and they just couldn’t get it off the ground. Like you said they decided to do this one, but they thought we can’t with Freddy vs. Jason like we know that’s coming. 

Clip: Yeah, 

Craig: we can’t mess with it So let’s set it way in the future.

So Then it doesn’t matter. And I also think that that’s brilliant. I’ve mentioned it before with the other movies that we talked about, set it way in the future, then it doesn’t matter. Like you can continue making sequels that happened before this. And this one works in that way too. 

Todd: I also saw that they were batting around a lot of different ideas, like, uh, Jason, uh, goes up north, he was gonna be in the snow, hell freezes over or something, NASCAR, they basically, Todd Farmer wrote the script.

I know, can you believe that? What would that be? Jason, like, drives around in a circle, slashing people as he goes by? Like, I just don’t see how that would work. But they said nothing was literally off the table, and Todd Farmer, the guy who had been, like, basically a script doctor for quite some time for Sean Cunningham, just, uh, doctoring up scripts, writing spec scripts, whatever he did, this was his big chance at writing a movie.

He, they, he gave it to him and said, go to town with it. And apparently he had a lot of fun putting it together. He finally pitched them on In Space, they thought it was a great idea. 

Craig: Well, they were, they were hesitant, because space is where These franchises go to die. Yeah, it’s where 

Todd: they 

Craig: jump the shark.

Yeah, they specifically thought of Critters and Leprechaun and Hellraiser, which had all come out before this, I believe, but they thought No. Let’s do it. We’ve got a good idea. Let’s throw a big budget at it. Three times the budget of any other, of the most expensive Friday the 13th that it happened. Three times that budget.

Oh yeah. Let’s throw it at it and see what happens. And I’m sure that budget has a lot to do with it. I don’t know, budget certainly has a lot to do with it. But this In my very humble podcaster opinion is the best Friday the 13th movie. I just think it’s great in contention with Freddie versus Jason, but I don’t know.

This might even be more fun than that. I don’t know. 

Todd: I think you’re more qualified to speak on that. I did try to do a Jason marathon for one crazy October around Halloween time, and I just kind of had to give up around the fifth one, I think. They’re all the same. They are so all the same. And so, you know, there is just a formula and they are just cheap, like they are put out cheaply.

Very cheap. Three million, you know, and then they go off and they make gold. Because I think because people want the formula, you know, they just want to see it. And to me, Jason is all about creative kills, and A bit of suspense. 

Craig: Creative, 

Todd: I 

Craig: guess, but in 

Todd: They’re 

Craig: not that creative, I’m just No, in the earlier movies, he had his machete, he’s always had his machete.

And then other things that you would find around a camp, like a bow and arrow, or a kitchen knife. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: I like the Jason movies. I really do. They, they are the perfect, back when I had cable networks like USA and Sci Fi would always without fail on Friday the 13th run. Marathons of the movies and I loved that I could put that on all day I could 

Todd: yeah 

Craig: go about my day doing whatever I was doing and Friday the 13th was just on in the background and I haven’t I Couldn’t tell you, you know, like I’ve seen all those kills.

I couldn’t tell you what movie they were from right here 

Todd: You know, it’s all the same. It’s all the same. There’s no like, uh, great, great stories in any of them. No memorable characters in any of them. It’s, it’s just the same thing over and over again. It’s like junk food. Yeah, it’s junk food. You know, you can pop it in and it goes down easy, you know.

And so, for that, I can appreciate them. But, you know, one of the hallmarks of the series I think of is that there’s at least A bit of suspense. There’s that moment where the camper goes out by themselves and you’re like, no, don’t do that. Or that moment when they’re skinny dipping and then suddenly you see a POV from the bushes and you’re just kind of wondering when it’s going to happen and the music and the, you know, comes in.

And so I felt like this movie deviated from that a little bit because. It was in space and I don’t know what to say, like, no, I didn’t dislike this movie at all. Honestly, this is one of my favorites that we’ve done this month. This one, I really liked Hellraiser 2. I, I kind of actually put that a notch or two above this, but they’re really different kinds of movies.

So it’s really hard to compare the two. This one, as I was saying, Todd Farmer really just wanted to have a lot of. fun with it. He wanted to be jokey. He had a quirky sense of humor apparently in the original script and what ended up happening, and he played Dallas in this movie by the way, what ended up happening throughout the process is it just got torn apart.

His original script got rewritten like a hundred times and to the point where they were shooting this movie without a finalized script. There were times when they were in the middle of a scene and the director would say, what do you guys were rewriting things. And this, after having had a really long rehearsal time going into it.

I think they rehearsed for like half a year. It was a big process of frustration for everybody involved. And everyone involved in the production has something to say about how They were a little disappointed in how that original script that they were really enthusiastic about in the beginning just got meddled with so much, but still enjoyed the process of shooting the movie and enjoyed the ability to contribute to it, because that’s one thing that the director, Jim Isaacs, really did actually do, and that was allow them a lot of Creativity and input in the film and some might say a little too much.

Yeah, I don’t know. That’s a little bit of the behind the scenes stuff. I read it would be interesting to see because Todd Farmer was like, you know, the humor that ends up in the movie was just a little bit cornier than his sensibility. Yeah, yeah, anyway, but yeah, this is what we have and this is what we’re talking about.

Craig: Yeah, from what I’ve read, a a and I’ve watched some interviews and things, there are documentaries, there’s like a six hour documentary, remind me the title, I don’t remember. Well, 

Todd: there’s a, there’s a book, uh, maybe the documentary comes off the book, Crystal Lake Memories is a pretty thicc. Thick kind of coffee table book that just right just interviews everybody involved in every single production It’s a wonderful book and it’s a lot of fun If you’re a fan of this series, it goes into greater detail than anything you could imagine, right?

and the e version of it goes even deeper because it it strips out a lot of the photos and Because it can be as long as it wants the writer put in a whole bunch of stuff that he had to take out of The original edition so you should catch it on eve in the e version if you Don’t mind not seeing all the beautiful pictures and you want to hear more depth stories and stuff.

Craig: I didn’t know that it was a book. There is a filmed documentary of the same. name and and tons of interviews and it sounds like everybody who is involved in this had a Wonderful time like it just seemed like they had a great time. You’re right. They said the original script was darker Okay, fine at some point this came right after the grand Success of scream.

And so there were a lot of rewrites that pushed it more into meta comedy. Like we’re very self aware of the situation in the movie that we’re in, and we’re going to be cracking jokes. I have no idea what the original. I agree with you. I would like to see what the original vision was for it. I love what it is.

I actually think that this was the absolute right direction to go. Jason has been around forever. His Mythos is known. 

Todd: Yeah. Let’s Shoot him off into space and just play with him. 

Craig: Yeah, and let’s be a little bit self referential. Let’s throw in some jokes. I loved it. Sure. You know, it’s a cast of mostly young people, but it doesn’t feel exactly like the same formula.

Todd: No. It feels more like a more modern update in a way, right? A lot of very good looking young people in very slick circumstances. 

Craig: Yes. I think the thing that I liked the most about this movie is that it is a perfectly serviceable sci fi space movie with Jason. Like, like, yeah, it just, it just works for me.

Like, I wish that I could have said that about any of the movies that we’ve watched up until now, but this one just works for me. Freeze Jason in time in 2008, and then wake him up on a space station where only one person knows what he’s actually capable of. And of course everybody else. Isn’t concerned, you know, this is some weirdo Cryogenic space thing that we are not even trying to bring back to life Like they’re not concerned and then it does become a chop up the people Movie.

Yeah, it’s not different I wish that horror franchises could find a different formula than just Put our villain in space and make him the Alien. Yeah The xenomorph that’s that’s the word I was trying to come up with just just put our villain in space and make him And I understand it. I feel like it’s budgetary.

We have to do it on a ship because we can’t do it on an entire alien planet. That would be far too expensive. So we confine it to a confined space for budgetary reasons. I get it. And so I get why all of these movies kind of feel the same way in that way. For whatever reason. It just for me worked with Jason.

I just believed that Jason woke up in this environment and kept on going about his business. 

Todd: That’s true. And I think that’s evidenced by the fact that he just kind of pops out and hacks somebody I mean, it’s it’s what he does in the other movies Well, but we’re not even we were 

Craig: 20 minutes in and we haven’t even started talking about the plot But one of the things that I love about it is, you know, Jason in the early part of the movie gets cryogenically Frozen and then he kind of starts to thaw out when he gets rescued 400 years later or whatever, but it’s only when young people, young, unmarried people start that he sits up right in bed like, Oh no, no, not on my watch.

Todd: They did throw that in there. And we have a bunch of young people. These are. What, students on a class trip? Is that what this is? I can’t, couldn’t quite figure it out. But they’re supposed to be mostly teenagers on this ship. Yeah. Which I thought was hilarious. I mean, it’s kind of impossible to tell by looking at them, but.

Craig: Can I do the cold open real quick? Please, please. Okay, so we open with what looks like hell. I guess like it’s a lot of weird CGI hell stuff and chanting and then we get just snips of a doctor like sewing things together or whatever and I think that this is supposed to bridge us from Jason goes to hell to now like Somehow back out of hell He’s back out of hell.

A doctor has put him back together and they have, he’s alive apparently. And they have him chained up kind of like Hannibal Lecter, like in the middle of a huge room with just spotlights on him, a warehouse he’s chained up in the middle of the room, but he’s very much alive and awake. And he’s staring at this.

Guy who’s watching him and the guy walks up and throws a blanket over him and says stare at this for a while And then the main woman of our story Rowan She comes out to me. I just have in my note bureaucrat, but it’s David Cronenberg, 

Todd: you mean. 

Craig: David Cronenberg. Yeah, 

Todd: the director, but he did do a few acting bits in movies, some cameos.

It’s so recognizable. 

Craig: Oh my god, the fam I mean, I wouldn’t recognize them by sight, but David Cronenberg, are you kidding me? Like, and it’s also just so cool that he was involved, and, and he Accepted the role He did it, but he wanted to be involved in it Like he was involved in some rewrites and I don’t know he was a fan of of it And I think that’s really cool.

But anyway, he shows up and like Rowan says, 

Clip: what are you doing here? 

Craig: I’m taking the specimen 

Clip: Well, you can’t, I haven’t prepped the cryostasis chamber. I don’t want them frozen Rowan, 

Craig: I want them soft. It’s a great line. Good job, David Cronenberg. But again, it just comes down to the same thing that we saw in Critters and.

They want a weapon. Yeah. This is a being that can regenerate, that never dies and that regenerates. 

Todd: Needs to be researched, needs to be studied for military use in the future. Yeah, so we can 

Craig: regenerate our troops. But ultimately it doesn’t really matter because we find out that Jason got out by himself anyway.

He did a bait and switch and put that guard under his blanket and chained up in the chains and he’s out and he kills all of them including David Cronenberg, then Rowan masterfully Tricks him and and gets him into the cryogenic freezer or whatever and she thinks that she’s won but he stabs his machete through the metal door and Through her which releases the nitrogen gas or whatever it is and freezes them both now I’m fine with this as a device to freeze them both.

I I suppose I will have to say that about Probably many things that happen in this movie, but that doesn’t make any sense. There is no way that machete, that machete would have just bent on the inside. There’s no way that it busted through that metal door. 

Todd: In, through her. It’s just part of the joke, right?

I mean, and I, and I kinda like how it sets that up from the very beginning. Like, Jason just gets his way. Every single time. Until the end, which you know isn’t going to be the end. Because he’s gonna be in another movie. He’s gonna get his way all over again. I just thought that was hilarious. That there was this sort of final F you moment.

Where he’s Alright, well I guess I’m in cryostasis. But before I do go, I’m gonna And, and this big metal door that is, uh, you know, 10 inches thick isn’t going to stop me. It’s just funny. 

Craig: It’s hilarious, but I also have in my notes, in bold, because I wanted to say something about it, that so far, all of this looks fan tastic.

Yeah. They’re running through hallways in a, I don’t know, it’s not a spaceship at this point. It just looks so good and I’m sure that I’m influenced by the things that we’ve seen up till now. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: That looked so bad, but I was just watching this and thinking, holy shit, this is a Friday the 13th movie.

This looks fantastic. It 

Todd: looks so good. It really looks. They were able to shoot it up in Canada, so, you know, their money went a lot further up that way. And most of the money that they put into the movie went up onto the screen. You know, they didn’t cast any name actors. In fact, part of the reason they went to cast all those Canadian actors is because most of them were non SAG and so they didn’t have to pay them residuals.

They could just buy them out on the movie. The movie also has the distinction of being the very first film that was shot in 35mm, scanned into hi def digitally, and then had the visual effects added to it, and then turned right back around and made it back onto a 35mm print. Which I think It was kind of a new technique at the time, and it, it shows.

They said that, you know, uh, the movie looks so good, because we were able to play around and do these kind of visual effects, that at the time looked really, really impressive, and by the time it was released two years later, because New Line just let it sit on the shelf for a while, much to their detriment, then the effects already looked old.

So that was probably another reason why it didn’t do so well at the movie, but very ambitious, ambitious in the lighting. They had a huge crew of like 80 plus people working on here, all master craftsmen, all really allowed to just play around and do what they do again, like we said before. Everyone, including the crew, loved working on this movie because they really felt they had a chance to play, and it shows.

I think it shows on the screen. The lighting is so great. One of the, the lighting guy was interviewed in that book, and he said what was so cool about having this space set to work with was on the one hand, we had these shadows. You know, so that Jason could be coming out and in shadow or half in shadow or sleeking back into the shadows, but a woman could walk into the same room and she could just step into kind of a different light and have a more soft, flattering light on her.

You can just do all these different things up in space. And I feel like this movie, more than any of the ones we saw previously, really used that atmosphere to its advantage and made it. Look much, much bigger than its budget actually was. It looks like a really big movie. 

Craig: Yeah, the budget was, as I said before, much larger than it had been on any of the previous films, and But it’s still a low budget for a movie like this, that’s trying to compete with 15 million.

I mean, for a space movie, sure. Yeah. Sure, sure, absolutely. But, I don’t want to say Cronenberg loaned some of his crew, you know, these people make their own decisions, but some of Cronenberg’s crew worked on this because he was behind it. You mentioned that it sat on the shelf. I’m surprised that I don’t remember that because I have been a horror fanatic my entire life.

I was always very excited when new entries in Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th were coming out. I remember being excited about this and I remember seeing the posters with, you know, the half Jason regular that we’re accustomed to and the half like Jason X or Turbo Jason or whatever you want to call him.

And I was really excited about it and I guess that it just must have been before I had regular access to the internet because I didn’t realize that it had still existed. It’s been filmed in 2000, I believe, and Wasn’t released in the United States until 2002 and it had been Released in Europe a year before that and apparently it had been leaked to the internet before it Released here.

Yeah, people were watching it Which may account for why it did so poorly because hardcore fans who would typically pay money to go see it in the theater Had already seen it. Yeah. Because it had been leaked on the internet. I didn’t know that. I feel like we could talk about this for days. Okay, so, you know, all of that pre stuff happened that we talked about and then they get picked.

Again, very much like Alien. I feel like they get picked up by like a trolling ship or like a scavenger ship or something. It’s a bunch of students, which is convenient because they can be A lot of young hot people, they’re on some kind of like archeological exploration or something? 

Todd: Do you mean they’re exploring the abandoned Crystal Lake Research Facility?

Oh, no, no, no. That’s in the beginning. That’s in the beginning. Yeah, but that’s what 

Craig: they find. That is what they are exploring. You’re right. Because I guess that the abandoned Crystal Lake Research Facility is on earth, which has become Uninhabitable. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: So, are these people just coming, I, I, I don’t know if they’re coming to scavenge, or just archaeology, or whatever.

Todd: They’re just, they’re research students, like, they’ve got their professor, Brandon Lau, his, his companion, who’s an android, he’s got an intern, and then the rest of them are all students. It’s a field trip to Earth, because it’s 2040, it’s 2455, and Earth is too polluted. 400 years later, yeah. 

Clip: Mm hmm. 

Todd: It’s 

Craig: a bunch of young, sexy people.

You said something about the acting before, you know, the, the director or whoever was concerned about the acting. Like, they did rehearsals. Like, you don’t Nobody does rehearsals for this. No, you don’t rehearse these movies. No. You don’t have time. Yeah. You shoot these movies, and, and if you have the luxury of doing a few shots per scene, great, but you don’t even necessarily have that luxury.

You certainly don’t rehearse these movies, but they did. They were concerned about the acting, and I think the acting was Fine. Yeah. In all caps, like all caps. Fine. 

Todd: Better than most of the series. Let’s put it that way. We’re absolutely 

Craig: like nobody, nobody’s going to win any awards for their performances in this movie, but I enjoyed everybody.

It’s not a problem. I didn’t have a problem with it because as a viewer, I don’t really care as a podcaster who feels like they need to keep track of things, a million people. There are 

Todd: so many people. I know, God, God, I just, I can’t even begin. Like, I, you know, I lost track of who was who and who was hooking up with who and why it mattered.

And I don’t think it does really. 

Craig: No, it doesn’t. And there were like, there were three brunettes that were almost indistinguishable from one another. Exactly. I don’t think that we should get. I don’t think we should get caught up in that. What I think we should get caught up in are the really good things because there are so many great things in this movie.

Okay. So they bring Jason and Ronan or whatever her name is, Rowan on the ship. And they, they say. Yeah, we can save her with the technology that we have. They’re really just more interested in Jason. He’s a humanoid. They recognize him as a humanoid and he’s totally dead. They don’t have any plans with him really, but they bring him on the ship.

Anyway, they do bring. Rowan back to life like Ripley immediately 

Todd: warns them. 

Clip: Did you get him? Where is he? Tell me about him. 

Todd: No one’s here. You’re safe with us

Clip: there’s a leak in the cryo unit and Was it contained? 

Craig: Was contained but when the cryo unit ruptured you didn’t escape it It puts you into stasis I love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love that the way that they bring her back and the technology that they used throughout this movie is nanotechnology.

Yeah. Like I feel like we don’t hear as much about nanotechnology nanotechnology. As we did five years ago. I feel like nanotechnology was the wave of the future and I haven’t heard that much about it lately. 

Todd: It’s 

Craig: still 

Todd: pretty bad ass, but it’s getting eclipsed by AI these days. Yeah. Yeah, 

Craig: it is very cool.

Like these. They call them ants, but these tiny little robots, I don’t know. Nanobots. Yeah, they’re so tiny as to not even be visible. They’re only visible when you see them in mass. They almost move like liquid. And they cover her wound and they heal her and she’s alive and she’s fine. And like you said, she warns them.

But, they all go off and, you know, there’s a lot of plot that we could talk about. It’s not really all that They leave Jason with this beautiful blonde girl, Adrian, and she’s supposed to kind of research him or whatever, but the assistants that they leave her with are these horny teenagers. And they’re so horny that they can’t keep their hands off of each other.

And so she’s like, would you just get out of here and f k already? And then come back when you’re done? 

Todd: That was hilarious. And they’re like, really? Oh, okay, cool. Thanks. That’s what they do. But I’m very confused by this scene because she starts to poke and prod at him. And it looks like she pulls out his eyeball.

Craig: I think that was supposed to be his brain because. They did a scan of him and they made a point of talking about how how could anybody that size Function with such a tiny brain. What’d she do like lobotomy wise 

Todd: or something? 

Craig: Well through his eye Like I have no idea like I I just thought that that was a weird line any like what are they implying?

Why does he have a tiny brain? 

Todd: It’s weird. Yeah I mean he’s a supernatural creature He was a kid. Maybe it’s a child’s brain inside an adult’s body Who knows 

Craig: but what she pulls 

Todd: out is the size of a eyeball cashew Like it looks like an eyeball to me and it’s white and it’s goopy. It looks like a deflated eyeball Yeah, I thought she pulled out his eye, but she didn’t because we see his both of his eyes throughout the whole movie But anyway, 

Craig: I was trying to get to all right I’m just gonna get to it now what I consider the best kill though I think that lots of these kills are fantastic the best kill is the the first one where those horny people that she just sent away are f ing and them doing that Wakes him up like he just he 

Todd: sits straight up.

Yes. 

Craig: He sits straight up and then he kills Adrian and the way that he kills her is he just you know, he she doesn’t know he’s awake or whatever and he’s just behind her and he grabs her and she screams and He dips her face into a vat of I guess liquid nitrogen which immediately freezes her entire face and then he smashes it on a counter and it Shatters It’s so good.

It’s so good. I watched, you know, that six, I didn’t watch the six hour documentary about it, but I watched the 45 minutes about this movie and she said that there were like 10 prosthetic heads made of her. So it was really eerie seeing, but everybody was really proud of that effect. And, and she said that what she had to do was Cain Hodder put her face, well, whoever was doing it, put her face in the water.

And she had to scream for a few seconds and then just stop and be motionless so that they could put the CG on, CGI on later. 

Todd: Yeah, like the icicles suddenly 

Craig: freezing her. And she said it looked really great, but the other thing that she said was, all of them, everybody, said that Kane Hodder was just professional.

He was just amazing to work with. He worked so hard with her on the choreography of this scene. to make sure that she felt safe. And she said that she 100 percent did. Everybody that spoke about this movie and that documentary just went on and on about how wonderful Kane Hodder was and listening to him talk about it.

He really like these roles can be, and sometimes are played by stunt people who aren’t necessarily actors. And, and I’m, I’m not. Criticizing them, you know, they do their job and they do it. Well, sure. But Kane Hodder Wanted to put character into Jason. He played him four times. He did a lot with the eyes and He did a lot Kane Hodder’s Jason does a lot with breathing He does a lot of heavy breathing where he can see the chest move.

Uh huh Yeah, right, right, right. And you see that here too. It’s shocking to me that I feel the need to compliment somebody in a role like this, but he’s great. He’s fantastic. 

Todd: He is. He does such a good job. You probably see more of his character in this movie than, I mean, again, you’re, you’re probably more the expert in it, but I feel like he has more opportunity to shine in this.

Yeah, I think so. He’s on screen a little longer. He’s a little more lit. You certainly see his eyes a lot more, especially later when he kind of transforms and we can talk about that later, but also apparently the MPAA, just as a, as a side note, didn’t really have many problems with this movie. They, in their phone call to them, they were thinking the, one of the production guys that had to handle the phone call, they were thinking the worst because Sean Cunningham is from the very beginning had a very tumultuous relationship with them said that.

You know, they were like, uh, you know what, we think you got a really fun film here. And they had a very, very few cuts. And one of the cuts that they wanted them to make was to make this liquid nitrogen smashing thing different. And they said, ironically, like when we cut it, it actually looked a lot better.

The final product. Yeah. I 

Craig: read that they only had to cut. Like less than two like a couple minutes Maybe even less than that. They didn’t have to cut very much at all far less than any other 

Todd: episode in the series 

Craig: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean god we’ve already been talking about it for so long the thing that I liked about this Entry is that it is so different from the previous entries in that it feels so ambitious.

Like the, the other entries, I enjoy them all. I really do. I mean, after part three, they leaned into the camp and, and. There was a lot more humor and a lot more campiness and there there’s humor in this movie too But this one just feels so much more ambitious as I said before I just think for many reasons Including the fact that this movie is chock full of great fun kills It just stands Ahead, above all of the other ones, like, uh, I love the first one.

I love it. I love the second one. I love it. Like they hold special places in my heart, but I just had, I was watching this movie and I just so desperately wished that you and I had been able to watch it together. 

Clip: It would have been a lot of fun. 

Craig: It’s so fun. It’s just a fun movie. And now, you know, at this point we’re left with Jason let loose on this spaceship.

And basically for the next, I don’t know, 45 minutes, he just goes on a killing spree. Like he kills the horny guy and he kills everybody.

Literally tens of thousands. Of people. 

Todd: End up getting killed, yeah. There’s a nice balance of humor without it getting super campy like we’ve seen the other space ones going. I was really impressed how they were able to introduce the typical space themes. Like liquid nitrogen, my god. Okay, so now we know that you can’t have an outer space movie without liquid nitrogen being involved somehow.

Then, you know, they do the The holodeck bit, Dallas and the other kid are shooting each other on the holodeck and there’s a bit of a fake out there Where you think one of them gets killed, but it turns out that they’re actually playing around, you know, they’re shooting. It’s it’s all fake Yeah 

Craig: It’s vr. I love that scene.

Todd: It’s so good that scene. 

Craig: I love that scene two soldiers. You don’t know Right away, but they’re playing like a VR simulation and you see these giant monsters and I thought that this was Brilliant. It was that they introduced these huge monsters that look CGI They you know, they they don’t look great Yeah, but then you realize that they’re a part of this VR experience that they’re playing so they shouldn’t look that great I thought that that was such a Smart.

An excellent way of using the effects that you have, acknowledging that they’re limited, but there’s an explanation for why they’re limited. And despite the fact that they were limited, they still looked really good! 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: yeah, he 

Todd: bashes the Daoist’s skull in, he breaks Azrael’s back, god, that, that really hurt.

Craig: There are so many great kills. There’s one guy, Bronski, who gets killed several times, but still isn’t alive at the end of the movie. Yes. There’s a kill where a soldier gets thrown off a catwalk onto a giant drill bit, and then his body just slowly spins down the That’s brilliant! 

Todd: It’s really smart 

Craig: and it looks fantastic 

Clip: Besides you found Condor.

Craig: What’s his 

Clip: condition? He’s screwed

Todd: Well, he kills the pilot and see this is how I felt about it, you know, I didn’t feel suspense I was just watching it for a ride. Do I ever feel suspense in a Friday the 13th movie? I’m not quite sure. But my point I was trying to make at the very beginning of this was I feel like the earlier movies really make an effort to build suspense.

This movie has so many people and so much going on in such a small space that it’s just like, here are these people, and then suddenly Jason pops out and dispatches them. It’s more of that. For that, I can see why people might have been a little disappointed. in it when it came out for that reason it just doesn’t have the well the build up to every kill that I expect in the series.

I don’t know. Gosh. I 

Craig: don’t know. I I 

Todd: miss remembering it 

Craig: I disagree because in the previous ones the formula was pretty much the same, you know These kids are at a camp and it’s you know Early 20 somethings or late teens or whatever and he just goes around Picking them off one by one. I actually kind of liked the claustrophobic atmosphere of this one because it felt like Jason didn’t have to do anything.

They just kept coming to him. Yeah, he would just, he would just stand in a dark corner and somebody would eventually back into him and he could just cut their throat. And I kind of liked. Some of those quieter moments, there was that moment where somebody just back to him and he cut their throat and there was another moment, I think, where somebody just kind of bumped into him in the dark and he grabbed the man’s head and slowly like he didn’t crack it real fast, like he twisted it slowly.

So it was like crack, crack, crack, crack, crack. Yeah. And I liked that. I mean, ultimately, yeah. Plot wise, is it really all that different from the other movies? No, it’s still about picking off a bunch of kids, but it’s more 

Todd: interesting environment. I think with more interesting stuff to do 

Craig: Yeah, it’s in a more interesting environment.

You’ve got more interesting characters. You’ve got more interesting dynamic. It’s not just Camp counselors, you know, you you’ve got this general guy who is a leader. You’ve also got KM, who we haven’t mentioned at all, who’s an Android, who is very tough and a strong adversary for Jason. And another thing that’s different is that in the Friday the 13th movies, Typically, they don’t even realize that people are getting killed until very late in the movie.

In this, you know, they know that Jason’s out there very early on. They can’t help but know. The only other thing that’s very different about this movie is because it was made in 2001. Scream. It’s not as meta as scream, but it still throws in a lot of the meta jokes. And that works for me. Like I’m down with it, especially this, this far into a popular, but.

To be honest, fairly mediocre franchise. Do it. Do it. Try something new. Throw the meta at it. Go for it. I am down. 

Todd: Yeah. Well, I think the other thing that makes this feel really fresh is that unlike the previous episodes, these are people with Resources and tech. And know how. These are not just kids at a camp in the dark.

You know, this is a sophisticated operation and everybody’s got a job. There’s an android in here. They should be able to just seal the doors, you know, or something like that and it would stop him. You know, he’s not an alien who’s like slinking through the air vents, but it doesn’t matter. Like, he kills, like you said.

Tens of thousands of people, by killing the pilot, who they’re trying to dock at this space station. This huge space station. And when he kills the pilot, the ship veers off course, kind of leans on the controls, like a boat smashing into the dock. Smashes right through this Improbably glass dome, but it was, okay, that’s fine, of the space station.

And, uh, goes right through it in slow motion. And when they get past it, they’re like, Alright, well, we got, we got, we gotta turn around and go back. And they look in the window. And the whole thing is just exploding to nothing. It’s hilarious. It’s the point where they’re like, Oh man, now we’re totally screwed.

Right? That was our hope. And, uh, it’s a comedy at the same time. And it’s just so hilarious that Jason managed to kill so many people with one swipe, you know? 

Craig: But again, I, I would just emphasize that this is a perfectly serviceable early two thousands. Space sci fi movie that Jason has to, happens to be in.

I’m not gonna, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s not today level quality, but it looks good. 

Todd: It looks really good. It looks better than all the other movies. 

Craig: Especially compared to the ColecoVision that we saw in Leprechaun, it looks fantastic. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: Jason has to take out basically an entire squadron of military people, which he does very quickly.

But then it comes down to the last few people, including our main girl and the, the Android and he shows up and the Android’s like, well, let me take a shot at him because her builder slash lover and we’re leaving out so much. I love the, when the Android wants. Boobs and he gives her boobs, but then the nipples pop off.

It’s really funny. There are so many, there are so many good things about this movie that we’re skipping. You guys watch this. If you haven’t seen it, it’s so good. If you’ve only seen like. One or two Friday the 13th movies and you thought they were pretty stupid watch this. Anyway, it’s so good, but he upgrades her so she’s kind of I don’t know Linda Hamilton badass or whatever with big guns and She kills Jason.

She blows off his arm. She blows off his leg. She blows off his head Unfortunately, she blows him away right on to The lab table 

Todd: and they just walk away 

Craig: after they walk out of the room, the electricity starts shorting and the computer comes on and reconstructs him with the nanotechnology. And there’s not enough biological.

Material, so they use synthetic material. Then he comes back as Uber Jason and Uber Jason is f g awesome.

I love it. I love the design. It looks good. Kane Hodder loved the design. He said it was really challenging because. In his regular Jason costume, he could do anything. In the Uber Jason costume, his movement was severely limited. And so they can’t do too much with him, but just his appearance. And he really doesn’t do much!

In fact, I’m pretty sure that I read, Uber Jason kills nobody directly. In this movie, he knocks the androids head off, but she’s still alive because she’s just an android. So her boyfriend carries the head around one of the people that’s still remaining this cute young black guy, whose name I can’t remember 

Todd: Waylander.

Craig: Yes, a throwback to Alien, Alien Weyland. He blows himself up in this passageway to disconnect part of the ship and Jason is still in it. So he dies, but not by Jason’s hand. Then, apparently Jason was somehow able to grab onto the outside of the ship and he punches Punches a hole in the hull of the ship that then sucks.

It sucks Janessa out throughout that tiny little hole. Well, and, and even better, like he punches the hole in the hall and the vacuum, you know, effect starts and she’s holding onto the graded floor and asking for help and they almost help her, but even better than before she gets. Part of the graded floor gets pulled over.

The whole, so that when she gets sucked out and says this sex on so many levels, not only does she get sucked out through the hole, but she has to get sucked out through that. Great. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Now we don’t, we, we only see the aftermath. So it’s. It’s not all that exciting, but still fun and creative and maybe a throwback to Alien 4, 

Todd: I think.

Then Rowan distracts him because he’s on the holodeck or something or they create a holographic version of Camp Crystal Lake and Jason suddenly for a moment is very confused. He looks around and he walks forward and there are two giggling girls laying down on sleeping bags and they both pop up And they take their tops off.

Clip: Hey, you want a beer? Or do you want to smoke some pot? Or we can have premarital sex!

We love premarital sex! 

Craig: This one minute scene is worth the price of admission. Yeah. It is hilarious. They’re like, what do we do, what do we do? Wait a second. Computer look up records from 1980 camp crystal Lake, and then they project it. And it’s so much fun. Like it’s virtual reality camp crystal Lake. And I love that.

Like it’s virtual reality. So if you really, really look in the background, you can see the walls of the 

Todd: spaceship. Kind of crackling 

Craig: away. Yep. The stairs it’s, it’s like VR. And like AI and that it looks great, but it’s imperfect. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Like the stairs of the cabins go down right directly into the water. And none of that matters.

These are just. Background details, but 

Todd: they’re clever 

Craig: and I absolutely loved it and and it does it distracts him. He has a great time Zipping those girls up in their sleeping bags and beating them against each other and beating them against a tree in the documentary It said that the original concept for that was they were gonna be those naked girls we’re gonna be in the sleeping bags, and he was gonna pick them both up and Helicopter them around his head But they couldn’t figure it out, 

Clip: but 

Craig: if it was the director speaking, he said that ultimately he felt that it worked out better the way that it was.

And I think that it was great too. Yeah. I mean, we’re coming up to the end. Bronski has to spacewalk, go out into space in a suit. A rescue ship has arrived, but they can’t get the rescue hatch open. So he has to go out to do that. You know, they distract Jason, but then Jason’s coming. Bronski gets the door open and then he comes back and stays behind to face Jason while the others go.

They, meaning the android head, her boyfriend, and the main lady, get away on this rescue ship and they see the Grendel, which is the station they’ve been on, completely explode. But then somehow. In the explosion, Jason has been propelled directly towards their window. And, and they’re like, Oh, shit.

But then Bronski in his space suit intercepts. Jason and rides him down through the atmosphere of earth two, which is where they were going. And then we cut to a scene lakeside of two teenagers, two romantic teenagers, and they see a shooting star and think it’s super romantic. And one of them says it landed in the lake.

Let’s go check it out. And then you see the burnt up metal mask of Uber Jason fall to the lake floor. They had originally considered that this might be a new, like shoot off franchise. Like let’s take Friday the 13th into Jason X territory and just run with it. Well, the movie did terribly. I’m sure in large part because of delay in its release, but it did terribly.

And so that was lost, but they did continue it in a series of comics, which I haven’t seen or read, but I would be interested in, I don’t know. I just thought, gosh, man, I was excited about doing this month. And then honestly, I was disappointed. Hellraiser was fun. I liked it, but This one, God, I, I, again, I watched it by myself in the middle of the day on my computer, but I just had, I just thought it was so much fun.

And the whole time I was watching it, I kept thinking, Oh, Todd’s going to love this. I can’t wait to talk about it. It was a lot of fun. Maybe I overestimated it and maybe I’m talking it up too much, but I just had so much fun. 

Todd: It was a blast, and I had never seen it before, and it was much, much better than I thought it would be.

The corniness of it landed, and it wasn’t as corny as the other ones we had seen and what I thought it was going to be. It looked good. The acting was fine, I said before that the suspense really wasn’t there for me, but I, you know, I don’t really care about that. Sure. I was just looking to have a good time with it, and, you know, who’s gonna take this seriously?

And, uh, I was really pleasantly surprised, I really, really enjoyed it, and you’re right, it would’ve been really fun to watch it together. So, if you’ve got some friends out there, you wanna watch this movie, gather them together and see it, and you probably will be surprised. At how good it is. Actually, I think history has redeemed this movie.

My understanding is that even though it flopped in the box office, it is by far the most financially successful of the franchise because it did so well on DVD and rentals and things afterwards. Yep. I think that speaks, uh, for it. Well, thank you so much for joining us on this, uh, trip into the cosmos. I don’t know, maybe we’ll do another space theme month later.

We’re certainly gonna be covering more horror movies that take place in space. If you can think of some other ones that we haven’t mentioned that we’ve missed. A franchise that went to space. Let us know in the comments, let us know on our website, Google Two Guys in a Chainsaw Podcast and you’ll find us out there in all the social media.

And let us know what you think. Let us know what you thought of this month. Let us know also what other movies and theme months you think we can do for the future. 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 ‘Hellraiser: Bloodline’ for part three of our ‘Horror in Space’ series.

Todd, who is less familiar with the Hellraiser franchise, and Craig, who has seen more of the movies, discuss the unique elements that set this film apart from typical horror settings. We both found the film surprisingly enjoyable despite its poor initial reception. We loved its coherence, special effects, and performances, especially Doug Bradley’s extensive monologuing as Priest of Hell Pinhead.

Despite the issues that naturally come with a film full of studio interference and multiple directors (it’s credited to “Alan Smithee”, after all), we both found this fourth installment of the franchise engaging and well-paced, with a fascinating storyline that works, with great visual style and creative kill scenes.

Enjoy this episode, for Jason X is coming up!

Hellraiser: Bloodline

Episode 432, 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’re on week three of horror. In space. In space.

Craig: Oh god.

Todd: For those of you who are just tuning in, this month we’re doing horror franchises that are not normally set in space, that decided for whatever reason to set an episode in space.

We did, um, we’ve got Jason X coming up, we did Critters 4, and had a lot of fun with Leprechaun 4, and now here we are with Hellraiser Bloodline. Which might as well be in space, because, uh, I’m not as familiar with the Hellraiser franchise as I think you are, but, uh, I feel like, even from the beginning, it’s been lots of blues and shadows and cold metal things and corridors.

Kind of. Very much so.

Craig: Yeah, dingy, kind of empty spaces, like industrial looking kind of spaces. Yeah, like the corridors of all the in space movies we’ve watched so far. Eh, kind of, yeah. I mean, like that’s, that’s what their hell layers kind of look like. They come out in the regular world too. I mean, I never thought of it as looking spacey in the previous movies, but the imagery doesn’t change all that much when you put it in space, I kind of get what you’re saying.

Todd: It kind of doesn’t know. I’m not. Like I said, I’m not as familiar with the Hellraiser franchise, and I really don’t have a good explanation for that. I think Pinhead is a super iconic character, just as much as Freddy or Michael Myers. People who haven’t seen the movie, they know who he is. They might not know all the details, but they’ve seen the face, they know he’s a horror icon.

I don’t know why. I haven’t really seen the movies, maybe it just, the appeal wasn’t really there. These movies always struck me as being very, very serious horror. They’re not jokey, they’re pretty brutal and violent. And I don’t mind that, obviously I like the brutal and violent stuff too, I like the serious stuff.

But as opposed to say, Friday the 13th or Freddy, they have their own mythos, they kind of follow their own tropes. I don’t, I mean, I guess the whole idea, now I’ve seen the first one. I’ve seen the first one, which we really enjoyed, and we did that here on this podcast, and just recently, two weeks ago, I sat down and saw the sequel because I never had and just wanted to do it.

And that movie was a special effects extravaganza. Reminded me a lot, almost like it was a bit trying to be a nightmare on Elm Street, where they were in this sort of other, this hellish world that they kept going in and out of, or these people’s personal hells or whatever. And it was very dreamlike to me.

And there’s just all this random imagery. And honestly, It was so messy that I kind of lost interest and I found that there was, the plot was just a nonsensical, it was just sort of this fever dream. So I didn’t even bother watching the third. And here we are watching the fourth one, which I understand is the last one to go to the theater.

And after this, all what? Six or so sequels? There’s a million of them. There’s a bunch, I don’t know. They all went direct to video, I think, after this. So this was the last, the last gasp before the theater, but the franchise obviously, it either has loads and loads of fans, so it continues to make money. Or this is another one of those children of the corn situations where whoever owns the rights to it has to keep making movies every few years or they lose it.

I’m not sure which that is. But yeah, we’re even getting a reboot, aren’t we? 

Craig: Already had it, yeah. Yeah, it already happened. And it was good. It was different. I don’t know. I liked it. It was a good movie standalone. I think I’ve seen them all except for there was one that I tried several times and I couldn’t get all the way through.

I think it was judgment. It was one of the later ones and it was a different style and the cinebites looked different. It was really weird imagery and I tried several times and I just couldn’t get through it. I finally gave up. I actually really liked to, I thought it was really ambitious. I also liked that they focused more on The woman villain, I don’t remember what her name was, but she was intended to be the franchise villain.

That Penn had just took off. And I thought that the ending was like crazy and ambitious. It sure was. Not that it looked incredible, but for the time it looked pretty darn good. For 

Todd: the eighties. Yeah. 80 special effects. It’s a, it’s a masterpiece really. It’s like matte paintings and there’s some computer effects in there.

There’s all kinds of crazy stuff. Yeah, 

Craig: three got a little bit more grimy. It was set in a nightclub. Pinhead was trapped in like this big column and this sleazy nightclub guy Had a bedroom in the back of his club and he had this column there and he kills somebody I think at first accidentally But the blood soaks in and then pinhead starts coming out, but it’s all like real kind of Grimy like street people and thugs and gangsters and stuff And then this one, which is a total turnaround.

And then there’s no need really to talk about any of them beyond this. They are on a spectrum of not very good to really bad. Really? Most of them were scripts that were not intended as Hellraiser scripts and they just wrote the Cenobites into them. And you can tell like, like Penhead just pops up like, okay, whatever.

Well, that is what he does. I’ve seen, I know, but it’s not even worth talking about there. I’ve seen them. Most of them. They’re, they’re not the worst things I’ve ever seen, but they’re varying levels of not that great. This one, however, I thought that I remembered not liking, and I think it’s just because.

Not just us, but people in general kind of joke about these in space entries and how like, you know, the franchise going down the toilet when they got to go to space, 

Todd: shake things up. 

Craig: Yeah. And the first couple of in space ones we’ve seen were not very good. And I remembered. Not thinking this one was very good, and I was pleasantly surprised!

Yeah! 

Todd: Honestly, it’s so weird because I watched this and I thought, oh, I’m into this. I like it. The plot is interesting. I, it’s no surprise that I went back and I read that this was intended to be kind of an anthology film where there would be these three separate stories, and there kind of really are. In a way, but they’re just a little more evenly connected than they were intended to be.

And it was also the last film, I think, to have Clive Barker’s direct involvement. And the director, Kevin Yeager, who is a special effects guy, so he was involved with a lot of special effects with some movies we’ve done in the past. He’s the creator of the Crypt Keeper, you know, from the, from the HBO series and that, so it’s interesting to see that he stepped into the director’s chair for this.

However, I had to look that up, because when the name came up on the screen that it was directed by Alan Smithy, I was like, Uh oh. Okay, there is a story behind this. That’s usually not good. Right. Alan Smithy is the Director’s Guild of America’s basically, um, pen name, their alias for anyone who doesn’t or can’t take credit for the movie they’re doing.

And so even sometimes people who are in the guild will direct a non union movie and they don’t want to get in trouble. So they put themselves down as Alan Smithy or simply no one person can take credit. So they throw that in and you know, it’s all about rules and who gets paid and things like that. But I guess Kevin Yeager just wanted to distance himself from this film because he ended up leaving.

Because he was so frustrated with the project, what, I don’t know, three quarters of the way through or something? And at least two other directors came in to shoot more scenes and kind of finish it up, and neither of them did enough work to really get credit as sole director on the film. So, it just went in as Alan Smithy.

And so, I guess the movie that we’re watching right now is not his original vision, and not what was originally planned. That happens a lot. 

Craig: Yeah, I read that, like, they added the framing device, which If they added the entire framing device, that would mean that they never went to space. So I don’t know.

Yeah, that can’t be totally true. Yeah, it seems to me like, I think that I read that it was intended to take place in chronological order. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: So you would start out, you would start out in the 1700s. You can tell this story chronologically if you want. They just decided to start it in space so that they could get Pinhead in there sooner.

Clip: Yeah. Because 

Craig: otherwise he wasn’t gonna show up until like 40 minutes into the movie. I don’t like production interference. Sometimes, they’re right. I understand the writer’s vision, and I really wish there was a director’s cut. Apparently, there’s something close to a director’s cut on YouTube. I don’t know if it’s fans cut it together or what, but they say it’s pretty close.

I haven’t watched it in enough time. I would be really interested to see that, because I would be really interested in knowing what his vision was. But at this time, I was going to see Penhead. Right. And if I had to wait 40 minutes I might be mad, so I get it, but I also understand why he would be frustrated.

Todd: And then you, it’s kind of one of those where you see him all at the end and it feels kind of cheap, like, like, like where we hardly saw the critters in that one movie or, or whatever. Yeah. So it kind of pinheads, you see him very briefly at the beginning and then his, his shadow is cast over the movie, so even though you don’t see him for a while.

Craig: That’s what the later ones are like, like he just kind of pops in and out barely, like he’s not really a big part of those movies. Is he a big part of any of the movies? I mean, even the first one. I thought he was a big part of this one. I thought this one he had 

Todd: tons of dialogue. I couldn’t believe how 

Craig: much like he monologues a lot.

Todd: Well, yeah, I guess the Hellraiser and correct me if I’m wrong, but this posits that hell is a world that is populated by. People who have jobs, right? Like, there’s a hierarchy, I guess you can get promoted. That sounds like hell to me, but, But, so Doug Bradley plays Pinhead, and then the Cenobites are like his minions, I suppose, and he’s like a priest of hell, and he’s in charge of the pleasure and pain division, I guess?

I don’t know. I, I mean, that’s just, that’s kind of my simplified idea. I don’t think it’s ever very clear, right? It’s just that there’s a puzzle box of which we get the origin story in this. And this is why I really enjoyed this one. And then when people who really, really, really feel like they’ve already experienced all the pleasures the world has had to offer and want more They can get a hold of this puzzle box, and when they solve it, it opens up a gateway to Hell, which brings Pinhead and the Cenobites in temporarily, who will then show them exactly what they want, which basically ends up in their destruction, and then they’re in Hell, and I guess can also become Cenobites themselves?

That seems to be a thing. And then somebody else has to close the door to hell using the puzzle box again to send them all back. Is that about right? I don’t know. 

Craig: I guess. It’s not even clear. I just don’t question it. Like you said before, it is it’s own thing. It is it’s own lore. Okay, I have a general concept of hell.

Alright, I get it. Terrible place. Bad people. So, you know, it turns out it’s, you know, it runs. Like, uh, society or something, or, and there, people have different jobs. I, that’s fine. I, how do I know? I hope I never find out. 

Todd: I hope you never find out too. Cause in the second one, I always just assumed pinhead, like if you’re in hell, you’re like a demon that’s always been there, but people get sort of transformed into Cenobites it’s in this movie.

And then, in the second one, I believe, one of the opening scenes is like the creation of Pinhead. So it seems like he actually used to be a human, and then he opened the puzzle box, and all that shit happened to him, and now he’s in charge of coming out when people run the puzzle box, so. Yes. Yeah. There we go.

But this is the origin story of the box itself. 

Craig: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know what to tell you. Like, you know, Pinhead, they’re Cenobites. Like, that’s what they do. They come out and they shoot chains and hooks at you and they flay you 

Todd: and Hell has a lot of chains and hooks. There’s Yeah. It’s just filled with them.

Craig: That’s what they do. I don’t know why. 

Todd: Why ask why? I want to see a movie about the guy who makes all these chains. There’s got to be a lot of forgers and blacksmiths. It’s probably, they probably use them so 

Craig: much. Cause it’s probably really easy to use the same shot over and over again. That’s true. Save a little time and money.

Yeah, but this is, this is the origin, but like we said, it starts in space. It’s the space station Minos in 2027. And the first thing we see is. It’s a Terminator without the skin, just the, you know, metal part, sitting crisscross applesauce. Complete with red eyes. With. The puzzle box in front of them and then another spaceship arrives and the special effects in this movie are so by far in a Way better than the last movie that we’ve watched that I don’t even know if I can judge them objectively Oh, yeah, so much better than the crap that we’ve endured for the past two weeks 

Todd: I mean from the space scene alone, right?

I mean we saw that really shitty CGI The last, well, God, the Critters had the most horrible CGI. And then, what, Leprechaun 4 had recycled footage from some 1982 movie? That was terrible. So 

Craig: this looks great. Um. And there’s this guy on the spaceship and he uses AI gloves or like Nintendo power gloves or something to Remotely use that Terminator to open the puzzle box.

Todd: That’s smart. And 

Craig: so it’s really smart. I love it And then there’s a scene not as great CGI, but still fun of the robot hands like doing the puzzle box And it starts to open, and the soldiers who boarded the ship are approaching, and the box reconfigures, and the Terminator blows up, and Pinhead arrives.

Yeah. And you just hear the guy, whose name ends up being Philip, I think? He has several different names because he plays several different characters. Ha ha. But, uh, he’s his long wait demon for such a short game. And he says, now my curiosity is satisfied and it’s time for revenge. But, then the soldiers show up and point the gun at him and tell him to freeze or whatever.

And he’s like, no, but they’re here. 

Todd: And so they put him in a room and interrogate him. Yeah, and, and we get a little bit of the soldiers back and forth. So this is what happened. It’s so great. They just tell us straight out and that’s really helpful, right? So you’re telling me. That this guy who designed and created this ship went crazy, sent all the crew away, and now we have the most expensive ship in the galaxy, the most advanced ship in the galaxy with just this one guy at the helm.

And I guess that’s why they’re coming in. Their timing couldn’t be worse, I suppose. But we re we learned right off the bat that he, I think he tells them, right? That he built the ship. As a trap, a trap to catch hell and contain it. So, he is, uh, basically the last, the mo the latest of a long line of ancestors that were responsible for opening the gates to hell in the first place by creating this puzzle box, and he says, I’m gonna have to tell you the story.

And 

Craig: centuries ago, if anybody ever says, I’m going to have to tell you a story and they start centuries ago, I’m going to say, I’m going to stop you right there. I don’t have time for this. Right. You know, I rewrites and then with the reshoots, which really weren’t even reshoots, uh, Doug Bradley said it was all new material.

They called reshoots. I think that this backstory was one of the things that wasn’t in the original script that made its way in, but is in canon with the original book. I think this Demarchand in, you know, old y time France was the guy in the book who, uh Built the box. 

Todd: Yeah, what is it about old timey French people that make evil things?

This is uh, Isn’t Toulon the guy who made the puppets and the puppet master? Yeah, and there’s a at least I’m thinking about one or two other the doll maker was he French or was he German? I don’t remember from dolls. It seems like This is a common theme. You gotta watch out. French history is checkered.

Watch out for those French toy makers, people. They’re worse than Geppetto. I am a little 

Craig: wary of puzzle boxes, to be honest. 

Todd: You know, the best puzzle boxes in the world are made in Japan. They have a long history of making puzzle boxes and they are, they must be seen to believe. All made out of wood. Very, very complicated.

Some of them require like a hundred moves to finally get open. It’s really It’s really cool. I was into this for a while. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Nope. Just to get your watch out of it or something. I don’t know. You better store 

Craig: some valuables in there. No, I just, it doesn’t happen in this movie, but in several of these movies, a lot of time, like knives come out and like.

That’s that’s what makes yeah happens all the time in these movies, but anyway, so he tells the story about his great ancestor I don’t know 1725 who built the puzzle box and it was he was doing a job a commission for this Aristocrat or something? Delile? Did you notice? This was such a funny thing that I don’t think was really important at all But he kind of shows he’s a toy maker and so there’s toys all around and his wife’s there and she’s pregnant And he shows her the box and it like opens a little bit But then it just closes and she’s not very impressed and then they keep talking But did you notice that while they were talking the toys behind them were moving?

Yes, it freaked me out. It was a jump for me It was weird like that nothing like that ever happened again. I heard that in the original script. There were like evil clowns and So maybe that’s something that was 

Todd: left over. 

Craig: You 

Todd: get the impression. He’s a nice guy He was just commissioned to do this thing that turned out evil.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah All that other stuff was in the script. Maybe that would be like he himself was more I don’t even think the 

Craig: box is evil. I think he takes it to this guy. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: And this guy’s a weirdo, like this weird aristocrat and, you know, like pancake makeup and a powdered wig and Marquis de Sade type.

Yeah, yeah. And he’s got a little manservant, Jacques, played by Adam Scott. I totally forgot Adam Scott was in this movie! I was shocked. 

Todd: You know, honestly, I didn’t realize Adam Scott was as old as he is. And so I had to like I did a double take and I’m like, surely that’s not Adam Scott. It’s just a guy who looks like him.

And it turns out what, it’s one of his first roles. How old is he? He’s probably like our age, 

Craig: maybe a little younger. He must be. I don’t know. Yeah. I mean, he, he looks like a baby in this movie. He might be a little older than us. I don’t know. And these two guys, this, this weirdo and his manservant have this woman there.

I don’t know who she is or where she’s from. She says her name is Angelique. He sits her down at this nice dinner and it looks like maybe she’s going to be a concubine or, or something. But eventually the manservant ties her to the chair and she says something like, what’s that for? And he says, so you don’t bruise?

I, mmm. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I still don’t really know what that means. 

Todd: The, the, the manservant mentions that he’s France’s greatest magician. 

Craig: Okay, okay, the Delisle guy, right. So then she looks down at what was just a moment ago, a beautiful feast, and it’s all covered in like maggots and worms and stuff. And then, I don’t remember exactly what happens.

Todd: He, Adam, I’m just gonna call him, I think his name is Jacques, right? His manservant. Chokes the girl from behind and kills her, right? Mm hmm. And he says now we can begin. 

Craig: Yeah, here’s what I’m thinking Meanwhile, the the guy stayed behind after he delivered and like peered through the window so he saw some of this and he sees them like Flay her and then string her skin up with chains And then he sets the box down in front of her and he does this weird Incantation and the lights get all flashy and everything starts shaking And she reanimates, but here’s what I’m thinking.

I think it was that spell that he just did that made the box evil. I think he made it. So I don’t think, I don’t think, whatever his name is, Demarchant built an evil box. 

Todd: The evil wizard made it evil. But he did make it, I suppose, to the wizard’s specifications. So maybe I’m not saying that he made it evil.

Well, it was a commission, unless the wizard was just like, Make me a puzzle box. Any puzzle box. I don’t really care. That’s true. Like, there must be some requirements, right? Like, Hell needs four steps, and, you know, there must be a circle, and turn the circle, and lift the thing. I don’t know. Who knows? But yeah, you’re right.

Cause there are multiple, there is just a run, a throwaway line in this movie that mentions that later that there are multiple puzzle boxes. And that surprised me, I thought there was only one. But, apparently this woman later has, it is said that this demon woman Has had many many made in the past but none of them could like fully open the gates or something like that and that’s what She is in search of but that’s later.

That’s later. I I really liked this Bit with the reanimating of the skin because you don’t even see the whole thing at once necessarily But you see that this skin is definitely hanging over by those chains and hooks Then you get these close up shots of the skin kind of getting filled With a new body of sorts and it’s it’s a demon from hell right but it’s been contained in this body And it’s the rules of the genie, right?

You summon the demon, you get to control the demon. 

Craig: Unless, he adds, he says, unless you stand in hell’s way. Which seems like it would be pretty easy to do. 

Todd: Yeah. I mean, how do you know? You don’t know. You don’t know what hell has in mind for the particular situation. You want to go to McDonald’s, they want to go to Burger King.

You know, I mean, I don’t know. Don’t stand in hell’s 

Craig: way. All right. Philip, who saw all of this happen, this magic, he runs and talks to a doctor friend, and the doctor doesn’t believe him, but he’s like, okay, you know, should this be true? I guess you designed a box that lets demons out, so I guess you better design something that can destroy demons.

And he’s like, oh, yeah, I should do that. But then he doesn’t do that at all. Instead, 

Todd: or maybe he does, he designs a thing. Okay. Yeah. He doesn’t get to, I mean, he doesn’t get to, he has to steal the box to get it. I guess, I guess I never, I didn’t, he said he had to steal 

Craig: the box and I was like, why, like, what does he need it for?

What’s he going to do with it? I don’t know. 

Todd: Make another one or 

Craig: something. I guess, I don’t know. But anyway, he goes to steal the box and he goes in to find Delisle. Tied to a chair and tortured like bleeding seemingly dead and right behind that in an adjoining room Angeline is Banging Jacques. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: so I guess how did this work out?

I 

Todd: don’t 

Craig: know. So I did did did Jacques and Delisle both summon her so they’re Both in charge of her? I don’t really know. I had questions. Again, there were rewrites. It could be rewrites, because I do know that originally Adam Scott’s role was significantly smaller. And when they expanded Angelique’s role, they expanded his.

So, maybe it’s just a flaw in the writing. Who knows? 

Todd: Well, it seems like the idea, at least, at least the idea I got out of it, was that the older guy, the French magician had been partaking of the pleasures of hell, and I mean, and eventually it just kind of goes overboard, and that’s why he was, he had been stabbed, right, like his mouth had been cut, and he had kind of a big gruesome smile on his face, and he’s half alive, but Later, I see that she pulls a knife out of him, because as soon as she turns around and notices that the guy is there, she runs over and pulls the knife out of the magician and uses that knife, I think, to stab the Toymaker, right?

Craig: Yeah, I mean, Delile, we thought he was dead, but there was a jumpscare where he’s not. He, uh, grabs. But I guess then he dies after that, I don’t know. And Angelique at first, and I like her, I like this character, I like this actress, I really like this element of this movie, I wish I don’t remember, I don’t think she ever comes back, but I could be wrong about that.

She’s intrigued by the, the Toymaker. She’s intrigued that His hands were able to craft something like that, and she wants to play with him, but Jock is in charge of her, and he tells Lamarck, or whatever his name is, You made this thing that released hell, so your bloodline is cursed to the end of time.

And then Angelique stabs him, and he dies. His 

Todd: wife shows up. I know. It’s so stupid. What, was she tracking him? Did she also sneak into the mansion? It’s so silly. She just pokes around the corner and I guess they can’t quite see her, but he’s like in the doorway dying. My God,

Clip: she did not Stop. Gotta get you out of it. It’s too late.

Go back. Save yourself. 

Todd: Save the child. Later in the movie, it seems like Angelique is surprised that the bloodline has continued, right? So it’s a little self contradictory. Yes, 

Craig: yes. Well, did she know that he had a pregnant wife? See, that’s the thing. I guess 

Todd: she didn’t or else she wouldn’t have been surprised.

Or else, because later we come, what is it? 20. A hundred years later. Two hundred years later. Two hundred years later to 1996. Now we’re in modern day. We get the modern day story and we get the same actor playing, uh, John Merchant instead of Marshall. 

Craig: Yeah. The same actor plays this line in every timeline.

Todd: I love that. Yeah, I do too. I think it’s super fun. And it visually makes it clear what’s going on. And he’s an architect now. And so Angelique just. Happens to have a copy of like Architects Digest and when she picks it up and looks on the cover She sees this guy and that’s when she’s like, oh the bloodlines continued So she has to now have realized it for the first time.

Otherwise for the past 200 years She would have been tracking his ancestors down and right trying to get them to make more puzzle boxes 

Craig: see when you look at it too closely, the script is a mess and it has to be because of all of the changes because L’Emerchant or whatever never got The puzzle box back.

So how did it get out of her possession? And 

Todd: into the foundation of his building. Yeah. 

Craig: Oh, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. What was 

Todd: that? 

Craig: That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. Oh my God. Okay. Because he’s, you know, he’s winning an award. He’s famous. I don’t know. Like they tried to give him like imposter syndrome or something.

Who cares? He’s, he’s plagued by dreams. He’s dreaming of Angelique. Apparently she doesn’t know that. I guess because he dreams of her and then she’s surprised to find that he exists. So I guess, yeah, I guess it really is just dreams. I guess we need to explain. She asks Jock’s permission. No, she says, will you, can we go?

I want to see the Toymaker, and he’s like, no, I don’t want to. She said, okay, well then may I have your permission to go by myself? And he said, no, you can’t go. And she says, do you want to know why I want to go? And he says, no. And I knew right away what was going on. I knew I was like, the reason she wants to go is because that’s what hell wants her to do.

And she just trapped him because now he’s defied hell. And that’s exactly what happens. He’s surprised. He kind of tries to roll it back, but too late, too late. And she tortures and kills him. 

Todd: Yeah. This series, I think. I mean, again, I’ve only seen three, but especially this movie really relishes in body mutilation.

Craig: That’s a Clive Barker thing. He’s big into like 

Todd: BDSM, like big, 

Craig: or he was, I don’t know if he still is, but he, yeah. And I mean, that’s canon. Like it’s the, the book is very much like that. He’s Clive Barker is a very, very talented guy. And I don’t really know a much about what goes on in his life now. But he was very dark for a period.

I think both in his work and in his life. 

Todd: Oh yeah. I have a friend who met him. Oh yeah. Yeah. He was shooting some movie. It was like a documentary or something up in Canada. And they, he was with a production team and they went to his house and visited him. He said it was trippy. He said he had like. Oh, like a stable of manservants who were there, like, all shirtless, walking around and Oh gosh, that’s funny.

in a pool and everything like that, brought him into his room where he had these, this art. And at the time, he was, believe it or not, commissioned by Disney to help design a new Land for one of their theme parks. 

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: and so he had these like mock ups of like he was working on some paintings and things like that 

Craig: Yeah, he’s a really talented artist Anyway, the next reveal is that at this big ceremony, which is in the lobby of the building that Merchant John Merchant has designed the entire interior of The building looks like the design of the puzzle box.

I mean, it basically just looks like a giant puzzle box with gears and symbols and 

Todd: which he’s presumably got gotten from dreams or whatever, 

Craig: I guess. I mean, like it’s a, it’s a little predictable, I guess at the same time. It looks really cool. Like I can’t imagine what building would want that. Weird 

Todd: shit in it.

Like for no reason, there’s like gears turning on the wall and this giant pattern just kind of shifting around. I mean, think about the cost of maintaining that in just a giant room, which I don’t know what that room was for, but, uh, but I mean, the impression I got at the time was this guy, because of his bloodline, because of his dreams or whatever, had.

Unknowingly created a giant puzzle box in the form of a building. Correct. And I think 

Craig: that it’s, I think that she knows that. I’m just going to call her Ange cause I can never remember her. Call her Angie. So, and she shows up, she shows up at this. at this ceremony and and he sees her and freaks out because he’s been dreaming about her and like Runs out of the party, but she apparently can sense or just inherently knows that this thing is a puzzle box so she Seduces some guy and leads him down to the basement random guy.

Yeah And she’s like, he’s like, where are we going? And she’s like, I’m just following my instinct or something like that. And she leads him down into this big basement room and tells him to close his eyes. And then she punches a hole in a column and pulls the cube out. So somehow the cube made its way.

And I know we already mentioned this, but it bears repeating the cube. Like did, did it magically travel there? Like How does this work? Is it, is it like the heart of the, because he doesn’t know about it. No, it makes no sense. Yeah. I’m, I’m willing to just suspend my disbelief. Fine. I’m still having fun. I don’t care.

Todd: Was there nothing in the original, like in the third movie that suggested that at the end of it, like the cube got like encased in. In cement, or buried, or anything like that? 

Craig: I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s, it’s possible, I suppose. Made its way to 

Todd: the foundation of this building? Yeah, it doesn’t make sense.

Anyway, this is the, by the way, This was the only part of the movie that I thought was a huge groaner. Now that we’re talking about it, we’re kind of looking a little deeper in the story. There are other holes in it, but none of them were either that obvious or that important to me, except this bit. Yeah.

This bit, I was like, Oh, come on. Where, why? Where? 

Craig: Still, but even with this, I really don’t care, because The, the movie is moving at a quick pace and interesting things are happening. Yeah. Because then as soon as she finds the box, she opens it or no, she has the guy open it, which was smart. 

Todd: I have such sights to show you, she says.

Craig: Yes. Yes. That’s wonderful. And he does open it and the chains come out and, and then there’s hell dogs and pinhead. That guy gets. Flayed and killed and he knows her and he greets her as princess and he said and she says something like It appears things have changed like she knows him too. Like she’s kind of walking around him like sizing him up 

Clip: Things seem to have changed Hell is more ordered since your time princess and much less amusing 

Todd: but that kind of makes sense because She probably doesn’t even know him because his Character was created like in the 30s or 20s or 40s or something.

Craig: It was during one of the world wars I’m not sure. Yeah, 

Todd: so like I mean she would probably instinctively know his role, right? But probably wouldn’t have met him. And so, you know, it’s like coming back to your You know, you’ve left your hometown, you haven’t been back for a while, then the, the guys come and visit you, and they’re like, Hey man, you never would believe, like, that shop is closed, and, you know, this guy died, and whatnot.

It’s been so long, it’s been 200 years since you’ve been back to hell, and that’s kind of what we have here. I’m telling you, hell is a society, just like, I mean, shit goes down, you know, they elect mayors, they get corrupt, you know, somebody comes in and cleans it up, the local donut shop closes. Well, see, you don’t 

Craig: see it in, you don’t see it in this one and you don’t see it in all the movies.

I don’t know that it’s ever really explained, but it’s a major part of the second one. And it’s a major part of the reboot. There’s also this Leviathan thing. In hell there’s this Leviathan and I kind of get the sense that it’s like in charge. 

Clip: Triangular 

Craig: thing. Floating in the air and they all like worship it or something.

I don’t know. It’s not very clear. It’s neat to look at though. But okay. So now because of the, the, the, you know, the hell door has opened or whatever. This room now is their little hell lair and it’s like all foggy and the hell dog is there and there’s other things that just kind of appear to make it scarier.

But this is, he says something weird. He’s like. This is not a room. This is a holocaust waiting to wet itself. He talks, I think, more in this movie than in any other movie. He talks a lot. 

Todd: He’s like the college professor of hell. He gives a lot of lectures. 

Craig: Yeah, apparently in 2175 or whatever this is, he’s wisened a lot and he’s less shy.

He’s more confident and he’ll just tell you what he thinks. He’s grown up in 200 years. Yeah. There are some good monologues, like long monologues at the end. She and he are kind of at odds. Like, they both want the same thing, I think, but they’re kind of at odds with each other. And they have different ways of going about things.

Her way is through temptation. She, she manipulates and gets what she wants through temptation. He thinks that’s stupid. Like, it’s just so much quicker to just torture people. Yeah. But she, he lets, he lets her try her thing. For a minute, but meanwhile, oh, well, so okay, so she’s gonna do her thing So she goes and visits John the the toy maker or whatever and she sees on his wall the design for the demon catcher that has Apparently been passed down for 200 years and he tells her he tells her that he’s working on it But with mirrors and lasers and if you can trap light then Something.

Todd: Yeah, I mean, he doesn’t really know what he’s working on, right? Like, I 

Craig: mean, that’s the funny thing, 

Todd: it’s like He doesn’t know there’s a puzzle, I mean, I don’t think so, he doesn’t know there’s a puzzle box that can open a gate to hell and this thing that he’s working on will actually close the gates of hell?

I don’t think? I don’t know, I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing. Well, it’s not a very clear design, it’s not super technical, 

Craig: it’s just, so I mean Well, yeah, it almost seems like he doesn’t even know what it is, cause she’s like, it called to you, John, we have great work to do. Okay, and so then, he has a sex dream about her, and then it cuts to Pinhead who’s just standing there and I, I, I don’t remember what he says, but it’s basically just like, I’m bored.

Let’s do some shit. Yeah. And then there’s this, this great twins scene. Oh my God. This scene is great. Like this scene alone, I think is for the price of admission and these guys, these, these identical twin actors are great. They’re 

Todd: just great. I honestly, okay, so earlier I said that the series is super self serious and there’s nothing jokey in it.

Alright, I’m sorry, this is a bit jokey. Ha 

Craig: ha ha! And in the other movies, not so much in this one, but in the other movies, Pinhead is quippy. Like, he quips like Freddy or Chucky, like little one liners. In the later ones? Well, definitely in later ones, but I thought even like in the first one, but I may be mistaken.

But anyway. 

Todd: Yeah, so then there’s these, these two twin security guards, David Schilke and Jimmy Schilke, are the actors, and I looked them up, I thought, oh, these, I mean, twins? In Hollywood? They must be in high demand? And they’re handsome? They are, they’ve only been in four movies. They were in Almost Dead before this, and they were in two movies after that, and that was about it, so that’s kind of a shame.

So, they end up getting transformed, and the two people who play their Cenobite versions are Also twins but not the same guy. Oh weird. Maybe they were just too charming to be Cenobites 

Craig: Yeah, maybe I don’t know. They’re kind of cute and bumbly, but they also have a cute relationship They’re scared because they’re like in hell lands under this building at one point They separate just for a second, but then they come back together and the one brothers like I’ll never leave you again You’ll you’ll always be by my side or something.

Mm hmm And then they walk into where pinhead and Angelique are arguing They interrupt their argument, and they’re like, Hold it right there! With their guns. Back it up against the wall! You heard him! Back it up! Don’t make us put some pain on you. 

Clip: Pain? How dare you use that word? He’s got pins in his head.

What you think of as pain, it’s only a shadow. Pain has a face. Allow me to show it to you. 

Craig: Ultimately, he walks up to them and he says, I smell your fear. It’s screaming, don’t separate me from my brother. He says something like, I would never do that. And then this contraption. Shows up on either side of them.

They’re standing next to each other and with hooks and drills It pulls their faces together and melds them into one thing and then it like twists their heads Around each it’s it’s wild. It’s weird. It’s a fun effect and it looks good. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s cool. I like it It’s you don’t get a real clear image of the whole thing at once You just get these impressions of what’s going on and I would I would have to say I think that’s even more effective And that’s what a lot of this stuff is, even in the first movie, I feel like you rarely see the whole thing from a distance being done, like the hooks and the people or the whatever.

But you see a lot of close ups of chains coming out and hooking into skin. And drill bits spinning and Yeah, it’s pretty gruesome and it really allows your mind to fill in a lot, and I think it’s pretty effective. I mean, sure, some of it probably has to do with budget and ability, but I mean, it really works as far as You know, being terrifying.

Craig: I like it. I like the visual style. Yeah, I really like the visual style. I do think it’s scary. It’s sort 

Todd: of like Saw ish type torture porn before we ever got that with Saw. 

Craig: Except not terribly graphic. I mean, there is some graphic stuff. There’s, you know, hooks and skin. There are brief moments of like people being flayed and stuff, but it doesn’t really linger.

On the gore a lot. 

Todd: Not too much, but I mean, some people, that’s worse, right? Like, you’ve got a needle thing. That’s true. Some of these close up things with the hooks in the skin are enough to make people really creep out, because it’s, it’s actually, like, something that could happen to you accidentally, or, you know, it’s, I mean, it’s just, like, a more realistic kind of gore, and instead of just, like, your head getting cut off, and things like that, so.

I think, I, I like this bit. I thought this was interesting. It’s a bit of a Just like you said, we’ll pinheads bored. We just needed to get another kill in here. So that’s what we do, but I really like the Cinematography of this movie. I like the aesthetic of this movie. I do too. The cinematography is great It’s nice to look at in this room in particular.

It’s kind of filled with mirrors. He even said says something about it. Like, she’s looking in a mirror, he’s looking in a mirror, Pinhead is, and then they come in and there are mirrors there and stuff and it’s really well planned out, it’s really well put together, it’s very dreamlike, I love it. There’s some nice side views of Pinhead as he’s talking to them, with the light kind of shining from behind him, kind of a close up on his head, we get a lot.

In the face of Pinhead in it. 

Craig: Yeah, this is one of the places where he monologues and he, cause she’s looking in the mirror and he says, I can see the true you and he talks about her true nature and then he says something about how he can smell the stench of what she really is or something. And it’s beautiful.

This is the part. Okay. So after they kill that guy, he’s like, see, he says, temptation is worthless. Suffering is the coin of the realm. In other words, I’m taking over. And he says, from what I hear, the worst kind of suffering is the loss of a child. So he’s going to go after John’s. Kid. This is the part of the movie where I felt like it got very choppy and it felt very pieced together because Things happen very quickly.

The next thing we see Angelique seducing John, but then immediately we’re back to His wife who I think was played by the the girl love interest from Nightmare on Elm Street 2. The girl kind of looks like Meryl Streep 

Todd: Yep. Yep. That’s her 

Craig: and and she’s in her home her apartment, whatever with Their son, their son, I don’t know the name of the actor, but the next year he would go on to play Danny in the 1997 Shining TV miniseries.

Oh. She goes down to do the laundry, leaves him there, hears a scream, runs up, he’s gone, she goes around the corner, looks down the stairs, he’s standing there, she says, come here. He says, I can’t, he won’t let me. Pinhead walks into frame. She says, what do you want? He says, live bait. Then the next thing you see is him holding them in the building.

And he leaves the box with them. And John And then John arrives at their house. Like, how did he even know that How did he know anything was even happening? The last time we saw him he was getting seduced by Angelique. Now he’s running into the house where they’re not even there. He’s obviously And I think that he’s calling for them, but he’s also calling for Angelique.

I There’s something missing here. Yeah, there’s definitely Probably as a result and and then like he’s there like why didn’t they just cut that entirely it doesn’t make any sense because He’s there for five seconds, and then he’s there at the building. Yeah 

Todd: That’s true, and his building is like a Corridors of chains and things it felt like a haunted house like John Halloween He’s going through by the way this guard dog That leaps out.

It’s like they took the chatterer centibite and made it a guard dog. That was creepy as f k. I thought that was really effective. I loved it. It was super good. It looked super scary and and there were some times when when that dog made me jump in this movie and 

Craig: yeah 

Todd: And 

Craig: there was one cgi effect. I don’t know how it would have looked on the big screen But on my tv screen, I actually watched this on an actual tv on my in the dark.

I treated myself. I wasn’t home There was one scene it’s later when we get back to space which we’re gonna do here real quick, but the dog is chasing One of the soldiers and it rounds a corner and it’s that classic thing where dogs don’t take corners well, and it kind of slams into the wall. I thought that looked great.

I thought it was fantastic. It act, it actually made that thing look organic and alive. Loved it. 

Todd: It’s weird. Cause I think Kevin Yeager, okay. He, well, he knows effects. He didn’t actually work on the effects of this movie. They hired out somebody else so that he could focus on directing, but, you know, you gotta have a guy, you know, who knows how this thing, how this stuff works, to know how to shoot it, and he shoots it really, really well, all this stuff.

Craig: To wrap up this part of the story, what Pinhead and Angelique both want, but I think for different reasons, this is unclear to me too, because I think she even says that, we both want the same thing, but for different reasons. Well, what? What reasons? I don’t, I don’t know either. Does he want to let people out, and she wants to go back in?

Is that what it is? Maybe? Either way, they want the door open. They want him to finish his work, finish this building. Pinhead says, the box, the original box was just a model, and because of it, we’ve just had to trickle in, sneak through the cracks like vermin, and you’re gonna open this up and we can flood this world.

So he pretends to work on it for a while, then The family just runs away. They split up! And he says, we’re all gonna split up! What the hell? He puts the kid on an elevator, tells the wife to run down the stairs, and then he goes back. This makes absolutely no sense. 

Todd: It’s really dumb. Yeah. 

Craig: The kid 

Todd: is little, like, five.

Max! He puts him on the elevator, hits the down button, says, You’re gonna be alright. No, you’re not. Absolutely. Why would you do this? Cause like the next shot we see is that elevator plummeting down at high speed, which goes to nothing, right? Like, I don’t think we saw the elevator again after 

Craig: that. No, we never see the elegate elevator again.

But the next time we see him, pinhead has him or Angelique has him one. I don’t remember. The husband goes back to confront pinhead. They have a little tete a tete. The wife gets chased by the dog, but grabs the box and says something like, Does the door work both ways? And she’s really relying on faith that it’s going to.

She points it at the hell dog and it jumps at her. We don’t really see what happens. It cuts to, I think, the dad running down to that big lobby. Are Angelique and Pinhead both there? One or both of them are there. With the kid and then I don’t know, is this just, 

Todd: is this just a showdown? It’s kind of a showdown.

Mom holds up the puzzle at this point. It’s like, what is this puzzle box anyway? Like, you know, used to have to like actually operate it to make a thing happen, but now she’s just using it like a laser gun, you know, she’s aiming at things and stuff like a ghost. Ghost trap. Yeah, ghost trap. Yeah, that’s exactly it.

Cause she tosses it out in the room and it’s pointed, I guess, in the right direction towards Angelique because then the chains shoot out of that at Angelique and drag her into the Hellgate. 

Craig: Yes. And him too, presumably. Yeah. Now, I don’t remember. I just watched it last night, but was there ever, there was a point where he tried to get the building machine going, but it failed.

I guess. Cause, like, it started to work or something, but then it failed. Anyway, then the wife showed up, saved the day, the end. Oh, well, no, not before the guy, John, gets beheaded. 

Todd: Yes! Oh, wow, that was shocking. He gets beheaded right in front of his family. 

Craig: That’s horrible. It surprised me, too. And that’s pretty much it.

So then we jump back to the space, and, and this, this, this final guy in the line is, He still doesn’t have the lady convinced, the lady that’s interrogating him. She doesn’t believe in hell, she only believes in logic. And he’s like, well, too bad, it believes in you and it’s gonna kill us all. So they, they still don’t believe him.

They put him in a cell with like laser bars and then they all get picked off. Real fast. 

Todd: This gets to be very standard horror movie where it’s like one at a time, these people who we really don’t know and we’ll never see again are wandering around the hallways and get lured into places and get killed.

Craig: Oh, it, it, it irritated me that they felt that they had to replay that whole. Scene from the beginning as though we had forgotten what happened in the beginning. Oh, right It’s a Terminator blowing up and stuff like yeah guys. We saw that. It was just an hour ago. Calm down but oh I forgot up until this point.

I think we had only seen pinhead But now when they trick one soldier they used Crying children’s voices to get a soldier to let them out of the vault that he had designed for them Yeah, and once they’re out we see that pinhead is not alone he still has his hell dog with him, but he also has the twins and As a Cenobite, and it took me a second to even realize that that was Angelique.

Angelique is a Cenobite now too. Her head has been flayed and like pulled down and pinned to her shoulders. He said he was inspired by a nun’s habit. And I wouldn’t have thought of that, but it does look like that and it looks great. 

Todd: Yeah, it looks great. She pulls a dude into a mirror, and that cuts him up, another dude’s taken out by the dog, like you said, that scene.

That was really good. And then, I think it was at this point, I mean, it should have been blatantly obvious, because he literally says it earlier, but I had kind of forgotten. I was like, Oh, his space station is a big puzzle box. So, his ancestor is completing this with the highest of tech, what John was trying to do with the big building.

So, basically, it’s just kind of a big chase, and I think they They corner another guy and the twins pull him apart, but then they get on either side of him. They pull 

Craig: themselves apart, like, they, they, they separate and they get on either side of him and I, I, I couldn’t tell if they were just like, crushing him between them or if he, like, they were melding 

Todd: with him.

I thought they were Twisting him into themselves. I don’t know. Yeah. Again, it’s very unclear, but it looks horrible. Ha ha ha. It looks like, not fun. Yeah. Rimmer is that chick who’s been interviewing him this whole time. And John tells Rimmer to go. The dog chases her. But she ends up locking it in a room. I guess that’s like a pressurization chamber or something like that.

Hits a button and it explodes. And then, I suppose what happens, cause this is quite unclear. But, Pinhead’s in a room and he’s talking to I don’t remember the name of the, of the newest incarnation of 

Craig: Merchant. 

Todd: Yeah. I don’t know. I think it’s Philip, but who cares? Philip? Yeah. He’s talking to Philip and, and he monologues about earth, 

Clip: the creatures that walk on its surface, always looking to the light, never seeing the untold oceans of darkness beyond.

There are more humans alive at this moment. And in all it’s pitiful history. The Garden of Eden. Garden 

Todd: of Flesh. But he’s just a hologram. It seems like he’s tricked. Pinhead at this point because he has he disappears and pinheads like what wait and Then the screen pops on there’s like a screen in the room because it’s you know space there’s screens everywhere And it turns out that Rimmer and Philip are in a ship I guess getting ready to escape and head back to earth, which is right 

Craig: there.

Like yeah, I didn’t realize Yeah, I actually, I didn’t even, it didn’t even occur to me that they were looking out a window at the earth. I thought they were looking at a screen that the earth was projected on. Oh, right, right. As I’m sure they were in real life. But yeah, anyway, so then he’s like, ha ha, I tricked you and you’re in the space trap and the space trap starts to fold in on itself and pinhead starts to disintegrate and it closes up into a big.

Space hell box. 

Todd: I love this idea, by the way, because it seems like tech just wasn’t there yet Until 2027 for somebody to be able to create a thing that would actually finally close off the store to hell and kill Essentially what’s supposed to be kill pinhead 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And I think that was what this was supposed to be, right?

The last one. 

Craig: Yes, but I thought that it was brilliant because you can still keep making sequels. This is just the end. Yeah. You know, there are still hundreds of years from 1996 to 21. You can tell any kinds of stories you want to in those. Oh, yeah time periods. So I thought it was really smart. I mean ultimately that’s what they do The movies were pretty crappy, but that’s that is ultimately what they do.

I liked the final lines merchant says To pinhead welcome to oblivion and as he’s disintegrating away. He says Amen. I thought that was kind of cool. I, I’ve always kind of liked the dark irreverence of Pinhead and how he, not that I would mock Christianity, I’m a Christian, but I like that as a character, a demon from hell, he mocks.

Christianity and kind of spits in the face of it. Yeah, that’s a it’s dark and people don’t often Go there, but Clive Barker is not scared to go there. 

Todd: Yeah, he’s like ambivalent. It’s what you would imagine hell to be it’s sort of like a watered down version of the Of H. P. Lovecraft’s, uh, Cthulhu. They’re so big and they’re so powerful and they’re so incredible that, like, humans are so beneath them, it’s like an ant that they’re stepping on on the way, like, they don’t even think about them.

Craig: True, but they do, I think they do enjoy I think he enjoys toying with them. Oh, for sure. I think he’s, he, he’s looking forward to going back to Earth to Continue to torment people. So I think he gets off on it. I think they all get off on it. 

Todd: I agree with that because they were human once too, right? And this is all this pleasure and pain and like the pursuit of emotion and that’s a very human thing But ultimately it’s just very nihilistic.

Craig: Yeah, it is definitely and 

Todd: I like that. I mean, this is very unique in the In the horror movie canon, you know, 

Craig: yeah, it balances. Well, it’s it’s it’s darker than any of the other space movies that we’ve seen but There’s some humor. It’s not laugh out loud humor, but like even 

Todd: maybe dark humor 

Craig: Yeah, the the the way that the twins are killed that’s darkly humorous.

I mean their characters are Funny, and I think that they’re meant to be funny, so there’s there’s a little bit of humor injected here and there But I think it’s a good balance 

Todd: Maybe it’s because of all the weird things we pointed out where things just don’t quite make sense like people really dogged on this movie And didn’t like it when it came out I’m kind of at a loss as to why to be honest because I liked it I 

Craig: did too, and 

Todd: I thought except for those little things and every movies full of something like wait a minute Why did that happen or oh that didn’t make any sense this movie is no different, but ultimately Like, those are not important details.

That stuff’s not that important. Alright, so she finds the puzzle box. She could have found it anyway. They found a stupid way for her to find the puzzle box. Okay, fine. Right. But like, I thought the movie was coherent. It made sense from beginning to end. I knew exactly what was going on. I loved the through line.

This idea that the This guy redeems his family line because his ancestor from hundreds of years ago had unwittingly created this box, and tech finally caught up with him to be able to finally do it. I liked this whole thing. I, the characters were consistent throughout. This demon girl was cool. Their motivations were all very clear.

I didn’t have a problem with it at all. I thought it was ten times better. Then Hellraiser 2 that I saw, which I thought was a big jumbled mess. This wasn’t. I thought I liked it. I liked it too. I really did. I don’t know why people 

Craig: didn’t. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t really know why either. Because it was fun to watch and that’s the thing that I’m most invested in.

Like, if it’s fun to watch, I will forgive a lot. It was scary. I will, I’ll forgive inconsistencies. Yeah, it was, it had scary moments. It was, it, great special effects. Never boring. The acting was good. No, never boring. The acting was good. Yeah, I liked that one actor who played the same, you know, he didn’t play the same guy But he played different generations of the same family.

I thought he did a good job There was a little bit of differentiation in each of those characters. I really liked the actress who played Angelique Doug Bradley’s great I would recommend this movie. It’s by far in a way the best one we’ve seen so far I’m really excited to talk about Jason X with you. I think that you’re gonna think it’s a lot of fun But, uh, I guess time will tell.

Todd: I’m looking forward to it being a very different kind of movie. And that’s why we chose this one this week. We wanted to break things up in tone. And I think we succeeded in that. I think so too. Someday we’re going to write a book about unfairly maligned horror movies, and I think this is going to be one on the list.

Craig: Yeah, I think it should be. 

Todd: Well thank you guys so much for joining us for this month of In Space Movies. We got one more coming your way next week, Jason X, as we already said. So if you’re looking forward to that, please subscribe to us so that you don’t miss out on it. Also let your friends know what we’re doing and forward this to a horror fan.

Friend who you think would also be tickled. You can find us just by googling two guys in a chainsaw podcast. Go to chainsaw horror.com. Leave us a message, sign up for our weekly newsletter there, and, uh, think about joining our Patreon for just five bucks a month. We are releasing Mini sos. We have. book club behind the scenes.

We have unedited versions of our podcast, little mini reviews and lots of other stuff. So if that interests you at all, head over to patreon. com slash chainsaw podcast to get a little slice of that action until next time. I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! In this episode of ‘Two Guys and a Chainsaw,’ we head back into space with your favorite lecherous leprechaun, played by Warwick Davis. ‘Leprechaun 4: In Space.’ has a ridiculous plot, terrible CGI, and over-the-top performances that make this fourth installment in the Leprechaun series a memorable, albeit flawed, film.

From the unexpected genesis of the movie inspired by an Apollo 13 poster to the bizarre antics of the leprechaun IN SPACE, we cover the highs, lows, and the infamous Mitten Spider transformation. Hear for yourself what we thought of the second film in our “in space” series this month!

Leprechaun 4: In Space (1996)

Episode 431, 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 continue our month of IN SPACE. With our second episode, perfectly timed. For Saint Patrick’s Day. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, Craig.

Craig: Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, it snuck right up on me.

Todd: Yeah, I hope you’re wearing green this morning. You’re lucky I can’t pinch you from here. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

This is Leprechaun 4: In Space. And this is the movie that really inspired me to do this whole month. Because I remember catching the tail end of this. On cable and going, Oh my God, I can’t believe this exists. I need to come back to this someday. So I hadn’t seen the whole thing from beginning to end until now.

And I’m just gonna say I’m really happy that this was our second one and not our first one. In other words, I’m really glad that this came on the heels of Critters 4. And like you pointed out in our Critters 4 episode, It’s kind of weird that three of the four movies that we’re covering this month for our in space are Number four.

I don’t know why that is. What came before this was Vegas, which we covered. When we did the Leprechaun 3 in Vegas episode, I remembered reading that the Leprechaun 4 in space episodes was inspired simply by a movie poster. The Apollo 13 photo with Tom Hanks and one of the producers was like Wouldn’t it be cool if like that was the leprechaun’s face instead of Tom Hanks’s face?

And so he did a mock up and brought it to the company Christmas party and that was the genesis for this Direct to video movie. So they got the same director Brian Trenchard Smith who did a pretty good job with Leprechaun 3 So I’m I’m not surprised they brought him on for Leprechaun 4. Had you seen this movie before?

Craig: I thought for sure that I had, now I don’t think I had. There were some tells. Because I think I would have remembered it. Yeah, I think I would have remembered it. I don’t know. It’s possible I blocked it out. That’s also another possibility. Why 

Todd: in the world would you have blocked out this cinematic gem?

Craig: Boy. I just don’t, you know, like, I don’t know what to say. My mom always said, if you don’t have anything nice to say, just don’t say a thing at all. I don’t know what to say. I vaguely remember liking three or at least thinking. It was so stupid. It was funny. Yes. You know, like I remember that one lady’s lips and boobs blowing up and that was hilarious.

Yes. 

Todd: And three, 

Craig: there were, there were some like witty one liners that I thought were funny and, and I don’t know, this one just, it didn’t land for me, ironically enough, the other ones felt more creative. Like leprechaun had more to do. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Now that’s talking specifically about the leprechaun. There is other wackadoodle stuff going on here.

Like, there is just so much crazy in this movie that I think it was almost too much crazy for me. Yeah, I don’t know. 

Todd: I think my feelings about this movie are colored by the fact that we just finished Critters 4. And I thought Critters 4 was a snore fest and had almost no critters in it. And so, by comparison, this one is throwing everything at the wall.

I feel like this movie is Far more ambitious than its budget would allow. Oh yeah. It looks terrible. 

Craig: That’s another thing. It doesn’t look good at all. It looks super, I mean, from the very, very beginning, it looks super cheap. I mean, the, the exterior of the spaceship looks like, 

Todd: hmm. 

Craig: Coleco vision or something 

Todd: like it’s so terrible.

It is 90 CGI. As I think was possible on my home computer in the 90s. I read that the director was super disappointed in how the CGI turned out because he said it was like below PlayStation level quality. And because the budget on this movie was so low, it was only 1. 6 million and they only had like 80, 000 to spend on CGI effects.

He was usually the first render of the scene that they ended up using, which is, you know, just the most bare bones, no lighting really applied, no textures. Like you said, from the opening scene, which is really just the credits, you see a meteor. spinning through space and it looks like a video game. It is horrible.

Craig: Or a bad screensaver. Yeah, 

Todd: a screensaver. When I 

Craig: was in high school. 

Todd: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. I mean, even for the nineties, this is horrible CGI. But I found that to be a little bit of its charm. I guess it depends on what you’re watching this movie for, right? If you’re watching this movie That’s right.

for a bad movie, you’re gonna get it in spades. 

Craig: Yeah, and I feel like I just couldn’t tell if it’s intentional or not. It just didn’t, I don’t know, it didn’t feel like it had the heart that some of the other movies had. Really? I feel like, yeah, I felt like even Warwick Davis couldn’t save it. I don’t know, maybe I’m just getting tired of the shtick, but I didn’t find it funny.

Yeah. The leprechaun Rattles off some one liners every once in a while, but they’re not really funny. It’s more like him just like doing voices, like he talks like a cowboy at some point. Yeah, 

Todd: no, 

Craig: you’re right. The real comic relief is the only black person on the ship, this guy named Sticks, who says lines like, Who’s driving this, Ray Charles?

Todd: Like, 

Craig: that’s about as good as it 

Todd: gets. Like these, like, I’m the black character, so I can say these things, and you’re supposed to think it’s funny. There’s a point at which he even goes into minstrel talk, which is a little cringy. Like, that’s the best you could do. It 

Craig: is, he is by far, in a way, my favorite character in the movie.

Todd: Oh yeah, I mean, to be honest, I thought this movie was trying harder than it, I mean, I remember us, very distinctly, really enjoying Leprechaun 3, because we thought it was silly, we were impressed with what they were able to do with such a limited budget and resources. The Leprechaun was goofy, and I think Vegas was a nice playground for him, because there were so many jokes to be made.

Yeah, I think so too. And space is just, like, I think already, two movies in, I’m starting to see the limitations of setting your non space themed franchise. in space, like where can you go but just references and parodies of alien and Star Wars. That’s about it, you know, unless you’re going to really take it seriously and you’re going to do an alien, you’re really just stuck with, with parody, which grows pretty stale pretty quickly.

Craig: Right. For me. Now, parody has its place for sure. We’ve done a lot of parody films that I’ve Enjoyed very, very much this one. It’s not as though it feels lazy. It’s just feels like the jokes are easy. The parody is easy. Like just out of nowhere, the leprechaun uses an actual literal lightsaber for a second, and then he doesn’t have one anymore.

And there are lots of little nods to the movies that you mentioned. And I, it tries to be alien there, especially alien too. There are so many references. Because it’s a military team on a spaceship hunting an alien. So that’s always going to be compared to Alien 2, at least by me. And definitely the Star Wars references too.

I also felt like it was trying to be one of those space B movies from like the fifties and sixties. 

Todd: For sure. 

Craig: With the whole. Sexy alien queen. Yeah, Star Trek works too. Oh, you’re right. Like, the sexy, yeah. There’s a whole mad scientist aspect to it too. That felt very, like, old school B movie. Yeah. And, saying all those things out loud, it’s, somebody told me that, I’d be like, ooh, that sounds fun.

And it just wasn’t fun, I didn’t think. 

Todd: It was weird. Well, I actually kind of disagree with you. And again, I think maybe just coming off of Critters 4, which I did not find fun at all. I thought this movie was kind of a rollicking ride because they really did, like, throw everything at the wall. Whereas, again, by comparison, Critters 4 was, like, these five people go and essentially try to recreate alien in space and they’re quite serious about it and the critters barely come out.

This one, it kicks off with, I was so weird to see the leprechaun in a cave on an alien planet with this princess who, like you said, is almost like an Edgar Rice Burroughs type. Situation where it’s like princess of Mars. This woman is done up in princess regalia with makeup and like kind of half egyptian Looking and whatnot.

And so that’s their conceit that there’s this alien world. That is almost like this old timey Arabian, you know from the look of her kingdom and He’s whining and dining her there in the cave in order to marry her so that he can be a king because he’s tired of Earth. 

Clip: To the most beautiful woman in the universe, the Princess Serena, my future wife.

Your wife? Your wife?! How dare you! Do you know who I am? I am the daughter of a king. And you will one day be a queen. And it is your royal blood, madame, that will make me a king. What? You? A king? Ha ha ha ha ha! Laugh if you like me, darlin but I’ll have me way. I’m a man amongst men, and it’s tardy I’m of being treated like a dog.

From now on the rest of this miserable universe will bow and scrape before me. 

Todd: It’s so weird because this all comes out of left field like we don’t know why the leprechaun is in space now. No. We don’t know. why he’s suddenly so into space politics, you know, but I suppose any magical creature could be anywhere in the universe.

He wants to be right. This guy can pop in and out of anywhere. His magical powers can just kind of do anything, conjure up anything, which I think honestly is a bit of a limitation of the series, but he’s also like a notorious space 

Craig: criminal. That they, that they send this. Military operation. They’re Marines, I guess.

’cause they regularly sing, simplify, do or die. Kill, kill, kill. So funny. Oh my God. 

Todd: It’s, it’s basically full metal jacket parody or the beginning of aliens. It’s almost the beginning of aliens. Mm-hmm . Beat. For Beat, right, when we’re introduced to them? Yeah. Cause they’re going through everybody, like, gearing up and suiting up and whatnot, and, and it’s, it’s like a one shot tracking thing where, the literally hard headed drill sergeant, cause half of his skull is, like, metal, cause he apparently lost half of his skull in a battle, which we find out later.

Walks through and talks to everybody and everybody is real tough And there’s the tough girl and there’s the banter back and forth and 

Craig: the tough girl is modeled very much after the tough girl from aliens Yes, and the hero of the troop books Is modeled after Hicks. 

Todd: Yes from And looks like Sylvester Stallone.

And then just like Ripley is an outsider, scientist ishy type person brought into this group, this woman is brought in who is a scientist and her name is, uh, Tina, right? She’s played by Jessica Collins, by the way, who I swear looked super familiar to me. Everybody in this looked super familiar to me. But when I went to their IMDb pages, I was like, Yeah, I guess I’ve probably seen them in some bit parts here and there.

But yeah, none of them were really, many of them just kind of look. I think have that famous Hollywood actor look without actually being a super famous Hollywood actor 

Craig: Booker looks like he should be on soap operas and he was The girl who plays tina looks like she should have been on baywatch and she was and they just have That generic look about them.

Todd: Yeah, I guess that’s 

Craig: right. They’re very good looking people. You know, it’s a cast of pretty good looking people for the most part except for some weirdos who are intentionally not good looking. All the stuff that we’re talking about I think sounds fine on paper, like I’m on board with it on paper, I just feel like it’s so poorly executed, like the acting is terrible, ugh, it’s just, I don’t know, and I don’t even really, I don’t even really think it’s their fault.

Faults. I think the words that they have to say are so bad. Well, they’re also oh God, I don’t like even okay We skimmed over Zarina the space princess because she wakes up and she’s terrible like she’s just kind of this petulant spoiled Princess. Yeah. She at first is repulsed by the Leprechaun, but when he’s like, well, I’ll marry you and then I can be king and I can give you all the riches in the world.

She’s like, now you’re talking, sweetie. Like, ugh. 

Todd: I don’t know, man. Like, you’re right, the acting is terrible, but I feel like it’s intentionally over the top. I feel like I’m in the same position I was when we did Terror Vision, for example. You have these actors, you know they’re good actors, and they’re just being goofy and silly.

And I felt like in the same way, these guys, that was the tone of the movie, was to be goofy and silly. And so when they’re trying to be goofy and silly, it, I mean, they got what they, what they delivered, but I don’t think it really necessarily meant it was a bad performance. I just felt that it just meant this was just a dumb movie, and everybody was in on it.

They were hamming it up, I thought. I thought they were hamming it up. That’s fine. Maybe maybe there were moments at which you know, they were trying to be more serious or whatnot But 

Craig: I don’t know. I found that the I don’t have anything against these people, you know, they made a fun movie Whatever who cares?

Yeah, so it wasn’t my favorite like the girl who plays tina. I I thought she was really flat She was very beautiful to look at but I just felt she was flat like the And again, like you’re saying maybe it’s intentional that girl who plays the princess plays it so over the top. It’s farcical Yeah portrayal.

She’s not going for realism. So I guess I should cut it more slack. And I’m afraid that some of our friends who are gonna listen to this are gonna think I’m being a big butthole about it. I don’t mean to. I can see how this would be the kind of movie that maybe under the right circumstances could be really funny.

I started watching it really late at night last night and it was a weeknight and I had to work and so I started to get tired and I was kind of just I mean, like you said, a lot happens. We haven’t even got to the mad scientist yet, but I just kind of got bored. And then I had to watch it real quick when I, right, when I got home from work and I was tired again, so maybe I just wasn’t in the right state of mind.

Maybe, maybe if I had set myself up better for it, I would have had more fun. 

Todd: Well, eventually the marines land on the planet, they come in to invade that cave. To get the leprechaun. The leprechaun, yeah, and the special effects are utterly crazy. Like, on the planet, they’re kind of standing in front of some rocks, but it pans past a very Weird composite CGI background of the planet’s surface that is just distractingly bad.

But they end up inside the cave, and one of them runs over to the gold and jewels that are on the leprechaun’s table, starts to dump it in his helmet, and that’s when the leprechaun pops out with his lightsaber, and chops down his legs, which we don’t see. We see him buzz up the lightsaber, we see him start to swing it, and then we just see this guy scream.

As he gets a little shorter and a little shorter and falls down. I don’t even think we ever see his legs gone. I don’t know. So, you’re instantly seeing, okay, this movie’s got a small budget to work with. And also, I just have to point out, the whole theme of the Leprechaun movies is the gold. The inciting incident for pretty much everyone, I think, except for this one, is that the leprechaun’s gold has been stolen, or it’s been lost.

And the whole movie is really about, if the leprechaun could just get his gold, he would go away. If people would just give the leprechaun his gold, he’d be gone, right? So, so here’s the thing. 

Craig: The guy that they work for, Dr. Mittenhand. The guy that they work for, they are marines. The Leprechaun is threatening a mining mission on this planet.

What they are mining for is his gold. So, They do have his gold. Right. On the spaceship. Right, but. So, so it is. I mean that is the impetus for it is like, yeah, he, well, and then they also have a His girlfriend and he wants her back. Yes. He’s not there. He’s not there just to be a jerk. No. In this one, like sometimes he is.

In fact, there’s one point in the movie where he’s walking around and he’s kind of like God, it’s kind of too bad I have to kill these guys. I kind of like them. And I was like, that’s 

Todd: funny! Right. But my point is, for most of the movie, it’s all about him getting this girl back. Yeah. Which I feel like he could do at any time.

Because he can just pop in and out of various places. I don’t understand why he doesn’t know where she’s being held, why he just doesn’t pop into there. Right do his magic and I forgot about the gold entirely and it seems like the leprechaun did too pretty much because there is a point At the tail end of the movie where he finally gets the princess and she reminds him Oh, by the way, you’re gold and he’s like, oh, you’re right me gold.

And I’m like what like that’s right That’s his lifelong obsession. Why would he? Have to be reminded about it. The guy was about ready to blast off the ship with her. Before she reminds him, so. I thought that was silly. And the other thing that I think is super disappointing about this movie. Is that, not in keeping with the other ones.

Every time he opens his mouth, I’m waiting for a rhyme to come out of it. And it never does. In the other movie, it’s not like every minute he talks in rhyme. But pretty much most of the time. A lot, yeah. Yeah, it’s a lot. And, unless I’m mistaken. Because I was looking for it. That is completely absent from this movie.

Craig: I don’t remember. But like I said, I remembered him being quippier, or the quips being funnier. And a lot of those rhymes were really stupid, but that was kind of funny. They have a whole big space shootout, because That has to happen like five times in this movie. Like so many times the leprechaun’s just standing there and somebody will confront him and he’ll go take a look at this and pull out this big pistol and start shooting with it.

Yeah. Like it’s a surprise every time , like, we haven’t seen him do it throughout the whole movie. 

Todd: Right. And 

Craig: that’s also, I suppose it’s, it’s homage to the alien movies. Fine, okay, I get that, but it’s not creative, like the, the leprechaun’s usually creative. 

Todd: Yeah, when you reduce it to the space battle stuff all the time, it kind of neuters his powers.

It’s, you know, it’s just not, it’s not interesting. 

Craig: No, it’s, it’s repetitive, and eventually they toss a grenade, and the leprechaun jumps on the grenade to keep Zarina from, I love that that’s her name, I’m gonna keep saying it over and over again. To keep Zarina from being killed. And so he completely blows up into a million pieces.

She’s okay. Except for her hand gets blown off. They think he’s dead. So one of them takes a piss on his body and you see the piss get sparkly and go up to his wiener. That’ll come in later. Wow. Ouch. Yeah. And they make fun of him. Like he’s got the clap or something. Yeah. I think the leprechaun went in his wiener.

Todd: So the leprechaun transfers his essence into this guy’s dick. 

Craig: They take Zarina back onto the ship. 

Todd: There’s goofy jokes, like, somebody says, Hey, can you give me a hand here with the, with Serena, and somebody tosses her actual hand to him, and he goes, Oh my god, and the doctor goes, No, don’t be goofing around with that, I can reattach it.

Craig: But they can’t, but that’s okay, because they take her on the ship, and put her on the lab, where there’s this creepy scientist named Harold. Yes. Who is weird, and like, Sexually molests everybody. 

Todd: And His office looks like the milk bar from Clockwork Orange, where he’s got all these like, these nude, modern looking statues that are in different sexual poses and stuff.

That’s funny, that’s the second time a Clockwork Orange has come up in 

Craig: my day today. Oh really? God. I was gonna say maybe we should do that movie sometime, but whew. It’s a rough one. 

Todd: It’s a rough one. 

Craig: We also see, okay, that the leprechaun’s head isn’t dead, so we know that, or it smiles, so we know that it’s not dead or whatever.

Harold works for this other Scientist who only for the first half of the movie appears on a telescreen and it looks like on mystery science theater When they would have to talk to the you know, I’m talking about 

Todd: yes I know exactly what you’re talking about through the TV, 

Craig: right? So it’s just a talking a big close up of a talking head and he’s weird.

Like he looks like dr Evil, 

Todd: I was thinking uncle Fester sort of crossed with a Nazi scientist. Yeah, he has this strong German accent 

Craig: Yeah, this like silly comical German accent and he talks weird and he looks weird And you only see him from the head up and they find out they can’t sew her hand back on but that’s okay because she regenerates Dr.

Mittenglove Mittenhand? 

Todd: He’s excited 

Craig: because he can continue his experiments. All right. Yeah. 

Todd: He’s got a DNA experiment. 

Craig: Then, the leprechaun has to come 

Todd: out of that guy’s dick at some point. At some point. I think it’s Kowalski, right? I don’t know. Who goes in the back with, They’re at this party. Oh, the ship has Has a nightclub.

A nightclub. You can’t imagine there’s anything more than these five people that’s a nightclub. You never see a bartender. It’s, it looks very empty. And it looks like it was outfitted by like, that section of the dollar store during the summer where they Yes, 

Craig: that’s exactly what I was gonna say. That’s how you can tell the budget of this movie.

Look at the glasses that they are drinking out of. They are those plastic glasses that you get at Target in the summer. You know, they’re all like pastel colors and have like wavy Patterns. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that stood out like a sore thumb. Yeah, 

Todd: they’re trying to look super spacey. I swear there is a moment where, um, one of the characters raises the glass to drink out of it and you see the bottom of it and there’s still like a price tag stuck to it.

Craig: That doesn’t surprise me. 

Todd: So they’re in there and then Kowalski and the girl and her name was Deborah? Dolores. That’s right. They go off into the side, the side corridor and start making out. 

Craig: The back alley behind the club on the spaceship is what it looked like. That’s basically what it is, the back alley 

Todd: corridor.

And when he gets aroused, he gets really aroused. Cause he’s, he falls to the ground, starts groaning and his dick starts growing. And I was like, Oh my God, I can kind of see where this is going. And sure enough, it’s sort of like a Nightmare on Elm Street 2 situation where the leprechaun. Bursts out of this man’s crotch and spins around and says exactly what you think he’s going to say.

Craig: Other important things that we learn along the way, they have to protect Starina or whatever her name is, Zarina. They have to protect her because she’s a princess. So to keep good relations with the Dominions, cause she’s from the planet Dominia or something, they have to return her safely and then they’ll have better trade relations or something.

So they are tasked by the doctor with. Protecting her even though they kind of don’t want to 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: we also find out that this doctor Also, one of his other side interests, I guess is lasers that can shrink things. Yes So they’re taking these big chunks of gold that apparently they’ve mined from the leprechauns planet I I don’t know and they’re shrinking them down.

Yeah, I don’t know where those came from I think they came from the 

Todd: cave. I think 

Craig: that’s 

Todd: yes, but Yeah, I didn’t see them take him, but like they also took a bunch of shit from the table and I never saw that again No, I don’t I don’t know. 

Craig: Okay. So there’s a laser that shrinks things and that’s where the gold is.

These are important 

Todd: things They’re looking for Kowalski because Kowalski is it’s weird. They’re looking for Kowalski, but they find that he’s dead already Has his body disappeared or were they actually looking for Dolores? No, I don’t know. They go looking for somebody 

Craig: books and Tina are just hanging out and flirting at the club for a while And the other boys are dancing drunk and together and I thought that was kind of funny One of them the funny one has like his shirt off and like around his neck.

It was funny Then the girl, Dolores, runs into the club and screams, It’s alive! 

Todd: That’s it. So now they know that their leprechaun is somewhere on the ship, and so they are, go off looking for it. And the first place they go is the contamination chamber? Or the decontamination chamber? It doesn’t make a lot of sense because as soon as they arrive there, the doctor, Tina, says to them, You can’t go here, it’s infected with flesh eating virus.

Craig: Yeah, it’s the waste management system. There’s a, like a decontaminating room before you go in there, but I don’t know why they needed to go in there. And I don’t think that they end up doing anything in there. Like, do they just think the leprechaun is in there? I mean, 

Todd: he is, I guess they do. Yeah. So they go, well, I mean, because the leprechaun just pops up wherever they are.

That’s the reason, but yeah, they go into that room in the budget suits. These are big, like COVID era hazmat suits that are just plastic. 

Craig: And the leprechaun is in one too, which I thought was so cute. 

Todd: Yeah. See, there were charming points of this movie, and I liked the fact, again, As opposed to Critters 4, I was seeing some interesting stuff.

Like, okay, this chamber was cool. It’s like filled with smoke. It’s got chains hanging down. All they do is walk through here and just open random doors and pull on chains and that triggers weird shit to happen, like smoke blasts in somebody’s face or like blood or something falls down from the ceiling that he says, Oh, that must’ve been like some lubricant up there.

Like what? And the leprechaun swings by, slashes one of their suits with a knife and. Hurry up, get him out, get him out, and they kind of come into the decontamination chamber, but one of the guys, I can’t remember his name, That flesh eating virus works really, really fast, and he’s just a, Yeah, mooch, that was, yeah, 

Craig: Total skeleton, that was, That was cool, Okay, I’ll give it that one, I’ll give it that one, that one was okay, I mean, it was dumb, like, like, he’s gonna be totally eaten in 30 seconds, but, But it’s creative, They go back to Mittenhand, And he tells them that they have to kill the leprechaun to protect the princess.

And the leader, the guy with the metal head is like, uh, our contract is up at midnight and we’re out of here at midnight. We don’t care. Princess, we’re out. And Mittenhouse gets really mad and it’s like yelling at them and says, You’re gonna, are 

Todd: you, are you aiming for comedy right now? I feel like you’re going to, and then mitten dick was, uh, don’t stop.

I’m enjoying it, but, uh, 

Craig: he’s he, okay. So when they say they’re going to leave, he. Comes out it turns out that he’s been he even makes a reference to being the wizard of Oz like he’s Been the man behind the curtain like this big retractable door opens and he’s back there, but he’s like, I don’t 

Todd: know It’s like the upper part of his body and not even that much It’s like his shoulders and his head have been attached to a machine that can roll around.

They’re like 

Craig: grafted onto Rosie the maid From the Jetsons. Or something kind of like that. 

Todd: Actually, I saw this and I was impressed. I was like, okay, for a low budget movie, they got some cool stuff. Because when they show it from the back, they show all the gears and stuff inside of his torso. So they’ve, you know, they’ve created a separate one that you can see from the back.

I thought it was actually pretty effective makeup. I liked the fact that he had His heart on the outside in a jar. In a jar. Yeah, that was gross. The other side was, what, urine, I suppose? Just every now and then this yellow liquid is bubbling in there. But the funny thing about this was the heart is not always beating from scene to scene and shot to shot of this guy.

Oh, that’s funny. notice yeah it’s not not always beating which was kind of funny but no i actually kind of appreciated the effort that went into this guy 

Craig: i feel like his energy is the energy that everybody should have been at like he is really really hamming it up 

Todd: yeah he’s over the top evil german doctor 

Craig: right that just Total, total caricature.

Clip: Dr. Reeves is the ship’s biological officer and my personal assistant. You will see to it that she is protected at all times. With all due respect, sir, we can’t be babysitting some little You have your orders, sergeant. I suggest you 

Craig: follow them. It feels weird to me in this movie. Like, it just feels like an It’s kind of a separate plot.

Like, there’s this whole mad scientist plot kind of going on in the wings. Yes. While you’ve meanwhile just got the Leprechaun picking off the soldiers in the other part of the ship, and they feel very separate, and they really are. The 

Todd: only 

Craig: connection is 

Todd: Zarina. To be fair, they have to have a reason for not just turning Zarina over to the Leprechaun and going on their way, you know?

It’s the pressure from the doctor who wants to keep her. Because her blue blood, they can just use as DNA, you know, it’s just DNA nonsense, can be used as a regenerative, and so I think he wants to regenerate his whole body, and then he wants to use this to take over the world, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, so.

That’s right. I mean, so now they have a reason to protect her and not just hand her over to this guy, and the doctor has something to hold over the marine’s heads and to push them along, and that is exactly, you know, what the leprechaun’s trying to do is get her back, so. I mean, it all makes sense, you know.

Craig: Well, frankly, they still don’t care, but he says that they didn’t read their contracts closely enough because there was some addendum or something that said that he could extend their contract in the case of an emergency. He’s like, and this is an emergency, so your contract is extended. And I guess they take contract law very seriously because 

Todd: This was great.

Craig: Actually, no, it’s more about, you know, their honor because they’re Marines, you know, like they Well, there’s negotiation. Oh, that’s right. The negotiation was funny. That was hilarious. 

Clip: Anybody who stays becomes a shareholder of everything you make on this deal. And we want 5 percent of the gross of everything you bring out of that cave.

Anything over 50 million, we get another point as a bonus. Two and a half percent of the mineral rights, and that’s net, not gross, no bonus. Four percent, no deal. That the bonus 3% with the bonus done, and if the papers blown up, 

Todd: and so now they’re, they’re invested and they’re gonna go hunt down this leprechaun and protect this girl.

So Danny and s sticks go on the hunt. I think Danny gets separated from sticks and the leprechaun drops giant box on him. Again, conveniently avoiding, and the need for any effects, because we don’t see blood, we don’t see the, the movie is actually surprisingly bloodless. For a leprechaun movie. In a lot of these situations, you know, they’re clearly trying to do minimal makeup and minimal special effects.

But, again, he’s just prowling around the corridors. I think this is is this the guy that he’s trying to make a deal with or does that come later? I can’t remember. 

Craig: I think it comes a little bit later. I mean, several things happen here, they’re not particularly important, but this is the point, I think, where he says that he kind of feels bad about killing these guys, but it’s just because he doesn’t want to share his arena, he wants everything, and he says I’ll wed her, 

Clip: bed her, and bury her all the same day.

Craig: Yeah. So he doesn’t really care about her either, it’s, it’s, she is just a means to an end. But he needs her, so he has to kill these folks. And there’s lots of stupid and boring, meet cute flirting going on between Books and Tina. Who cares? They’re trying to do the Ripley and Brooks thing. Hicks. Hicks, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this, you’re right, Danny runs off on his own. He really just wants to make a deal with the Leprechaun. But then, this is more of a callback to the other movies. This is more in keeping with the Leprechaun. He appears on television like he’s doing a safety video, and like, he cuts off his own fingers and taunts him.

But then, he says We can make a deal just come over here where I am and the guy’s like, okay, we’ll make a deal But he’s got his gun out and obviously he’s planning to shoot him but like you said as soon as he gets close enough the leprechaun just like pulls a rope and a giant crate falls on him and We never see him again 

Todd: There’s no blood 

Craig: there’s days just okay I guess he’s dead 

Todd: and then they’re you know, they do a lot of walking through what’s essentially the same set.

So there’s this Sort of suspended walkway in one area and they’ve they’ve walked through this walkway Probably ten times in this whole movie and it’s supposed to be other locations I think and Dolores gets cornered because she goes ahead and then suddenly the door closes behind them to separate them off and they’re trying To get the door open from one side.

Meanwhile, the leprechaun confronts here on the walkway, and she blasts him with her blaster, and he explodes for the second time. But, his legs are still there, and as she approaches him, he, in another one of those horrible video effect CGI things, grows out of those legs. back up again. It’s like, oh, you can’t kill me.

And then he ends up knocking her off of the walkway, but her hands are gripped there. So she’s hanging above this really, really deep area. In the meantime, the others in the other room, as they’re trying to open the door, they’re all yelling at her, hang in there, Dolores, we’re almost there. And he does his whole one little piggy and two little piggies and three little piggies and eventually pulls her whole hand away and she falls to her death.

And that’s Dolores. I, I was surprised. I, I thought we were gonna see Dolores boobs in this. I thought she was the boob girl. Yeah. Cause we hadn’t seen Nudity yet and I was expecting it and uh, no, she dies. 

Craig: Dolores was funny. Before she died she was feeling guilty. She says to Metalhead, is it my fault? And he’s like, what do you mean?

She’s like, Well, I’m the one who gave him the boner. And Metlette says something like, you don’t have to feel bad about that. When I go, I hope I’m standing tall, just like he was. And she looks at him seductively and says, really? He 

Todd: just kind of turns and walks away. 

Craig: Like, like it turns her on. That was pretty funny.

Oh my God. That was funny. But she’s dead. Meanwhile, back in the lab, the leprechaun has made his way there. The DNA cocktail is ready, but the leprechaun. rings the doorbell and Harold goes and checks in and he’s like, hold on I just have to check and see who it is and he turns on a screen and it’s Tina naked Yeah, and she says let me in they tore off all my clothes

Which is made the more hilarious When that actually happens later. 

Todd: But 

Craig: right now it’s just the Leprechaun tricking him. When he opens it, he gets hit in the nuts with something. And then this is when the Leprechaun and Mittenhand come face to face. And I don’t know what I was expecting here, but like, they just kind of banter back and forth for a while.

Todd: You’re like me, but you’re not like me because you think you can rule through this, I can rule through fear, and blah blah blah. It is pretty boring. During all this banter Harold manages to pull what I guess is a knife out of his leg and tries to approach the Leprechaun But he spins around and he uses his magic to make that platter that was on the table Lift up, fly through the air, and smash him in the face against the wall And when the platter falls to the ground you see Harold with this sort of cartoonish giant round Garbage Pail Kids Garbage fail kid flathead.

I liked that. I thought that was funny. I thought it was funny. It was good Yeah, so I mean actually he does end up killing these people in creative ways. I think well, they’re not all just getting shot Anyway, 

Craig: right it was fine 

Todd: And then the leprechaun runs over to the doctor and he’s woken up the princess and they sit there and I guess he’s somehow I can’t remember exactly how but he somehow got the doctor Incapacitated or something because he’s like, oh, let’s let’s do some DNA experiments.

And so he pulls up a blender Which I thought was funny Dumps the DNA that they’ve extracted from her which is blue liquid in there And then because they also have vials of spiders and scorpions in there for some reason grabs those out puts those in the blender blends it all together and then injects the doctor with it and And as the marines burst in they see the guy with the flat head dead on the floor the doctor Swinging around with this syringe stuck out of his neck.

Craig: But they leave him behind. They’re like, we can’t worry about him right now. We’ve got to get the hostage. They chase them and they are surprised when Zarina comes out around the corner and says something. I don’t 

Todd: know. This is your fate. Gaze upon them.

And she, she’s pulls her tits 

Craig: out, pulls her tits out. And I, I was actually really excited about this because I’m like, Oh my God. She there, she’s going to have like monster tits or she’s going to shoot like lasers out of her tits. No, she doesn’t do anything. She just stands there with her tits out for a minute and then she closes it back up again.

And then runs off and then runs off and somebody’s like, well, you’re in trouble now. It’s the doctor that the female doctor is like, well, you’re in trouble now. And they’re like, what? Yeah. She’s like, oh, yeah, on her planet. If a royal woman shows you her boobs, it’s a death sentence. 

Todd: I mean, this was a cheap way to get nudity in here.

And apparently this was on the request of try mark. I think it’s the insistence. Yeah, they needed, they said they wanted nudity in, and the writer was pissed off at that, and so he deliberately wrote this scene to be really, really dumb. 

Craig: Knowing that behind the scenes information, I find that really hilarious.

It is. But, without that context, it just seems 

Todd: Really dumb. 

Craig: Gratuitous isn’t even the right word. No. Like, it’s just so Obvious, like, uh, guess I gotta get my tits out for a minute. Yeah. Get a good look. All right, here we go. 

Todd: I guess Tina wasn’t willing, right? Even though Tina gets her clothes torn off later, and the leprechaun pretends to be her naked, still, this is where the tits come from.

Craig: It just gets worse from here. The leprechaun magically straps a bunch of bombs to the sergeant, and I guess the sergeant is kind of like, Frozen or under the Leprechaun spell or something. They take him hostage and they take him back to the club. And on their way, the other guys, the other people follow them and on their way out of the lab, they see that Mittenhand is gone, 

Todd: right?

He’s not in his machine anymore. 

Craig: So back in the club, Zarina and the Leprechaun, this is, I think when she reminds him that his gold is still out there somewhere, but he says something to the sergeant, like. Let’s show him what kind of man you really are. And I knew exactly what’s going to happen. I’m like, this is such a stupid joke immediately.

Cause this guy, this is a big burly guy. Okay. Big, you know, and like his whole thing is like, he’s super, you know, macho, whatever this guy, the actor was casted in the Arlie Emery role in full metal jacket, Stanley Kubrick’s full metal jacket. And Arlie Emery was like a production assistant or something. I don’t remember.

And he had actual military experience and Stanley Kubrick was so taken by him that he recast 

Todd: the role. 

Craig: So that guy was always disappointed that he didn’t get to play that tough guy military role. I mean, he was still in the movie, but it was a small part. 

Todd: Yeah, well, he’s that crazy gunner who’s just shooting people down from the helicopter.

So, I mean, it’s a memorable 

Craig: I haven’t seen that movie since I was a literal child. Oh, yeah. Like, I don’t remember it. So, okay, they all come in and they’re, you know, like, there’s like a light on the stage or something and here comes Metalhead in full glam drag. And he does a whole number and he’s like interacting with them and flirting with the guys or whatever.

Todd: Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, you know, it’s dated humor, but again, in keeping with the Leprechaun series, it’s I mean, it’s another, it’s goofy thing to, it’s fine. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s 

Craig: whatever. It just, it’s using that as a way to mock and emasculate him is, like you said, it’s just old. It’s just tired. Like, okay, we get it.

Like, 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: all right, whatever. But Erena tells the leprechaun about the gold and the cargo base, so he goes off to take care of that. We come now to mitten houses or whatever his name is, Mitten. It’s alright, it’s gonna change for real this time. To his point of view, and he is a monster now. He looks good.

And he sees himself in the mirror and he gets up in front of his computer and we kind of see him from behind and he already looks good from behind. Typing on his computer and like logging, like, oh, I’m changing, my human, my humanity is going away and my bug is taking over or something. 

Clip: My experiment has gone awry.

I am becoming My brain slowly losing human perspective. I am no longer Mittenhent. I am now Mittenspider.

Craig: And so, okay, so now we’ve got the Cronenberg, um, fly, the fly going on here. I have to say, I was impressed with these prosthetics. It was like all 

Todd: the money went into this. 

Craig: Yeah. I thought they actually looked quite good. I mean, it was, you know, limited in its mobility, but it was like a full suit that had a lot of detail.

It looks. Organic it was gross. It was big a lot of moving parts. I thought it looked good Yeah, it looked really good. He was able to you know, his face looked scary But he was still able to act and emote in his face. They shot it creatively. So you don’t see a lot of moving, like, you know, in the whole suit, he grabs at people through vents and, and stuff like that.

But 

Todd: overall, it looked good. My favorite part of the movie was him. Spider, scorpion, monster thing. I, I just, I was really impressed with, uh, the makeup and the effects on this. It was good. But back in the club, Tina, who earlier had said that I have a black belt in karate, which, you know, sounds like something that eight year old says on the Playground.

Right, who cares? Yeah, that, that becomes evident because she’s the one who ends up fighting Sarge in drag and finally he, he gets knocked against the wall, knocks off his metal plate in his head and ends up dead on the ground and it turns out, plot twist, Sarge was a cyborg all along. Oh my gosh. Which, 

Craig: you know, it doesn’t surprise me.

That, you know, 2, which is fine. Mm hmm. I was glad to see it happen, because leading up to his death, first of all, I felt bad that they were in the position that he was gonna have to kill them, but he was acting really strangely. Yeah. And it turns out, it’s because he was, like, shorting out. So, you know. He was broken or whatever.

And I guess you could say she didn’t really kill him because he wasn’t really a person. So 

Todd: yeah, she eliminated the threat that he now became. 

Craig: Meanwhile, the honeymoon is over between Lep and Zarina. They’re bickering and calling each other names. And then we get Styx, who he’s just been absent for a while.

Like, I feel like they checked in with him every once in a while, but I don’t know. Yeah. Anyway, he’s back in the control room, and he gets attacked by Mitten Spider, and I thought that he was gonna be dead, and I was sad because he was my favorite character, but he’s not. The next time we see him, he is, like, cocooned, like, in a spider web.

But he’s like fighting his way out and he’s like suspended and he’s like typing on the computer. He’s working very hard. I think it was Mittenman who, he like set off the detonation sequence or like the self destruct sequence or whatever. It was either him or the leprechaun. 

Todd: Yeah, started the auto destruct.

Craig: So he’s trying to get that off. Meanwhile, the young lovebirds are trying to get the leprechaun. He and Zarina are now in the cargo bay where the gold is.

And there’s lots more stupid shooting. 

Todd: Yeah, this is, this is where I think it kind of gets a little boring. To be honest, I was kind of into it until this moment, and then it gets a little slow because now we’re in this big cargo bay, which is just a bunch of crates stacked up to create spaces for them to hide and walk around in.

And the leprechaun finds his gold shrunk down on this little platter right underneath the shrinking and expanding ray. And so he’s like, what happened here? The princess is blabbing away. And so he finally has had enough of her. So he magically makes her face look ugly. And so he says, look at yourself.

You’re not so hot looking after all. And she looks at herself in the mirror and sees the boils on her face. And she faints. And then, um, there’s just kind of a standoff in the cargo bay where at some point Tina kicks around the corner and I think she shoots a gun or something and activates this shrinking, expanding ray.

But it’s in expand mode and the leprechaun is standing right under it. And so in another horrible Case of, of, uh, video effects. It looks terrible. The leprechaun grows to be basically where his head is almost touching the ceiling in this giant cargo bay. So, uh, so yeah, so now he’s a giant in here stomping around looking for these guys, which should take two seconds, but instead it takes like 10, 15 minutes.

And she runs away. He’s kinda hung up right now. He says. Yeah, he’s kinda 

Craig: hung up right now and he’s calling them on the intercom because they need a password and Come help, cause I need a password. What are they gonna help? If you don’t know the password, you don’t have a password. Yeah, just tell them the password 

Todd: on the radio if you know it, that’s all you need.

Craig: Yeah, she runs off to help and the Brooks or books, whatever his name stays behind to fight the giant leprechaun and he takes his shirt off for no reason, but that’s okay, too. 

Todd: Yeah, I noticed this. I noticed everybody was slowly losing clothes at this point. 

Craig: And then that’s when she has to crawl through a vent.

Why does she have to crawl through a vent to get there? 

Todd: I have no idea. It’s the shortcut, maybe? 

Craig: I don’t know. There’s all kinds of spiders. It’s full of spiderwebs. So, you know that spider thing is around and it grabs at her. Through the vent, and she gets away and she gets to the lab and then, 

Todd: but, but it, as it grabs at her, so there’s like three or four scenes of the spider grabbing at her through a vent or from around the corner, whatever, and it tears off a piece of clothing until it turns out she’s wearing a swimming suit.

Craig: she’s wearing like high waisted, black like leotard, high wasted, high cut, like no, it’s like maybe a leotard or maybe looked, maybe it’s swimming. Maybe just really high cut panties. 

Todd: It looked like a swimming suit to me. It’s a one piece. It’s not panty. It’s a one piece. 

Craig: I don’t know, I don’t know, but it’s very high.

It’s very sexy and high cut. And then she just runs around in that for the rest of the time. It was just so funny that they ripped off all my clothes. And then that really happens later. Yeah, I’m sure they would have loved to have rip off more of her clothes, but she wasn’t doing nudity. So 

Todd: clearly, yeah.

And so she, she ends up inside, God, it’s, it’s so funny, just coming out of my mouth. She ends up inside of the control bay where Sticks is hanging and he’s like, come over and help me. But then Mitten Spider comes in and after her, and she’s like, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And Sticks goes, there’s liquid nitrogen over in the corner, hit him with that.

Of course it’s a space movie. So somehow liquid nitrogen has to come into play. It’s just a giver. Sure. It came into play in Critters 4, so she runs over where there’s inexplicably two giant vats of liquid nitrogen in the corner of the control room, spins around and blasts him with that, which With 

Craig: a hose that apparently shoots a vapor of liquid nitrogen.

She is holding this Hose with her bare hands the spray clearly sprays all around her hands. Yeah Oh, so silly, but she sprays him and he like freezes and gets all frosted over and goes 

Todd: Me! Me! 

Craig: The throwback to the Vincent Price. Yeah, the fly. The fly, hundred percent. 

Todd: Which I love. Oh my god There were cool in jokes here.

Craig: I, they don’t figure out the code, but Books, like, calls him on the intercom. He’s got Zarina, and he, and, and they’re away from the big leprechaun. And this is all feels very kind of anticlimactic too. Um, he’s like, open the cargo bay doors. And Tina’s like, are you sure? He’s like, yeah. So they do. And Books and Zarina get out the hatch or whatever.

They duck out. And the leprechaun just gets sucked out. Right? 

Todd: Yeah, it’s and explodes. It’s alien again He gets sucked out into space and then you know, like we’ve seen in lots of other movies when you get sucked out into space Sometimes you just die. Sometimes you freeze over Sometimes you implode sometimes you explode and this guy explodes into a bunch of pieces.

It looks stupid Yeah, they end up inside the well, I mean that was the only way it was gonna happen, right this giant leprechaun Yeah, I mean, I guess again. That’s how you kill them in aliens as well. You suck the alien airlock So anyway, they end up in the control room and they figure out the password is wizard because he was the wizard of Oz.

Yeah, he was the wizard of Oz. I mean, even the computer scene is hilarious when they show the computer screen and they type in wizard, the font is like Comic Sans. It’s so silly. The self destruct is eliminated. They’re all safe and they stare out the window and they see pieces of the giant leprechaun floating by and one of them is the leprechaun’s giant hand, which extends its middle finger.

HAHAHAHA Which is very much in keeping with the series. We know this guy’s not dead. 

Craig: Sure. 

Todd: He’s just cheeky 

Craig: Did you feel like he looks more? Reptilian in this movie than in previous movies. His skin had a reptilian texture to it, I thought, that I hadn’t noticed before. 

Todd: I feel like, you know, it, it was very textured.

I, I always love the makeup in these movies. It’s very consistent. I, I kind of felt like we were just getting more close ups. 

Craig: I like the leprechaun’s design. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah, the design is good. Warwick Davis always plays it really well. You know, no matter what. I love Warwick Davis. Yeah, he’s quite good at, at this role.

Craig: You know, I looked it up. I, I, I I asked AI if people like this movie, it’s popular, and it says that it’s generally regarded as one of the worst ones. Oh, yeah. For a lot of reasons. So, I don’t feel terrible. I mean, if you’re a fan of it, good! I’m glad that you were able to find joy in things. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha 

Todd: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

I found more joy in it. But then I thought I would. You know, for all the reasons that we kind of razzed on it, those reasons are true. But it is a leprechaun movie, I mean, come on, like, they’re all goofy and silly and ridiculous and juvenile. This was in space, and it gave you every ridiculous, silly, juvenile space joke you could probably expect.

It just wasn’t as fun as the Vegas one was, I think. It wasn’t as fun and goofy as the first one, and and I’ve seen some of the In the Hood ones, and I think those are even more fun. But what I will say about this one is that Brian Trenchard Smith, who is known for being able to kind of take a very small budget and make it feel bigger, did a pretty good job with that.

I thought that the lighting and the angles and the cinematography in general, you know, sometimes it was pedestrian, sometimes it was quite good. You know, I thought he did a pretty good job of making this very low budget movie look big. Asterisk, of course, the CGI looks like shit. But I, I actually kind of found it entertaining.

And again, maybe just on the heels of Creators 4, which didn’t really do that at all. Critters 4 wasn’t funny, it looked cheap, it didn’t feel very cinematic, and you barely saw any critters, whereas at least in this movie, it’s moving. It’s constantly moving, there’s constantly something going on, there’s hardly any moment of boredom.

They’re not long scenes where they’re sitting around talking forever. I just felt like there was a constant energy throughout the movie that didn’t really let up. So for that, I kind of enjoyed it. 

Craig: Hey, look, it’s St. Patrick’s Day. Get drunk on green beer, eat some corned beef and cabbage, you know, and throw in some leprechaun, you know, whichever one you want.

This one’s fine. Whatever. Have a good time. Enjoy yourself.

Todd: Well, thank you so much for listening to this and happy St. Patrick’s Day to all of you. We are so lucky to have such great listeners, such great patrons. Thank you so much for joining us for this film. We are two episodes into our space series. I think we already teased the other previous episodes, we might as well tell you what’s coming up next.

We’ve got Jason X and we have Hellraiser 4, Bloodlines, right? Yes. That is going to be a blast. Please stick with us, listeners, and if you know somebody who would be interested in these movies, pass this podcast along to them. You can forward them to our website, ChainsawHorror. com, or you can just Google us, Two Guys in a Chainsaw Podcast.

Subscribe to us everywhere podcasts are, and until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys abnd a Chainsaw.

We’re kicking off our first theme month of 2025 – horror franchises that inexplicably decide they must go to space – with 1992’s Critters 4, a direct-to-video sequel that sends the mischievous furballs into the final frontier.

As we reminisce about the origins of the Critters franchise, comparing it to its contemporaries like Gremlins and Ghoulies, we also puzzle over the film’s plot, performances, and oddly serious tone. Why is Terrence Mann’s character suddenly a jerk? And where the f*ck did all the critters go?

Listen as we highlight standout performances from surprising actors like Brad Dourif and Angela Bassett (?!) in this low-budget sequel. Despite its shortcomings, we hope you find this a hilarious and engaging review perfect for fans of horror franchises that go TO SPACE!

Episode 430, 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: All right, it’s time for our first theme month of 2025 and I just went right out the gate and said to Craig, Craig, can we please do the theme? Theme month that I have been dying to do since we started this podcast, which is in space franchises that just decided to go to space.

There actually aren’t that many that I could identify, which I thought made it perfect for a theme month. , I mean, there are lots of horror movies that take place in space. That’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about franchises that normally were not in space that just decided to do space.

Right? Episode, the impetus for this was. I caught Leprechaun 4 in space once, and I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever seen. And then that got me down the rabbit hole of who else has gone to space, and there are three others we can identify. 

Craig: You’ve been talking about this literally for years.

You have wanted to do an in space month. For years and like, I’ve never, I’ve never been against it or anything. It’s just, we always ended up doing something else. It just hasn’t happened. I just think it’s so funny. Like, I’m sure that we communicated about it in some way, but the way that things are really go down here is last week or a couple of weeks ago, when we’re recording the show, you’re like, and we’re going to do a theme month and it’s going to be in space.

And I’m on the other end. Like, I, I had no idea. Like, it was as much a surprise to me as it was to the audience. And I, I just sit here and nod. That 

Todd: would be a funny story if it were true. 

Craig: I’m sure we communicated at some point. I don’t think that we had solidified anything, but it’s fine. Why not? What, you didn’t object.

No, I don’t object. I, in fact, I’m excited about it. And I thought that this was a good place to start. We’re doing Critters 4. It seems like four is where space happens. At least three of the movies that we’re planning on doing. It’s part four, like part four is when you go to space. Now Critters is a little bit different, I guess, because.

They’re from space, but we’ve only ever seen them, up until now, on Earth. Right. I mean, we’ve kind of seen some space things, like there’s like the space bounty hunters and stuff, but the critters are on, they are aliens, they’re from outer space, but they’re on Earth. And this is the first time we see them in space.

This movie’s wild. Yeah, it is something 

Todd: else. The whole Critters franchise, I remember we did the first Critters, and I realized that I wasn’t as familiar with the Critters franchise as I thought I was. I knew the Ghoulies, I knew the Munchies a little bit, like, they did one or two of those movies, and of course, Gremlins and Gremlins 2, and I remember when we talked about Critters, there were two things that surprised me.

Number one was, I had always assumed that Critters was just a quick knockoff of Gremlins, But we learned that actually, no, like, the Critter’s script had been floating around for years before Gremlins was ever even announced. Although I think it, you know, finally got rushed into production pretty quickly afterwards.

The whole concept had nothing to do with the Gremlins, so that was cool. And then, uh, number two, I was surprised that they were from space. You know, the first one is a lot of This space bounty hunters going after these little guys, which I think makes it a little unique in the canon of Little tiny furry things running around causing mischief horror comedies.

Yeah, so 

Craig: it’s fun my cousins Nick and Steve if you’re listening We would rent these Critters movies because we knew they were gonna be funny Like we didn’t rent them because we thought they were gonna be scary. You know, we knew they were gonna be Silly and fun and they are like, they’re stupid. They’re dumb, stupid movies with low budget, corny effects.

And that’s what you are in it for. If you’re looking for something else, you’re looking in the wrong place. I mean, that’s what these movies are. 

Todd: Well, the critters design is, and this is another thing I was reminded of as I was watching the credits for this movie, the Chiodo brothers. The Chiodo brothers did the designs for the clowns from Killer Clowns from Outer Space.

Yep. And you can really see, in many ways, their sensibility, their artistic sensibility, I guess you could say. Yeah. And I remember that they had designed the original Critters after the Tasmanian Devil. From Looney Tunes. That’s funny. I didn’t know that. Yeah, they’ve got that spirit about them. They have that look.

They’re funny. They’re really funny. They’re mischievous. They’re 

Craig: funny. Yeah, 

Todd: they’re cute little horror guys. 

Craig: And they talk! They talk in some little weird language, and they’re subtitled, and they only say a couple of lines in this movie, in other movies, because they’re barely in it. That’s my biggest complaint about this movie is it’s barely a Critters movie.

There’s hardly any Critters in it. Yeah! It’s only an hour and a half long. And I felt like I looked at my watch at an hour in and we had maybe seen them like one time. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: They’re hardly ever around. In fact, that really bothers me because as I remember, maybe I’m mistaken. I haven’t seen them in a long time, but as I remember in the previous entries, there were critters galore.

Yes. Like you said, they were in ginormous balls rolling down the street. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: So that was a little disappointing, frankly. 

Todd: It really is, and we’re in their home territory too, you know, space. So you would think, of course, ironically, they’re actually transported to space from Earth in this movie. So it’s all a little convoluted.

Craig: It’s meant to be a direct follow up from Critters 3, which I didn’t watch, so I don’t remember, but it’s supposed to pick up right after that, where you’ve got Charlie. He has been in all of them. He’s in all the original. four. And he started out as kind of a simpleton mechanic in this small town where the critters attacked or whatever.

But over the course of the movies, he becomes the hero. He joins the bounty hunters and their plight to get rid of the critters or whatever. Yeah. But it opens up there in 1992 where critters three just ended. He finds some. Gosh, but then Terrence Mann shows up, who’s his friend. Gosh, I, I should have done more research or I should have rewatched the previous movies because I remember, you know, Terrence, Terrence Mann’s in all these movies, but I know that he and Charlie.

Were like friends and partners. Yes, I believe he wasn’t he 

Todd: one of the bounty hunters. 

Craig: Yeah He was it was him and I think some big busty blonde lady or I think that big busty blonde lady was actually like a robot Or something that could look like whatever it wanted to write. 

Todd: Yeah, it could transform 

Craig: but okay So Charlie finds these eggs, but all of a sudden ug played by Terrence man shows up Does he show up in person, or?

Todd: No, it’s a hologram. There’s like a belt hanging off of a tree or something, and he trips it and hits it, and there’s a hologram that comes out. 

Clip: Charlie? Ugg? That you in there? Charlie, my friend. Wow! Wow, it’s great to see ya! And you as well. You are in violation of Zoological Mandate E 102, Clause 14, Paragraph 5, Item 6 and 7.

Huh? Specifically, you are prohibited from terminating any transgalactic life form if it means total extinction of the species. 

Craig: So, 

Clip: like, like your whole, 

Craig: it seems like the whole goal up until this point has been to do that, and now all of a sudden, no, can’t do it. So, Charlie has to like, put them in a pod, and he somehow gets stuck in the pod too, and it gets shot out into space, and then we jump.

50 some years later, it’s like 2045, somewhere in the Saturn quadrant. 

Todd: Then 

Craig: it basically kind of becomes Alien. Like, that’s what they’re going for. And I’m down for 

Todd: it. They’re going for Alien too hard. 

Craig: Yeah, but what is remarkable about this movie, and the reason that you should watch it if you haven’t seen it, is because it has The most brilliant cast for a terrible movie I’ve ever seen.

It’s so weird. It’s crazy. 

Todd: You would not imagine that a direct to video movie, which this is, that is clearly just cheap and low on budget in almost every respect, has this cast. Brad Dourif, our favorite guy. Voice of Chucky. 

Craig: And he is so good! He’s great. This, this isn’t even, it’s not even a good movie. But like, he’s really good in it.

Like, he’s great. His character is fantastic. Yep. And then. Angela Bassett. Yes! Oh my gosh! Who doesn’t look any different? talking about? 

Todd: No. She’s so young in this, but you wouldn’t even know. She looks just the same. 

Craig: No, and this is 1992. So, Brad Dourif has already been working for a long time. Oh yeah. In critically acclaimed movies.

And Angela Bassett, I feel like this must be Among her first. Just before she became a HUGE star. Yeah. 

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: And, and still is. It’s wild. And she’s great in it too. 

Todd: She is. She did a lot of TV, I think, before this. And then this, um Oh, you know, she had very small roles in things like Kindergarten Cop, Boys in the Hood, and stuff.

But then, I think this movie, I’m not gonna say this movie was her breakout role, it certainly wasn’t. But around the time of this movie, 1991 1992, seemed to be the point where her career just took off. And she just started showing up in a lot of stuff. And I think how Stella got her groove back was probably one of the biggies.

Well, 

Craig: I think for me, her breakout role was what’s love got to do with it, where she played Tina Turner and that movie was so good. Oh, I 

Todd: haven’t seen that 

Craig: performance was amazing. Oh, if you haven’t seen it, you need to see it. It’s amazing. It’s devastating. That story, Tina Turner’s. This story is heartbreaking, 

Clip: but 

Craig: Angela Bassett, and Tina Turner endorsed the performance, endorsed the movie, appeared at the end of the movie as herself.

I think that she was either nominated or at least talked about for awards because her performance was so great. And again, guys, this is a bad movie. It’s a critters movie. It’s not a good movie. But Angela Bassett and Brad Dourif take this stupid dialogue and just elevate it like they’re going to go for it.

They’re gonna Play real people who you’re like, oh shit, like I believe that these are real people. That’s wild I didn’t expect that in this movie and I doubt we’ll probably see it again. 

Todd: Yeah 

Craig: in these space movies. It’s crazy I I was I was blown away and they’re not the only ones there are others too.

Todd: They’re not Anders Anders Hove is in this And, you know, that’s not a name that’s right on the tip of your tongue when you see him, but when you see him, you’ll be like, well, that guy’s pretty familiar. He pops in and out of things. He’s from Greenland, I believe. And he’s done stuff on both sides of the water, but he was on general hospital for decades.

Just before this movie, he kicked off that and he’s been on there up until just, I think a few years ago. And, and, you know, he, I feel like lends this kind of gravitas type acting to this role, but they’re all just. I mean, they’re all just really playing characters from Alien. I feel like you could almost map.

Craig: They are. Map one person 

Todd: to another, you know, it’s, it’s an, I would say an homage really. Because again, like you said, it’s not supposed to be a serious movie. Yeah. So, uh, it’s an Alien homage very, very deeply. It had a 

Craig: lot of potential. It had a lot of potential. It could have been really fun. It could have been Alien.

Yeah. Just with. Critters. Yeah, but they’re just not around enough. The only other actor that I wanted to mention is Anne Ramsey who plays a very very small role as a doctor on a Recording and this must it had to be have been a very very early role for her, but she’s still around I think that she’s the daughter of someone famous.

I want to say like Peggy Marshall or It doesn’t matter, but we’ve seen her and stuff. She was in that movie about Alzheimer’s. 

Todd: Oh, the taking of Debra Logan. 

Craig: That one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was the daughter in that movie. She’s been around and she’s good and she’s young and good in the two minutes that she’s in this.

Thank goodness. The fact that these interesting and good actors put in good performances, because for me, that’s kind of. It, the only thing it’s good for, it just, I didn’t beyond that. I didn’t like it. And like, right before we got on and started talking about it, I watched, I just pulled up the IMDb page and the trailer started playing.

And so I clicked the unmute button and I watched the trailer. Every good part of the movie is in the trailer. You don’t need to watch the movie. You can just watch the trailer because every good part is in the trailer. 

Todd: It’s not even funny. It seems like they intentionally decided that they were gonna ditch most of the comedy and go for something more serious here.

That threw me off guard as well. I really don’t get it. You know, I know that they filmed this simultaneously with the other Critters, so they were going straight from Critters 3 into Critters 4 production, so they certainly had the same cast and crew and all that. Well, not cast, but they certainly had the same crew and production.

I was 

Craig: gonna say, 

Todd: yeah. It’s just, why? Why did they go so I guess maybe they were thinking, Hey, maybe we need to shake it up a little bit, you know? We’ll go to space, we’ll change the tone, we’ll make it like Alien, we’ll make it, we’ll try to make it more dark. But it’s, it’s neither funny nor scary. So it’s just kinda, What is it, you know?

Boring. I think it’s kinda boring for most of 

Craig: it. Yeah, 

Todd: it’s 

Craig: boring. Yeah, and the other thing that bothered me, and I know that this is already jumping to the end, but I already mentioned his character, Ug, up until now Has been A hero and then they throw a curveball at the end of this movie that he’s the villain 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: I looked it up because this is supposed to be like 55 years later, you know after part three or whatever And so I thought, maybe this is an alien situation where Bishop, you know, there’s lots of different Bishops because they’re androids or whatever.

So I thought maybe, maybe he’s not playing the same character. Maybe he’s playing a different version of the character. But I looked it up and it, I found that no, he is the same character, he’s just turned bad. 

Todd: 50 years later. 

Craig: That just seems weird. It’s, I don’t get it. Well, he certainly doesn’t look 50 years older.

Yeah, 

Todd: that’s 

Craig: the thing. Terrence Mann, I don’t know a lot about Terrence Mann. I know that he is a prolific Broadway Actor and dancer. He played the choreographer in the film version of A Chorus Line, which is a show that I was in once. 

Clip: So I 

Craig: was interested in the movie, so I know him from that. I mostly know him from these movies, though he’s acted and he still is acting.

And he’s very recognizable, but it’s always a little unsettling to me because he just looks exactly like the Pennywise from It. Why can’t I think of his name? Oh, 

Todd: Tim Curry. 

Craig: Tim Curry. He looks exactly like Tim Curry. Like, he looks like he should play Tim Curry in the Tim Curry biopic. 

Todd: Oh, yeah, right. I see what you’re saying.

Craig: Have you never noticed that? Like, it’s so, it’s so striking to me. He looks, and he, he looks like him. He talks like him. Man, 

Todd: now that you mention it, you’re right. It didn’t even occur to me, but now I’m surprised I never noticed it before. Oh, wow. Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, he’s barely in this, right? He comes in at the beginning in a hologram, and he comes in at the very end to surprise us by being a bad guy and to break poor Charlie’s heart.

Craig: I know. I think we’re struggling with how to talk about it because I don’t really know what there is to talk about. Like, I took notes on the plot, but there just aren’t very many because 

Todd: That’s the problem. I feel like 

Craig: nothing happens. 

Todd: I feel like it’s a lot of setup with no real payoff, or with a really quick payoff.

Because, it’s really just, seriously, it’s like an alien knockoff, where it’s this, I think it’s supposed to be a garbage scow, or some ship that, you know, just gets debris. That, or at least they get money for it, that scavenges this pod that’s been floating around in space for 50 years. It gets on the ship, but then They also have to dock in some bigger space station?

Am I wrong about this? I don’t know. I guess they get a communication that offers him three times the going rate if they bring it to the space station. So they go to the space station to deliver the pod, but when they get there, it seems rather empty. So they walk around and they try to figure out what’s going on.

It’s very, very similar to Aliens or something like that. And it’s really just sitting at computers. Walking around long corridors. 

Craig: And well, and this, the, the station, this TerraCore station, and it was Ug, Terrence Mann, who told them to go there and he’s going to pay them extra money or whatever. The station has a voice, a woman’s voice, it’s named Angela, but I mean, that’s like ripped straight out of Alien 2, it’s mother.

Yeah. And it’s fun and it’s funny. And like, I appreciate it. It was funny that. Gosh, what was his, uh, character name? Albert, Albert. That was weird. Like what, 

Todd: why is it too? Ah, I don’t know. Cause they didn’t call him out. They just called him Albert the whole time. So I don’t know why. I don’t either. But 

Craig: anyway, Brad Dorff, like commit, tries to communicate with the computer, the mothership or whatever.

And it, it says like, I cannot take your orders because you are not authorized. But then. He just tricks it and starts saying whatever you do, don’t do this. And it does then. 

Clip: Angelo, give me a deck by deck scan and read off all individuals not currently in main control. I do not recognize your voice pattern as well with security clearance.

Great being a shitty TL54, don’t! 

Craig: Cooperate. Which is stupid, but funny, and it was funny to watch Brad Dourif. Again, he seemed like a real person, like I believe this is an actual person in this situation who’s being clever and trying to trick this computer. Again, thank goodness for these performances, because there is Just no substance to the story at all.

Todd: No, there’s like a bit of byplay with the main guy. What was his name, uh? Rick? Rick, yeah. Ethan’s the kid, Rick is like 

Craig: the Captain, I think? 

Todd: Yeah, he’s like the captain. And he’s like really like lecherous, you know, he he’s eyeing Angela Bassett in the very beginning. He’s like looking over at her. And then when they get to the space station, the space station has a workout room with a shower.

And I thought this scene was really kind of funny. It just smacked of low budget. You know, they spent all this time making the space station look so much like something from Alien. The corridors with the light coming down through. I mean, the probably put most of their money in the sets, to be honest with you.

Yeah, it looks really pretty good. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Todd: But then when I was going to say it doesn’t look bad, the workout room looks like they’ve got like grass on the walls and a shower that’s a door that’s just kind of like, like white paper almost, or clouded glass. Right. And a couple little machines in there and that’s it.

And they do end up spending quite a bit of time in that room. It seems to be the room that they, that they meet in or regroup in when they want to chat about stuff. But the first time we see it, she decides to go in there and take a shower. The only one of the crew who decides to go in and take a shower, obviously the woman, and it’s just almost comical how there’s just this perfect silhouette of her inside the shower, and then Rick comes in and sits down and just starts leering at her.

And I think. Tries to go in there and then she punches him out and yeah, knocks him around a bit and he gets upset and storms off 

Craig: This scene surprised me because I was surprised to see an Angela Bassett nude scene And it’s it’s modest. You see her butt and you see side boob and and she looks Amazing.

She looks Fantastic. What I liked about it was that they played it very much the same way it’s played in the alien franchise, that nudity is just not a big deal. Like, I don’t think that she was being modest. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think that she was alarmed when he was, when he arrived, like, that he was seeing her naked didn’t seem to bother her.

It was only when he got gross and lecherous that she then punched him in the face, which was great. And he deserved it. 

Todd: It’s only at this point after there’s been so much going on, and I think it’s been almost 30 minutes now. Has there? And he just ends up deciding to go check out this pod that’s been sitting there.

Craig: He thinks there must be something very valuable inside because Terrence’s man keeps popping up and being like, Yeah, he wants it real bad. And so Rick wants to demand more money, but the rest of the crew’s like, Listen, we should just, what we’ve already been offered is good. We should just take it and cut ties and get out of here.

But eventually, because he believes that there must be something very valuable in there, He goes down, you know, and they’ve been told, whatever you do, don’t open it. Um, so of course he goes down to open it. Spends a lot of time 

Todd: trying to cut into it. And then this time it’s sort of like the kid of the crew, Ethan, comes down and starts arguing with him.

Rick knocks him unconscious. 

Craig: Only after he’s opened it. He has opened it. Yeah, he has. So it’s open now. 

Todd: Charlie just comes right out of cryosleep, or whatever he was in, because he springs out of the pod like he wasn’t even in there but a minute. And then the couple of the critters, who have hatched from the eggs, I guess, leap out.

of their and uh, take Rick out and you know, it’s really a disappointingly quick scene 

Craig: Our 

Todd: first 

Craig: critter attack it is and it’s just it’s just disappointing overall Like I mean, this is kind of what the franchise Is you understand that it’s going to be cheap, you know that but like this just looks so bad Like I guess they’re supposed to be small because they’ve just hatched I guess they get bigger later Yeah, but it just looks like a beanie baby with teeth Sewn on to his hand.

Yeah. One on his hand and one on his throat. And he just rides around for a while. The only movement and articulation comes from his movement. You know, they’re moving because he’s moving. Mm hmm. But it doesn’t look real and it just looks stupid. And I say it doesn’t look real, I don’t expect it to look real, but it just It looked bad.

It’s worse 

Todd: than 

Craig: It didn’t. 

Todd: I thought it looked terrible. I mean, again, I haven’t seen the other two, at least, I mean I’ve seen the second one, but it’s been a very long time and I know I never really sat down and watched it all the way through. I just caught it as it would come on cable every now and then.

I just remember it being a little better. I mean, I always knew it was cheap, but I, I remembered it being a little better than this. It feels like they’re phoning it in here. 

Craig: You definitely get that in the other movies. You definitely get, like, just prop critters, like, attached to people. Yeah. And you definitely have, like, prop critters that people are just, like, throwing in.

Into frame. I mean, you definitely have that. They just looked better. These just, they didn’t look good. They look stupid. Yeah. It made me mad. The regular critters that we know and love appear for approximately three minutes in total later in the movie and I liked them. They, they looked like what I signed on for, but this just irritated me.

I was irritated. 

Todd: Maybe this was a thing. My guess is, so Critters 3 was a theatrical release, but Critters 4 was straight to video. Maybe that was always the plan, is to kind of throw out, as soon as Critters 3 is released in the theater, quickly put together a cheap straight to video sequel to it, and try to make money both ways.

And so maybe that’s why they just didn’t put a lot of time and energy into this one. Even the sets apparently, Were recycled from one of the director’s early movies. By the way, the director’s barely done anything, as far as directing goes. 

Craig: I know! I couldn’t find any other Nah. He’s produced a lot, but I didn’t see any other director credits for him.

Todd: He did a movie called Android back in 1982. And so apparently Oh, right, right. Nine years later, those sets were still around. Which is odd, but I guess they were. And so A lot of these sets, maybe that’s why they look so good. 

Craig: I don’t know if it was the sets, I think it was all of the space shots were reused.

That for sure. Directly from that movie. 

Todd: Yeah, that for sure. 

Craig: But the sets too? Well, 

Todd: I mean, the external space scenes and many sets is what. It says in the trivia. I had a hard time finding too much information about this movie, honestly. Me too. But yeah, you’re right. The footage from the, from the outside stuff is obviously higher budget than this movie could afford.

And it’s lifted straight out of that movie. And then apparently the footage of Ugg’s ship at the end was taken from Critters 2 so oh You take stock footage from those other two films for these fancier like things flying around and landing and space stuff you take Sets from this guy’s movie nine years before called Android and you know I guess this was done on a shoestring.

I guess they didn’t have money to I don’t know To put into a lot of Critter effects either. 

Craig: I don’t, apparently not because they never show up because it’s super boring. Yeah, they just disappear. Yeah, they’re just not around for a while. Charlie gets introduced to everybody on the ship and he’s surprised that it’s 50 some years later, but it’s fine.

He’s cool with it. Not, uh, well, that means everybody I know is. It’s dead. Uh, it’s fine. Like, 

Todd: it’s stupid and boring. They make a very lame attempt to mine some drama out of this idea that Charlie realizes that it’s 50 years later. But it is quick, and it’s done, and we’re over it. And it’s boring. And 

Craig: who cares?

Nobody cares. They eventually find, like, they watch a video or something of this Dr. McCormick. Ann Ramsey who I mentioned before and it talks about how on this space station what they were doing was they were trying to like make hybrid aliens for weaponry purposes 

Clip: However, so far we have not been able to make it self reproducing projections demonstrate that a planetary drop of 1000 cephaloids could efficiently eliminate all other life forms.

Oh. And clear a target property in as little as two months, if we can develop the means to make them replicate. Therefore, as all the other artificials tend to deconstruct after a few days, I recommend the continuation of funding in order to locate a naturally existing, self replicating predator species until, and unless, the syphiloids prove more viable.

Craig: So that obviously tells us that that’s what Terrence Mann wants. He wants the critters because they are a self replicating deadly species. So they want to weaponize them or whatever. Make them 

Todd: bigger or whatever, yeah. 

Craig: Again, who cares? I mean, this is like, this is a, it’s, it’s alien too. 

Todd: Yeah. The corporation.

Craig: It’s Paul Reiser being the bad corporate guy, pretending to be a nice guy, but really they just want the alien to weaponize it. It makes me mad. I, I’m I’m bored talking about it. I know. 

Todd: And then there’s this weird guy, Bernie, who’s barely in it, but he, for some reason, is really into the pharmacy. I guess he’s a druggie.

Craig: Well, I mean, he’s in space. And there’s a huge pharmacy full of drugs. I would, I mean, it wouldn’t be my first priority, but I would definitely do that too. Well, you need them. Just the same way that I would get all the, yeah, I would get all the food. I would get anything that I could get. I, I don’t blame him.

But the 

Todd: way he gets the drugs as he opens up a duffel bag, starts pulling drawers of random pills out and just dumping them all together into this duffel bag. Like, what? Don’t you want to make a note as to what is what? I know. It’s ridiculous. And I think that’s the other kill we get, and that is Far into it, far into 

Craig: it.

I know, but then again, this is just a direct copy of alien one when they can see on some little Atari screen that. There are life forms moving towards him, and they warn him via intercom. Yeah. It’s the exact same scene from Alien 1, when they’re saying, They’re getting close, they’re right next to you, they’re right there!

It’s the exact same thing, but he is so Concerned with collecting thousands of random spilled pills on the floor into a duffel bag that he doesn’t 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: he doesn’t do anything. He just sits there until they eventually pop out of the vents and attack him and kill him 

Todd: Yeah, and 

Craig: then to be fair the critters are now approximately the size of basketballs I guess.

And they look more like the traditional critters that we know with the red eyes and the rows of teeth. And 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: I like that. I do. I really like the design. I like the design of the critters. I like the idea of them. I want to like this franchise and I want to like this movie, but so much of it was disappointing.

Too much of it was disappointing. There were good things and I’m glad that I watched it, especially for the cast, but overall. 

Todd: I mean, there’s also a direct Star Wars ripoff. I mean, it is so shameless, right? They come to find his body, and then I think Angela starts sealing things off. So Charlie and Ethan, I think, end up locked in the pharmacy.

So, their solution is to crawl out through an air vent that’s in there. But as they crawl in, they end up falling down a chute into a big trash compactor. A 

Craig: trash compactor! It’s the 

Todd: same, it’s Star Wars, it is so shameless! Yep. Ah! It’s 

Craig: a direct ripoff, yeah. 

Todd: If you’re gonna do that, like, make it funny, or, I don’t know.

I dunno how you do it. Mm-hmm . You know, only Mel Brooks can really do this. You know, like, you make it goofy and Right. This movie’s is too, is trying to take itself too seriously, so it just comes off as lame. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And they’re way out of, it’s lame too, you know. Right. If you 

Craig: if, if you’re going to do it, it kind of has to be a wink at the audience.

Yeah. And this doesn’t feel like that. It just, it all, it almost feels like they don’t even know, you know, like, oh, we’re just doing this scene. We don’t even realize that it’s a reference. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: you have to give a little wink and a nod to the audience in a place like this 

Todd: They just tell Angela not to jettison the stuff or no They tell Angela to jettison the stuff so she decides not to and then they just climb on each other’s shoulders.

Yeah Yeah, 

Craig: I liked I didn’t I didn’t write it down I don’t think but I I liked the she said something like I am NOT programmed to take orders from waste or something

She was the funniest character. 

Todd: I guess 

Craig: that voice, she was the funniest. 

Todd: He wasn’t even at it that often either. So anyway, they find some more eggs, so they know they’re laying eggs. 

Craig: And somebody says, I think it’s Charlie’s like, they’ve been busy. What is this? I don’t understand this. Like, is it, are these critters?

There’s only two of them initially. Are they a couple? Are they mating and laying eggs? I don’t understand because they’re just laying eggs. It’s apparently they’re all over and at one point, the only point in the movie where we see the two of them, the critters, and they talk to each other and it’s subtitled.

One of them says to the other, I’ll pack the ship. You get the kids. Yes. And they separate. Like, one of them’s gonna get the spaceship ready for them, and the other one’s gonna go get the eggs, I guess? Yeah, 

Todd: I guess so. Or the 

Craig: new critters that have hatched, because eventually there are a whole bunch of them, semi inexplicably, because somebody says at some point that the eggs take six months.

To incubate, but a bunch of critters hatch. 

Todd: I think the implication is they speed that up using that machine in the lab. Okay. The crew does end up stumbling into the lab or somebody, I can’t remember who, and they, they see the critters in there and they’re at the machine. This is the most, honestly, this is probably the most critter action we get.

Is, uh, they’re in there, they’re, they’re ha 

Clip: ha ha ha 

Todd: cackling and using the machine and someone’s in the machine and they’re growing to a giant size. You know, it’s funny, that critter in the machine grows to this giant size and I thought that would be like a thing, but then I don’t think we ever see him again.

And somebody maybe gets attacked or maybe they get chased out of there or something or maybe that’s just, we see it and nobody actually sees all that happening. I don’t remember. Anyway, at some point, Charlie’s got a gun and they’re on this hatch. They’ve set a, they’ve set a course for Earth, which is I guess the nearest planet.

And I, I think they’re in like an escape pod, or at least they’re in the driver’s seat of this, maybe their original ship, yeah? 

Craig: Something, I don’t know, but the two critters come out and Charlie shoots one of them with his gun, but it also, like, disables the whole ship. 

Todd: Yeah, cause he shot everything. He just shoots indiscriminately around the ship, and they’re like, No, no, no, no, no!

And he’s just shooting at this critter, but he’s missing, and he’s just breaking everything in the in the place. 

Craig: So at this point, they just have to wait. I I guess, Ugg, Terran’s man, is coming, I guess? Um, and so, they just have to wait for him. But Ethan 

Todd: Gets this sudden boldness like I’ve got to go and beat them.

I’ve got to go finish the job or something 

Craig: They’re like Ethan no and and what it’s happening. What’s his name Albert? Brad Dourif is like no don’t go. We should just wait and he screams at him. You’re not my father What? What is happening? 

Todd: An implication, cause they had a scene in, early in the movie. Was there some implication that he was like a stepfather, or like he was a father figure for him, in some way?

Craig: I have no idea what was going on with this. Like now later, Albert gets killed and it seems like, it seems like Ethan is really choked up about it. So it seems like, it seems like they were kind of going for something, but. You’re not my father. And then being sad when he dies, doesn’t get there for me. It’s a little half assed.

Todd: You kind of wonder if there was a deleted scene or two. It 

Craig: could have been something. I’m sure Brad Dourif could have done it. And maybe you’re right. Maybe there were deleted scenes where there was more explained about their relationship dynamic just seemed to come out of nowhere where. Like you said, he’s suddenly emboldened.

He’s going to go hunt the critter and they try to stop him. You’re not my fault. Okay. All right, sir. Do whatever you want, I guess. And then he goes back to that lab and I, you’re going to have to fill me in because I felt like I missed something. He like pulls up like a hood from lab equipment or whatever.

Was that like a weird. Baby critter? 

Todd: I guess. Or was 

Craig: it just something else? Like there’s this little gooey Toothy 

Todd: thing. I think it was supposed to be a baby critter And this is where I think maybe the reason why the eggs were hatching faster was because the critters had put them in those incubators It’s just a little one off, right?

He opens it up. He sees that little toothy thing He’s like, oh that’s messed up and then drops it. I mean, it’s there’s no. It 

Craig: was fun. I like to see it It was one of the few interesting things to see See in the movie but I didn’t have any idea what was happening. 

Todd: No, I know I’m backtracking a little bit but at that point where Angela had like somehow sealed the crew all off in one corridor and then they realized that they could Open up a hatch in the floor and start going down floors Ah, that was so boring.

I think we watched them go down like, do the same thing three times. It was funny because there’s this POV, well there’s this upshot, they lift this hatch and then the camera’s under the hatch and you see the hatch open and then their faces peer down. And when they open that hatch It was the cheapest looking thing I had ever seen.

It’s supposed to be this big metal hatch, but it’s clearly painted wood because you can see the wood grain texture underneath the paint. And for something that is that close up to look so bad, I was just rolling my eyes. And then They go down through the hatch to the next floor, and then they go down through that hatch to the next floor, and then they go down through that hatch, and I’m like, are they, are they just trying to run the clock here?

There were so many slow moments like that in this movie where just nothing interesting was ha something was happening, but it wasn’t interesting. 

Craig: I literally just watched this movie. I, I had planned to watch it last night, but I had a long day that ended with a big dinner and drinks. And so, by the time I got home, I was full and a little tipsy.

and tired, and I just wanted to go to bed. So I just went to bed. So I got up at 6 a. m. this Sunday morning to watch this movie. So I literally just watched it and I remember virtually nothing about it.

Well, I remember the good people who were in it because they were good, but you’re, you’re talking about things that haven’t, I don’t know, I don’t, yeah, they crawled around in the floor for a while. I don’t know. Eventually, eventually that, that. Ship arrives and they think it’s gonna be their rescue ship, but as it just should be like 

Todd: yeah 

Craig: I don’t understand why Ugg who is now some like corporal or something why he has to come in and be an asshole Why do you have to be an asshole?

What you want is there Come in, be nice, get what you want, leave them there or take them, send them home, whatever you want, but he just, he comes in just like, you know, he, he, he stormed troops in like Darth Vader. Oh yeah. Where are they? And he’s just a douchebag. And then he immediately, I don’t remember which comes first, but he bitch slaps the woman.

Todd: Uh. 

Craig: Shoots Brad Dourif dead. Yeah. Like within. Minutes of arrival. Yeah. Made me mad. Right? 

Todd: And What’s his name is crying over him, Ethan, very dramatically, and Charlie is upset and this is supposed to be a moment But it’s just puzzling, right? You don’t know why. There’s no explanation. That’s why I thought, was there a missing scene?

Or maybe I thought Critters 3 would have explained it. He would have explained why this guy turned bad. 

Craig: Well, Charlie, it’s annoying. It’s lazy. Because Charlie’s like, Ugh, I thought we were friends. Like, when they come in, and everybody else, Fran or whatever’s like, Who is this? Charlie’s like, This is my friend.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And then he slaps her and shoots the other guy. And Charlie’s like, bro, what the f And just says, things changed, Charlie. 

Clip: And that’s it. 

Craig: That’s the only explanation we get? That’s all 

Todd: we get. It’s pretty lame. And then the troops, his stormtroopers, and that’s what they are, they’re just black instead of white, and they go out through the ship to find the eggs.

And this is, and then so Ethan runs back and starts to set up traps for these guys, I guess. 

Craig: Which is dumb, like, he’s basically just telling the ship to close doors, and it goes on for a long time. Yeah. It’s stupid. They, they end up, the soldiers end up in a lab, and there are lots of Critters there. I don’t even really remember what happens with that.

Like do the critters kill them? Yeah, they kill the critters 

Todd: They kill them 

Craig: but but so the the critters kill the soldiers or the soldiers kill the critter I 

Todd: think that the critters kill the soldiers. 

Craig: That’s what I thought too Apparently they’re still just there but then ethan Comes in and confronts Ugg by juggling the critter eggs.

And he’s like, these are the last ones in existence. I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s trying to do. It’s like a hostage situation kind of thing, I guess. But it’s just dumb. It’s just, it’s, it’s just all for drama. And like, he’s juggling them at first, but then he intentionally breaks one of them. And somehow, I think, mysteriously, is still juggling three.

Yeah, that’s right. I don’t know. It’s true. He breaks all but one. And then Fran somehow pistol whips Ugg and knocks him out. 

Todd: Yeah, because Ethan tosses the last egg. I mean, it’s supposed to be like a distraction. And so when Ugg looks at it, Fran pistol whips him. He’s unconscious. And then, uh 

Craig: Ethan has to linger to be sad about Yes, 

Todd: that’s when he’s sad, I forgot.

Brad Dourif. He’s very, very sad. He’s melodramatically crying over the body. It didn’t read, right? Because, you’re right, there was just no arc there. It was just a sudden jump from, you’re not my father, to, oh my god, my life is ending. 

Craig: Right. And he gets attacked by a critter and he like, freezes one with, I don’t know, some sort of hose or something.

And that was fun, I liked it, it’s in the trailer, if you You don’t have to watch the whole movie. And then Ugg is awake and I think is menacing Ethan or whatever. But Charlie shows up and has his gun pointed at Ugg and he says, Things change, ugh. And then he shoots him in the head. And they all leave. And the station, I guess, explodes behind them.

Which again, I think is stolen directly from Alien 2. Right. Like, Fran tells Charlie not to touch anything, and because he’s a big dumb dumb, he just pushes some button that sends the ship into a tailspin, and that’s just the end. 

Todd: Is it supposed to be funny? 

Craig: I’m fine with that, if that’s the tone of the movie, but it hasn’t been up until now.

Yeah. I wish that it were. Yeah. I wish that it had been screwball comedy throughout, but it wasn’t. And so to just tag that on at the end just had me rolling my eyes. And I was just glad it was over. Well, 

Todd: there are two things that I take away from this. Number one, I guess that’s the end of the critters, right?

Unless we get some prequels or something. They’re all dead now. Like they’re extinct because that was the last of them. 

Craig: There’s another movie and there is there. Oh, there was a, like a web series. I haven’t seen either of them. 

Todd: All right. So anyway, there’s that. Then the second thing was, I just think they misfired this one.

They. Just should have continued to make it funny kept the comedy in it. Yeah, I agree They probably could have salvaged this whole movie. That was 

Craig: my favorite part. 

Todd: Yeah. Well, that was was the part that was the point, right? So it’s just an odd decision and it didn’t work. It just made a boring ass movie with hardly any critters in it And that was a, I know, sad way for me to kick off space month.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, it was fun. I still, I still had fun. It’s stupid. It’s a stupid movie. And if you’re looking to watch a stupid movie, you could, well, that’s true. Here you go. There’s worse. 

Todd: There’s more boring movies out there. 

Craig: And there are worse. There, there are more infuriating movies, but this is a background movie.

A hundred percent. You do not need to sit down and look at it the whole time. Clean your house, work out, do your work on your computer, and just have this on in the background. Because there’s about three minutes of really fun stuff. And again, if you don’t even want to put that much into it, just watch the trailer.

Because every good part of the movie is in the trailer. I almost wonder if the actors being so good Was of detriment to the movie. I, um, maybe if they had been bad actors, Oh, 

Todd: would have been more fun. It would have 

Craig: felt more like, it’s so bad, it’s good. But they’re not, they’re good. They’re good, they’re good actors, weirdly cast in a bad movie.

I, I think that, that, that it changes the tone Yeah. In a way that doesn’t service the movie. Yeah. Unfortunately, unfortunately, and it’s not their fault, they’re doing their job and they’re doing their best and they’re doing a really good job, but it doesn’t service the movie well, I don’t think. 

Todd: Yeah, I think you’re right.

So, I mean, it’s a big miss as far as I’m concerned. Like you said, if you’re curious, you should just watch the trailer, and if you’re really curious, you can have it on in the background while you’re cooking dinner or something like that. It’s not really But, they went to space, and I, this was the last It’s kind of, they went to 

Craig: space.

I’m actually really glad that we did this one first. Yeah. Um, I think it was a good way to kick it off because I’m really excited about the ones coming up. I mean, I mean, people could guess, do, do we want to, do we want to spoil? I don’t know. You know, Jason goes to space. I’m, I was shocked. To learn that we haven’t already talked about that.

I was shocked. 

Todd: Well, we haven’t done too many. Neymar goes 

Craig: to space, 

Todd: pinhead goes to space, and then the Leprechaun goes to space after he’s been in the hood 

Craig: and Leprechaun goes to space. And I’m excited about all of them because I really think that there’s kind of unlike this one with all three of those.

I know that there’s a lot to talk about, and I’m super, super excited to talk about. 

Todd: And I remember, again, as the thing that kicked off this whole idea: Leprechaun goes to space. If my memory serves me is going to be everything that this movie was supposed to be but wasn’t it’s got its goofball It’s a ripoff tongue in cheek for Star Wars and everything like that.

And I think it’s gonna be a blast. I think so, too Well, thank you guys for joining us for this adventure into space. This month, we hope that you’ll stick around for all four in the series. This would be a great time to introduce someone else to the podcast because we’re going to have a blast with these four movies this month.

Send them to our website, ChainsawHorror. com so that they can subscribe on any number of the places where they get their podcasts. You can also talk to us on that website by clicking talk to us. You can subscribe to our newsletter on that website. Until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

It’s not often you find something unique in the world of horror. Swallowed gave Mark Patton (star of Nightmare on Elm Street 2) a chance to be himself on the silver screen as a gay drug dealer trying to recover his horrifying cargo from the bodies of two young men coerced into smuggling it across the border.

Full of uncomfortable tension and frankly excellent performances, Swallowed gave us a lot to talk about and a lot to love. We’re happy to add it to our short but growing list of queer-themed horror we’ve covered on the podcast thus far. Enjoy!

Swallowed (2022)

Episode 429, 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, this week’s movie you picked out. It wasn’t until I finished watching the movie and then I started digging into IMDB. Just how many, uh, things this movie intersects with what we’ve already done. From the actors, to the director. And I was surprised, because the movie seemed so unique and different from anything that we have done.

Oh, we’ve done some similar stuff, but in any case, this is 2022’s Swallowed. Written and directed by Carter Smith. He did The Ruins in 2008 and it was a short film that he did that won the grand jury prize in the Sundance Film Festival called Bug Crush, which you and I both watched as well and we’re going to save for a mini sode for our patrons because it’s really that interesting.

Interesting enough for us to talk about it. Also interesting enough that it won the grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival, which is what got him the gig. in the first place on The Ruins, but I was reading an interview with the director and he said that even after doing this big movie, The Ruins, which is based on a novel and Stephen King loved the movie and I think Steven Spielberg had a hand in producing it.

We did it here on the podcast, you can go back and Listen to that episode. He said he wanted to go back and do something a little more personal, very low budget, where he didn’t have to answer to anybody. He could kind of make the film he wanted to make. And so we have this movie, Swallowed. I hadn’t seen it before, but you chose it.

Uh, had you seen it before?

Craig: Yep. I had wanted to see this for a long time. Because I first read about it, I think either when they were making it or just, it hadn’t been released yet. And that was years and years ago. And I don’t remember the timeline exactly, but I feel like it somewhat coincided with that documentary.

Green Queen about Mark, what’s his last name, the guy in this movie? Mark Patton. Yeah, and so there had been kind of a renewed interest in Mark Patton, and then I think the news that I saw was that he had been cast in this movie, and that it was a queer themed movie, and it was kind of, you know, celebrating how He was kind of getting back into acting and back into horror after a long absence.

And so I was interested in that because I had watched his documentary. It was, it was fascinating. It was sad. It was sad what he went through. And so I was happy that he was getting another opportunity and it just kind of looked interesting. And there aren’t a ton of queer horror movies. So I was kind of excited about that too.

Yeah. Forgot 

Todd: about it forever. For the last, uh, three years at least. Of course, we talked about Nightmare on Elm Street 2. For those people who don’t know what you’re talking about with Mark Patton, he was the star of Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2, which has, I mean, you can’t really say subtext. It’s almost overtly text.

Has a strong queer themes, gay themes. You know, Freddy is possessing him. He’s trying to come out. And Mark Patton, supposedly, well. For sure, Mark Patton didn’t realize how he was playing it in the movie and eventually the writer admitted, of Nightmare on Elm Street 2, admitted that he had indeed written these themes into the movie, and duh, but then blamed it on him, said, oh people were saying this movie is so gay and stuff, you know, I didn’t write that in there, it was all the casting, it was all Mark, and at a time in which being out In Hollywood was kind of bad for your career.

Mm hmm. And at the same time, the AIDS crisis is coming into full swing. And so, all around, it’s a time of fear for homosexuals in the United States. It really just kind of destroyed him. And he was really up and coming in Hollywood. Yeah. Crazy so, and you watch Scream Queen and you’re like, holy shit, this guy was on the love boat, he was on TV, he was rooming with a, another rising, a guy who was even more famous than he was at the time.

And then his whole world just came crashing down around him at what should have been just the peak of his career. Right. You know, getting this huge Big movie. So anyway, like we talked about that Nightmare on Elm Street part two episode, but really you ought to go see that, um, Scream Queen to really get a full appreciation of, of Mark Patton.

I didn’t know anything about this. I just turned it on because that’s what we were doing this week. And, uh, when I saw his name flash up on the screen, I was like, that Mark Patton, he’s going to be in this. I kid you not last week. Liz and I watched Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2 and followed it up with Scream Queen.

So he was fresh in my mind. Oh, wow. Going into this. So it was a real special treat, yeah, to see him in this and to watch this movie. God, I don’t know where to start. This movie is something else. 

Craig: It is. The other thing, real quick, you know, so I forgot about it for years and then it popped up on Tubi and I was like, oh shit, yeah, I wanted to see this movie forever.

So I turned it on, and it opens with a young man dancing in a club, and then his name comes up on screen, and it’s Cooper Cooke. I had just gotten done, not, I mean, not just gotten done, but within the last year, just watched Ryan Murphy’s season of Monster on The Menendez brothers and Cooper Cook plays Eric Menendez and he is brilliant.

I have no idea how he went unrecognized in award season because his performance and I don’t know. I’m not like an Eric Menendez stand, so I don’t know how accurate it was, but it was just such a compelling performance. There was one episode. It aired uninterrupted, no commercials. It was, I think, 34 minutes.

It was one continuous shot just on him sitting in an interrogation room and the camera started pulled back pretty far from behind. The person that he’s talking to, he’s talking to his attorney and telling his story. It starts out behind her and over the course of that 35 minutes, it zooms in on him so slowly that it’s almost imperceptible.

Like, your mind is asking you, wait, has something changed? And, and finally you realize it’s slowly, slowly coming in. But he gives this Uninterrupted 34 minute, incredibly emotional monologue. And from that moment on, I have been a huge fan of his to be really completely honest, I have a big crush on him.

Todd: He’s a specimen of a man. This guy he’s, he’s got the looks, man. He is 

Craig: a beautiful, beautiful person. But in addition to that, I think that he’s a really, really talented actor and. I think that that shows in this movie too. I found him to be so compelling as an actor. I wanted to protect him. Like he just comes across as innocent and vulnerable, not necessarily naive.

Like he understands. The way of the world and that the world can be a cruel place But he’s kind of like this little innocent creature in this ugly place But it also comes across really genuine and really sincere. Yeah across the board I thought that the well, I don’t know we can talk about all the performances but there aren’t a lot of people in this movie and There are some really really strong performances.

I thought 

Todd: I thought 

Craig: so. Okay got that off my chest 

Todd: He was also in they them too wasn’t he yeah, and I don’t remember him from that at all Yeah, I don’t remember either but but he was Stu. I mean there were so many people in that movie. It’s hard to To remember who was who. I think we had mixed feelings about that movie, but, uh, 

Craig: I liked it.

Yeah. I don’t remember. 

Todd: Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t a bad, it just, we were just kind of thought maybe it was a little uneven or at times. I can’t remember exactly. This movie, it had me on edge to a point. I thought it was very intense for a very long time and darn it. We just came off of another movie that was just intense pretty much the whole time, but this one, yeah, up to a point.

And then I felt it was getting a little long. And then there was some tonal shift in there. It just allowed me to relax, I would almost say it allowed me to relax too much, and I wondered if we were veering into something else. 

Craig: That’s a common criticism that I’ve read in a lot of places, and it doesn’t, I think ultimately it hinges on Mark Patton’s entrance.

It seems like whenever I read that, it’s at that point in the movie that people start to feel like it’s lost something, or that it’s veered in a wrong direction, and I, I don’t get it. 

Todd: It wasn’t at that moment for me. It was later in the movie, and I don’t want to give anything away, but it was definitely later in the movie that I felt that, but 

Craig: Right, right, 

Todd: right.

Yeah, I can see why people would feel that way about his entrance, though, because he’s not what you expect. He comes in, and you’re expecting one kind of character, and then it turns out to be a very different kind of character, but I would argue no less But I 

Craig: feel like that’s kind of the point. 

Todd: It is the point.

And I, and again, I would argue no less threatening than the big hulking brute that I thought might be in. And in some ways, a lot, for me anyway, a lot less predictable. I found him super sleazy. 

Craig: Yeah. Okay. So we better get, there’s not a lot of plot, but I feel like there may be things we want to talk about.

Oh yeah. The guy dancing in this, in this, it seems like a small. Club, it’s not like, they’re not in LA, these are small town people. But Ben is dancing, and he’s there with his best friend Dom, played by Jose Colon, who I don’t know anything about, except that I think he’s worked with this director before, but I’m not sure.

Todd: The director’s a photographer, primarily, and uh, I think he was a model for him. And he actually, I read an interview with the director, and he said that it was after shooting this guy, that he went home and started writing this movie right away. Huh. Yeah, he, this guy was kind of I like him too. Yeah, he was good, and so he was a first time actor, and he did fantastic, I 

Craig: thought, 

Todd: for his performance.

Craig: Yeah. You know, sometimes, I don’t know, sometimes non actors can give really good performances because they don’t Because they’re not performative? Does that make sense? Yeah, they’re not trying too hard. They 

Todd: haven’t had their time on the stage. Yeah. 

Craig: He doesn’t have as much opportunity. Anyway, whatever, they’re together and they’re talking about how Ben is going to go off and be a porn star in Los Angeles.

I’m 

Clip: really 

Craig: going to 

Clip: miss this place. Yeah, it um, it’s got like uh, so much. It’s definitely got a charm of its own. Yeah. That’s for sure.

I’m gonna miss you too. I’m not the one leaving. Yeah, you are. Right. Okay, but you would be doing the exact same thing if it was you. You know that, right? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Tell me one good reason why I should stay here.

Seriously, just one. 

Craig: How about I just take that? Yeah, exactly. I am already sensing that there’s tension between these guys and like, not negative tension. Like there’s sexual tension, even though it seems very apparent that they are platonic friends at this point. But there’s, there’s just a chemistry between them.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Dom says that Ben’s going to need money and he’s got some things set up with his. He doesn’t say what it is, but he wants to send his friend off with money to make sure that he’s okay or whatever. Mm hmm. 

Todd: It’s a sweet gesture in a kind of shitty way. 

Craig: It’s not a situation that I can relate to. No.

Directly, you know, I’ve never sent any of my friends off to be porn stars, but You know what I mean? Like Sadly. That doesn’t seem to be the important part of it. Like, that just happens to be what he’s going to do. Yeah. I think maybe it’s important later that he is a person who understands that he is capable of exploiting his good looks.

Todd: Mm hmm. 

Craig: I think that’s important later, but the fact that he’s going to be a porn star is just casual, like it’s He may as well be going out there to be like a real estate broker. It, uh, whatever, it doesn’t matter. 

Todd: It’s more or less downplayed, yeah. I thought that was going to come into play later in the movie, and I was kind of happy it didn’t.

Ha ha! But for me, I just assumed that Dom was gay as well, even though I could tell their relationship was pretty platonic. And so it wasn’t until a little later, and again, I don’t think a big deal was made out of it, but I think a little later He says something about him being a straight guy, and he I think he’s being teased or something about their relationship a little bit But yeah So they leave that club and then they go to this cousin and he says something about where I got to make a drop or I got to do a pickup or a or something like that that instantly made me think oh shit.

This is a drug thing You know, cause I didn’t know what direction this movie was going in. I didn’t even know what the title meant. I thought the title was a little bit of a trick because on the poster and the art of the movie, there’s like this image of this guy with tears in his eyes and his neck way back and it’s.

His throat is bulging and they call it a body horror movie. And I thought, Oh God, like I, I was just expecting the worst with this. Well, what ends up happening is pretty horrifying, but it didn’t, it didn’t get, I was thinking, Oh, is this going to be like an alien thing or something like that? And it kind of turns out not to be.

Craig: That you’re right. Exactly. Well, I mean, it’s, it’s obviously also no coincidence that. Cooper Cooke’s head is back and his mouth is open and the title, Swallowed, is very phallic, you know, like pointed right towards his mouth. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: it is. And I, but I think that the movie is too, but in a way that, I don’t know.

It’s 

Todd: disarming. 

Craig: Yeah, well, it just kind of embraces sexuality. Like, it’s an inherent thread of the movie, but it’s not, it’s not really salacious. I don’t know. Maybe people will agree or disagree because, frankly, aside from, Full frontal male nudity, of which there is a lot. This movie is not graphic. No. It’s very suggestive.

Todd: There’s no sex in it, per se, is there? But, Mmm, no. But, the possibility of bad sexual things happening is almost ever present after a point. But, but when I said salacious, I just meant like, The title, the cover art, you know, all that stuff. Yes. 

Craig: Oh, right, right, right. And 

Todd: so, I say it’s disarming because you come into this movie expecting that it’s going to be salacious.

And the fact that it’s not is almost worse because it’s more uncomfortable. You know, it’s the difference between when we’re, we’re so, especially in the horror realm. And again, I think this is part of the point. Who is an avowed horror fanatic, you know, grew up watching horror movies, but has said, you know, I never could see They’re filled with nudity, just not the kind of nudity I wanted to see, you know, right and Most of these horror movies the nudity is thrown in and it’s usually very gratuitous But it’s silly the girl taking a shower It’s just boobs and oh now we got to go skinny dipping and stuff like that And then it’s over the more uncomfortable horror movies are The I spit on your graves, you know, the rape revenge, in which that nudity is very much, like, not titillating at all, and it’s actually really disturbing, and that’s, that’s where the horror comes from.

This movie’s kind of in between, in a way that it, it’s riding that line, you know, it’s always threatening the very uncomfortable stuff. 

Craig: Yeah, I would say it, in terms of the tension, I would say it gets there by the end. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: It’s not as graphically violent, but in terms of the tension Oh man, the tension gets crazy at the end, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

There are so many things that I want to talk about, but I feel like we’ve got to get to it. Okay. So it is a drug thing. They go to Dom’s cousin’s house who we don’t really see her. She’s like sick. They deal with this other woman, Alice played by Jenna Malone, who also has worked with this director before she was the star of the ruins.

Apparently they. And I think she’s excellent in this movie 

Todd: too! She’s insanely good in this movie. I was really, really impressed with her character and how she played it. She was in, um, wasn’t she in The Hunger Games as well, I think? 

Craig: Yep, yep. She was a badass in that too, and she’s a badass in this, and this, you know, this is a relatively petite woman.

But she just has an, a presence about her. She’s a badass. And at first, you know, they were volunteering. Ben didn’t know anything about this and is very uncomfortable about it, but Dom was volunteering, but when they find out that they have to swallow what I assumed were like condoms, I’ve seen this, you know, in movies, not in real life, but like, you know, people put.

Heroin or coke or whatever and little balls and condoms and tie them up and then people swallow them and poop them out And that’s right about it. Yeah border. So yeah, I’ve seen it in movies or whatever Okay, when they find out that’s what they have to do. They’re like, no, no, no, we’re not gonna do it But she keeps getting calls from her boss And eventually she pulls a gun on them and says, you are doing it and forces Dom to swallow several of them that gets interrupted because he sees that his cousin is sick.

So while he’s gone checking on her, she forces Ben to swallow one too, and then Dom comes back and swallows the last one or something. So I think Dom’s got like four inside and Ben’s got one inside and they’re supposed to drive to this rest stop. Jenna Malone is constantly making digs at Ben gay digs.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I thought was kind of weird. Like, like she’s like, there’s this little rest up and he’s like, I know it. She’s like, of course you know, it . Right. I, I couldn’t tell if that, I couldn’t tell if that was comedy or if, I don’t know. It was a little weird time. It, it happens several more times. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I think she’s just kind of being a bitch, but whatever they get across border.

You know, security or whatever, and they get to the truck stop. Is this where they have their little heart to heart? Not, uh Is it before he goes in? 

Todd: They’re having little heart to hearts kind of throughout up to this point. I mean, they’re always having these little snippets of conversation. What I mostly remember is that Dom seems pretty uncomfortable almost from the get go.

Maybe just because he swallowed all these, but he’s feeling a little ill. So Maybe it was a little before this 

Craig: First of all I have in my notes, you know when when they’re being held at gunpoint and stuff ben is crying Yeah, and I just think that his performance is so genuine like he’s so scared again, though.

I’ve never been in this Intense of a situation. I found it very relatable, getting yourself into a bad situation. That’s scary. And that you don’t know what’s going to happen. I mean, you know, I think that’s really relatable and I, I really empathized with the both of them and now they’re in it and what can they do?

There’s great communication back and forth between Dom and Ben without words. They just share looks between one another and so much is communicated. But when they do, they get to this rest area before he goes in. Ben tells Dom that he could come with him to LA. I think Dom says something like, nah, man, you’re going to go out there and you’re going to be a huge success.

You don’t need me hanging around or something. And Ben says something like, Oh, yeah, cause I’m so good at getting bleeped and letting guys, you know, come on my face or whatever. And Dom says, No, but it’s just you’re so sexy when you do it. You know, people are gonna wanna watch you. People, you know, you’re gonna make people happy watching you.

And Ben’s like, Wait, you think I’m sexy? He’s like, Yeah, I think you’re sexy. Ben says, But you’re straight. And he’s like, Don’t be stupid. The only reason you and I haven’t Slut together is because I love you too much. He says I didn’t love those girls the way I love you And then they kind of just drop it.

Yeah They do but Because because his stomach gets upset and he he’s like I need to go inside. I don’t want to shit myself This is a major revelation. I honestly Considered asking you if we could do this episode or do this movie for our Valentine’s Day episode Oh, because I ultimately think that this movie is a tragic Love story.

Todd: It kind of is, isn’t it? These two 

Craig: men are in love. 

Todd: Yeah. They’re in love. They are, uh huh. 

Craig: And they get themselves in this terrible, terrible situation. And it’s only now that it comes out that it’s not one sided, they, they’re in love with each other. 

Todd: It’s very last house on the left in a way, you know, of these two just seemingly nice people who are just trying to have a good time.

Just end up in this situation that they should have been smart enough to avoid, but they didn’t, but they don’t deserve anything that’s coming to them, you know? You know, that’s kind of ultimately how it turns out, to be a little spoilery. 

Craig: It, yeah. It also reminded me of X. You know, I think that ultimately Ben is very much like Maxine.

True. Um, but, that may be, that may be getting a little spoilery too. In, in the rest stop, you know, he’s on the toilet, he’s trying to get this stuff out, but this huge, he’s billed as the redneck, this huge redneck. He’s billed as Randy 

Todd: Redneck. 

Craig: Hahaha! He comes in, and you can tell he’s gonna be trouble from the beginning.

Eventually he confronts them because he thinks that they’re gay. And it’s, I don’t know, it’s that weird, it’s either toxic masculinity or latent homosexuality, I never know, maybe it’s some combination of the both, but these men who feel the need to harass gay men in public spaces, I don’t know what it’s all about.

Yeah. But, Dom stands up for Ben, and ends up getting punched really hard in the stomach. 

Todd: I knew that was gonna happen, I was like, Me too. This dude’s gonna get punched in the stomach. Ha ha ha ha ha! The movie is calling for it, and of course, that’s what happened. And so you’re immediately in panic mode.

Yeah, yeah, you are. You’re immediately in panic mode, because you don’t know what the hell’s in here, except what’s her name, I mean, obviously you don’t want any drugs bursting in your stomach, but the woman made a clear point, like, you don’t want these to burst, or whatever she says, I don’t know. Yeah, be careful, they have 

Craig: to be, you know, they’re delicate, they have to be handled carefully, they have to be kept at a certain temperature.

Todd: You 

Craig: gotta spit the stuff. 

Todd: Once they’re out, put them right in this cooler and stick two hand warmers in there. Promise me you’re gonna do it, you know? So yeah, they they’re they’re more than just drugs. There’s something mysterious about this. There’s something very particular about this, from the get go.

Craig: They do have a tender moment after that guy leaves, where Dom says to Ben, what are you gonna do when I’m not here to protect you? And Ben says, guys like that don’t live in L. A. And Dom says, guys like that live everywhere. And I, 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: their relationship just feels so, so real. Like, it feels like a human, complex, honest relationship.

Todd: There, 

Craig: there’s, there’s dynamics to it. They do love one another, but Dom feels like he has to be there to protect Ben. And he, oh God, I, I just. Yeah, I thought it was so good, but then the the trouble immediately starts he immediately gets terrible cramps Starts trying to pull his pants down. They get his pants off for some yeah 

Todd: And he has pooped out one of these things.

Craig: It doesn’t bother me because the alternative I think would bother me more but Right. It’s not 

Todd: covered. There’s 

Craig: a lot of Poop things happening from this point on, except there’s really very little poop. 

Todd: Yeah, surprisingly little actual poop involved. These things come out just kind of slick and almost slimy.

I’m not kind of sure why, but yeah. 

Craig: Again, it’s not necessarily realistic, but considering the alternative, I’m okay with it. I don’t 

Todd: think I need lots of poop. I didn’t need it. You know, it’s bad enough. You got to deal with all this stuff coming out of their asses the whole time. It gets worse. But also like, just a moment.

Is this. True. I mean, I know people swallow this stuff and eventually shit it out. I assumed half of it probably just got puked out an hour or two later. I couldn’t imagine that these five, four or so balloons full of stuff would have passed through a system in a matter of hours. Am I wrong about that? I have no idea, but I don’t know.

The intestines are very long. I, they are. 

Craig: And 

Todd: I would think these things would get stuck, 

Craig: you know, somewhere, maybe along the 

Todd: way. 

Craig: I don’t